The perfect predator.

You are not just a shark – you’re the biggest shark. To kill is to dominate. To destroy is to hold power. The way to understand something is to control it, and the way to control it is to consume it.

You destroy the mightiest enemies of man. It doesn’t matter that they’re nearly extinct. It doesn’t matter that freeways and pollution have killed them. You are stronger, and they are your prey, and that fills you with the strength of predators.

Generate a minor charge: Kill an apex predator. Others can help, but you must be the one to make the killing blow.

Generate a significant charge: Kill an apex predator, in its home environment, without benefit of tools or outside help.

Generate a major charge: Kill the last of an apex predator species. Others can help, but you must be the one to make the killing blow.

Definition: For the purpose of this school, an “apex predator” is any carnivore at least as large as a human and capable of killing a human alone. This includes most large cats, alligators, komodo dragons, killer whales, walrusses, really big solitary wolves, bears that live on a mostly-meat diet, many sharks, and some constrictor snakes.

Taboo: You cannot accept the generosity of others. You can take things, or trade things, but if you allow someone to give you something or do something for you without compensation, you lose all charges.

Symbolic Tension: Alphamancers revere nature by destroying it. They exceed the aspect of a predator by using the tools and skills of a human.

Random Domain: Carnivores and primitive dominance.

Charging Tips: Any attempt to gain charges probably requires an in-game adventure. Regular charges are not usually available without specific adventure. It’s pretty hard to get more than 1 minor charge a month under most circumstances.

Starting charges: 1 minor

Minor formulas

Head of the Pack
1 minor charge
You have the scent and bearing of someone in charge. People don’t have to do what you say or what you want; they just can’t question your leadership or openly challenge you unless they succeed a Rank-4 Isolation stress check. Lasts an hour.

Totem Blessing
1 minor charge
Pick a skill related to a carnivorous animal (not just an apex predator). For the next week, you can use that skill at a level equal to your Alphamancy, even if this exceeds your main Attribute. This formula can’t change your anatomy; you could take a skill like “Pounce Like a Lion” or “Follow Scents Like a Hound Dog” or “Eagle-Eyed”, but not something anatomically impossible like “Flight” or “Poison Stinger Tail.” You can only have one such skill at a time.

Survival of the Fittest
1 minor charge
Use immediately after you personally kill someone. Learn one fact they knew. You can choose the information you want to get. If they didn’t know, or you don’t know what you want, you get a random interesting fact. You can usually only use this formula once per victim, but if you also personally all the victim’s flesh, you can use this formula a second time.

Pecking Order
1 minor charge
Pick a collected group of people you can see. All of them feel a sudden powerful need to determine who among them is in charge. Anyone who tries to assert leadership and fails must make a Rank-3 Self check. Anyone who doesn’t acknowledge any leader must make a Rank-7 Isolation check — if no final leader is determined, then everyone has to make this check.

The Wild Hunt
2 minor charges
A single target is immediately overwhelmed with total fear of you. The victim must make a Rank-8 Violence Stress check. If they fail, the victim is overwhelmed by fear and cannot do anything but flee on foot in the most direct and simple manner possible, or cower in hiding. Weapons, vehicles, plans, and any skills besides those related to running and hiding, are totally forgotten. You’re still free to chase them, shoot them, let them go, or whatever else you choose to do.

Significant formulas

Evolution
1 significant charge
You permanently gain a +5 bonus to your Body or Speed score.

The Winter Wolf Hides All Weakness
1 significant charge
Go off into the wilderness where no one knows you are, and spend a full 24 hours there without tools or assistance. Assuming you survive, any wounds, diseases, poisons and curses are removed.

Curse of Humanity
1 significant charge
The avaricious hunger of humanity chokes out other life forms, and risks wiping out the environment, and with this formula, you can do the same! This afects about an acre of territory around you when you use the formula. Any propensity to disease or trouble accelerates rapidly. Plants die. Animals sicken. Insects overpopulate and overeat, then die off. After about two weeks, all non-human life is gone or dead. The population will slowly recover at a normal pace after this point.

Hunger
1 significant charge
Pick any one herbivorous or omnivorous animal as your target. Most often, this will be a person of your choice, but any non-carnivore will do, and if a person is living on a strict meat diet, they’re immune. Until the next time you eat, you will have an instinctive sense of exactly where your target is.

Unstoppable Predator
2 significant charge
You immediately gain 100 Wound points, even though this certainly takes your Wound points above your Body score. These won’t heal back if you take damage, but otherwise they last until you are harmed. You cannot gain charges while you have any extra Wound points left from this formula. Many Alphamancers make a habit of ritually scarring themselves before they go hunt, to get rid of these extra Wound points.