Unaligned Troupers

Those who use unaligned magic to entertain.

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Agorossa

Type: Sensualist

The art of the red needle is an ancient and potent form of sensual, magica; acupuncture that allows agorossi to control the flow of blood in a body. With this, they control every sensation the body experiences.

Agorossi learn the basic science of humors, but focus especially on blood and blood magic. Blood is one of the most potent vessels of magic, and there are many who wield it. Agorossi learn to wield its inherent power as a part of the body, one of the four component parts of a being. As the Name of a thing is the whole of a thing, composed of soul, heart, mind, and body, blood is the most commonly wielded form of body magic.

Agorossi are considered a special kind of sensual magic wielder in the region. They have a special order known as Cerchia dell'Agorossa, and they only take the most promising candidates. Traditionally, these have been mostly women, but there are some who are not women who are part of the order. They are just rarer, as women are more sought after by the powerful in a patriarchal society.

To learn to wield the magic of the agorossi, one must study in the order for many years, learning basic medicine, anatomy, acupuncture, and magic, as well as learning history, politics, arts, literature and poetry, and how to listen to both the words of a person and their body language. After years of study, agorossi are employed by the order as confidants, sex workers, and servants-for-hire to the rich and powerful. The order is a political entity with their own agenda, and they do not hide it. But they are much sought out for their magic and advice.

As wielders of blood magic, they have the following abilities:

• Red needle: they can tap a needle anywhere into a body to draw the flow of blood toward that point.
• Sensate flow: once tapped, they can decide what sensations that part of the body experiences.
• Point of release: when they remove the needle, the sensations release in a manner of the agorossa's deciding - with an increase or a decrease, cathartically or without closure.
• Stitching: after removal, they stitch the wound closed, healing it instantly - or not, meaning it will not heal unless other magic or medical attention is drawn to it, giving them power of life and death.
• Pinpoint: the agorossi can turn their needle into a weapon and hit in a specific spot to cause immense harm to their target, if need be.

The agenda of the agorossi is mostly centered on maintaining their order and its power.

PRO +2 ATH +2 STR +1 AWA +1 WIL / PRS +2 STH +1

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Auriga

Type: Athlete

An auriga is a charioteer who uses magic in chariot racing. Chariots are rarely used in the current times, but in Lupposto especially the sport of chariot racing is still popular. Aurigae draw magic from the competition itself.

To become an auriga, one must train first as a charioteer, which includes taking care of horses, the chariot, and themselves. They perform special exercises, work with the horses, and learn to build their own chariot (though the more famous aurigae eventually give up on this aspect of it). Eventually, they begin the practice races, usually in their youth. As they practice racing, they are trained to hone their instincts in on the competition itself, on the various factors going into it - speed, control, the track, the conditions of the chariot, the horses, the equipment - and as they focus, they are trained to see movement, comparison, and the end goal.

After many years of training, they begin to have an innate sense of the competition. During a race, at some point after they gain this awareness, they will inevitably spill their own blood in an accident or find some opportunity to safely rig one. When they do so, they must hold onto their awareness of the competition and comparison, then take the spilled blood and smear it on their faces. If their sacrifice is accepted by the spirits of the sport, they will gain magical abilities and become a true auriga:

• Competitive awareness: in any competition, especially a chariot race, they gain bonuses to AWA and can sense especially the conditions needed to win.

• Microcontrol: they can make small adjustments in one round to give big bonuses the next by altering the conditions under their control.

• Finishing boost: the closer they get to the finish line without using up all their magic, the more they can put into the final push to the finish.

• Victorious celebration: if they win their race, they may celebrate and gain bonuses to PRS.

• Strength in defeat: if they lose, they may lose with grace and sacrifice some of their blood to the victor, giving the victor a magical boost and themselves an even greater one. If they win, they will gain magic from those who perform this sacrifice to them.

More veteran aurigae may gain other abilities. They are very popular in Lupposto, who idolize the past.

