His greatest trick was proving he doesn’t exist.
Attributes: The Evil Genius embodies the urge to rip apart the fabric of society, by whatever means necessary, and replace it with something more to his liking. His motives are purely selfish, and the old adage that the end justifies the means is gospel to him. Typically, he’s very skilled at making plans and creating criminal or terrorist organisations to serve his goals, and he allows no failure or dissent from his minions. Those who displease him must pay the ultimate price, as an example to others.
There are a lot of occultists who dismiss this archetype as a work of fiction, and indeed there are not many conscious avatars of the Evil Genius. It tends to conjure images of fictional fiends such as Professor Moriarty or Ernst Stavro Blofeld, but the underworld bosses, terrorist masterminds and Third World rebel warlords who also follow the path are very, very real.
Taboos: Get caught. You can’t be much of a genius if you aren’t smart enough to stay one step ahead of the law, and you can’t be very evil either if you let people get away with crossing you or screwing up when you’ve given them a job to do. Finally, you must be your own master. Working for any kind of governmental organisation is strictly forbidden, unless it’s some kind of freelance work that ultimately serves your nefarious purposes better than it does theirs.
Symbols: Trappings of power are always potent links to the Evil Genius, such as secret bases, gun-toting minions, private aircraft and swimming pools infested with crocodiles, sharks or pirhanas (not all three at once, for obvious reasons). In the Tarot, the Evil Genius is represented by the Devil.
Masks: Satan (Judeo-Christian), Set (Egyptian), Sir Mordred (Arthurian).
Suspected Avatars in History: The Old Man of the Mountain may have been an Evil Genius, as may Carlo Gambino and Lucky Luciano. There’s some ongoing speculation about the Kray Twins, Pablo Escobar, the leaders of the IRA, Yakuza and Russian Mafia, and, most notably of late, Osama Bin Laden. Some occultists contend that Adam Weisshaupt, of Illuminati fame, ascended as the archetype.
Channels:
1%-50%: When lesser men flinch, the Evil Genius is bloody, bold and resolute. If he commits some vile deed in pursuit of his goals and fails an associated Violence or Self check, he can immediately re-roll against his Avatar skill. If he succeeds, he gets the Hardened notch as usual. He gets the Failed notch if he doesn’t, but he can control the embarrassing urge to flee, freeze or frenzy until the danger’s passed and no one’s around to witness his loss of composure.
51%-70%: The Evil Genius has a knack for getting people to do his bidding. This channel works two ways. First, whenever the Evil Genius meets someone who would make a useful lieutenant, he can recruit them to his cause with a successful Avatar roll. Second, his Avatar skill has a rather unusual penumbra. Every time his score goes up, his organisation increases by 1 minion per point. The Evil Genius doesn’t need to do anything to initiate this process: it just happens automatically as subordinates recruit more subordinates, and as assorted scum and riff-raff get the word on the street that there’s a bad-ass hard-case who needs work done and pays cash in hand.
Incidentally, this doesn’t mean that the Evil Genius suddenly has 51 people in his organisation the moment he gets this channel. In addition to whoever else is working for him, one more person joins up when his skill rating hits 51, another joins when it goes up to 52, and so on. These people are typically just ordinary thugs (see UA, p.264), but Evil Geniuses have been known to inadvertently attract the services of more unusual individuals.
71%-90%: When the Evil Genius is doing something illegal for purely selfish reasons, he can roll against his Avatar skill instead of the relevant stat or skill. If, by any chance, he has principled reasons for doing whenever he’s doing, such as stealing a nuclear weapon so that it can be safely disarmed, the channel doesn’t work.
91%+: The Evil Genius is an impossibly difficult bastard to catch or kill. With a successful Avatar roll, he can miraculously avoid certain death or capture as something always works out in his favour at the very last moment.
You know… I like it.
Of course, if Dermott goes up and replaces the Messenger (ala To Go), I can see this one getting complicated, as the definition of “evil” gets roughed up by a wave of subjectivity.
