Herpemancy
AKA Charmers, Vipers Note: Herpemancy first appeared in Unknown Armies 2nd Edition, in the source book Break Today. All I have done is update it slightly for 3rd Edition. You understand that humans carry a reptile brain, and know how to tap into its power. You follow the twists and turns of the snake through ecology and mythology, and summon magick from its coils. You understand the true gift of the Serpent of Eden: transformation, and you desire to transform humanity, starting with yourself. Herpemancy came into being as a crossbreeding of religious “sign followers” or “snake handlers” in the American South, mystical practitioners or yoga obsessed with kundalini, the entertainments of snake charmers on the Bombay streets, cracked neuroscientists researching the limbic system, and the terrible (and nearly universal) fascination with snakes. The complex paradox of herpemancy arises from poisons that cure, and strength that comes from yielding. So it is written for you generation of vipers. Herpemancers gain charges from handling snakes: that is, absorbing from and relating to a creature that is the focus and symbol of life, death, resurrection, fear, temptation, wisdom, and evil. To a Christian, the serpent is death, the Devil, and darkness. To the old Greeks, the Pythian sun god Apollo blessed physicians and oracles. To most people, this would seem a contradiction. To a viper, it’s all part of the grand Ouroboros cycle. Charmers have a reputation (earned or not) for personal degeneracy and vast, dark appetites in stark opposition to their interpersonal righteousness and passion in aiding others. They are martyrs, intercessors, healers, and mediators, but not ones who should be trusted too far. Does someone who can stand for everything really stand for anything? Maybe, maybe not, but in any event he’s probably a fine diplomat. Herpemancers, being concerned with cycles and opposites and grand unifications, tend towards a certain chill aloofness. It’s hard to be a passionate partisan when you see each side as part of a bigger whole. But their very fascination with that gestalt can lead them to a deep understanding, and with it, deep compassion for flaws, that the more ideologically “pure” may overlook. Yet for all their apparent distance, they possess one thing that draws human conflict like a magnet: power. Herpemancers can display qualities ascribed to snakes in a number of mythologies, and capabilities uncovered through science. Want to know more about Herpemancy? Read the entire adept school here.
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November 2018
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