Brainstorming for a new Archetype

Depends on her goals and how much effort she is willing to put in to achieve them.

If she just wants money + power, go for the Merchant avatar. There is a Twilight Zone episode The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross that shows how the avatar works. You can probably watch it on YouTube.

If she wants to do something meaningful with her life, Epideromancy (fleshworking) will allow her to heal people, but you have to injure yourself to get charges.

If she is the type of person who wants magic because it’s cool, try videomancy it’s not particularly useful or powerful but, unlike most other schools, you can practice videomancy without screwing up your life.

Ritual magick. All the weirdness, but none of the inflexibility.

Narco-Alchemy. If she’s a starlet, the drug scene is right next door.

Both avatars and adepts can use ritual magic, no reason to concentrate on rituals alone when you can get them as a bonus.

BTW how did she become a starlet if she didn’t want fame? Wouldn’t she have needed to study acting and go to auditions? Or did she start out wanting to be an actress and then find out it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be?

It would be like bringing a knife to a gun fight. Also, she would be stuck with minor rituals only, unless she learns a charging ritual. And charging rituals are rare and jealously guarded.

Streetsamurai, channeling an avatar is sort of like acting, so you might want to go with an adept school instead.

A mechanomancer could probably do fairly well money wise. Build a few significant clockworks with the mechanic skill and have them restore classic automobiles for you to sell. Build a clockwork that looks like you and get it a couple undemanding jobs flipping burgers (no reason it shouldn’t work both the day and the night shift).

You don’t need mojo to be on top in the Underground. Look at the Superconductor and Alex Abel. What you really need is connections, and money, or both.

Well obviously, a good way to stay out of trouble is to stay off the radar. And by that I mean the radar of the Underground’s more unpleasant fellows who spend alot of resources to dispatch people who actually get into the situation of melting someone’s face and the cops interfering and thusly some heads turning in the way of the unnatural.

I would have said “Flying Woman” as an avatar for her would be funny, a neat little irony to have Flying Woman and a Masterless Man working next to eachother. But the problem with avatars for her is the rivalry, if she wants power just to defend herself and no world-view with it, then it’s a risk-reward kind of thing to go with because she already has a name and going an avatar path beyond the first channel will get heads turned her way–in the Underground, not among normal public. She doesn’t want fame, but wants protection, so taking an extra risk and step in those directions doesn’t sound like a reasonable way to go for her.

Then there’s Narco-Alchemy, which, stylistically, would fit quite well–it’s regarded as a minor school but can do some serious stuff, but the nice perk for a starlet who doesn’t want to be famous is that she could get into Narco-Alchemy via the drug scene (a natural thing for celebrities) and fall from grace of the public eye. The problem with adepts is that you take up a worldview.

And the character, so far, seems to have no conviction whatsoever, more lethargic and defensive than anything. Which is why I’d say, stick to a Masterless Man bodyguard, get contacts in the Underground, get rituals, get guns, get artifacts, get to work in the Underground and make some crazy pals who do the mojo *for* you. If she became a starlet even though she doesn’t like it, I’ll bet she has some good social and mental skills. That’s perfect to stay sane and make people do the dirtiest work *for* you while you stay in control.

Skills like “You Do What I Say!” and “Don’t Hit Me, I’m Innocent” can work wonders. Completely without mojo.

You seem to know something about the original poster’s game that I don’t.

First, I thought starlets generally had a good deal of cash over Average Joe unless they blow it all on drugs and immediately worthless luxury.

And about not being taken seriously, that’s my whole point. That’s how clued-in mundanes get around for so long in the underground, until they get the leverage to make themselves a name and secure themselves from troublemakers. What do you need mojo for, if nobody takes you seriously, nor wants to do anything to you? Low profile: it’s how all the top dogs started out, once. And you’ve got to start somewhere.

But there are some fundamental questions about this starlet character and “wanting something to support herself”: Why dive deep into the underground and not just skim the surface? Why start working some mojo and juju when she could stay mundane?

Yes, from the viewpoint of game mechanics, what you say is valid, and makes sense, don’t get me wrong. It’s just not making any to me in the sense of a living, breathing character. Someone who doesn’t know squat about the underground and isn’t already on some avatar path or inside some whacky little world of her own–who has the cash to hire a bodyguard, and skulk around not liking her occupation as a starlet–sounds like a wannabe with no real goals or determination, in terms of Unknown Armies. There’s not even any indication of her having an obsession.

