Another take on the magick of memes.

Most people get their kicks from celebrity and general ownership of the cool things they do or say. Not you, though – you know better. It’s like that guy Laozi said : “Claim wealth and titles, and disaster will follow. / Retire when the work is done.” Of course, the fact that we know he’s the one who said it makes him full of hot air, but it’s still true.

You are obsessed with the propagation of ideas, by the contagion inherent to them, by the exact ever-fleeting moment when they transcend the personal realm and enter the cultural one. You know that the real way to power is to surrender ownership of your ideas, your words, your inventions. Once they enter culture, they cannot be stop and neither can you, their creator. Even better : you are wrapped in an armor of vague shadows, as all those who belong to the culture who grabbed your meme have now forgotten that it used to be one individual’s idea.

Of course, you could claim ownership of all those cool things you think up. But, what then? Sure, you’d enjoy some amount of popularity – then the fad would fade, and you’d go back to being some random nobody. Or worse yet – someone could shoot down your idea, attacking you until its credibility and popularity is reduced to ziltch. Ideas who have creators, owners, can be destroyed. By giving away your ideas, sacrificing them on the altar of popular culture, you make your will unstoppable. Once it has been absorbed, it will live on. Even if people dislike your idea, even when people are tired of it, it will live on like a terrible curse that knows no remedy.

Once your idea has been sucked into pop culture, all their bases truly are belong to you.

Mememancers, or oppies(*), gain power from the creation and surrendering of phrases, ideas, and things. Their will is like a poison, like a disease : it spreads unseen, unstoppable. The paradox of their school of magick is that they gain the power to attract or deflect attention from them and their intellectual creations by surrendering ownership.

<(*) Like many of the concepts that surround them, the roots of the mememancers’ slang name – oppies – has been lost. Many people speculate, however, that it is a phonetic version of OPs, or Original Posters. As the rise of mememancy is due in no small part to the memetic potential of the Internet and its forums, it is the most likely source of the nickname.>

Mememancy Blast Style

Oppies have no blast, as the mere concept of it implies that it belongs to them as individuals. Instead, they have spells like Who, me? and I didn’t do it!, which allow them to be just as nasty without actually owning it.

Stats

As with any other school of magick, no spell can be used to help in getting charges. No free lunch.

Generate a minor charge

Start a minor meme that will be propagated. It doesn’t matter to how many people the meme is transmitted first (beware taboo violation, however). As soon as twenty people have heard / read it at least once, you gain a minor charge. If at some point over a hundred people have heard / read it, you get another minor charge. Then, no more.

Generate a significant charge.

Start a meme that makes its way into popular culture. As soon as two hundred people have used one of your memes, you gain a significant charge. Then, no more. However, this does mean that you can get a significant charge from a meme that has already generated two minor charges for you.

Generate a major charge.

Create a meme that propagates into three different medias within the span of six months. The generation of a major charge follows somewhat different rules than regular memes, as it is constrained by a time limit. First, the meme must be a voluntary bid for a major charge. You must will it to be a great meme of gargantuesque proportions, and accept nothing else from it. In other words, if a meme you’re about to launch is a bid for a major charge, it will not generate any minor or significant charges. Also, considering the time constraint, it might not be possible to completely erradicate ownership of your meme. For the sake of generating a major charge, you are not considered as owning the creation of the meme as long as 95% or more of the references to it contain no mention of you whatsoever.

Taboo

Admit personnal ownership of a meme. If one of your memes is ever traced back to you, you lose all your charges. Denying ownership without any credibility does not protect you from taboo violation. If someone can prove that you’re the creator of a meme, denying it does you no good. Note, however, that the meme can be traced to a group to which you belong without it being a violation of your taboo. That cool expression your whole town uses can be traced back to that party last summer on 6th avenue, people can know you were there, but they can never ever know you were the one to come up with it. Likewise, people can know you’re part of the production team that came up with Snakes on a Plane, but the fact that you’re the one who thought up the title must remain obscure.

Random Magick Domain

Mememancy deals with ownership and popularity of ideas, words, and actions. Oppies can shift ownership between them and popular culture. They cannot, however, pin ownership of something onto someone else. They can claim ownership, give it to the community, but they can never give it to an individual.

Starting charges

A mememancer starts with four minor charges.

