Character Generation (Magic Vegas)

v60e continued
==Chapter 5: Character Generation==
The diplomats of Magic Vegas are the cream of the crop, 250-point starting characters (with an extra 50 build points from Disadvantages, including Marks of Power). They can have covens of proficient fellow magicians as Ally Groups, and few magicians are their betters. Players should start with the basic Magician template in Appendix I and spend the balance as they please; the accompanying lenses and sample builds are optional but fit a variety of roles that organized traditions like to fill. The lenses simplify the build process as far as character points are concerned, but the real book-keeping comes with starting wealth. As professional magicians, player characters can spend all of their starting wealth on magic, the tools to aid rituals and the Fetishes to sustain them. The secret to using magic on the fly is to have it prepared in advance with Fetishes or elixirs, and even if a player character can make them himself, he must allocate starting wealth to have them when play starts. That’s typically a grand apiece, $500 for an Eidolon Fetish and $500 for the ritual it sustains. Appendix II has the prices all in one place.
Fetishes other than Eidolons have to be renewed annually (unless purchased as Signature Gear), but the magician template includes an Independent Income which will probably cover that and the cost of living, too. The template also has a Claim to Hospitality with a “coven” meaning that most magicians have good friends, up to a dozen, within their own traditions. They can hang out, talk shop, meet up on magical worlds, and of course they help each other with rituals from time to time, but if a magician can assemble his coven on short notice to perform a large-scale ritual at no penalty, then they’re Allies. If a tradition teaches Windfall, proficient magicians who can cast it work with members of their covens to generate $5,000 per month apiece (takes a day every month from each member). No need to track this, for it’s already on the template as Independent Income (though magicians who lack Windfall presumably have trust funds to compensate).
The default campaign assumption is that PCs are magicians, and that they’ll have abilities from magic (including attribute and skill bonuses) that outclass a non-magician. While it might be possible to play a non-magician equipped with all the same Fetishes, the book-keeping would be nigh as great and the difference minimal from the Spirit Warrior build below. Spirits are important and common, perhaps Allies and Patrons, but they’ll be NPCs, which is why their treatment here focuses on what they can do for magicians. A further assumption is that traditions define magicians, so martial art styles aren’t necessary for the purpose, even if over-the-top martial skills themselves have a role to play (when fighting Monsters out of the public eye).
===Skills of the Magician===
Besides Ritual Magic for some tradition (optionally specialized for a favorite path) and its Path skills, which are absolutely necessary for magic and include relevant but specific theory, and those necessary to make use of the Path of Heroes, most magicians learn some or all of the following:
Alchemy specialized by tradition (to prepare magic for delayed activation),
Archæology (to investigate a tradition's culture of origin) and Anthrolopology (to understand it),
Autohypnosis (to access Magery in excess of Will or boost skills like Alchemy and Symbol-Drawing),
Dreaming or Exorcism only for those who lack the rituals Dreamwalk or Exorcise,
Expert in the tradition's culture of origin (e.g., Egyptology or Assyriology) or a path’s world,
Expert in sacred geography (to map ley lines and points of correspondence between Otherworlds),
Fast-Draw for spellslinging duels in addition to its usual benefit with weapons,
Meditation (default from Autohypnosis for emotional/moral discipline even over Marks of Power),
Mind Block for those who anticipate mind-reading magic that defeats other countermeasures,
Occultism (which pertains to popular perception of magic rather than a magician’s perspective),
Psychology for spirits (optional specialization by type) though human psych works on ghosts at -2,
Religious Ritual specialized by tradition (required for naming, helpful for promoting belief),
Symbol-Drawing specialized by tradition (which gives bonuses to rituals),
Thaumatology (comparative magical theory – answers questions about other traditions/paths), and
Weird Science (to understand how Otherworlds affect scientific and technological skills).
A magician also uses various social skills for handling Skepticism (like Fortune-Telling), various performing arts as assisting skills for rituals (can be provided by non-magic assistants), and various craft skills for the creation of symbols and Fetishes. The most generally useful are Photography (a quick and easy way to generate a sympathetic connection) and Jeweler (to make the components of a ritual kit and fine items suitable for summoning craft spirits). In addition there are many skills useful or necessary in conjunction with particular rituals, like job skills for a Journeyman’s Blessing or agricultural skills to harvest a bumper crop with Fertility.
===Design Tips===
Start with a notion of origin. A legacy will have high Magery and magic-related advantages like spirits or other magicians as Allies, Contacts, or Patrons (and Enemies), though he might have some blind spots with respect to non-magician society, and he could plausibly be younger (around 30). Conversely, a recruit will be older and have more traits that have nothing to do with magic, such as business Contacts or useful mundane skills, perhaps including ones that synergize well with Path of Heroes. Of course he’ll have some quality that made him attractive as a recruit, such as family wealth or high intelligence that compensates for the late start with respect to his magic-related skills, or perhaps a nebulous potential revealed by divination of his future. Even so, he’s likely to have some portion of his Magery limited to a single path. A self-initiated character needs a background to explain this extraordinary occurrence, which will indicate appropriate traits, such as skill in Archæology or an advantage like Versatile.