Yeah, I think this definitely works.
As for Arkane and subjectivity, I wonder whether it might be possible to embody two different archetypes at the same time with respect to how you’re seen by different people. For example, the Freedom Fighter of the Arab world could be the Evil Genius of the west.
Perhaps there’d be a minor refinement so the concept is “The Criminal Genius.” While good and evil are subjective, the breaking of laws is a pretty clear line to draw.
But “The Criminal Genius” still leaves open tyrants and other Evil Geniuses that make their own laws. And I don’t think we want to avoid the difficulties of subjective evil, that kind of complexity is what makes UA cool.
I dislike this for a number of reasons. Firstly, the subjective morality issue already raised – good and evil are very nebulous terms in the world of UA. When you strip this away, what you’re left with is pretty much a self-serving True King, with a weaker hook.
Secondly, and more seriously, the channels are overpowered. The second channel gives an attraction for followers stronger than that of the True King (whose followers are capped by his skill if I recall correctly, not automatically filled in). The third allows all skills to be rolled at the avatar skill of 71-90 when engaged in anything illegal (again, more powerful than most other avatars). The fourth gives a better than 9 in 10 chance of avoiding death or capture, which is very much more powerful than pretty much any other avatar I can think of.
Not keen on this at all.
I’m glad you thinkl the channels are the more serious issue, because they’re most easily modified. It isn’t a big thing to look at them again and make them somewhat less powerful.
Going back to the good and evil thing, though, as many intriguingly murky shades of grey as there might be, I don’t think that someone who’s happy to lie, cheat, steal, murder, peddle hard drugs or blow up buildings could really be described as “good,” at least not the way it’s defined at the moment. Moreover, we have a popular film culture that’s been feeding the image of “the bad guy” into the popular consciousness for the best part of 100 years, and there’s a guy in the White House cheerfully bandying about terms like “Axis of Evil” to talk about people he doesn’t like. Moreover, no matter how subjective the world gets I think there will always be laws, and organisations that draft them and uphold them. Unlike the True King, this archetype is specifically forbidden from having anything to do with them.
I agree. What matters is not whether evil exists, but whether people believe it does. Archetypes are human creations after all. Most people in the world have some conception of evils, be it Satan, Hitler, or George W. Bush.
Now… going back to those channels:
51%+: The amount of followers the Evil Genius can automatically acquire has a cap of 49, whereas the True King can have up to his full avatar score. Admittedly, the True King has to work to get them, but his followers get the whole cool transfer of wound points and enhanced skills thing. Minions of the Evil Genius get a rather less appealing “serve me faithfully and well or die” deal, so I think it sort of balances out.
71%+: Well, this is easily powered down by saying that a successful Avatar roll confers a positive shift, maybe +15%, or the ability to flip-flop/re-roll appropriate skill rolls.
91%: Again, you could take some of the power out of this one by saying that a successful Avatar roll forces a re-roll of any successful dice roll that would result in the Evil Genius’ capture or death. If the second roll comes up a success he’s still screwed.
How about that?
The problem, as mentioned earlier, is that how people perceive evil has everything to do with their cultural background and upbringing. Every nation has in pursuit of its goals lied, cheated, stolen, murdered and blown up buildings, and yet people are usually loath to consider their own side evil. Engaging in antisocial behaviour is often tacitly accepted as long as it’s directed at the “foes” outside your own particular society. Anything goes in love and war, and cold war is inevitable and ongoing between any factions with opposed viewpoints.
How do you measure “evil”? Civilians killed? Calling Bin Laden evil when the Americans have killed unjustifiably more civilians in Afghanistan through their efforts than he managed to kill through his makes me uncomfortable. Hiroshima and Dresden are outrageously worse in terms of gruesome slaughter, but I don’t see Bomber Harris or Truman and Oppenheimer listed.