PRO +2 ATH +3 STR +2 AWA +3 WIL +1 PRS / STH /

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Intrecciare

Type: Contortionist

In the current times of the campaign, in this particular region, traveling shows are a common form of entertainment for the people. Most of them are theatricals, puppetry, and crude but popular oratorical performances. Some include the occasional caged animal or other display of the unexpected. In a magical world where fairies and ogres and people made of rocks are common, the idea of a "freakshow" (to use the crude terminology for it) requires a great deal of effort, but there are still traveling shows that try to shock, entice, and titilate with displays of different bodies and rarer species. They are not kind or compassionate shows, but the people working them are still mortal beings who are not responsible for the evil exploiting them.

Among them are the intrecciari, those who wield body magic to contort themselves in ways no mundane contortionist ever could. Twisting their heads a full 720 degrees. Moving their stomachs to their chests, literally. Turning their hands into feet and their feet into hands. Moving an eye to their foreheads or the palm of their hands. Sealing off the mouth and nose for a full minute while breathing out of a slit in the neck. Almost anything.

To do this, intrecciari practice body magic. They have a special diet of grains, milk, and raw meat that is rich in the magic they need. They practice stretching exercises for a disproportionate amount of time each day. They learn this either from other intrecciari or via some obscure source. Many claim it is a magic "from distant lands", but in truth, this magic exists all over Shem.

After years of practice, one eventually becomes able to do the basics of contortionism, and it grows from there. If they work long enough at it, they become shockingly good at it. Some can even use the magic on others, though this is much more difficult. The intrecciari have the magical ability to move any body part anywhere, alter their bones and muscles and cartilage such that they can move in any way, and have complete internal control of their bodies:

• Hypercontortion: this is the magical ability to contort the body beyond its mortal limits.
• Bodily exchange: they can swap one organ for another, move things around, and alter their organs such that they work in usual places. They must be very careful with this, and there's always a need for an exchange in the process.
• Physical looseness: the ability to make bone, muscle, cartilage, and any other body part loose, fluid, or otherwise malleable so they can contort how they please.
• Internal control: they can control their internal organs consciously and intentionally (or let them work on their own), turning them off and on, altering them to work in different ways, speed them up or slow them down, etc.
• Discombobulate: if at least 30% of their body is touching at least 30% of another person's body, they can use any of the above abilities on the person they are touching, consensually or not.

Intrecciari are very exploited for their abilities, and the shows they work for are often humiliating. But their magic gives them power and influence as well.

PRO +1 ATH +4 STR +2 AWA +1 WIL +1 PRS -2 STH +1

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Novocuore

Type: Actor

A novocuori is an actor who draws magic from their audiences' emotions.

All emotion resonates, creating the energy known as emotional resonance. This is simply an (usually invisible) aura around a person that shows what they are feeling. Novocuore learn how to detect that aura coming off an audience and capture it in their costumes, which always have special strings in them that vibrate in response to the crowd. They know the right ways to alter those strings so the resonance is capture and can be infused into their performance.

To learn to do this, they must study acting, performance, theatre, and so on, and they must know costuming and sewing. They must then learn to wield the magic of emotions, which they do via intensive training from mentors in the theatre. They learn to understand their own emotions first, then they learn to channel them into their performances, and they see how that affects the magical strings they are given to work with. Eventually, they learn to sense emotions from others via the strings, then learn how to draw those in. It is a proces that takes many years.

Once they are comfortable using the magic, they begin to infuse their performances with them. This gives them different abilities:

• Resonant costume: they can make costumes with their special strings so they can capture the magic of emotion.
• Hearts conversion: they can turn the emotional resonance they have captured into raw emotion, able to turn it into any emotion they need or want.
• Nine voices: they can channel the emotion into their voice as they perform, amplifying the emotional power of their performance.
• Sensitive vibrations: they can feel how their costumes react to the crowd, knowing exactly what they are feeling.
• Thrumming pose: they can let the strings resonate as they take a pose on stage, making their whole body exude emotion.

As per imperial law, they must let the audiences know they are using this magic, but the end effect of this is that it draws bigger crowds and lets them charge more for their performances. The critics don't treat them well, but the people love it.