Maybe I’ve understood something completely wrong about Unknown Armies, and I should shut up now. But people don’t just enter the occult underground and start working magic for shits and giggles, or as a hobby or your average 20% job for extra income. People in the underground are dedicated, determined, obsessive freaks who know what they want, they’re not like high school chicks deciding which pants to get at the mall. If that’s your angle in life, you may want to start it slow and use one of the backdoors, rather than jump into the middle of the fray and get eaten by the sharks before you know your heads from your tails. Is all I’m saying.

By far, the most important thing you mention for my angle of the discussion is the cause. It’s not just important to lead people, you need it if you want to work magic. Sure, you can just act the part if you go the avatar way, but at one point or the other you have a hard image to uphold and it helps to have a cause, otherwise you won’t get far (the first channel is relatively weak for avatars, the second isn’t but needs more work, the third and so forth are alot more powerful but then the rivalry will start cropping up). But for adepts? You must be absolutely convicted and see the world that way. Wanting to go to hogwarts and learning how to do some tricks won’t cut it. Getting mentored into the ways of an adept will make you go mad, and worse.

I’m just saying, I don’t think it’s very credible that a character in Unknown Armies would actually advise another to become an adept or channel an archetype. Because what you hear and probably come to believe of the underground is that all those people line the graveyards and have gone insane, and they are the tools for mundane folk. The Plutomancer? He’ll kiss your feet for buying him a donut because he’s gone on an accounting binge for days without food. The avatar of the Pilgrim? He has something to do, and if you help him do that, he’ll be grateful. The Epideromancer? Has a simple deal with you, he’ll heal you if you make sure he’s never put into hospital or under a doctor’s knife. All these kooks are surprisingly easy to satisfy with mundane means. You don’t need kewl powerz to convince people to do things, you just need to know what they want and give it to them in the right doses so they do what you want.

But the Plutomancer can’t invite potential corporate business partners to a meal in the most expensive restaurant of the world which nets a bill of over $10.000. You can, however, and the Plutomancer will probably be very grateful.

You can probably find a way to get the Pilgrim to do something for you if you make it look like it’s furthering both your and his goals together.

The Epideromancer’s rules in the book are one thing, but the way a real Epideromancer as a person would look at it implies that the thing with the medical alert bracelet you described is not really off the wall. However, that won’t stop some overzealous medic from trying to save her and pissing over religious exemption, even risking a lawsuit for the sake of saving lives, so having a partner-in-crime to ensure it doesn’t happen when going to do some dirty work in the Underground is perhaps worth noting.

People in the Underground most oftenly have obsessions. Adepts in particular have very strong, bizarre ones. Avatars don’t necessarily, but at one point you’re probably in so deep that you’ve got your obsession on your hands, and worst case scenario, your obsession conflicts with your path’s taboos. It boils down to this: people don’t become happy-go-lucky adepts. If they want the real deal of avatar power, they have to work for it, too, and sometimes that means getting your hands dirty or swimming in the pool with the sharks. Basically, what I’m trying to say is, people in the Occult Underground don’t recommend becoming some oddball adept or pursuing avatar powers without some serious words of caution. The only ones who do that are the rare weirdo adepts trying to get you to accept their own worldview and become just like them, or avatars who want you to take up a different path which will threaten their rival’s position on the ladder to the statosphere. And people without fitting obsession are normally turned off by the weirdness entailing the taboos and daily rituals of avatars and adepts, because, well, they lack the motivation to do such crazy stuff. Being a clued-in mundane duke is a much safer and saner road to take, but your mileage may vary–if the game features weirdness around every corner trying to eat your face and gunfights every day without any repercussions like lawsuits or law enforcement pursuing you, I guess you could just recommend fellow player characters to do some nasty stuff to themselves and others to gain some kewl powerz and, together, form a ring of the equivalent of the Captain Planet Team in the world of Unknown Armies.

Though, that’s just too far away from the personal horror feel of the game as I know it, I guess. That’s just my opinion. I believe there are many others prefer the game to be more lighthearted and humorous than me.