Post by thevoiceofgod on Mar 1, 2016 5:01:21 GMT -5
Helena takes Jude's hands in hers. "Of course you wouldn't say 'no'. You want to help. You stand for comfort, safety, and love. You embody nurturing... and protection. Mother makes everything better, and you don't get between her and her charges. Ready and willing, you choose the path, becoming The Mother." Your willingness to embrace the path, accompanying her general but valuable guidance, has awakened your understanding of what it means to be an Avatar.
Make the following changes to your character sheet:
Your morality path - currently Wisdom - changes to Avatar: The Mother. Its new value is 3. You gain a minor derangement as a result of this paradigm shift, which will fade when your Avatar level rises; your derangement is mild paranoia, manifesting as suspicion of others' motives not towards you, but towards those you choose to protect.
Mother cares for her charges - if you do not have Empathy at 3, you must raise it to that minimum as soon as possible. Mother defends her charges, and she'll do it with her bare hands, no question - if you do not have brawl at 3, you must raise it to that minimum as soon as possible.
It is completely contrary to the archetype for a Mother to harm her charges or stand idly by while her charge is harmed - Mother never ignores the suffering of her charges, tending to physical and emotional wounds as best she is able. This applies to those for whom you choose to take on the symbolic role, as well as extending to literal children who need Mother - anyone under the age of 12 who is in need of a Mother's care will probably trigger the archetype, though the presence of an apparent caretaker will alleviate this. The threshold may be higher or lower depending on the child in question, but never extends past the final stages of puberty - anywhere from 15 to 17. Acting in accordance with the archetype will entitle you to raise your Avatar level, or possibly even grant you a free Avatar level. Acting against the archetype will force a degeneration roll, with all that entails.
The powers granted by the Avatar are based on your path level. At level 3, you possess only the first channel; this power allows you to 'talk down' anyone who is under extreme duress, such as succumbing to fear or frenzy. All it takes is a few kind words, and you can quite literally make things all better. The supernatural terror inflicted by a frightening spirit could be washed away, allowing your charge to stand and confront the creature instead of flee. You can even cause physical injuries to regenerate simply by hand-wrapping the wound in cloth - the wounds cannot be particularly large ( two points of bashing, a single of lethal or aggravated ) but it will heal instantly (yes, that's right. Agg healing with nothing but a Mother's touch ). This particular use of the channel can only be done once every few days for a particular individual, however.
Channels function by rolling a d100 - basically two d10s, one which stands in for the tens place and the other for the ones place. In order to use a channel, the roll has to be below a certain value to succeed; at Avatar 3, a 39 or below succeeds. As you can see, chance of success increases with your Avatar level, all the way up to 99% at 9 ( what happens at 10 dots is, well, special ). You are aware that you will gain your next power at level 5, but do not know what that power will be ( unless you specifically research it at a later date ).
Helena releases Jude's hands, turning now to Cassidy. "You do need to know. It is in your nature; need." When she says 'you', you can tell she means both you and the Chief. "You need something, something you do not have. You cannot fulfill your purpose without it, the purpose for which the Underworld spat you out. But are you the Confessor, taking upon yourself the sins and burdens of others that they may find rest? Or are you the Hunter, relentlessly pursuing that which must be found whether to keep or destroy?" She spreads her arms wide, palms up. "It is your sacred duty to deal with that which is... troublesome... in the world of the unquiet dead. And you can fulfill this purpose either way."
Clasping her hands in front of her, Helena's attention falls upon Al once again. She pauses before speaking, exactly enough time for Cynosure to display another sequence of runes. Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics come to mind, and the phrase 'Three Laws Strong'. How exactly that is relevant is not clear, but it is Cynosure's answer.
Helena picks it up from there - sharing some of Cynosure's penchant for cryptic statements, but coming to her point as succinctly as possible with such a tricky subject. "Some say the poor construction of the universe opens avenues for power. Paradise was lost - by accident or design, it matters not - and where the fabric of reality wears thin, where it appears inconsistent, we can reach in and pluck the strings. Others suggest that the world of perception is maya, illusion, and common perception is essentially a lie. The occasional glimpses of truth past that veil - apparent contradictions all - are where true power is found. Still more believe that reality only behaves the way it does because its population generally agrees, on an unconscious level, on the mechanism of that function. The thought processes of the general population, though, are narrow and sloppy - if you're sharp enough to catch the mistakes, you can make use of the power inherent in that conflict.
"To the disciples of Atlantis, Paradox is about impossibility - the High Art bending the universe beyond the mundane physics of the Fallen World. That's true enough... but Paradox can be far more versatile, more difficult to define than that. Paradox is about a premise, apparently sound, that necessarily leads to a nonsensical conclusion. It's about friction between ideas... and if you don't think that's powerful, go tell a computer to divide by zero and get back to me. Of course, you can only get out of it what you put in; symbolic actions addressing such a Paradox grant a charge of energy - the bigger the action, the bigger the charge - and those charges in turn can create symbolically significant effects. But it's dangerous. You're holding an apparent contradiction to be true in your head; you cannot hold more than one." A hint of a smile crosses her face. "As you might expect, I only truly understand one such form of magic... but I do possess some theoretical understanding of others. The almighty dollar, for example, holds power. Every transaction involves someone giving that power to someone else. There's magic in that, but only in the having - if that's your magic, you must earn and never spend. But with that power you could, say, learn someone's price; not just for goods or services, but what it would take to make a man forgive a mortal enemy or kill a perfect stranger - willingly." She shrugs. "One art of many. I guess where you should go from here is to ask yourself... what interests you? Where do you think power can be found? Maybe you're right, but looking at it all wrong - and unlike Avatars, you have to know this path before walking it."