PRO +1 ATH +1 STR -2 AWA +2 WIL +1 PRS +3 STH +1

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Wabeno

Type: Juggler

Esoteric jugglers who use the energy of learning and using skills. They juggle special clubs that allow them to move this energy.

Figgum is the art of esoteric juggling. It is the skill of juggling skills, of suspending a skill in order to use another, defeating the mortal limitations one might have in learning and keeping skills by removing some temporarily, and by transfering skill in one thing into being skill in another.

The idea is that if one can learn one skill, then the act of learning has input into one's mind and body simply some essence of skill that can be converted to knowledge of another. To learn to juggle, therefore, is to learn literally all skills, if one is willing to temporarily know less about juggling and more about, say, calculating the slope of a curve or mixing cocktails or writing poetry. The one limitation is that they must be physically or metaphysically capable of it - a wabeno cannot draw the skill of flying from a bird unless they have wings to use.

Once one can juggle to a certain degree (usually maintaining five clubs in a basic pattern), one can begin the meditative process to sensing the inner resource that is raw skill rather than specific skill. The wabeno focuses on the motion of their juggled objects. This shape is not just a focial point for meditation, but a representation of their skill.

While meditating upon the shape, a wabeno must remove all sensations outside of the shape itself. This means everything - not just sight but even the blaze of light still burnt on their retinas; not just sound but even the buzz inside their ears; not just the taste of food but the taste of their own saliva and the feel of their own mouth; everything but the shape. They they may feel the clubs as their hands touch them, but the air that moves because of them must be set aside. They must completely focus on the clubs that form the shape, and then erase the clubs. Erase the feel of their hands touching the clubs. Erase everything but the essence of the circle being formed. This is the hard part.

If - and this is a very big if - they manage this, they will have a circle of pure skill before them. In order to use it, they then must be able to step through it. This is both in the physical world and in their meditative trance. This is a matter of sheer will power and awareness for most, though their skill at juggling will also come into play.

Once they have gone beyond the circle for the first time, it becomes easier in subsequent attempts. It also allows them to imbue their clubs with different skills. When they juggle, each club comes to represent a skill. The minimum number of clubs for this to work is five, and one club must be their juggling skill. In order to imbue a club with skill, they must first (a) have the skill and (b) use the skill within a few minutes of their meditation. During meditation, after they have passed through the circle, they must then focus on that skill and place it into the circle. Once in the circle, all skills are one skill, so they can be converted, transferred, or temporarily removed. A new skill, one the wabeno does not have, can be attained then if either (a) someone with that skill throws them a club, (b) some emblem of that skill is added to the juggling circle, or (c) they draw raw skill from the circle and attempt something.

If another person with a particular skill set throws a club to the wabeno and consensually intends to send one of their skills, the wabeno will gain the skill if they catch the club. The trick is, however, that (a) they must catch it and (b) they have to then give up one of their clubs. The total number of skill points a wabeno has can never exceed what they already have. In other words, if you add up all the skill points a wabeno has, and they add up to 101, then someone throws them a skill, they must drop the equivalent number of points in order to gain the number of points in the skill given to them. Call it the law of preservation of skill. The wabeno may choose not to take as many points in the skill as is offered, however.

If the wabeno sacrifices their juggling skill, it can make them fail with the circle. If they do this, they may permanently lose the points they sacrificed. It is a very bold and assured wabeno who uses their juggling skills for these purposes.

There is a very limited amount of time raw skill will exist outside the meditative trance. A wabeno must draw the raw skill, break the trance, and then engage in the attempted skill within about 10 minutes. They may stretch this if they are willing to permanently sacrifice skill points. Anything they attempt must be within their total numbers of skill points. They must sacrifice temporarily other skills to do it. The skill created must also be a skill others have - they cannot completely invent a skill no one has used before. If no one can do it, the skill cannot be invented via figgum. It has to be figured out first. Raw skill exists as a conglomeration of all extant skills within Shem or the locality the wabeno is in at the time. This is up to the GM's discretion.

PRO +3 ATH +2 STR / AWA +3 WIL +1 PRS +2 STH +2