Nick D.I’m working on an idea for an Adept School, but it’s pretty radical so I wanted to get some input.
Bassically, I like the schools in the UA book that have alternate charge schemes. A clever and appropriate charge scheme can really give a tangible edge to a school’s thematic element. So that’s the kind of school I would want to make.
However I tossed all that away, keeping the ancient Indian mysticism background but tied to a far more powerful modern concept- combining the ancient mystical awareness of breath to the modern awareness of the quality of the air.
The idea is that this school emerged and peaked during the period between the Surgeon General’s Warning (and LA smog) but before the Hole in the Ozone and then Global Warming took the focus away from the quality of the air to more attention grabbing apocalyptic concerns.
These people, these Breatharians, are obsessed with the the process of breathing. Food keeps the body alive, but breath is the food of the soul. When you breath in your feeding your mind in a very literal way. Those who go too long without breath damage their higher functions. And when you breath out your expanding your consciousness outside of yourself.
So I have a core tension, involving that breath is power but to use it you have to lose it (you have to expend your vital breath to expand your conciousness).
And the general idea covers such things as the random magick domain: extending your consciousness beyond yourself.
However, the real sink or swim part of this idea is the charge scheme.
I’m thinking that the taboo is built in. That is, since the tension/theme is that breathing in gives you the power but breathing out is the only way to use it, that Breatharians are unable to store minor charges. However, those charges are never more than a breath away.
Yes, a Breatharian only needs to breath in deeply for a moment and then breath out, but with that outward breath they need to cast to the spell or else they loose the charge (you don’t have to take this literally if that wouldnt quite work with the timing cnocerns. You could say that the breath you expended lingers around long enough for you to cast the spell, ect.) But bassically, no storing.
Depending on the quality of the air and the meditative nature of the breath you took, you can get 1 to 4 charges, allowing you to perform any of the Minor Formualae, in theory.
Because of this, Breatharians are able to in theory pull off spell after spell, but the power of the spells involved depends entirely on the quality of the air (and their ability to take a deep peaceful breath). One might be powerless inside of a smoke-filled bar, have an endless supply of the most basic of tricks in regular city air, and be pulling off the more powerful minor formulae in fresh mountain air.
Nick D.Signifigant charges work on the inverse of this principle. A Breatharian goes to some place where the air is thick with the cosmic essence of the universe and meditates, purifying all the breath in their body. Depending on the time spent and cosmicness of the air of the place the number of charges would vary. When the Breatharian is done with this ascetic hermitage he can return to the world and do all the normal things…except for magic.
The moment the Breatharian expends any of his breath, all of it will go with it. So he won’t be able to any minor spells without wasting it all until he’s done the signifigant spell it was meant for. However a Breatharian can carry their cosmic breath with them for the rest of their life if they want. Their are stories of an old Breatharian being attacked in Paris and performing a particularily nasty spell on his attackers with the breath he had been saving since he had meditated in Tibet a decade ago.
Maybe, to make lesser Sig spells still relevant, once you breath out your cosmic breath you can do several sig spells within a relatively short period of time before it disperses rather than always having to spend it all in a single spell.
Major charges are unheard of. In theory you’d have to breath in the aether, which most agree would mean chewing on the vacuum of space. It’s thought that if a Breatharian had ever gotten a Major charge, he spent it immediatley on allowing his consciousness to survive the death of his body.
Anyways, I’v posted here because I was wondering if this charge scheme is remotely feasible or if it’s a step too far towards keeping things thematic.
Nick D.Well my breath magic school was deemed decidedly more new age than post modern, and that evolved into an idea for a school where obsessive compulsive types see mental/spiritual defects as parasitic insect infestations on people, that no one else can see. That I may futher develop and submit at some point, but for now I’v come up with an idea for a joke school: and by joke I mean in incredibly bad taste. However the logic behind it is solid, as far as symbolic tension and such goes.
Maybe it’ll inspire someone to use as a particularily nasty antagonist, or just as a rumour in the occult underground.
I’ll post it next.
Nick D.Akratimancy
AKA: Januses, Fine Young Cannibals, but mostly…Addicts.
I got the idea for a adept school for cannibals and serial killers that attend AA and other support group meetings out of a desire to become more human.
To be a part of this school means your a serial killer or cannibal. Your either addicted to a particular ritualized form of killing, a specific target profile of victim, or to human flesh. You also have to one that hasn’t been caught. Oh, and you’re obsessed with AA, knowing that it’s helping you become more human (while in the back of your mind you know it’s just helping you do what you want without being inconvenienced by becoming completely inhuman).
Symbolic Tension: The unnatural obsession with becoming natural, which is unnatural for someone who identifies with the unnatural (also: adhering to a code meant to purge you of a habit, simply as a way to allow you to pursue that habit unburdened spiritually)
Taboo: Miss one of the scheduled meetings, go a day without participating in the twelve steps in some way; getting caught in a way that will interfere with the program for you (being seen by someone isn’t a problem, as long as your AA group doesn’t find out, which means the cops can’t tie it back to you and nobody proves it to them or your screwed). Fortunately this only applies to the addiction. Getting caught doing the other crazy shit dukes do isn’t a problem as long as your still able to attend your meetings.
Generate a Minor Charge: Indulge your addiction in a way that doesn’t harm anyone directly. Killers stalk a victim without indulging on the act, cannibals eat flesh from a corpse in the morgue (for example).
Generate a Signifigant Charge: Have a major relapse (re: someone dies to satisfy the addiction) wihout violating the taboo.
Generate a Major Charge: Reach the 12th step, becoming a sponsor and a chapter leader after years of membership, while becoming successfull your secret “career” the whole time. This is harder than it sounds: if you can become a nationally known and feared serial killer without getting caught and while balancing a lifelong devotion to AA, you deserve the freaking charge.