Specific traits for magician characters have been discussed above (and summarized below in Appendix I), but Unusual Background isn’t among them. If it were, it would cost 50 points to be a professional magician, 15 to have a spirit or professional magician as a friend (Ally/Contact/Patron), or 10 to be a dabbler (one path, less than skill 12, per instance). For the player who wants to take on a non-magician who is swimming with sharks, like a Rationalist, this rates the opposition (and the opportunity he’s passing up).
====Choosing a Tradition====
Traditions are not equal. Yes, they have the same number of paths with about the same number of effects per channeling path, but actually this is where the differences start. Imagine one tradition has no duplicated spells between its paths; that maximizes the number of unique rituals available to a full service magician like a typical player character, but few magicians are that good. In a tradition with important rituals available from multiple paths, lesser magicians are more likely to have general competence, strengthening the tradition as a whole. This comparison points out another difference: Some traditions like Classical and Druidry have lots dabblers, while in others like Babylonian and Hermetic, most practitioners are all-in, fewer magicians in total but all of them good. The ones with more dabblers tend to have wider Believer bases as well. The Gypsy tradition has mostly dabblers, but that’s balanced by widespread Belief in Gypsy magic even outside the Gypsy nation, and for a player character, the dearth of full service magicians makes him a relatively bigger fish in his small pond. Shinto is the former and still de facto state religion of Japan, giving its magicians political access that’s rare except for Monotheists. While a single magician can consecrate his workspace to +1 if middle-aged or +2 if elderly (represented by the Perk Base), long-standing religious organizations may have sacred sites of greater power which a magician can access if also a priest. These differences don’t come with a point cost, and although they may not be perfectly balanced, each tradition has something to offer, something to capitalize on for the player who recognizes and understands its potential.
As a guide to role-playing, mental disadvantages are hugely important, and for magicians those mainly include Marks of Power. Game-mechanically, they’re no different from other disadvantages except that they can’t be bought off, which can make senior magicians seem immature because of their impulse-control issues. Narratively, the external origin of these advantages can be a role-playing hook: “Actually I hate guitar, but when the god of music rages through my brain, I have to practice until my fingers bleed.” A full-service magician has 8 Marks, but the usual 5-Quirk limit applies, so at least 3 Marks must be full-blown disadvantages. Conflicts can actually be fun to roleplay, but remember that in the case of diametrically opposed disadvantages, they must be limited in some way, for instance reducing one to a Personality Change Quirk that manifests under certain conditions (such as full moon, in church, or while drinking). If some path has a crippling Mark, or one that just doesn’t fit with a character concept, omitting the path and relying on its default is an option. That’s especially appropriate for ditraditional magicians, as 16 marks would be a heavy load, but chances are that some of the paths in the second tradition will offer no marginal utility over the first. Beyond the Marks themselves, power corrupts, or more precisely it tempts, and magicians have power, so it’s quite easy for them to develop vices: The nymphomaniac can seduce lovers with Lust and Suggestion, whilst the addict can function by periodically purging toxins with Body Control.
Marks of Power are occasionally virtues, like Honesty or Sense of Duty, or at least virtues in a tradition’s culture of origin: Honorably avenging insults might not be well-received in a modern context. Some are plausibly heroic in the right circumstances, like Fanaticism, or Obsession with some grand ambition, but most of the rest are impulse-control issues like Bad Temper, Lecherousness, or Overconfidence, such that it’s easy to characterize a full-service magician as neurotic. Remember for any character who takes advantage of Mystic’s Stupor that intoxication penalizes DX and IQ, which can be countered with rituals of Grace and Wisdom, but it also penalizes control rolls for mental disadvantages. For this purpose, a Quirk-level version of such a disadvantage should be treated as having a control target of 18, no need to roll while the character is sober but potentially embarrassing when drunk. This includes Stress Atavism imposed by a Totem, but remember that even if the Totem is Always Available as an Ally, it need not possess the character at all times but could rove about as a spy or even bestow its adaptations upon some agent.
====Relationships====
Magicians don’t exist in a vacuum but as part of a tradition, and accordingly, they have relationships. These are worth noting even if they’re not represented by traits that cost points, but they certainly could be Allies, Contacts, Patrons, or Enemies. The latter is an especially good role-playing aid, because anybody with an Enemy is important, and a Rival in particular drives character development without increasing the likelihood of a character being killed or imprisoned (just embarrassed). Remember that when using magic, the only open-ended bonus (technically a mitigation of penalty) comes from fellow magicians who know the same path at professional level (skill 12 or higher), so a coven of magicians as an Ally Group is potent.
One way to use magic on the fly is to get good (buy up favored rituals as Techniques), and another is to “hang” rituals on Fetishes (or elixirs), but there’s a third way for cases where the target is known in advance: Make him a Spirit Slave. Then his penalty to resist magic helps balance a magician’s penalty to fast-cast. Incidentally, any target can only be subject to one Spirit Slave effect at a time, because one of the rituals it protects against is itself! It’s a cheap way to accumulate agents relative to an Ally Group advantage; just issue Suggestions as needed, or failing that, use the threat of sundry curses.
