Getting away with murder.

Nickname: jackboots

You know that violence is wrong. People have a right to be physically safe. You uphold that freedom, and in that sense you’re a pacifist.

The exception to that rule is you. Whether you’re a boxer, a prison guard, a soldier, or just a victim acting in self-defense, you’re not a criminal. When you hurt people, it’s fair and right. The average guy on the street would agree. That rightness gives you freedom – it creates a little moral bubble around you where you’re allowed to do what other people aren’t. The brutal violence in your heart has permission to do whatever it pleases.

Being an exception is powerful.

Maybe people wouldn’t accept your violence so much if they knew how much you enjoyed it.

Symbolic Tension: The symbolic tension of culpamancy is that it legimitizes and condemns violence simultaneously. A Culpamancer is a butcher, but somehow righteous at the same time. They seek out situations where they have no choice but to hurt others.

Gaining a minor charge: Engage in an act of legally, morally and socially acceptable physical violence with some degree of nonconsentuality. Your community must accept the type of violence as acceptable, you must not keep it secret or conceal it, and it must be legal. So does violence in self-defense, or while acting in legitimate duty. Violence that is legal but which violates the standards of your community earns no charge. It’s not necessary that damage be inflicted, so long as there is a real physical struggle of some kind. The prejudices and misjudgements of the community take full force here – in the U.S., for instance, it’s often a lot harder for a poor African-American to gain charges than an upper middle class Caucasian. A competitive sporting event counts. No charges can be gained within a community that lacks a taboo against violence – violence must be generally forbidden and your violence must be an exception. You can only gain a charge from a single opponent once.

Gaining a significant charge: Kill someone in a legally, socially and morally acceptable fashion. All the limitations of a minor charge apply, and you must end a life.

Gaining a major charge: Culpamancy does not generate major charges.

Taboo: A culpamancer must never refuse an overt offer of peace or surrender, even if the offer is clearly insincere, and must abide by it until the peace is violated by another. Similarly, the culpamancer must give mercy to anyone who asks for it.

Immoral or illegal violence does not violate taboo, nor does it gain any new charges. If a jackboot is judged and punished by an authority figure accepted by the community for violence, they lose any charges gained from the violence, but there are no further negative effects, though it might make it harder to gain more charges later.

Blast: The culpamancy blast creates a blade from nothingness, hovering in mid-air, which stabs the victim, often in the back. The type of weapon, injury and attack vary by the caster’s personality, the victim’s personality, and the context, and is not controlled by the adept. The weapon remains afterward as a real permanent object.

Random Magic: Culpamancy deals with the brutal side of humanity unleashed by a lack of social restrictions. Culpamancers deal in innocence and violence.

Charging Tips: Working in an appropriate profession, a Culpamancer can gain 2-4 minor charges a day. Any Culpamancer can earn a minor charge every day or two. Significant charges are harder to come by – typically, an opportunity will only come up once every few months, even for people in the most violent jobs. Gathering a lot of significant charges is likely to make people more and more suspicious of you, however, making it hard to get more charges and possibly leading to your arrest.

Starting Charges: 4 minor charges

Minor Formulas

Berate
1 minor charge
You launch forth with vituperative demands that a target acknowledge the violence they’re seeing. If target ignored a Violence check due to being Hardened recently, you can make them roll it anyway when you use this ability.

Martyrdom
1 or more minor charges
You create wounds, of whatever type you choose, on your own body. They’ll last as long as you want them to last – they disappear within moments when you will it – but otherwise, they act as normal wounds. If you take more damage, you could end up dead before you have time to heal these wounds. This costs 1 minor charge per 10 wound points, or fraction thereof. These can be burns, cuts, fractures, or any other harm you choose.

Cruel Necessity
2 minor charges
You gain a +10% to your next roll to hide or sneak, or to attack someone physically.

Oh Happy Dagger
3 minor charges
This is the Culpamancy minor blast. Unlike many blasts, it can be dodged.

Common Ground
4 minor charges
You gain an aura of shared moral ground with everyone around. Everyone around you will believe that you share the same morality that they do, and they will believe that you share all of their beliefs. You don’t know what that morality is, and the target may not necessarily react in a friendly manner to this. (“He’s out to screw everyone just to make a buck, just like me.) Each person present will assume that you share their individual morality. This aura lasts an hour, though after this point, opinions will last until changed by normal ways.

Significant Formulas

Unleash the Beast
1 significant charge
Select a target. A full image of the target’s rage stimulus becomes appearent – to you, the target, and all witnesses. This is a brief shared hallucination affecting all five senses, lasting no more than a second or two. In some cases, the image may not be powerful enough to trigger the target’s rage, but usually it will.

Sword of Judgement
1 significant charges
This the the Culpamancy significant blast. Unlike many blasts, it can be dodged.

Soul Molting
2 significant charges
For the next hour, all your hardened and failed notches disappear. You can specify a new Obsession and Obsession skill as well, for the same time frame. This means, also, that you cannot use Culpamancy unless you keep your obsession and gain a hardened notch and a failed notch. Any Madness Meters gained while this formula is in effect disappear afterward. You’ll retain memory of everything that happened, however – this is jarring for you, and causes a Rank-7 Self check.

Perfect Frame
3 significant charges
Only usable in a place where there is evidence of violence. Changes the scene of violence to implicate a target of your choice. Evidence disappears, appears or changes to match the new perpetrator you name. This might change bullet patterns, blood spray, finger prints, footprints, or even forensic evidence. The memories of witnesses are not changed, only physical evidence.

Innocent Monster
7 significant charges
You take on an incredible destructive power, even while your heart is filled with gentle, peaceful bliss. You become consumed with the power of destruction – your Body and Speed, and all related skills, increase by 30%, and you can attack twice in the same turn without penalty. At the same time, your appearance changes subtly to become more innocent-looking, sweet and beautiful, giving you the Body Skill “Angelic Aspect” at 30%. While you’re using this formula, you feel no compunctions whatsoever about any sort of violence – you effectively have ten Hardened notches in Violence and Self, and you’ll commit acts of horrible violence without hesitation – killing feels as natural as walking or talking, and you don’t have the ability to hesitate or avoid violence as a normal person would, though you won’t attack without motive. Once this effect ends, though, you’ll make Stress checks for any experiences you had while in this form. You cannot use magick of any kind while you’re in this state, and the merciless mindset of this formula will automatically violate the jackboot’s taboo. If you spend a turn doing anything but physically attacking someone to cause damage, for whatever reason, this formula ends.