One of my players is a fan of Seanan McGuire’s Velveteen stories and wanted a doll-oriented school, so I adapted and expanded Pupamancy for 3e.

Dolls are toys, and almost everyone played with them as a child (calling GI Joe an “action figure” can’t obscure its true nature). Dolls are endearing and disturbing at the same time, because we can see the human in them, but at the same time we know that they are not really alive. In a way, a doll is like a dead person: almost human, but not quite.

Pediomancers care a little bit too much about dolls. Most people see a doll as a toy, but to a Pediomancer, every doll is a person – a safe, compliant person they can move and pose and change and control. And the more a Pediomancer can see dolls and people as the same, the safer and more pliant people become, too.

Dealing with dolls is an inherently childlike act, and as a result, no child can become a Pediomancer – it lacks any symbolic tension for a child. Many adepts, though, have highly regressive behaviors, sometimes as a means of coping with childhood trauma, and sometimes as an escape mechanism. Others instead hold contempt for the idea that their dolls are childlike, and insist that they do not deal with children’s toys, but serious models of human likeness.

Pediomancers are often simultaneously cheerful and callous, disturbing and charming. They treat people like objects and objects like people. Dolls are objects that can be moved or changed like objects, but they’re also like people and can seem to show personality and desire.

Ω: 1

Domain: Pediomancy relates to helplessness and control, and mixes and blurs the boundary between humans and inanimate objects.

Generate a Minor Charge: Spend three continuous hours constructing dolls. Constructing, in this case, can also involve hand-making clothes and accessories for the doll.

Generate a Significant Charge: Successfully impersonate an inanimate humanoid object for two hours. At least one person must misidentify you as a mannequin (or robot, or whatever), no-one can identify you as human, and you must be constantly visible to at least one person. If you’re outed as a human, or if you’re ever out of everyone’s line of sight, the clock resets. Holding the same pose for hours at a time is going to require a Fitness check, and you can’t acquire a charge from the same place or people more than once per day.

Generate a Major Charge: Create a doll that becomes a well-recognized personality. Barbie is a great example; others include Raggedy Ann or Chucky. Replace a part of yourself with something that would be used to create a doll. This must be as exact as possible and must be visible under normal circumstances.

Taboo: You must always treat human-like dolls as if they were human, regardless of their size or shape; you cannot treat a doll like an inanimate object. You don’t have to treat them kindly (“I am executing you for your crimes, Mr. Cowboy”), but you cannot treat a doll in a way you wouldn’t treat a human. Note that it’s your behavior that counts here, not your thoughts and opinions.

Starting Charges: 8 Minor

For the purposes of spells and charging, a “doll” is any object crafted to resemble a human being. This includes mannequins, puppets, action figures, statues, artist’s wooden models, blow-up sex dolls, and so forth. Quite a wide degree of distortion is fine – Kewpie and Bratz dolls are fine – but when the doll is no longer human, it loses the symbolic tension necessary for Pediomancy. So, while Teddy Ruxpin and Tickle-Me-Elmo are dolls, they’re magically inert as far as you’re concerned.

Minor Spells

Charlie McCarthy
Cost: 1 minor
This spell enables you to cause a voice to come from anything that has the image of a face – a doll, photograph, painting, statue, reflection, or whatever. The lips of the enchanted image don’t move, but you control what the voice sounds like and what it says, for a number of minutes equal to ones of the casting result.

Dress Up
Cost: 1 minor
This spell instantly (and permanently) changes any or all of the clothing or hair of a single doll or person (which may be you). The new clothing will be of an appropriate size, and you can’t add or remove any clothes, but otherwise can be whatever you like. This only affects things that are worn; if an object has a purpose besides clothing, ornamentation, or carrying, or if it’s something not commonly worn, it can’t be affected. You could change a dress shirt into a backpack or a pair of pants into a frilly skirt, but you couldn’t change a wristwatch or a bulletproof vest. The result will not be worth more than a few hundred dollars, and must make a coordinated ensemble, but it can be as stylish or embarrassing as you choose.

