TM

Unknown Armies created by Greg Stolze and John Tynes

Writing and design: Greg Stolze
Line development and project direction: Cam Banks
Editing: Colleen Riley
Additional project direction: Jeff Tidball
Proofreading: Cam Banks, Colleen Riley, and Jeff Tidball
Graphic design: Thomas Deeny
Art direction: Aaron Acevedo with Cam Banks
Cover art: Aaron Acevedo and Jason Engle
Interior art: Aaron Acevedo, Jeannine Acevedo, Jason Engle, Benoît Felten, Colleen Riley, Lassi Seppälä, Thomas Shook, and Shutterstock
Publishers: John and Michelle Nephew
Special thanks to BackerKit, Jessica Banks, Bob Brynildson, Jerry Corrick, Nicolas Gluesenkamp, Kickstarter, Renee Knipe, Kyla McT,
Michelle Nephew, Source Comics and Games, John Tynes, Trucker Kitty, and Travis Winter
To our legions of alpha, beta, and gamma playtesters and to our generous backers — this game exists because of you! You did this!

We are the music makers,

And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams; —
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
Ode, Arthur O'Shaughnessy

AG6035 | Digital Edition 1.0

www.atlas-games.com
© 2017 Trident, Inc., d/b/a Atlas Games. All rights reserved.
Unknown Armies is a trademark of Greg Stolze and John Tynes, used under license by Trident, Inc., d/b/a Atlas Games.
This work is protected by international copyright law and may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the written consent of
the publisher.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1: THE MEAT OF EMPIRE 5

2: FULL-THROATED ADEPTS 9

3: SMALL, DISCRETE CHALLENGES 15

4: THE BIGGER PICTURE 26

5: LAYERS ON THE INSIDE 32

6: IDENTITIES REDUX 35

7: THIS SIDE OF THE VEIL 50

8: NORMALCY BESIEGED 55

9: STATOSPHERIC SELVES 68

10: SYMBOLIC MEDIA 85

 1: MEAT
1: THE MEAT OF EMPIRE
Unknown Armies is not a simple game.
Compared to the rule engines of some RPGs,

2: THROAT
it’s easier — at the heart, players roll percentiles
and hope, and when at a loss, the GM can typi-
cally find an ability that covers the situation, if
WHAT’S IN THIS BOOK
just saying, “No, your Video Gamer identity does This book is what happens when we release
not let you fly a J-10 Vigorous Dragon jet — dude, the chains holding Greg back and tell him to
c’mon, the dials and shit are labeled in Chinese!” “go nuts.” Book Four: Expose includes several
is insufficient. But this isn’t the book to help new rules, new ideas, and new insights into

3: SMALL
you with the mechanics. Look to Book Two: Run the world of Unknown Armies that you can
for that. accept or reject as you desire. The content in
This book is to help you with where the game this book is pure grade AAA Greg, packaged
goes, and that’s where it gets complicated.
for your perusal with all the gristle and bone Remember
Much of the mythology of Unknown Armies
is invented from whole cloth, which makes it
intact. Most chapters feature Greg’s reviews of vampires?
exciting and new, but unfamiliar. Everyone who’s Unknown Armies-adjacent film and literature Popular

4: BIGGER
watched TV knows what a vampire is, but the and how those works show us the shared reality once
same can’t be said for an Executioner avatar. The we’re experiencing through Unknown Armies.
Many also include new creatures thematically
but now
archetypes behind the peculiar cosmic-democracy
mysticism of Unknown Armies are meant to be appropriate to the chapter.
pedestrian
universal, but the weird creatures and deranged, and trite.
anti-rational adepts are harder to parse. The Here’s a summary of what you should expect: Everyone’s
themes of bafflement and uncertainty are what

5: LAYERS
make Unknown Armies simultaneously novel
got a
Adepts: Musing about practitioners of magick. vampire.
and alienating.
This book can, I hope, offer some insight and
Antagonists: Thoughts on throwing horrors in
clarification into the components of the game that
go beyond what to roll and how, reaching into the the path of your cabal.
why of it all. Why is this important to our charac-
ters? Why is this fun? Why should we even care? The Bigger Picture: Contemplating the larger

6: REDUX
The weird, dirty corners of the Unknown Armies objectives and scale of Unknown Armies.
cosmos are, paradoxically, where it shines. So
this book is intended, in some way, to take those Character: Insights into internal narratives.
murky issues and provide illumination. Or, failing
that, to help you keep things murky the right way Features and Identities: Plenty of identity-re-
to fascinate and amuse your cabal. lated rules to add to your collection.

7: VEIL
The Dead: Beyond the veil of the living, and
what to do with what you find there.

Normalcy Besieged: Taking on the mundane

humdrum of what we think of everyday life. 8: BESEIGED

Statosphere Stuff: More avatars and the notion

of claiming places in their name.

Symbolism: Hippy-trippy analogues and

metaphors and how to implement them.
9: SELVES

raw
ever hear the italian saying “why
10: MEDIA

don’t you shit in your hand and

slap yourself in the face”?
5
My gardener’s name is Hector. He is an illegal immigrant.
When I berate him, he stares at me with the dumb eyes of an ox, but surely he
cannot mistake my tone. Were I to strike him, what recourse does he have? He,
with his grimy jeans and broken English, has far more to fear from the police than a
man in a tailored suit with a lawyer on retainer.
I sit in the conservatory and watch him trim the roses and I am content with this
situation. Him? Given that he has not gone home nor sought other employment, I
am forced — forced — to conclude that he is content as well.

As I watch Hector, I snack on a pear such as the opportunity afforded by polyglot of Spanish and native. I have
grown in Yakima, Washington. The being a college professor’s daughter and no issue with that, but preparing
volcanic soil there produces a superior not the child of a road paver. Check someone of that racial descent with
fruit. An associate at my club sent some the period of prosperity and scientific mole negro sauce? That’s just a pun. A
Moonglow pears from his ranch here advancement that put a cell phone in jest. I do not appreciate anyone snick-
in Texas. He insists that they’re better. her hand and those ridiculous plastic ering at our Arts.
He’s a fool. hoof-shoes on her feet. Check the The thing is, Andrea believes I have
My land used to have pear trees, but mother that never made her eat an contempt for her and Hector, which is
I had them uprooted and turned into ant-covered bread crust as an object ridiculous. It would hardly make sense
furniture and kitchen spoons. They lesson about keeping the kitchen tidy. for me to look down on one for being
make good spoons because they do not That got her crying. insufficiently rich and the other for
warp and splinter even with repeated My chocolatier is Lagomarcino’s, in insufficient poverty.
use and washing, nor do they contami- Illinois. It’s where I proposed to my It’s a good thing that Andrea doesn’t
nate food with color or flavor. wife, but that has nothing to do with have to suffer and toil the way I did,
Washington has better pears. It’s why I still special-order their truffles, and it’s a shame that Hector must. If he
ridiculous to try and compete with years later and a great distance away. gets with the program, his children will
something objectively superior. They are simply very, very good. I’ve have an easier time of it. He’d need to
When we kill Hector, I’m planning eaten Swiss chocolate and Belgian and learn English and legally immigrate, of
to do a reduction of those Yakima pears I’m sorry, I think this small confec- course, and that is difficult. It should
and some Vidalia onions in balsamic tionary in the American Midwest is just be difficult. Everyone craves excellence,
vinegar and serve them with the grilled as good, if not superior. but when its supply is limited, restric-
muscles of his side and middle back, the When my niece returns to college, tions must be in place. Difficulty weeds
latissimus dorsi. He spends a lot of time a box of assorted truffles should be out the undeserving. It’s hard, but
bending over in the garden, so those waiting for her. it’s necessary.
muscles should be lean and flavorful. I Ordering the chocolates online I want this country of bounty and
intend to brine them for several hours reminds me of Stephen’s Great Feast. its culture of justice to spread and
to deal with any toughness. He’d hired a nanny named Marisol and thrive. I want everyone in the world to
My niece, Andrea, recently told me served us her gluteus minimus and gluteus enjoy the benefits unique to American
to “check my privilege.” Raised her medius muscles, roasted, with bitter culture. But in order for that to happen
voice as she did it, too. So I did, right chocolate, chiles, cinnamon, tomatillos, — in order for the equality of health
there in front of her. Checked the fact and plantains. I found this distasteful care and opportunity that Andrea
that I’d grown up in the USA, with on several levels. First and foremost, claims to desire to actually become real
decent schools and hospitals and roads incorporating Oaxacan cuisine into — people need to accept America into
between them. Checked the poverty I the Great Feast ceremony seemed, to their hearts. They need to become loyal
escaped by being smart and by making me, a tacit wink at the very idea of our and patriotic, and you can’t split that.
my brains recognizable to other smart endeavor’s rightness. If we hold our “No one can serve two masters.” If there
men who had as much need of my culture to be self-evidently superior, is going to be a level playing field, ever,
hard work and intelligence as I had what business do we have diluting it it will be American.
need of their money (and intelli- with foreign trends? Stephen’s argu- I take advantage of Hector, lever-
gence). Checked the discipline with ment was that incorporation is essential aging my greater power, knowledge,
which I comported myself. Checked to the Work, like incorporating the and wealth, because the very nature of
the national security that arose from a flesh of servants into our bodies, but I power and wealth and knowledge are
powerful army and the will to use it. think he just likes Tex-Mex and, more, to offer leverage. He has no realistic
When I was done with that likes being daring and shocking. chance of resisting my will. It is not a
(despite her sophomore sputtering Secondly, Marisol’s ancestry was good thing that I can use him so, but it
and red-faced counter-arguments) I mixed between African ancestry (via is necessary. The power and value he
suggested that she check her privileges, American slavery) and the Mexican has as an illegal gardener is negligible,
even to himself, certainly to the world It’s a shame about Hector, but it I have eleven more guests, after
and its future. was my turn and he made sense. The James, coming to my Great Feast.
Without my intercession, Hector other members of the Order knew Unfortunately, this includes Stephen.
could have been born, lived, and that I was preparing a Great Feast and The slightest of our number, a woman
perished without leaving a trace on placed no significant restrictions on out of Dallas named Janine, weighs
the world. It does not matter that he our shared pool of ghosts. Annoyingly, 260 pounds, so we are all what you
would prefer to avoid my attentions, Hector was only lightly injured in the could call “big eaters.” Dead, Hector
my intercession, my Work. Power, crash and was walking away when I seemed so much smaller. He was 160
wealth, and knowledge permit me arrived. I had to finish him with a rifle pounds at most, and much of that —
to enforce my preferences on society, shot, and the first one was off-center brains, veins, bones, and skin — are
on matter, on people. That is the very and may have pierced his bowels. But unpalatable. I’m not using the intes-
definition of power, and of value. it did drop him and I was able to tines: Janine made sausage when she
I smear a dab of chocolate on a finish him with a bullet to the throat. prepared Armando, and it was wonderful,
metal plate, add a dash of tequila, and Then Armando’s ghost lifted him into but reading her recipe made it clear
ignite it. “Marisol,” I say, “Attend.” the bed of one of the ranch pickups, that cleaning the casing was terrible,
A dark figure appears in the corner permitting me to drive him back to filthy toil. I understand that one must
shadows of my study. The room faces one of the unused sheds. There Eliana dig in the dirt to plant a strong seed,
west, and its eastern wall of books and was able to lift him onto the hook. but I haven’t risked and striven my
landscapes is beautifully illumined Skinning and bleeding him was a whole life to spend hours cleaning the
by the setting sun. But the western task that left me panting and sweating: tract of a dead man when I’m in my
corners are dim in comparison. She is at 310 pounds, I am not built for phys- fifties and hypertensive. There must
only an outline, dim upon the dim. ical labor, but such are the demands be limits.
“Do you know the man Hector who of the Work. By six o’clock, James Still, I’m sure it will all turn out fine.
works here? This is his photograph. Do arrived and was a great help with the The Order expects a good meal, but
you recognize him?” butchering. While I must do all the even if it’s burned or poorly seasoned
She nods. cooking (and had maintained a steadily or tough, it’s still a Great Feast.
“Today, when he leaves work, you simmering ginger-fig compote even By sundown tomorrow, dead
are to force his truck off the road. Can before dispatching Marisol), some Hector shall attend and serve us all,
you do that?” aid with carrying and fetching his ghost bound to his flesh, his flesh
She nods. is permitted. incorporated into ours, his will subser-
“Do it before he reaches Route 351. I had his cheeks and tongue for vient to the Ordo Corpulentis.
Do it at the turn by the big red oak. frying as part of an appetizer, the
You understand?” long muscles of the legs ready to spit-
She nods. roast with a rosemary crust, and the
“Good.You may go.” ribs separated for barbecue. All in all,
She nods and then, as far as living Hector fit into four large Styrofoam
eyes can tell, she ceases to exist. ice chests.
 1: MEAT
2: FULL-THROATED
ADEPTS

2: THROAT
They’re the people who gave “chargers” the name, the crazy get them. They’re individually wrapped Cassandras, making
ones, the occultists who write their own rules and have predictions that come true but are universally ignored.
the will and the lunacy to make them stick. They fly in the This makes them frustrated, and frustration is never a
face of what everybody knows and somehow it’s common great spice to add to great power. They scare people, they
sense that winds up crashing and burning. So let’s take a make enemies, and they pursue agendas either inscrutable

3: SMALL
closer look. or in the interest of ultimate plans that make no sense. In
Adepts, for all their power — often because of it — are the end, they are often their own worst enemies, and
alone, almost universally. They may have friends, they may the punishment of an adept’s worst enemy is likely to be
have allies, they certainly have people who want what severe indeed.
they’ve got, but they rarely have many people around who

USTRINATURGY

4: BIGGER
AKA GASPERS, CHIMNEYS
Everyone knows smoking’s bad for you. Everyone. Yet it’s STATS
still a multi-billion global industry, and why the hell is that? Generate a Minor Charge: Smoke a cigarette. Or, if you
Sure, you can look at the cultural inculcation of generations must, puff on a pipe or an e-cig for a few minutes. You
of sexy smoking movie stars, who are probably the actual can’t pull more than one minor charge this way for every
source of the phrase “smoking hot” and you can objec- ten minutes.

5: LAYERS
tively see why the haze of smoke in the air is interesting
and artistic, calling back to the fascination of the earliest Generate a Significant Charge: Finish off a pack of smokes,
tamed fires. or a vape cartridge, or the equivalent in panatelas or pipe
You can consider the connection of smoke with power, tobacco. Call it two to two and a half hours of total nico-
the smoke-filled room, the billionaire with his cigar, and the tine ingestion.
society dragon lady with her cigarette holder. You can look
to the religious use of tobacco by the earliest people who Generate a Major Charge: There are two identified ways to

6: REDUX
were aware of it. You can even argue for the neurological get a major charge from one’s dedication to nicotine. The
angle, that nicotine lubricates brain cells and improves focus. current way is to get cancer from tobacco (see “00 Means
But the plain fact is, people smoke because they like it. Cancer” below) — you get the major charge when it’s diag-
They smoke because it looks good, feels good, and tastes nosed. The ancient way is to ingest so much nicotine that
good. If, for all that, it’s bad? Well, if one can’t handle a little you go into what the old shamans called “the false death
paradox, one might as well be a chimpanzee. We don’t like of the true leaf” and what EMTs call “nicotine-induced
smoking in spite of it being self-destructive, but because it’s CNS depression.”

7: VEIL
self-destructive. To hit that level of nicotine narcosis, an experienced
Every Ustrinaturgy spell must be cast while smoking, smoker needs to ingest between 1,000 to 1,500 milligrams
vaping, or otherwise inhaling some nicotine. (Sorry, gums of nicotine in about an hour. For reference, a cigarette
and patches don’t cut it.) has about one milligram, so… the math is nice and simple,

8: BESEIGED

00 MEANS CANCER
Any time you roll a 00 while casting an Ustrinaturgy
spell, tell your GM. She then decides if your character
has cancer and, if so, whether it’s in your lungs, mouth,
or throat. This is because Ustrinaturgy is based on
9: SELVES

smoke, smoking, and the mystic properties of tobacco

and nicotine. (Vaping, while still an unhealthy habit that
can cause genetic changes — especially if your vape
juice has artificial flavors in it, because that stuff’s not
well regulated — is prrrrrobably not as bad for you as
poise flat-out cigarette smoking. But it still might give you a
10: MEDIA

condition called “popcorn lung,” which is not nearly as

no, it’s more a “threat of jolly as it sounds.)
vegetables” culture
9
 1: MEAT
and impossible. You’d either need to seriously recirculate a COUGHING FIT
concentrated burning or vaporized form, or drink a quart of Cost: 3 minor charges.
nearly pure liquid nicotine. Effect: This is the Ustrinaturgy minor blast. To cast it,
Someone who does this (and nobody should) can first you need to blow smoke (or, fine, vapor) at someone. If it
expect a rapid heartbeat, wicked headache, vomiting, and succeeds, their eyes sting and they cough violently. The

2: THROAT
lots of sweat. That’s the stimulant phase, and it’s horrible, damage takes the form of minor lung bruising and blood-
but if you take enough nicotine it flips into depressant mode, shot eyes.
which crashes your heart rate and puts you at risk of coma,
paralysis, and respiratory failure. EYES GET IN YOUR SMOKE
Basically, anyone who manages to ingest a potentially Cost: 3 minor charges.
killing dose of nicotine makes a Fitness roll. Any failure Effect: Cast this spell while exhaling a cloud of smoke, or
means death, no chance of recovery. A success means respi- while waving around a cloud of smoke from some other

3: SMALL
ratory seizure that can be recovered from with some kind source. As long as the spell lasts, you can see and hear from
of successful Medicine roll. (But if that Medicine roll fails… the perspective of the smoke cloud, as if your eyes and
yeah, death.) A matched success inflicts 2d10 wounds, and ears were inside it. You can move it along at the pace of a
a crit means a mere 2 wounds. In any case, the ustrinaturge leisurely walk if the air is still, coax it to seep under door-
passes out and experiences an otherworldly vision that may ways, or send it up into the sky. A stiff wind or vigorous
or may not have anything to do with actual reality. fanning breaks it up, but otherwise the effect lasts a number
of minutes equal to the casting roll.

4: BIGGER
Taboo: Ustrinaturges lose all charges if they go more than Generally, gaspers close their eyes and plug their ears
four hours without smoking or vaping or dabbing liquid while using the smoke cloud as a surveillance drone.
nicotine behind their ears so they can absorb it through their Opening their eyes shifts their perspective back to their
skin. Nicotine patches can prevent one from being tabooed body, but they can toggle between the two options until
overnight, although they don’t provide enough of an instant the spell ends or the cloud gets busted.
jolt to deliver a charge. Similarly, while nicotine gum isn’t
sufficient to charge (gum?!?) it can stave off the taboo. NICFIT

5: LAYERS
Cost: 2 minor charges.
Random Magick Domain: The qualities of smoke (the way it Effect: Casting this spell on someone gives them an intense,
gets everywhere, its suspension in the air, the way it reveals extremely specific urge to smoke a cigarette. Not to vape,
things because “where there’s smoke there’s fire”) and the enjoy a pipe, or breathe in secondhand smoke, but to light
things it symbolizes (old Hollywood glamour, obfuscation, up a cigarette and smoke it to the filter (which, anecdotally,
the threat of destruction). takes about seven minutes). This doesn’t subject the target
to a stress check; they just really need a smoke.

6: REDUX
USTRINATURGY MINOR FORMULA SPELLS
SECONDHAND COOL
ALWAYS HAVE A LIGHT Cost: 1 minor charge.
Cost: 1 minor charge. Effect: There was a satirical article in The Onion with the
Effect: Cast this spell, and something that can light a ciga- headline “Secondhand Smoke Linked to Secondhand
rette appears in your hands, or your back pocket, or some- Coolness” and that is, presumably, the basis of this spell’s
where that producing it won’t give anybody a stress check. title. Here’s how it works: you smoke, you cast the spell, and

7: VEIL
You could probably just pull it from someone’s ear and have you look cool. It can even make you look cool with an e-cig
them dismiss it as sleight of hand. or a cigarette holder or, I don’t know, the hookah you’re
In any event, it’s always something cheap. Maybe a dragging behind you in a Radio Flyer wagon.
disposable plastic lighter, like you get by the counter at a Mechanically, if this spell succeeds you can substitute
convenience store. More likely, it’s a book of matches from your Ustrinaturgy identity for Connect on your next roll.
some restaurant nobody’s ever heard of. (“‘Rosalita’s Haüs 8: BESEIGED
of Sushi’? Is this a joke?”) Once you call it, you get the same THE DEVIL IN SMOKE
object every time you cast the spell, until it’s empty, at Cost: 2 minor charges.
which point you get some new random fire source. Effect: The world is full of invisible wackness, and while this
spell doesn’t let you do much about it, at least you can see
CLOUDSHAPE what you’re dealing with. Sorta. Cast this spell and, for a
Cost: 2 minor charges. number of minutes equal to the casting roll, invisible and
Effect: For ten to fifteen minutes, smoke takes on the astral entities within twenty yards of the caster displace
9: SELVES

shapes you dictate. You can control a cloud of smoke smoke. So if there’s smoke around, they push it aside and
roughly the size of a minivan. It’s still obviously smoke, but you get a vague idea of their size, shape, and location.
seeing smoke take on the form of a giant sneering devil face
or turn into some beefy monster swinging fists at you is defi-
nitely alarming. You can reliably get a Violence or Unnatural
check at rank 2 or 3 out of this, assuming the person can
see it clearly. It shows up in photographs, but is readily
10: MEDIA

dismissed as being edited.

10
 1: MEAT
USTRINATURGY SIGNIFICANT non-Americans.) The fire department is likely to
FORMULA SPELLS be called.

CANCER CURSE SMOKEFORM

Cost: 5 significant charges. Cost: 3 significant charges.

2: THROAT
Effect: To cast this spell, you roll the dice while Effect: When successfully cast, the adept’s body
looking someone straight in the eye and telling and immediate possessions (clothes, the crap in
them that they must obey you or get cancer. her purse and pockets, but nothing as big as a
You must name a specific task, though you’re bicycle) turn into smoke. She remains in this form
permitted to name an impossible one. If they don’t until a number of minutes equal to the casting roll
get the task done within seven days, they get lung, elapse, or until she chooses to become solid again.
throat, or mouth cancer. It may take a few weeks Her smokeform is a loose cloud about the size

3: SMALL
or even a month from the end of the weeklong of her whole solid body. She can move at the pace See “I’m Afraid
deadline, but it’s there and it’s serious. of a slow walk through still air, but may be pushed It’s Cancer” for
If the person does what you say within the back by any stiff wind or strong fan. She can’t be more details
seven days, nothing happens. After pronouncing physically damaged, nor damage anyone else, but about how to
the curse, it’s on — you can’t recall it, switch it she can seep through small cracks or under doors handle this.
off, or change your mind. The person still gets easily. She can fly, though getting more than
sick even if they kill you, but don’t expect them to twenty feet up takes some serious focus.

4: BIGGER
believe that until the diagnosis rolls in.
SMOKE WITHOUT FIRE
DEATH STICKS Cost: 3 significant charges.
Cost: 2 significant charges. Effect: This disintegrates objects, turning them
Effect: This is the gaspers’ big blast. You cast the into smoke without the pesky heat and light of
spell and either blow smoke or contemptuously burning them. It’s a standard version of Alter See “Alter
flick your half-finished cigarette at the target. If it Significant Tangible Objects. You point at the Significant

5: LAYERS
succeeds, it does damage like a gunshot, usually to thing you want gone, you spend your charge and Tangible
the lungs and chest. roll, and then it blows away in a cloud of smoke Objects” on
that quickly disperses into a thin layer of ash. page 138 of
LIKE BOGART AND BACALL Doesn’t work on people, but they probably don’t Book One:
Cost: 3 significant charges. know that. Play.
Effect: No one on film looked as sexy smoking
as Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, except UNBURNING

6: REDUX
possibly some of the people in the Tom Vek video Cost: 2 significant charges.
for “Aroused.” If you want to look as irresistible as Effect: When cast on ashes, they are briefly
the people in the aforementioned media, which wreathed in a whirlwind of smoke and darkness,
might as well be pro-tobacco PSAs, you’re going and a breeze seems to blow straight at them.
to need this spell. I mean, unless you’re already When the smoke clears and the lights come back Look at “Fix
drastically sexfully alluring. up, whatever was burned is now unburned. That’s More Damage”
When you cast this spell, the smoke around you what this is, though it’s unique to things that have on page 138

7: VEIL
wreathes dramatically and you become the object been burned up. Then again, the popularity of the of Book One:
of desire and fascination. In practical terms, it’s phrase, “Kill it with fire!” speaks to how common Play.
a significant roll improvement for Connect — all flames are as a vector for injury. If cast on a
difficulties and penalties are removed, and you damaged object, the burn damage is reversed. If
get a +10% increase multiplied by the ones place used on a burned person, it removes wounds equal
of your roll. (Roll a 35, get +50% to Connect.) This to the roll (only damage due to fire is removed). In 8: BESEIGED
lasts for a number of rolls equal to the tens place the case of a cremated body, it restores the body
of your roll. (Roll a 35, get the bonus on your next mostly back to how it was before it was cremated
three Connect rolls.) (but not living). Where
there’s
OBSCURING CLOUD MAJOR CHARGE EFFECTS smoke,
Cost: 1 significant charge. Disseminating a vial of a substance to every
Effect: When you cast this spell, a big cloud of person on Earth (good if you’ve got a virus or there’s more
smoke, and
9: SELVES

opaque smoke flows out and away from your body, vaccine), causing a massive conflagration some-
either in one direction or surrounding you. (It’s where in the world (like the King’s Cross fire of sometimes
opaque to you too, just so you know.) It’s enough 1987, thought to have been caused by a smoker’s
smoke to fill up an entire suburban two-story discarded match), or potentially increasing or
fire.
house from basement to attic, and it lasts for a reducing the incidence of cancer from a specific
number of minutes equal to the casting roll. If you vice, hobby, or substance (like AstroTurf, kale, red
do it out in the open, it’s enough to cover about meat, or performing in jazz clubs).
10: MEDIA

2,000 square feet to a depth of ten feet. (That’s

about a tenth of a hectare and three meters deep,

11
 1: MEAT
2: THROAT
3: SMALL
4: BIGGER
I’M AFRAID IT’S CANCER

5: LAYERS
The dance of cancer and smokes is an old one and while Mid-Phase: The cancer is growing. All rolls are at –10%,
it’s not the only thing that ever kills smokers, it is the quint- including Fitness to resist the illness. There are still the
essential smoker’s death. Moreover, there’s a specific spell monthly Fitness rolls, but now the results are as follows:
in the ustrinaturge’s arsenal that has a very high chance of
giving someone cancer, if they’re stubborn. So here are the • Fumble, Matched Failure, or Failure: The disease
rules for the emperor of maladies, lung division: progresses to Late Phase. Matched failures offset
treatment successes on a one-for-one basis.

6: REDUX
Early Phase: The cancer is detectable, but there aren’t • Success: The disease stays at Mid-Phase.
noticeable physical symptoms yet. Still, the diagnosis is a • Matched Success or Crit: The disease returns to
shock — specifically, it’s a Helplessness or Violence check, Early Phase.
somewhere between rank 3 and rank 5, depending on the
patient’s history and personality. Every month, the patient Radiation and chemo work much like they do in Early
makes a Fitness check. If successful, the cancer stays in Early Phase — same downsides, success keeps the cancer at the
Phase. If the roll fails, the cancer proceeds to Mid-Phase. If current phase. The only difference is, on a matched success

7: VEIL
he gets an unusual success, the cancer goes into remission or crit, it returns to the previous phase. All failures do the
and he doesn’t have to roll for one to ten months! After that patient no good.
though, the cancer’s back in Early Phase. Any unusual failure This is the earliest phase at which surgery is an option.
costs the patient 1d10 wounds, cough cough. It’s an unmodified roll of a Medical identity that permits
If he decides to get treatment through radiation and such invasive procedures, and it permanently reduces the
chemotherapy, that’s fine. Each radiation treatment inflicts patient’s wound threshold by 1–5 (1d10/2, round up). If it 8: BESEIGED
a –10% penalty to all rolls for one to five days. Each chemo- succeeds, the illness drops back to Early Phase. If it fails, it
therapy treatment does 1d10 wounds. But on the upside, has no positive effects. Entering Mid-Phase is a Helplessness
each treatment option offers a doctor a chance to roll a or Violence check, at rank 2–4.
Medical identity. On a success, the disease stays in Early
Phase. On a matched success, the cancer remains in Early Late Phase: The cancer spreads to other body systems. All
Phase and the patient doesn’t take the harm of the treat- rolls are at –20% and the patient permanently loses 1d10
ment. On a crit, the illness goes into remission, as described from their wound threshold. There is no additional stress
9: SELVES

above. All forms of failure, however, do the same thing, check for entering Late Phase. Radiation and chemo work as
which is nothing. they do in Mid-Phase. Surgery is at a –10% penalty.

Final Phase: The cancer is inoperable, and it is no longer

responding to radiation or chemotherapy. All rolls are
at –30% and the patient permanently loses an additional
2d10 from their wound threshold. Entering Final Phase is a
10: MEDIA

Helplessness or Violence check at rank 5–7. At this point, it’s

just a matter of time, unless a miracle happens.

