Second try at this. Did some much needed editing, changed a few formulas and added a little bit of the flavor i’m using for the game at home
Numeromancy
Nickname:
Bean-counters, mathemancers, Number-cruncher
“It’s all in the numbers”
As a kid you never got that “3 it’s a magic number thing”. All they did was list a bunch of multiplies of 3. It wasn’t till later that you figured it out. 3 is the first odd prime, 3 was the first digit of pi, all constructible angles were multiplies of 3.
And it wasn’t just 3, other numbers had magic too. You were just starting to understand it then. The math helped the more abstract the better, but they got it all wrong. They used the wrong notation, and didn’t bother study the different the pre-Arabic number. Roman numerals had there own powers, so did the Babylonian stick numbers. Equations in Egyptian hieroglyphics took hours to write out by hand.
Then one day it all just clicked. Well not all of it, there was still so much more to learn, but something important did. You figured out how to USE that power, the power of numbers.
Now they’ll see. Now they’ll understand.
Numeromancy is the magic of numbers. Part numerology, part mathematics, Numeromancy takes numbers we use to describe the world we live in, and makes a world for them. For a bean-counter, the fact that there are 10 crazed elephants charging you is more important than the fact that you’re being charged by crazed elephants.
Numeromancy has been around in various forms for a long time. However adepts were extremely rare and no two practices had that much in common. Recently though, there as been an increase of Number-crunchers in the Underground, and they all seem to know at least a few of the same formula spells.
The central paradox of Numeromancy is that numbers are only abstract. They were just something people made up talk about things they observe in the real world.
Generate a Minor Charge: Spend at least 4 hours studying a large collection of numbers. The stocks page of the newspaper works fine. Or simply drawing numbers out of a hat and writing them down. The point is that have to try to find something out about these numbers that’s unusual or hidden, or just interesting (at least to you).
Generate a Significant Charge: Change the way use numbers. Write only in roman numerals, learn a new branch of mathematics, do all the questions in a trigonometry textbook in base 8. This should either be major insignificance or take at least a week’s worth of work.
Generate a Major Charge: Fine a completely new number or set of numbers of worldwide significance. So Pythagoras would have gotten a charge for the rational numbers, and that poor guy he killed would have gotten one for the irrationals. Pi, e, the Golden Ratio of the Greeks all could, and possibly did, generate a major charge for some lucky mathemancer.
Taboo: For a Numeromancer, his understanding of number is the only one that is correct. He cannot accept calculation from anything or anyone else. So no calculators, no accountants, and no letting your friend figure out the tip. Balance your checkbook might prove to be a bit of a chore.
Someone telling you there calculation doesn’t make you brake taboo, but you acting on it does. If the weatherman says that it’s going to be a nice day, you believe him. If he says theirs a 70% chance of rain and you grab you umbrella.
Blast Style: Numeromancy blast takes what’s already there and makes it much much bigger. A lighter suddenly becomes a torch, a sling shot becomes a bullet. In order to cast a blast there has to be something nearby that could do at least a few wound points of damage. This can be combined with any other attack, firearms or melee, to make that attack more damaging. You must succeed on both the magick and attack rolls do damage.
Random Magic Domain: Modeling and measurement. The assign values to things and manipulation them. And of course numbers, but only in the abstract.
(Changing the banks records to say that $1,000 is $100,000 might be okay, but moving the actual money would be a no no.)
What you Hear:
Graffiti and tagging had been part of the local Urbanomancer war. But when someone started writing long string of number down every subway car, everyone got angry and nobody took credit.
You can learn Numeromancy from a book. In fact you can learn it from 7 books.
Minor Formula:
Exponential Growth:
3 Minor Charges
Anyone who’s dealt with exponentials knows they can get big very fast. This is the numeromancy minor blast.
Score Card:
2 minor
This spell makes a card rating people of your choosing. The caster picks the qualities scored (ie. Magical power, honest, how much they hate the TNI), the targets, and the scale while casting the spell. The total number of scores on the card is equal to the total of the dies rolled, and each target must be scored for all qualities.
Good Number, Bad Number:
1 minor
You can immediately tell if a written or spoken number is intentionally false. This does not allow you to get around taboo, you don’t know if it’s true or not, just what the person speaking it or writing it thought was.
This spell can last for about 10 minutes or 10 pages, and can be extend for another minor charge without have to roll again.
Taxing the soul:
3 minor
This spell lets a Bean-counter turn an enemy’s own numbers against thems. By altering numbers closely tied to a person and a skill they use practice the mathemancer can weaken that skill.
The spell lasts for a number of days equal to the sum of the dies rolled, and grants a -10% shift to a skill of the caster choosing. This skill must be tied to the numbers used to cast the spell.
A boozehounds bar tab could be used to lower his Dipsomancy skill, or his car registration number could lower his driving skill.
For each extra 3 minor charges he spends, the shift is increased by -10%.
What are the Chances:
1 minor
The finds out the statistical likelihood that a given even could happen. This never gives a definite yes or no, just a rough estimate of likelihood.
Example: Before walking into a meeting with the TNI, Sandra cast What are the Chances that it’s a trap?” The GM tells him 15%, so the adept thinks it fairly safe, but it could still happen.
Significant Formula:
Qisper’s Factorial Energy Expansion Formula:
1 Significant
Oh Qisper, he took a building with him when he went. He figured that the only thing to get bigger than an exponential is a factorial. Later Number-crunchers were able to figure out how to use it on a far smaller scale. This is the Numeromancy significant blast.