====Spending Points====
Rituals can grant bonuses to DX, HT, Will, and some mental skills, or duplicate advantages like Amphibious, Damage Resistance, Doesn’t Breathe, and Less Sleep, collectively worth hundreds of points! Totems can grant Per and more advantages like Very Fit or even exotic advantages like Brachiator and Discriminatory Smell. High IQ and/or Magery (with Will) grants access to magic, and Wealth pays for a lot of potent Fetishes, so on balance it’s generally more cost-effective to invest points there or in those things which magic can’t provide, mainly basic skills, unless concerned about countermeasures, and conversely buying extraordinary attributes and then enhancing them further with magic risks invoking Skepticism. With bonuses to skills or their underlying attributes, professional or even expert skill levels cost very little, so the payoff for studying magic is to be good at nearly everything. That said, trying to squeeze everything in can still be a challenge, so if a player likes a sample build but needs a few more points for customization, there are a few he can squeeze out.
The template lists everything a player should be aware of with respect to its potential benefit for a magician, but he may choose to forego them (except Diplomacy, because that’s his character’s main function in Magic Vegas). For instance, if he raises IQ, then he might save a point each from Alchemy and Symbol-Drawing without reducing their net levels, and if he raises Wealth, he might forego the benefits of Equipment Bonds for his ritual kit or favorite path symbol, making up the difference by spending money on better gear and sacrifices, or he might forego Scrounging skill (sure that he can always buy what he needs) or Housekeeping (because he hires servants for that). Appropriate backgrounds could justify the absence of everyman skills Computer Operation, Current Affairs, Driving, and Swimming. Dancing, Jeweler, and Photography skills are essentially placeholders ready to swap for different hobbies, and any magician can take the Gadget limitation on levels of Magery that don’t already have it, freeing 4 points per level affected.
For a character with a few points to spare, there’s some low-hanging fruit in the Path of Heroes. Just a point in Computer Programming for Computer Hacking, Jumping for Flying Leap, Public Speaking for Rapier Wit, and Singing or Musical Instrument for Musical Influence. For a character with high IQ, 1 to 4 points in Hypnotism grants Hypnotic Hands, which may be a better bet than fast-casting Suggestion.
Full-service magicians have access to a great many rituals, and to be effective, a player needs familiarity with his grimoire. That starts at the design phase, as each ritual has a base difficulty, and some rituals are worth improving as Techniques, though this tends to be cost-effective for only a few. Still, those few might be hugely important, if improved to the point that they can be used without preparation, or where they can overcome magical protection. Every tradition has access to Divination, a versatile spell for research whose main drawback is that it takes an hour, much more useful if it can be cast in seconds. Banish, Bind, and Fetish take the ST of the subject as a parameter, damaging rituals take the damage as a parameter, and Ghost Weapon takes a Multi-target parameter to affect a magazine of bullets. Many traditions have access to Phantom, which produces an illusion with some measure of reality, ST based on Technique, and a high skill also soaks the Area parameter to blanket a whole room with glamour or the Complexity parameter to program its behavior. Suggestion, Read Thoughts (or Memories), and sundry curses only work if they overcome resistance, and Weapon Blessing needs a high margin of success in order to provide a better benefit than Grace, so these are all good choices to improve as Techniques.
====Spending Cash====
The lenses in Appendix I are helpful for spending points in character design; they can be used as-is or just for inspiration. Unfortunately, they’re no help for spending money, because the choices vary by tradition, especially for rituals sustained by Fetishes. This is the hard part, and it’s another place where familiarity with the grimoire is really helpful, and by extension for the Path of Allies, familiarity with the different kinds of spirit as well. The list of sample spirits above shows off their potential. The range of powers available to spirits can fill in the holes in a tradition’s grimoire, although it’s usually more expensive. For instance, Djinn can make up for the lack of illusion or luck-related rituals, and Dryads can make up for the lack of healing.
When it comes to spirits, some of them have abilities useful when they’re trapped in Fetishes, while others are only really useful when physically free but indebted to service, and a couple that have freedom of movement even as Fetishes, Sphinx (when Embodied) and Poltergeist, are most useful with services due as well. Services can get so expensive that Ally is a better option, especially for favored Totems (or a Poltergeist for telekinesis). The sample spirits are there to give a sense of what spirits can do for a magician, calling out the differences between what each can render as a service versus their more limited though readily available capabilities as Fetishes, but some deserve a reminder: First, a familiar is necessary to facilitate communication with other spirits. Having one as an Ally can yield a discount for Magery, but if a magician holds a Fetish with a familiar, he can compel it to act as a telepathic intermediary with spirits associated with his tradition. While these spirits understand speech in the tradition’s language, they may lack any means to answer back. A sShinx Fetish can sustain an Embody ritual, of dubious utility given that animate statues provoke Skepticism, but even absent that, its True Faith advantage is powerful protection against hostile spirits, and a Fetish created for this purpose need not have any special shape or size. The third useful Fetish is any spirit, even an Eidolon, but usually a ghost, with useful knowledge represented by mental skills that the magician lacks, essentially a consultant in a box. If this consultant is a Poltergeist and the Fetish is a smartphone connected to the internet, it can even do Research and take dictation. If it’s the ghost of a magician, it can act as a coach for rituals or handle the Symbol-Drawing. Djinn are expensive, but their trio of special powers (conjuration, illusion, and luck) could manifest in a variety of ways all of which work for the holder of a Fetish.