12
 1: MEAT
INTACTO BY JUAN CARLOS FRESNADILLO
This Spanish movie is well worth enduring your
choice of “dub or sub” poison. It’s a thriller based WHAT IT EXPOSES ABOUT
around a very specific and ruthless occult under- UNKNOWN ARMIES

2: THROAT
ground. It’s a subculture that trades in luck. Intacto is a great how-to of worldbuilding: it
Everybody says it’s better to be lucky than good, takes a simple premise, then builds out the
but the bitter truth at the heart of that sentiment natural consequences that arise once sketchy
is that luck is the one thing you can’t control. people discover that secret rule, turning it into an
Intacto asks, “What if you could?” Specifically, economy where the rich get richer. And how do
what if people who are unusually lucky can suck they keep track? Through a series of increasingly
the good fortune out of others and hoard it, like hazardous and bizarre competitions. (My favorite

3: SMALL
leprechaun vampires? is “run through the woods blindfolded with your
The answer is, you get a subculture of people hands tied behind your back.” Whoever reaches
who know the secret and who are constantly the finish line first wins the luck of the ones who
circling each other, trying to steal mojo. They are faceplanted, got lost, or ran a sharp stick through
not exceptionally good people. But they’re fine their thigh.)
with the idea that it’s better to be lucky. Being lucky all the time is great. Being able to
The film’s main characters are a young scumbag shrug off a spear through your chest like it’s a

4: BIGGER
who was the sole survivor of a plane crash; a cop shaving nick is really damn useful. But once you
who walked away from the car wreck that killed achieve these remarkable powers, you’re stuck in a
her family; a man who emerged unscathed from a cutthroat social milieu of people who either don’t
devastating earthquake; and a mysterious casino have your gifts and are desperate to steal them or
owner (played by Max von Sydow!) who has never who do have your gifts, negating your advantage.
lost a game of Russian roulette. It’s not hard to imagine a scenario where avatars
or adepts struggle with their powers in order to

5: LAYERS
secure the very resources they need to main-
tain their powers. Intacto provides examples of Forget it,
similar challenges.
Lia, it’s
Limetown.
LIMETOWN BY ZACK AKERS,

6: REDUX
SKIP BRONKIE, AND DAVE YIM
It’s interesting and instructive to compare the Limetown details the research of Lia Haddock
Limetown podcast with Tanis. Both are profession- (whose uncle was on the site) into the mysterious See “Tanis by
ally produced, appealing narratives about journal- disappearances, including interviewing apparent Nic Silver.”
ists attempting to find places that are somehow survivors living under assumed identities. No
lost or vanished. Both present themselves as if spoilers, but Lia finds out that the neurological

7: VEIL
they were real investigations and involve a lot of research bore fruit. Yet somehow, rushing to use
interviews with cagey people who may not be untested and radical new technologies turned out
trustworthy or all there mentally. to have unexpected negative consequences.
The difference between Limetown and Tanis It’s a well-acted, well-written story with some
is that every episode of Tanis seems to pull in moments where they really go for terror (unlike
some new element, while Limetown gets deeper Tanis, which gets its scares through mood and 8: BESEIGED
into what it’s already established — which is that foreboding instead of recordings of crazy dudes
a failing municipality named “Limetown” was screaming and trying to get into the heroine’s
pretty much bought out lock, stock, and barrel hotel room). I also like the fact that it is (appar-
in order to become a utopian experiment based ently) done. As of this writing, six months have
around a neurological research lab. Only the passed since the last episode, and I’m honestly just
best and brightest were allowed to take part in fine with that. I like that it has a beginning, middle,
the Limetown project, and, even then, they had and end.
9: SELVES

to accept that they might leave their prominent

college position in order to be a janitor. But WHAT IT EXPOSES ABOUT
because of the charisma and track record of UNKNOWN ARMIES
Limetown’s founder (and, it emerges, curiosity I don’t want to give anything away, so I’ll just say
about someone they only call “the man we were Limetown is a good resource if you’re curious what
all there for”), assorted brilliant people moved to would happen if some adept-level powers were
Tennessee to be part of the next big thing. Then available to people without obsessions, taboos,
10: MEDIA

all 300 of them vanished in the course of twenty­ or charges.

four hours.

13
 1: MEAT
3: SMALL, DISCRETE
CHALLENGES

2: THROAT
Settings with a clear-cut favorite morality, no matter what up a bad guy for your bespoke agenda. Nonetheless, here
its stripe, tend to have obvious groups of enemies. Unknown we are.
Armies, on the other hand, doesn’t tell you what’s right and What follows are examples of people and entities that are
what’s wrong. Instead, it asks the players to declare what’s quite likely to rouse the ire (or scare the pants off) of player
intolerable in their sight and what they’re going to do about cabals. Some of them do this by having contrary agendas.
it. Given the broad possibilities that encompasses, it can be Some do it by being contrary to the very idea of agendas.

3: SMALL
hard for GMs to create enemies they can be confident their And some are just plan morally reprehensible by any reason-
cabal will oppose. It’s even harder for an outsider to write able standard.

BOLUS
The poor bastard known as “Bolus” was born Manavinder with a mixture of newspaper and wet flour. When the ants
Chaha, but nobody cares about that anymore. His parents pull it away, he mixes up some more.) Per the fire codes, he

4: BIGGER
are alive, but they’ve given up on him and tried to get on shouldn’t be able to rent that space as a residence, since
with their lives. His sister Sri might give a damn, but she’s there’s only one exit, and there are probably some miscel-
living in Greece, working for an NGO that’s trying to help laneous housing regulations getting violated, but he’s got
refugees. Is she motivated somewhat by guilt over the his mattress on the linoleum and his flypapers on the ceiling
brother that her family is, for all practical purposes, trying to and he’s mostly content. Besides, if there was a fire, he’d be
forget? It probably won’t make any difference. able to walk through the wall and escape into the building
The thing to know about Bolus is that he is completely next door.

5: LAYERS
insane, in the sense of being a danger to himself and others, Bolus can walk through walls. That’s one of the two
and that he is equal parts pitiful and menacing. He was, of weird side effects of his experiment into world-devouring
course, an adept. Not just an adept, but a charger, an arro- magick. But he can only do it when completely unobserved.
gant master of space and location and arcane geometry, Still, that’s not bad, not bad at all. Unless you were trying to
who wore silk undershorts and designer sunglasses and flabbergast someone, or escape from them, why would you
didn’t have to pay for his freebase cocaine after a cartel want to go through a wall as they watched?
found out he could compress their thugs into dense dead Bolus’ job, so far as he has one, is “bespoke burglar.” He

6: REDUX
wads the size of a cinderblock. He lived in California and walks around with one of the ten or twelve materialistic
went by the name “Transcontinental” and no one there has people who employ him — most know him only as “Bolus,”
seen him since he went mad and moved. don’t know where he lives, don’t know that he lacks a phone
Here’s the thing about cocaine: it makes you feel brilliant number, and they get in touch with him by hanging out at
and capable and as if you deserve to achieve every ambi- this one record store where he goes to get his 1970s funk
tion you can conceive. The sensation, in fact, has been music on vinyl — and they point out things they want. They
directly compared to feeling white privilege. So even though do this at IKEA or Best Buy or a pawn shop, and then later,

7: VEIL
everyone else who tried to learn two magick schools came Bolus lets himself in when the place is closed. He wears a
to exceptional grief, Manavinder “Transcontinental” Chaha ski mask in case there’s video cameras, but they never catch
was confident that he was a combination Einstein/Gagarin/ him entering because (duh) if they could see him enter, he’d
Nanak and would be the first to do it. be observed and unable to walk through the wall to enter.
The schools he tried to blend were the space-warping So Bolus lets himself into that IKEA or Best Buy or pawn
discipline he’d already mastered, and a symbolic form of shop, pockets whatever was requested, maybe takes some- 8: BESEIGED
devouring psychic cannibalism. His ambition was to devour thing else that catches his eye, and leaves the same magick
all of spacetime, incorporating it into his body and, more way he came in. Typically, he sells the object to his buyer for
importantly, his consciousness. It was your basic “eat every- a quarter of its listed price and everyone’s happy, except the
thing, become god” scheme and, like all the others who store owners and the cops, who are baffled and pissed.
tried this shit, he failed big and hard. That’s how he gets by with no job, paying his rent and
Bolus now lives in an apartment which he insists is “propi- occasionally buying things that aren’t worth the effort
tious” and pays far more than three windowless subter- to steal. He doesn’t bother with groceries or restaurants
9: SELVES

ranean rooms with unfinished ceilings and linoleum over because of the other power he retained. Warning, it’s gross:
concrete foundations are worth. (There was some daylight, he steals food. But he doesn’t steal it out of stores or pack-
coming through cracks in the walls, but he seals those up ages or vending machines. He steals it out of people.
Imagine you’ve just had nice Vietnamese sandwich with
roast pork and head cheese and jalapeños and cilantro. It’s
sitting comfortably in your belly, marinating in that coconut
biome smoothie you got on the side. Well, if Bolus had seen you
10: MEDIA

eating and decided he wanted or needed that meal more

the rpg nuremberg defense: “but i vas than you, he could give you a squinty look with his pouchy
chust followink mine character conzept!”
15
 BOLUS

1: MEAT
Notches Violence Unnatural Helplessness Isolation Self
Hardened 4 5 3 4 2
Failed 5 5 5 5 5

brown eyes and then that food would be in his Stephen King Thinner curse on her, and he can’t be
tract, not yours. imprisoned. What makes Bolus worse than that is

2: THROAT
Bolus never eats anything. His teeth are all his assortment of madnesses. (An unhelpful side
gone, because removing them was part of his effect of his failed double-adeptery, remember?)
grand eating adept gesture, and he doesn’t bother His specific syndromes are as follows:
much with oral hygiene because he doesn’t like Megalomania: Bolus tends to discount any
having things in his mouth any more, at all. If suggestion that a task might be beyond his means.
he gets hungry or thirsty, he just has to eyeball He’s too bold to be sensible, even when the risks
someone who’s less hungry or less thirsty. His are great and the rewards are puny. He has no

3: SMALL
breath is atrocious, and if you offer him a Tic Tac, sense of proportion and very little impulse control.
he won’t take it. Grapple phobia: Bolus doesn’t like to be
So then. We have a weird madman who can touched at all, but he really dislikes rough stuff.
vampirize your dinner, steal your stuff if he feels Any time he gets grabbed or hit, he automatically
like it, and probably get out of jail in short order fails a stress check. It’s almost always a toss-up
if arrested. Maybe a cabal regards him (rightly) between fleeing and frenzy. He doesn’t use guns
as a resource, because that “occult master thief” (too megalomaniacal when he’s not freaking out),

4: BIGGER
routine has plenty of potential if you’re not overly but he’s known to carry that ridiculous flashlight,
moral. But the problem with that is, Bolus has an which doubles nicely as a club. Also, though he See “Sleepers”
agenda of his own, and odds are, you won’t like it. has thoroughly repudiated his Sikh upbringing, he on page 77 of
Bolus is in favor of anorexia. still carries a kirpan sometimes. Book Two:
He was always something of a misogynist Paranoia: Bolus thinks the Sleepers are after Run.
(much to the dismay of his parents, who may him and, fair enough, there were a couple Sleeper-
have had some traditional notions of gender affiliated ladies who threw him a boot party in

5: LAYERS
roles, but who blamed Manavinder’s repugnant California before he could get away. But the
teen behavior — rightly or wrongly — on expo- organization has no particular interest in him You’ve
sure to BDSM pornography and Rush Limbaugh). and those who were familiar with him in his old
His taste in women ran to skinny blondes of the “Transcontinental” guise think he’s pretty burned
heard of
sort one saw in cigarette ads and on hair metal out and harmless. Nonetheless, the fear drives cat piss
album covers, and he now considers his proclivi- him to live off the grid, conceal his identity, and man? It’s
ties to be a single, universal beauty standard. He instinctively cover his tracks. not the

6: REDUX
thinks all women should be scrawny. Fortunately, Delusional belief: Bolus thinks demons are
he can only steal the eaten food from one at a people whose wisdom was so great that their cat part
time, unless he wants to risk being bloated. (He’s “mind-forms” retained integrity even after their or the piss
already quite fat, not because he enjoys eating bodies stopped working. Sure, they’re off-putting part that’s
but because it’s hard to be sure how much food to most people, but most people are unworthy
he’s going to get when he teleports it out of some of their enlightenment. (He’s gotten taken for a
worse. It’s
blonde girl’s stomach.) ride a couple times by demons, most prominently the man
part.

7: VEIL
What Bolus does, other than steal stuff by when he asked one to teach him a second school
night, is stalk girls by day, watching them eat and of magick.) Bolus does not currently have a way to
then psychically stealing their meals to “protect” get in touch with demons, but if he got the oppor-
them from getting fat. Note that this extends to tunity, he’d take it.
entering their homes. He’s been caught at least Phobia: One of those California Sleepers
four times, and each time he’s gotten away. Twice owned a cat that could kill and eat demons. In 8: BESEIGED
he just ran into a room, slammed the door, and Bolus’ unbalanced imaginings, this means that
hopped through the wall. Once he had to stab all cats are weapons of cosmic annihilation and
the girl and her brother until they ran away and agents of chaos, destruction, and decay. He avoids
he could escape. After that, he got himself one cats like crazy, which is too bad for him because
of those military-grade 4,000+ lumen flashlights. getting one would help with his apartment’s
When a different family started screaming at him vermin situation.
for doing the same creepy thing, he strobed them Wound Threshold: 50.
9: SELVES

and fled. (He’s been arrested twice and escaped Burned Out Double Adept 60%*: Casts Rituals,
both times, and every time he gets arrested he Substitutes for Secrecy, Use Gutter Magick (*
moves one state over. “Bald, overweight, middle- obsession identity).
aged brown-skinned man with no teeth” is too Dangerous Madman 45%: Babble alarmingly,
vague of a description to get much traction. His craft freaky masks, endure horrible aromas.
prints are in the system for burglary and escaping Substitutes for Dodge, Substitutes for Pursuit,
from custody in California and Nevada.) Substitutes for Struggle.
10: MEDIA

Icky, right? This is a guy who fixates on one Walk Through Walls When Unobserved 100%.
young woman at a time and puts a makeshift Steal Food from Others’ Tracts 100%.

16
 1: MEAT
FOOL-KILLER
The first time you see it, it looks like a tall man in Foolishness 3: Once your stock in trade is some-
a long coat, wearing a hat with a broad brim. But thing that can’t be put in a bucket or poked with
you won’t pay attention. Not if you’re wise. Then a stick, you’re probably at this level, minimum.

2: THROAT
again, the wisdom of men — theology, theory, and People who think for a living, or whose skills are Pity the
particularly Thaumaturgy — is foolishness to the extremely specialized or abstruse, fall at this level. Fool-
Fool-Killer. Nonetheless, they produce or perform something
This powerful, immortal entity might be an that just about everyone might value. Example
Killer, pity
agent of chaos. Certainly, it wrecks things and Identities: Lawyer, Musician, Novelist, Priest, the Fool,
kills people. But it might just as well serve order, Public School Teacher. alas, alas.
because the people it targets are usually the kinds

3: SMALL
of people who change things. When it gets a fool Foolishness 4: These specialized identities are the
in its sights, there isn’t much that can stand in the ones where explaining what you do takes more
Fool-Killer’s way. Except, of course, a sensible man. than a couple words. Any kind of bureaucrat falls
But before we get into the Fool-Killer’s methods here, as do most intellectuals and narrow knowl-
of mayhem, it’s important to define a key term. edge workers. Example Identities: Computer
What, exactly, is a “fool”? Programmer, Historiographer, Mathematician,
Whoever named the Fool-Killer was not Particle Physicist, Theologian.

4: BIGGER
thinking of the most obvious definition, someone
who’s mentally deficient or who makes bad Foolishness 5: Here we top out with people whose
decisions. The first time the Fool-Killer received complicated identities aren’t just inexplicable to
that name (in Tennessee after the Civil War) it the blue-collar proletariat, they’re baffling to most
was after it had cut a swath through a series of Fool 4s. They’re people who aren’t just concerned
carpetbaggers, “professors,” shady preachers, and with the way the world works, but with the way
flimflammers. Hard-working ordinary folks had the working of the world works. They’re dreamers

5: LAYERS
nothing to fear. If you toiled in the fields or built and madmen. They’re fools. They’re chargers. See “The
with your hands, if you were mostly concerned Example Identities: Adept, Avatar, Thaumaturge. Authentic
with being fed and a bed for your head, you OK, did you see yourself on that list? If not, Thaumaturge
wouldn’t catch hell from the Fool-Killer. Its axe you’re probably at Foolishness 1–2. On the other Identity” on
and club were reserved for people who spoke in hand, if you’re on there more than once (maybe page 179 of
riddles, in parables, in the language of law or the you’re an avatar of the Loyal Laborer and you Book One:
arts or politics. People concerned with the abstract install carpeting) then you’re rated at the highest Play.

6: REDUX
and the unseen. You know: foolishness. possible point. Ratings and obsession don’t matter
for determining how foolish someone is — if it’s a
HOW FOOLISH ARE YOU? part of you, the Fool-Killer is judging you.
To determine if a character in Unknown Armies
qualifies for Fool-Killin’, check out their identities. APPEARANCE
See how much abstraction is involved in the activ- The way a person experiences the Fool-Killer
ities central to who they are. Each identity should varies depending on how foolish they are. As

7: VEIL
fall into one of the following categories: mentioned, the first time someone sees the Fool-
Killer, it looks like a tall, indistinct man in a long
Foolishness 0: These are the most concrete coat and brimmed hat. If you’re at Foolishness
possible identities. They involve tangible solu- 0, that’s how it always looks to you. But if your
tions for tangible problems. Everyone can under- Foolishness level is higher than that, you might
stand what these people are doing and why see it more clearly, if you try and pay attention. 8: BESEIGED
it’s important. Example Identities: Bricklayer, Too bad if you do.
Firefighter, Mom, Plumber, Server, Trucker. Its second form is something that looks human
in outline, but it doesn’t move right. It’s improp-
Foolishness 1: These identities are still very solid erly proportioned. Its limbs don’t accelerate and
and hands-on, but there’s a necessary aspect of slow down the way a person’s do. It moves like
oversight, education, deep thought, and engage- a device, or a boneless lower animal. If you look
ment with solutions that aren’t obvious or direct. closer, you find that your eyes are sliding off it,
9: SELVES

Example Identities: Doctor, EMT, Mail Carrier. but you get the sense that it’s only mimicking
humanity, the way an insect might look like a stick
Foolishness 2: Here we start to get away from or leaf until it moves, or the way that a person in a
things you can immediately lay hands on, though crowd looks familiar until they turn around. What
that aspect’s still present. If your job is half seemed a coat is moist wings, and the brim of the
obvious but half rules and regulations and laws, it’s hat is a crest like on a lizard’s head. If you’re at
probably at Foolishness 2 and a lot of people can’t Foolishness 1–2, it never progresses beyond this
10: MEDIA

understand why it’s not lower. Example Identities: blurry seeming, no matter how closely you watch.
Cop, Electrician, Engineer. This is an Unnatural (3–4) check.

17
 1: MEAT
If you’re at Foolishness 3+, you can see it for THE FOOL-KILLER’S TRAITS
what it really is the third time you encounter it. It’s The powers of the Fool-Killer vary by how present
now nothing tangible, it’s a hole in space, a distor- it is, and what draws its presence is the abstract
tion of reality that flows like water and scrambles thought that it designates as “foolishness.” The
position instead of moving. (If you look through easy way to track how dangerous it is (merely

2: THROAT
it, you see distorted visions of your past encoun- “very” or all the way up to “catastrophically”) is by
ters with the Fool-Killer.) The idea of solid matter its appearance. The appearance, in turn, depends
now becomes a scab, and the Fool-Killer is what on which stage of stalking it’s at.
bleeds out when some egghead has inadvertently
picked it off. Seeing the Fool-Killer in this state is TRAITS COMMON TO ALL PHASES
an Unnatural (4–5) check. Intermittent reality: It can only exist in tangible
reality for about fifteen to twenty minutes a day. See “The Soft

3: SMALL
STALKING PROCESS Fight it off that long, and it goes back to what- Way: Gutter
The Fool-Killer has one target at a time, like a ever hell, Valhalla, or sixth-dimensional dollar Magick” on
high-end confidence trickster. When someone of store spawned it. Unfortunately, when it becomes page 181 of
Foolishness 3+ comes under its attention either real, it can always show up within a half-mile of Book One:
directed or utterly at random it comes after them its target (or some place or person important to Play.
in three stages. the target). Also, re-becoming real removes all
In Stage One, it looks like the tall, vague man in its wounds. So, even if you manage to kill it, it

4: BIGGER
the long coat. It watches from a distance, seeming comes back in the next day or so, ready once more
foreboding as all hell, but if approached by the to rumble.
target it vanishes, usually in some highly deni-
able way. But it messes up your stuff. It smashes Badass abilities: No matter what it looks like, the
windows and mirrors in your house, car, and place Fool-Killer has a wound threshold of 80, and a
of business. (It really goes after mirrors.) Wherever rating of 60% in Dodge, Notice, Pursuit, Secrecy,
it goes, it leaves the accusation “FOOL” painted in and Struggle. Against people who aren’t foolish

5: LAYERS
big square red letters. It does this for about three but are merely in its way, it strikes with what
days before escalating to Stage Two. appears to be a club — it leaves bruises like
Stage Two is collateral damage. Oh, it still one and inflicts +3 wounds anyhow. Matched
smashes every mirror it happens across, it still successes do damage like gunshots.
“Bad-
paints “FOOL” when it strikes, but now it attacks ass” first
its target’s relationships. First protégé, then Fool-Slashing: This is a second attack rated at appeared in
mentor, responsibility, and guru before finishing 70% and it has the feature Provides Initiative. the novel

6: REDUX
with favorite. It doesn’t necessarily kill them, but it Foolishness 0 types see this attack as a swing from
doesn’t really hold back, either. As a GM guideline, an axe, though it moves too fast to see clearly. It
Joint in
it gets in two to three solid hits and then leaves. does +6 damage, has the miss damage of an edged 1955, at
(If a character has a relationship with a group, it weapon, and matched successes do damage like least in
simply torments someone from that group, or gunshots. Fool-Slashing attacks can only be made the last
several if it catches them all together, before against people who are seeing it in its second or
tagging the wreckage and fleeing.) It attacks one third form. But this does mean that it can get two reality.

7: VEIL
relationship every other day. attacks per round against an abstract thinker.
Stage Three is the end, and only comes after
extended harassment. (Ten days at most — fewer SECOND STAGE TRAITS
for social isolates.) After all the broken glass and If you see it for the second time and aren’t
threats and such, the Fool-Killer comes for its extremely down-to-earth, it gains the
victim, trying to just show up from nowhere when following powers: 8: BESEIGED
the target is alone and unprepared, but there
was an ugly situation where its anointed victim Disturbing: As mentioned above, it’s an Unnatural
thought crowds would deter it and had a dozen (3–4) check for people to see it for the second time,
bodyguards watching him constantly. The good if they’re “foolish” enough to realize it’s inhuman.
news is, all the bodyguards survived.
It’s possible to kill the Fool-Killer, but either it No Weapon Forged Against Me Shall Prosper:
comes back to life within twenty-four hours, or If you hit the Fool-Killer with a weapon, that
9: SELVES

another, identical one shows up to complete the weapon is destroyed. Axes and knives warp and
mission. Sorry. It’s a tough skate. split while firearms just spring apart — they look a
little bit like a tangled up slinky afterwards, or the
blades of an eggbeater. This doesn’t happen if you
swing and miss, and it doesn’t prevent the weapon
from harming it, but it’s surprising (the first time),
dismaying, and can get expensive.
10: MEDIA

18
 1: MEAT
THIRD STAGE TRAITS • Matched Success: They find the ritual, or at least
It has all the advantages of the second stage, except that something that leads to it, and that gives a fairly
the check from Disturbing gets kicked up a notch or two. In honest evaluation of the risks involved.
addition, it gets one more trait: • Crit: Someone who would not normally be a fisti-
cuffs-type person can be found who hollowly recounts

2: THROAT
No Allies: Anyone who picks up a phone or radio while her victory over it by losing her mind and battering it.
seeing the Fool-Killer in its space-distorting shape can’t be
heard or hear anything other than a growling voice saying Use gutter magick: The usual gutter magick of improving
“Fool, fool, fool, FOOL!” over and over. your odds or sandbagging your enemy works well enough,
but that’s probably not quite sufficient. Anyone who asks
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? around in an entertaining fashion can find a rumor that
To recap, we have a thing that can’t be detained (because someone who was stalked by the Fool-Killer used gutter

3: SMALL
it can always stop being real when cornered or imprisoned), magick to redirect it against somebody else. If your PCs try
can’t be escaped (because it always appears nearby), and that, it works. If the new target has a higher Foolishness
can’t even be gunned down in the street like a Democrat rating (probably Fool 4s aiming it at a Fool 5) then it chases
because it just comes back to life like some off-brand after that and never comes back. If the new target’s
vampire Jesus. What can PCs do (that makes a great story)? Foolishness rating is equal (likely, since it’s Foolishness 5
Some options are presented, so if your PCs do these things, types who fall back on gutter magick in the first place)
great, you’ve got guidance. But they’re also presented then the Fool-Killer returns to the original target after

4: BIGGER
so that if (or almost inevitably when) they try something dealing with the new one… unless the new target redirects
different, you know how to respond. it to some third target. Kiting it along like this can work
With that in mind, the possibilities, in ascending order of for a while, but it is very patient and never takes a vaca-
effectiveness, are as follows: tion day. But for a couple weeks, at least, it’s somebody
else’s problem.
Negotiate: Nope. It doesn’t talk, it doesn’t show any sign of
listening, its only vocabulary may be “fool” and that’s all it Use a ritual: There is a ritual involving the Fool-Killer.

5: LAYERS
writes back if you send it a letter. Anyone who can cast a ritual and who finds it can call for
the Fool-Killer to go murder someone. (The ritual only costs
Adept spells and avatar channels: It’s not immaterial nor 3 minor charges.) If the intended victim has Foolishness 3
demonic, so spells for coping with those hassles don’t do or higher, the Fool-Killer does its horrid thing, and then
much. It’s not a person or an animal, it doesn’t have a shock comes back and starts stalking the summoner. The price of
gauge. It’s really kind of in a solo category, so if you’re not summoning it is, it always that it puts you next on its list.
certain a particular power applies, it probably doesn’t. Amusingly, if you’re already pursued by the Fool-Killer —

6: REDUX
either because you called it yourself, or because someone
Fire, magick, and the sword: Sure, you can kill it, sort of. else sicced it on you, or for no discernible reason at all
Blast spells harm it, as do bullets and butcher knives. But it — you can use the ritual to redirect it. It just goes after
re-forms unharmed pretty quick. So this is more of a tactical someone else and comes back to you. How many people
pause than a final victory. are you willing to throw into that meat grinder just to buy
yourself a couple weeks of freedom?
Capture it with mirrors: Why does it smash mirrors

7: VEIL
wherever it goes? Maybe they can trap it! Um… OK? Sort Flee to an otherspace: This is a good one! If you can
of? If you encircle it on all sides with reflective surfaces, it manage to get into an otherspace, it loses track of you
vanishes from reality. But it comes back within a couple and moves on to a different victim (or just stops existing).
days. It’s not much better than just killing the thing. Unfortunately, if you don’t have one of the rarest, most
secret, and carefully protected pieces of arcane real estate
Investigate: PCs are going to try vision quests, internet available, you’re going to have to find one, which is a hassle 8: BESEIGED
searches, prowls through dusty old library stacks, interroga- all on its own. But if you, as GM, have a neat idea that
tions of the usual suspects, and lord only knows what else in branches off getting involved with an otherspace or intro-
their attempts to just learn some things about the Fool-Killer. ducing one, by all means let the PCs trade the Fool-Killer
What they find out depends on how well they roll, unless problem in for an exciting new otherspace problem.
you want to feed them a solution directly because they
recharged an objective or did something else entertaining Beat it to death with your own two fists: This, the coun-
enough to earn an answer. terintuitive direct solution, works surprisingly well. Don’t
9: SELVES

tell your PCs this, but the Fool-Killer takes a –40% penalty
• Fumble, Matched Failure, or Failure: There is no hope. to attacks when it’s against an unarmed target. (Attacking
It cannot be stopped. It cannot be stopped. the target’s friends? Still at its usual, ridiculously high base
• Success: They hear about the ritual or the gutter rates.) It still gets two attacks per round and gets extra
magick options, as described below, unless you’re very damage from them, but a target who kills it with a bare-
eager to introduce an otherspace, in which case that handed strike is free of its haunting. (If someone besides the
possibility is presented. target kills it with a punch or kick, it comes back, but only
10: MEDIA

after three weeks.) If you can grapple it and hold it to the

point that a normal person would submit or pass out, the

19
 1: MEAT
thing hisses “You… win…” and then vanishes, leaving only an Notice, Substitutes for Pursuit, Substitutes for Struggle.
oily residue on the victor’s hands and clothes. Damage from Struggle is treated like an attack with a
Targets — not people fighting it, but people it’s fixated weapon that’s heavy.
on — who have an obsession that lets them fight unarmed Fool-Slashing 70%: Provides Initiative, Substitutes for
do firearm damage with punches and kicks against it. That Struggle but only against people who see it in its second or

2: THROAT
doesn’t come up all that often. But people who fail a stress third form. Is treated like an attack from a weapon that’s
check against the Fool-Killer and opt to wade in with heavy and cleaves.
violence get to flip-flop their attack rolls if they’re insane. No Weapon Forged Against Me Shall Prosper: Any
This does, of course, suggest that to this entity, the weapon that does damage to the Fool-Killer is immediately
highest wisdom is blind murderous rage. Which, if you think destroyed. This can only be used when it is visible in its
about it, explains an awful lot about its behavior. second or third forms. However, even people who cannot
perceive those forms lose weapons if they’re accompanied

3: SMALL
THE FOOL-KILLER by people who can perceive.
Wound Threshold: 80. Disturbing: It’s an Unnatural (3–4) stress check to see
Mostly Unstoppable 80%: Provides Wound Threshold, and its second form, and an Unnatural (4–5) check to see its
it recovers from all wounds within twenty-four hours, even third form.
if killed. No Allies: When it’s in its third form, communication tech-
Antagonist 60%: Substitutes for Dodge, Substitutes for nology fails in its presence.

4: BIGGER
ICE CREAM NAN
The ice cream truck industry is not tightly monitored experienced when she got close enough to someone and
where Nan operates. She mostly patrols the poorer side had to admit that her dad was in prison before they heard it
of town, where cops have more pressing issues to pursue from anyone else.
than making sure a food truck is properly licensed. And But he returned and he knew stuff. She didn’t want to
why would anyone suspect her? Nanette Bartolomeo is believe, so he showed her. She didn’t want to see, didn’t

5: LAYERS
unremarkable — a woman in her early thirties, heavyset, want to even remember, but he showed her. He showed her
dark haired, plain featured. If you tease her about sampling demons and said that they could teach her all she’d need to
her own product, she blushes in a way that is non-sexually know to prosper.
attractive. She has a nice smile. She reminds you, perhaps, “It wasn’t me who did all that stuff,” he assured her.
of a favorite teacher, or the babysitter for whom you always “Demons… you let ‘em run your body for a little while and
behaved well. they’ll tell you anything. This time I’ve got it planned out.
Her vehicle is white with posters of frozen treats on the It’s going to be better. It’s going to work.”

