Do you ever remember the name of the guy who got the Bronze medal?
Attributes:
The Third Man is the embodiment of that guy who was right there on the front line of fame, who was integral to the event, but no one can ever remember the Name of him, or what ever happened to him afterwards for that matter.
He’s the guy who was part of that band and now works at the Local supermarket, and nobody remember him being part of the band.
He is Anonymous even though he is famous, he is worth less in the memories of others, and his lack of fame and benefit of what he did makes others around him look much better.
Taboos:
– The Third Man can never have his name become famous. He has to be “That guy that I can never remember the name of” to the vast majority of people that know of his groups exploits, people can find out his name, but he just didn’t do all that much in comparison to the others to warrant any real fame.
– He also can never come first in any competition he enters, he has to come Third…only Third will do…I mean who remembers the Bronze Medal winner?
– There are no Female Avatars of The Third Man.
Masks: your kidding right?
Suspected Avatars in history: The Bass Player from Nirvana, The guy who stayed on Apollo 11 while Buzz and Armstrong went gallivanting on the moon…and…that other guy…yeah I can never remember his name either!
Channel:
1%-50%: This level helps others more than The Third Man. With a Successful Avatar: The Third Man roll he picks two people, each of them gains a positive 10% shift in all there rolls until the task they are performing is completed, The Avatar has to be supporting somehow in this action in another way other than him using this channel however, he cant just be sitting back and watch.
Example: If Chris, Johnny and What’s-his-name are all robbing a bank together. What’s-his-name succeeds in his Avatar: The Third Man roll and chooses Chris and Johnny to gain the 10% shifts while they run forward and shove there guns into peoples faces and demand money, What’s-his-name is doing crowd control, making sure people are on the ground while the other two do there work. Their 10% shift is on every skill that directly affects the task there doing until they stop robbing the bank.
51%-70%: At this Level he can cause him self to be forgotten by making other people look like there were more important, or cooler or whatever. By making a successful Avatar: The Third Man roll he can Pick two other people in the group he is in currently, these two then become the focus of any attention that The Third Man would have gained for the next combat, or for the duration of combat, in order to negate these effect it is a rank 5 self check to go against what you think you should be focusing on. (This can work great in combat so others become the focus of the attack)
71%-90%: The Third Man has been able to assure his own placement in the people memories so far, now its his turn to re-prioritise memories of other events in peoples minds, This means The Third Man can either give a 20% shift in EITHER direction for someone to remember certain facts from memories, The Third Man had to be present at this event the person is remembering however. He cannot edit or change the Memories, only what the person most vividly remembers about the event.
Example: The Third Man succeeds in his roll to Manipulate Chris’s Memories, he decided that he doesn’t want Chris to remember the address of The Third Man’s best friend that they both Visited yesterday night, so Chris is forced to negatively shift his “Remember things” skill roll by 20%. Chris Fails, so his memories of the Nice white Beach house with the Old red tiling and the crystal blue water of the pool out back are all he can bring to mind, but he just cant remember the address of the house.
90%+: At this level The Third Man can gain true anonymity. The Third Man at will, can erase all mention of his name, or who exactly he was in connection to event he partook in so long as he was not the only one actively involved in the action. In addition he can also make people forget what his name was and only be able to remember general things about his appearance such as height, hair colour or apparent social clique or other visible identifier (Goth, Muslim, Plumber etc). The method in which his details are lost is up to GM, fires are good, coffee stains on official documents are great, basically he should be as unnameable as the Naked Goddess, Only if you are in constant contact with The Third Man will he be unable to affect you this way, however if you don’t see him for a whole week then your fair game. Making your Family or best friends forget you should incur heavy self-checks, but that’s what you signed up for when you walked this path right? Your What’s-his-name…
Ok guys This is My first Avitar I have written…All comments are welcome and hopefully I will have inspired you to use this guy in your games.
Thanks
Robert
I’m going to start with the taboos because these define the archetype.
Leave out the Male/Female only archetypes. The Masterless Man and the Flying Women are enough.
How does one stop becoming famous? The taboos have relate directly to an action the avatar does himself.
You need to define competition. I mean, is it just recognised sporting events or will it include say gunfights?
Cheers,
Chris.
Ok some re-defining then
First the competitions, i think its should be in everything where a winner or a looser can be determined, he should always symbolicaly come third, if not literoly. So yes in straight sporting competitions he will have to get bronze but say in gun fights he’s just the guy who took part in it, he didnt score any significant kills, he didnt get hurt in a obviouse way.
You can stop becoming fampuse by not jumping up and down and waving your undearwea in the air about having done something perticularly significant. For instance take Dirk Allan (the Dipsomancer) He gained his Major charge right? but ho is he famouse? Cause he told people right? people could put the name Dirk Allan to the event, if he hadent told people there would have just been a neat story about a Dipsomancer who gained a Major charge.
On the Male/Female count, im gonna stay fast on this one, Sure you have The Masterless Man and The Flying Woman Already, But you also have The Mother as well…I dont see a problem with sex specific Avatars, i mean heck its roleplaying, you can play either sex if you want to cant you?
Thanks for your critique comments on the rest of the Avatar will be appreciated as well.
Robert
Just for the record, the Mother does exclude males. The only catch is you need to be pregnant for one channel.
Since this is Unknown Armies, that’s not even a far stretch, is it?
C.
lol I suppose so, but for the most part what im looking for wether the idea is liked or not. As far as i can see very few fan made Avatars get the rules just right, but im just seeing what people think of my idea, if you can give suggestions on how it could be changed then that would be more helpful than just pointing out where I might have gone wrong. This is a public Venue and im putting The Third Man out there for others to pick up and run with.
I think this might work better as a school of magic. You might charge by being the anonymous supporting guy in events of varying importance (thus minors would be small scale events, sigs would be news worthy events and majors would be historical events)
I don’t understand why it must be a male.
and for the record, I was in a campaign where we had a male who gave birth (magic was used and it was scary as hell) and was channeling the Mother for a short time.
I did think once i posted it that it seemd more like a Paradox actuly, and thought about doing it again as a School of magic (Maybe in a mimicary kinda way like Pornomancers? like how they copy the WECHEY the Adepts could Mimic The Third Man?)
The Reason i choose it to be male only is cause the example of the kinda thing i was going for where all Male…i couldent think of a female example of it, so maybe i will concede the Male only thing as a bit strict.
Avatars in history: George Harrison (the fourth Beatle)
Godwalker/ascended in history: The mysterious “fifth Beatle” (you thought there were only four, didn’t you? See?)
Going over your idea It does feel like its a facet of some “middle child of history” role. I’d abandon the idea of third in favour of being an unremembered participant. If only because this could be worked into some very nice abilities not dissimilar from the messenger or the pilgrim.