For when the cops are crooked, underpayed, or just out of the loop.

Just because most of the mojo-slingers in your town are lower than dirt and willing to poke children with sharp sticks just to kill time doesn’t mean you have to be. Dare to be different!

Amoromancy: This is not so good for the direct approach, since it can’t make any real physical change in the world. You can’t dodge bullets, and it’s comparitavely hard to hurt people. If you’re in a fight with some muggers, probably the most damage you can do is to get them to fight each other for a bit. On the other hand, if there’s an entrenched criminal element in your city, and the really important people at the top have (a) monogamous relationships with others or (b) a reputation in the nightclubs or adult scene (S&M springs to mind) then there may be ample opportunity to royally wreck somebody’s emotions. This will impair their judgement, either making their criminal empire deteriorate from mismanagement, or setting them up for stings and ambushes they might notice if they weren’t so preoccupied with personal problems. On the other hand, their bad mood may spread throughout the organization and make the town an even worse place to live. Proceed with caution.

Annihilomancy: Whether you want to get all the bullshit out of the way and make people face the criminal element in town, or you just want to torch JoJo’s stock of heroin in order to watch it burn, this is a good choice for the direct approach. Fiction is full of cliches where the bad guy is obssessed with his beloved car, or a favorite gun, or his prized collection of toenail clippings. Just because somebody commits felonies doesn’t mean they don’t get attached to things. And if you’re up against somebody who has no ties to anything or anyone (like you), well, there’s always the Clutter Buster. Of course, the flames are liable to destroy any evidence that would put punks behind bars and keep them from tracking you down to apply their own version of vigilante justice. Oops.

Bibliomancy: Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat. Books + Gunfire = Bad. That said, it’s not a bad choice if you need to dig up some dirt on your local troublemakers (explaining how you got said dirt to the police is another matter entirely). With the prevalence of laptop computers and wireless phones, they may not have a Big Book of Dastardly Deeds lying around for you to exploit, but everybody makes little notes on cocktail napkins and post-it notes, and the written word is your pigeon.

Cliomancy: If you’re going to take them down from the inside, memory editing is going to help you a lot. Of course, you’re going to have to be able to handle the tasks they put you to and defend your charging site from other Cobweb Farmers; in a really active city, this won’t leave you any time for a normal life. Hell, it may not leave any time for sleep. Pick your battles carefully.

Cryptomancy (Eastern): You might be in a good position if you can worm your way into their confidence through a deception as somebody like them. Not only can you help set them up and take them down from the inside, you’re getting a significant charge every week. Just don’t get caught. If you can’t get them to trust you, well, that can work to your advantage too. With enough lies going around, your capabilities are sure to be exagerated, if they’re even certain. You will be harder to predict, at least.

Cryptomancy (Western): You’re not going to be too good a spy if you can’t lie to them face-to-face, so make sure they never even know you exist. Riddle their hideouts and meeting places with bugs and charge up. Tip off the Feds and charge up again. It sounds simple and easy — it isn’t.

Dipsomancy: Well, on the one hand, you can bend a whole lot of reality’s rules to get your way, especially where gravity is concerned. If you have a significant vessel, you can do a lot of damage on the spiritual front, which is handy if your opponents aren’t clued in and vital if they are. On the other hand, the police are not going to beleive some smelly drunken man with slurred speech who smells like gin when he tells them that the most respected man in town is actually a preist in a sacrificial cult. You can expect a stay in the drunk tank at the very least. This is why anonymous tips are so handy.

Entropomancy: Going up against the local crime bosses, all by yourself, and playing chicken on the railroad tracks between attacks; let’s just say things are going to get very interesting, very fast. You just gotta ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky?