6: REDUX
side, it has a loudspeaker that blares “Turkey in the Straw” He went off to Tupelo to let the thing have his flesh,
and it’s just annoying enough to be forgettable. It’s a coun- but before he went it put something in her mind. Saying it
terbalance to Nan herself, who is just pleasant enough to taught her is… not quite right. She never learned how to do
be forgettable. Forgettable is a good thing, when you’re the ritual, but it’s in her, forever. She could forget her name
a kidnapper. and not forget the rite of the cat-leather ring.
Nan is not a violent kidnapper, nor is she (ugh) a sexual He’s back in prison — arson this time, his third strike
pervert kidnapper. She is an occult entrepreneur kidnapper, — but Nan is turning it around. She’s got the ritual and a

7: VEIL
though she certainly wouldn’t describe herself that way. decent supply of Rohypnol and she is turning it around.
Ice Cream Nan didn’t always drive the ice cream van. At The ritual captures and copies emotion. Children’s
one time she had a small neighborhood gelato emporium in emotions, in particular. And at first, Nan would seize the joy
a cute part of downtown, and she was quirky and fun and of the children who were so excited to see the ice cream
did nontraditional flavors and everyone who came in left truck and pass it on through ice cream treats and sell those
charmed. But not enough people came in. to the adults, and it was nice. 8: BESEIGED
There was an economic downturn. There was a neighbor- But she was still only scraping by.
hood demographic shift. There was a goddamn Cold Stone Maybe when the demon put that ritual in her brain, it
Creamery that moved in a block over and could advertise dropped something else in there, the way you can tell a
and send out motherfucking coupons and everyone said mouse is in your kitchen by the tiny turds next to the refrig-
her ice cream was better, that they’d come to her next time. erator grille. Or maybe people who get desperate start to
Nan Bartolomeo was thiiiiis close to making it, to turning a make really outrageous plans — especially if they’re deep in
decent profit, to doing a little better than barely scraping by, despair and then get a little taste of hope. More than the
9: SELVES

for over seven years. taste she got from the rocket pops that were infused with
Well, she lost it all, of course. Lost the business, stopped childish glee. That cheer was stolen from children who —
making ice cream and started buying prefab bars full of after she touched them with a small cat-leather ring she
chemical preservatives and high-fructose corn syrup. But wears on her right hand (that’s part of the ritual, and making
even at her most desperate, she never went to her dad for that ring was very disturbing) — walked away from the van
help. Never even considered it. Not until he got out of jail looking confused, disappointed, sometimes a little afraid.
and just showed up. The way you do when your happiness suddenly goes away.
10: MEDIA

He showed up and wanted to make it up to her for the One of the people from her old neighborhood opened
years, years of neglect, and absence, and embarrassment she a restaurant and Nan begged to supply the ice cream for

20
 1: MEAT
it. “You remember the homemade stuff, the good stuff,” she Rohypnol so they didn’t remember)? Those have all gone to
said, eyes feverish. “I’ve got something even better!” the upscale boutique gelateria that replaced the Cold Stone
The mild joy of a visit from the ice cream van was good, Creamery and is giving her restaurant partner’s dessert
but Nan needed something great. So she took her expired menu such a hard time. It’s starting to fail — it doesn’t take
sleeping pills and ground them up, put them in one partic- many mysterious customer panic attacks before a place

2: THROAT
ular Choccy Chipwich, and waited until there was just one stops having a fun reputation. In the meantime, Nan’s found
kid, unattended, staring longingly at the van but unable to that the relief, the sweet naïve feeling that everything’s being
afford anything. taken care of now… it’s even better than the joy of a child
Here’s the trick: after he passed out, she touched him seeing the ice cream van.
with the cat-skin ring to keep his terror contained, and In fact, it’s fair to say she’s got a little bit of a psycholog-
then locked him up in an abandoned tenement. BUT! ical addiction working there.
She touched him with the ring once more, used the ritual Nan has five failed notches in Helplessness, and the

3: SMALL
again in abeyance, and phoned in where he could be found. disorder she has is addiction. She’s addicted to the artificial
Because she’d set it up just so, she captured the relief he felt pleasure she can consume through the cat-leather ring. The
upon his rescue, and that’s what she put in the ice cream joy of seeing the van is enough, for now, but she’s had a
she gave her old neighbor. taste of the relief of a released kidnap victim and she cannot
Sure, it was also a masterful butter brickle, but it also forget it.
tasted like a child’s relief at being rescued from impris-
onment. So of course the restauranteur wanted it on ICE CREAM NAN

4: BIGGER
the menu! Wound Threshold: 50.
Nan doesn’t take it easy on herself. That original blast of Great Cook 70%*: Substitute a missing ingredient, please
terror that she stole? She ate that. She knows exactly how the eye as well as the tongue, sharpen a knife up good.
bad it feels to be a kidnapped child. But the terrors she’s Casts Rituals, Protects Isolation, Substitutes for Connect (*
taken from the other three kids who were nabbed and obsession identity).
immediately released (this time after being dosed with

5: LAYERS
ICE CREAM NAN
Notches Violence Unnatural Helplessness Isolation Self
Hardened 2 2 5 2 4
Failed 0 0 5 0 0

6: REDUX
7: VEIL
8: BESEIGED
9: SELVES
10: MEDIA

21
 1: MEAT
THE CAT-LEATHER RING RITE and then specifying the emotion to be transferred,
Cost: 1 minor charge. for example, “the joy of seeing the ice cream van.”
Effect: To cast this ritual, first you need to make Once the emotion is harvested, it can be put in
a cat-leather ring. So, get a cat and kill it, then any food item by touching the food with the ring
skin it. (I know, I know, there’s more than one and saying, “Fetus to infant.”

2: THROAT
way.) Shave it. Cure the leather using whatever The emotion is drained out of the child, then
method you prefer — there are several online, but put into the food. Whoever eats the food expe-
the resulting leather has to be supple enough to riences the emotion. If the emotion drained is
bend into a ring. The ring has to be a cut strip that not terribly intense, there are no rules effects
has one twist before the ends are sewn together. — the kid who loses is maybe a little nonplussed,
(That is, it has to be a Möbius strip.) You have to the person who gets it is maybe a little shaken
wear the ring and touch the intended target of up or pleased — but it’s not enough to create a

3: SMALL
emotion harvest with the ring. You must wear it stress check.
on the middle finger of your right hand. The spell If the emotion is very intense, strong enough
only works on children eleven years old or younger. that it’d cause a stress check on its own, the child
Before touching the child to be harvested, does not have to make the check, and doesn’t
say, “Emotion is the fetus of the cosmos.” After gain a hardened or failed notch. The person who
touching the child, you can drain away any consumes that emotion does make that check,
emotion that the child feels within forty-eight and it’s increased by a step or two because it’s Swallow

4: BIGGER
hours by speaking the phrase, “It’s harvest time,” (presumably) sourceless and senseless. your pride,
your
QUEEN-THROAT PARASITISM envy, your
wrath,
The phenomenon dubbed “Queen-Throat near waterways; a plastics factory; and some
Parasitism” is widely misunderstood throughout unknown X factor or factors that causes the snake your sloth…
various mystic subcultures, but not because to shrink, leave its habitat, seek out a sleeping

5: LAYERS
anyone’s deliberately misinforming people, not human being, and climb into the victim’s throat.
because it’s “occulted,” not because anyone’s That’s the parasitism aspect. The snake crawls
trying to keep it secret. It’s not anyone’s plan into your mouth and down your throat, with
or project or tool. It’s just a very, very strange its mouth going into your lung. It is exactly as
thing that happens. Magick-slinging weirdoes unpleasant as it sounds, resulting in some level of
are the kinds of people who notice it or, at least, Violence check for most people, and possibly an
accept that it is what it is, but they didn’t make Unnatural one for people whose knowledge of

6: REDUX
it and they don’t necessarily understand it. Like biology is sufficient to insist that no snake does
global warming, it happened when we weren’t that. Typically, though, the Unnatural check comes
paying attention. later, when the thing starts talking through you.
It starts with the common queen snake — See, normally, having a queen snake crawl into
Regina septemvittata — found pretty much your throat would kill you unless you pulled it out
anywhere east of the Mississippi in the United before it could smother you. But something very
States. They’re earth-toned with tan or peach peculiar happens to parasite snakes. They get in

7: VEIL
vertical stripes, and can get up to two feet long at there fast, people get maybe one chance to yank
most. No venom. They live by fresh water and eat them out and after that it’s in place, unless they
tadpoles, crayfish, and shrimp. They’re harmless fail a stress check, opt for frenzy, and then do a
unless they undergo the Queen-Throat Parasitism bunch of damage to their own necks trying to get See “Sleepers”
(QTP) transformation. the critter out of there. (That’s how the Sleepers on page 77 of
No one is sure what causes that transformation. came across their first case of QTP.) Once in place, Book Two: 8: BESEIGED
It’s not common, that’s for sure. The Sleepers have the victim can breathe through the snake. Whether Run.
laid hands on exactly two of the altered serpents, they change form to make a passage for breath
and when GNOMON was asked how many times or become immaterial is anyone’s guess. Probably
QTP had happened to people, its answer was “7.” the latter, since they don’t show up on x-rays. If See “Flex Echo”
Queen snakes only become occult parasites you check the victim out with a tongue depressor on page 57 of
when there’s a plastics factory within ten or though, you can see a little snake tail waaaay in Book Two:
fifteen miles of their aquatic habitat, though no the back of their throat, waggling like a yellow- Run.
9: SELVES

one knows why that should be. If big charges striped second uvula.
being released spurs their formation, as an unnat- Having a snake in your lungs is… well, it’s clearly
ural phenomenon, nobody has been able to prove a not ideal. It gives you a –10% penalty to Fitness See “Unnatural
correlation. The Sleepers looked good and hard to rolls, or anything that substitutes for one. Feels Phenomena”
find a charger who’d been careless near their two kind of asthmatic. Usually makes your voice a on page 81 of
snake cases, but came up with nothing. They had little bit higher, too. Not like you’ve been huffing Book One:
to content themselves with menacing the (unin- helium, just like you’re a bit agitated, even if you’re Play.
10: MEDIA

volved) local Freemasons. trying to stay calm about the snake in your neck.
So, the ingredients are: queen snakes, found The most common victims of QTP are drunks

22
 1: MEAT
and drug addicts because, like so many of the shitty things USING QUEEN-THROAT
in this life, becoming unconscious in public near fresh bodies PARASITISM IN YOUR GAME
of water is disproportionately likely to happen to them. In As is, this is a couple pages of nightmare. Because you’re
the second case of QTP that the Sleepers discerned, a junkie playing Unknown Armies in a tailored setting with a tailored
on the nod woke up to the snake going in, briefly freaked cabal, it’s going to be most useful when altered to fit your

2: THROAT
out, but when she could breathe again she just figured it was players’ interests and the characters’ concerns. There are
a nightmare or a flashback and tried to get back to sleep. plenty of intentional blank spaces in this entry to make
It was after waking that she experienced the most it personal.
mysterious and inexplicable aspect of QTP, which is that it
influences your speech. Not all the time, but it keeps you The Real Cause: Why is this happening now? Is there some
from saying, “A snake crawled down my throat!” (writing is Sinister Hand behind it all, or is it a paranormal rogue wave
unaffected) and — far more subtly — it influences the way that didn’t happen because it was willed but as an unfore-

3: SMALL
you talk to the people who matter most to you. Whenever seen consequence? Like climate change in the ‘80s, is this
someone who has queen-throat parasitism talks to one snake shit just the first and least damning aspect?
of their mechanically defined relationships, they have the
option to say what they wanted… or to follow the snake’s All the Way: So far, the known victims have gotten that
prompting and say whatever the guru or mentor or whoever damn thing out of their throats. But the snakes are a
wants to hear. (How does the snake know this? Anybody’s surprisingly quick way to repair your ruined friendships and
guess. This situation is weird.) get right with the folks you admire. Granted, you have to

4: BIGGER
This means that these people who were sleeping in public become a hollowed-out ex-self in order to please everyone,
feel a peculiar urge to repair or improve their friendships but… what happens when someone completely knuckles
and loyalties. It’s not without cost though. Giving in to that under? When their identity drops to 0% or a relationship
urge makes one feel… hollow. Diminished. It’s like giving up, hits 100%? Are they just helplessly subservient to the people
and like a cough. they love, or do they undergo some kind of profound trans-
Mechanically, every time the snake-host says what the formation? Do they turn into giant snakes? They probably
serpent wants, instead of what she wants, the player rolls don’t turn into giant snakes.

5: LAYERS
1d10. The relationship improves by a number of percentiles
equal to what’s rolled. But one of the victim’s identities — The Cure: The Sleeper-documented end-states for this
whichever the GM thinks is most relevant — diminishes by are: (1) the host dies, or (2) the host lives on with the snake
a like amount. inextricably phased into her esophagus, or (3) the host yanks
the thing out by the tail while it’s still squirming past her
teeth. The first and second scenarios are clearly not great
Bobek has been on a downward spiral since losing his job, outcomes, while the third isn’t something that every poten-

6: REDUX
culminating with a blackout binge that leaves him passed out tial victim can manage. How do you get a settled parasite
by Greasy Lake just a mile down on the dark side of Route out without killing the host? Do these snakes have a kryp-
88. He gets snaked, thrashing awake to a cold slithering in tonite? If so, how does one find it? Does the nature of their
his throat. He can’t get it out, he vomits, and stumbles back Achilles’ heel provide a clue to what caused these things and
to his trailer. The next day, his older sister Otýlie comes by what their purpose (if any) might be?
to check on him and his instinct is to tell her, “Go home and
have more babies with your fat shit husband,” but the snake Exploiting It: Hell, I know players are going to look for a

7: VEIL
suggests that instead, he could say, “Sister, I’m a wreck. way to reverse this snake curse into an advantage, no
I don’t know how to fix it.” Reluctantly, he goes with that matter what the circumstances. You might as well accept
instead. His mentor relationship with Otýlie was at 30%, that and prepare for a one-way valve between identities
whittled down by repeated loans and whining, and he had and relationships.
an identity of Shop Machinist at 55%. When he lets the
snake speak for him, he rolls 1d10 and gets a 7. His relation- 8: BESEIGED
ship rises to 37%. His Shop Machinist identity drops to 48%.
9: SELVES
10: MEDIA

23
 1: MEAT
THE PRAGUE CEMETERY BY UMBERTO ECO
So, what you have here is a story set in 19th Although it’s set at the very birth of the 20th
century Europe, told from the perspective(s) of a century, it feels extremely relevant to the birth of
guy at the heart of a lot of dirty conspiracy. He’s the 21st as well. The central lessons of The Prague

2: THROAT
called Captain Simonini and, along with Abbé Cemetery are: (1) if you hand someone evidence
Dalla Piccola, he murders, deceives for money, that proves exactly what they want, they have
This is how
(and simply out of habit) spies, forges, and betrays zero incentive to examine it closely, (2) people are they get to
his way through Russians, Germans, Italians, and always willing to pay good money to get evidence you, this
Frenchmen. Along the way he sells communion supporting their policy goals, and (3) it’s almost or Name of
wafers to Satanists and meets a woman who’s inevitably cheaper and simpler to forge evidence
either transmitting messages from an unearthly (true or false) than to get actual documenta- the Rose.

3: SMALL
intelligence or just has multiple personalities (as, tion about what really happened. In the age of
possibly, does he himself). He meets Freud and he yellowcake WMD, these lessons seem distress-
writes, and rewrites, and re-rewrites, The Protocols ingly relevant.
of the Elders of Zion.
That vile document is, in many ways, the center WHAT IT EXPOSES ABOUT
of The Prague Cemetery. If you don’t know about UNKNOWN ARMIES
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, I sure hope In addition to being a great yarn, if you like your

4: BIGGER
it’s because you’re lucky enough to have avoided books dense and historical, it vividly demonstrates
the anti-Semitic dipshittery that keeps getting how well fraud and conspiracy work if you’re
dismissed by the sensible, then lurching back to utterly amoral. Unknown Armies defaults to char-
life like a zombie to devour the brains of the living. acters who passionately believe in something —
What happens in The Protocols is that a bunch an objective to which they dedicate their efforts.
of Jewish elders meet in a Prague cemetery If your PCs have pretensions of nobility or honor,
and discuss their sinister plans for subverting, The Prague Cemetery can give you the outlines of

5: LAYERS
corrupting, robbing, enslaving, and murdering an antagonist who can tie them in knots, simply
Christians. It has long been considered the by being a self-interested and hate-filled nihilist.
smoking gun proving a vast plot of sinister Jews Simonini is willing to accuse anybody of anything,
taking over banking and publishing, scheming and he really, truly does not care how many
against the goyim. It’s a fake document from people his actions hurt. He values his own life, and
real history. Henry Ford was a big fan. So was a good meal. Everything else is a matter of indif-
Adolf Hitler. ference. He’d choke a child with a kitten if it got

6: REDUX
Another piece of real history is the novel from him a really splendid duck dinner.
which The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was Simonini, like Jørgen from Terribly Happy, has See “Terribly
plagiarized. It’s called Biarritz and it was written the sociopathic freedom that comes from true Happy by
in 1868, long before the 1902 publication of the indifference, a genuinely depraved lack of compas- Henrik Ruben
earliest known printing of Protocols. sion. You don’t need too many antagonists like Genz.”
The real-life author of The Protocols is unknown, that, but one? One is going to give your players fits.
but in The Prague Cemetery, it’s forged-to-order

7: VEIL
by Captain Simonini. Not only that, but he’s
constantly repackaging the conspiratorial mate-
rial to put the frame around the Freemasons, and
the Jesuits, and anyone else that his patrons and
clients want accused.
8: BESEIGED
9: SELVES
10: MEDIA

24
 1: MEAT
4: THE BIGGER PICTURE
If it was all just one lone destined hero against The players design their objective, and that moves
Wickedness, that would be simpler, but if you’re in them from being lone nuts with idiosyncratic

2: THROAT
this game’s demographic, it probably wouldn’t be plans into a larger sphere. Cabals can, and do,
better. You know those tropes, don’t you? Maybe affect larger communities and that’s what makes
you find the whole “evil overcome by lone hero who them interesting. (Well, that and the magick and
just happens to be a white guy not that it matters” the bizarre worldview.)
concept a little harder to work with because its This is not a game about material accumulation
many permutations are looking a bit shopworn? and power-ups. It’s about reshaping events on a
As it happens, media these days features groups broader scale, and if that hasn’t been a feature of

3: SMALL
that look a little bit more like a niche-protected your games before, this is the chapter to consult.
D&D party, probably because they’re written and It’s got the book and podcast recommendations
developed by people who grew up in niche-pro- that illustrate the interface between individual
tected D&D parties. The Unknown Armies equiv- actors and bigger movements, along with an
alent is the cabal, and there’s more to it than just unnatural entity that can slow down sinister inter-
“these are the people your players picked and that’s national conspiracies and small cultish cliques alike.
who the story’s about.” Unknown Armies lets the

4: BIGGER
JANEDOES
A janedoe — it’s from “Jane Doe,” the name given alone, but its inhuman responses catch up to it
to unidentified corpses — is an unnatural entity under close scrutiny. See “Surgical
that can pass for human, and it exists as an agent It has the following stats: Teams” on
of entropy. Just as surgical teams appear from page 86 of

5: LAYERS
nowhere to repair causal damage to reality, jane- Wound Threshold: 50. Book Three:
does appear from nowhere to keep people from Struggle 40%. Reveal.
creating too much order in their lives. They are Pursuit 50%.
parasites upon ambition, sometimes fatal ones. Secrecy 60%.
Fitness 50%.
THE THREE FACES OF JANEDOE Situational Invisibility 80%: If the passer-by is in
Janedoes shift between three appearances, each a crowd, it has an 80% chance of avoiding recogni-

6: REDUX
with a separate name. One of their guises is tion — even if its appearance is obviously different
always male, one female, and one androgynous. from everyone else in the crowd (for example, a
(No matter how they look, they have no genitals — black woman in a throng of white men). Outside
they have the blank crotches of dolls.) Each guise of a crowd, it can become invisible by standing
can produce ID as required — always with the last stock-still and rolling successfully. In either case,
names Smith, Johnson, or Williams, and always it is visible through any electronic imaging tech-
with the first names Mary, Pat, or James, though nology. Old mechanical film cameras show it on
Taxicabs

7: VEIL
the configurations change from one janedoe prints, but it’s not seen through the viewfinder.
to another. Basically, the human mind just blind-spots the are 15%
creature. People who know the passer-by is there likely to
THE PASSER-BY and have some inkling that they might be under be driven
A janedoe spends twelve hours out of every day psychic influence to ignore it can attempt Notice
configured as the passer-by, an unremarkable rolls against Situational Invisibility, just like they by janedoes. 8: BESEIGED
appearance with monotone speech patterns. This could against a Secrecy roll. They can only try this
is the shape they use for reconnaissance and sabo- if they know they’re being mind-altered.
tage. Anyone who tries to have a serious conver-
sation with a passer-by gradually realizes that the THE MONSTER
answers sound canned and vague. In this form, a Janedoes spend eight hours a day in their monster
janedoe’s speech can’t conform to the norms of a form. They’re between six and seven feet tall, with
fluent speaker — they can’t describe things well, lank hair that looks like a polyester wig. Their
9: SELVES

they don’t understand emotions or interior experi- faces seem too small for their skulls, because
ences, they look blank at any statement that isn’t they’re the same size as the faces they wear on
practical and respond noncommittally. This form bodies with ordinary proportions. They can pass
is good for moving through crowds or for being for human, but with horrible birth defects — some
Marfan syndrome with acromegaly plus a leathery
cyclical complexion that looks like serious sun damage.
Also, they don’t have fingernails or toenails, just
i... feel like i should encourage you to
10: MEDIA

blank pads that extend all the way around their

love and respect yourself a little more digits. While in this shape, the janedoe can’t speak
than that?
26
 1: MEAT
at all, just grunt, and its facial expression stays fixed. You
don’t want to get it mad, though.
This is the shape it uses for rough stuff — terrifying
JANEDOE DOWN!
people, carrying out threats, arson. Acting like a frustrated While an uninjured janedoe exists at one of three
player character, honestly. points along the uncanny valley, once they get hurt

2: THROAT
It has the following stats in this shape: the pretense of humanity is broken. Inside, they’re
full of moths, or things that look like moths, and the
Wound Threshold: 80. undersides of their skin resemble cobwebs or old gray
Struggle 80%*: Its punches and kicks do +3 damage. On fiberglass insulation. Where those “moths” fly off to
matches, it does damage like a firearm (* obsession identity). when a janedoe is injured is anybody’s guess.
Fitness 80%.
Pursuit 70%.

3: SMALL
Monster 80%: Evaluates Violence, Provides Initiative,
Provides Wound Threshold.
don’t, is two extra faces. Whichever shape the janedoe is
THE NEGOTIATOR in, its other two faces are in reserve, eyes and mouth closed,
For four hours every day, a janedoe can occupy its negoti- one on each shoulder blade. So if you see one naked, or
ator shape — typically, a cute and petite shape. As a negoti- even just in a tank top, you’re likely to figure out some-
ator, it’s charming, friendly, articulate, and emits a faint but thing’s not right. They prefer loose, unstructured clothes for

4: BIGGER
noticeable scent of honeysuckle. (Still no genitals though.) obvious reasons.
Its ability to simulate humanity is 100% — flawless backstory Janedoes can shift from one shape to another pretty
(all fake, all calculated to elicit sympathy), the voice, the much at will, but don’t forget the time restrictions. They
speech, the expressions, the tiny movements of balance, the can only be the monster for eight hours, only be the nego-
pulse, the changes of complexion, the texture of the hair as tiator for four, and the rest of the time they’re passers-by.
it sways… it’s all perfect, at least until the thing gets hurt. It’s not a subtle or quick shift, either. It takes about as
This is the shape it carries when it wants to fool people, long as it takes an adult to completely change from one

5: LAYERS
appeal to emotion, plant doubt, make accusations (true or set of winter clothes to another — about five minutes. If
false), give false hope, or muddy the waters. you see it, it’s disturbing, too. It either takes off its shirt or
It has the following stats when configured as a negotiator: opens it, drops chin to chest, and then keeps pressing. The
chin and face sink into the skin of the chest as the other
Wound Threshold: 40. face, the one from the scapula, begins to swell and rotate
Struggle 30%. and inflate. A bulb grows beneath it from the back, hair
Dodge 60%. sprouting like meat coming out of a sausage grinder, and

6: REDUX
Lie 100%. that dome replaces the former head, the one that sinks face
Connect 100%. first into the torso. While this happens, the limbs writhe,
It’s How They Drink 80%: If it sees a human being consume the skin on them fluttering as if the moths inside the body
any beverage while in this form, it can roll this identity. On a are agitated. Arms and legs shrink or extend, since none of
success, it then intuits the drinker’s passions. the three forms are the same height, and the joints open
and close spasmodically as they find the right proportion on
TRANSFORMATION the new dimensions. Seeing this is an Unnatural (3–5) check,

7: VEIL
I mentioned previously that janedoes, regardless of form, depending on how clear your view is. Janedoes usually have
lack genitalia. (They don’t have an anus either — anything a couple changes of clothes on them, since garments don’t
they eat or drink must go out through the “in” door.) (It shift when they transform. For the monster, the preferred
seemed relevant.) Something they do have, that humans garb is a big set of coveralls.

8: BESEIGED
9: SELVES
10: MEDIA

27
 1: MEAT
WHAT JANEDOES DO removes 5% from their objective (which it could be doing
Janedoes destroy objectives. Some objectives, anyhow. An pretty often) they get a minor clue about it, like one of
objective that’s about learning something, or about bringing the following:
down The Man, or influencing opinion… that kind of stuff
is probably safe, because it is not creating anything. But if • Video footage in which someone’s standing in the

2: THROAT
you’re trying to fund your museum of Pennsylvania Dutch corner of a private office and no one realizes it.
hex signs, or seastead a new island where everyone can live • They hear a recording of what seems to be their
in gun-toting libertarian harmony, or expand your cult off voice saying some damaging thing that they know
the compound and get it operating in storefronts all the they never said — possibly just rescheduling
way from Houston to Beaumont, then you might attract an appointment!
a janedoe. The bigger your ambition, the more likely you • They catch the negotiator (in whatever name they
are to attract one. A cosmic objective that’s concrete and know it by) in a lie.

3: SMALL
positive — making something, as opposed to tinkering
with politics or the Invisible Clergy — is almost irresistible When the janedoe does something that removes 10%
to janedoes. from their objective (a rarer and more serious move) they
How they do it varies by objective, and also according to get a more significant clue, like one of these:
its organizers’ vulnerabilities. If you’re a criminal syndicate
trying to build a casino as an industrial-sized money laun- • Someone explains a phase of janedoe behavior to
dromat, the janedoe has numerous options. As the passer-by, them, either because that phase is all they know or

4: BIGGER
it can move unwatched around the land in question. It can because they’re holding back information for leverage.
tail the people involved, vanishing with stillness as it eaves- • Some physical clue gets left behind, like footprints
drops on their business meetings. Once it knows what’s where you can see that the lumbering figure you
going on, it can call every cop and reporter it can dig up and were chasing shrank until its bare feet went from size
spill every detail, possibly while imitating the voice of one of thirteen to size seven, right before it crawled through
the principals. (It has a 100% Lie ability, remember.) Is there a window that the monster couldn’t have fit through.
a timid accountant or frail investor who’s important to the • A sicko voyeur peeps on the negotiator, sees the faces

5: LAYERS
project? The passer-by or the negotiator gets access, slips on her back, and freaks out to the PCs.
into the bathroom, and then the monster scares the shit
out of him. Or tears the shit out of him. The negotiator can
befriend people involved, pretend to help, and “accidentally” WHAT’S TO BE DONE?
sow seeds of doubt and distrust. Well, you can kill them, of course, though you have to do it
The same tactics are unlikely to work on people who are three times. Each time you fill one of its forms with wounds,
trying to unify social services for the homeless into one that form is done for — it has to change to another. Each

6: REDUX
convenient location instead of making people who don’t of the remaining forms gets exactly half the time allocated
have houses haul themselves to a clinic on the east side, job to the dead identity. So, a normal time-share for a janedoe
assistance to the north, and a food bank south of both of is passer-by 12/monster 8/negotiator 4. If you murder the
those. Well, all right, the scare the shit/tear the shit lowest low-hanging negotiator, it becomes passer-by 14/monster
common denominator can work on decent folk as much as 10, or if you did in the monster it would switch to passer-by
scumbags, but people trying to build something legal and 16/negotiator 8. When a janedoe only has two forms left
uplifting are usually less plagued by paranoia and short- and you kill one, it’s forced into the remaining shape all day

7: VEIL
term self-interest than, say, mobsters. So instead, in that every day, like some kind of mere human.
instance, the janedoe might stir up neighborhood concerns On the other hand, maybe the cabal realizes there’s a
(“…but won’t all those homelesses murder us in our sleeps chaos agent relentlessly ratfucking them and they can’t be
for our bedsheets?”) possibly by creating some showy inci- bothered to figure out the details. If they change their objec-
dent. Picture this: the negotiator befriends some endearing tive, that’s likely to get the janedoe off their case. It’s a loss,
local resident, whom the monster then kills. The negotiator obviously, but PCs have been known to change their minds, 8: BESEIGED
claims it was present as a fellow victim and sobs heartbreak- get distracted, and abandon their objectives even without a
ingly on camera about the “homeless brute” who killed its three-faced entity scheming against them. Most commonly,
friend. Or, if that seems too melodramatic, all it has to do is they blow their objective in order to stop something even
plausibly claim it’s going to contribute a lot of money, then worst. If that’s the case, and the “something worse” is being
not do that. Or, plan B, offer to buy up the territory with built in an orderly fashion, it may not take much to redirect
money it doesn’t actually have (let me stress again — 100% the janedoe’s sleepless energy at a new target.
Lie ability, invaluable for any real estate boondoggler), and
9: SELVES

keep stringing things along with delaying tactics until the

homeless project dies of old age. After which, again, it says,
“Funding fell through, whoopsie.” But who’s going to blame
someone with 100% Connect?
When you’re a GM running a janedoe against the PCs,
you have a tough balancing act. You can’t come from every
direction, constantly snatching points off their objective
10: MEDIA

without letting them get something in exchange. As a

rule of thumb, every time the janedoe takes an action that

28
 1: MEAT
BIG MACHINE BY VICTOR LAVALLE
Big Machine is a crime novel, a drug novel, and a you’ve heard of before. If God is in this book, it’s
magick novel. But it’s much more than that. It’s an ineffable and sublime being, inscrutable and
also a very good novel. dwelling at place where great beauty and great

2: THROAT
The story of Big Machine is the story of Ricky terror fuse into one.
Rice, recovering junkie, recovering cult member,
and survivor of something weird that tried to WHAT IT EXPOSES ABOUT
eat his soul out through his ankle. These factors UNKNOWN ARMIES
qualify Ricky to work for a library that investigates Wow, what doesn’t it expose? Ricky Rice has a
paranormal events, seeking out angels and a voice textbook trigger event, the library is a pitch-per-
that just might belong to God. The other agents of fect example of a cabal, and the main conflict

3: SMALL
the library are all similarly down and out — petty isn’t at all hard to frame as a clash of objectives.
crooks one and all, but uniquely qualified because But perhaps its best lesson for Unknown Armies
they heard that Voice. is how mysterious weirdness can lie just below
Its use of the word “angel,” and its discussion the surface of the everyday, and be left to soci-
of the Voice of God might lead one to think this ety’s underclass by people who’d rather watch TV,
is a Christian novel, but take my word for it, this argue about politics, and get a new iPhone.
is not any comfortable cosmological category that

4: BIGGER
CLEAN ROOM BY GAIL SIMONE
If you like glossy full-color comics with an awful lot The first collection, Immaculate Conception, gets
of lovingly illustrated eyeball trauma, you’re going these characters together, and implies a lot about
to enjoy Clean Room no matter what. But even if the shady and monomaniacal focus of Astrid’s cult.
you’re indifferent to eyeball stabbing, gouging, and (Sorry — Astrid’s “self-help organization.”) You

5: LAYERS
(yes) crushing, the characters and central conceit feel for Chloe, you wonder about Astrid, and you
might pull you in. worry about those body-mangling, usually invis-
As of this writing, I’ve only read the first trade ible entities.
paperback, whose premise is, “What if Scientology
was fighting demons? Or possibly aliens?” WHAT IT EXPOSES ABOUT
The primary characters are Chloe and Astrid. UNKNOWN ARMIES
Chloe is poor, sad, suicidal, and has to live in It’s not a bad model for some aspects of the New

6: REDUX
Florida. She’s an investigative reporter, and after Inquisition — the loyalty to a single charismatic See “The New
her fiancé kills himself with the core text of the leader whose speculation is treated as Holy Writ. Inquisition”
Honest World Foundation open in front of him, But I feel like Astrid’s setup is much more tightly on page 85 of
she decides to wreak journalistic havoc on them. wound. TNI is all over the place, chasing artifacts, Book Two:
As for Astrid, she’s rich, emotionless, driven, and recruiting or curb stomping chargers, and doing Run.
gets to live in Chicago. She is the guru for the spy shit on other major cabals. The Honest World
Honest World Foundation and the author of the Foundation is only concerned with one thing

7: VEIL
book that (it would seem) drove Chloe’s man to — using its advanced tech to get at the truth of You might
blow his brains out. the Entities.
Both are perceiving horrible monsters that No, I think what’s most useful (if you don’t want
know Gail
possess people and swear a lot. The entities seem to just plop the Honest World Foundation into from such
to act a little like demons and a little like dissec- your game lock, stock, and clean room) is the atti- places as
tion-happy aliens, but don’t seem to be either. tude of Astrid and her followers. I love their beau- Wonder 8: BESEIGED
They sure aren’t friendly though. tiful jargon — are you post-emotic, pre-emotic,
or hyper-emotic? Are you a frell, all teed up to Woman,
get stropped? It all indicates this scientific-esque Secret
categorization urge that really communicates Six, social
the glassy-eyed confidence and determination of
Astrid’s people. (So do the jumpsuits. I love the
media,
zipper-front jumpsuits.) Read Clean Room to see and the
constellation
9: SELVES

what an organization looks like when it’s abso-

lutely sure that it’s smarter than everyone else, of
that it has answers everyone else is too dumb to
understand, and that the use of any dirty trick at
Arcturus.
all is justified when the stakes are this high.
10: MEDIA

29
 1: MEAT
MIND MGMT BY MATT KINDT
The comic MIND MGMT follows a woman named Meru who
evocative, and beautifully colored. Kindt’s illustrations don’t
wrote one very good, very successful true crime book and have the crispness of Charles Burns or the controlled frenzy
is now at her wit’s end trying to write a second one. She of Junji Ito but they get the job done.

