A minor school for inked-up dukes

AKA Inkers, Needlemen

You scar yourself for beauty. Your skin is a work of sacred art, untouchable by any needle point – save that of the tattooist. You’ve embraced the exquisite pairing of pain and beauty, spinning your kundalini energies through the web of chakras mapped out by your tattoos. With a sharp needle and some ink, you will purify your body of all ugliness, becoming a transcendant being of magick.

The symbolic tension of Escaramancy comes from its use of scarring and mutilation to achieve beauty and art.

Escaramancy Blast Style
The Escaramancy blast causes its victim to be covered in hundreds of tiny, profusely bleeding pinpricks, which come together to form a bloody “tattoo” of sorts. Although it works on the same general principal as tattooing, it hurts a hell of a lot more, and the marks it makes fade away within a few days.

Stats

Gain a Minor Charge: Get a tattoo. The tattoo has to cover at least two square inches, though you don’t get more than one charge for bigger tattoos. Temporary tattoos, henna tattoos, and the like don’t count – it has to be permanent, and it has to be done with a needle.

Escaramancer cannot gain significant or major charges.

Taboo: The taboo of Escaramancy is twofold, although both parts are essentially the same thing. Basically, if the sacred art of your skin is violated, then you break taboo, and all your charges go down the drain. There are two ways you can do this. First, if you ever get a tattoo removed – whether by surgery, laser, or some crazy psychopath with a knife – you break taboo. Secondly, if your skin is ever broken by a needle other than one being used for tattooing, you violate taboo.

Random Magick Domain: Escaramancy’s good for messing around with appearances, how things look. Not very useful if you want to hide something, but if you want to make it look different, then you’re gold.

Starting Charges: Newly created Escaramancers start out with three tattoos, and minor charges to match.

Charging Tips: Duh. Go out and get a tattoo. Clever inkers will get them as small as possible, in order to wring the maximum number of charges from their limited skin space, but most go for big, flashy, and magickally inefficient ones. Now, it may eventually come to the point that you run out of space to get any more tattoos. If it really gets that bad, then burn up all your charges – knowing how to make artifacts helps – get all your tattoos removed, and start over from square one. It’s not a pretty experience, but it’s better than running completely out of charges.

Escaramancy Minor Formula Spells

Badge of Membership
Cost: 1 minor charge
Effect: This nifty little spell lets you fit into almost any social scene or organization. While you’re under this spell, anyone who can see at least one of your tattoos naturally assumes that you’re in whatever group, organization, or cliche they’re part of. Now, this won’t work on anyone who personally knows you well enough to be certain you’re not part of that group, and if you do something that makes it clear that you aren’t really a member, you’re on your own. This spell lasts for ten minutes.

Bulletproof Ink
Cost: 2 minor charges
Effect: Ever wanted to be bulletproof? With this spell, your bare, inked skin becomes a living bulletproof vest. Basically, as long as you’re exposing your bare skin – i.e., naked – you’re treated as if you’re wearing a bulletproof vest. Now, you don’t have to be totally naked – you can even use the spell in formal business wear. However, if you’re shot in a part of your body that wasn’t uncovered, you don’t gain any protection. This spell lasts until the next time you’re successfully shot.

Scarification
Cost: 4 minor charges
Effect: This is the Escaramancy minor blast.

Sexy Ink
Cost: 1 minor charge
Effect: Hey, we all know people with tattoos are sexy. When you cast this spell, you get a +20% shift to any skill of your choice, as long as it somehow works based on your physical appearance. In order for you to get the shift, whoever you’re trying to use the skill on has to be able to see at least one of your tattoos. This spell lasts for around an hour.

The Octopus Ruse
Cost: 1 minor charge
Effect: Just like an octopus can hide behind a cloud of ink, this spell lets you hide behind your tattoos. While you’re under this spell, anyone who sees you, as long as they can see at least one of your tattoos, just plain can’t recognize you. No matter how well they know you, they can’t think of your name, who you are, or any personal details. Afterwards, though they may remember what you did, they have no recollection of what you looked like. Now, there are a few ways around the disguise. Blood relatives of yours and anyone with a Soul score of 60 or higher may attempt a Soul check the first time they see you in order to see through the disguise. The disguise lasts for ten minutes.

Tramp Stamp
Cost: 2 minor charges
Effect: This spell lets you “tag” someone with a tattoo, that communicates something about that person to everyone who sees it. In order to tag them, all you have to do is touch them, skin to skin. In combat, this may require a Struggle roll, but outside of it, all you have to do is touch their bare skin for a split second. The tattoo forms on the spot where you touched them. You have no control over its size, or what it looks like, but its typically somewhere between two and five square inches, and its always deeply symbolic of the person you tagged. If they’re a Mak, the golden arches might show up, while an arsonist might get a nifty tattoo of a burning skull. Now, the nasty part of the spell is that the person you tagged can’t see the tattoo you planted on them, even though everyone else can. The tattoo lasts for about a day, although it gets washed right off if the tagged person bathes before then.