To gain control over reality, one must detatch oneself from reality and, in doing so, eventually loose touch with it…
Nickname: Mechs
___Mechamancers create wearable ‘mecha’ parts, modelling those parts after what they’ve allready seen, or out of thier own imagination, then use thier lack of touch with a resisting reality and imagination to channel magick through these parts and make them work. As a Mechamancer gains power, they feel less and less ‘human’, disconnecting with reality and those around them. No Mechamancer is without thier scars. Most, at some point in thier life, have lost part or all of a limb (a hand, a leg, an eye, etc.), though some bear only mental scars (an incurable, toned-down version of a permanent madness or permanent marks in a failed madness meter) or some other trauma. It is most often those scars which lead the Mechamancer to Mechamancy, as they daydream and imagine how thier replacement could be better than the original.
___The first Mechamancers were really Mechanomancers who, after pondering too long about the limitations of clockwork and flesh alike (and watching far too much mecha and giant robot anime), began to design began designing wearable clockworks. It wasn’t to be it’s own school of magick for another few generations of adepts, as each new, similar-minded group of mechanomancers learned from the seperating group of newer-age mechanomancers before them, each more attatched to newer things and the wearable machines they were quite apt at making than the ‘generation’ before and less attatched to the past that the original Mechanomancers held so dear. These truly new-age Mechanomancers grouped together, managing to make new formula spells. These new Mechanomancers, with different taboos, spells, and ways of gaining charges (once your ideals change enough, so does what is symbolicly important to you), called themselves Mechamancers.
___Mechamancers on the whole have come to understand that, unassisted, the human body is weak, though it provides imagination and soul that all but the most incredibly well-constructed of machines can even simulate. Rather than create mechanical life, as the Mechanomancers, the Mechamancers improve on the existing body with machinery. It is in this acceptance of the imaginary as better than reality that the Mechamancer makes thier mojo, and how they seal thier fate, The first real Mechamancers have allready completely lost all touch with reality.
___As a Mechamancer gains a magickal charge, they forfeit a little bit of thier sanity and sense of reality. They begin to feel less human, feeling isolated and alone even in crowds as they look around and know that noone around them is like them. Every charge gained forces the Mechamancer to to make an Isolation check.
___In all cases, where a charge calls for “Highly detailed”, that means made to shape, contoured correctly, and colored correctly. If the piece is meant for attack, the area from which the weapon will be used should be apparent.
___Gaining a Minor Charge: Make a small, wearable, highly-detailed, articulated Mech part (a glove, an eye, a pair of boots); make a large, wearable, highly-detailed mech part (an arm piece including hand, a pair of legs with boots included); make a complete, highly-detailed model of a mech.
___Face a rank-3 Isolation check.
___Gaining a Signifigant Charge: Make a small to medium sized articulated, high-detail, wearable mech part (such as a glove, arm piece, leg piece, or boot) out of raw material (a large block of plastic; smelted, but otherwise unrefined, metal; a log); make an articulated, highly-detailed, wearable, complete mech suit; make a complete, highly-detailed model of a mech that is at least 50% larger than the Mechamancer which made it out of raw material.
___Face a rank-7 Isolation check.
___Gaining a Major Charge: make a complete, highly-detailed, articulated, wearable mech which is made out of raw materials and at least 50% larger than the Mechamancer that made it; Make a large, highly-detailed, articulated, true-to-scale model of a mech at least two stories tall out of raw materials.
___Face a rank-10 Isolation check.
___Taboos: Being, at any point in time, without at least one charged piece of a mech suit on OR favoring your meat body when you have a piece of mecha that could do the job just as well OR allowing another to wear your mech suit pieces/mech suits.
___Blast: A mechamancer has a variety of blasts available, but all applicable blast styles must be selected on creating each blast-capable mech piece.
