Irascimancy
AKA Furies, Trolls, Assholes Note: Irascimancy first appeared in Unknown Armies 1st Edition in the source book Post Modern Magick. All I have done is update it slightly for 3rd Edition. Anger is the greatest impetus for change. It is more immediate than love, more genuine than altruism, more sustainable than terror. Many other emotions make their crossroads through anger (grief leads there, as does hate) and the Irascimancer strives to harness the prime magickal energy that goes along with it. Wielded as a weapon or contained just beneath the surface, anger is at times almost a palpable thing that gives off a vibe and leaves its sticky signature in the air between friends and stranger alike. Irascimancers generate charges by interposing themselves in arguments, conflicts, and confrontations. They cannot gain charges from a fight they mundanely benefit from, but instead soak up anger that’s redirected at them or that is the result of their senseless aggression. A counselor or a conflict mediator is the perfect front for an Irascimancer trying to charge up. The disadvantage to harnessing anger for magickal charges is two-fold. Anger is exceptionally volatile and it is impossible to hold a significant charge for very long. An Irascimancer can’t express his own anger without losing his charges, and must walk the fine line of holding the seething rage he has so painstakingly collected while not numbing himself down to the point that he becomes hardened to the riches of tragedy and injustice life has to offer. Anger is also exceptionally draining, serving as fuel for the magickal fire but burning out just as dramatically. Irascimancers live in a bipolar state of being either flush with volatile energy or utterly drained, despondent, and exhausted. One universal restriction on Irascimancy is that it requires eye contact with the target. The person must see the Irascimancer and register his presence. Making split-second eye contact with someone you are passing on the street is enough, but an ambush from the shadows in a dark alley is not going to work. As evil as those telemarketers who call your house during dinner might be, they’re safe from a fury’s blast as long as they stay on the other end of the phone line. They’d probably get an earful, nonetheless; Irascimancy is all about confrontation. Irascimancy attracts two kinds of people. The overwhelming majority of people attracted to this school of magick are former romantics: the saps, the soft hearted, and those sentimental fools who are so easily wounded and swayed by passion. They’re the people who expected more of the world than it would give them. In order to feel pain, betrayal, and eventually rage, one must first be slashed open at the softest part of one’s soul. Immature practitioners are the impatient sort, firing back at the world that failed to live up to their expectations and making immediate change. Theirs is the world of bloody revolution. More mature Irascimancers are far more threatening. These cold-hearted calculators can swallow their anger so far down that you could meet them for beers every week for a year and never suspect that they were plotting your destruction until that day you meet their eyes and see the flash of righteous fury, about one whole second before your heart explodes in your chest. Irascimancers are grudge holders of the highest order. Want to know more about the Irascimancer? Read the entire adept school here.
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The Sexual Rebis
Note: The Sexual Rebis first appeared in the Unknown Armies 2nd Edition as the Mystic Hermaphrodite. All I have done is update it slightly for 3rd Edition. This archetype is one of the most difficult to embody because it’s possibly the most difficult to describe. It is large, it contains multitudes, it contradicts itself- by definition. It represents the unity of opposites, the synergy of contrary combination, the power that comes from tension and conflict within a unified whole. In some ways, the Sexual Rebis (formally known as the Mystic Hermaphrodite) is the walking embodiment of magick. After all, every school is based on a paradox, because resolving a contradictory belief allows an adept to resolve the contradiction between “possible” and “impossible” or “cause” and “effect.” But where the adept merely holds or follows a contradiction, the Sexual Rebis is a contradiction. The Rebis is woman and man both, but it represent other unities as well. The doctor who cuts you open or poisons you with radiation to heal you is take a tiny step along this path. The jealous lover whose hateful accusations are an expression of twisted affection suffers the burden of contradiction. The masochist who loves her suffering, the general who conquers in the name of peace and the mercy killer could all be facets of the singular paradox. The difference is that these people are often fooling themselves- figuring out rationales to excuse them so they can pursue the “greater good.” The true Sexual Rebis isn’t just engaging in pretzel logic and elaborate self-justification: she/he/they resolves these conflicts within the context of a larger consciousness. Want to know more about the Sexual Rebis? Read the entire avatar archetype here. The Holy Prole
Note: The Holy Prole first appeared in the Unknown Armies 2nd Edition campaign book To Go. All I have done is update it slightly for 3rd Edition. The Holy Prole is an ordinary guy in an extraordinary world. While he himself seeks no particular power or authority, he always seems to turn up in the middle when something mystically important goes down. She’s the innocent bystander who can’t quite dismiss what she’s seen. His ordinary life is interrupted when he stumbles into the right place at the wrong time. She has no extraordinary skills or abilities- her one exceptional quality is how ordinary she is. It is the Holy Prole’s nature to accept mysticism without letting that knowledge damage or unhinge him. Most people respond to magick with hysteria: either hysterical denial or hysterical pursuit. Those who see it as “just another one of them things” are more likely to set their foot upon the path of the Holy Prole. This ability to remain engaged in mundane life even when exposed to the occult can be a powerful solace in a world that seems crazy, but at the same time it can lead to a sort of sloth. At her best, the Holy Prole accepts what she cannot change. At his worst, he gives up before trying to change anything. Want to know more about the Holy Prole? Read the entire avatar archetype here. Pen & Paper Bullshit is now up on Google Play (still working on getting it on iTunes); subscribing to it on Google Play will get you updates quicker, as all I have to do is upload them to PodBean vs. making a blog post about them. Also it'll make me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside, so go do that.