Random Magick Domain: This school is about having your cake and eating it to, looking well adjusted while being seriously twisted, getting what you want without feeling guilty about. In short: balancing on the edge. In shorter: duality.
Blast Style: You don’t have one. Aren’t you dangerous enough already?
Major Effects: “Step 12- have a spiritual awakening” Become immune to sociopathy and never feel guilt again; seperate into two different people- a good person and a gleefull monster.
Nick D.Well I hardly have anything in a finished format, and as for the breath thing, it seemed once I ran it by some people that it’s modern hook was strong enough to offset it’s ancient mysticism roots. I had just wanted to bridge the two, like Narco-Alchemy does, but since my idea wasn’t based around a self-destructive act or a modern concept except environmental awarenes and like the current vibe against smokers, it didn’t seem good enough.
Insect KingIt’s fine. The joy of post-modernism is that your expression of an idea can never be wrong since it’s all relative and subjective.
Go for it. If you need a new philosophy, we be glad to help out.
C.
Nick D.On the subject of the Januses, just cuz they would make such great villains (though I will go back and look at the haliturgy (breathing magic) and see if I can hammer it out) some ideas for Akratimancy formula spells:
Heads/Tails: A spell that makes the Janus appear the opposite of his usual demeanor. The harmless is made to look menacing, the menacing to look harmless. Not a physical change or an illusionary disguise, just the percieved mannerisms and such that people judge threats by.
Though the real villain potential is an Akratimancer that already got and used a major charge: either a serial killer whose not a sociopath, thus able to blend into society, but feels no guilt; or the good man that doesn’t remember his past and doesn’t know why he’s being stalked by a gleefull murderer (that’s really the sick part of himself, seperated by the major effect into a seperate body).
Nick D.Here’s one of my better versions of the breath magick school:
The Haliturge
AKA Breatharians
Everyone respirates. But you know that to truly breath is to exhale your spirit into the cosmos.
It started in 1964, with the Surgeon General’s Warning, and lasted until the Montreal Protocol of 1987. A brief period where people in modern society questioned the purity of the air they breathed, before such environmental concerns switched over to flashier scares like the Hole in the Ozone Layer and Global Warming. It was during this period that a group of yoga gurus and new agers formed the movement that spawned the adept school of Haliturgy. For a while people really cared about getting fresh air, for the first time since the age of the industrialization began. The smog over LA alone generated a lot of followers into the occult mainstream version of the movement. But trendier and more attention grabbing environmental concerns eventually killed off the movement. However, a few individual emerged from this with their perceptions awakened, and they’v been riding that wave ever since.
Each adept school is based around a particular view of the universe, which it’s adepts know is true. Haliturgy is no different. The Breatharians (not to be confused with those starvation people) percieve the universe as being punctuated by a deafening pulse. This is their newly awakened powers of perception, allowing them to hear 6.6 billion (and counting) humans breathing. Each breath expels a bit of the exhaler’s spirit, spirit that mingles with the cosmic essence and forms waves audible to those who have expanded their conciousness.
Haliturges have mastered the art of inhaling properly, through meditation and self-purification, allowing them to directly imbibe of the cosmic essence. However, this higher method can only be achieved after you have learned to extend your awareness out into the universe with each breath you let go. First you breathe out, only then can you breathe in.
The central paradox of Haliturgy is that breath is power, but it’s a power that’s meaningless unless your willing to give it away. Each time you breathe, truly breathe, there is a moment of sublime awareness- a fleeting touch of godhood that you can’t maintain any more than you could breathe water.
Nick D.Blast Style: Haliturges allow a tendril of their conciousness to escape with their breath and assault that of their target, an invisible attack to the victim’s perceptual self. This attack can cause dizziness, disorientation, or even a coma if the Haliturge’s projected self is that overwhelming.
STATS
Generate a Minor Charge: Breathe in, deeply. Good. Now breath out. (Number of charges depend on the quality of the breath itself and the quality of the air)
Generate a Signifigant Charge: Spend time meditating in a place where the air is so thin it mixes in heavily with the cosmic essence of the universe. (Number of charges depend on the power of the place and the time spent meditating)
Generate a Major Charge: Most Haliturges agree that this would require breathing in the vacuum of space. It’s assumed that any who have achieved this expended that charge on allowing their conciousness to survive beyond their bodies.
Taboo: For Minor Charges, the Breatharian cannot hold it in. The spell must be cast with the exhalation or the charges gained from the breath are lost. Major Charges work differently. They can be held indefinetly, but no other spells can be cast without releasing the stored up cosmic essence (you can’t perform minor formulae while holding signifigant charges without wasting all the stored charges).
Random Magick Domain: Extending your conciousness outside of your body.
Starting Charges: None, but they’re only a breath away.
Charging Tips: The smart Haliturge avoids getting in conflicts in say, smoke-filled bars, where no charges may be possible. Even in less than ideal air, at least rapid cheap spells are possible. However, in areas with clean air, and of course the time to take a proper meditative breath, more powerful spells can be pulled off. This all applies to minor charges. When it comes to the signifigant, Haliturges have been known to save them up and abstain from all magick until a needed moment. No Haliturge is said to truly retire, some just soak in as many signifigant charges as they can and then return to civilization.
Note: These guys might seem a bit mellow for the Occult Underground, but that can be changed in presentation. An ex-hippie whose spent the past few decades sliding into his obsession and who is obsessive-compulsive about air quality can provide a nervous, flakey foil for the average 20-something generation X punk in the OU. Remember, for these guys the smog in the air is the equivalent of CIA fluoridation of the water supply. They can be plenty freaked out if you present it right.
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