2: THROAT
latches on to the mystery of a plane that took off normally
with 121 passengers and had to be talked down by air traffic WHAT IT EXPOSES ABOUT
control after the pilot, co-pilot, crew, and 119 of the other UNKNOWN ARMIES
people onboard simultaneously came down with complete If you want to know what a government would do if it could
retrograde amnesia. (One additional victim — the man who reliably create and motivate people-influencing chargers, it
counted the people coming off the plane — also lost every would probably look a lot like MIND MGMT. It also presents
memory of every event in his life.) a fairly plausible through-line of how that would play out.

3: SMALL
One passenger who kept his memory was a seven- (Short version? It works OK for a while, then other coun-
year-old. The other — Henry Lyme — apparently vanished tries get into it, then there’s an arms race to find and train
from midair. That, or he managed to get off a plane stronger psychics. Eventually, one of them snaps the leash,
swarmed by emergency personnel completely unobserved. goes psychicotic and freaks the squares into disbanding
Meru chases leads, seeking Lyme, and uncovers things the program. That’s when the real fun starts, as the “retire-
that are even worse. She’s pursued by people who can shrug ment” of a large number of psychic espionage assets goes
off gunshots, she finds a village in Mexico whose inhab- poorly and some of them decide it’s time to go into business

4: BIGGER
itants obsessively craft pots, to the point that they won’t for themselves.)
feed themselves. She finds the operatives of MIND MGMT, Rampaging around in the wreckage of a paranormal espi-
a psychic espionage agency staffed with memory erasers, onage cold war sound fun to you? If so, check out MIND
psychic shapeshifters, and no-touch assassins. MGMT. It’s cabals and objectives in action through tight
I’ve seen five big hardbacks of MIND MGMT collections, fiction. For bonus points, it does a nice job exploring the way
but I’ve only read the first two. They’re tightly plotted, mind control could hide in plain sight.

5: LAYERS
TANIS BY NIC SILVER
Found online at tanispodcast.com, Tanis is a fiction
podcast disguised as an investigation into the mystical WHAT IT EXPOSES ABOUT
city of, you guessed it, Tanis. As of this writing, they’re UNKNOWN ARMIES
still putting up new episodes, constantly folding new and First off, Tanis is a near-textbook example of an otherspace.
different ingredients into a batter of “a strange place in the What would people do if they began to suspect such a thing

6: REDUX
Pacific Northwest.” could exist? They’d act a lot like the characters in Tanis do.
The Tanis of the podcast starts out as a mythical city that Some would become cultists, some would try to exploit
periodically moves (possibly into the air), and rapidly gets it, and some would just be fascinated and want to know
folded in with the myths of other mystery spots like Xenu the truth.
and Pacifica Station. While he starts out just trying to find Second, it serves as a how-to for folding together a lot of
out what Tanis is and learn about its history, narrator Nic very weird stuff and making it seem vaguely plausible that
quickly gets wrapped up with Jack Parsons, serial killers and it’s connected. Just listening to the podcasts that are already

7: VEIL
poets, native myths about people who went into the woods out and doing some semi-competent Googling could give
and came back changed with all-black eyes, vanishing you fodder for a lot of Unknown Armies plots. At the same
researchers who were exploring a cabin in the woods that time, it’s a cautionary example of why you maybe don’t
periodically stopped being there, a citing of the Dungeon want to throw every ingredient into the pot at the same
Master’s Guide, and the Servant Girl Annihilator. time. There’s a fine line between “enough that it’s intriguing”
Tanis isn’t perfect — it bites off a lot and more falls out and “so much that it’s exhausting.” 8: BESEIGED
of its mouth than gets chewed and digested. But it main- Finally, the way its narrative moves from “outlaw jour-
tains its narrative energy and keeps you wondering what lies nalist and snarky hacker” scale to “governments and corpo-
through “The Breach” and why the rich, the powerful, and rations” scale can provide some guidance for moving your
the artistic keep seeking it despite the disasters that befall game in that direction. In Uzumaki, things get bigger and
the “runners” who’ve found their way there. worse, but the characters’ agency stays the same or even
diminishes. Great for cosmic horror, not so good for this
RPG. In Tanis, the government and businesses try to co-opt
9: SELVES

that outlaw journalist, because he manages to do what they,

themselves, cannot.
10: MEDIA

30
 1: MEAT
5: LAYERS ON THE INSIDE
A character in Unknown Armies is more than a Christmas can be hard to play with, but luckily assorted art forms have
tree of abilities ornamented with weapons and arcane arti- been doing it a long time. The suggestions here showcase

2: THROAT
facts. This game aims, pointedly, at the character’s interior ways for players to develop their PCs, not just as narrative
state. The game’s not only about life and death — it focuses arcs, but as characters with internal development.
on how characters change after experiences. States of mind

BLACK HOLE BY CHARLES BURNS

Black Hole is a moody, black and white graphic novel

3: SMALL
depicting teenagers in the 1970s. (It was also made into WHAT IT EXPOSES ABOUT
a short film, but I have to be brutally honest and say that UNKNOWN ARMIES
the movie just does not live up to the book. Maybe the I like Black Hole as a reference point for Unknown Armies for
rumored full-length version will hew closer.) The teens have two reasons. The first is that it reinforces the idea of char-
the typical problems — family, grades, school, acne, cliques, acter being central. Despite all the body horror mutations
terrible polyester clothes, intermittent cannabis access. It’s and strange hallucinations, this is first and foremost about
like a gritty version of Dazed and Confused except for one unhappy teens who are unhappy for the same reasons that

4: BIGGER
addition: sexually transmitted monstrosity. teens have always been unhappy. These are not paragons,
Would Black Hole be as good if it had been scripted and not by a long shot, but even their flaws and failings bring a
drawn by anyone else? I don’t think so. Even a genius writer pang of familiarity, even as their bodies change into forms
and genius artist would have had a different vibe from the that are rich with strangeness.
profoundly disturbing excellence of Burns’ artwork. (Trivia The second lesson it offers is this: weird horror can get
fact: Burns won the Best Inker Harvey Award for seven of normalized, but normal horror stays awful. Eventually,
the eight years that this comic was coming out as individual people just get used to teenagers having unique physical

5: LAYERS
issues.) Burns has an uncanny ability to draw beautiful distortions. But the heartbreak and cruelty of humans being
pictures of grotesque things. It’s amazing. human? That never loses its power over the characters, any
more than it loses its power over us, the real.

JOHN DIES AT THE END BY DAVID WONG

John Dies at the End, is the first novel by Jason Pargin under

6: REDUX
the pen name “David Wong.” It’s about a guy named David WHAT IT EXPOSES ABOUT
Wong who takes drugs, has terrible psychological problems, UNKNOWN ARMIES
and is… probably?… an exorcist and zombie hunter. Then he Well, the part where they take a drug that’s actually alive
travels to strange other worlds and it starts to resemble A and it allows them to see and do impossible things — that’s
Wrinkle in Time if you replaced all the spirituality and familial for sure worth stealing for many an Unknown Armies game.
affection with swears and violence. (The drug is called “soy sauce.”) But in the larger sense, what
The movie Frailty goes a lot farther with the question, I like and admire about John Dies at the End is the way it

7: VEIL
“Are the monsters real or is it all in one dude’s crazy mind?” uses external horrors to elucidate internal awfulness. The
than John Dies at the End does. The monsters are definitely weird ghosts and extradimensional threats that John and
real, which does not mean that the David of the book isn’t Dave confront are externally real, but the reason Dave
super-crazy anyhow. He clobbers stuff, confronts his past, confronts them is not that he has weird powers or is some
has hallucinatory episodes that turn out to be actually corny “Chosen One” — it’s because he and they operate in
happening, and mixed in with all this are some pretty good the same milieu of alienation and suspicion and despair. He 8: BESEIGED
jokes. (There’s a movie version of John Dies at the End, but fights it and they embrace it but they have it in common,
it didn’t have the guts to commit to what is, for my money, unlike John and the other characters who try to drag Dave
the best part. When John and Dave meet a bunch of naked back towards humanity.
old people and ask why they’re naked, they’re told, “We At least that’s my reading of it, and between passions,
thought our clothes would disturb you.” When they find out obsessions, and shock gauges, you have a deeply detailed
about the clothes? That’s the best part. There’s also a sequel, portrait of your PCs’ internal lives. If you want to find a way
This Book is Full of Spiders, which has less of the frenzied, to make the personal into the post-rational, and to have
9: SELVES

anarchic energy of the first but a much stronger plot struc- your horrific events resonate with the characters the way
ture. Also a great plot twist. Also about the same number of Dave’s trials touch on his interior traumas, look no farther
dick jokes. Also recommended.) than the character sheet.
10: MEDIA

harrow
aw yiss, my bandana order finally arrived
32
 1: MEAT
TERRIBLY HAPPY BY HENRIKpresented RUBEN GENZ
This movie’s original title is Frygtelig lykkelig and it’s a dour to Robert as a place where one can get away with
Danish cop drama with no overt paranormal elements but it, and the “it” is “anything you have the willpower to perpe-
a dynamite sense of foreboding laced through every frame trate.” While it flirts with being a mystery, the main question

2: THROAT
of the film. is not, “Whodunit?” but, “What happens to the human spirit
The plot is, a weak young cop from Copenhagen named in a corrosive environment of total permission?” The answer,
Robert makes some bad screw-up and is sent out to a tiny as you might guess, is a little ambiguous.
Jutland village for punishment. The town is under the thrall
of bullying wife-beater Jørgen, who wants Robert to be a WHAT IT EXPOSES ABOUT
good boy, not make waves, and continue to let the towns- UNKNOWN ARMIES
folk stumble through their numbing routine. Robert, on If you can make an antagonist as trouser-moisteningly scary

3: SMALL
the other hand, is kind of hot for Jørgen’s poor abused wife, as Kim Bodnia’s Jørgen, you already have most of what you
Ingerlise. need for any horror game. But the deeper lesson of Terribly
Robert is well-acted as a wavering guy who wants to Happy is how people act when they’ve racked up a lot of
do good but is just not very determined. Jørgen is, and I failed notches on their shock gauge (Robert and Ingerlise),
don’t use this phrase lightly, fucking terrifying. Ingerlise is a or too many hardened notches (Jørgen). The engine driving
confusing blend of appealing, infuriating, complicit, manip- the movie is the premise that trauma erodes morality, and
ulative, and pathetic. But the most important character in that can be something important to remember in Unknown

4: BIGGER
the film is, perhaps, the town itself. It’s a boggy, miserable Armies. We love stories about how people undergo traumas
place full of secrets. Anything unwanted, from a grotesquely and come out Nietzsche-fied, stronger than ever. But for
mutated calf up through murder victims, just gets tipped many, what does not kill them makes them frail, flinching,
into the marsh and sinks, never spoken of again. It is easy victims.

5: LAYERS
6: REDUX
7: VEIL
8: BESEIGED
9: SELVES
10: MEDIA

33
 1: MEAT
6: IDENTITIES REDUX
If you’re used to games with hard and fast what she can do. With that perspective, I hope the
skill lists, Unknown Armies seems weirdly loos- layers become more appealing.

2: THROAT
ey-goosey. If you came up playing games with There are a few new features added here, just
very freeform rules (like Over the Edge, say, or my to keep things interesting, as well as modeled
own Dinosaurs… in SPAAACE!), it probably seems identities to provide examples for how these little
touchy and complex. But identities are more than scripts for being are constructed. The chapter
just one-note, one-trick rule levers. They’re who finishes with another dose of mystic identities,
the character is, in addition to probabilities for just for fun.

3: SMALL
FEATURES
Identities have features, typically three of them. SINCERE See “Identities”
A variety has already been provided, but why Other people keep their emotions leashed close, on page 42
wouldn’t you want more options? No, I mean it, remaining stone-faced and cool. Not you. When and “Features”
why wouldn’t you? Fine, if you don’t want new people matter to you, they damn well know it. on page 44 in
features, ignore this, but the rest of us are incor- Maybe you can’t help it (or it’s something you Book One:

4: BIGGER
porating them into our characters. switch on when you really want to make your Play.
point) but your feelings shine through when you
COOPERATIVE interact with your relationships.
You know what’s really useful? Other people. No The specific way the Sincere feature works
matter what you want done, somewhere there’s is, the identity to which it’s attached gets a
some other person who can do it. Probably there’s +10% bonus… but only when you’re using it
someone who can do it better than you. on or for your guru, mentor, favorite, protégé,

5: LAYERS
The best outcomes, however, usually arise not or responsibility.
from finding one person who does one thing So, for example, let’s assume you’re an emer-
singularly well, but from collecting a group that gency room doctor, complete with a Medical
can tackle a problem from several directions at feature. You’ve got the identity ER Doctor at 55%.
once. This, cooperation, is often humanity at its But one day, when they wheel in the blood-cov-
best. (Or worst, if you want to get picky and look ered gurney, you recognize that floral-print dress,
at horrid instances of mob violence.) your fiancée Gwendolyn borrowed it from you

6: REDUX
With this feature, your identity plays unusually this morning! Heart in your throat, you rush to
well with others. The synergies formed depend on her side and recognize the ring you gave her at
the ability (or abilities) mimicked by the identity. the Tegan and Sara concert! Oh no! Can you save
For example, suppose you had an identity that your beloved?
substituted for Lie, and that identity was also Well, with a 55%, your chances are… not bad…
Cooperative. If you were helping someone else but if you’re a sincere ER Doctor, you can boost
with a long con that involved deception, you could that to 65%, as you belt out, “I need a crash cart

7: VEIL
use your Cooperative identity to help them tell a stat!” through your tears. Do you
whopper. Instead of rolling, you’d just say you’re If your relationship is with an organization, you
cooperating with their roll. can harness the power of your sincerity whenever
know who
The effect of the cooperation is this: whatever you’re doing something with (or to) someone in you are
your buddy rolls, you can add or subtract exactly that organization. this week?
10. If they roll a 51, you can turn it into a 41 or a 61. Example Identities: Biker Gang Patch We do. 8: BESEIGED
This +/–10 gimmick is useful in several different Member, Business Leader, Church Secretary,
ways. It can turn a failure into a success, if they Religious Leader. We have
missed the mark by 10 percentiles or less. It can all that
turn a matched failure into a regular one, and TACTICAL information
some regular successes into matched ones. You The more rugged compliment to “Cooperative”
cannot, however, cooperate with yourself, pretty is the Tactical feature. But where Cooperative
in our
much by definition. is all about helping people be awesome, Tactical Moleskine
notebooks.
9: SELVES

Example Identities: Cheerleader, Manager, is about ordering people to be effective. They’re

Middle Child, Team Player. not mutually contradictory or anything: you could
have a Tactical and Cooperative identity and prob-
ably get lots of praise in your personnel folder. But
they work differently.
A Tactical ability is one that you have to use
cleft to give people orders, advice, or some other sort
10: MEDIA

of imperative. Unlike a Cooperative identity, you

if any artist draws cthulhu eating a gas roll your Tactical identity as you tell Tito to bar
station, please send me a link
35
 1: MEAT
the door or yell at Brenda to stomp on his foot or real estate deals. A tactical sleazy bank officer?
holler at Rudy to cut over into the passing lane. Exactly vice versa.
The roll determines whether your advice is any Example Identities: Community Organizer,
good. If it is — that is, the roll succeeds — then Crime Boss, Staff Sergeant, Scout Leader.
your advice is helpful to an ally who follows it.

2: THROAT
If the person you shout your Tactical critique or WEAPONIZED PHYSIQUE
whatever at follows your advice, they get to flip- Some people are big and heavy and capable of See “Flip-flops”
flop their roll. injuring you accidentally, just by stepping on your on page 15 in
Are there limits to this? Oh, absolutely. foot. Some people are fanatical martial artists Book One:
Otherwise you could just slap this on an obses- whose body-hardening practice lets them elbow- Play.
sion identity, crank it up really high, boss around smash through a two-by-four without significant
everyone in your cabal and let them flip-flop damn discomfort. The story about the Muay Thai fighter

3: SMALL
near everything. The limit is, the tactical advice getting a titanium shin implant appears to be a
has to be relevant to the identity. hoax… or was it? And then there are some people
Let’s say your Tactical identity is Gang Leader. If (cough, Mike Tyson, cough) who bite.
you yell, “Cap that fool!” at Chunk-Style, his roll to However you define your character’s weapon-
shoot the person you indicate can be flip-flopped, ized physique, the result is always the same: if you
since it’s within the Gang Leader bailiwick. If you attack someone bare-handed, using Struggle or
told Chunk-Style which fork to use at a fancy any other identity, your blows do an extra wound

4: BIGGER
dinner, it would not work, because one does (two wounds on a matched success, three with
not normally associate gang leaders with formal a crit). Even if you grapple someone, you deal a
etiquette. (I don’t want to deal in broad stereo- wound every round as you grind your murder-shin I
types, but there it is.) It’s basically the rule of into their nerves or crush them with your impla- weaponized
“Of course I can…” all over again. A tactical mili- cable hands. myself last
tary officer is good at gunfights and first aid and Example Identities: Brutalitarian, Dangerous
driving, not convincing people to go in on shady Piercings, Huge, Old-Time Strongman. weekend

5: LAYERS
just to see
if I could.
GMCs
The GM’s lot is not an easy one, fraught as it is themselves, or else just roll some dice until some-
with players and their… ideas. You can’t help it, thing reasonable comes up.
you can’t stop ‘em and, honestly, isn’t half the
fun seeing what asinine wild hare they’re going ACADEMIC

6: REDUX
to chase after this session? Their randomness If you’re researching the mysterious fireballs that
and determination to go off the beaten path are periodically spotted around Tallman Plateau,
can leave the GM slapping her pockets and or the history of medicinal cannibalism, or the
rummaging through her purse for assorted char- literary antecedents of Dirk Allen and his influ-
acters, however. In the hopes of making the GM ence on Boston’s millennial “Cryptodecadent”
job easier and more fun, we’re putting up a slew of authors, you’re going to need an academic. Not
two-part characters. just some autodidact with decent Google skills

7: VEIL
The first part is sixteen broad-sketch personae, but no grasp on critical thought, but the real
mostly social roles of the type that Unknown ivory tower deal — someone whose sources have
Armies PCs run into — cops, crooks, and crack- to be solid, someone whose job depends on not
pots. The second part, independent of the first, is having a sneering colleague from the philosophy
a set of nineteen surprising identities that any of department casually eviscerate the logic of their
the people from the first part could have in their argument, someone who actually has skin in the 8: BESEIGED
background. Alternately, if you just want to throw game and could get passed over for tenure if she’s
one of those identities on a random other char- insufficiently thorough.
acter, each of them can provide distractions, red After getting tenure, of course, she could be
herrings, or even genuine assistance to the PCs, far more open to “excluded voices” and “outsider
depending on what they need. perspectives” and “nontraditional beliefs.” But
Note: None of these GMCs have failed notches whatever pre-internet thing you’re chasing after,
provided. If you need to know this during the you want this bright, curious skeptic in your
9: SELVES

game, assign five notches between the shock corner, polishing her eyeglasses on the corner of
meters and call it good. Or make it up on the spot, her cardigan sweater.
and note it for later. Wound Threshold: 50.
I’m an Academic, of course I can access
THIS GMC IS A… obscure libraries and archives that you
You get a brief overview of who might wind up never knew existed, get an interview with a
in this role, their shock gauge, and what their reclusive expert, recognize specious bullshit
10: MEDIA

identity covers. There are no percentiles given for research. Protects the Unnatural, Substitutes
the identity — individual GMs can decide that for for Knowledge, Substitutes for Status.

36
 ACADEMIC

1: MEAT
Notches Violence Unnatural Helplessness Isolation Self
Hardened 2 4 3 3 2

ADDICT
Notches Violence Unnatural Helplessness Isolation Self

2: THROAT
Hardened 3 2 5 3 6

ALDERWOMAN
Notches Violence Unnatural Helplessness Isolation Self
Hardened 1 1 4 3 4

3: SMALL
BEAT COP
Notches Violence Unnatural Helplessness Isolation Self
Hardened 4 2 3 2 5

ADDICT concerned about how other people feel has pretty much
There are more of them out there than you might suspect. thrown in the towel. She had a good run as a conciliatory

4: BIGGER
This guy isn’t crouching under a bridge, toothless and ineptly do-bee, she helped a lot of people, made a lot of friends, and
busking for quarters. He’s enslaved by substances, no doubt handled a lot of dirt with sensitivity and discretion. Then her
about it, but he’s keeping it together, for now. Depending kids moved out, her husband filed for an amicable divorce,
on how high his position already is and how loyal his subor- and she suddenly wondered why she was so great about
dinates are, he might be able to keep at it indefinitely. helping others retain political positions when she could just
What’s his poison of choice? If it’s booze, he probably has get one of her own. So she ran for city council, won, broke
a high tolerance, can shake off his three-martini (or six-pack) the other councilmembers to harness with shocking leader-

5: LAYERS
lunch buzz in time to get home safely, and he probably saves ship skills, and is poised to become mayor. But interrupting
his whiskey blackouts for Saturday nights (and vice versa). her path to authority — one way or the other — is those
A painkiller addiction might be tougher stuff, especially if dratted PCs.
he’s actually in constant pain from some other cause. Or Maybe they turn her on to the real threats to her commu-
he might be an intermittent binger — wrecks himself, quits, nity and she becomes a powerful ally. Maybe she dismisses
cleans up, spends three months sober, starts using again them as lunatics and does everything she can to make their
very intermittently, decides he can handle it now, gradually lives untenable. (“Oh, sorry, your house has been rezoned.

6: REDUX
increases use until he’s fooling himself, ultimately loses We’ll pay a fair market price, of course. Also, your business is
control, wrecks himself, and starts the whole cycle over under investigation. Also, you’re going to need a license to
until he crashes a car or finally ODs. But when you meet conduct those blood sacrifices — even with religious protec-
him, he’s got it mostly under control. He’s functional. His tions, you’re bound by sanitation regulations.”)
perspective is still out in weeks and months, it hasn’t been Wound Threshold: 50.
crushed down to a desperate need to just navigate the next I’m an Alderwoman, of course I can get a ticket fixed,
day, or hour. (Have patience buddy, it’ll get there!) He’s not make a local business be nicer to you, get that pothole

7: VEIL
desperate to feed the beast yet. He’s desperate to keep the repaired, find you a temporary job for a couple weeks.
beast hidden from view. Protects Helplessness, Protects Isolation, Substitutes
Wound Threshold: 50. for Status.
I’m an Addict, of course I can find a source, communi-
cate in slang, exert myself in brief and intense ways if BEAT COP
there’s drugs at the end of it. Protects Self, Substitutes This officer’s job is to drive, alone, in a defined area. If she 8: BESEIGED
for Lie, Substitutes for Secrecy. sees anything suspicious, she calls it in and then gets out
and investigates. If someone else calls something in near her
ALDERWOMAN beat, she goes over to respond. She handles a lot of traffic,
In the course of pursuing objectives, the PC cabal may run a lot of car crashes (mostly mild, sometimes heartbreakingly
into broader issues than the question, “Where can I fly my deadly), a lot of domestic disputes and arguing neighbors,
freak flag without the muggles tryna burn it?” They may a fair spot of racism disguised as “good citizenship.” She’s
involve themselves with decreasing (or increasing) crime or probably a bit cynical, a bit too quick to forgive her own
9: SELVES

unemployment. They may require access to some specific biases as being “what she learned on the street,” a little too
historical site with sexy feng shui, or they might wind up in fond of quick and easy solutions. But she’s also calm, phleg-
the bad books of a local business that has Sinister Secret matic, and unlikely to pull out her gun for no reason.
Motives™. In all those instances, they are trying to put their Wound Threshold: 50.
thumbs on the scale of how the society operates. In this, I’m a Beat Cop, of course I can recognize the
they’re going to cross paths with the mundane folks who local “usual suspects,” interpret gang tags and
are already trying to thumb society with great vigor. People police radio codes, maintain a calm façade. Provides
10: MEDIA

like the alderwoman. Firearm Attacks, Substitutes for Pursuit, Substitutes

She’s in her fifties and that hormone that makes her for Struggle.

37
 BOUNCER

1: MEAT
Notches Violence Unnatural Helplessness Isolation Self
Hardened 3 2 2 2 3

BURNT OUT
Notches Violence Unnatural Helplessness Isolation Self

2: THROAT
Hardened 5 5 4 4 3

CHARGER
Notches Violence Unnatural Helplessness Isolation Self
Hardened 3 6 3 4 4

3: SMALL
CHECKER
Notches Violence Unnatural Helplessness Isolation Self
Hardened 2 4 6 3 3

BOUNCER has the freshest baked goods. Coerces

There are three types of bouncers stretching out Isolation, Protects Isolation, Substitutes

4: BIGGER
that black T-shirt with “SECURITY” across the for Notice.
chest, looking at IDs with those big-ass D-cell
Maglites. There are the guys who got hired CHARGER
because they’re big and imposing, there are the Typically, powerful and knowing occultists are the See “Specific
guys who got hired because they love to kick sort of thing the GM wants to have ready ahead Information”
people’s asses, and there are the guys who are of time, but you never know. A carefully crafted on page 47 of
both. Which one do you suppose this fellow is? antagonist could always catch an 01 from a PC Book One:

5: LAYERS
Bouncers get wheedled at a lot if they’re with a shotgun and need to be quickly replaced Play.
working the front door of an exclusive place, by this gal. She’s twitchy and shy and overcom-
ignored if it’s less tony, and called every foul pensates with arrogance. She gets real mad if
thing in the book when they’re escorting out an you correct her on anything, but she’s at least
unwanted patron. They may also wind up having shrewd and she keeps her promises with the same
to do janitorial duty if things are crowded. Plus, finicky and overbearing exactitude she applies to
anything that falls out of someone’s purse or her taboo. Speaking

6: REDUX
pocket, or gets ditched because the cops (or She’s got some kind of artifact — something
whomever) is following? It probably winds up with that isn’t at all associated with the powers of her
of hackers,
the bouncer. adept school — and is convinced it’s evidence of an Robert
Wound Threshold: 50. ancient global yeti civilization, of which American Redford
I’m a Bouncer, of course I can spot a fake bigfoots and skunk apes are just the degenerate played one
ID, acquire drugs, get free drinks, hold my and inbred remnants. She’s seeking a compli-
liquor, understand the club kids’ crazy slang. mentary device (or possibly location, she’s not
in the
movies.

7: VEIL
Coerces Violence, Substitutes for Fitness, sure) and will stop at nothing to secure it.
Substitutes for Struggle. Wound Threshold: 50. Which
Instead of an identity, just give her your movies?
BURNT OUT favorite magick school and any ol’ artifact
This guy has managed to avoid getting five failed that catches your eye. That’s why I haven’t Butch
marks in any one gauge, but he has been through included an “Of course I can…” section here. Cassidy 8: BESEIGED
the grinder and is, from the perspective of ordi- and the
nary folks living the American Dream, something CHECKER Sundance
of a suspect sausage. He cannot function in This fellow is quiet, keeps his own counsel, but is
normal society or, perhaps, just doesn’t. He’s seen very, very interested in the occult underground. Kid of
too much to believe in an office job, a suburban He follows, asks questions, and makes himself course.
patio, church on Sunday, and 2.5 kids. useful to anyone who seems to have a real grip on
What fires left this ash of a man? Up to the GM supernatural power, because that’s his last hope.
9: SELVES

to decide, if it even matters. Could be war, drugs, Maybe he’s sick, or maybe it’s someone he loves.
bad love stuff, supernatural curses, or all of the Whatever it is, medical science has shrugged its
above. But he sees a little something familiar in shoulders and awkwardly suggested a “really great”
the PCs, so he’s less dismissive of them than he hospice option.
is of everyone else. It’s up to them to decide how He’s not quitting. He doesn’t have any weird
they feel about that. magick, but he has desperation and intensity. He
Wound Threshold: 50. is very motivated to find a psychic surgeon. If he
10: MEDIA

I’m Burnt Out, of course I can find a meth finds one, he’s going to be very motivated to pay
dealer, sleep rough, tell you which dumpster whatever price is asked.