___Blast Types: Melee (a sword or other weapon extends from a piece of the mech, takes no charges, can be dodged), Straight Blast (pure ranged damage), Explosive (ranged, will also hit anyone in melee range of the target, does 25% damage, rounded down), Heat Beam (ranged, can also be used to cut or weld, does 75% damage rounded down), Ice Ray (target takes a -20% shift to Speed and related skills for a number of turns equal to the total of the two dice rolled. Can only be used on signifigant mecha parts, does no damage, does not stack with itself
___Random Magick: If the Mechamancer can truly imagine thier mecha parts doing it, such is what the random magick can handle, but all random magick must be channelled through some piece of a mech suit.
___Symbolic Tension: Mechamancers gain power in reality by giving up thier touch with reality and with those around them.
Sample Minor Formulas
___Fire at Will
___Cost: 1 minor charge
___Effect: This is the mechamancer blast spell. If the blast style (see above) is melee, do not spend a charge for this attack
___Jump Jets
___Cost: 3 minor charges
___Effect: Allows a Mechamancer to fly for up to 5 seconds using a minor boots, legs, or torso or up to 10 seconds on similar signifigant pieces.
___Charge Minor Mech Piece
___Cost: 5 minor charges
___Effect: Makes a mech suit piece magickly able to store the Mechamancer’s charges. Upon charging, a Mechamancer must choose -ONE- minor effect which this suit piece will be able to do, as per a formula spell. or blast spell. Anything else required of the mech suit piece will count as Random Magick, even if the Mechamancer possesses another that would be able to perform that function. Minor mech parts start with 5 minor charges, using them up appropriately to what is cast. The Mechamancer can not charge the same item twice.
___A Mechamancer may choose to spend an additional signifigant charge when casting this spell to allow them to recharge the suit piece whenever they need to (which counts as an action if done during combat). A charged suit piece does not loose it’s charges if a taboo other than allowing others to wear it is broken, nor can this level of mecha piece hold anything better than a minor charge. It isn’t possible for a Mechamancer to cast spellls without a charged mech piece.
Sample Signifigant Formulas
___Charge Signifigant Mech Piece
___Cost: 5 signifigant charges
___Effect: Similar to Charge Minor Mech Piece, Charge Signifigant Mech Piece activates mech suits. Charge Signifigant Mech Piece, however, can charge up to half a mech suit at a time (lower half, upper half… left half, right half… or smaller pieces if the Mechamancer so desires) A signifigant Mech Piece can hold up to 3 different actions, starts with 5 signifigant charges, and must use a MAjor charge instead of a Signifigant charge to make the mech suit piece rechargable, but otherwise works similarly to Minor Mech Pieces
Sample Major Effects
A Major charge may be used to make pieces of mech suit work with fewer charges than what would normally be needed, might make blasts with effects do normal damage on a mech suit, make entire mech suits summonable, rechargable at a range,, or just about anything else the Mechamancer can think for thier mech suit to do, within reason.
___Starting Charges: Mechamancers start with no charges. Instead, they start with one glove-sized rechargable minor mech suit piece that has no charges on it.
___Notes clear desired effects with the GM, but assume that the mech suit pieces can be made for combat or non-combat use, but generally not both unless it really makes sense (a welder is pretty useful to hurt others with, a wrench is less so)
My first school idea for adepts. The formula list would have been more complete, but it’s just too late at night, and I realised that it’s pretty much moot, as the Mechamancers would get to choose what thier suit pieces did anyway.
I meant to put something in there about how the starting rechargable mech suit piece would be worked in to the replacement for whatever lost limb there was (be it a prosthetic or a wheelchair, it would be worked in)
For mental scar Mechamancers, they instead start with one piece of thier choice, the uncovering of which would be one trigger for whatever whas mentally wrong with them, as if serving as a reminder.
A bit of an easy major charge, isn’t it? Just spend a couple of months in a warehouse with a welding torch and a shedload of steel plating and tubing, and you’ve got a major charge.
It’s not like you’re cutting off your hand, or shooting yourself in the head or anything.
Plus, a Rank-10 Isolation check is just the same as a Rank-3 Isolation check, if you’ve only got 2 hardened in Isolation, so it actually makes sense for a novice mechamancer to go for the big time and make his Ubermech on his first day on the job (assuming he’s half-decent at engineering).
