A very old school dealing with the domestication of animals.

By domesticating animals, people have made them into companions. Husbandomancers draw upon this love and connection to influence animals, and to draw on the power of animals.

Husbandomancy is certainly a very old school of magic, far older than writing. It draws on the harnessing of inhuman forces (the animal kingdom) within a human domain (the home).

Nickname: Cat ladies

Gain a Minor Charge: Acquire a new pet. The pet must be a living domesticated animal (one kept as a pet or work animal by a human culture) and must spend a majority of its time in the Husbandomancer’s home. Acquiring more than one pet at once does not give any more charges.

Gain a Significant Charge: Acquire a new species of pet. The husbandomancer gains a significant charge when first adopting a new animal as a pet. The animal must be substantially different from any pet the husbandomancer has ever owned – otherwise only a minor charge is gained. Acquiring more than one pet at once does not give any more charges.

Gain a Major Charge: Discover a new species of animal, either alive or extinct, and domesticate it.

Taboo: If a pet of the husbandomancer dies or spends more than 12 hours in a day outside the husbandomancer’s home (whatever building or small outdoor area the husbandomancer sleeps in), the husbandomancer loses all charges. The death or loss of multiple pets has no further effect – the death of a pet is a sensible time, really, for the Husbandomancer to get rid of the rest of them.

Symbolic Tension: Pets are seen simultaneously as both treasured loved ones, and as a disposable resource.

Random Magic: A husbandomancer’s magic deals with the animal world, but even more so with the interaction between humans and animals. Husbandomancy blurs the distinctions between humans and domesticated animals.

A note about sympathetic animals: Many effects of Husbandomancy relate to an adept’s “Sympathetic Animal”. This is any animal which a Husbandomancer currently keeps as a pet. Similar animals (wolf and dog, bobcat and housecat, parrot and canary, all insects, all normal fish) count as the same kind of animal.

Husbandomancy Blast: A person attacked by a husbandomancy blast will be attacked the next time they come into contact with a sympathetic animal. The delay can be up to days, and even loyal animals will attack.

Starting Charges: Decide how many animals your husbandomancer has, and of which types. Gain half that many minor charges, and one significant charge for every species after the third, with a maximum of six minor charges and three significant charges.

Minor Formulas

Doctor Doolittle
1 minor charge

The adept can communicate one simple sentence to a sympathetic animal, and the animal will understand it to the full extent of its intelligence. If the husbandomancer ask the animal a question, he or she can also understand its response as if it were human words. No actual noise needs to be made on either side – the communication is strictly telepathic.

One of the Herd
1 minor charge

Pick a single type of sympathetic animal. Any animal of that type will assume that the adept is of that species. The animal won’t actually perceive things differently, but will process you as a member of the species. This may not, however, mean that the animal will react in a friendly manner to him or her – a ram, for example, would charge a male adept as a rival during mating season – but this will often allow an adept to affect the actions of an animal in appropriate ways. This lasts an
hour.

Soothe the Savage Breast
2 minor charges

A single sympathetic animal will become calm, happy, and friendly towards the adept. This lasts until that animal has reasons to feel otherwise.

They Can Smell Fear
2 minor charges

This is the husbandomancy minor blast. The subject is attacked by the next sympathetic animal of any type which comes into range – this can wait up to a week. Damage done is the sum of the digits, as per a hand-to-hand attack.

Pets and their Masters Grow Alike
3 minor charges

The adept gains a +10% shift to a trait culturally ascribed to a sympathetic animal. This could make you graceful like a cat, cute like a puppy, fierce like a dog, fast like a horse – if the idea linking the animal and the trait exists in your culture, you can use this.

Significant Formulas

Taskmaster
1 significant charge

A sympathetic animal obeys a single simple command of the adept’s choice. If the animal is harmed by obeying this command, the adept loses all charges as if violating taboo.

Curse of Artemis
1 significant charge

The adept causes a single individual to gain a +20% or -20% shift on any single trait associated with a sympathetic animal. Positive traits might be those listed under Pets and Their Masters Grow Alike. Negative traits might include the bad smell of a pig, the laziness of a dog, the stupidity of a cow, or the forgetfulness of a fish.

Tiny Eyes Everywhere
2 significant charges

Select a sympathetic animal which the adept has met and can remember. If the animal is still alive, the adept can perceive everything the animal perceives, but cannot perceive what is happening around his or herself, nor move. The husbandomancer cannot control or influence the animals actions in any way, even with magick, during the course of the effect. This lasts until the adept ends the effect. If the animal is harmed during this time, the adept does not lose any charges.

Animal’s Skin
2 significant charges

This ability works only at night, and ends at dawn. The adept takes on the real physical form of a sympathetic animal. It is up to the GM to determine exact statistics. This effect cannot be ended before dawn – if the husbandomancer needs to make a phone call after turning into a parakeet, too bad.

The Wild Hunt
2 significant charges

The husbandomancy significant blast. Must be used in the presence of a large number of dangerous sympathetic animals of a single type, but the target needn’t be nearby. The animals charge toward the target at their top speed (if the target is too far away, the animals might die of exhaustion before they can reach the target), gathering any nearby animals of the same type as well. Damage is the value of the die roll – the animals will continue attacking in mass until that amount of damage is inflicted or a day passes. Animals dying as a result of this will only violate the husbandomancer’s taboo if they were pets before the effect was used – sending your neighbors dogs’ to kill someone is okay, but sending your own can be risky.

Major Effects

A major charge might permanently change a person into an animal, change or exaggerate the traits of an animal, cause the adept to become a hybrid, or create a large number of loyal sympathetic animals from scratch.