38
 1: MEAT
DAYSLEEPER
Notches Violence Unnatural Helplessness Isolation Self
Hardened 2 4 3 5 2

DETECTIVE

2: THROAT
Notches Violence Unnatural Helplessness Isolation Self
Hardened 3 2 3 2 4

HACKER
Notches Violence Unnatural Helplessness Isolation Self
Hardened 2 2 3 3 2

3: SMALL
MOBBED UP
Notches Violence Unnatural Helplessness Isolation Self
Hardened 6 2 4 4 3

Wound Threshold: 50. There a couple common elements in all these

4: BIGGER
I’m a Checker, of course I can discuss tarot detective subspecies: they all have to pay atten-
and alchemy, recognize common ways to fake tion, and they all tend to see people at their least
having magick, tell mystic inspiration from admirable. This detective is aging, cynical, weary,
drug-induced babble. Casts Rituals, Protects and honest most of the time. Every now and again,
the Unnatural, Substitutes for Notice. though, he just can’t be friggin’ bothered.
Wound Threshold: 50.
DAYSLEEPER I’m a Detective, of course I can run a plate,

5: LAYERS
The unnatural has a strong connection to the conduct surveillance, spy on personal elec-
wee hours of the night, either because daylight tronics. Substitutes for Notice, Substitutes
is a force for order (it is, after all, the primary for Pursuit, Substitutes for Secrecy. Burning
counter-entropic element of life on Earth), or out,
because it’s easier to remain unobserved when HACKER dropping
most people are sleepy, or just from tradition and Some computer professionals are very flattered if
a sense of drama. you call them a “hacker” instead of “that gal from in, tuning

6: REDUX
This unfortunate lady, however, isn’t out and IT,” while others are offended, or just feel the up, slowing
about in the pitch-black night because she’s a need to correct you at great length about what a down.
witch or demonologist. She just got stuck with hacker actually is. This woman, in her late thirties
the late shift. She might be a factory worker, or and recently engaged, doesn’t much care what you
the counter clerk at an all-night gas station, or the call her. She fixes the mysterious grey and black
security guard for something that nobody has any boxes that pipe the internet through the Gs and
real interest in robbing. the Wi-Fis, or however the hell all that shit works. If

7: VEIL
Sleeping during the day has wrecked her circadian you don’t know how the hell all that shit works but
rhythms enough that she’s either developed a fringe need someone to shake some information out of it,
psychic power (define it however you want) that she can do it. Maybe she volunteers from the good-
lets her see weird stuff out of the corner of her eye, ness of her heart because she’s happy about her
or she’s just stopped suppressing a power that was impending nuptials. Or maybe she squeezes every
always there. She blames the stuff she sees on sleep last penny out of you because she has her heart set 8: BESEIGED
deprivation, while struggling to keep her weird new on a Vera Wang gown and mama gots to get paid.
superstitions hidden from the daytime people. Wound Threshold: 50.
Wound Threshold: 50. I’m a Hacker, of course I can dazzle non-te-
This is a supernatural identity, so it doesn’t chies with jargon, make your laptop run
get the usual “Of course I can…” section faster, install or uninstall softwarez, consume
but it does have the following features: alarming quantities of caffeine. Can break
Casts Rituals, Specific Information, Use into and subvert computer systems (unique),
9: SELVES

Gutter Magick. Substitutes for Knowledge, Substitutes for Lie.

DETECTIVE MOBBED UP
There are all kinds of detectives out there, ranging This guy is a level or two up from the Petty Crook. See “Petty
from the police (who usually are specialized in He’s not just one ingredient floating in the rich Crook.”
financial crimes, homicide, sex crimes, vice, etc.), stew of the criminal underclass, he’s part of the
to store detectives (who are basically bouncers for basic stock in which everyone else simmers.
10: MEDIA

shoplifting), to private detectives who run back- Maybe he’s old-style Italian mob, or Russian mafia,
ground checks and follow spouses. or has connections to the Mexican Zetas, or is

39
 1: MEAT
PETTY CROOK
Notches Violence Unnatural Helplessness Isolation Self
Hardened 4 1 4 4 5

PONY

2: THROAT
Notches Violence Unnatural Helplessness Isolation Self
Hardened 2 4 2 2 2

SERVER
Notches Violence Unnatural Helplessness Isolation Self
Hardened 3 2 4 3 2

3: SMALL
your town’s Stringer Bell. Whatever his organization is, it’s… PONY
well… organized. He probably made his bones back when he Not in the sense of having sexytimes by dressing up with
was a dumb twenty-year-old, but now he’s in his mid-forties, saddle and bit and bridle, but in the sense of being involved
sleek and well-dressed, with a personal trainer to help him in (or intrigued by) the occult underground but having no
keep some of the muscles he put on doing his five years in idea what he’s doing.

4: BIGGER
the state pen. He doesn’t kill or injure anyone anymore, he He’s friendly and optimistic and young, he experienced a
has people for that. mystic revelation of breathtaking beauty and wants more of
This is the guy you go to if you need to fence stolen art it. He has not yet experienced any ugly sides of occultism,
treasures or buy military grade gear in bulk. He’s also the guy and for now the checkers who know him are making half-
who hates witches and strigoi and curanderos and all that assed attempts to keep his innocence intact. For some of
other weird shit. He’s not a skeptic, he’s a thaumophobe. them, it’s lazy altruism. Others are keeping him in the stable
Anyone who comes to him with a paranormal agenda sees for when they need a demon host or a second set of prints

5: LAYERS
him nod, smile, and plot their downfall. on a weapon.
Wound Threshold: 50. Wound Threshold: 50.
I’m Mobbed Up, of course I can skip the line at any I’m a Pony, of course I can stumble onto occult stuff
place that serves food or drink, get you some fun young almost entirely by accident, misunderstand things
people to party with, source a safecracker. Coerces in a way that protects my body or sanity, display
Violence, Substitutes for Lie, Substitutes for Status. my near-ignorance in the most appealing possible
fashion. Protects Helplessness, Protects the Unnatural,

6: REDUX
PETTY CROOK Substitutes for Connect.
He’s very vague about where his money comes from,
when he has money. (Sometimes he seems to have plenty. SERVER
Sometimes, he’s skint. Sometimes, he’s broke but has plenty Day or night, if you walk into a business you’re going to
of weed.) He’s not a big imposing guy and he doesn’t flash meet someone whose job is or includes interfacing with
a gun or threaten people. He goes along to get along, and random walk-ins. If you’re in a restaurant, he’s the waiter.
nobody seems to give him trouble. If you’re looking for If you’re buying shoes, he’s measuring your feet. If you’re

7: VEIL
something contraband but not enormously controlled — a asking about nail guns, he’s the one explaining the powder
bag of pot, not a brick of uncut heroin; a handgun, not a charge. He’s trying to keep things professional, get his job
rocket launcher — he’s your connect. done frictionlessly, be sufficiently friendly that you don’t
He doesn’t believe in Santa Claus, Jesus, or lucky horse- complain to his manager without being so over-friendly that
shoes. He’s never heard of the Invisible Clergy and if he had, you complain to his manager. If he witnesses something, he
he wouldn’t believe in it either. You can usually find him at won’t pay attention, probably won’t remember, and won’t 8: BESEIGED
Sal’s Tap between 7:00 PM and midnight. want to talk about it even if you wave money in his face.
Wound Threshold: 50. He is an atypical Unknown Armies character in that he is
I’m a Petty Crook, of course I can get you something extremely trouble-averse.
cheap that fell off a truck, arrange to get you bonded Wound Threshold: 50.
out of jail, tell you which beat cop is bent. Find criminal I’m a Server, of course I can talk to the local beat
opportunities (unique), Substitutes for Lie, Substitutes cop on a first-name basis, spot the person or event
for Secrecy. that’s out of place, give directions. Protects Isolation,
9: SELVES

Substitutes for Connect, Substitutes for Fitness.

10: MEDIA

40
 1: MEAT
WORKING HOMELESS
Notches Violence Unnatural Helplessness Isolation Self
Hardened 3 2 4 4 4

She lives in her car and drives around during the day —
WORKING HOMELESS not just so that she doesn’t get busted for loitering or

2: THROAT
The word “homeless” evokes images of distressed men, vagrancy, and not just because services for the homeless are
unkempt and huddled in layers of clothing beside a card- spread all over the metro area and often involve long waits.
board sign. But behind that most visible demographic is a She drives around because she doesn’t want anyone to look
second, hidden layer — the unseen, unconsidered, under- at her and somehow guess what she’s become.
paid homeless who are working a job (or two) but who aren’t Coincidentally, the PCs could see her just about anywhere,
making enough to cover rent or a mortgage payment. at any time, because of her nomadic employment and her
This character does not “look homeless,” if that phrase habit of finding somewhere new to sleep-park every night.

3: SMALL
does anything but reinforce assumptions that are far from She can just barely manage to keep this together on five
universal. Her clothes are clean, if plain. Her haircut isn’t hours of sleep a night, if the car stays functional. The third
very stylish, but she can keep it looking professional. She time the PCs run into her is seconds after her check engine
works the cash register at a clothing store part-time, and light comes on.
she slings burgers. Wound Threshold: 50.
If you asked her (and she trusted you enough to be honest, I’m Working Homeless, of course I can know which
which she wouldn’t), most of the advantages she could list creepy places even the violent and crazy are scared

4: BIGGER
are negative ones. She doesn’t have cancer any more, as far to go, haggle tenaciously, repair just about anything
as she knows. (She got ovarian cancer when she was a soph- with just about anything as long as it only has to
omore in college, two months before her father died and work one time more. Protects Self, Substitutes for Lie,
she found out he’d been deep, deep in debt). She doesn’t Substitutes for Secrecy.
have an abusive boyfriend or any kids. She hasn’t gotten
desperate enough to go on the game.

5: LAYERS
6: REDUX
7: VEIL
8: BESEIGED
9: SELVES
10: MEDIA

41
 1: MEAT
ADDITIONALLY, THIS GMC… CAN’T SLEEP (5)
You can look through this list to find something that makes Insomnia is a hell of a problem. Whether it arises from a
a nice second dimension for your character, or something disrupted schedule, a medical condition, guilt, or just having
that seems to not fit at all, or you can just roll 2d10 and let very noisy neighbors, it causes depression, confusion, and
chaos have a voice for once. The common ones are in the poor health. Psychiatric studies have found that the fastest

2: THROAT
middle, and the uncommon ones are out at the ends. way to drive someone out of touch with reality is to deprive
them of sleep, and this guy’s mind is starting to wander
FUCKIN’ ROCKS (2) under the pressure of his semi-awakeness. He has, in fact,
Whether she sings, drums, or plays strings, she brings it. She taken five failed notches in Helplessness and is now subject
can turn a blasé crowd into screaming maniacs with, on to hallucinations. He ignores them, as does everyone else,
average, three songs. Her onstage antics are extreme and and so far, it hasn’t left him swerving into traffic.
you feel embarrassed for never in your life being close to At the same time, he’s distracted, really surly, and takes a

3: SMALL
cool enough to get away with them. penalty on probably every roll he makes. There’s no bonus
It’s possible that she does this for a living, in which case identity for this poor bastard. He’s just screwed.
she’s got a following (though probably a local one). Even if
she only hops up onstage once or twice a year, people go CAME OUT OF FOSTER CARE (6)
crazy for her music and constantly ask when she’s going to If you’re not an American then maybe your country has a
go pro or record an album. better system for taking care of children whose parents
I Fuckin’ Rock, of course I can operate a soundboard, have abandoned them, or got caught engaging in neglect or

4: BIGGER
get backstage, get onstage, find a fan in a likely place. abuse. The system in the US has… mixed outcomes. Some
Makes kickass rock music (unique), Substitutes for foster parents are saints who genuinely care for the most
Connect, Substitutes for Status. unfortunate and powerless kids to be found. Some foster
parents are scam artists, and some group homes are little
PERFORMS ILLUSIONS (3) better than bullpens for the juvenile prison system.
Doing legerdemain, card tricks, and small-scale stage illusions To see her, you wouldn’t guess she’d been parentless since
is much, much, much less cool than being a rockstar, but it’s the age of thirteen, but you might think there’s something

5: LAYERS
also a lot less stressful and demanding. He just had to prac- dark in her past. You’d see it in the skeptical eyes, the suspi-
tice a hand movement over and over and over and over until cious posture, or that scar that goes across her left ear and
it looked perfectly natural, despite being profoundly artificial. onto her temple.
But with a little practice he was soon able to (apparently) Whether she chose to become fiercely loyal to her few
levitate light objects, make coins pass through glass or tables, friends, or to become completely self-isolated, is up to her
and say, “Is… this your card!?” with proper drama. (and the GM). One way or another though, she learned a lot
I Perform Illusions, of course I can escape from hand- about victimization and how to avoid it.

6: REDUX
cuffs, shoplift, misdirect attention, source a well-be- I Came Out of Foster Care, of course I can yell,
haved dove. Can win a lot of money cheating at cards nitpick the legality of certain tense social interactions,
(unique), Substitutes for Lie, Substitutes for Secrecy. instinctively hide everything of value. Coerces Violence,
Substitutes for Dodge, Substitutes for Notice.
CAN’T RESIST A MYSTERY (4)
Some people just can’t blithely walk past what’s unresolved WAS IN THE WAR (7)
without engaging and trying to get to the bottom of it. America has been at war for a long time — Iraq, Afghanistan,

7: VEIL
Whether it’s Snopes-style hoax debunking, an unsolved and by the time this book comes out, possibly Syria, Iran,
crime (or one that looks like it was solved wrong), or just the or pockets of Texas. But for this young man, his war days
Sunday crossword, this woman won’t stop poking her nose are over, he hopes. Not that he actually was at the front,
in and asking awkward questions and seeking. If she’s a cop, sweating IEDs and glaring at everyone with a cell phone. He
she clears a lot of cases. If she’s not, some people who know got trained for maintenance and helped supervise an armory
her are secretly very annoyed… or alarmed… in the Green Zone. He was, in the words of patrolling 8: BESEIGED
I Can’t Resist a Mystery, of course I can bond with Marines, a “POG.” But he still sweated and got bored and
you over your favorite crime show, figure out ciphers had his day disrupted now and again by nearby detonations.
and notice acrostics, spot inconsistencies. Substitutes He never had to shoot anybody, but he’s known plenty of
for Connect, Substitutes for Knowledge, Substitutes guys who did, as well as plenty who came under fire.
for Notice. I Was in The War, of course I can speak military
slang, source a live grenade if I’m willing to risk a lot of
trouble, make an educated guess about an explosion,
9: SELVES

get my health care paid for eventually. Can construct

homemade explosives, but hasn’t yet (unique), Provides
Firearm Attacks, Substitutes for Dodge.
10: MEDIA

42
 1: MEAT
HAS CRIPPLING DEBTS (8) WORKS OUT (10)
At first, it was possible to borrow some money to get stuff She doesn’t have the muscle definition of an anatomical
she couldn’t quite afford. Then it became commonplace to chart, she’s not ready to compete on American Ninja Warrior,
borrow money for major purchases like cars and houses. but she runs. Four days a week, actually. She used to just jog
Then credit got cheap. Now it’s ubiquitous, and living a little between basketball seasons when she was in high

2: THROAT
beyond her means is just expected. school, but at her current age she’s taking a more scientific
Most Americans carry some debt — college loans, a mort- approach, tracking her progress with a Fitbit, running with
gage, a monthly car payment. Many have credit card debt. a group, training for longer and longer runs. In fact, she’s
But some are just in really, really deep. Like this character. gone a little overboard — her knees and ankles hurt more
She just wanted nice things like her friends had! At first, the or less constantly, but she just powers through because
payments were manageable. Then she was only paying the she secretly doesn’t think she’s worthy of love. The good
minimum amount and it started to snowball, until she was news is, running may have spared her an eating disorder or a

3: SMALL
kiting from one card to another. Now, now she is deeply VD-soaked doomed love affair. The bad news is, she’s taken
screwed, because she’s borrowed money from some deeply 10 wounds from overtraining.
unpleasant people. I Work Out, of course I can borrow a kayak, find
She hasn’t declared bankruptcy or restructured her debts workout gear for all seasons, tape an ankle, push past
because, as long as she’s dancing as fast as she can, she can exhaustion. Protects Helplessness, Protects Isolation,
pay the vig on her mob loan and the minimum on her credit Substitutes for Fitness.
cards and throw away the other final notices before her

4: BIGGER
husband gets home. But she’s hard up. Whatever else she IS A SINGLE PARENT (11)
has going on, she would take any vaguely plausible legal way As an authorial aside, I get paid to imagine things for pay,
to earn a lot of money fast. As for an illegal way, she’d either and I can’t think of one situation where, everything else
jump on it after some thought, or keep thinking a long time, being equal, being a single parent wouldn’t make that
depending on how illegal it was. circumstance more wearying, more worrying, more chaotic,
She doesn’t get another identity, but she does get a few and desperate. Unless the other partner is a real shit, single
more hardened notches in Isolation, Self, and Helplessness, parenting is nobody’s best choice.

5: LAYERS
along with some failed notches in Helplessness. So… given how many single parents you meet, there must
be some real shits out there.
LOVES ROMANCE (9) This fellow, though, the mother of his darling daughter
How many cishet dudes love romance? It is very difficult to wasn’t a shit. She just got caught in a riptide while they
tell, since the assumed number (“none”) is clearly unlikely, were on vacation in California and drowned. It was the first
and the brash teasing makes it unpleasant for many to time she’d ever been to the ocean.
reveal themselves, and whose business is it anyhow? That leaves him with his daughter (how old is she now,

6: REDUX
This romance lover mostly reads them on his cell phone. anyhow?), struggling to keep a roof over their heads while
He got started when a girlfriend of his would read him paying for her therapy (she’s still phobic about water and
the sexually explicit parts of her semi-smutty novels about hates the beach). He misses his wife every day, and he’s
Scotsmen. (Always Scotsmen, for some reason.) He liked always tired, but he keeps going because of his daughter. He
romantic comedy films and then started to enjoy super-sad says he sees his wife’s spirit in her.
foreign romantic tragedies. I’m a Single Parent, of course I can stretch that
Eventually, that girlfriend moved on, partly because he grocery budget, arrange a very complicated schedule,

7: VEIL
was getting too serious and she wasn’t sure he was “the one.” throw together a Halloween costume at the last
Now he dates casually, also looking for “the one.” More than minute. Protects Helplessness, Protects Isolation,
once, though, he’s ghosted a woman once she figures out Substitutes for Pursuit.
that he seems to mostly be interested in having a beard for
going to “chick flicks.”
So he works his way through life, loving romance and 8: BESEIGED
hoping deep down that the powerful fusion of two souls he
always reads about could happen in real life. He’s afraid to
settle, afraid to miss out, but also afraid that he’s chasing
something that can’t be real.
I Love Romance, of course I can engage in witty
banter, tell harmless flirting from the serious kind,
discuss the minutiae of Sandra Bullock’s film oeuvre.
9: SELVES

Coerces Isolation, Protects Isolation, Substitutes

for Connect.
10: MEDIA

43
 1: MEAT
IS UNUSUALLY OLD (12) DOES NOT CONFORM TO SOCIETY’S
She always thought people ignored her because she was a SEXUAL EXPECTATIONS (15)
woman and not very tall or pretty, but once she got old, she He was married, but not happily. While otherwise compat-
found out what being invisible really feels like. So shit on ible with his wife, they had unequal libidos, and by the time
it. If people don’t want to deal with her, they don’t have to. it was clear that the trajectories of their interest in sex were

2: THROAT
She goes where she wants, does what she feels like, and if diverging instead of coming together (heh), they had two
anyone gives her backchat, she just acts confused until they young kids. That just made everything worse, because he
get exasperated and leave. It works as often as not. wanted to relax by having sex, and she wanted to relax by
If you’re pairing this trait with one of the social positions, not having sex. They had some dark times, and then they
the actual age and description can change a lot. Someone opened it up.
who’s unusually old to be driving a police prowl car is prob- Starting to swing worked. Continuing to swing… well,
ably a few decades younger than an unusually old academic the jury’s still out on that. His wife didn’t much care for the

3: SMALL
or alderwoman. But whatever her position, she occupies it orgies. She has a date with one or another of the other guys
at an age where sexual intrigues and child-rearing drama off their private polyamory mailing list a couple times of
both seem tedious and sad. year. His hookups, both from the list and what he and his
I’m Unusually Old, of course I can find informa- wife have started calling “well-rubbered no-kiss casuals,” are
tion even when the internet’s down, be patient and weekly at least.
persistent, be prepared for the unexpected. Protects The thing is, although she’s fine with him sleeping around
Helplessness, Substitutes for Knowledge, Substitutes with other women, he has not yet told her that he’s bisexual.

4: BIGGER
for Status. He prefers women a good two thirds of the time, but every
now and then he just gets in a mood for a dude. The irony of
TRULY BELIEVES (13) lying to his wife about going out with the guys by telling her
He tries to live in accordance with his religious faith, not he’s going to cruise the local Viagra Triangle has not escaped
because he’s scared of any punishments it declares for him. His coworkers have no idea.
sinners, but because he’s internalized its values. He really I’m Sexually Nonconforming, of course I can discuss
believes. He really wants to get right with God. Any urge the latest Savage Love column, navigate hookup culture

5: LAYERS
that his religion calls “sinful” seems, to him, like an external ethically, nonchalantly speak about seemingly awkward
impulse, something imposed on him. He still gets angry or issues, hold a poker face while talking with cultural
greedy or lazy, but he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t relish his conservatives. Substitutes for Connect, Substitutes for
lusts or coddle his vices. He wants to want the right thing Lie, Substitutes for Secrecy.
and most of the time, he does.
I Truly Believe, of course I can be courageous in order OBSESSED WITH UFOS (16)
to help others, suffer in silence, recognize a verse The joke is, “It’s funny how people stopped seeing UFOs

6: REDUX
from the holy book of my tradition. Protects Isolation, and cops started shooting unarmed black men right about
Protects the Unnatural, Substitutes for Connect. the time cameras became standard on cell phones.” Her
response is to pull out her phone and show fireballs shooting
STEALS (14) up from behind Tallman Plateau, stopping, hovering, and
Why does she take what is not hers? There are a lot of then bolting off at a right angle from the original trajectory
possible reasons, depending on whether the thief is just a before fading out. She shot that footage herself.
thief or if this is the backup characteristic of someone in one She’s heard about Tallman for years, but she never took

7: VEIL
of the social positions. If she’s mobbed up or a petty crim- stories about lights in the sky seriously until 2009, when she
inal, this indicates that she specializes in theft (and probably saw the infamous Norway spiral. The explanations don’t
selling stolen goods). But it’s also possible that she steals add up, if you ask her. So she started doing some research,
because she’s desperate and cash-strapped. It could be a and found out about the Black Knight satellite (“discarded
psychological compulsion. Or she might just be a sticky-fin- thermal blanket”? Really? It doesn’t look like any blanket she
gered sleaze with no respect for other people’s property. ever saw) and deeper and deeper it all went. Her second trip 8: BESEIGED
I Steal, of course I can tell if that purse is a knockoff, to watch Tallman, she hit pay dirt.
clock an armored car, spot a pickpocket in a crowd. She doesn’t like the conspiracy crap. She’s known enough
Substitutes for Lie, Substitutes for Pursuit, Substitutes people who worked for the government to roll her eyes at
for Secrecy. the idea of a well-oiled, airtight government organization
being actually in control of anything. But she also knows
what she saw. She has no conclusions, other than there’s
more going on than the “legit” authorities admit.
9: SELVES

I’m Obsessed with UFOS, of course I can attempt

geometry and trigonometry, spot the tells of CGI,
process video frame-by-frame. Substitutes for
Knowledge, Substitutes for Notice, Substitutes
for Pursuit.
10: MEDIA

44
 1: MEAT
IS IN A CULT (17) So far, he’s kept his life from unraveling. The Bads haven’t
They really prefer the phrase “new religious movement,” shown up any more frequently — he’s been sensing one or
but trust me, it’s a motherfuckin’ cult. His religion isolates two a week for the past nine months — but he can’t escape
him from his family, tries to get him to rope in his friends, a feeling that they’re just the first stage of something.
and expects to get a very big chunk of his paycheck. The Maybe he’s going to develop full-blown schizophrenia soon.

2: THROAT
mandatory week-long retreats are classic brainwashing — Or maybe he’s in the first stages of becoming an adept.
sleep deprivation, chants, starchy foods, love bombing. All Two versions of the I Have Scary Problems identity are
pretty standard. included. One’s mystic. One’s just the outcome of living a
So while he’s superficially normal, his primary allegiance life of incipient terror.
is to his guru/cult leader. Who’s leading the cult? Well, I Have Scary Problems, of course I can hide the
whoever the GM finds most interesting. Could be your emotional crisis, hold myself back from the precipice
typical narcissistic sex-maniac. Could be a charger with a of the abyss, tell if you’re One of Them. Casts Rituals,

3: SMALL
handful of tricks to keep useful rubes compliant. Or it could Specific Information (for whatever those oranges and
be something altogether inhuman. pencils and people in crowds have in common), Use
This guy has his cult, or its leader, as his guru relation- Gutter Magick.
ship. He’s got five failed notches in Isolation, thanks to I Have Scary Problems, of course I can maintain a
those mind-control vacations. His permanent madness is poker face, be ready to flee at all times, awaken at the
unthinking loyalty to the guru, as was intended. slightest noise. Substitutes for Dodge, Substitutes for
I’m In A Cult, of course I can feign normalcy, ignore Notice, Substitutes for Pursuit.

4: BIGGER
injury and deprivation in service of holy things, fall into
ecstatic glossolalia. Coerces Isolation, Protects the IS A SCARY PROBLEM (20)
Unnatural, Substitutes for Lie. Ever see the movie Single White Female? How about Misery?
Fatal Attraction? Well, they’re all about crazy ladies who
IS CLUED IN (18) fixate on someone and then attempt to control them. They
She’s not a checker because she has no occult agenda. She’s start out with emotional stuff, but it escalates to violence.
not a charger because she doesn’t have the power. She isn’t In Misery — hoo boy does it ever.

5: LAYERS
a pony either, because she’s not easily led nor entranced This character has not seen Misery and if she did, she’d
by the idea of magick spells. She grew up around it, and be offended. She wouldn’t quite be able to articulate why,
expecting her to be fascinated by avatars is like expecting but she’d feel it was unfair. Unfair to her, unfair to Annie
a musician’s kid to be impressed that you have a piano in Wilkes, unfair to women everywhere who just want people
your house. to accept love on someone’s terms other than their own,
Maybe her knowledge of archetypes is filtered through dammit.
cultural masks, or maybe she grew up learning the straight- So yeah. She’s deranged. She’s got a perky mask of sanity

6: REDUX
no-chaser versions. Whatever it is, it’s there when she needs fully intact, but behind it is a time bomb of obsessive mania
it. So far, that’s been almost never — just once in high just waiting to go off. She is going to become obsessed with
school. But that time convinced her this stuff’s absolutely someone. She will attempt to convince that person that
real. So she adapts. She’s not enthusiastic, but neither is they love her, need her, and should obey her. When that fails
she in denial. She’s just trying to do her job and make the — and it’s doomed to fail because her needs and demands
weekend, all right? are constantly in play and soon become contradictory — it’s
I’m Clued In, of course I can roll my eyes convinc- time for abduction, ranting, and ultimately torture. Isn’t she

7: VEIL
ingly at mention of Dirk Allen, tell a real Sleeper from about due to meet your PCs sometime soon?
a poser, get in touch with a guy who claimed he was I’m A Scary Problem, of course I can pull serious hand-
from TNI. Casts Rituals, Substitutes for Secrecy, Use cuffs out of my purse, explain why duct tape isn’t really
Gutter Magick. that great for restraining someone’s hands, act harm-
less, maintain a stakeout. Provides Wound Threshold,
HAS SCARY PROBLEMS (19) Substitutes for Lie, Substitutes for Struggle. 8: BESEIGED
Something is broken in his life and he can’t talk to anyone
about it. He’s tried but when he opens his mouth, nothing
comes out. He doesn’t see anything, doesn’t hear anything
out of the ordinary, but he feels it. Some things are wrong.
He can look at one orange on the pile in the store and be
repulsed, while the others around it leave him unmoved. It’s
the same with people. It’s the same with pencils. It’s the
9: SELVES

same with Post-It notes, he can tell you which pad in the
pile of Post-It notepads has a sheet in it that’s just bad, and
he can tell you which sheet on the pad is the bad one.
Maybe it’s all in his head. Or maybe if your PCs tested
it, he’d be able to tell you which envelope had that bad
Post-It in it. Maybe if they put the bad orange in a box and
scattered identical boxes around it, he’d be able to point to
10: MEDIA

the one box with the orange in it every goddamn time even
without touching them or examining them closely.

45
 1: MEAT
THIRTEEN MYSTIC IDENTITIES
I know that a number of suggestions were made PALDEN LHAMO’S PROTECTION
in Book One: Play, describing how the game’s Palden Lhamo is the tutelary deity and traditional See “Identities”
vague categories could encompass particular and protector of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism. She on page 42 of

2: THROAT
specific abilities. But just for fun, let’s go the other is depicted with blue skin, red hair, and three Book One:
way, take some very specific abilities and show eyes, often drinking blood out of a skull. She is Play.
how they fit into the rules from Book One: Play. As an angry protector of the law, in some traditions
a bonus, GMs who are pressed for time or low on a reformed demoness, and texts agree that you
inspiration can grab one of these and promote don’t want to be on her bad side. How’d you get
someone with just a marked-in shock gauge to her protection? Are you Tibetan? Reincarnated?
full-on checker. Did you find a ritual? Perform a service for her? Or

3: SMALL
is it all inscrutable?
NO-TOUCH AIKIDO However you got her guarding your soul, it’s
The idea behind no-touch aikido is that some pretty good stuff. It’s a specific protection identity See “Specific
martial artists develop their internal energies (or and it defends you against malignant magick. If Protection”
“ki”) so powerfully that instead of just projecting you’re enchanted, invoke Palden Lhamo to break on page 47 of
it through their body, they can send it into other the spell. If you’re face-to-face with your occult Book One:
people, throwing or disorienting them without tormentor, roll this identity as if it was Dodge to Play.

4: BIGGER
ever making physical contact. Usually, it seems to avoid being ensorcelled.
be a case where very experienced people demon-
strate it on other very experienced people in order QUEST VISIONS
to show or work on some kind of very subtle point To get the vision, you undertake the quest. That’s
about balance and perception. But you? You can implied in the name, isn’t it? The “quest” in your
actually knock people around without touching case is spending a weekend out in the wilderness,
them by making very precise aikido gestures. If well out of sight of any man-made structure

5: LAYERS
you don’t have another aikido identity… why, bigger than a bench or a fire pit, completely
exactly, is that? Did you forget? Are you just so old devoid of human company. You can sleep over
that you can’t do aikido with grabs any more? the weekend, but you can’t eat anything solid, nor See “Specific
This is a specific harm identity and the condition drink anything that you can’t see through. (So… Harm” on page
is that it only works on someone who’s attacking milk no, vodka yes. Bullion broth and lemon Jell-O 48 of Book
you hand-to-hand or with a striking weapon. mix dissolved in hot water can both be surprisingly One: Play.
sustaining, if you don’t mind peeing a lot.)

