A minor school – crazy beards, crazy dignity, crazy competition.

The beard has a long cultural history, and ties in closely with ideas of dignity and masculinity. Many faiths (such as Islam, Orthodox Judaism, and Sikhism) see the beard as holy or religiously significant. Culturally, beards are sometimes seen as signs of virility, knowledge and dignity, and sometimes as a sign of wildness, eccentricity, or poor hygeine.

There’s a lot of meaning that you carry with your beard, and so you carry it spectacularly. You make yourself a sublime spectacle, but never a ridiculous one. You are the inheritor of kings and barbarians, priests and gurus.

And so you prove it. You wear your beard proudly with triumph. With your beard, you rule over others, majestic and virile.

…and you ignore the giggles of those who see your grandeur as strange.

(Note that while the skill relates primarily to beards, you can also get charges and use formulas for other facial hair, such as moustaches and sideburns.)

Some helpful links for reference:
World Beard Championships: http://www.worldbeardchampionships.com
Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Beard_and_Moustache_Championships
Images page for inspiration: http://www.drivl.com/posts/view/466
More Images for Inspiration: http://images.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&q=%22beard+competition%22&btnG=Search+Images

Generate a minor charge: Win a formal beard contest. The contest must have been arranged by people who don’t know about Pogonomancy, at least a day beforehand.

The good news is, you get a lot of charges at once. For every ten people who entered the contest, you get one minor charge.

You don’t get any charges for second prize (or any other side prizes.) If the contest is broken up by exclusive involuntary divisions (like age or region), you get charges only for thesize of your own division.

As a minor school, pogonomancy has no significant or major charges.

Taboo: You must maintain serious dignity at all times. Your behavior must be serious, respectable, and upright. Any levity or self-effacing behavior will cause you to lose all charges.

Symbolic Tension: A beard is both respectable and ridiculous. It is a symbol of venerability and eccentricity.

Random Magic Domain: Pogonomancy effects deal with respect and dignity.

Mechanic: Beard judges are fickle and unpredictable. Winning a beard competition requires that you roll a skill like “Crazy Beard” (usually a Body- or Soul-based skill) and get a successful result at least equal to the number of contestants, to a maximum of 70. If you don’t have a skill like that, you can use something like “costuming” or “attractive” or “perform for a crowd” at -15% penalty, or even Charm with a -30% penalty. If there are any other named contestants, such as other Pogonomancers or competitors trying to foil you, you need to beat their result too.

Charging Tips: Pogonomancers get their charges in bursts. Attempts to incite a beard contest never succeed, so every contest is probably a game event or plot device. Be ready to do all your big mojo right after a contest.

Beard contests happen irregularly, as the GM sees fit. A large city will probably have one every year. Big international ones happen a few times a year, but about half of them have a pogonomancer on staff and are therefore ineligible.

Starting Charges: Variable! Pick a size for your most recent competition and roll to see if you win that competition.

Minor formulas

Unflinching
1 minor charge
Usable immdiately after you fail any Stress check. You get a success on the check instead, and you get an immediate hunch.

Respect
1 minor charge
A single target faces you and falls to one knee with an elaborate gesture. They can get up afterwards. In combat, they’ll spend the next round kneeling and can get up later.

Sagacity
2 minor charges
If you have a Crazy Beard skill (or something similar), you can use it in place of any Mind-based skill for a single roll.

Emergency Cache
2 minor charges
You pull a single object out of your beard. It must be worth no more than $500, and it must be something that could have been concealed, sight unseen, in your beard.

Wild Nobility
10 minor charges (or more – you spend all charges when using this formula)
You are fueled with a surge of holy power. You immediately heal all wounds, poisons and diseases, but you’re not immune to further harm. For the next hour, you have a +30% shift to all Body and Soul skills (including Crazy Beard skills and avatar skills), which can take you above your attribute, and you feel neither pain, nor hunger, nor fatigue. You cannot gain charges while this formula is in effect.

What You’ve Heard:
Margaret Rabeaux, one of the few female Pogonomancers, works at a circus and takes hormones regularly. She acts as a diplomat and go-between to help minimize conflicts between other Pogonomancers, a prickly and competitive lot in great need of mediation.

Some say that she’s also pursuing the Mystic Hermaphrodite avatar path, and that she’s trying to organize and build the power of Pogonomancy enough that she can take the role of Godwalker, either by challenging the Freak or taking the role when the Freak dies. Margaret denies all this, and so far the Freak doesn’t seem too worried.