Sparkle!
Cost: 1 minor
Cast this spell on yourself, and your appearance subtly changes to make you “cute”. For a number of minutes equal to the casting result, you gain +10% on any action that involves your appearance.

Accessories Included
Cost: 2 minor
Cast this spell and you can reach into your pocket, purse or backpack, and draw forth a doll accessory, which transforms into a real-world example of that accessory as it leaves the container. You must have previously put the accessory in the container in order to draw it forth, and the accessory may only be something that you can hold and operate with one hand. The accessory appears charged and fully functional, and is a generic example of its kind. Nothing of real value can result from the spell; weapons are cheap knockoffs, money can pass for real in dim light but will fail any close inspection, and jewelry is costume jewelry. If you use the spell on an accessory that doesn’t exist in the real world, it either fails or produces the nearest equivalent, so a Wonder Woman’s magic lasso accessory would get you… a length of rope. Still, sometimes it’s handy to produce a Bob the Builder power saw, or a GI Joe grenade.

Chatty Cathy
Cost: 2 minor
For this divination spell, you need a doll that has a speech function, like the eponymous Cathy. Cast the spell with a question in mind, and pull the string, press the button, etc. that causes the doll to speak. Rather than the doll’s usual stock of recorded phrases, it will say something that gives you insight into the question at hand.

China Doll
Cost: 2 minor
When you cast this spell on a target, their body becomes unusually fragile. The next time they suffer at least one point of damage, they also suffer additional damage equal to the sum of the casting result, as the area around the initiating wound cracks, breaks or shatters like porcelain. The victim also suffers an Unnatural-5 check, due to the bizarre nature of the wound.

Hollow Head
Cost: 2 minor
When confronted with something disturbing, it often helps to encounter it with a doll’s blank indifference. You may cast this spell reflexively when you or someone else makes a Stress check to lower the severity of the check by two.

Playtime
Cost: 2 minor
Cast this spell on a target and narrate an action to them, as if you were playing with dolls (“And then the grumpy Mr. Purple Tie turned and shot Mr. Baldyhead in the face, because Mr. Baldyhead was being a big meanie”). You can only use one breath to narrate the action, and the target must be able to hear you. The target then suffers an irrational compulsion to play out the action, and must either follow through or suffer a Helplessness-4 check.

Porcelain Limbs
Cost: 2 minor
When you cast this spell, you fall into a catatonic state, becoming mindless and unable to move for a number of hours equal to sum of the casting result. You must specify a condition that would cause you to wake up; which must be something you’d normally notice if fully aware. Until that condition is met or the spell expires, any attempts to read your mind, possess you, discern your motives, or anything else related to you as a conscious being will fail. After waking, you won’t remember anything from the intervening time.

Rough and Tumble
Cost: 2 minor
Play is all in good fun; seldom serious or dangerous beyond a bruise or two. When you cast this spell as a normal action, it insulates the target (which may be you) from the consequences of the next deliberate attack made against them, causing the attack to simply miss or fail, regardless of what the attacker rolled. If cast reflexively in response to an attack, the spell requires an extra minor charge, and your Pediomancy Identity must be higher than the attacker’s result for it to succeed.

Glass Eyes
Cost: 3 minor
Cast this spell and you can look out through the eyes of any doll within a range in miles equal to the ones of the casting result. You only gain vision (your body is blind for the duration), and the spell lasts for a number of minutes equal to the casting result. Unless you know the location of a particular doll, you must cycle through the dolls within range to find what you’re looking for by making a Notice check, which takes a number of minutes equal to 10 minus the tens result. This spell can be used to extend the range of Charlie McCarthy and Puppet Strings to the doll whose eyes you’re using.

Significant Spells

Patches and Stitches
Cost: 1 significant
This spell takes about ten minutes and requires a needle and thread, patches, and possibly cotton stuffing or wood. You can repair human flesh as if it were that of a cloth doll, healing damage equal to casting result. The wounded area will look like patched-up cloth until it would heal otherwise, and will leave very odd-looking scars.