6: REDUX
OPEN CHAKRA At some point in the last five or ten hours of
The chakras are energy centers in the body, this ordeal, you have some kind of insight. Is it
according to the wisdom of ancient India. Maybe a dream? A visit from a talking spirit animal? Do
you’re a yogi who has practiced esoteric medita- you hallucinate finding golden tablets incised with
tion for years to open one of your chakras to the advice? Whatever it is, it tells you how to achieve
cosmos, allowing the generosity of the world to your goals, just like a high-priced life coach, only
flow through you. Or maybe you were just born this one you pay by acting like a Boy Scout. See “Specific

7: VEIL
(reborn?) that way. Whichever, it’s probably ajna This a specific information identity but it’s got the Information”
or vishuddha, because it allows you to perceive restrictions because it provides insight specifically on page 47 of
things. You mediate and remove your conscious- into your cabal’s objective. If you use this ability Book One:
ness so it does not impede the flow of a thousand and roll a success, your GM provides you with a Play.
small messages from the world. Most of these milestone to add to your objective’s path — some-
messages are to your benefit. Most. thing that you and your cabal can do to bring your 8: BESEIGED
This is a vague information identity, only the plans to fruition. That’s a big reward, so naturally See “Vague
difference is, if you fumble you get possessed by the price is higher. Information”
a demon. It’s like you’re leaving your car unlocked, on page 46 of
and most of the time the people who open the Book One:
door leave you presents and love letters, but Play.
there’s that one in a hundred chance that some-
one’s just going to steal it.
9: SELVES

See “Demonic
Possession”
on page 108
of Book Two:
Run.
10: MEDIA

46
 1: MEAT
RUNE-MAKER UNDEAD-ISH
Rune magick is simply the power of words, as Although you technically “died” at some point,
practiced in the Norse and Germanic areas before you’re still running around and walking and talking.
Latin became the new hotness (or “in calidum Was it a medical thing, where you flatlined on
novum”). Currently, runic alphabets are associated, the operating table, or maybe you drowned in

2: THROAT
to varying degrees, with black metal music and icy water and were revived even though you
white supremacist politics. But while you are not had no pulse? Or did you spend time buried in
necessarily involved with either of those subcul- a literal coffin as part of an initiation ceremony?
tures, you do know how to engrave objects and Something weirder that that, even?
color them in order to encourage events, and you Whatever it is, you can still pass a physical and
know how to cast fortunes and divinations with benefit from a hospital stay if you’re hurt, but See “Specific
rune stones. there is one weird little side effect: you don’t need Protection”

3: SMALL
This is a good identity to take if you like doing to breathe. (You may be a little on the pale side on page 47 of
half-assed research and then warping it for game and have low blood sugar, too.) If someone tries Book One:
purposes. Look up cool seeming runes, don’t to smother or strangle you, there’s a chance that Play.
worry about whether the sources are reputable, it just doesn’t affect you. This specific protection
and throw it in as protective coloration for the identity keeps you safe from of those kinds of
effects of a versatile identity. Since it comes with attacks. Note that you have to concentrate in See
ritualism and gutter magick built in, be sure to use order to benefit from it. “Versatility”

4: BIGGER
those too! on page 49 of
VENOM THOUGHT BOMB Book One:
STATOSIGHT The Venom Thought Bomb (or VTB) was a Play.
This is a specific information identity. The question supposed weapon used by students of Thought-
is, how does the Statosphere influence people, Form Imposition (or TFI), an esoteric psychic
places, objects, and events? If you roll this, you “science” in which internal beliefs were projected See “Specific
can see which archetype is looming over the city, out and imposed on the minds of others. The Information”

5: LAYERS
gazing inscrutably down. (Do you know the arche- formal practice of TFI, as taught by the discipline’s on page 47 of
types by sight, or do you just see an incredibly founder Mark Lee Thomas (known as MLT for Book One:
beautiful woman whose radiance turns everything short), fell off considerably after Thomas ordered Play.
else to the black night as she pouts and struts?) his followers to attack the police squad sent to
You can tell if someone’s an avatar, and get some arrest him for statutory rape and tax evasion, and
idea of what kind of archetype they follow. (“You the cops shot a lot of them dead while Thomas
see him dressed in a black robe, with a white wig, vanished from view. There are still people who

6: REDUX
holding some kind of hammer.”) It won’t show revere Mark Lee Thomas as the Initial Illuminated
you anything about adepts or unnatural crea- Intellect (or III — TFI loved its three letter acro-
tures, but for avatars and their machinations, it’s nyms) but TFI is on a number of government
very illuminating. watch lists.
By hook or crook, you got the hang of this one
TEMPLAR HERITAGE psychic ability. You just think about the worst
The Knights Templar are notorious in occult circles. thing that happened to you for ten minutes every

7: VEIL
Supposedly, they switched sides (or didn’t) during night, visualizing that event as a sopping green ball
the Crusades, being initiated into (or just stealing) of poison that you hold in the back of your throat.
mystic secrets of the near east before returning When you want to mess someone up, you picture
to Europe and becoming so rich that sovereigns hawking that venomous loogie at them. But then
got jealous and the King of France had them all you have to mentally prepare another VTB by
(or nearly all) cooked. The death curse of their intensely meditating on your bitterest memory. 8: BESEIGED
Grand Master is a matter of historical record, It’s a vague harm identity, straight no chaser. See “Vague
and it apparently worked. But much of their How’d you learn VTB though? Do you have any Harm” on page
wealth, and all of their spooky occult rituals, went idea what happened to ol’ MLT the III? Could he 48 of Book
entirely unrecovered. really read minds, corrode metals, walk through One: Play.
So how’d you wind up with some kind of walls, and infuse people with irresistible sexual
Templar protection over you? Has your family desire for him? (Those disciplines are known as
been secret defenders of part of their wisdom for LTA, TEI, MBP, and ERI, respectively.)
9: SELVES

untold decades? Did you loot a tomb? Do a favor

for a Templar ghost? Do you even know? See “Specific
However you came by it, Templar Heritage is Protection”
a specific protection identity that shields against on page 47 of
fire, the bane of the Templar leadership. Any Book One:
time you might take damage from being ignited, Play.
roll this identity and you can walk through fire
10: MEDIA

un-scorched.

47
 1: MEAT
WORMWORLD YETI ANCESTRY
There’s another place that’s also here, and every- Wow, someone in your family tree had a taste for See “Specific
thing there is weird. You call it “wormworld” and strange that was a little bit stranger, huh? In addi- Information”
something inside you can make the there here and tion to probably being a bit taller and/or hairier on page 47 of
the here there. Or something. It’s hard to explain. than is typical, you have a weirdly acute sense Book One:

2: THROAT
How did you contact wormworld? Why is it still of smell. This is a specific information identity and Play.
connected to you? you may consider it paranormal or just a piece
When you activate this identity, it has a unique of peculiar genetic heritage. Whatever it is and
effect. It draws the nearest unnatural entity to your however you came by it, you can track people by It’s outside
location. It won’t be upset or unwilling, necessarily, aroma, recognize them by scent alone, and maybe the eight
but calling on wormworld doesn’t make it friendly judge someone’s mood by the pheromones in categories
either. Also, while this identity calls weird crit- their sweat. from

3: SMALL
ters, it does not allow you to control or commu- “Supernatural
nicate with them, or to perceive them if they’re ZENNIHILATOR Identities” on
normally imperceptible. You meditated to stabilize your mood and because page 46 of
of the health benefits, not to learn how to cloak Book One:
X-RAY HEART your personality from malignant influences, and Play, how
You’ve always had a sixth sense for romance, yet, here you are. Like an old west gunslinger weird is that?
starting with just noticing who people looked at reluctantly strapping on his shooting iron, you’ve

4: BIGGER
when they inexplicably blushed, but its evolved discovered that your habit of stilling all conscious
into a full-bore visionary power. You can gaze thought — “zennihilation,” your previous lover See “Specific
at someone, concentrate a little and (with a scoffingly called it — protects you from dark ideas Information”
successful roll) intuit who they love, if anyone. and panic, no matter whether they’re a natural on page 47 of
This is a specific information identity and it gives reaction to horrible experiences or a synthetic Book One:
you the name and a brief vision of someone’s trauma inflicted by magick, psychic powers, or the Play.
favorite relationship. If they don’t have a favorite, deformation of reality itself.

5: LAYERS
you realize that too. Aww. This is a specific protection identity and in
this case, it protects your sanity. You can See “Specific
roll Zennihilator to protect your Unnatural, Protection”
Helplessness, and Isolation meters by retreating on page 47 of
into your mind and away from your thoughts. Book One:
Play.

6: REDUX
7: VEIL
8: BESEIGED
9: SELVES
10: MEDIA

48
 1: MEAT
7: THIS SIDE OF THE VEIL
Unknown Armies is a game that looks to the living more chapter illuminate the way those left behind cope with
than the dead and the present more than the past, but it’s those who’ve gone beyond. Also, there’s pigs that can raise
also a game about character and human character is deeply the dead… sorta.

2: THROAT
influenced by those who came before. The stories in this

LEGION PIGS
There’s a Bible story where Jesus confronts “Legion,” a Hampshire pig and the wild Sus scrofa was eight feet long
demon (or swarm of ‘em) that has possessed a man (or and 800 pounds. One of its tusks measured nearly eigh-
possibly two men). Christ casts the demons into a herd of teen inches.)

3: SMALL
pigs, at their suggestion, and the swine then rush into a lake So Texas (and Florida! And nearly every state south of the
(or sea) and drown. Mason Dixon line!) suffers an infestation of razorback giants
Clearly, there are a lot of questions you can ask about that can fuck up acres of produce in a night and breed more
this. Was it just one guy or two? Was there something frequently than rabbits. But at least they aren’t smart, right?
special about him that let him play hotel to an unclean Elissa DuVray says some are as smart as humans, just…
spirit convention? Why did the demons want to go into different. Specifically, she says this in her Amazon-published
pigs? Why’d the pigs then kill themselves? Why is this story book Tusks of Armageddon. It’s not very well organized,

4: BIGGER
so important that it’s in three of the four gospels? Can meandering between examples of intelligence she’s
pigs swim? observed in ferals — operating fence latches, employing
The answer to that last one seems to be a pretty firm teamwork to overcome physical obstacles, using branches
“yes.” One beach in the Bahamas is famous for its swimming as crude tools to access foods or escape confinement, even
swine and, despite (apparently entrenched) beliefs to the using small unit tactics to protect themselves from hunters
contrary, multiple naturalists have confirmed that pigs are on foot — and more reputable lab evidence in which pigs
buoyant and easily strong enough to cross rivers, possibly were taught to play video games, answer quizzes, and

5: LAYERS
even straits as wide as twenty miles. deploy deceit and trickery against their fellows. The experts
Believers in the Legion Pig Conspiracy are usually content compare pig intelligence to a chimpanzee or a three-
to point out that pigs swim and that, therefore, some of year-old human.
the Legion-hosted swine could have made it safely to land, DuVray insists that some are smarter than that. She
breeding and continuing their evil ways all throughout believes that within the herds in both the countryside
history! Or at least, one believer is usually content. Her and the pigpen, there are genius super-pigs that lead and
name’s Elissa DuVray and she’s a whirlybird pilot in Texas. command the others. These are (of course) the Legion

6: REDUX
Her primary business these days is running airborne hunts pigs into which Satan’s minions were cast. Or rather, their
for feral hogs. descendants. She speculates that the 2,000 evil spirits sent
Feral hogs are a big problem. Estimates place North into the original herd now move among hosts that are share
America’s feral hog population at around six million. That’s DNA with those original pigs from Gerasa, manipulating
more than the human residents of Dallas and Houston put humanity from within its farms, spreading plagues (she calls
together, but nobody living in Dallas or Houston is procre- the swine flu “a near miss”), and scheming to destroy and
ating at eight months of age and dropping a litter of six supplant us from without. She believes that they can be

7: VEIL
offspring twice a year, every year. (Or, if anyone is, nobody’s repelled with a cross or with holy water, as long as the priest
heard about it.) The math on that looks a little like those who blessed it was “truly pure and celibate.” Well.
scary charts in epidemiology textbooks, the hockey-stick Elissa DuVray is right about a lot of stuff. There are, in
graphs of how fast an infection spreads. The ones that make fact, smart pigs out there, as smart as a human being (more
you want to wash your hands every fifteen minutes for the or less). They can’t learn language very well, not more than
rest of your life. (Feral pigs are common vectors of infec- 5,000 words. But they are cunning and patient and they do 8: BESEIGED
tion, by the by. They can also run thirty miles per hour, jump not like confinement. They do not much care for humankind,
three feet high, and smell food seven miles away.) but the smartest of the smart pigs are willing to go along to
To keep the wild pig population steady, humans have get access to our technologies, and our persons.
to eliminate more than half of them every year. A semi What really, really makes the smart pigs mad though?
pork-pocalypse. That’s Elissa’s job, to chopper hunters over They’re denied magick. They can smell it all around them
Texas’ marauding swine swarms while they gun them down, — better than people, by far — but only us bald apes can
usually with high-power rifles. (Of course, some pigs are harness it. The free pigs can’t wallow in the meaning-bath of
9: SELVES

hard to stop. While boars rarely get to 500 pounds — twice an avatar’s existence, nor can they flex their worldview like a
the weight of an average NFL linebacker — Georgia’s infa- muscle and put reality in an adept’s sleeper hold. They can’t
mous “Hogzilla,” a cross between an escaped domesticated even root around in the trash of gutter magick.
They are mute, mundane, and (perhaps worst of all) deli-
cious when they’ve been in a smoker long enough to hit 155
degrees Fahrenheit. We imprison them, we hunt them from
trephine the air and the land, and when we’ve slaughtered them, we
10: MEDIA

gorge upon their succulent flesh. All they can do to us in

...good thing that wasn’t a load-bearing return is possess our bodies remotely using mind control.
stripper pole
50
 1: MEAT
Did I mention the mind control? digits rolled. If Porky the Possessor rolls a 33, he
Legion pigs can attempt to psychically over- runs the show for thirty-three minutes. There
whelm human minds and run them, just like is no range limit on this! Once he’s been in your
demonic possession. (Chalk up another point for head once, there’s nowhere on Earth you can
the DuVray theory, although she actually has not run. (Otherspaces? Who knows?) Legion pigs can

2: THROAT
yet observed a human under a Legion pig’s psychic attempt a possession about once an hour. While
domination.) The catch is, they can only do this to under the influence, the target perceives nothing.
creatures who have eaten Legion pig meat. Interestingly, while people possessed by Legion
There are perhaps one thousand Legion pigs pigs have the pigs’ vocabulary (about equal to that
in the US. (Elsewhere? Who knows? Kinda makes of a fourth grader), most nonverbal skills are avail-
keeping kosher and halal look smart though, able. People possessed by Legion pigs can shoot
doesn’t it?) When they procreate, even with one a gun, drive a car, juggle, paint, or play guitar as

3: SMALL
another, it’s uncommon for their offspring to have well as the host. Generally, anything involving
Legion pig qualities. (They rarely pair up anyway muscle memory is OK, anything involving words
— they generally hate each other only a little less is off-limits. Paranormal powers, however, are
than they hate people.) They don’t experience beyond the possessor’s reach. They’re just pigs, See the
affection the way humans (or, possibly, even the after all. following
way normal pigs) do, but sometimes Legion pig entries in Book
parents who are old or sick sacrifice themselves LEGION PIGS AND THE Two: Run:

4: BIGGER
to predators or human hunters in hopes of their OCCULT UNDERGROUND “Sleepers”
offspring enslaving those who consume them. Satanic mind-control pork is not really going to on page 77,
More commonly, they identify Legion pigs among snap the belief-suspenders of many checkers, but “The New
their children and try to get people to eat those Legion pigs are rare enough that confirmation Inquisition”
specific swine. is thin on the ground. The Sleepers have rumors on page 85,
Most Legion pigs are in the wild, with maybe a about them, and a few people on the Steering “The Sect of
dozen on organic farms, disguised as the domesti- Committee remember a dossier about them the Naked

5: LAYERS
cated type. Two are involved with traveling shows, before it was ransacked from the Barcelona safe Goddess” on
wherein they astonish the rubes with displays of house. That file is now in the possession of the page 72, “Flex
intellect. (All the farm pigs and both the show pigs New Inquisition, but having acquired it through a Echo” on page
are the second or third generation of Legion pigs couple removes they aren’t taking it very seriously. 57, and “The
in place. That means that some of the people in The Sect of the Naked Goddess has no idea, while Immortal
the show/farm are vulnerable to mind control, GNOMON can tell you the exact global popula- Secretaries” on
or else that other people scattered around the tion of the Legion pigs without having any idea page 97. “New

6: REDUX
country are.) what they really are, or where. The New Alexandria Alexandria
Most of these pigs want to remain unshot and Library has a ledger on them, somewhere in the Library” and
uneaten, while procreating as much as they can back. It was composed by a now-dead Immortal “Blue Line”
manage. They also try to express their hatred Secretary back in 1877 before he became one of are found on
and contempt for humankind whenever it doesn’t the first people ever killed by a train. A fairly blurry pages 66 and
expose them much. If they’ve had a Legion copy of that file is in the hands of a cyber-crime 16 of Book
ancestor or descendent eaten by a cougar, boa, expert in Louisiana, who’s also a member of the Three: Reveal.

7: VEIL
or alligator, they might possess the predator and Blue Line. (But he’s a Mulder, so no one’s paying
make an opportunistic attack on a human. They much attention.)
try to control their herds and keep them safe The people who seek out Legion pigs most
and prosperous, like Watership Down with more avidly are loners who realize that if you can get
wallowing. To the extent that they’re able, they try one of these critters, chop off one hock and feed Oink!
to get Legion pig meat into the human diet and it to whomever, you can then make them do what- Pink! 8: BESEIGED
to identify humans who’ve eaten it — often just ever as long as you’ve got a gun to the pig’s head. Punk!
by glaring at random passers-by and attempting That said, Legion pigs are typically underestimated
to hijack their spindly upright bodies. (They can by these cheapjack Svengalis-by-proxy, so it turns
Punt!
possess anyone who has eaten any Legion pig, not out ugly for everyone involved — pignapper,
just one of their bloodline or whatever.) possession victim, and three-legged sow alike.
The other faction of people seeking Legion pigs
LEGION PIG POSSESSION POWERS are those who know the Ddefod o Ymgnawdoliad,
9: SELVES

Average Legion pigs have a 50% chance of described below, but there’s not even that many
possessing something that’s eaten Legion pig flesh of them who think the benefits are worth the risks.
— at least a pork chop, a couple sausages, or some
bacon rashers. Younger pigs may have the ability THE DDEFOD O YMGNAWDOLIAD
down at 30%, while an experienced sow could Cost: 2 minor charges.
have it as high as 70%. Effect: Kill a Legion pig and reduce its carcass to
If the roll succeeds, the target (be he snake, ash and cinders. Acquire the body of a person who
10: MEDIA

man, or unspeakable servant) is under the Legion became a demon and burn or grind or reduce it
pig’s thrall for a number of minutes equal to the into an undifferentiated form — paste or powder.

51
 1: MEAT
Mix the two substances together thoroughly and weigh the drawn to the body and animates it, permanently. The person
result. Get an equal quantity of white plaster and blend that has, in effect, been brought back to life. These bodies bleed
with the ash/corpse/pig blend. Moisten it with seawater seawater, however, and have no internal organs. (This
and form it into a human shape. means that all attacks against them just do damage like
After three days, the statue transforms into a fleshy a hand-to-hand strike. Their wound threshold is only 40

2: THROAT
replica of the dead person whose corpse was used in its though.) Most importantly, these bodies have no brain or
creation. The body appears as the person was at age thir- hormones or spiritual reality, so the entity is as focused and
ty-three, or as they looked at time of death, whichever is dispassionate as any other demon. Handle with care.
younger. The demon formed by the person’s demise is

THE BABADOOK BY JENNIFER KENT

3: SMALL
This Australian horror movie stars Essie Davis, who also
plays the main character in Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries — WHAT IT EXPOSES ABOUT
an enjoyable but utterly non-Unknown Armies period piece UNKNOWN ARMIES
with great sets and costumes, where you watch to see what I like all kinds of horror stories, but some of my favorites are
language Miss Fisher speaks this episode, and who her new movies and books that are about X, but they’re really about
boy toy is. Y. Invasion of the Body Snatchers is famously about pod
There’s none of that lighthearted fun in The Babadook. people, but really about the Red Scare. The Stepford Wives

4: BIGGER
It is a no-shit tragedy, and the tone never breaks down to is about sexy robot doppelgängers, but really about stifling
wink at or console the audience. Davis plays Amelia Vanek, conformity. The Babadook, then, is about a haunted house
a young widow who is now the single mom for her psycho- but it’s really about grief.
logically disturbed son Sam. As they’re limping along, poor What it can add to your games is the punch of that
and shell-shocked and orbiting the hole left in the family double layer of meaning. If your game is about something
when the husband/father got killed, they start experiencing that’s overtly scary, dig deeper. Is there a metaphrand hiding
haunted house phenomena. in there, waiting to be handled safely through the protective

5: LAYERS
The haunted house aspect of The Babadook isn’t anything horror? Look for parallels between the obvious frightfulness
different, but it’s done so well that you remember why this of a monster, a deranged sorcerer, or an arrogant avatar,
creepy stuff started getting used in the first place. It’s skill- and the commonplace anxieties of job, school, and family.
fully blended with intimations that, no, she’s just going crazy Don’t use this to pick on players because you know their
or, hey, maybe it’s her son that’s going crazy. issues — if someone’s going through a messy divorce, a
What really makes The Babadook work, I think, is the char- session about people splitting into reduced halves of them-
acterization. You feel awful for Amelia and Sam, your heart selves isn’t the way to offer support about that, it’s a dick

6: REDUX
genuinely weeps for their tragic loss and yet, at the same move. Keep it general, though, and you can pull out some
time, you frequently want to just slap the hell out of them. powerful catharsis.
It’s a tribute to the acting and directing that we feel both The other thing, of course, that we can learn from The
these impulses so keenly. Ken Hite didn’t like the ending, Babadook is that it’s perfectly possible to tell a great story
but I think it’s particularly apropos for Unknown Armies, about people who aren’t 100% nice or even very likeable.
in which coming to a détente with destructive horror is a
prelude as often as it is a climax.

7: VEIL
THE BIBLE REPAIRMAN BY TIM POWERS
This short story concerns a man who vandalizes Bibles so
that people can consider themselves Christian despite WHAT IT EXPOSES ABOUT
violating typical commandments to share with the poor, or UNKNOWN ARMIES 8: BESEIGED
eschew adultery, or avoid homosexuality. But that’s actually This is a nearly pitch-perfect example of an adept with a
only a tiny bit of chrome on a nimble, efficient vehicle. very heavy charging system. You want to really get shit done
The main point of the story is that the protagonist, Torrez, with the spirits of the dead? Well, you’ve got two choices,
works with ghosts, and there are these flawless blends of and one of them is to burn your own soul until you’re
occultism — babbling ghosts who get kidnapped, clairvoyants doddering, drooling, and aphasic. Or you can subcontract
desperate to silence the voices — with stuff that is everyday all that suffering by tormenting others with the same symp-
and yet, crucially, taken for granted. Do you know how the toms, which either makes you a confidence trickster (if they
9: SELVES

magnets in your stereo speakers work? I don’t, and that’s why don’t know what they’re getting into) or a coercive monster
they can get ghosts caught in them, in Tim Powers’ world. (if they know damn well but are more scared of you than it).
Torrez’ blood is the ransom currency, because it’s the Either way, it’s a prime example of how these sacrifices are
elixir that lets clairvoyants get some peace and quiet. But central to the idea of an occult price. They’re not something
it’s not just the blood, of course. The blood is the life, or at you have to get out of the way in order to get to the story
least, everything that makes Torrez’ life worth living. Every with a character’s cool powers. They are the story of the
time he winds up bleeding so someone can get their spirit character’s cool powers.
10: MEDIA

daughter or husband back from a medium/kidnapper, he

loses joy, loses focus, loses years off his life.

52
 1: MEAT
SNAP JUDGMENT: SPOOKED I-V BY
GLYNN WASHINGTON
The radio show Snap Judgment bills itself as “storytelling and straight up gritty inexplicability like, “I was an orderly

2: THROAT
with a beat” and plays like a hip-hop version of This American in a violent psych ward and yes, the stuff I saw made me
Life. Every week the program presents a theme and provides believe in demonic possession.” It’s a rich, strange brew, and
a number of stories based around it. Often these stories if one story doesn’t wet your whistle, the next one might.
are true. There are occasional short fictional bits. And in They’re short and sharp and well-produced.
between those poles lie stories that their presenters say
are true and put forth as if they believe them, but which WHAT IT EXPOSES ABOUT
can’t be confirmed. When the stories are about travels to UNKNOWN ARMIES

3: SMALL
distant lands, or hilarity ensuing from pursuing the quick fix, First off, it’s a general idea mine. Any one of these episodes
it’s natural to accept that a bit of stretching occurs. (Every has several events that would leave a cabal thinking, “Is this
episode ends with host Glynn Washington assuring listeners, something I should worry about, or something I can turn to
“This is not the news.”) my advantage?”
But the Spooked episodes, when they collect stories about More importantly, although these have been put into
encounters with the frightening, the dead, and the unnat- a narrative format, they didn’t emerge from the story arc
ural? Well, I’ll just say I listen with a bit of skepticism. structure and character tropes that almost all literature has.

4: BIGGER
Whether they’re true, false, merely “truthy,” or (most If those things are there, they were imposed from without
likely) a blend of all three, the stories collected in the on the weird stuff of the real world. Instead of tired tropes
five Spooked episodes range from good to great, with the where you know how the monster works and can see the
occasional ho-hum moment you have to expect on NPR. I ending coming a mile away, these stories have the untidi-
particularly liked Glynn’s personal stories, like “The Hum,” ness and loose ends of people’s real lives. It’s not something
but you also get traditional, “We moved in and stuff showed you should pull all the time in a horror game, but the idea
up on Polaroids” tales, along with cross-cultural weirdness that there is an answer to the terrifying mystery, but you

5: LAYERS
like, “This guy I met in China didn’t speak English and had just couldn’t find it… that can work wonders. People in
no formal education but could tell me everything about these stories have to suck up their ignorance because it’s
myself and describe the haunted house my friend lived in,” real life. It can work in the fiction at your game table too.

SPOOK BY MARY ROACH

Mary Roach is unlike many of the writers recommended in

6: REDUX
this book. For one thing, she is a lighthearted writer in a WHAT IT EXPOSES ABOUT
collection of driven and sometimes dour ones. For another, UNKNOWN ARMIES
she writes nonfiction. In addition to being wonderfully droll, Spook is a brilliant
Roach is a lay historian of science, but she approaches her chronicle of the sorts of unexpected things that happen
subject without the usual solemn respect for its authorities when practical people take practical approaches to situa-
and without the typical drift into pomposity. She goes for tions that they do not, yet, realize are profoundly imprac-
the subjects where Science blushes and stammers and looks tical. How would a real scientist react to the sorts of

7: VEIL
a little embarrassed. She is not afraid to write a book with manifestations that fuel the plotlines of an Unknown Armies
an entire chapter about the jailhouse practice of “hooping” game? Spook offers some indications.
(that’s in Gulp) or one in which people take 4-D ultrasound Moreover, it suggests that scientists are not the
images of sexual intercourse for research (that’s in Bonk). lab-coated saviors that movies and TV present. In many
Spook, her second book, is about what happens when cases, these doctors and investigators are shockingly naïve
science tries to poach on religion’s territory by measuring, — easy prey for confidence tricksters because they assume 8: BESEIGED
detecting, or otherwise experimenting with the human soul. that everyone else is as devoted to truth and accuracy
(Spoiler: it goes just about as well as when religion tries as they are themselves. (There’s a reason that the great
to turf-poach science.) There’s a chapter on Dr. Duncan debunkers have been stage magicians like Harry Houdini
MacDougall, whose attempts to weigh people at their exact and James Randi.)
moment of death was, in the long run, fundamental to the
movie 21 Grams. It deals, in disgusting detail, with the idea
of “ectoplasm” and how it was probably manipulated by the
9: SELVES

medium Kathleen Goligher in the 1920s to fool the spiritu-

alists of Belfast. (Roach even tracks down a box of alleged
ectoplasm archived at Cambridge University.) She enrolls in
medium school, and much hilarity ensues, and she investi-
gates the origins of EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon —
ghosts talking in static on electronic equipment, basically).
10: MEDIA

53
 1: MEAT
8: NORMALCY BESIEGED
An important thing to get right is the balance between emerge organically as your cabal pursues its objective(s). But
normalcy and weirdness, and it’s an issue that some GMs if you want to look at how other creatives have wrestled

2: THROAT
never consciously consider. In some cases, that’s fine — they with the clash between the mundane and the sur-rational,
have an instinct for how common they want the eerie to be the media in this chapter can help a lot. There are also a
and how they want the dominant paradigm of “the ordinary” number of… well, I’ll just say things… that appear entirely or
to react and protect itself. If that idea is firm, you can pants even aggressively mundane on the surface, but which, when
it and be fine. Or you can leave the issue to the game as examined, are weirder than a Stepford wife hunting down
it’s played, and let the levels of acceptance and rejection invading body snatchers.

3: SMALL
HOAXBORN
The legend of the tulpa originates in Nepal, where a However, as previously mentioned, this doesn’t happen.
monk reputedly meditated so hard that a person he No one currently alive can sustain the attention and focus
imagined came to actually exist and made a pest of itself. building a tulpa requires, if anyone ever could. It can be
(Disappointingly, this turns out to be a misunderstanding of crowdsourced, though.
what the idea of a “tulpa” actually meant.) This is where the idea of “catfishing” comes into it. If

4: BIGGER
Wouldn’t it be great if that was possible though? People you aren’t familiar with that phrase, it’s when a guy (for
think that, anyhow. Fictional characters are so much more example) goes online and pretends to be an attractive
reasonable and attractive and consistent than people who woman in order to get other guys to flirt. Or, in another
were born in the biological blood-and-pain tradition. If you version, where someone pretends to be a sick child in order
imagined the perfect lover, or perfect butler, or perfect to get sympathy, or sometimes money. Usually though?
detective, and could make that real just by wanting it real Just sympathy. Sympathy, attention, or an expression
bad… what could go wrong? of friendliness.

