“The older I get; the better I was.”

A.K.A. Has-beens, Wash-outs.

You all know that guy. Maybe you’ll even admit you’ve been that guy; the one who was almost President, or good enough to captain the football team, but unjustly not selected. It sucks not getting what you wanted. It sucks worse if you can’t let go.

Unless not letting go drives you. It might eat your soul, but it could replace it with something more useful. You let what might have been or what should have been burn within you. After all, sometimes acid purifies.

For some stupid reason you torture yourself. You go back to Old Ivy and walk past the frats you were never cool enough to get into parties at. You walk the sod on that football field you tried out on before getting cut. You go back to reunions; they remind you of why you despised Johnny Rhottencrotsch. Then you go back to the next one.

There was something missing from your life that you lost at those places. It is the demon within. It drives your powers and it also makes sure you are never a happy human being. It would leave if you ever found happiness. It demands the company of your continued misery.

Some, however, have channeled this pain to the point where they can rape it for what it is worth. Sometimes pain and regret can make a human being into a Saint; or, paradoxically, a monster. If you know this guy or girl and they creep you out – welcome to most of the rest of humanity.

Symbolic Tension: You can have amazing power, but it involves ripping open the wounds of previous failures. The Regretomancer has to keep going back and wallowing in it. Only a constant immersion in his own previous failure will keep the Regretomancer motivated by his deep, undying regrets.

Generate a Minor Charge: Spend time seeking the adulation of someone who had no respect for you in the past and hasn’t improved her opinion of you since. This can be the cool person who wouldn’t hang out with you, the ideal romantic mate who considered you chopped liver, or even the boss who won’t hire you for the dream job.

“Successful” Regretomancers have a rolodex of these people and look them up, send them Christmas Cards and seek them out at reunions, campus visits, Old Timer’s days whatever.

Generate a Significant Charge: Reenact a situation that you previously failed in. Try your best to honestly succeed. Fail again. If you succeed this time: too bad. You lose connection, and have to start over and recharge. If you dog it: doubly too bad. You lose your abilities if anyone catches on that you are dogging.
Generate a Major Charge: Be known world-wide as Mr. Almost. The 1990’s Buffalo Bills of whatever field of endeavor you go into. The guy who almost, but not quite, makes the grade as a stand-up guy or gal. This could have worked for Phil Mickelson, until he got his green jacket.

Taboo: You may never succeed in a way that would assuage your major regret in life. If the pain goes away, so does all the juice.

Blast Style: The Regretomancer fills another individual with his own regret and sorrow to the point that the other person hurts, or offs herself. See the spells “Stand In My Shoes”, “What I really Wish You Would Go and Do With Yourself.”

Random Magick Domain: Memory, Past Tragedy, Sad Reminiscence.

Starting Charges: 3 minor charges.

Minor Formula Spells

Poor, Poor Pitiful Me: Cost – 1 Minor.

This spell causes 1 individual to feel intensely sorry for the caster. The caster can then cause the target to spend the next five minutes doing one of two things. Attending to the caster and seeing if he can cheer them up; or, letting them do what they are doing for the next five minutes out of pity. The second alternative stops functioning if the caster them attacks the target or tries to steal or destroy that individual’s property.

Back In The Day: Cost – 2 Minors.

This spell allows you to be immediately familiar with any physical location you spent more than 1 week of your life consecutively. You navigate without maps, you can find old haunts, and you’ll never get lost as long as you remain conscious and sentient. The spell effects an area within a 10 mile radius of where the caster stands upon casting. It requires a paper map and a piece of memorabilia related to the location or an event that happened there.

I Knew Her Back When: Cost – 2 Minors.

This spell allows you to find and get a point of contact with an individual from your past as long as you knew them for longer than 1 month, or shared an intimate experience such as a powerfully memorable conversation, a violent fight or a sexual encounter with them. You have to have a piece of that individual’s property to cast the spell.

The Better I Was: Cost – 3 Minors.

This allows the caster to revert back to the level of some attribute that they enjoyed at a time in the past for a period of 30 minutes, plus thirty minutes more per additional minor charge expended. Limbs can be temporarily regrown, eyes that were blind can temporarily see.

It will even recover previous levels of charges at a cost. Minor charge recovery takes two additional minors, significant charge recovery requires two significants. Major charge recovery is impossible.

You need to burn or irrevocably destroy some trophy or award you won in the past.

Stand In My Shoes. Cost – 3 Minors.
This minor blast spell makes the victim feel intense, acute depression and self-loathing to the point where they inflict minor blast damage on themselves. This spell takes effect after the target fails a Helplessness Check, and can only effect one individual target.

Significant Formulas.

Reeling In The Years. Cost – 2 Significants.

Learn about an individual from your past that you knew them for longer than 1 month, or shared an intimate experience such as a powerfully memorable conversation, a violent fight or a sexual encounter with them..

Learn everything they’ve done since you last were involved with them. It doesn’t extend to the person’s acquaintances except when it directly relates to the person being “Reeled.”

You Can’ Hide From The Past. Cost – 3 Significants.

This spell allows you to dump the dirty laundry from an acquaintance’s past. You select a 100-mile radius from a map, cast the spell, and everyone knows about that individual’s dirty secret as if they had just seen it on Oprah!

The acquaintance has to meet the criterion for “Reeling In The Years” above, and you must have confirmed knowledge of the truth of what you intend to divulge all over town.

The victim has to be alive for the spell to work. The victim will receive a very strong hunch that you are somehow involved. The victim won’t have absolute proof without other means, but they will associate the humiliating or damaging revelation with the caster.

What I Really Wish You Would Go and Do With Yourself Cost – 3 Significants.

Make others around you feel so badly for you that they kill themselves. No kidding. The individual fails a helplessness check, and they will feel responsible for all of your personal travails and will spend the next two rounds attempting self-termination. It only works on one individual.

Major Regretomancy Effects: These usually involve some sort of grand attempt at final self-rejuvenation on the part of the Regretomancer. Convincing kids nationwide to not use heroin like the poor Regretomancer might be the final, self-purging act of a drugged-out adept who is near physical death from his habit.

It can also involve revenge. When Old Ivy’s endowment fund loses 97% of its value from its exposure to some hedge fund, is it really just the vagrancies of capitalism at work?