The most common Fetishes are simply craft spirits used to sustain rituals, and a powerful magician like a player character will have dozens, chosen according to his philosophy. Personal enhancements like Grace are always in effect, pretty good bang for the buck, but another use is for one-shot rituals that haven’t shot yet, those with a condition to activate on a target to be specified (as by pointing) in the future. This is useful with History, Aura Reading, Dispel Ritual, Read Thoughts, and sundry attacks like Conjure Flame or Suggestion, or Spasm to interrupt a ritual (makes the enemy magician drop his path symbol). This latter approach enables a magician to invoke a ritual instantly without the penalties for fast-casting, but that convenience has a cost, tying up a Fetish until triggered (after which the same Fetish can sustain another ritual). The third approach is to sustain rituals for the benefit of agents, giving them access to supernatural abilities even if they’re not magicians themselves. Aura Reading is a good ritual to sustain on agents, to sense their strong emotions (like loyalty) and any foreign magical influence. If the caster can sustain a parameter penalty, he can benefit multiple agents with a single Fetish.
Every magician should have Fetishes sustaining Curse Sanctum, Dream Sanctum, and Veil, the most potent available, for himself, his agents, and any loved one who may become caught in the secret war because of him. If he spends time on Otherworlds, then he needs separate sets for each. Furthermore, every magician should have a Ward protecting the consecrated space where he performs rituals, and ideally it should contain a smaller Ward within which to Summon spirits who might be hostile. Furthermore, every magician should also have a few spare Fetishes capable of sustaining future rituals even for a short term; once a ritual is no longer needed, the Fetish becomes available again. Making a Fetish requires multiple rituals and perhaps ancillary skills, plenty of chances for disaster, plus the monetary cost of sacrifices and assistants. Outsourcing avoids risk, with no greater expense if the fetishmonger realizes economies of scale. A magician who anticipates the danger of entering a Ward should have Fetishes on his person, but one who anticipates Dispel Ritual to destroy his Fetishes should store them in a safe place; best bet is to have two sets, but then any professional always has backup tools.
Ritual selection is tradition-specific, but Totems are a bit more general. While there are many animals with nifty adaptations, a great many of them duplicate other magic (so they don’t stack) or else they provoke Skepticism when manifest. Consider a Hawk Totem; it’s Telescopic Vision won’t stack with the benefit of a Hawk Vision ritual, and flying with arms turned to wings is dangerous if anyone happens to look up. Many adaptations like Flexible and Perfect Balance benefit DX-based checks and skills, so they don’t stack with Grace, but enhanced senses (other than Vision) and Very Fit are good choices, both of which you can get from Wolf, and Enhanced Time Sense from Fly is useful too, available from a mere ST 10 Totem if loaded with limitations.
===Sample Character===
Ishtar Gold is a PC-level magician of the Babylonian tradition who might well be encountered in Magic Vegas as a delegate or providing security to delegates. Her hypothetical player likes the kinetic powers of the Spirit Warrior below but wants a full service magician for those non-combat scenes, so he’ll take it as a guide but go step-by-step.
First step, prune the base template. The Babylonian tradition isn’t ethnically pure, so although Ishtar has an ancestral link, she lacks the Classic Features. Ishtar is a legacy, raised off-world, so Accented English is fine. Her player pencils in IQ 14 and decrements Alchemy and Symbol-Drawing, still a level above the base template. Driving defaults to IQ -5, so he saves a point there and keeps the same level. Jeweler is fine – it’s in her last name – and so are Dancing and Photography.
Second step, the maximum Move bonus, net 8. In keeping with a Babylonian witch’s obsession with legend-building, her player envisions her as an Olympic gold medalist, and Move 8 (perhaps with Extra Effort) is sufficient to break some women’s records in track and field; that’s why he made his character female. Also he wants Perfect Balance, envisioning Ishtar as poetry in motion, and he proposes this trait as an Alternate Ability to Extra MV. Naturally the GM demands a two-prong test, that it make sense and be a genuine drawback not to have access to both abilities at the same time. Obviously it’d be nice to have balance while moving fast, and it makes sense that moving hastily could compromise balance, in her case more than most. The net effect is to spend 3 points in order to save 4 (on Acrobatics and Climbing), but for this slight savings, she’ll be at MV -3 with Light Walk and Lizard Climb.
Third step, the Athlete lens, less the savings just mentioned. Ishtar doesn’t need Sport skill for track and field, but she does need a Games specialty to know intricacies of the rules. Stealth defaults to IQ-5, and with the Talent bonus she’ll have a 13 even if she saves those two points, but going barefoot grants +1, so she can use Light Walk when unshod. Anticipating that Ishtar won’t have the points for another Talent, her player proposes to swap Brawling, Dancing, and Guns for Autohypnosis, Breath Control, and Sport. The GM asks how the skills are related, and he points out that all of them have to do with movement and calls it Kinetic Talent; the reaction bonus applies to those who are impressed with physical grace, the same notion that motivated Perfect Balance. He’ll miss the bonus to Breath Control but can’t relate it to motion, and he’ll make up the difference for Autohypnosis with higher Will. Too bad there’s no room for Judo, but it can’t displace Brawling because Ishtar needs that to kick with Flying Leap.