5: LAYERS
This doesn’t happen, for two reasons. First off, because There was a website, www.ashleymadison.com, which
it doesn’t. But secondly, because anyone you imagine purportedly helped people arrange extramarital affairs and
is inevitably going to be flawed. Your own flaws inform claimed to have about one woman subscribing for every
your creation. Can’t get around it, and I’ll show you why. three or four guys who were paying its monthly fees in
Consider the following two perspectives: hopes of scaring up some cyber-secure strange. But it
turned out that it wasn’t safe, ‘cause it got hacked and the
1. “Good morning, child of the cosmos! Welcome to life data on its subscribers — even the dudes who paid the extra

6: REDUX
on Earth! How can I make your stay more pleasant? “scrub off all my info for realzies” quit fee — was released.
A privileged birth, with loving and attentive parents (Gosh, who could have guessed that an organization dedi-
who are nonetheless accomplished and wealthy? cated to helping people break promises might, itself, break
Maybe good health and good looks and citizenship a promise?) What’s really interesting is that when people
in a first world nation? While we’re at it, I’ll just make analyzed the data on the so-called women of Ashley
sure you’re really attractive and well-endowed, OK? Madison, it looked like a vast percentage of them were actu-
Super!” ally façades of computer code, known as “engagers,” selling

7: VEIL
2. “Gas, grass, or ass, cupcake. Nobody rides for free.” a fantasy to desperate men.
Emotional deceit precedes the internet, of course — go
Now, which of those attitudes looks more like The Way read Armistead Maupin’s The Night Listener for how a radio
the World Actually Works, to you? Be honest. call-in show host got sucked in. Or maybe wasn’t. But the
So, being an imperfect being in an imperfect world, you ease of blogging and social media sent the barriers for this
can’t imagine anything very long, or very hard, without it sort of behavior through the floor. Ask Belle Gibson, who sold 8: BESEIGED
having some imperfections. Which means that even if we over a million dollars’ worth of books and apps based on the
could make people out of thin air by wanting them real, real diet she didn’t use to beat the cancer she never had. Or cruise
bad, those people would, themselves, be bad too. Or, if not by the Warrior Eli Hoax Group (www.warriorelihoax.com) and
bad, flawed. Demon lovers, snide know-it-all butlers, and have a look at the multiple health scams going on there.
detectives with a bad jones for the skag are all more main- Whether these personae are created by cynical scamsters,
tainable. They’re interesting and plausible and fascinating or by sufferers of “Munchausen by Internet Syndrome” who
in a way that insupportably perfect folks aren’t. Our fiction, just can’t stop lying, the emotions that readers invest in
9: SELVES

fortunately, is all the richer for it. But they’d be a big disap- these stories are real. The hopes, the anxiety, the interest
pointment if one person tried to imagine a perfect whatever and affection and lust… those aren’t just hollow shouts
and, instead, got a flawed-but-gritty actuality. at the void. They’re real, and they can infuse the image
with force.
There’s just one catch: the creator has to die before the
hoax is revealed. If that happens, the hoaxborn personality
chantry continues along its trajectory — sick or horny or whatever —
10: MEDIA

but now as a self-willed, independent thing with one hell of

i was born the same year as “erectile an existential crisis.
dysfunction”
55
 1: MEAT
To sum up: the way to make that awesome butler or be enough for a dozen untrue threats or promises — but
demon lover is to follow these steps: dating sites are where they can go to really get lied at IRL.
For the sickie kids and self-curing cancer warriors, online
1. Create a convincing online persona. mass deception can be harder to source. But both types are
2. Get a lot of emotional investment from as many very likely to go out in search of in-person interaction that

2: THROAT
people as possible. can sustain them so much more reliably.
3. Die. Some maintain this sort of half-life for years, gravi-
tating to a city with the population to provide them with
The hoaxborn looks as described (or, more likely, looks lots of options, getting a boyfriend who promises he’s
like the person whose Flickr pages or Facebook photos were going to leave his wife, maybe landing a job in HR where
pirated for verisimilitude) and actually has all the problems they must listen to he said/she said accounts of work-
and/or lustful inclinations established by the cover story. place malfeasance.

3: SMALL
But now it has a body and can act out. Most hoaxborn just give up. Needing lies — needing to
It also has a keen awareness that it is an inhuman solicit them — leads to a pretty bleak view of humanity, and
imposter depending on lies and deceit for sustenance. the strongest of them are, statistically, only two to three
The hoaxborn is tangible. In fact, when its maker dies, the weeks from nonexistence if no one’s handing them a line.
hoaxer’s corpse shrivels up, shudders, and then reforms as But some keep fighting, especially if they can get in
the hoaxborn. Should the creator die as he lived, holed up in a job where the lies are frequent but compartmental-
front of a computer, this isn’t much of a problem. If she dies ized. (Becoming a cop is a great way to hear lies, but few

4: BIGGER
in a car crash or strokes out on an Amtrak train, it’s consid- hoaxborn can pass the background check.) Their outlook
erably more disturbing for the witnesses, and inconvenient is ghastly, unless they stumble across a functioning
for the fledgling hoaxborn. occult subculture.
Fortunately, hoaxborn are extremely persuasive. Each It turns out hoaxborn interact powerfully with the bent
starts out with a Lie ability at 100%. They also have the reality of adepts, and with the rigid reality of avatars. In
identity Night Listener, which starts out between 30%–80%, each case, if a spell or channel is attempted on the hoax-
depending on how widespread the lie was before the crea- born it may succeed or fail, but it inevitably functions as a

5: LAYERS
ture instantiated. That identity Evaluates Self, Provides taboo violation. That boozy adept who tries to telekinese
Wound Threshold, and Substitutes for Connect. They also a barstool into a hoaxborn? Might work or fail, but it costs
get a second identity at 50% that represents the lie of life that him all his charges. The Star avatar who tries to wow the
was presented as their own. If they were created as an eager- hoaxborn with showbiz razzle-dazzle? Again, might work,
to-please young gay man who just moved from Arkansas to might not, but just directing Statospheric power against
New York, their identity reflects that. If they’re an elderly civil something that the cosmos doesn’t like weakens the avatar’s
rights marcher who never took a handout from anybody but tie to their archetype.

6: REDUX
is now wracked with cancer, the identity flows from that. Note that both classes of wonder-workers instantly feel it
So far so good: they’re created from the flesh of their when their powers go all weak and limp. Hilariously, many
lie-master and have some normal skills that let them pass for are so arrogant that they double down on trying to force
human. But they aren’t human, they’re fundamentally unreal their will onto the hoaxborn.
and exist only as long as they can maintain the momentum But from the other side of the equation, it feels very
of their counter-reality. different. It feels like being terribly thirsty and then suddenly
In short, they’re born dying. Which, true enough, we all seeing a truck full of assorted sodas jackknife in front of you.

7: VEIL
are, but in their case the best-by date is cruelly short. Every The hoaxborn respond to channels and spells by feeling like
day a hoaxborn exists, it takes 1d10 wounds simply from the they hit the motherlode, and they have. That thing where
order of reality trying to scrub them out of its fabric. they die by pieces, 1d10 wounds a day? If they get spelled or
They don’t heal normally, either. Hospitals have no power channeled, that dire countdown gets paused. The recess lasts a
over them (which is apt, given how many of their narratives number of days equal to what the charger rolled. Boozehound
are implicit critiques of the health care system), drugs don’t succeeded at the stool-slam with a 36? The hoaxborn’s reality is 8: BESEIGED
work (so they’re immune to Rohypnol), even bandages and reinforced enough to stay stable for thirty-six days.
first aid don’t help them. To heal, they need to be lied to. Once they get a taste of this, even if they don’t know
If someone lies to a hoaxborn’s face and rolls a success on what it is, they almost always pursue. Which means the
their Lie ability, the hoaxborn heals 1d10 wounds. (Which occult demimonde has more than its share of fiendishly
means they usually catch on to the deceit. You just can’t plausible manipulators moving around in it, trying to get
kid a kidder.) Lying to help doesn’t work, either. Only a mojo worked on them.
genuine, “innocent” attempt at deceit can bolster their
HOAXBORN
9: SELVES

tenuous existence.
Indirect lies are far less efficient. If someone lies to the Wound Threshold: 30–80.
hoaxborn online or on the phone or in a letter, that has a Liar 100%: Substitutes for Lie.
10% chance of healing a single measly wound point. It has to Night Listener 30%–80%: Evaluates Self.
be targeted, too. Listening to a speech full of dishonesty, or Wild Card Identity Based on Falsely Established History
getting a mailer full of counterfactual assertions isn’t going 50%: Provides Wound Threshold, Substitutes for Connect.
to do them a damn bit of good. Not A Person: Immune to drugs and poisons (unique).
10: MEDIA

Catfish-styled pretty girl hoaxborn can do OK on Twitter Walking Taboo: Taboos any charger who works a spell or
— just expressing an opinion about a video game can often channel on the hoaxborn (unique).

56
 1: MEAT
HUNGER HOMES
There are buildings that hunger. They are called and it corresponds with the nose on a mammal. If
“hunger homes” by the New Inquisition, which is it’s plausible at all, the mezzanine is accessed by a See “The New
the only big cabal that has a dossier on them in skyway from another building. Otherwise, it’s just Inquisition”

2: THROAT
particular, instead of lumping them in with other- a rear door where the building sits against a hill, or on page 85 of
spaces. They can’t quite afford the one they’ve it’s an entry from the parking garage via a cramped Book Two:
detected, because it’s in Monaco City and, like the secondary elevator that doesn’t go anywhere else. Run.
other hunger homes they think they’ve researched A security guard sits, blank-eyed, at a discreet
historically, it’s quite large. desk full of monitors and gives an inscrutable look
The buildings want to eat, and what they eat is at everyone who passes, not quite long enough to
people. A hunger home appears in a city — at least, be an insulting stare, but close. (They are part of

3: SMALL
so far they always have — as mixed-use buildings the immune system, described later.) People who See “The
with some businesses, some residences. The enter through the nose are not subject to diges- Hunger Home
biggest one on record was in San Jose, California, tion or incorporation, which are described in “The Diet.”
which was thirty stories when it was killed. Hunger Home Diet.”
Yes, hunger homes can be killed. That’s covered
at the end of the next section. The Sinus: This is the mezzanine level — a series of
stores overlooking the lobby, exiting through the

4: BIGGER
BODY PARTS nose or on the elevators of the throat. Everything In Slavic
A hunger home’s body is a building, and parts of here is a subdued cream color, decorated with
that building (and its contents) correspond roughly swirl patterns not unlike the inferior nasal concha
folklore
with the mammalian bodies more familiar to us bone. The businesses here all seem to radiate the hunger
from hugs and the Discovery Channel. some signature scent — one sells upscale bath home walks
products and is redolent of sandalwood and ling- on chicken
The Mouth: This is the lobby, the ground floor onberry, another is a specialty chocolatier, which

5: LAYERS
where you walk in through sliding glass or a is next to an artisanal pizza place that fills the
legs.
revolving door. If you’ve been there before and the air with the aroma of basil. Much of this level is
building thinks you’re indigestible (as explained taken up by a department store with an extensive
below), the door may not let you in — at least gourmet grocery section. You could get by on just
not until agents of the immune system (meaning, what’s for sale there and live in comfort without
blank-eyed security goons) show up to let you ever leaving the building.
know this mouth has teeth. Or the sliding glass

6: REDUX
door may just slam shut on you with surprising The Lungs: The floor above the mezzanine, which
force — make a Dodge roll or take 1d10 wounds, is labeled “1” in the elevator, is home to a law
then spend the next few months finding out office and an accounting firm. You can reach it
how hard it is to file a lawsuit against a sentient through the steps and the elevators. Any inqui-
building whose owners of record are an Omani oil ries about who owns or manages the property
billionaire’s illegitimate son and two shady retired come here where responses are delayed, deferred,
dentists from Boca Raton. forgotten, and (if pressed) curtly dismissed. Any

7: VEIL
The lobby has a nice russet marble floor and legal actions taken against the building or its
ceiling, audaciously set off by the white columns tenants are defended through this office, which,
lining its front. There’s a coffee shop, a dentist’s while small and lacking in much reputation, does
office, a drugstore, and a restaurant/tavern. win almost all of its cases. It would be better
There’s also an expensive boutique with a curious known if it took more work from people outside
logo that looks like a tooth. Once you notice it, a the building. Again, that’s 8: BESEIGED
lot of the people who live and work in the building Plenty of outside clients come to the law firm over at “The
wear clothes with that monogram. and the accountants. If they come in through the Hunger Home
lobby, the building evaluates them, as described in Diet.”
The Throat: At the back of the lobby, the eleva- “The Hunger Home Diet.” If they come in through
tors await. It’s another sumptuous hallway with the mezzanine, they can leave without too much
rich burgundy carpeting and a strange, drop- of a creepy feeling, though their lawyer or accoun-
shaped chandelier hanging down and burning red. tant might suggest that they meet for drinks at
9: SELVES

There always seems to be a draft here, perhaps up the lobby bar next time.
from below? It’s a warm, moist current. Every time
an elevator opens or closes, the airflow seems The Stomach: Are you ready for it to get weird?
to shift from moving in, to moving out. In, out. This is where it gets weird. If you get on the
In, out. elevator and press the “2” before the building finds
you palatable, it won’t light up and the elevator
The Nose: The lobby has no roof, so you can see won’t go there. If you try to get there from the
10: MEDIA

directly up to the mezzanine (described in “The stairs, the doors marked “2” open onto the mezza-
Sinus”) but there’s another way to the second level nine. (This is disorienting if you came up from

57
 1: MEAT
2: THROAT
3: SMALL
4: BIGGER
5: LAYERS
the accountants and arrive on the floor below them. It’s an pierced right there under the disco ball, laughing hysterically.

6: REDUX
Unnatural (2–3) stress check.) Basically, it’s hard to get the Attempting to talk over the deafening beats is damn near
building to eat you unless it wants to. If it does want to, you impossible, and no one seems to be listening in any event.
wind up on Floor 2 whether you want to go there or not. Sign language, telepathic whispers, crudely lettered signs,
Floor 2 is a ballroom. The whole floor is an open space, texting — no one on Floor 2 pays the slightest attention.
broken up here and there with red pillars and lined with They just dance, or mosh, or tattoo one another with the
windows that don’t look out on the building’s environs, but image of the building, or lash out at the PCs.
on an entirely different city. Depending on what day you get Yeah, that eventually happens. Someone takes a swing at

7: VEIL
there it could be Abu Dhabi, London, Rio, Hong Kong, or the PCs. Hit or miss, if the PCs swing back, shit gets dense
Singapore. The windows are tough and thick and nearly and hectic. Everyone in the crowd starts screaming more,
impossible to get through, unless you want your PCs to thrashing about with greater violence, and punching out
go to a foreign city (or an otherspace that resembles one). towards the PCs.
It’s always night on the second floor, and there’s always a Characters who attack can roll and succeed or fail, but
confusing, noisy, and fragrant costume party going on. even if they kill someone it doesn’t calm anyone down — 8: BESEIGED
For some, it’s a kickass rave with EDM droning and the dead (or knocked out) building dweller just drops in
strobes and people waving glow sticks. For others, it’s more place and gets trampled as more people crowd around
like an Eyes Wide Shut orgy with people wearing nothing but to get a lick in. They aren’t scared of weapons or magick.
animal masks getting their freak on. In a corner of either, They’re mindless.
one might come across an S&M scene that is, to the eyes Dodging, then, is a better idea. Characters who roll a
of any respectable BDSM aficionado, extremely unsafe and success with Dodge manage to avoid meaningful injury for
poorly run. It looks like the subs are actually being beaten a round. Anyone who doesn’t succeed at a Dodge roll takes
9: SELVES

against their will and the blood is not being well-managed, 1d10 wounds until they drop or escape.
it’s everywhere, it’s unhygienic! The whole thing pretty To escape, roll Pursuit, Struggle, or Fitness to try to get
much conforms to your most racist elderly relative’s fears to an (unmarked) exit. (Unmarked exits? Enjoy your firetrap,
about what an illegal nightclub would be like. assholes!) Each character needs to roll three successes to
If the PCs entering the ballroom/stomach of Floor 2 get out but — here’s the rub — rolling to get to the door
have been around the building enough, they see people precludes Dodge rolls. PCs who use teamwork — getting
they recognize from other floors, only now they’re acting… back to back, moving towards a wall, and pushing gradually
10: MEDIA

different. A staid accountant dances orgiastically. A chipper in one direction say, or overturning the DJ table and using
sales clerk from the bath products shop is getting her tongue it as shelter as they retreat, or any similar vaguely plausible

58
 1: MEAT
approach — can have one person roll to move while another check and decided to flee. They wail, wordlessly, as they
rolls to protect. flee. Security — the immune system — shows up pretty
If they get out, they either wind up at the sphincter or soon after that.
in the circulatory system. It all depends on whether the
building decides they’re indigestibles or snacks (which go The Immune System: The parallel to the body’s white blood

2: THROAT
out the sphincter) or health food (which goes into the circu- cells is the hunger home’s security goons. They usually wear
latory system). navy blue pants, white shirts, and a vaguely police-like cap
with some gold braid. Most of them are men, and many
The Sphincter: People who go in through the mouth and are somewhere on the spectrum from “chunky” to “muscly.”
are judged undesirable by the hunger home usually wind up They are all ashen-faced, regardless of how tan or brown
leaving via the grime-encrusted back door. their skin. They look like their blood has been replaced with
The rear exit is a big steel garage door over a loading dock. milk. Skim milk, going by the unwholesome bluish tone of

3: SMALL
The hinged door beside it is windowless metal as well. Both their eye-whites.
are extremely heavy, both are well installed and kept locked. Unlike the blood-cell residents, security personnel can talk
The smaller door doesn’t even have a knob or keyhole on to outsiders in something that sounds like normal speech.
the outside. Characters who are ejected by security might But like an ELIZA bot, if you try any kind of deeper conver-
get shoved out onto the five steps down from the walk-out sation, you find out their range is quite limited. The phrases
door, or they might just roll up the loading door and hurl you’re likely to hear from the immune system include:
people into open space, a four-foot drop onto stained, filthy “I’m afraid you can’t come in here.”

4: BIGGER
concrete. Anyone shown out by hunger home denizens “We don’t like trouble here.”
might notice that the residents don’t follow them out — “I’ll escort you out of here.”
they seem reluctant to even let their hands pass the plane “Don’t make a scene here.”
of either exit. “Do you have an appointment here on this floor? I can walk
The loading dock is at the end of an alley and the alley you to where you’re going if you’re having trouble finding it.”
is lined on one side by garbage dumpsters that would win “This is private property, I’m going to have to ask you to
a “foulest effluvium” contest hands-down. Getting too close leave here.”

5: LAYERS
to one calls for a Fitness roll to avoid barfing from the scent. “The area here is for employees only.”
It’s gross. “Are you lost? Here, let me show you the way to the lobby.”
Breaking in through the back door isn’t impossible. “Have a nice day!”
There’s a camera over it, panning back and forth behind a They’re people, underneath whatever programming the
mirrored black sphere, but if that’s disabled it’s just a matter hunger home has inflicted on them, but unlike most humans,
of cutting one’s way in with blowtorch, saw, or (most likely) they fight until they’re physically unable to continue, and
magick. Security gets there pretty quick, but the route from they don’t let pain show on their faces or in their posture.

6: REDUX
the back door to the elevators is direct. They’re equipped with handheld electroshock weapons
and pepper spray. They also have those heavy anodized
The Circulatory System: It’s people. The blood that circu- aluminum flashlights that weigh as much as a hammer and
lates the building’s corridors/veins is made of the people feel like one when they go upside your skull. They don’t
who live there. Everyone who works in the hunger home have radios, but as soon as one gets in trouble, another
lives in one of the apartments above Floor 2 — the secu- shows up in one to five rounds and three more arrive on the
rity guards, the soap and pizza makers, the clerks and stock scene one to ten rounds later. Weirdly, even as they fight

7: VEIL
attendants for the department store. They live in the apart- they continue to recite their rote phrases.
ments, following the outlines of a typical middle-class exis- There are between five and twenty security guards in any
tence but… their lives lack content. given hunger home. Bigger homes have more goons, natu-
These blood-cell people (who all have a kind of ruddy or rally. Well, maybe it’s not “naturally” but you know what
flushed look, regardless of skin tone) meet with one another I mean.
and talk, but it’s gibberish. It’s English words, but in the 8: BESEIGED
wrong order and with no real meaning. Yet as two blood- SECURITY GUARDS THE IMMUNE SYSTEM
cell people exchange words, their tones carry emotion and Wound Threshold: 60.
have all the rhythms of a conversation. One might walk up Struggle 60%.
to the other and say, “Sitting playing had wondered his the Fitness 50%.
five?” Then the other would nod knowingly and reply, “Her Dodge 40%.
two her angle like techniques folk it,” and then they’d both Pursuit 60%.
chuckle and go on their way. Flashlight: +3 damage.
9: SELVES

They go home and go through the motions of watching Pepper Gas: Gives –30% to physical actions, forces a Fitness
a football game on a TV that isn’t turned on. They eat food roll to resist curling up on the ground for one to five rounds,
that’s prepared wrong — pizzas still frozen, cheese that’s forbids use of sensory abilities.
boiled for seven minutes exactly, raw flour sprinkled on a Electroshock Weapon: If the target’s Struggle roll is greater
hot dog bun. The ones who don’t work just wander the halls, than target’s wound threshold minus the number of current
circulating from the bottom to the top. If you don’t talk to wounds, they go limp for one to ten minutes. If it’s less,
them, they look perfectly normal. –30% to physical actions next round.
10: MEDIA

Fighting a blood-cell person isn’t terribly challenging.

After the first attack, they just run, as if they’d failed a stress

59
 1: MEAT
The Nervous System: The people who interact with over and the occasional fat-cell person. Babbling circulatory
outsiders — the shop clerks, some of the accountants and attendants seem unusually agitated after a brain-trip and
lawyers from the floor above the mezzanine — can pass usually retire to their apartments for a couple days to calm
for normal. They can converse fluently in English and, to all down. Fat-cell people who get carried in are left and never
appearances, are just normal people who happen to live and seen again.

2: THROAT
work in one building and never want to leave it ever. If you This is where the PCs can kill the thing. (Unlike mammals,
talk with one long enough and maybe make a Connect roll, hunger homes don’t have a central heart that can be speared.
you pick up that they’re kind of… vacant. As if they cannot Nor do they suckle their young.) Clobbering the brain is the
conceive why anything outside the building might interest only way to kill the thing, unless you knock it down from
anyone, as if going outside is this off-the-wall, exotic sugges- the outside — something that’s probably an objective, one
tion. They like it here! You might too! There’s a waiting list, way or another. But the more direct and (I daresay) viscer-
but they know someone on Floor 4 who might be leaving ally satisfying way to cope is to do 150 wounds to the brain

3: SMALL
soon, they can ask around if you want… cells on display. Of course, there’s no way a cabal should
If you take these people outside — after some token resis- get to the brain without every single guard in the place
tance, but usually with a good-natured chuckle — they hang glomming onto them, as well as assorted other babbling
out for ten minutes or so before trying to get back into the blood-cell people with low fighting percentiles but plenty of
hunger home. Past that threshold though, the humor rapidly moral weight — is it actually OK to kill people who are being
drains and the seriousness of their struggles to return esca- compelled to fight? It’s also possible that the PCs splash
lates. Soon they’re screaming and clawing, though their around ammonia or bleach or battery acid in an attempt to

4: BIGGER
Struggle scores aren’t unusually high and they’re unarmed. lobotomize the building. Play it by ear, or just assume that
Unlike other people from the building, these folks can’t be every bottle of whatever does 2d10 wounds.
rescued. No matter how long they’re away, they want to go If they wreck the brain, several things happen at once.
back. It’s their home, and there’s no law against agoraphobia. First, everyone who’s under the building’s spell just drops
They can clearly and coherently explain their situation in place, like marionettes with the strings cut. Second, the
to cops and psychologists — they want to go back to the building starts to shiver and shake, as if it’s ground zero for
building where they live, please. But on the plus side, while a very localized earthquake. It’s not going to collapse and

5: LAYERS
they’re willing to press charges against PCs who kidnap kill everyone inside, but the GM should sure as hell not let
them, they are not willing to leave the hunger home to the players know that. Do they attempt to haul out people?
testify in court. Then again, those lawyers on the first floor Do they just run for it? Can they just run for it? If it seems
might be able to convince the judge that it’s OK for them to appropriate, give them Dodge rolls to avoid 1d10 points
testify over closed-circuit TV… of damage from falling stuff and breaking glass and being
knocked off their feet, but by and large, the building shakes
The Fat Cells: In some apartments, and in the back store- and they either run or they shelter in place until it stops five

6: REDUX
rooms of the businesses, you find fat-cell people, who aren’t or six minutes later.
any fatter than a normal person but who do have a yellow What happens long term is that the enthralled residents
cast to their features, as if they’re jaundiced, or as if their wake up, for the most part. The brain attendants all go into
blood has all been replaced with vanilla pudding. They lie, comas and die, but there were only three to five of them
unblinking, eyes open and unmoving. They breathe, they’re in the whole place. Everyone else remembers only that
warm, and they have a pulse, but they’re unresponsive. Their they lived there, liked it OK, and then there was a crazy
eyes don’t dilate at light. They’re dressed normally, but they earthquake. They seamlessly transition from being enslaved

7: VEIL
lie in piles like a spoiled child’s discarded dolls. If you wrestle components of an inscrutable hive mind to being typical
one out of the home, they transition to a normal coma and, Americans without even a stress check. Nobody remembers
with a successful Medical roll, can be brought out of it. They any violent sex raves in the second floor ballroom. Everyone
vaguely remember going into the building, and then some- speaks normally. After the quake though, the building is
thing distressing happened… then blankness until they wake almost certainly condemned and knocked down, maybe
up in the hospital. after sitting vacant for a year or two. 8: BESEIGED

The Brain: The GM should place the brain wherever she HARD TO MISS
feels is most evocative. The thirteenth floor that has no Once an adept or avatar has been inside a hunger home,
elevator doors and mislabeled and locked entries off the they can recognize them pretty easily. If they put a “find
stairwells? The windowless top floor where all the HVAC Waldo” squint on any city skyline, a hunger home appears to
equipment and elevator machinery is? The basement be writhing, like a grub poking out of your salad, only incal-
furnace room? They’re all valid choices. culably bigger. Rules-wise, this means succeeding at a roll
9: SELVES

Whatever the brain chamber is, its previous function can while examining the city for weird stuff. No charge required.
be seen. If it used to be the HVAC room, there are still big It’s also a gimme for anyone who has a mystic identity based
fans and ductwork all over the place. If it was an office, the on detecting things that are only passing for normal.
desks and chairs and cubicle walls are still there. But now
everything has a lumpy, irregular coating of grey matter all
over it. The brain is literally, physically a freaking brain.
The brain is not constructed to allow people into it, with
10: MEDIA

the exception of a few blood-cell people who come in to

gently reposition the tissues and make sure they don’t fall

60
 1: MEAT
THE HUNGER HOME DIET So the snack gets thrashed around in the
Everyone who enters a hunger home through the stomach for a while. While in there, he starts
lobby/mouth gets analyzed — “tasted,” if you to feel… funny. Like he had five or six Harvey
want to extend the metaphor. There are three Wallbangers, or maybe a case of ergot poisoning.
kinds of people, as far as the hunger home is Things feel unreal, swirly, and disorienting. This

2: THROAT
concerned, and each gets a different treatment. hallucinatory mood remains until he’s ejected
through the sphincter, battered and confused
Indigestibles: Avatars and adepts are not healthy but still in control of himself. He just feels kind of
for hunger homes. They represent the pointy hungover and detached from reality.
extremes of interaction with the cosmic order, Every time someone gets snacked on, each of See “The
and the homes need people from the creamy their relationships drops five percentiles. (That’s Immune
middle. They get violently expelled as quickly as on top of any physical damage suffered on the System.”

3: SMALL
possible, usually by security, backed by a riot’s second floor.) It’s nothing you can put your finger
worth of red-blooded circulators if necessary. on, just a haunting, vague sense of… estrangement.
If an indigestible enters through the lobby, secu-
rity is on them immediately, quietly suggesting Health Food: People who have Status at 55% or
that they’re not welcome, that they should leave higher, or an identity at that level that substitutes
and never return. If the charger resists, every for Status, are considered to be delicacies and
resident in the lobby and mezzanine stops what very much worth incorporating into the fabric of

4: BIGGER
they’re doing and turns in unison to glare at them. the hunger home. (Adepts and avatars with high
That should be good for some variety of Unnatural Status are still indigestible.) Someone like this
or Isolation shock. doesn’t get digested all at once though.
The hunger home notices the insertion of an Here’s what happens: when a full course meal
indigestible, no matter how it enters, the same comes through the lobby, everyone is really
way you’d notice having a stiletto blade inserted friendly and polite and says whatever seems likely
into your kidney. (It’s up to individual GMs to get the morsel on the elevator. Once on there,

5: LAYERS
whether it’s possible to anesthetize the building someone pushes the button for the second floor
so that it doesn’t feel an adept enter. What’s the and the party starts.
building code violation equivalent of novocaine? When the door opens on the stomach, there
I’m thinking… expired asbestos insulation?) isn’t the instant hostility that lesser comestibles
While getting beaten up, pepper-sprayed, or endure. Instead, it just looks like riotous good
glared into submission isn’t much fun, it’s actually times, and the meal’s gleefully invited to join in.
the least invasive possibility. Even coming through Willing participants have some wild fun, though

6: REDUX
the nose can prompt a violent reaction from the eventually they get thirsty because there’s (surpris-
home. It might let a charger shop, while ensuring ingly) nothing to drink in the stomach. If they try Hunger
that everyone’s rude and discouraging. Or it might to leave, they’re encouraged to stick around, but homes don’t
just send in security to sneeze them out the way there’s still no fluids forthcoming. Eventually, they care about
they came. either attempt to leave (in which case things get
nasty) or they face Fitness rolls to not faint from carbs.
Snacks: Some people are a sometime food. Any the heat, activity, and thirst.