All the examples listed of suspected avatars are of people who had their own clear goals which among certain groupings would be considered laudable, and have fought for these goals with a ruthlessness that dismays their opponents. For most there, their greatest sin in the eyes of the rest of the world is working for a small faction rather than a large one.
Hence, I see it as partly like having an archetype for “The Opponent”. Every side matches it if you believe what their enemies say about them, and none do if you believe what they say about themselves.
Still, there’s something usable in there – maybe as the Anarchist, or the Underdog, but it would require extensive reshaping.
The channels sound more balanced now. Is the second channel still keeping the ability to recruit anyone as a lieutenant with no means of resistance on their part on a successful roll?
I couldn’t agree more that problems arise when President Bush calls Iraq, Iran and North Korea evil when the United States military is bombing wedding parties and letting (or instructing) its troops to torture prisoners. And yes, I don’t doubt for a moment that some of those suspected avatars are heroes in the eyes of people in their own communities, Osama Bin Laden being a perfect example, but as you say, the rest of the world sees things differently. Society as a whole chooses (or allows) governments to organise it, uniformed military organisations to resolve its worst conflicts and courts to enforce its laws. These organisations are most likely to label this particular archetype as “evil,” especially given that he must reject all those, and while the term may be highly subjective I think most people living in modern society have a consensus view as to what it implies. The name may not be a particularly fair one, but I think most people are going to look at the archetype’s characteristics and decide that’s what it is, whether they’re right or not.
As for that second channel, resistance can easily be written in. The avatar could have to roll higher than the target’s Mind score, or the target could get a Mind roll to resist. But if it’s strictly between NPCs I don’t know if I’d bother.
I think the whole “Evil” issue can be fixed by calling it “The Selfish Dictator” or something like this.
After all, the True King (to which this appears to be an antithesis of sorts) has a very clear taboo of never acting against the good of the Realm. The TK must ALWAYS put the good of the Realm before his own plans or desire.
By oposition, this guy can (and probably will) use his henchmen and ressources like Kleenex just to satisfy his own desires. In the end, he serves himself first and foremost. That seems to be the most telling difference between this guy and the negative aspect of the TK.
Maybe a new Archetype ascended to take over the TK and no one noticed – yet…
As for the channels, I agree they are a bit strong as written. A couple suggestions:
For the second, the avatar must succeed by rolling under his skill and over the henchmen’s Mind stat. Not only does it give them resistance, but it guarantees that only powerful avatars will have actually useful lieutenants (and won’t get over-efficinent ones before they have the means to resist their likely takeover once said lieutenant sees he’s smarter than his boss.) low-grade avatars will still be able to attract plenty of people, but only grunts at best. NOTE: I know you wrote “useful lieutenant”, but that doesn’t mean SMART lieutenant. Muscle can be good too… You could also waive the number limitation by making it equal to his avatar skill, but by forcing him to recrut personally instead of a domino effect.
Third Channel: I think I’d limit it to flip-flops, and to a number of daily uses equal to the tens of the avatar skill, kinda like the last channel of the FW avatar. Even though it is a third and not fourth channel, it’ll be slightly less potent at first, and after all, its application IS more limited.
Fourth: I actually like it, but I would limit it by two factors: A) the avatar must be within one of his bases of operations and/or in the company of at least nine henchmen/lieutenants at the moment of crisis and B) he must sacrifice them (destroying the base and/or
letting his men be captured instead) to pull off the escape. After all, he’s an “evil”, selfish bastard, right?
Just my 2¢, because I’m obnoxious that way. ;-P
I still fail to see why people are insisting on an objective and/or universal standard of evil. Even if it is applied to different people by different cultures, the basic archetype is markedly similar. Anti-American speakers in the Arab world have attached the appelation the “Great Satan” to the U.S., which is essentially the same view of Satan held by American evangelicals. So to pursue this archetype you just have to make a large group think you represent this evil, even if your supporters wouldn’t think so. Bush might be channeling it for all we know. Though to become a Godwalker, you’d probably have to convince everyone you’re evil.