Fourth step, raise Magery. Ishtar should have Path of Heroes 18 (for Pressure Secrets), and if it’s her best path, she’s sitting at a 15 with her higher IQ, so her player will add 2 more Magery levels and the lens Drunk. That’ll give her a 16 with other paths as well, pretty impressive, except for one. For the sake of completeness, her player adds the Horror lens but leaves Path of Kingu at 11 so as not to reduce the others. To save points, he then applies a Gadget limitation to all levels except those from Drunk. If Ishtar loses that gadget, she’ll be no worse off than a magician with the base template. The lens Ritual Vice is a natural pairing with Drunk, not so natural with Athlete, but this player embraces the contrast, the Olympian gone bad, scandals to sustain the celebrity she craves. Also, it enables him to make do with a single point for Reputation, widely recognized but admired and reviled in equal measure.
Fifth step, add a Totem. The lens Ridden is a bit too expensive; Ishtar will make do with a ST 10 Goat Totem (because she’s the Greatest of All Time). In addition to the usual limitations (Corrupting, goat-like mannerisms, and Atavism/Bestial), Ishtar’s Totem requires a Gadget, the same one she uses for Magery, a ram’s head pendent. If it’s misinterpreted as a Satanic symbol, that just reinforces her bad girl image. This Totem grants Good with Goats, should that ever come up, and a couple levels of Reduced Consumption with Cast Iron Stomach. Combined with the goat-like mannerisms, Ishtar might swallow her cigarette butts, munch pencils, or forget to remove the wrapper from a candy bar. It also makes her Very Fit with Alternate Abilities Peripheral Vision, Spirit Empathy (for allied spirits of Babylon), and a Crushing Striker on her head, goat horns, that Affects Insubstantial (up to 2d) but only manifests when Skepticism is no issue. If she’s fighting a Monster, there’ll be no Skeptics around or else it couldn’t manifest either, and of course she uses the horns with Brawling skill (from her Talent). Goat could also grant Perfect Balance, but she already has that, and if it came from a Totem, it wouldn’t stack with other magic.
Sixth step, add the Warrior lens, sort of. Ishtar takes Danger Sense at Perk-level to qualify for Precognitive Parry, and for that she’ll also need a Weapon Bond with her iconic epsilon axe and a couple more levels of Guns skill, though she keeps the pistol specialty instead of rifle, for which she needs Fast-Draw. Because she learned to fight Monsters outside of a military context, she takes Tactics instead of Soldier. For hand-to-hand, she takes Judo instead of Wrestling because she lacks the (Trained) ST to make best use of Wrestling, and Brawling instead of Karate because it suits her Talent. Electronics Operation she changes to Medical for use with a PCR machine. The rest she forfeits, though her player dearly laments Combat Reflexes; hopefully high IQ and Peripheral Vision will keep her from being surprised easily, but there’s no substitute for the defense bonus.
Seventh step, miscellaneous traits. Ishtar has a home on Getaway, served by Nymphs (Claim to Hospitality). She went to college on an athletic scholarship, which takes the lens Educated, and she majored in education (Teaching). Her gold medal precipitated lots of interviews, and her post-Olympic career has her a frequent guest commentator (Public Speaking, for Rapier Wit and a decent default to Performance) and invitations to celebrity talent shows (Singing for Musical Influence, increment Dancing for Hypnotic Hands, and drop a point in Hypnotism to make use of it). She uses Finance to leverage her notoriety into income and Computer Programming to customize ritual software (and facilitate Hacking). Voice looks like a bargain for the number of her skills it affects, and now she’s down to just two points: Gardening, to grow the raw materials for Alchemy, and Streetwise, because her main customers for those elixirs are gangsters. She should have a street Contact, too, but she’s out of points, and her player has a plan for that.
Eighth step, disadvantages. These are mainly Marks of Power, and for the nurturing Mark of Ninmah, Ishtar has a couple of Ally/Dependents, students of magic, one of whom happens to be a crook, basically her drug pusher and spell pimp. Because she works with crooks, she takes the Pirate Code of Honor as her Mark of Shamesh; it incorporates an idea of fairness, and no other candidate would be compatible. The other Marks appear below. Furthermore, Ishtar’s Skinny, because as an athlete she should be strong for her size, and she has no points for higher ST. She’s Addicted to smoking (like a certain record-setting women’s pole-vaulter), which has a purpose in Las Vegas: Elixirs can come in the form of pastilles, rolled into cigarettes, which are generally acceptable in casinos, whereas outside food and drink are not. She drinks heavily too, but it’s not full-blown Alcoholism because she substitutes other intoxicants (some of which are also legal in Nevada) in order to keep from becoming too dependent on any one of them. Mainly for lack of Combat Reflexes and higher ST, Ishtar lags the Spirit Warrior build in battle, although her mobility could make up the difference, and her magic and skillset is much more versatile for all those times when combat isn’t center stage.