This isn’t meant disparagingly (I like the idea of a mecha-obsessed adept, even if I’m not too fond of mecha in general), but I don’t think mechamancy works as a post-modern school in and of itself.
Perhaps use mechamancy as a mageekian variant on Mechanomancy. After all, lots of mechanomancers have built armour suits, right back to the middle ages (in the Ascension of the Magdalene, the UA/D20 crossover, there’s a mechanomancer wearing a harness that reloads his matchlock pistols for him).
Personally, I like the idea of one mechanomancer with this schtick, or maybe a group of Robot Club nuts out on the prairie or somewhere, having gladiatorial fights with one another, but not a PC adept school.
I just don’t feel that a mechamantic school fits into my personal version of the UA universe.
i hear where you’re coming from there, but it’s about the best i could personally come up with, plus the fact remains that roughly the best you can really do with a major charge is make a signifigant mech piece rechargable
correction: re-read my stuff… you can make the mech suit quite strong. (i wrote the last parts pretty late at night, i’d forgotten them) anyhoo, i understand that it should be tweaked and edited (it’s completely un-playtested, etc.)
and as for the isolation checks…. it’s about the best i could come up with without having to make up a state of sanity. possibly make the major charge a rank-10 iso and (helplessness? being lost to your obsession… self? AM I truly human, after all? or am i something entirely different?)
hmmm…. on a roll, let’s continue this thought line…
would it be too tweaky to require the following?
minor: isolation 3 (i’m alone a lot), self 1 (why do I do this to myself?)
signifigant: isolation 7 (Nobody around me understands… i’m alone, even around people…), self 4 (Who am I kidding but meself? What normal person could do this to themselves?) , helplessness 1 (I can stop anytime I want… right?)
Major: isolation 10 (There is noone who understands…. i’m completely alone even among my peers…), self 6 (I go beyond abnormal… am I really human inside, or am I something… different?), helplessness 5 (I can’t stop. I can never stop. I can try, but I can’t…), and an automatic failed isolation notch on top. No major charge is gained if this would put the adept at 6 failed isolation marks.
Why not make the charge-scheme similiar to Mechanomancers’? A minor charge might cost 1 week worth of work in a workshop and a rank 3 Isolation check, while a significant charge might cost a rank 10 isolation check and a month spent in a workshop. A major, on the other hand, might be worth 5 automatic failed notches (immediately making him unstable), a year’s worth of work, and the sacrifice of a major bodypart that the major charge would be replacing, making him lose stats as the gamemaster deems fit. He can only gain a major charge if he has absolutely no failed notches in Isolation prior to gaining the charge. Integration of his works onto himself might also be worth Self and Unnatural checks.
This way, you can do just about everything, from making an arm that doubles as a machine gun (possibly worth 5 sigs and 1 minor charge worth of “repairs and reloading” for every day the gun is used) to a fullscaled walking mechanical exoskeleton that replaces his “standard” organic muscoskeletal frame (2 majors, 1 sig for every day it is used).
In addition, like all other smiths, perhaps his workshop might be symoblically important as well. Every time he uses his workshop, he might have to ritually cleanse the area (blood of virgin boys, anybody?) or perhaps sanctify it somehow. The set up of the workshop is also vital: as long as one tool, one piece is out of place, the charge is immediately lost. Anyone breaking the sancity of his workshop would, of course, incur the wrath of the duke, but at the same time render the duke absolutely helpless if he’s in the middle of a new project.
Just my couple of cents worth. 😉
Hmmm… while those sound good at first, remember that this guy has more disadvantages than he has advantages over the mechanomancer. The entire school needs a major overhaul.
Mechanomancer gets charges more easily, but generally needs less. Mechanomancer does not have to spend charges for once-created item to work. Mechanomancer does not need to wear items. The only major advantage is that as a mechamancer you have no limits on what parts are used, and that’s nearly negated by the charge needs for having to make them yourself, often out of raw materials.
Your ideas kinda don’t work. What you’re thinking of is more of a cybermancer or andromancer. The thing about a mech suit is that (depending on size) you either wear it or pilot it. you don’t become it.