Adapting and expanding TedPro’s Lactomancy for 3e, because I have weird players.
Milk is powerful. It is everyone’s first food, a rich source of nutrients and antibodies, and is revered for its healing properties. You can call it the Food of the Gods or the most sacred thing in the Universe. You can say that it’s been used for medicine, food and beauty products throughout history. Ancient cultures knew just how important it is; in Greek mythology, the Milky Way was formed after the trickster god Hermes suckled the infant Heracles at the breast of Hera while she was asleep. When the Queen of the Gods awoke, she tore Heracles away from her breast and splattered her breast milk across the heavens. Holy books, such as the Bible and Qur’an, have laws and legends regarding milk, as do the Hindu and Jain faiths. Hardly surprising, given it’s importance to life and growth for us mammals.
Milk is so important that weaning, the process of transitioning a baby from breast milk to other food, is a significant (and ritualistic) step in a child’s life; betokening the its entry into life and society, as it moves from the mother’s breast to the breast of the family. While many cultures continue to embrace milk after this transition, others do not, leading to genetic lactose intolerance in many societies.
Of course, milk is also amazingly useful in other ways, providing us with butter, cheese and cream. But there are also darker sides to milk; witches were said to curse cows – and sometimes mothers, causing their milk to dry up or curdle.
Despite the inherent power of milk, Lactomancy has remained a minor school, due to the ubiquity of milk and it’s weak symbolic tension. While it’s a symbol of purity and health (at least in Western culture), it isn’t actually nutritionally necessary post-infancy, and spoils very quickly. Lactomancy is a School dominated by female adepts, for obvious reasons, but there are a surprising number of male practitioners.
Ω: 1
Domain: Purity, nurturing and protection, but also deprivation and decay.
Minor Charge: Spend three hours preparing food, drink, medicine or cosmetics which include or are derived from milk, or two hours milking it out of an animal. If you actually happen to be lactating, you gain a charge at sunrise each day.
Taboo: Don’t harm milk; whether by spilling or wasting it, or allowing it to go bad. This includes through inaction, so if you see that kid at Wendy’s left half his shake when he left, you’d better go and finish it before a busboy tosses it. You don’t taboo if the kid spills his shake across the table while he’s there; though giving the little shit a good talking to wouldn’t go amiss.
Starting Charges: 8 Minor
Minor Formulae
The Cream Rises
Cost: 1 minor
Cast this spell as you look over a group of people and think about an Ability. You’ll instantly know who the two most accomplished people among the group are, though you gain no information about their actual rank.
Curdle
Cost: 1 minor
For this spell to affect someone, they must have ingested milk or a milk product within the past hour. Cast it, and the victim’s digestive tract is flooded with harmful bacteria, causing intense stomach cramps, diarrhea and vomiting. The spell inflicts damage equal to the lower of the result digits, but the victim is subject to a Helplessness-4 check as the sluices open at both ends.
Curds and Whey
Cost: 1 minor
Curdle milk using a rennet or during the process of making cheese, and you can gain a glimpse of the future in the swirling curds, giving you a Hunch for your next Connect or Fitness check.
Human Kindness
Cost: 1 minor
Share a milk-based product with someone as you cast this spell, and for minutes equal to the result, you gain +20 to Connect check involving them. However, if you lie or act cruelly towards them during the effect, their mood abruptly sours, flipping the bonus to a -20 penalty.
Lactose Intolerance
Cost: 1 minor
Touch someone who has ingested a milk product within a number of hours equal to the tens of your Lactomancy rank. The victim’s inherent prejudices, bigotry, and -isms, get dialed up to 11, causing them to be pronounced, intense, and vocal. The victim can no longer temper their intolerance or keep quiet about it, and will initiate violence against anyone who triggers their Rage Passion. The effect lasts for a number of hours equal to the result units.
Mother’s Milk
Cost: 1 minor
Bathe in milk while you cast this spell. You don’t need to immerse yourself; an all-over sponge-bath will do just fine. Until the next sunrise, you will cease to age and gain +5 on Connect checks, as the milk soaks into your skin, clearing away any blemishes and imparting a healthy glow.
My Eyes Are…
Cost: 1+ minor
This spell is self-cast by female Lactomancers far more frequently than male ones, as it either increases or decreases the size of the breasts. If you’re female and cast on yourself, you can gain up to +20 to Connect when interacting with those who care about such things. if you’re male and use the spell on yourself, any noticeable breast expansion that doesn’t fit your frame causes an Unnatural-2 check in observers. You can cast this on others, but it only works on females and costs and extra charge; the target suffers a Self-2 check and -10 on Fitness, as their center of balance is off kilter, If you cast it on yourself, the effect lasts for a number of hours equal to the result units, while the effect on others lasts for minutes equal to the result.
Apotropaic Ward
Cost: 2 minor
Breast milk has long been believed to ward the infant against evil; a natural enough superstition, since breastfeeding imparts antibodies along with nutrition. Cast this spell on someone who has drunk milk within the past hour, and they become immune to possession by demons and unnatural entities for a number of hours equal to the casting units. If the target is already possessed (and has drunk milk) then they vomit up the entity.
Does a Body Good
Cost: 2 minor
This spell exemplifies the soothing and nurturing power of milk. Immerse an injured body part in milk or, if the injury is internal, have the subject drink the milk or bathe in it. When you cast, the target will heal damage equal to the higher of the result digits, and any skin condition they have will clear up.
Milk and Honey
Cost: 2 minor
Mix milk and honey together and drink it down. You’ll have a pleasant vision of something relevant to the plot or whatever is most bothering you, that will help you on the way to solve the problem.
No Use Crying
Cost: 2 minor
This spell provides a balm to those who have suffered mental or emotional trauma. To cast it, you must touch the subject and say something kind, whereupon it erases a single Hardened or Failed notch that they gained in the last minute, and snaps them out of any FFF state you’re in.
Strong Bones
Cost: 2+ minor
Cast this on someone (which may be you) who has drunk milk in the last hour. For minutes equal to the result, they gain +20 on Fitness checks, and become immune to any fracture to their bones (expressed as -3 damage on relevant injuries).
Witch’s Milk
Cost: 2 minor
Witch’s milk or neonatal milk is milk secreted from the breasts of around 5% of newborn human infants of either sex, due to the mother’s hormones. This spell takes the phenomenon and runs with it, causing a target of either sex to immediately begin lactating. This provokes a Self-3 check in women and an Unnatural-4 check in men. The effect lasts for a number of days equal to the lower of the result digits.
Milksop
Cost: 3 minor
Touch someone who has ingested a milk product within the past hour, and everyone else will consider them to be weak, useless or unimportant. For minutes equal to the result, they’ll suffer -10 to any forceful or aggressive actions, along with a Self-3 check the first time they attempt one (with Flee as the failure choice). In combat, everyone will ignore the target until they’ve dealt with anyone else. However, if the target actually harms someone, the effect immediately ends.