Penultimate step, back story. Much of it evolved through the point allocation process, but to summarize: Ishtar is a legacy Babylonian witch, hence her name, the child of another legacy and one of her recruits. Mom, the legacy, was a full service witch and therefore nuts, so Dad was the relatively stable influence. Ishtar was raised off-world on Getaway, tutored from toddlerdom with the benefits of rituals like Vigil and Perfection of the Soul. At age 7, she started with the path of Tammuz and even then began to make use Mystic’s Stupor, and at age 12, she initiated into her namesake path and developed her sexual appetite; fortunately her parents regarded adult vices as perfectly normal for a young girl, and the worldlaw of Hursag made them safe. She attended Sands Academy to learn about mundane society, partying but never studying because her childhood tutoring had covered the high school curriculum, but after other kids fell asleep, she’d spend hours training as a warrior. College was more of the same, except that she worked her way up in the rankings for her sport, and after college she focused on the Olympics, a venue overburdened with Skeptics and Monotheists, so she competed with no aid from rituals or spirits. The loss of stamina hurt her in the longer runs, but in the throwing and sprints, her showing was a respectable contribution to the American team score, and with a Beamonesque long jump she beat the existing women’s record by more than a foot! (Move 8 yields 26’ without Extra Effort.) Since then, she’s kept her name in the news, worked magic for discerning customers, and aided her delegation to the Council.
To wrap up, the player thinks about Ishtar’s current life as a magician. Of course she stands ready to fight Monsters, but that’s rare. Mainly she serves crooks, Obscurity for their fixed operations, Fertility for illicit crops, curses upon rivals. Still looking great at 31, with olive skin and burgundy hair, she seduces important men, high rollers, in order to stoke gossip, satisfy her goddess, and analyze their genetic material, building a database for future use by magicians who can pay. She re-enters the spotlight occasionally by picking up a Hollywood stunt gig, starring in a reality show, having an affair with someone famous, leaking a sex tape, sponsoring a worthy charity, and publishing bodice-rippers under a pseudonym. Charming, generous, intelligent, talented, and accomplished, she’s also lambasted as a horrible role model for her bad habits and salaciousness; she just likes to keep the public guessing. Out of the spotlight, she’s still working on her legend, competing in an event she likes better than anything the Olympics offer, freerunning through the underground circuit where arenas were never sanctioned for sport and safety is a secondary consideration.
250 Ishtar Gold
79 Magician Template as modified
-8 Apply Gadget limitation to Magery
-1 Forfeit Classic Features
-2 Decrement Alchemy and Symbol-Drawing
-1 Default Driving
00 Swap Path of Heroes for best path
00 Disadvantages (-50 already factored into template cost)
-5 Addiction: Smoking
-1 Addiction Embellishment: Not Just Tobacco
-1 Alcoholism (Quirk-level)
-2 Duty to Coven
-5 Mark of Babylon: Obsession with Celebrity
-1 Mark of Babylon continued: Risk-Taking Behavior Unsanctioned Freerunning
-2 Mark of Enki: Compulsive Generosity 15
-1 Mark of Enlil: Bad Temper 18 (Quirk-level)
-2 Mark of Ishtar: Compulsive Carousing 15
-7 Mark of Ishtar continued: Uncontrollable Appetite for Sex 15
-1 Mark of Kingu: Spiritual Distortion 0 (Quirk-level visible to Aura)
-5 Mark of Nergal: Bloodlust 15
-2 Mark of Ninmah: Ally/Dependents 125pt Student Magicians 12
Gangster: Connected, Crooked, Specialist (Horror), Streetfighter, Gadget, ST 11, Heroes 14, Kingu 12
Heiress: Dealer, Drunk, Ritual Vice, Specialist (Ishtar), Filthy Rich, Gadget, Finance 10
-5 Mark of Shamash: Pirate Code of Honor
-5 Mark of Tammuz: Vow of Loyalty to Babylon
-5 Skinny
40 IQ +2
10 Will +2
15 MV +3
33 Lens: Athlete as modified
-4 Decrement Acrobatics and Climbing
-2 Default Stealth
00 Change Talent to include Acrobatics, Brawling, Dancing, Guns, Stealth, and Throwing
00 Swap Sport for Games (Track and Field)
05 Lens: Drunk
06 Lens: Educated
00 Lens: Horror
09 Lens: Ritual Vice
11 Lens: Warrior as modified
-39 Forfeit Combat Reflexes, Talent, Body Language, Expert, Intimidation, and Observation
00 Change Electronics Operation specialty to Medical and Guns specialty to Pistol
00 Swap Armory for Jeweler, Karate for Brawling, Soldier for Tactics, and Wrestling for Judo
08 Ally: ST 10 Goat Totem 18 (Iron Stomach 2, Peripheral Vision or Spirit Empathy or Striker or Very Fit, Gadget)
01 Claim to Hospitality: Nymphs
10 Magery +2 (Gadget, Solo Tradition)
03 Perfect Balance (Alternate Ability to MV +3)
01 Reputation, ambivalent but usually recognized as the “bad girl” Olympic gold medalist
10 Voice
01 Computer Programming IQ-2
01 Dancing DX+4
01 Finance IQ-2
01 Gardening IQ
01 Hypnotism IQ-2
01 Public Speaking IQ+1
01 Singing HT+2
01 Streetwise IQ-1
01 Teaching IQ-1
00 Computer Hacking, Hypnotic Hands, Musical Influence, and Rapier Wit
Ishtar has $100,000 to start, with plenty of things to buy that cost a kilobuck or more – see Appendix II. Her player decides she wants to stay mobile and starts with a portable ritual kit, to which he adds Very Fine path symbols for $1,000 apiece including a symbol of Kingu to complete the collection, though surely Ishtar would never use it! Her Totem jewel is of the same caliber ($1k), granting +2 to Summon her Totem should it ever get lost. He likewise chooses a portable kit for Jeweler skill ($150) and a suitcase Alchemy lab ($3k) with a mini PCR machine (another $3k). A premium smartphone ($2k) has the most complete digital grimoire she can assemble for the path of Kingu ($500, again purely for academic purposes), along with a grimoire and formulary for each path in her tradition (except Heroes), for another $9k, and a Complexity 3 GUMI for another thou. She can also run CARD/CAED software on this phone when she can afford it, but for now she’ll rent these resources from the Bellagio as needed.
