The unbelieving adepts who pull magick from religious spectacle.

THE HAGIOMANCER

AKA Propheteers, Steeplechasers

Ever since humans became aware and looked at the world they wondered what might be there and why.

Since they had no influence or understanding over the elements, they assumed someone did. Someone they could not touch but gave reason for everything. They invented gods. They had great creator gods and lesser management gods, a whole illusionary flora and fauna through which every object or force was attributed ownership or control.

By applying sympathetic relationships between the world and the controlling entities, they understood the world in a logical human context. Religion was the physical science of the day created by lawyers.

And when the world callously tore through the fragile human lives, they learned to fear patterns they themselves had imprinted on the universe, to worship them and appease them.

The hagionaut understands the power of the mind to obsess; specifically to obsess about the unproven and faith. The passion people devote over something which in all likelihood may not exist, God. People will kill their children for their god or commit inhuman acts of barbarism for the suspect approval of a higher being or the slightest flash of proof.

It is this observation of ritual devotion in a ritual religious context that generates paradox in the hagiomancer. He is obsessed over religion and its followers, is swayed by the roar of hungry need, immersed in it, devoted to it, but only as a social construct.

The hagiomancer cannot believe in a god that, if it were to exist, is utterly out of any human reference. But the fulfilment found in the religion itself is what the propheteer craves and seeks.

For him, to use human symbols to describe a god is an ironic blasphemy of the highest order. It is this unbeliever that can exalt himself with miracles of the most holy.

The rise of hagiomancy follows the rise of televised evangelism all over the world. It is possible hagionauts of different faiths exist but each propheteer can only reap from one religion, the one of his choice. There is one path to God and away from Him.

Hagiomancy Blast Style
There are many and they all come in the form of Biblical curses: boils, scalding, tormenting by invisible demons, foul smells, and lameness of the limbs. Basically these blasts fall into two categories: enfeeblement and physical harm.

STATS
The charging requirements are almost identical to the cliomancers.

Generate a minor charge: You have to go and sit and contemplate inside a church where a service was recently held. You can visit a church once per day.

Generate a significant charge: You have to attend an hour long service in a church. You can visit a specific church once per week. You can neither reap minor charges from the same location before or after the service, nor for one week afterwards.

Generate a major charge: You must to attend the first global televised broadcast of a church that would be accessible to millions of people simultaneously. If the service is going to be recorded for later broadcast, it doesn’t count.

Taboo: The hagionaut focuses on the psychological spectacle of people who worship and, since religion is a living, attention-based institution, all charges are lost if they are nor used within two weeks.

Random Magick Domain: hagiomancy is all about the miracles of God, good and bad, so visitations of angels, manifestations of Jesus, faith healing, blessings and curses, exorcism, smiting enemies, rebukes, fire and brimstone, messages to the faithful, and invoking names from protection are all good.

Charging Tips: This version of the hagiomancer is based on Christianity, but any single religion or spiritual philosophy can generate magick as long as it is organized and has zealots. You can have Islamic, Judaic, Shinto, Buddhist, and even UFO cults or Wicca hagiomancers. The religion of choice must operate in a collective; have texts describing its function and laws; an annual operating cycle; and members that killed others that have threatened the religion’s own declared hegemony.

It is pretty easy to rack up those minor charges daily in any major city in Europe and the Americas full of active churches. A dedicated hagionaut with transport can make quick work of all the local churches in a day and rack up three to four significant charges.

Starting Charges: A hagiomancer starts with four minor charges.

Hagiomancy Minor Formula Spells

He is Your Salvation (two minor charges)
The hagionaut can administer counseling to someone that’s been spiritually hurt. If he blesses them, they can re-roll one failed notch and if it’s successful they lose the failed notch.

A Sin in God’s Eyes (three minor charges)
This spell creates a flicker of empathic synchronicity that allows the hagionaut to instantly know a target’s personal shame. This usually relates to severe stress checks. No exact details are known but a rough description of who do what to whom and where.

Mend to the Fallen (four Minor charges)
A slower version of the laying on hands allows the hagionaut to heal the target of injury. The total is the sum of the magick roll plus an extra die. The target heals five points per round as the hagionaut administers his talents. It cannot cure incurable diseases just prolong the living.

Rebuke the Censured (Five minor charges)
This spell marks the target as someone who has angered God with a constant psychic broadcast. The target suffers -10 Soul or soul based check. This spell ends as soon as the target enters any religious institution for guidance or protection.

The Heat of the Righteous of the Blood of the Lamb (Eight minor charges)
When cast the hagionaut’s gains +10 Body for one hour, which also affects his wound levels. All opponents he faces have their Mind-based stress checks downshifted by -10. This is not a physically manifested change but more of the fact the hagionaut appears full of vim and holy froth.

Hagiomancy Significant Formula Spells

Rain of Fiery Plague and Pestilence (Two significant charges)
This is the Hagioplasty blast spell. It is fairly customizable depending on what effect he needs to be but it is slow. Good ones at parties are boils and blisters, scorching from invisible flames, being buffeted and scratched by invisible demons, being transformed into salt, or the simple rapid-acting rot.

The spell only rolls two dice but good cherries make it firearms style damage. The hagionaut rolls the check and it does ten points of damage per round and during that time the target can only writhe around in excruciating agony and make Rank-8 Helplessness checks and people watching make Rank-5 Unnatural, Violence, or Helplessness checks.

Excommunicative Excision (Three significant charges)
Excision is a blast spell for demons and other unclean dead things. It does significant damage to the entity is they do not leave the area targeted by the spell. All damage is removed from their Soul stats.

Am I the I Am? (Five significant charges)
This spell messes with the target’s Obsession. If the target fails a Rank-10 Self check, their obsession becomes wiped, a clean slate for one hour. By carefully talking to the victim, a hagionaut can make the target change his obsession but this is handled only through role playing.

The victim changes his or her obsession and gains a failed Self notch. If left alone for an hour the obsession returns. Until that hour of dazed confusion passes, the victim is bereft of his obsession skill.

Walking on Clouds of Holy Water (Six significant charges)
This spell draws out a major unnatural phenomenon tailored for the current needs of the hagionaut and his spouted philosophy. The GM has full control of the phenomena but is must suit the specific needs of the hagionaut. It is purely a significant cosmetic effect and if any dice are needed or altered for the effect, it won’t work.

Hagiomancy major effects
Gain temporary omniscience by visiting the Invisible Clergy, corral a Cruel One, force a physical visitation of Jesus, Mary, or a saint appear (your choice of archetype), raise the uncorrupted dead, curse an entire nation, actually fill people with the Holy Spirit, allow a demon to become an avatar.