Well…. He’s been castrated….
Attributes:
The Castrated seems like an easy Archetype to mimic, all one has to do is castrate themselves, but actually it is not that simple. The Castrated actually represents a much broader archetype. It represents people who remove one part of their body in order to make another part function even more greatly, such as the Castrated choir singers in the catholic church of the middle ages, who removed their genitals to make their voices stay higher. To embody this archetype is to lose a major part of your being, most commonly the genitalia, but it has been known to be other things (such as removing the legs to increase upper arm strength via wheelchair use). Anyone wanting to become an Avatar of the Castrated needs to willingly sacrifice a part of his body in order to improve something else.
Taboos:
Attempting to regain the part of the body you have lost, or use an artificial supplement such as bionic legs will make an Avatar of the Castrated lose a connection with the Archetype.
Symbols:
The Castrated is commonly represented by a ceremonial knife, or a symbol of a choir boy.
Suspected Avatars in history:
Afformentioned Choir boys, and Vincent Van Gough who removed his own ear to improve his artistic talent.
Channels:
1%-50%: Specify the part of the body that gains an advantage from the loss of the other part. You can now flip-flop all rolls for skills which require the use of that part (e.g hands coudl be used for brawling etc.)
51%-70%: With a successful Avatar: The Castrated check you can now ignore any penalty you would recive from the loss of the removed body part (so if it was the legs, you could run without any penalty) onlookers who see you do this will not be able to fully make out how you did the task without a penalty, but they will have fuzzy memorys of you running on your hands or whatever.
71%-90%: At this level, if you touch somebody and make a successful Avatar: The Castrated check you can make the person you touch gain the penalties you would gain from the loss of you body part. Example: If you where castrated , they would not be able to engage in intercourse or urinate properly for an hour, aswell as being in mortal agony in the groinal region.
91%+: At this level, you permanently gain a +10% skill slide on any skill that uses the strengthened body part, and ignore all penalty’s with the lost body part.
Wow, i guess some Amazons channeled dis archetipe. They used to cut one of their breasts so they could shoot better with their bows!
i believe van gogh cut off his ear because of his depression and anxiety. i think he then sent to his gf to win her back. i would also say with the archetype that it would have to be a signifigant impairment to their quality of life.
Actually, what’s great? There’s now evidence that it was Van Gogh’s… brother? Best friend? that cut it off. It seems likely that they got really really drunk, got in a fight, decided to duel, his friend/brother cuts off the ear, Van Gogh faints, friend/brother goes “oh fucking SHIT”, and confabulates a story. It may not be true, but damn, I hope it is.
The one problem I have with this is that half of the channels are, essentially, ignoring one of the most important parts of the archetype : sacrifice for gain. I mean, if I could poke out my eyes for power and STILL be able to see, I haven’t really paid much of a price. The first channel is solid, but I don’t know if the rest really fit. The giving other people your affliction works for certain archetypes (The grotesque, the outsider) because they exist as social constructions, really, but here it’s ultra-personal and has little to do with social role (at least directly). I think there’s a lot you could do with it, but needs a bit of reworking.
Second channel definitely needs to go. If it’s about sacrifice, it has to be a sacrifice. Also, this seems personal, rather than social.
They would work better as some sort of one-off Mageekians. People obsessed and willing to make the symbolic exchange, but with no developed school.
Think of it like a one-off Major charge. They might be able to grant themselves some of the same power (the first and third channels are good candidates), but I don’t know if there’s enough social construction inhereny in this to get the umph required for Archetype.
Also, even if it was once a socially compelling concept, it would likely have been supplanted by something like “The All-Work-And-No-Player” or something, where the guy gives up all persuits beyond his focus (you know, things like family), instead of chopping off his balls.
In fact… there might be something to that…
Pedant mode online!
The amazon thing? It’s bullshit, a convoluted nightmare of folk tales and bad etymology lead to (Privative) a- (Without) and -mazos (Breast).
Amazons in art and in Greek accounts are depicted as having both breasts, and an alternative etymology suggests it may have been (Intensive) a- and -Mazos, meaning “full-breasted”.
Pedant mode disengaged!
As to the Avatar, though? I agree that some of the channels need to go. UA’s big theme is “Power and Consequences”, You can’t use the power to negate the consequences – see the various “you can’t use magic to get magic” rulings in the Core.
That said, it’s a good idea and I’d like to run with it, given permission.
The Guy With Pencils Stuck In His Eyes could be a mask of this avatar!