Unaligned Troupers

Those who wield unaligned magic for art or entertainment.

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Arsanima

Type: Artist

An arsanima puts their entire personality into works of art.

An art student learns to wield the magical emotional resonance created by their personality from a mentor or from a university. They are encouraged to be themselves to the point that it bleeds forth from them in emotional resonance as a complete, beautiful image.

They gain the ability to wield these emotions by washing in rushing water (usually a shower or waterfall) while experiencing intense emotions. They do this by focusing on intense memories, and in order to get a wide range of emotions, they repeat the process for years. Any experience that gives them an intense emotion must be focused on for hours afterward, meditated upon right up until they rest for the night, and then the following morning, they wash in a torrent of water while focusing on the memory and feeling. Then, they gather the water to mix with the next experience. Once they have done this with 100 experiences, they flash a bright light through it. The light is captured in the torrent, and then they wash in it again. This lets the emotional resonance absorb into them, giving them certain abilities.

• Emotional color: they can infuse color into any work of art they are creating by drawing from their personality. This makes the work resonate with the emotion they choose. Every emotion has a different color.
• Light of the self: they can ignite their inner self and make themselves shine as they work on a piece of art, gaining bonuses as long as the work is their own creation.
• Inner guidance: they can work with their eyes closed and let a work automatically, creating something in their own image.
• Motivational shaping: they can draw from one of their listed motivations and infuse it into the shape of what they are working on, influencing anyone who interacts with it to share that motivation.
• Animated artwork: they can infuse a major part of their personality into a work to animate it, letting it interact on a limited basis with others as if alive.

Other abilities may be possible. Consult the GM.

Every time they use one of their abilities, they risk losing some of their emotions permanently. They must roll AWA after every use, with the difficulty rising throughout the day (starting at 10, then going up by 2 with every use). The more they use them, the higher it gets. On an exceptional or critical failure, they lose one of their emotions. It resets after they get a full night’s sleep.

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

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Magnanimaster

Type: Entertainer

An entertainer who wields the majesty of dragons. A magnanimaster has impressed a dragon and gained their power from them. They gain their powers by proving themself to the dragon via a series of five trials:

• Trial of Discipline: they must prove they can follow orders and a routine of exercise and study.

• Trial of Power: they must prove themselves strong enough to survive the wilderness and the dragon’s demands.

• Trial of Majesty: they must prove they have a sense of authority and the ability to lead.

• Trial of Territory: they must prove they know the dragon’s territory.

• Trial of Accumulation: they must prove they know all of the previous trials again.

When they complete the trials, the dragon begins giving them abilities. There are a few dragons native to the area, but most who are in the colonized lands are from other places, either as settlers, colonizers, immigrants, or former slaves or indentured servants. The following abilities assume an unaligned dragon. Consult the GM for celestial, elemental, or fey dragons.

• Draconic voice: the magnanimaster speaks with the depth of their dragon's voice, giving them bonuses to command, instruction, or persuasion.

• Majestic presence: the magnanimaster pervades an aura of majesty that impresses anyone within 100' of them.

• Painted scales: the magnanimaster's clothing becomes colorful and bright, improving any performance rolls.

• Mark of the dragon: the magnanimaster places a mark on someone or something, making it glow slightly as a distraction.

• Magnanimous gesture: the magnanimaster gestures or moves in a way that makes people think of them as helpful, kind, or generous.

• Draconic accumulation : the magnanimaster can draw magical power by using their PRS without using dragon magic. They gain three points per success level, which they can use to unleash certain draconic abilities.

The abilities they might choose from to use their accumulated magic are as follows:

• Dragonflame weaponry: they can wreathe a weapon with draconic flame and gain +3/+3 to damage rolls with it for one point per round.

• Spectrum of the dragon: they can make draconic rainbow light hit one target at power 16 for the cost of 10 points.

• Immunity to charm: they can take this immunity at a cost of 5 points per week.

• Dazzling gaze: roll AWA to catch their gaze, PRS to dazzle someone at a cost of one point per bonus point.

• Call draconic servant: they can send a magical signal calling for help from other servants of the dragon, costing 10 points.

• Draconic panoply: summon a panoply of light and sound and power of unaligned enegy at power 17/24/31/38 for the cost of 25 points.

Other powers are possible. Consult the GM.

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

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Profunder

Type: Poet

A profunder is a poet who draws from their own soul to perform and write poetry.

Profunders have learned to focus inward, finding their inner strengths and deeply understanding their own experiences. This leads them to have a minor form of sorcery, drawing magic from their own souls. Most learn to do this accidentally, turning inward because of their intense desire to understand themselves through art, then tapping into the power inadvertently in a time of need. They do not understand it well enough to share it. As poets, they manage to infuse their souls into their work, creating certain effects.

• Internal rhyme: rhymes that come from the soul and hide in a poem aspects of a profunder, meaning they can slip a motivation into the poem and have it affect others.
• Profound couplet: a couplet that is imbued with one of the profunder's magical powers.
• Metaphysical poetry: poetry that contains more than one magical property, meaning anyone who reads or hears it is hit with multiple effects.
• Soulverse: free verse poetry that hides within it motivations of the profunder, meaning anyone who hears it takes low die when trying to read the profunder.
• Inner structure: the structure of the poem reflects the inner workings of the profunder in a way that allows the profunder to rearrange their ability or power scores.

Effects vary by species and experience of the profunder. They may also gain spells based on their species, and players may create their own spells or effects. Consult with GM.

The more a profunder understands themselves, the more spells they gain. The more they try, the more they gain. However, there is always a risk of backlash. A failure of any spell can permanently remove their power or damage their WIL. Normal failure means temporary loss of spell casting (1 round) or -1 WIL for one round. Special failure means loss of spellcasting for a day or -3 WIL for a day. Exceptional failure means loss of spellcasting for a month, -1 WIL lost permanently, -3 WIL for a month, or -6 for a day. Critical failure means permanent loss of spellcasting and permanent loss of -3 WIL. Furthermore, after casting a successful spell, they have a -1 to casting, WIL, AWA, and PRS, if the success was critical, -3 if exceptional, -6 if special, -9 if normal, for one round after.

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