I also like the idea of the “Opponent”. “Evil Genius” would be a modern interpretation, but it would really go back to the essential “Adversary” (Satan, in the Judeo-Christian-Muslim tradition).
Also, suspected avatar in the present: Kim-Jong Il. He’s bat-shit crazy enough to be a powerful occultist, and I’m not sure there’s anyone who actually likes him.
Well… the way I’ve written this up, neither George Bush nor Kim Jong Il could be channelling this archetype – you’ll notice in the taboo it says that avatars can’t have anything to do with any kind of governmental authority, and both of those guys are acknowledged heads of state. Similiarly, a selfish dictator couldn’t channel the archetype, but a ruthless rebel leader working to bring him down probably could.
So basically right now it’s the Bin Laden archetype? I understand some of the motivation here, as it captures the idea of the James Bond evil mastermind. But I think to be more true to what’s really a universal archetype you have to include national leaders who are often seen as evil by their opponents. Though
I suppose the “Evil King” could be a seperate archetype, I think it overlaps a lot with this one, especially in the modern world. With people like Saddam, Quaddafi, and Jong Il it’s often hard to tell where the government part starts and the criminal/terrorist part begins.
I’ve seen Tony Blair in a tent with Gadaffi, Junichiro Koizumi at a conference table with Kim Jong Il and Donald Rumsfeld shake hands with Saddam Hussein. Can’t imagine any of them lining up for photo shoots with Osama Bin Laden or the command council of the IRA, can you? I think those guys might have a good shot at becoming nasty Demagogues or True Kings (True Dictator, maybe?), but what I’m trying to imply with this avatar is that he works against recognised authority and breaks generally accepted laws in order to do so – I mean, name me a country where murder, robbery, arson, terrorism and all the rest are absolutely condoned. While the authorities might indeed get up to those things themselves, they pretend very hard that they don’t, and accusations against their enemies are a very handy brush to tar them with.
Okay then, objection withdrawn 😉
While there is a seed of something here, I don’t think it’s really taken root yet. This comes across as a variant of the True King. There is nothing particularly ‘evil’ or ‘genius’ about the channels. Nor is this ‘The Adversary’ avatar, who exists only to bring things into conflict in some twisted application of social darwinism. I’d rather see this tweaked and realized as what it really is … ‘The Terrorist’. The problem is that The Terrorist is a variation of the Warrior. I’ve had this same problem trying to write up ‘The Adversary’, there is somethign there, a kernal, but it’s not realized yet, and worse, it’s being mistaken for something else. There are good ideas here, but it suffers too much ‘Concept Creep’.
Continued from above to give a short break for my mind.
For the Evil Genius.
Step 1) Discard the trappings of Terrorism, dictatorship, and morals. Those are extraneous to the archetype.
Step 2) The Changes:
Taboos: Get caught. You can’t be much of a genius if you aren’t smart enough to stay one step ahead of the law, and you can’t be very evil either if you let people get away with crossing you or screwing up when you’ve given them a job to do.
Follow Orders – You don’t deal well with anyone being in authority over you. You are supposed to be top dog. Some Evil Genius’ are able to put this aside to work in concert, or to work for another agency, but only for a short while, and eventually any deals, treaties, or alliances will collapse in bickering, backstabbing, or undermining. As long as the Evil Genius is on a level as equals, or God-forbid underling status, with someone else, they will be unable to use any channel above 70% regardless of their actual, deteriorating, avatar level. This means their control over their minions will begin slowly eroding as they, have themselves, ‘broken the chain’, by accepting the authority of another.
1% – 50% – Unswerving Dedication – Where lesser men flinch, the Evil Genius is bloody, bold and resolute. If he commits some vile deed in pursuit of his goals and fails an associated Violence or Self check, he can immediately re-roll against his Avatar skill. If he succeeds, he gets the Hardened notch as usual. He gets the failed notch if he doesn’t, but he can control the embarrassing urge to flee, freeze or frenzy until the danger’s passed and no one’s around to witness his loss of composure.