Ishtar’s main weapon is an epsilon axe (Mesopotamian battle axe) which she usually wields two-handed; such weapons aren’t expensive, Fine by default at modern tech level, and even when upgraded to Very Fine material, with Fine balance and Presentation quality, it only costs $750. For ranged combat, she can use a big revolver, the Ruger Super Redhawk, modified to Fine quality with a laser sight, for another 2 grand, but she can use Zen Archery with her bow, a Fine ST 15 reflex bow, also with Fine balance and Presentation quality, plus a collimating site and other modern accessories for $5,901. (The extra buck is for tassles on the bowstring that reduce its noise.) Half a dozen Very Fine bodkins with Fine balance fit the bow quiver ($96). That’s it for mundane equipment, though of course her cost of living pays for such things as a sportscar and a suite in the Bellagio.
Next up, Fetishes. Every spirit requires its own home, but jewels can adorn any item, as for instance Ishtar’s player specifies that her clutch purse will have a ST 15 Djinn of conjuration with a 45# Cosmic Payload like the sample Bag Hag ($4k because Djinn cost double), and its reinforced jeweled clasp will have a ST 10 Poltergeist ($1k) to move it or ready contents for retrieval. That means she can fit her ritual kit and suitcase lab inside with room for weapons, and the purse is small enough to carry in her talons when she Skinchanges to eagle form.
Ishtar’s ritual kit includes a fetish for a ST 15 Eidolon ($1k because Eidolons cost half). It’s the ghost of an acolyte who owned the kit in life, with net Symbol-Drawing 18 (IQ 11, 4pt skill for IQ-level, 1pt Equipment Bond for +1, 1pt Perk Focused for +3, 6pt single-skill Talent +3, 2pt Computer Operation 12 to take advantage of digital aides, leaving a point for Expert skill 9 in its own life story). Her axe is a Fetish for a ST 15 Monster ($2k), a rock giant that causes her axe to heat up so intensely that it inflicts 2d burning follow-up damage. Beyond these, she has the usual ST 10 Familiar ($1k) to facilitate communication with allied spirits and a ST 20 Sphinx ($4k) to hold hostile spirits at bay. It’s Embodied in a piece of jewelry shaped like a serpent, usually coiled around her calf, with the following traits: DR 5 (Can’t Wear Armor), Double-Jointed, Doesn’t Breathe, Doesn’t Eat or Drink, Injury Tolerance (Homogeneous, No Blood), No Manipulators, No Legs (Slithers), Numb, Pressure Support 3 (Alternately Ability Vacuum Support), Sealed, Sharp Teeth with Striking ST +1, Doesn’t Float, Fragile (Brittle), Mute, Unhealing, SM -3, Brawling 14, margin of success 10 withstands 25 skeptics.
The rest of Ishtar’s fetishes are craft spirits in jewelry, ST 10 Eidolons for $500 apiece which sustain rituals, most of which cost $500 also, meaning it’s convenient to think of each sustained ritual as costing $1,000 unless it has a higher level than Ishtar could manage herself. Lacking an appropriate Contact or Ally, Ishtar can only start with rituals of her own tradition, but since her own path skill is 16 in most cases, she can have that level (instead of 12) for base price. Her player looks through her grimoire, noting all the durable rituals and checking if Ishtar’s skill is sufficient for the desired effect level. Of course he wants more than she can afford, so he has to prioritize, starting with a few which cost extra, purchased from better magicians or made with the assistance of a coven, like Obscurity at a whopping +25 for $5k counting the fetish which sustains it. She can perform magic in public, parade around in the nude after she Skinchanges, or fight a spirit, and nobody will notice. A Complexity 3 ERCS on her smartphone ($1k) controls the effect with IQ 10, automatically hiding questionable aspects of her presentation (like a big axe) without making her wholly unable to interact with people. A Weapon Blessing on her axe costs $4,400 for +11 (net +6 over Grace), easily soaking penalties for called shots and extra attacks. To calculate these prices, her player must ignore her own skill and assume base 12. To understand the calculation, see the example based on Weapon Blessing under Commissioning Rituals, above; the only difference is that Ishtar’s axe is 2 pounds heavier. The Babylonian tradition lacks Night Vision, but the Path of Kingu offers Dark Vision which costs extra to cover the risk sustained by the caster, and it also offers Unlimited Ammo for her pistol, $1½k each.
