Along with song and dance, creating images is among the earliest ways of making magick. The spectacular lions, deer and rhinos of Chauvet Cave are around 30,000 years old, and clearly have mystical significance. Painting on hard surfaces is all very well, but if you’re a hunter gatherer that migrates along with the game, you have to leave that magick back in the cave. But, there is a way to take it with you: push that magick into your skin with needle and pigment, and you become a living surface, inscribed with power.

There is archaeological evidence of tattoo tools and human figurines adorned with body art that suggests people may have been tattooing their bodies as far back as 50,000 years ago. Ötzi, a 5,300-year-old, frozen mummy discovered near the Italian-Austrian border, had 61 tattoos. Stigmatamancy has a hell of a pedigree.

Around the world, across cultures, tattoos have held great significance; Ancient Siberian nomads, Indigenous Polynesians, Nubians, Native South Americans and Greeks all used tattoos. In the millennia since Ötzi was inked, tattoos proliferated worldwide. For thousands of years, tattoos have been used for religious affiliation, ritual, protection, adornment, to signify status, and even forms of punishment. Many societies associate tattoos with deviance and criminality, a stigma which can be traced back to Ancient Greece, where tattoos were used to mark slaves and prisoners of war. Other negative examples come from Dynastic China, Japan, the American circus, and the Holocaust. Throughout history, tattoos have exposed larger patterns, that of racism, hegemony, and ostracism. And it’s that juxtaposition, between the visible permanent mark that exposes the hidden, and society’s reaction to it, that originally gave Stigmatamancy its power.

But no more. The days of shocked gasps at the sight of the sideshow tattooed lady are over. These days, 32% of people in the USA – by no means the world’s most permissive society – have a tattoo. When teenage girls are getting butterfly ankle tattoos as a matter of course, it’s safe to say that the glory days of Stigmatamancy are over. With most of the symbolic tension drained, the school has been relegated to Minor status. While it’s still able to muster some surprises, most adepts have written it off as an archaic magick no longer relevant in these postmodern times.

Ω: 0

Domain: The image is not the item; the menu is not a meal. Symbolism is paramount, as is ostracism.

Generate a Minor Charge: Spend four continuous hours having one of your tattoos worked on. You can’t charge if you do this yourself, and the tattooist doesn’t need to have any aesthetic skill; getting a prison tat is just as effective as visiting a top-drawer inker. Alternately, convince someone to get a new tattoo; you get the charge when the ink first penetrates their skin.
The third option, is to spend six hours naked, while you meditate on and contemplate your tattoos, or to have someone else – who must not be tattooed – spend three hours doing the same. Back in the old sideshow days, the school was powerful enough that you could charge while remaining modestly clothed while gawkers paused and whispered for a minute, but that time is long gone.

Taboo: You’re a mobile canvas, with limited space on your body. Your Stigmatamancy rank indicates just how much of your hide is inked, so you better look after it. If one of your tattoos is defaced – whether by injury or surgery – you taboo (make a Stigmatamancy check to see if a tattoo was affected). If you opt to remove a tattoo, you likewise taboo and your Stigmatamancy drops by some amount; however, it does allow the space be reused for new images.

Starting Charges: 8 Minor

Minor Spells

Aftercare
Cost: 1 minor
This basic spell, when cast upon a wound, numbs pain, prevents infection, and heals damage equal to the units of the result.

B-Back
Cost: 1 minor
Named for the customers who chicken-out during a tattoo session (usually with “I gotta run to the ATM; I’ll be back.”), and never return. You can only cast this on someone that you just met, i.e. within the last five minutes. They must then either make some lame excuse, vacate the area, and stay away for a number of minutes equal to the units of the result, or else make a Self-4 check. They can return once the duration is up, and you have no control over what they do while they’re away – they might be calling for reinforcements.

Devotion
Cost: 1 minor
To use this, you must have already established that you have the relevant tattoo. Cast the spell while displaying a tattoo that exemplifies a particular sentiment, like “Mom” for familial bonds, a heart for love, clasped hands or “Bros 4 Eva” for comradeship, doves for peace, skulls and daggers for violence, and so on. The person that you target will notice and comment on the tattoo, and experience the associate emotion or sentiment for a number of minutes equal to the result. You don’t have any control over how they’ll react to the upwell of emotion, but at least you’ll have an idea of what you’re working with.

Ensemble, Assemble
Cost: 1 minor
A relatively simple spell, this makes your tattoos move across your skin as you will. Handy for rearranging things if you need to clear an area that may be marred, simply to shake things up a bit, or because whoever’s interviewing you for that dream job may not appreciate the sentiments expressed by what’s inked on your forehead. Most tattoos just slide around, but human or animal representatives may animate and move around like little cartoon shows. The effect lasts number of minutes equal to the lowest result digit, or until you choose to end it. Witnessing the unusual sight provokes an Unnatural-3 check.

Fresh Meat
Cost: 1 minor
Cast this on a target, and their skin will feel raw and sensitive, like they’ve just come out from under the needle. The sensation is so distracting that any action they perform that requires finesse or concentration – usually including magick – suffers a -10 penalty. The effect lasts for minutes equal to the result.