Epideromancy: From a matter of simple logistics, you should be doing pretty good if you decide to fight the good fight, so long as you fight it hand-to-hand. Your magick makes you stronger, faster, and tougher, and you probably got pushed into the magick by circumstances beyond your control. Therefore you have the best chance of survival and the least reason to live. This makes you doubly dangerous in combat, but not letting anyone fix you up when you’re missing several quarts of blood is one hell of an Achilles’ Heel. On the other hand, if you’ve been trained in the art of fleshwarping, you may be edgy about anybody damaging your body except for you. In this case, you should seek out a group of people who are both like-minded and open-minded and keep them patched up when they get bullet wounds they’d rather not explain to the police.

Geomancy: If the crooks in your town are anything more than small time muggers, they must have an infrastructure, and this infrastructure could be exploited directly or hamstrung where it connects to city infrastructure like power lines, phone lines, and water mains. Beware of lone wolf types who slip between the cracks in society and sneak through the gaps in your power base.

Herpemancy: Well, this one is a mixed bag. On the one hand, your many serpentile talents will certainly help put your opponents down. On the other hand, your body is going to be hard pressed to handle snake venom, fistfights, and gunfire all within a short time frame. If you can pull off a hit-and-run approach, do it and whittle their staff down. Never mind the fact that snakes can’t run. A theme costume, so long as you don’t use spandex, could be very effective. How many people would tangle with somebody who named himself after a snake species and could actually make people sick?

Iconomancy: Just ask yourself, “What Would (Your Idol) Do?” If necessary, make one of those bracelets or bumper stickers. And stay the hell away from the press!

Infomancy: If you’re looking for dirt on the embezzlement uptown, or the connection Big Sammy has with his cocaine supplier downtown, this is a fairly good choice. As mentioned before, more and more criminal groups are getting tech-savvy. Quite a plus for you.

Irascimancy: Well, on the one hand, you’ll be able to get the entire crime network at each other’s throats for imagine slights, bringing the chop shop operations to a sceeching halt. On the other hand, you will be known throughout town as a giant asshole, and if one of those punks turns you into swiss cheese, odds are he will receive much public respect, light sentences from law enforcement, and anonymously sent fruit baskets. Be very, very careful where and how you charge up.

Kleptomancy: To be perfectly honest, if you’re a power thief you’re not very likely to be helping with truth, justice, or the American Way. But stranger things have happened, so take this adage to heart: “It takes a thief to catch a thief.” And stay far, far away from the police.

Mechanomancy: Superman is an alien with alien abilities, Spiderman is a mutated human with mutant powers, and the entire X-Men team is a grab bag of superhuman talent. But Batman is right up there with the best of them, and all he has is a nifty belt… and a cool car… and a big cave with a big computer… and Wayne Industries… alright, perhaps the analogy falls apart at that point, but it doesn’t change the fact that gadgets are just as potent as powers, magickal or otherwise, in the right hands. Similar examples include Iron Man, with his powered armor, and on a less serious note, Inspector Gadget.

Narco-Alchemy: Much like Kleptomancy, odds are you’re going to be spending more time breaking the law than enforcing it. Even more so than Kleptomancy, since the War on Drugs means major punishment for anything drug-related, while anything below grand theft auto in the stealing department nets a ‘slap on the wrist’ by comparison. Even if your intentions are good, you have almost nothing to gain by taking down the criminal element; even if you stick to foiling non-drug related crimes, this means the police will be have more time and people to send after the drug front. The enemy of your enemy is your enemy’s enemy. No more, no less.

Oneiromancy: …all-night stakeouts. Enough said.

Personamancy: There was, at one point, a TV show called The Pretender, about a man named Jarod, a super genius who could adopt other personality traits and skills on a whim. It should sound familiar. Reruns are still running on various stations and channels. It’s a classic example of gaining the enemy’s confidence and then attacking from within, or at least so close by that it’s impossible for them to counterattack, assuming they even know where the attack is coming from. From another direction entirely, the masked superhero route is perfect for the Thespian, since it involves very directly the power of masks and hidden identity. Just don’t act on your Noble Stimulus directly. The battle between two thespians, one the hero and the other a villain, could easily become stuff of legend OUTSIDE the Occult Underground; watch out for the Sleepers.