Mememancy Minor Formula Spells

Right Out of the Blue
Cost : 1 minor charge.
Effect : Sometimes, ownership of an idea is a bad thing – even when it is not meant to be propagated. Sometimes a good idea can have less credance because of its source. Sometimes you blather off, and you say something that’s just stupid. And sometimes, you just want to put a morally reprehensible option out on the table without being the bastard who came up with it. When this spell is cast, a simple idea which has been uttered in the last 15 seconds is percieved as coming from “right out of the blue”. Suddenly, it is just something that had to be said, or nothing but a brain fart, or an idea that everyone had at the same time. The interpretation varies, but the effect is always the same : the person who came up with the idea does not benefit or suffer from its ownership. He is percieved as simply the messenger, and is not credited nor blamed for the idea and its implications.

It’s my idea!
Cost : 1 minor charges.
Effect : You can take one idea or common wisdom sentence that’s accepted as a good one, and claim you came up with it first. If the spell succeeds, the people present when you casted it believe you for the next 10-15 minutes. You get a +20% to all your social skill tests (charm, lie, etc.) as long as they are linked to the idea or catch phrase you claimed.

Wow, look at that!
Cost : 2 minor charges.
Effect : Make something or someone extremely worthy of interest for a few seconds. If you try to be subtle, you can take one action that will remain unnoticed unless the people present take a major Notice check at -20%. In combat, everyone except you spends his or her next action checking out the subject of your spell unless they make a Mind test.

Instant catchphrase
Cost : 2 minor charges
Effect : This spell allows you to come up with a catchphrase that will reach a number of people of your choosing equal to the tens number of your mememancy skill within 24 hour. The spell does not ensure that they’ll know that you’re the one who sent it, nor that they will decipher its meaning. All it does is make sure the catchphrase makes its way to them. For an additionnal minor charge, you can make sure that the phrase stands out when they hear or read it (either through repetition or a feeling of “what an odd thing to say…”)

Who, me?
Cost : 3 minor charges.
Effect : This spell is used in combat where there are more than two people involved. A mememancer who casts this spell can discard ownership of a hand-to-hand attack he just made. If the spell succeeds, nobody’s sure who made the attack; if it is at all credible, even the victim is potentially to blame. The downside to this is that it’s a gamble : the spell must be cast right after the attack was made. If the spell fails, you’re stuck with the fact that you did it. Also, remember that this spell does not protect the caster from being suspected of having made the attack. Everyone is equally suspect, including the caster.

Mememancy Significant Formula Spells

Urban Storyteller
Cost : 1 significant charge.
Effect : Using this spell, you can propagate a myth of your creation. Suddenly, people everywhere (at least in societies where the myth can plausibly take place) know someone who knows someone who knows someone to whom this has happened. You only need to tell the tale once. Within three days, the myth will have been propagated and the spell takes effect. The myth usually acts as a cautionnary tale, and often breeds mistrust in a given instituation or type of person. Until your myth is debunked (that usually takes around a month), all social tests taken by someone who is somehow linked to the myth must be over the number you rolled.

Talk of the Town
Cost : 2 significan charges.
Effect : Once this spell is cast, one event of your choosing becomes the talk of the town, so to speak. This follows certain rules. First, it never crosses medias. An internet event spreads within the internet. A news seen on TV on which you use this spell will be the topic of more in-depth reports on TV as well. An actual event which you witness starts spreading by word of mouth like an urban legend. In any case, people will not only be interested in the event, but they will also try to find out more. Needless to say, this is a particularly nasty trick to pull on someone involved in the Occult Underground. The propagation remains local, and lasts a day. Each significant charge spent can increase the range or duration of one unity of measure. For instance, an adept could spend two charges to raise the range from local to regional to state-wide, or to raise the duration from a day to a week to a month.

I didn’t do it!
Cost : 3 significant charges.
Effect : This is the significant version of “Who, me?” It works just like the minor version of the spell, only now the effect also covers firearms. Once again, remember that this spell must be cast after the attack has taken place. If it fails, it’s too bad.

Mememancy Major Charge Effects

Start a conspiracy theory, instigate a scandal, commit mass murder in plain sight and dissociate yourself from it completely, pretend that you’re the one who invented the internet. Go nuts.