In the country of the one-eyed, the blind man is king.

Attributes: The Blind Seer is the witness and the watcher. It stands impassive, to record and retell, mired in images of the half-forgotten past and the murky future. Only through blindness can the true world be seen.The eye which cannot see never blinks.

Avatars of the Blind Seer are quite uncommon, despite the remarkable staying power of the Archetype. The taboos ensure a relatively small pool of potential applicants, and a high risk factor for those that do qualify. This, of course, is perfectly in keeping with the Archetype’s style – Those who can see what is, what was and what will be have always been in short supply and high demand.

The Blind Seer is an Archetype of sacrifice, of sacrificing body and mind to see with an unclouded eye. Unclouded is often close to uncaring – the Blind Seer often develops an alien outlook to match their alien perspective, feeling that they have a duty to show others what they have seen, heedless of the consequences. Others become extremely repressed, trying to hide what they have seen for fear of the effects it might have on those unprepared.

Taboos: This Archetype’s taboos are spelt out in the name: Avatars must be blind, and they must see.

The blindness aspect is simple enough. Whether by accident, intentional disfigurement, birth or otherwise, the Avatar must be unable to see at all. Note that this doesn’t have to be actual, physical blindness – There are stories of Avatars who wore blindfolds at all times, or through sheer force of will never opened their perfectly functional eyes. Obviously, this is a not a taboo that will be broken often, but when it breaks, it breaks hard. One of The Guy With Pencils In His Eyes’ many origin stories claims that he was a blindfold-style Avatar who took a peek at a crucial moment and incurred the Archetype’s wrath in a rather grisly manner.

The seeing is more complicated. In essence, Seers cannot look away from anything important. “Important” in this case means “the most pressing thing that they’re aware of”. Thus, a Seer watching with horrified fascination as a monster devours somebody could not simply turn around and become very interested in a nearby rock. However, if somebody attacks them, that takes priority. This unblinking gaze, combined with the rather freakish effects of Seervision (see below) means that Seers take all Stress tests with a visual component at +1 level, unless they willingly break taboo. Madness and sociopathy are all too common among those who watch.

It’s worth noting that if these taboos are broken, the Avatar will not be able to use their channels for several days and will be actually blind (even if they have working eyes). In the case of the first taboo, mind, merely going blind for a week can be considered getting off easy – This Archetype resents betrayal even more than most, as “fake” Blind Seers are its greatest bane.

Symbols: Blindfolds, naturally. Dark glasses, canes and seeing eye dogs are de riguer. For the more more mystically inclined, crystal balls, mirrors, and the third eye are classics.

Masks: Tieresias, the Oracle at Delphi, Odin (kind of), Blind Justice, The Guy With Pencils In His Eyes (maybe), X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes, Matoya

Suspected Avatars in History: Neville Vadio, the blind caricaturist, seems a likely match – His habit of burning his drawings before anyone else could see them was perhaps to prevent his subjects from seeing themselves as they truly were.

Channels:

1%-50%: The Seer can see perfectly well, even in complete darkness, blinding light, raging sandstorms or any other normally inhibiting condition. The Seer can see as well as a normal person, out to normal 20/20 visual range, or a number of yards equal to their skill, whichever is farther. They do not, however, have any wider an arc of vision than normal, so they can still be blindsided, etc.

This is far different from normal vision – some wag once dubbed it “Seervision”, and the name stuck. The world is rendered in black and white, people as caricatures or grotesques and objects have symbolic rather than physical appearances. Everything is constantly shifting and oddly symbolic. Images and text cannot be made out at all – A TV screen would appear as a jittering glow, documents as sheets covered in meaningless scrawls and photographs as overexposed images. (Basically, Seervision shows the world as seen in illustrations in the UA books – but more so).

The Seer needs to make an successful Avatar check to use this ability. However, unlike other magic skills, this does not always have to be a major check. Assume that a Seer with a skill of 15 or greater can see normally in any calm, non-emergency situation, but when trouble starts, that’s when they need to roll. On a successful check, the Seer can use Seervision for a number of minutes equal to the check result. A failed check does not mean that the Seer is actually blind, but that they can’t make head or tail of the visions assaulting them.

51%-70%: The Seer’s visual alterations begin to make more sense even as they become more extreme. Treat as the Aura Sight skill at a level equal to the Blind Seer skill, but it can be used on anything, not just people. However, since it’s all conveyed through the warped lens of Seervision, the answers you’ll get are a lot less straightforward than Aura Sight. (Okay, so that guy has a wolf’s head. Does that mean he’s a werewolf, a serial killer, or a furry?)

71%-90%: The Seer can show others what they have seen. By touching someone (a Struggle roll if they’re not willing) and making an Avatar roll, the Seer can replay any one event they’ve seen through that person’s eyes. The replay will not be in Seervision, unless the touched person is also a Seer.

Seers can force their own remembered Stress tests on others in this manner, although they are made at a level two less than the seer remembers them (that is, one less than the original test would have been made at – See Taboos, above), because even the worst horrors become less horrific when you’re only getting the visual feed. If the victim is also a Seer, the test is made at the level it was originally made, as the resonance of the two Seers amps it up. On the rare occasion of a fight between Seers, it often takes the form of a psychic pissing contest in which each combatant tries to dredge up the worst they’ve seen and subject their foe to it.

91%+: At this level, the Seer can see prophecies. On a successful Avatar roll that is also less than the subject’s Soul, the bizarre scrawls of Seervision align to show what that person’s future holds. The results are, as with the second channel, often confusing and vague, and there is no garuntee as to when (or, if the GM is rolling, even if) the particular vision will be relevant. But there are people in the OU who have killed for far less than a glimpse of the future…