Plutophagy: You might be able to turn some of the lower level stooges over to your side, and you might also be able to screw with the economics of the enemy in ways that would make Warbucks cringe… or you might be the one breaking the law and disturbing the peace, screwing with the wage-slaves of the capitalist pig-dogs. Neither way is pretty, but one will lose you fewer friends, and if you’re annoying enough that they put a price on your head, that may be enough to taboo you. Watch out.

Plutomancy: There are two ways to approach this, depending on whether the bad guys have more cash than you or not. If you’re better off, you can do a lot of damage with just Pluto’s Curse. If not, you’ll have to get knee deep into the action yourself… and frankly, you’re not getting paid for this, so don’t feel like you should put up with any crap from the police or your teammates, if you’re on a team. Find yourself an inexpensive gun, buy ammo in bulk since it’s cheaper, and learn how to reuse shell casings yourself to save cash in the long run.

Pornomancy: Why a cultist would be out trying to clean up the streets is puzzling, but the Goddess doesn’t have a history of supplying straight answers, so whatever. Many of the strategies used in Amoromancy can be applied to Pornomancy with only minor changes.

Thanatomancy: Stick to animal sacrifice, if you can. No matter how dirty, sick, or depraved the bastard was that you caught and sacrificed, the government takes a dim view of any and all murders done without state-approved sanction (death penalty and wars) and at the very least you’ll spend a lot of time in the slammer. You’re in even deeper shit if you killed somebody in Texas. If you can’t keep it small, then keep it loose, moving all over the country as random as possible, and try to make the sacrifices look accidental, however ridiculous that may sound.

Urbanomancy: If there’s unauthorized criminal shit going on in your city, then you’ve got a good chance of either putting them down or driving them out. If it’s part of a larger network, then it’s out of your reach… and not your problem, really. At least you can keep them out of your backyard, or make them miserable if they try to operate in that yard.

Videomancy: The big plus here is surveillance. By capturing criminal proceedings on VHS tape and mailing it off to the Feds, you can easily throw a monkey wrench into the criminal works in your neighborhood. On the other hand, if you have to go head-to-head with hired goons (or highly trained assassins), then Laff Riot and Watching the Detectives will be your best friends next to your fetish show.

Unique Schools: Like most things in the Underground, you’ll have to play this by ear.

General Advice:

1. Lay Low and don’t be too flamboyant. Get a mask even if you’re not a thespian; if they know who you are, they may decide to ice your family, friends, or significant other in retaliation.

2. All your vigilante-isms should be staged from somewhere away from where you actually live. A rented apartment, perhaps, or an abandoned gas station/ subway station/ junkyard/ warehouse if you’re strapped for cash. (Hear that, Maks?)

3. Have a few single-use artifacts lying around in case you get tabood but still have to fight the good fight. If you’re teaming up with other vigilante types, these can help give them an edge if you don’t need them.

4. Get some training in hand-to-hand combat or firearms use, if you haven’t already. You don’t have to be a crack shot or master the touch of death, you just need to be able to plausible. A skinny-assed punk who can’t throw a punch or hold a gun the right way is going to raise eyebrows if he knocks around six guys with Uzis.

5. Watch those CSI shows and take note of various methods they use to connect people to crimes. Wherever possible, use your magick to mess with those methods and conceal your presence.

6. If all else fails, go completely batshit and start threatening them with the Comfy Chair. Anyone crazy enough to think that’s a threat is clearly capable of anything; if your opponents have half a brain, they will back off. This is most effective while holding a gun, and works even better if you have a kitchen utensil or a protractor in the other hand. If it works for the Bandaged Man, it can work for you too.

“With great power comes great responsibility.” – Spiderman

“A hero is the right man in the right place at the wrong time.” – T.A. Klein

“You know, evil comes in many forms, be it a man-eating cow or Joseph Stalin. But you can’t let the package hide the pudding. Evil is just plain bad! You don’t cotton to it! You gotta smack it on the nose with the rolled up newspaper of goodness! Bad dog! Bad dog!” – The Tick, from the TV show

Time to do that hero thing…