Dictomancy
AKA Wordsmiths, Websters, Grammarians Words have power, the power to shape human thought and emotion, as well as the world around us; for example, if there was no word for chair, would you know what a chair is? Of course not. That’s the power of words. But despite their power, words are shaped by humans and their societies. The concept of chair existed as some sort of Platonic ideal in the Statosphere, but humanity was the one to look at a chair and say, “This is what a chair is. We name you chair.” Humanity created words to describe the chair, noting its color and texture, as well as words to describe its purpose (“to be sat in or to be used as a makeshift weapon,” as some of the less reputable dictionaries put it). Words don’t only describe what we see, but what we feel. What is love? Well, if you look in a dictionary, you can easily find out. The same for happiness or sadness. What’s more, words can be used to manipulate emotions and people; the right word can stop a war (or start it, if that’s your thing). Give a bad eulogy at a funeral and you can bring out rage instead of grief. Words and language separate us from the animals and put humans in a class of their own. As long as words and communication exist, there’s no need for something so crass and uncivilized as fighting, when you’ve already got the most powerful form of threat de-escalation ever conceived literally on the tip of your tongue. Dictomancers recognize the power and paradox of words: humanity creates and shapes language and words, but words also shape and create humanity. Why use your fists when you can just use your words? Want to know more about the Dictomancer? Read the entire adept school here. Virgomancy
AKA Incels, Forever Alones, Nofaps Women are succubi, ancient medieval demonic spirits in the female form who appear in dreams to lure righteous virgin men into sleeping with them, so that she can acquire his vital spark, his very soul, and forever bind him to her will. That’s why the slogan of every virgomancer is “Disregard women. Acquire magick.” Those who don’t understand call them weirdos, men’s rights activists, and patriarchal shitheads, but the virgomancers of the world know that their souls have been stolen, bought and paid for with the fleeting pleasures of the flesh. By keeping themselves apart from mainstream society and not engaging in what they term the “sexual marketplace” (gross), and by denying their baser instincts, they purify their spirits and gain incredible power over the opposite sex. In theory, it is possible for a virgomancer to be a woman or a member of the LGBT community, but the kind of neurotic, deep seated self loathing, with that special mix of entitlement just isn’t found outside of male cishet circles. Of course, it helps that virgomancers are pretty self policing and no self respecting virgomancy adept would ever teach the hidden secrets of their school to a woman or someone who isn’t attracted to women (it never really occurs to them that these groups already don’t want anything to do with them already). The central paradox of virgomancy is that virgomancers reject sexuality, but are consumed and obsessed with using sexuality to define themselves and society; their every thought and action is defined by sex and resisting it. By trying to escape sex’s hold on him, a virgomancer only reinforces its iron grip over him. Want to know more about the Virgomancer? Read the entire adept school here.
For the foreseeable future, TinDeck is apparently down, so I've gone ahead and bit the bullet and paid PodBean for hosting and whatnot. I'll be switching stuff over to PodBean all day, so the embedded audio players and download links should start working.
-Julia The download links, as well as the streaming widgets are down due to a database issue with TinDeck. Watch this space for information concerning this. I apologize for the issue; if it isn't resolved soon, I'll find somewhere else to host the audio.
-Julia |
About UsWe play pen and paper bullshit and record it. That's why this podcast is called Pen & Paper Bullshit. Archives
November 2018
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