Puppet Strings
Cost: 1+ significant
Cast this spell and you can possess a human (or doll; it’s all the same) that you can see, and move their body like a puppet, while your body remain comatose. The spell lasts for a number of minutes equal to the higher of the result dice, though you can extend the duration the same increment by spending additional charges. If the host is killed or destroyed, your consciousness returns to your body, none the worse for wear.
If you target a human, the victim remains conscious and aware, but powerless to stop you (resulting in a Helplessness-7 check). You don’t get access to the victim’s thoughts, memories, skills, or mannerisms, you just control their physical form and can speak with their voice. Unless, you’re a good actor, your posture, mannerisms, and speech patterns remain your own, and may appear bizarre to those who know the host well (provoking an Unnatural-2 check). If you do anything that would cause a Stress check while in control of the victim, they will also be required to make a check.
If you target a doll, the host is able to move only within the limits of its normal body. That is, an articulated doll can walk and manipulate objects, and talk, if it normally has speech capability (just the ability to say, “Ma-ma” is good enough). Movement varies from difficult for dolls with limited articulation, such as mannequins, to impossible for dolls without joints, like statues. The GM will decide on the damage capability and wound threshold for possessed dolls as necessary.

Uncanny Valley
Cost: 1 significant
This spell messes with a target’s ability to recognize others as people, causing them to perceive everyone as creepy, not-quite-human entities. When you cast the spell, decide whether you want to affect multiple people with a weaker effect, or to plunge a single target deep into the Valley. If you target a group, you can force a number of people equal to the ones of the casting result to suffer an Isolation-4 check. If you focus on a single target, they suffer an Isolation check equal to the sum of the casting result (to a maximum of 10).

Mannequin
Cost: 2 significant
This spell freezes someone in their current pose, making it very difficult for them to move. For a number of physical actions equal to the tens of the casting result, the victim suffers a penalty equal to -10% multiplied by the ones of the result, to a minimum of 1%. If the check fails, they are unable to move their limbs to perform the action. Even the simple act of moving requires a Fitness check. After each action, they return to the pose they were in when you hit them with the spell. If anyone else moves their limbs for them, the spell is instantly broken.

Pygmalion’s Wish
Cost: 2 significant
Cast this spell to summon a demon from across the Veil, and bind it into a dead body or doll. The spell doesn’t give you any control over the demon, or any way to banish it, so you’re on your own as far as that’s concerned. The body animates, and can move and interact according to its limitations. The spell lasts for a number of hours equal to the ones of the casting result, after which the demon is free to depart its host, if it desires.

Ragdoll
Cost: 2 significant
This spell makes your body as soft and pliant as if it were stuffed with rags, for a number of minutes equal to the casting result. While in this state, your limbs and body may be bent and folded without injury, or compressed and stuffed into confined spaces; which makes slipping out of handcuffs and crawling into air ducts a snap. Any crushing or impact type injury only inflicts damage equal to the lower digit of the attack result. Anyone witnessing your body squashing out of shape like this, suffers an Unnatural-5 check. When the spell ends, your body structure reverts to normal, so best not to be in a confined space when that happens.

Dream House
Cost: 3 significant
Dolls get all the nice accessories, like beautiful clothes, horses, jewelry, cars, houses, hunky boyfriends, and so on. This spell ensures that you (or whomever you’re cast the spell for) can achieve the lifestyle you dreamed of while paging through that Barbie catalog. Simply identify a doll-oriented accessory that you want – and which exists in the real world – and cast this spell. Coincidence and synchronicity will conspire to grant your wish, though usually through the least possible effort (because the universe wants to make it to the bar for Happy Hour). The spell can only produce generic results; so you can request a mansion, but not the mansion at 114 Smithfield St. You’ll always get your desire, but there could be additional complications, particularly with high-value items, which may already belong to or be coveted by someone else.

Major Effects

Bring a doll to life permanently. Become an unaging living doll. Remove someone’s personal traits surgically. Graft new parts onto people. Turn a clockwork person into flesh.