All of Ishtar’s other sustained rituals cost the base, a thousand each. Her player knows she’ll need Hallucination under the control of the ghost in her ritual kit, and a Ward (with strength 12) on a bit of carpet would be a handy addition for field-expedient Summoning. That Sphinx requires a Fetish to sustain Embody; otherwise it would do the job itself and lose the benefit of protection from spirits. Going down the list, Ishtar’s player also chooses Armor (+5), Borrow Skill (Performance), Clean (with enough margin to cover personal effects), Create Warrior (pair of Brutes with Staff skill) and Create Object (their spears and scale armor), Curse Sanctum (20 on Hursag), another Curse Sanctum (20 on Midgard), Dispel Ritual twice (to suppress the worldlaws of Fertility and Firecalm on Hursag), Endure Elements (2000°F which helps when wielding a burning axe), Gift of Tongues (English as a native), Grace (+5), Great Haste, Halt Aging (though Ishtar allows herself to age slowly because she’s in the public eye), Hawk Vision (+5), Liar’s Charm (+18), Perfect Appearance (any level up to Transcendent, but that would provoke Skepticism, so usually dialed back to Beautiful as a plausible evolution from her Olympic debut), Perfect Control +9 (sportscar – Grace irrelevant with IQ-based default), Perfection of the Soul, See Invisible, Skinchange (Eagle), Soothe, Vigil (6 nights), Vigor (+5), Vitality, Warrior’s Blessing, and Wisdom (+4 versus Afflictions). That’s 30 thousand dollars just for the fetishes in this paragraph. Where it makes sense, all of Ishtar’s sustained rituals accepted a Complexity penalty for control via GUMI; for instance she can whitelist a ritual to bypass her Curse Sanctum or allow another driver to borrow her sportscar and benefit from Perfect Control, but there’s no toggle for Grace or Weapon Blessing.
In addition, Ishtar has an unsustained ritual of Chaperon renewed as needed, a ritual of Spirit Slave affecting a gang boss, two policemen, and an assistant district attorney, plus Mystic Mark for them and her students. She usually has a Gambler’s Token ready, but she just used it yesterday. Ishtar’s suitcase lab has a rolling machine to make cigarettes containing pastilles, smokable elixirs, and she carries a special pack containing half a dozen each for Lust (17), Read Thoughts (14), and Suggestion (15), each targeting the first person with whom she makes eye contact, plus a couple for Smoke (21), thick and noxious over a 15’ diameter though it may pass Skepticism from the overly propagandized. These are expensive, a couple hundred bucks apiece, but they allow her to do a little magic on the fly. One of her favorite tricks is to hand a cigarette of Read Thoughts to another magician, so it bypasses his Curse Sanctum and allows him to read her thoughts, for silent communication and demonstration of sincerity. Unfortunately, her Alchemy skill’s not high, so her hand-made smokes have a shelf life of only a week, but she’ll use ‘em in her bid to seduce high rollers. That leaves enough for a service due from her Poltergeist ($100) and Sphinx ($400), starting her story with only $3 left in cash, though of course she has credit cards, and she’s expecting a Windfall any day.
Of course, her player wants more, ideally a backup of everything listed above, plus sustained rituals for every eventuality (like Air Vision, Cadence, Hold Breath, and Mirror). With no physical illusions in the Babylonian tradition, he’d like a Djinn Fetish to handle that for him, so much the better if it had Blessing and Cursing as Alternate Abilities, but he’s tapped out. He can’t even afford spare Eidolon Fetishes to sustain future rituals, so Ishtar might use her Symbol-Drawing coach for that purpose, and for the fatigue cost of Great Haste, Warrior’s Blessing, and Path of Heroes, she can draw from her Djinn or Familiar (but not the Poltergeist or Sphinx, as they might need it themselves).
Putting it all together, Ishtar has DX 15 base, but she’s normally drunk when encountered so that’s DX 13 except for combat. (Drunken Fighting alleviates the penalty for intoxication, but the corresponding bonus doesn’t stack with Grace). Her Wisdom ritual protects her IQ from the Affliction of drunkenness or even more severe intoxication, but Borrow Skill doesn’t stack, so her net bonus to Performance is only +2, enough to buy off the penalty for defaulting from Public Speaking, and her net bonus to Driving her sportscar is only +7. That’s still high enough to drive with her knees, leaving hands free for shooting. She sleeps but one day per week leaving time to work hard and party hard, with work consisting of one ritual for hire per weekday, on average. With Perfect Appearance, her Sex Appeal is 17, and she has a lot of skills at professional to expert levels. Magic doesn’t stack, so her Musical Influence is only 12, but thanks to Vigor her effective Singing skill is 17, not too shabby for karaoke. Her net skill with the magic axe, based on Weapon Adaptation (courtesy of Path of Heroes) is 23, and its Weapon Blessing of net +6 above Grace soaks the penalty for a couple of rapid strikes. Furthermore, Great Haste gives her an extra maneuver each turn which she can use for Power Blow (at 13) to deliver 3d+13/cut followed with 2d/burn, even to spirits which guns won’t touch, and with a Whirlwind Attack, she can reliably strike everyone in reach! Thanks to Soothe and Vitality, she needn’t worry about sexually-transmitted diseases or hangovers, and thanks to Liar’s Charm, nobody can call her bluff. Despite her good looks and fame, nobody even notices her unless she so wishes. Details differ for other traditions, which is why there’s no gear template, but Ishtar gives an idea of what to expect with dozens of Fetishes.