Green Soap
Cost: 1 minor
Cast this useful spell and the area in a radius around you equal to the tens of your Stigmatamancy rank in yards, will be cleaned and sterilized. Chances of infection are reduced by your Stigmatamancy rank, spilled bodily fluids, fingerprints and DNA evidence vanish, and the area is left smelling vaguely of disinfectant.

Pussyball
Cost: 1 minor
Named for the tennis ball provided for nervous customers to squeeze during tattooing, this spell may be reflexively cast on someone when they suffer a Stress check. It cranks up their anxiety level, increasing the rank of the check by 2, and limiting the failure options to freeze or flight.

Scatch Tat
Cost: 1 minor
Some people don’t deserve tattoos; whether because they’re terrible people, the tattoo is horribly executed or offensive, or because you just don’t like them. As a result, this spell is only effective when cast on someone who has a tattoo. You don’t actually need to know if they’re inked when you cast, but if they aren’t, then the spell fails and still consumes a charge. The spell turns the ink in one of the target’s tattoos caustic, searing it into their body for an amount of damage equal to the sum of the result, along with an Unnatural-5 check. The tattoo is destroyed in the process – which is why this is the go-to weapon in Stigmatamancer-on-Stigmatamancer conflicts – and leaves scars behind in the same pattern.

Sharps Container
Cost: 1 minor
Cast this on a sharp object and unless it’s an artifact, the item will permanently lose its edge or point (until resharpened). This eliminates the automatic 1 wound point suffered for being on the receiving end in a knife fight, and instead of inflicting damage equal to the sum of the result, the sharp object now inflicts damage only equal to the lower of the result digits. While it’s useful against knives and the like, it won’t have any effect on objects that primarily inflict injury due to kinetic impact, like bullets.

Social Stigma
Cost: 1 minor
Social disapproval of tattoos is still prevalent in society, no matter how much we like to think otherwise. This spell taps into that sense, assaulting a tattooed target with all the shame and anger they’ve ever experienced, when people see their ink and look away or sneer. The flood of emotion forces them to suffer an Isolation-4 check. The spell simply fails if used on an un-tattooed target.

The Look
Cost: 1 minor
Tattoos can be a bridge between people who otherwise have nothing in common. This spell only works on someone who also has a tattoo, and will have a negative effect if they don’t. Cast on a fellow ink aficionado, it evokes a sense of pride and nostalgia in them, reminding them of how they felt when they got their tattoos. Since they see something of themself in you, you are able to flip-flip any Connect or Status checks that you make in relation to them, for a number of minutes equal to the higher of the result digits. However, if you mistakenly cast this on someone who doesn’t have a tattoo, or has had one removed, then the relevant checks are flip-flopped for the worse.

Tramp Stamp
Cost: 1 minor
Tattoos and sex are old bedfellows, and they still hook up whenever they can. Cast this while showing off your ink or engaging in a conversation about tattoos with someone who would find you attractive (your preferences are irrelevant for the purpose of this spell). You’ll intuit something about their sexual history or proclivities that’ll be useful to you, whether for blackmail purposes, options in the bedroom, or simply to shock and embarrass them. If a check is required to apply the advantage, you get to flip-flop one of them when acting on the info.

Gang Mark
Cost: 2 minor
Tattoos are often used to indicate social affiliation, and this spell lets you take advantage of that. If you’re in the presence of at least two other people who share the same tattoo, whether they’re Yakuza, prison inmates, bikers or Holocaust survivors, they’ll consider you to be one of them. The spell doesn’t provide any knowledge about the group or how to otherwise fit in, so you’re on your own there.

Iron & Ink
Cost: 2 minor
The use of tattoos for protection and ward off bad luck or evil originates in prehistory, and this spell taps into that legacy. Cast this and, for a number of hours equal to the higher digit of the result, any physical attack made against you suffers 20 Difficulty. In addition, while the spell is active, you may reflexively spend a charge to have an attack that would have hit you fail instead, as long as your Stigmatamancy is greater than the attacker’s result.

Treachery of Images
Cost: 2+ minor
This spell enables you to translate one of your tattoos of an object or creature into reality. When cast, the tattoo vanishes from your body, and manifests in your hand as an imago. However, there are a few caveats:

• You must have previously (in a prior scene) established that you have the particular tattoo you’re targeting.
• The imago must be something from the real world (the days of Stigmatamancy bringing dragons into being are long gone), and may be no bigger or heaver than a person can comfortably hold with one hand.
• The imago’s manifested size can be no bigger than one-quarter larger than the tattoo it came from.
• Exact representation is impossible; the imago will be an average expression of its kind, but will arrive ready to use, i.e. a beer bottle will contain beer, a pistol will have a full clip, etc.
• Living creatures require an extra charge to manifest. They have intelligence comparable to their species, but will attempt to obey your commands as best they can.
• If the imago is damaged, normal taboo conditions apply.

The imago lasts for a number of minutes equal to the result, before it crumbles into blue-black dust and reappears on your body.

Serious Ink
Cost: 3 minor
Tattoos have long been worn to enhance performance, from HOLD FAST tattooed across a sailor’s knuckles to symbols of power on a pitcher’s arm or runner’s leg. Cast this and tap into the raw power provided by your ink to gain +20 to physical actions related to Fitness, Pursuit and Struggle for a number of minutes equal to the result.