You may, tragically, never find true love, but you are the catalyst that helps spark lasting relationships between others. While others talk about romance, you act.

•< The Match-Maker >•

Note: Probably, most PCs won’t be that interested in this Archetype, but it could make for some interesting NPCs, maybe a truly heinous henchman, or even an arch-villain if combined with an Adepthood path with a few decent Blasts.

Attributes: The Match-Maker believes that the search for romantic love is the truest, most pure, and most noble pursuit of all humankind, other than perhaps the raising and care for the children that may result from such a match.

Taboos: First, the Match-Maker must never use their powers to gain love for themselves; if they do, they cannot use any Avatar Channels while the relationship continues. Second, the Match-Maker must have some terrible social flaw that makes them an undesirable match themselves. Maybe they have hundreds of thousands of dollars’ debt from a failed business venture, or they have a horrifying scar they keep hidden under their clothes. Whatever the flaw is, though, it shouldn’t prevent the Match-Maker from meeting enough people to set up matches.

Symbols: The Match-Maker is typically left in the background of the romantic scene, forgotten once the romance begins. However, the flower garland thrown after the wedding is a ritualistic match-maker itself. In a strange way, the computer has also become a Match-Maker, among its other exalted (and tawdry) roles. Love songs are a perfect symbol.

Masks: The myth of Cupid and Psyche is a perfect illustration of the Taboo of the Match-Maker.

Suspected Avatars in History: If the notorious Cyrano de Bergerac was based on a real human being, he might be a good example.

Channels:
01%-50%: The Match-Maker can intuit a great deal about a person’s former love life, as well as their ideal mate, in just a few minutes of idle conversation. The Match-Maker merely needs to make an Avatar: Match-Maker roll; targets may resist by rolling their Soul, and whoever rolls the highest but still succeeds wins. Very few, however, resist this roll, as most without Aura Sight will be entirely unconscious of the process.

51%-70%: The Match-Maker specializes in mending broken hearts, so as to put others back on the road to romance. With an Avatar: Match-Maker roll, the Match-Maker can erase failed notches in the Isolation gauge, or erase any hardened notches in Isolation above the fifth one. Only one roll per person can be made per week, and the subject can resist as above, if they want to.

71%-90%: Like a human “online dating service”, the Match-Maker can instantly locate a human being meeting certain general physical criteria within about 50 miles. For example, they could sweep the city psychically, searching for “a woman with red hair, between the ages of 25 and 35, between 5’3″ and 5’9″, weighing between 100 and 130 pounds”. Generally, the Match-Maker uses this power to locate an individual who meets the physical criteria to make a match with someone before them. The Match-Maker cannot sweep for mental, psychological, or neurological criteria; the person they find may be hopelessly insane, an uneducated hick, or an obnoxious jerk.

91%+: The Match-Maker can talk others into ridiculously unlikely situations, provided it may be to their romantic benefit (whether they know it or not). For example, the Match-Maker couls talk a prominent local politician into robbing a convenience store, if they knew that an attractive female police officer was on duty in that neighborhood, who was perfect for our city councillor. The target is always gven a chance to resist, as above.

Note: The current Godwalker of the Match-Maker has a godlike 6th Channel power over others’ romantic lives, even modifying others’ gender preferences, expectations, sexual roles, etc. in order to tailor them to a specific match. The current God-Walker uses this power with extreme care, others with an agenda might use it to stamp out certain personality types (i.e. turning homosexuals into heterosexuals, or vice versa). The most cruel of all use it to implant heinous sexual preferences in others, that are illegal or unattainable.