For an extra significant charge a minute source of energy, such as static electricity or cigarette butt, can be used to generate the blast.
Note: it’s generally accepted that Qisper is just a myth, but most modern mathemancers still credit him with the formula.
It’s All in The Numbers:
3 Significant
This spell allows you to find out the answer to one question in a group of numbers. This takes at least three hour of arcane analysis and thousands of pages of numbers. The answer is either short or vague, and sometimes both. This spell can be cast for one significant charge if ALL the numbers studied directly pertain to the question at hand.
Fermiate Time Operations:
2 Significant
The spell lets an adept accurately predict the immediate future of what she is observing. Though amazingly accurate the spell’s range is very short. The adept sees a number of seconds into the future equal to the magic roll, and only knows what’s going to happen to thing he is directly observing.
Worse, the instant the caster deviates from the prediction she alters the future, and prediction is no longer accurate. So only way to know what is happening is to behave exactly as if you didn’t know.
For the duration of the spell, so long as the caster is not in combat she may choose to backtrack as far as the last die she rolled. She may reroll that die or choose to take a different action. Alternately, if in combat, the caster may get a +30 shift to initiative. If this puts her above people who have already acted this round she may have her action happen retroactively.
In either case the GM may rule that she gets a shift to the roll appropriate to the knowledge of the future she has gained, and afterwards the prediction is no longer accurate. All the caster knows after that point is what WHOULD have happened.
“According to chornonomic algebra, the present is nothing more than the future’s past. Therefore any equation modeling the future, most treat all representation of the present time variable, according to the position of the past time variable under Fermiate Operations.”
~Quispy, “My Explanation of Everyting, lectur notes”. The 1st Gospel of Anonymous
Example: When it turns out the meeting was a trap, Sandra desperately casts “Run the Numbers” rolling a success at 35. Four rounds into the combat one of the TNI goons shoots her in the leg. Sandra decides deviate from the predicted history then, and instead increases her initiative to go before the goon and try and dodge the bullet.
Since Sandra knows where the goon is shooting, the DM rules she gets a +10 shift on the roll. She’s able to dodge the bullet, but since the DM’s feeling mean he tell her that if had been hit she still would have gotten out alive after another round of combat. The next 20 seconds she sees is just the empty warehouse, because that is all she is currently observing.
Tracking Number:
1 significant
This spell allows the caster to know the location of a number he has written. The most common use of this is to write a number on a piece of paper and give it to a person the number-cruncher wants to keep on an eye on.
There are some problems. One the spell only tracks the number, and only its location. So if someone throws it away, you’ll never know until you realize it’s spending a lot of time in the local garbage dump. Also a given number can only be used once for this spell, though the number can be written in any “language” (i.e. Roman numerals, Chinese numbers, etc.).
The spell last a month. During that time the caster can locate the number successful magic roll. This does not cost any charges and does not end the spell. The number cannot be used again even after the duration has ended.
“Though anything may represented as numeric elements in a Totality Scrying Model, only physical numbers remain stable enough to provide accurate positioning.”
-Esper, apprentice to Fermite the 3rd Gospel of Anonymous
The Null Set Problem:
4 Significant
Similar to Taxing the Soul, this spell requires that you have access to numbers tied the person and a skill they posses. Unlike Taxing though, this spell only effects adepts and their magic skill.
For a Number-cruncher all magic comes from numbers, and other schools are just finding fancy ways to access a small set of them. By turning another mages numbers into the null set, he can temporarily negate their power.
For one hour after this spell is cast the target is considered to have no charges stored. After words, any charges they had or may have earned during the duration are returned to them.
“Simon suggested ‘Power Outage’ or ‘Off Switch’ might be better names. But the truth is too dangerous to hide behind funny names. The null set is the ultimate void, containing not even a zero. This is not the void you fall into forever, this is the ABSENSE of that void.”
-Bay Street Poet
“And in the last room he saw nothing, and knowing nothing well he was not afraid. But in the room that was not there, he saw not even nothing. And at last he knew fear”
Anonymous, scrippled in margin, the 5th Gospel
Pretty interesting.
I’d maybe modify the flavour for the minor blast a little. Say, it can turn an existing minor injury, like a paper cut or popped zit into a more damaging one, or an uncomfortable set of keys in their pocket into a painful jabbing in their leg.
Also, a vague idea for a spell:
Quality of Irrationality: Irrational numbers, such as pi, are those which cannot be expressed as a fraction of two discrete figures, meaning they can never be completely pinned down. This spell can give that effect to a person for a period of time.
The subject cannot completely comprehend one fact or concept, chosen by the caster.
Example: When cast on Alex Abel, the Number Cruncher chooses to effect Abel’s financial reports for Car sMart. While the spell is in effect, no matter how many times Abel reads his records he may gain a vague sense of whether his subsiduary company is in the red or the black, but can’t really grasp to what extent.
Abstract Example: A cruncher casts this spell on Officer Cletus Crowe, targeting a rumour about Mak Attax activity in the local area.
While Cletus may get a vague gist of what’s going on, he will miss out on important details of the rumour as they slip through the cracks of his mind.
This spell is essentially the opposite of the Videomancer minor spell “Dumbin’ it down.”
Very intereseting Idea. Thanks a lot.
I’ve been trying to use different part of mathematics and couldn’t think of anything for rationallity, so I’ll keep thinking about that.
Since posting I’ve seen 5 more places I’ve forgotten to edit, so version 2.5 might be coming out pretty soon.
Nice, Hotel Detective’s spell idea has room for a lot of colorful uses. Very cool.
This one is probably going to get added to my list of those available in my game.