51% – 70% – Foresight – With a successful avatar check, the Evil Genius generate a hunch. They can only have 1 hunch ‘loaded’ at a time.
71% – 90% A Tangled Web – Any attempts to scry, trace, investigate, or otherwise find out information about the Evil Genius is now resisted by the Evil Genius’ avatar skill, instead of whatever skill would normally oppose it.
In addition the Genius now ‘inspires’ fanatic loyalty in his followers. Anyone that has accepted the Evil Genius as an authority figure that attempts to betray, or work against their master will have up to one skill check per day, of the GM’s choice, flip-flopped for the worst possible outcome. This will happen as long as the betrayal, or for that matter, even speaking out of line, continues. The person will understand, on some subconscious level, that it is their betrayal that is responsible for their failure often generating a madness check. The first time this happens the minion gains the equivalent of a new Madness Meter, Loyalty to Master. The more failed checks, the more toady and cloying the minion is. Those who begin developing hardened boxes may soon find themselves made an example to others that might think of betraying the Master. This is however, a two-edged sword, and an Evil Genius that has sworn loyalty to someone else will begin to suffer these same effects for their betrayals. A Minion is stuck with this meter until they can perform an action which both symbolically and literally breaks it, at which point 1 failed notch will fade each week until finally the last disappears and takes the meter with it. Reaccepting the Evil Genius as their ‘Master’ rebinds the meter and no more reduction will occur until they once again ‘break the chains’.
Note: it is possible to have multiple loyalty meters… this is bound to screw someone up in the long run.
91% + Cliffhanger endings – This should be similar to as written with the following caveat. This roll burns the highest charge the avatar is carrying to enable the unnatural phenomenon that allows his escape, this is why even non-adept evil Geniuses collect charges with rituals, the alternative is much worse. The Avatar abhors that one of it’s followers could even have gotten themselves into a situation to need to use this channel, and it’s use, when uncharged ,tears 1d10% off the avatar skill in exchange for the, usually major, unnatural phenomenon that allows their escape. In effect, it’s their taboo hitting to the nth degree.
This entire Avatar is somewhere along the lines of what I was going to do when I eventually make the Supervillain Archetype, as a counter to my Superhero, which is also on here.
The question of good and evil was brought up there, too. There’s nothing neccessarily good or evil about my Superhero’s channels, but the Archetype is a “good” one because of the person who ascended. Menzoa and I have discussed at great length how the Archetype will have to be defended by its righteous followers against those who would turn it into something … really rather terrifying.
I’m with Simon Frost and Paladin on this one. The Evil Genius just has to be labeled as evil by the law-abiding members of a society, in addition, of course, to following the rest of the taboos. Also, Phenix made a good point by comparing the Evil Genius to the True King. While a True King could be just as nasty in terms of what he does, the True King is selfless while this guy is absolutely not. His word is not law- his only laws are his whims.
And really, that is where the line of good and evil can be drawn- selfishness vs. selflessness. We could argue about those who “selflessly” blow themselves up to kill a bunch of people and whatnot, but that’s more a matter of misguided madness. If we want the basics, that’s what we have to look at- does this man do what he does for the sake of others or for himself?
The Evil Genius, as I would see him, does things for his own satisfaction or wealth accumulation or what have you. The truly insane ones might believe that their personal gain would benefit mankind, but ultimately, this is a self-serving Archetype.
Thus, I don’t think that discussions of politics should come into this. Menzoa said something about a “Criminal Genius.” I prefer the name Evil Genius, just for asthetic reasons, but he’s onto something. These discussions of “which society’s villain is another’s hero” are for Warriors, Terrorists, and Rebels, and I don’t think Osama bin Ladin would be an Evil Genius (unless, of course, he’s got all his followers fooled and is really doing what he does for personal gain). The Evil Genius is the self-serving criminal mastermind, and isn’t trying to be anybody’s hero.