Anyone who tells you they’re a Humilimancer is lying. Anyone who wants to be a Humilimancer will fail.

Nickname: Laughingstocks

When you resist attention, there is a flush of energy. It burns your cheeks red, speeds up your heart, and gives your feet the power to run away. Humilimancers harvest this power, and become addicted to it. They seek positions where they have opportunities to fail spectacularly. They crave the disapproving public eye.

A central part of Humilimancy is denial. Humilimancers have to hate the power they crave or it’s powerless to them. They seek the shame, but they always have some other excuse or pretext. These excuses can be incredibly, ridiculously flimsy – in fact, it’s even better for them if no one else believes them – but they cannot admit the truth.

The term “Humilimancer” is an outside term, coined by dukes who have met enough of them to recognize them. Humilimancers don’t use the term. Every Humilimancer is self-taught, and every one would deny they use it for magic. Intentionally teaching or learning this style would certainly be a violation of taboo.

Humilimancers love the Occult Underground. It’s filled with ill-tempered, hostile, unbalanced people. There’s opportunities to fail spectacularly. People call them names. Even better, there are some kinds of Adepts and Avatars who can form symbiotic relationships with Humilmancers. Western Cryptomancers can find their embarassing secrets, Irascimancers can make them look foolish in public, Amoromancers can reject their attentions. Tricksters can make asses of them. Chroniclers and Messengers can spread news of their foolishness. The Occult Underground is full of people seeking unwilling victims, and Humilimancers are eagerly unhappy to provide.

Humilmancers can be found on stage, panicking. They’re in offices, making big mistakes and getting fired over and over again. They’re party clowns, political activists, petty criminals, church drunks, newscasters, homeless moochers, reckless drivers and tour guides. They go every week to sing karaoke badly. They make blind dates through personals services. They audition for parts they’d never get, and they run for elections they couldn’t win. They complain about people who put them into bad situations, but seek them out again and again. The world is ripe with opportunities to fail and look stupid.

Humilimancers, more than most adepts, often retire eventually. It becomes harder and harder to deny their drive, and, eventually, many admit it. Such dropouts often go on to fairly mundane lives, getting therapy, finding healthier outlets for their needs, building self-esteem, and doing other things to avoid magical power. The magic is still there, and they’ll sometimes binge on embarassment at a party, but unlike many schools of magic, which grow stronger the more you pursue them, Humilimancy is a curable addiction.

Gain a minor charge: Be embarassed. You must behave in a way that makes you feel like you deserve disapproval, and you can’t be alone. No one else needs to care. For example, say something stupid over the phone. Spend a day wearing an outfit you hate. Get vaught doing something wrong. Spend time with a group of people who don’t like you. Bicker in public. Alienate someone you wanted to impress.

Gain a significant charge: Be humiliated. Do something that earns you serious negative or unwanted attention from at least twenty people. For instance, hold up a line of people at the grocery store on Thanksgiving. Get caught naked in public. Be the scapegoat for your company’s woes. Get picketed.

Gain a major charge: Become a laughingstock. Do something that earns the unwanted attention of at least a million people. For instance, be the butt of the joke on national television, make a mistake that publically alters the fate of the nation.

Taboo: Acceptance. If you ever admit, in word or in mind, that you are seeking embarassment, you lose all charges. While you’re undoubted subconsciously aware of what you’re doing, admitting it consciously means it won’t work. The humilimancer’s life is filled with denial and flimsy excuses.

Blast: The victim of a Humilimancy blast attacks themselves immediately. The victim will punch, stab or shoot himself, or will jump out into a dangerous place. Whatever the method, the victim will take damage equal to the sum of the dice for a minor blast, or the dice result for a significant blast.

Random Magic: Denial of the self

Symbolic Tension: Humilimancers seek out what they don’t want. They create unwilling situations for themselves.

Charging Tips: Charging is not too hard. A Humilamcer can easily gain a minor charge a day, and in some professions, can triple that and gain a significant charge every month or so.

Starting Charges: 3 minor

Minor Formulas

You’re My Hero
1 minor charge
Usable while you and an ally are attempting the same thing. Your ally gains a +15% shift. You must be using the same skill, or a similar skill.

Don’t Mind Me
1 minor charge
You gain a +15% shift to any roll to avoid notice or attention.

Now You Know How I Feel
2 minor charges
This is the Humilimancy minor blast.

Fugue of Innocence
3 minor charges
You forget the last twenty minutes of events. Any Hardened or Checked notches you’ve gained disappear. Other effects (including violation of Taboo) still apply, but your memory of the last twenty minutes is permanently gone.

Mega-Contrition
4 minor charges
Apologize profusely for something. The target will forgive you. How they react to this will depend on their personality – they might continue to act against you out of pride or duty, but not from a sense of personal grievance.

Significant Formulas

Wallflower
2 significant charges
As long as you remain relatively still and don’t do much, you become invisible. Others must make a Notice roll with a higher result than your Humilimancy roll to see you, hear you, sense you, or even remember you’re present. Each person can only roll once. This ends when you walk or do something active.

Living a Lie
1 significant charge
Make up new facts about yourself. For the next hour, any magical senses, divinations, and so forth, will give the results of your illusory answers, rather than the normal senses. This does not affect memories or normal senses.

Outcast
2 significant charges
You set yourself apart. For the next hour, any magical effect that targets an area, or a group of people, won’t affect you. Only effects specifically triggering you will take effect.

Easy Way Out
2 significant charges
This is the Humilimancy Significant Blast

Walking Twilight Zone
4 significant charges
All records of you disappear. Everyone will forget you except specific individuals you choose to remember you. From nowhere, you’ll acquire a new random identity. This new identity is totally random – you don’t get to decide it. You’ll have full ID and records of this new identity, but new memories won’t be implanted.

Major Effects

Fake your own death with perfect evidence. Construct a new identity for someone else. Make anyone become obsessed with you, forgetting previous goals. Disappear forever. Switch identities with someone else.