Make the following changes to your character sheet:
Your morality path - currently Wisdom - changes to Avatar: The Mother. Its new value is 3. You gain a minor derangement as a result of this paradigm shift, which will fade when your Avatar level rises; your derangement is mild paranoia, manifesting as suspicion of others' motives not towards you, but towards those you choose to protect.
Mother cares for her charges - if you do not have Empathy at 3, you must raise it to that minimum as soon as possible. Mother defends her charges, and she'll do it with her bare hands, no question - if you do not have brawl at 3, you must raise it to that minimum as soon as possible.
It is completely contrary to the archetype for a Mother to harm her charges or stand idly by while her charge is harmed - Mother never ignores the suffering of her charges, tending to physical and emotional wounds as best she is able. This applies to those for whom you choose to take on the symbolic role, as well as extending to literal children who need Mother - anyone under the age of 12 who is in need of a Mother's care will probably trigger the archetype, though the presence of an apparent caretaker will alleviate this. The threshold may be higher or lower depending on the child in question, but never extends past the final stages of puberty - anywhere from 15 to 17. Acting in accordance with the archetype will entitle you to raise your Avatar level, or possibly even grant you a free Avatar level. Acting against the archetype will force a degeneration roll, with all that entails.
The powers granted by the Avatar are based on your path level. At level 3, you possess only the first channel; this power allows you to 'talk down' anyone who is under extreme duress, such as succumbing to fear or frenzy. All it takes is a few kind words, and you can quite literally make things all better. The supernatural terror inflicted by a frightening spirit could be washed away, allowing your charge to stand and confront the creature instead of flee. You can even cause physical injuries to regenerate simply by hand-wrapping the wound in cloth - the wounds cannot be particularly large ( two points of bashing, a single of lethal or aggravated ) but it will heal instantly (yes, that's right. Agg healing with nothing but a Mother's touch ). This particular use of the channel can only be done once every few days for a particular individual, however.
Channels function by rolling a d100 - basically two d10s, one which stands in for the tens place and the other for the ones place. In order to use a channel, the roll has to be below a certain value to succeed; at Avatar 3, a 39 or below succeeds. As you can see, chance of success increases with your Avatar level, all the way up to 99% at 9 ( what happens at 10 dots is, well, special ). You are aware that you will gain your next power at level 5, but do not know what that power will be ( unless you specifically research it at a later date ).
Helena releases Jude's hands, turning now to Cassidy. "You do need to know. It is in your nature; need." When she says 'you', you can tell she means both you and the Chief. "You need something, something you do not have. You cannot fulfill your purpose without it, the purpose for which the Underworld spat you out. But are you the Confessor, taking upon yourself the sins and burdens of others that they may find rest? Or are you the Hunter, relentlessly pursuing that which must be found whether to keep or destroy?" She spreads her arms wide, palms up. "It is your sacred duty to deal with that which is... troublesome... in the world of the unquiet dead. And you can fulfill this purpose either way."
Clasping her hands in front of her, Helena's attention falls upon Al once again. She pauses before speaking, exactly enough time for Cynosure to display another sequence of runes. Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics come to mind, and the phrase 'Three Laws Strong'. How exactly that is relevant is not clear, but it is Cynosure's answer.
Helena picks it up from there - sharing some of Cynosure's penchant for cryptic statements, but coming to her point as succinctly as possible with such a tricky subject. "Some say the poor construction of the universe opens avenues for power. Paradise was lost - by accident or design, it matters not - and where the fabric of reality wears thin, where it appears inconsistent, we can reach in and pluck the strings. Others suggest that the world of perception is maya, illusion, and common perception is essentially a lie. The occasional glimpses of truth past that veil - apparent contradictions all - are where true power is found. Still more believe that reality only behaves the way it does because its population generally agrees, on an unconscious level, on the mechanism of that function. The thought processes of the general population, though, are narrow and sloppy - if you're sharp enough to catch the mistakes, you can make use of the power inherent in that conflict.
"To the disciples of Atlantis, Paradox is about impossibility - the High Art bending the universe beyond the mundane physics of the Fallen World. That's true enough... but Paradox can be far more versatile, more difficult to define than that. Paradox is about a premise, apparently sound, that necessarily leads to a nonsensical conclusion. It's about friction between ideas... and if you don't think that's powerful, go tell a computer to divide by zero and get back to me. Of course, you can only get out of it what you put in; symbolic actions addressing such a Paradox grant a charge of energy - the bigger the action, the bigger the charge - and those charges in turn can create symbolically significant effects. But it's dangerous. You're holding an apparent contradiction to be true in your head; you cannot hold more than one." A hint of a smile crosses her face. "As you might expect, I only truly understand one such form of magic... but I do possess some theoretical understanding of others. The almighty dollar, for example, holds power. Every transaction involves someone giving that power to someone else. There's magic in that, but only in the having - if that's your magic, you must earn and never spend. But with that power you could, say, learn someone's price; not just for goods or services, but what it would take to make a man forgive a mortal enemy or kill a perfect stranger - willingly." She shrugs. "One art of many. I guess where you should go from here is to ask yourself... what interests you? Where do you think power can be found? Maybe you're right, but looking at it all wrong - and unlike Avatars, you have to know this path before walking it."