7: VEIL
non-charger who has an identity that permits If they fight their way free, they wind up
gutter magick or rituals, or who has any kind of wandering the halls of the circulatory system. If
odd psychic or paranormal identity, falls into they’re smart or lucky, they find, or fight, their
this category if they’re not actually indigestible. way out through the lobby (despite helpful secu-
A lot of ordinary people are also snacks — good rity guards trying to sit them down, get them
enough to eat, not good enough to permanently water, and get them to leave a statement… but 8: BESEIGED
incorporate into the body of the hunger home, as mostly they want the character to fall asleep, and
described under “Health Food.” may encourage that with drugged drinks) or out
When a snack comes through the lobby, the through one of the other apertures. But if they fall
building tries to get them to the second floor. This asleep in the building, the process starts in earnest.
could be as simple as dumping them out there, no Someone the home wants, and who falls asleep
matter what button they pushed in the elevator. in it, starts to lose herself. When she wakes, she
It typically has a bunch of friendly and/or portly feels a refreshed and “real” again. The whole mad
9: SELVES

people get on the elevator with the morsel and Floor 2 party seems like a drugged nightmare,
then push him out when the door opens on Floor though she may still have bruises or a shrimp mask
2. A Dodge, Struggle, or Fitness roll might keep or some other memento of the evening. But the
him in the elevator, but someone in there is going language center of her brain has been converted.
to be mashing the “door open” button. Meanwhile, Now she can clearly speak with and understand
the people dressed up as, and acting like, animals the blood-cell analogues in the hunger home, but
from Isabella Rossellini’s Green Porno videos are communication with outsiders becomes hope-
10: MEDIA

trying to pry the snack out and they are not taking lessly garbled. She thinks she’s saying, “Honey, I
“no” for an answer. need you to come pick me up at that building on

61
 1: MEAT
9th Street,” but the listener outside the building HOW TO EXPLOIT A HUNGER HOME
hears, “While popular being disposal is certainly The most obvious way is to get someone you
over.” His response — “What? What are you saying, don’t like and trick them into going into the lobby.
where are you, what happened?” — sounds like an If they’re a charger, it may not do much, or they
alarmed recitation of, “If? You check, which some may get roughed up. Uncouth junk-food people

2: THROAT
since, make need someone?” Writing and speaking get smashed around and feel like they went on a
and semaphore flags, they’re all impenetrably bad drug trip, but hunger homes are particularly
garbled. (Unnatural, Isolation, and Helplessness nasty for high-status 1% enemies, who could wind
checks are all appropriate.) up babbling gently in an accounting office. Unless,
She can leave the building at this point if she somehow, they manage to take over the hunger
wants, but her lowest relationship loses 10%. Or, home, but what are the odds of that?
if she had an open relationship, it is now full. Full The other exploitable element of these weird

3: SMALL
of hunger home, rated at 10%. Every time she falls structures is that grey matter from the brain room.
asleep inside the hunger home, her relationship It rots pretty fast when removed from its room,
with it rises by another 10%. When it hits 100%, but every two pounds of it can be boiled down
she’s incorporated as a fat cell or a blood cell or and reduced into a dose of a potent drug. What’s
inducted into the security force. the drug do? Oh, it depends a lot on your mood,
She can run, of course, but she can’t hide. Every your biochemistry, and your zodiac sign, but possi-
night, right about sundown, the house calls, in bilities include:

4: BIGGER
the form of a profound craving for the building
and its people. Resisting it forces a Helplessness • It gives you Statosight for a couple hours, See
(6) check. If she fails and chooses to flee, she flees but while you’re tripping on it you have “Statosight.”
to the hunger home and passes out there. If she the scrambled speech of the blood-cell
freezes, she shuts down, loses consciousness, people. You think you’re telling your friend, “I
and wanders to the hungry building in a fugue think the godwalker of the Rebel is in love
state. Rage? Well, that doesn’t take her there, with you!” but all he hears is, “Black Maria

5: LAYERS
but she lashes out at everyone around her, while unbroken wait in at around a dishwasher!”
babbling incomprehensibly. • It lets you understand the scrambled speech
Is it possible to break the curse? Sure. If occult- of the building people and, in fact, they
aware PCs have a plausible plan, roll with it. A recognize you as one of them. You neverthe-
local objective would certainly do it. Or they can less retain your free will.
just kill the damn building. • You get a +10% boost to your Status for
1d10 hours. You just seem… more pros-

6: REDUX
perous, more tolerable, and more confident,
somehow. There are
• So many spiders! Every spider in the always
neighborhood wants to be with you, on you, more spiders
touching your flesh. Luckily, this only lasts
for a half hour and they can’t crawl very fast, in any
but remember — you’re never more than building

7: VEIL
three feet away from a spider. You’re going than
to get crawled on, and you’re going to get
to see a carpet of arachnids converging on
humans,
your location. but always
• It just gets you high for a couple hours. It’s more
a nice high too — you feel calm, relaxed, humans 8: BESEIGED
self-satisfied, right about everything… it’s
like concentrated social privilege, only
in any
without all the guilt! All stress checks during person than
this time are faced as if they were one rank spiders.
lower, but you take –10% to Dodge, Pursuit,
Lie, Secrecy, and Struggle.
9: SELVES
10: MEDIA

62
 1: MEAT
VOTE THIEVES
Functioning democracy is great, but it’s easy to
take for granted until you’re forced to live without
it. It’s like Wi-Fi or good coffee that way. People

2: THROAT
are passionate about their politics, and feelings
are running particularly high these days, thanks to
media proliferation so profound that if you don’t
like fussy ol’ fact-based news, you can always find
someone online willing to support any position
that affirms your desired lifestyle — no matter
how implausible, dangerous, or racist.

3: SMALL
It would be irresponsible to say the United
States has never been more divided, unless by the
time this is published people have literally drawn
1862-style battle lines and brother is fighting
against brother with guns instead of cruel person-
alized Facebook memes. It’s pretty well split
though. Feelings are running high and people are

4: BIGGER
acting on them.
The only thing everyone agrees on is that
democracy is great, democracy matters, democracy
works, and democracy is important. But the sides,
ironically, can’t even agree to agree about this,
because each insists that the other side doesn’t
really love democracy. My democracy is awesome,

5: LAYERS
your democracy is a bullshit charade. You know,
the way people are about heavy metal bands. people who live in hunger homes. It’s up to the GM See “Hunger
Only in America is this silent, grudging, ideo- to decide if that’s coincidental.) Homes.”
logical struggle giving birth to unnatural entities. The calls get more frequent and sophisticated,
So far, no one’s named them because they remain coming from lots of different numbers and gradu-
undiscovered by the Sleepers and the Immortal ally settling into a perfect mimicry of the partner’s See “Sleepers”
Secretaries and the other usual suspects for sound — not just how they sound on a recording on page 77 of

6: REDUX
naming new weird phenomena. or over the phone, but how the partner sounds in Book Two:
They start out as phone calls. Someone who their own head, the subtle resonances arising from Run and “The
cares about politics gets a cell phone call. (They bone conduction and expectation. The questions Immortal
don’t seem to work over landlines.) The first one and conversations it has now? They’re sophisti- Secretaries” on
comes from an unknown number, one that seems cated. They address ideas and concerns that the page 97 of that
to be unassigned if called back. If ignored, the partner is mulling himself, and they push. They’re same book.
calls come more frequently, eventually spoofing still weird, using convoluted constructions and

7: VEIL
familiar numbers. (A relationship’s name is a good curious turns of phrase, but through the linguistic
one to prompt a call back, for people who don’t haze it’s possible to get a sense of what it means,
have an old-fashioned bookie.) Eventually, almost probably.
everyone answers. The entity, by this point, is feeding on emotion.
At this point, the person who was just getting If you get mad at it, well, that’s fine. Scared’s good
odd calls becomes the partner of the vote thief. too. (GMs, don’t worry about stress checks. This 8: BESEIGED
That’s what we call them from now on, since sort of harassment is weird, but it’s not like the
“victim” isn’t quite right and “parent” has too voice promises a bloody death. It just wants to
much baggage. talk about issues.) After a few political discussions,
The first time the partner picks up, the vote it starts to call out. First it calls the partner’s rela-
thief’s voice is changeable, patched-together. It’s tionships, of course, but anyone in the phone’s
a word salad of common phrases, as if someone address book could get a ring from someone who
just poked at a text message and let autocom- has the partner’s number and voice, but who talks
9: SELVES

plete pick the next word every couple letters. It’s like an AI that got its linguistic programming from
made of words, but it’s gobbledegook, producing Rachel Maddow, Bill O’Reilly, and Tumblr.
meaning only through coincidence. The voices? This is the point at which the partner usually
Could be anyone who’s spoken over that phone’s smashes his phone and gets a new number, but
speaker. It could even be the partner’s voice, it’s too late. It was too late the first time he heard
though most people don’t recognize their own that voice on the other end of the line. The vote
voice when it’s on the phone saying, “Do any thief is out there, buzzing between cell towers,
10: MEDIA

works for the presence in the morning find out looking for its partner. Ditching the phone prob-
more?” (Vote thieves sound a lot like some of the ably delays it for a month, maybe longer if the

63
 1: MEAT
entity was in a primitive stage. But it always finds the new Once it eats a vote (or votes, the greedy fucker devours
number and calls back. as many ballots as it can get), the thing takes another step
Is it vulnerable to magick that imprisons or destroys upward in its development. It becomes real.
invisible and intangible entities? Sure. If the PCs just swat Specifically, it gains a human body that is 100% typical for
it like a fly, that’s fine. They never find out what was going a voter in the partner’s district. If you live in a gerryman-

2: THROAT
on. (A problem solved may, to the players, be less fun than a dered district that’s 71% Hispanic where the median voter
problem understood, of course.) age is forty-one and (like everywhere) more women vote
But let’s assume the PCs don’t just cavalierly blowtorch than men, then the vote thief instantiates as a forty-one-
the vote thief. Or, more likely, let’s assume that it’s focused year-old Chicana. It has all the documents and history and
on someone who cares about the composition of the US records it needs to identify it as a legitimate US citizen, all
Senate, rather than the Statosphere. It goes after people shoehorned in by retroactive magickal continuity. It has a
who aren’t even ponies. It’s most likely to coalesce around cell phone… and that’s it. Its voice still sounds exactly like

3: SMALL
normal people who don’t have the slightest idea what’s truly its original partner. Its appearance is entirely unremarkable.
happening. In that likelier case, the PCs hear about it after it The vote thief doesn’t need to eat or sleep, but it sweats
reaches the second phase. and its hair grows and it has fingerprints. (DNA tests,
In its second phase, the thing has some form of weirdly enough, identify it as a species of potato.) It still
consciousness. It calls its partner, and it calls the people its needs emotional involvement to feed it, though every vote
partner knows. It has figured out that emotional intention it invalidates is enough to keep it chugging along for a year.
feeds it, so its calls are intended to elicit self-righteousness Upon reaching this stage, vote thieves almost always look

4: BIGGER
and a desire to act. This is when it starts to get glimpses at for jobs and a place to live — not because they really need
the future. This is when the calls have warnings. food or want to buy things, but so they can volunteer as poll
The warnings are usually cryptic but actionable, and they workers in the next election. Should they land such a posi-
save lives. Specifically, they save lives directly across ideolog- tion, every ballot they touch gets drained, possibly letting
ical grounds. (The partner is by far the most likely to receive this entity live for hundreds of years, subverting democracy.
these critical prognostications, but if he’s hanging up on the On the other hand, once they achieve tangible form they
vote thief, it may find a softer target in his contacts list.) can save individual lives directly, and do. Their predictions

5: LAYERS
If you’re a granola-crunching liberal, you get the word that of deadly incidents increase to one a week, too. If you figure
the president of the local NRA chapter is cruising towards out what a vote thief is, and decide to whack the thing,
a fatal cardiac infarction in exactly seven hours and twen- 40–50 wounds typically does the job. As soon as they’re
ty-two minutes. If you have the region’s foremost collection dead, they turn into an undifferentiated greyish mass that
of “Make America Great Again” ballcaps, you get the call resembles (yep) potatoes. Or, alternately, you can let them
that the nine-year-old daughter of your town’s noisiest live forever, saving roughly fifty-two lives a year and disen-
#BlackLivesMatter activist is going to get clobbered by a franchising a couple hundred people every election cycle.

6: REDUX
green Dodge at the corner of 7th and Locust tomorrow. Tough call, if you ask me. Is your district one of those
This foresight can lead to beautiful moments of holding “safe” ones?
hands and getting over difficulties, or it can lead to an
ice-cold, “Oh, damn shame what happened to that libtard
elitist’s husband.” People being what they are, it’s probably
a 50/50 chance either way, but the second option’s the one
more likely to deliver Self or Violence checks.

7: VEIL
The vote thief irregularly offers a lifesaving warning every
month or two, in between its usual routine of hard, insulting
political quizzes. It knows how people react to its alerts, too,
and no matter what they do it gives them a hard time about
it. It doesn’t evolve again until election day, though.
On election day, if the partner or anyone the vote thief 8: BESEIGED
has called goes to their polling place with their cell phone,
it rings while they’re filling out the ballot. It doesn’t matter
if they answer or not — the vote thief isn’t asking questions
now, it’s just getting on the scene so that when they hand
in their ballot, or hit “ALL DONE” on the voting machine, it
can blank out and invalidate their efforts. It literally disen-
franchises them. They’re counted as having voted, but it’s
9: SELVES

like they voted for nothing and nobody at every turn.

Can they find out this happened? Unlikely if they ask
directly, and researching an individual’s vote is no easy task.
But PCs have all kinds of avenues to information that do
end-runs around mere physics and human intent.
10: MEDIA

64
 1: MEAT
AMERICAN ELSEWHERE BY ROBERT
JACKSON BENNETT
The novel American Elsewhere is set in Wink, New they’re equally afraid of sharing their benefits

2: THROAT
Mexico, a perfect town that doesn’t appear on and of unleashing their problems on the wider
any maps, so already you (the genre-savvy reader) populace. (The older I get, the more I find that if
know that bad shit is lurking under the surface. people’s selfish motives and their noble motives Step on
You know that, right? I mean, if it was just a align on a course of action, it is nearly impossible spider! We
small, obscure, and happy town, there’d be no to keep them from pursuing it.) While Wink is a
story there. whole dang town, you could do this with a neigh-
love you
But no, there’s story, there’s a reason the towns- borhood, which could be spooky instead of spookily spider.

3: SMALL
folk (who are so content!) won’t go out of their wholesome. (I remember Rob Vaux, an old GM
homes at night. Time is disrupted, covert alliances buddy of mine, talking about how he wanted to
are engaged, and ultimately it’s all about super- center a horror game on an ethnic enclave in a big
natural, inhuman patrons with whom some of the city. You get off at the wrong subway stop and
residents make sinister pacts. all of a sudden the shop names and handwritten
There’s a cosmology at play here, and I won’t signs in the windows are in an alphabet you’ve
spoil it by laying it out, because that’s not the never even heard of. The immigrant residents dress

4: BIGGER
key part for our purposes anyhow. But I will tell subtly different and glare at outsiders, muttering
you that it’s not a typical Lovecraftian “ineffable in a language that sounds like coffee brewing, and
sublimity” mythology, and it’s not “the old gods the whole place seems to subtly be centered on a
have returnéd!” and it’s not your basic “Mars butcher shop, where a flayed pig head is proudly
needs women” setup either. It’s its own thing, displayed in the front window.)
to some extent, which is refreshing in this jaded American Elsewhere, like Rob’s pig-head neigh-
young century. borhood, unpacks how people who are clued-in

5: LAYERS
accommodate strangeness. It offers some good
WHAT IT EXPOSES ABOUT ideas and images for PCs’ relationships who may
UNKNOWN ARMIES be on the mundane side of the equation. Your
While it’s tempting to just say “Wink is an other- guru is your dad, whose cosmological fundament
space” and knock off early, that — the most obvious is Methodist Christianity? American Elsewhere
way to shoehorn this into Unknown Armies — isn’t offers a glimpse of how he might respond to a See
really very helpful. Wink isn’t outside the world, cosmos that contains the Gentleman and other- “Gentleman,

6: REDUX
but it is isolated from it by its unnatural influ- spaces. “Well son,” this befuddled-but-loving The” on page
ences. So right off the bat, a creative GM could parent might say, “We just don’t talk about that 43 of Book
start constructing a town/suburb/resort where and we don’t get things out of the Bad Closet Three: Reveal.
the people emotionally wall off outsiders because after nightfall.”

KIM DEITCH

7: VEIL
The Kim Deitch comics and graphic novels I have nature are summed up in his look. He’s a perfect
on my shelves include Alias the Cat, The Mishkin 1930s cartoon feline, except for his small but accu-
File, and A Shroud for Waldo. That last one, from rately rendered genitals. He’s a trip.
1992, cites me for “Production Assistance,” thanks The stories built around Waldo are usually
to an unpaid college internship. It was there, at convoluted head-scratchers rather than pulse-
Fantagraphics, that I was first exposed to Kim pounding page-turners. They’re full of strange 8: BESEIGED
Deitch and the central creation of his lengthy coincidences, antiquated story tropes, and
career — Waldo the Cat. If you’re a fan of the old-time vaudeville schtick. Waldo moves through
band They Might Be Giants, you can see Waldo in them as an untrustworthy guide, usually to a
animated action in the video for their song “Dallas” boozy and emotionally fragile artist type who
(AKA “Trees”). is never sure if Waldo is real or just a delusion.
It’s hard to explain or describe a Kim Deitch Despite the gritty and horrible events that are
comic. It’ll be dense, flawlessly executed, and strangely affecting in their Krazy Kat-like rendering
9: SELVES

probably feature Waldo the Cat sooner or later. — rapes, murders, terrorism — in the end the
Waldo appears in different guises, the way Bugs innocent are rewarded (or, at least, come out of it
Bunny or Mickey Mouse might, but he’s a darker, mostly OK) while wrongdoers are punished. Like
harsher figure. Visible mostly to drunks and the its art style, the morality at the heart of the Waldo
delusional, Waldo sings musical numbers, plays stories seems to belong to an earlier, more primi-
pranks of varying degrees of cruelty, debauches tive era. But for that very reason, you get a sense
himself, and every now and then accidentally of integrity from it all. “Yeah, I may be bullshitting
10: MEDIA

saves the day. He’s Loki, Coyote, and Daffy Duck you,” the ink lines and googly eyes seem to say,
in equal proportions, and the contradictions of his “But at least it’s honest bullshit.”

65
 1: MEAT
WHAT IT EXPOSES ABOUT an intangible and normally invisible entity can
UNKNOWN ARMIES interact with normal folk. On top of that, it does a See “Uzumaki
The Kim Deitch oeuvre bears comparisons to very good job of showing how normal normal folk by Junji Ito.”
Uzumaki. If Uzumaki conveys what falling into interact with people who are seeing and talking
paranoid schizophrenia feels like, Deitch’s work is to invisible entities. It shouldn’t escape any GM’s

2: THROAT
probably a better fit for delusional episodes that attention that Waldo gets stabbed, blown up, and
haven’t completely undermined all sense of reality. thrown off of buildings without consequence,
Moreover, the interactions between Waldo and while the people around him disintegrate grue-
his tangible homeboys are instructive of the way somely in the face of the same punishment.

SPELLBOUND BY KARENThePALMER

3: SMALL
In a place called “Gambaga,” hundreds of women religious perspective comes in, the mental
struggle to survive, watched throughout their days health perspective gets presented, and the notion
by a powerful elder whose family has the gift of that this is just a way for men to keep women
discerning spirits. The women are exiles, forced from earning money gets its day in court too. But
from their homes by accusations of witchcraft. none of them seems to be a perfect fit. No single
It’s claimed that their powers brought illness to explanation cuts it or explains why the belief is
their relatives, unjust prosperity to their husbands, so firm.

4: BIGGER
and death to their rivals. They were said to trans-
form into fireballs and fly through the sky by WHAT IT EXPOSES ABOUT
night, hunting souls. But in Gambaga, they could UNKNOWN ARMIES
be imprisoned safely. This is the world of Karen It’s a great way to get a view of a society in which
Palmer’s book Spellbound. enchantment is taken for granted. It demonstrates
It’s nonfiction. Gambaga is in northern Ghana. some of the unexpected ways culture and behavior
The events described happened in 2007. would deform social norms if people really did

5: LAYERS
Spellbound, then, is a very strange blend of accept that their neighbor might soul-suck them.
gender politics, the non-gendered kind of poli- It also presents the theory that magick is bound by
tics, superstition, religion, and regional tradi- religion or race — that as a white woman, Palmer
tion. There are men who make decisions about was immune to the powers of black witches and
whether a woman is innocent of witchcraft or only needed to fear enchantment by other white
doomed to exile based on which way a sacrificed people, or, as one Christian man insisted, that only
chicken lands. There are peculiar details about Muslims had to fear Muslim witchcraft.

6: REDUX
where medicine and witchcraft intersect, and A similarly useful book is In Sorcery’s Shadow by
where people take their cell phones to ancient Paul Stoller and Cheryl Olkes. In it, Stoller (who
sites believed to be, themselves, holy and was then an anthropology grad student) appren-
possibly intelligent. tices himself to a traditional Nigerian sorcerer.
Through it all, some people constantly shift There’s some elements of the same kind of thing
from regarding the belief in witchcraft as a scoff- in No Mercy by Redmond O’Hanlon, too — partic-
worthy folk superstition to taking it completely ularly the parts about how the Congolese sorcerer

7: VEIL
seriously and treating it with tremendous respect. he talked to just assumed that when he said he
To others, it’s simply a fact of day-to-day life, and could fly to London and be back by morning,
not an unimportant one. As for the reasons that O’Hanlon would know he meant a dream journey.
women are split off from their families and impris- That, and the awe with which O’Hanlon’s regarded
oned, the usual suspects (greed, envy, treachery) after rescuing a white gorilla.
are present, but there are also women in the 8: BESEIGED
camps who believe they need to be there, that
their powers and temptations are too strong for
them and that if not kept at Gambaga or some
place like it, they would be unable to stop them-
selves from stealing souls, murdering infants, and
cursing people.
9: SELVES
10: MEDIA

66
 1: MEAT
9: STATOSPHERIC SELVES
The collectivist cosmic counterpart to arrogant adepts is the always present because they’re already in you and that’s why
stuff of the Statosphere. The secret masters of humanity, you recognize them. Most of this chapter should feel like

2: THROAT
the immaterial and invisible archetypes watch and guide, being reminded of things you already knew.
too vast to see us except in the collective, intangible but

THE ARTIST
ATTRIBUTES personal story and making it universal, she is a conduit

3: SMALL
They’ve taught elephants to daub with paint and they’ve through which people understand the great abstractions
taught bears and dogs to dance. People pay attention to of the world — meaning, as often as not, the Invisible
these antics, but you don’t expect the dog to dance well — Clergy themselves. So concretely, an Artist engages in the
you’re just bemused that it dances at all. Humans are held to production of some kind of cultural product and shares
a higher standard, as we damn well should be. it (to some extent) with an appreciative audience. But by
What distinguishes an illustrator (who can draw a picture definition, it’s a matter of higher importance. It may not be
of a thing and have it recognizably be that thing) from an commercially successful, but it is truly art, at least to some

4: BIGGER
artist? What’s the difference between hearing an untalented extent. It’s sincere, it’s not trivial, and it makes an impact on
amateur pick at a guitar and hearing George Harrison make people’s lives.
his gently weep? How can one writer break every rule of Ultimately, this is something players are just going to
good writing and still have a compelling, breathtaking story, have to trust to their GM. If you take avatar: Artist as an
while another breaks the same rules and ends up holding a identity, you can be pretty sure that the stuff you’ve created
self-important turd? What makes an artist? was up to snuff. If you start using art as a means to an end
You can argue about this all day, but it seems to involve instead of treating it as a thing of value? Well, that’s covered

5: LAYERS
the intersection of truth and craft. Craft is the nuts and under “Taboos.”
bolts of expression — how you paint, or work that trom-
bone slide, or put words in order with some kind of rhythm. TABOOS
But craft can be soulless, as anyone who’s read a print ad or Any time the artist treats her art as a tool instead of a trea-
heard a fried chicken jingle can attest. Truth, on the other sure, she breaks taboo. Creating art to highlight the plight
hand, while notoriously elusive, is powerful. A well-crafted of Syrian refugees is just fine, if she genuinely cares. She can
jingle may get stuck in your head, but the story titled “How even get paid to do work about which she’s passionate. If

6: REDUX
I Escaped Boko Haram” may be bone simple and still change she doesn’t give a crap about Syria and just throws together
your soul. some schmaltzy commercial in order to get a paycheck?
The most powerful works of human culture are those That’s OK if she uses some other identity, but not if she uses
which fuse craft and art — when the slickness or skill of a her avatar: Artist channels to polish up what is, from her
Madison Avenue professional is applied to something deeply perspective, meaningless piffle.
meaningful and universally important. That’s a work of art. GMs should discuss this with players, but between
That’s something that can make you say, “I never thought cabals’ objectives and the creator’s passions, there’s plenty

7: VEIL
about that” and, “I always felt that way” and have both of encoded indications of what the Artist’s real positions
statements be true. Like an adept, a work of art can contain are. Working against passions or objectives is very likely to
or even resolve the paradoxes of human existence. Unlike break taboo, even if it’s just craftwork done with a mundane
an adept, art is often beloved, revered, and has a positive artsy identity. (Why would a PC even want to transgress
effect long after its makers’ death. The artist is the crucible her passions and objective? Normally, she wouldn’t. The fun
in which the lead of a lived life is refined into the gold of part of being a GM is providing the motivation.) 8: BESEIGED
immortal beauty.
Meditations about where meaning and skill collide are SYMBOLS
all well and good, but avatars are about concrete behaviors. The brush and palette, lyre, laurel wreath, comedy and
From the Statosphere perspective, what you do is what you tragedy masks, and the quill.
are. What you think or feel or believe? Irrelevant to anyone
but you — or, perhaps more accurately, relevant only to the SUSPECTED AVATARS IN HISTORY
point that you act on your beliefs. Robert Johnson, Sappho, Murasaki Shikibu, Marcel Duchamp,
9: SELVES

But the Artist, by her very nature, is different, William Shakespeare, Geoffrey Chaucer, Michelangelo
because the acts which define her are those through Merisi da Caravaggio, Emily Dickinson, Claude Monet,
which the internal becomes the external. By taking her Abing, Cai Wenji.

MASKS
zenith Orpheus (Greek), Pygmalion (Greek), Taliesin (Welsh),
Amergin (Irish), and Väinämöinen (Finnish), as well as such
man, you want a daily dose of weird,
10: MEDIA

gods of poetry and music as Apollo (Greek) and Bragi

swing by kickstarter and find the (Norse), and the weaver Arachne (Greek).
“taxidermy” section
68
 1: MEAT
2: THROAT
3: SMALL
4: BIGGER
5: LAYERS
CHANNELS it. They get a choice. They can either surrender themselves
Every Artist’s channel requires the making of a work of art, to its message, or they can decide to hate it. If they hate
sensibly enough. If you’re an artist, this doesn’t mean just it, they take a Helplessness check. The rank of the check is
sketching a stick figure on a napkin, it means something that equal to the tens place of whatever the Artist rolled. If she

6: REDUX
takes hours and has details and composition and proportion. rolled a 35, it’s a rank 3 check to hate that art. If she rolled an
If you’re a musician, this doesn’t mean you sit on the frat 01, the check’s rank 10. (What happens if a bunch of people
house steps with your guitar and sing a couple ballads. No, resist the art and fail their checks? The Artist gets the debut
the musical version is to rehearse and practice for hours and of The Rite of Spring, that’s what happens.)
hours with your group and run through a whole playlist, or People who succumb to the beauty are moved. The Artist
else spend hours in a studio doing takes and tweaking the who made the work gets +10% to all coercion or social rolls
balance board, or else it means writing a song from scratch against that target. Forever.

7: VEIL
for one specific purpose, depending on how you want the If the artwork is made for one specific person, the effect
channel aimed. is even stronger. The artwork doesn’t have a supernatural
As a guideline, getting a roll for one of these channels effect on most people (though they may still like it), but
means one of two things: either you spent one to five days the person at whom it’s targeted not only has the normal
working on the effort, or you spent one to ten hours and “succumb or hate it” choice, but if they hate it any relation-
succeeded at a relevant artsy identity. (That is; if you’ve ship with the Artist is immediately halved. 8: BESEIGED
already got Kickass Guitar Shredder 55% as an identity, it If the individual target succumbs, instead of a mere +10%
doesn’t take you nearly as long to produce art based on bonus, the Artist gets to rework one relationship the target
kickass guitar shredding. Without that identity, you can holds. If a relationship is empty, the Artist can choose to
assemble the song, but it takes forever because you either occupy it at a level equal to the roll. (That is, if the Artist
rehearse until your fingers bleed or you’re massaging it in rolled a 35, the relationship starts at 35%.) If a relationship
Audacity for a like amount of time.) exists, the Artist can cut its rating in half.
Is this an inflexible iron rule? No, it’s a guideline. If your
9: SELVES

GM thinks it’s appropriate (or just really cool) to let you roll 51%–70%, Catharsis: As with all Artist channels, this one
avatar: Artist while telling someone about your short story has to be based on a long-term creative endeavor. Unlike
or while in a jam session with a conflicted antagonist, you the earlier channel, however, this one has to be created for
might get lucky. If you do all the prep and fail your avatar one specific person. Other people are quite likely to enjoy
roll, it’s not embarrassing, but neither is it magnificent and the work, or respond to it, but it only has mystic powers over
profound. It’s just an OK song or painting or story. the person for whom it was made.
The Artist creates the work knowing of a trauma that
10: MEDIA

1%–50%, Sublimity: If the Artist creates a work that has the target has experienced, or else knowing about some
this in the mix, it has an intense effect on people who view psychological problem with which the target is struggling. If

69
 1: MEAT
the Artist roll works, the Artist can erase one failed or hard- someone who has an empty relationship position. The
ened notch from the target’s shock gauge in order to relieve demon lover is created to fill that gap. A successful roll
the suffering or ease the pain. The target doesn’t have to creates a work of art that has a life of its own. The Artist
engage with this or agree to it like therapy. This is just a immediately forms a relationship with it equal to whatever
truth that reorganizes the target’s thoughts into a cleaner, was rolled in its creation.

2: THROAT
better pattern.

71%–90%, Fascination: The Artist creates a work and rolls Gina the composer has avatar: Artist at 94%. She also
her Artist identity. If successful, the work is mesmerizing to has empty relationship spots for favorite and guru, so she
a certain subset of people. The effect varies depending on can pick one and attempt to write a song that either meets
who the work was intended to target. her need for loving connection (ew) or her need to have
someone explain what it’s all about (also kinda ew). She

3: SMALL
• It’s for everyone! The work has no mechanical effects, picks favorite, rolls a 56, and generates a song-woman
but a fair number of people have a mildly favorable hybrid as her favorite. She names the woman (and the song)
impression of it. It’s good for the Artist’s reputation. If “Sweet Lorraine.”
she’s a professional, it’s probably good for her career.
After a few months, people who care a lot — maybe
more than they should — start to get sick of hearing All such living art treasures have an identity called
about how great it is. “Galatea,” it’s rated at the roll (so, equal to the Artist’s

4: BIGGER
• It’s for a broad segment. If she writes a song for a relationship) and it’s their obsession. It has the following
broad swath of the population, like a particular race features: Provides Wound Threshold, Substitutes for
or ethnic group, or the population of one city, or only Connect, and Substitutes for Status. The Galatea entity
Democrats, or only the poor, it may or may not please also gets two mystic identities related to its nature, rated
people outside that group, but those within it who are equal to its maker’s avatar rating. (In the case of Gina, Sweet
exposed to it are predisposed to like her. The Artist’s Lorraine would have a pair of mystic identities rated at 94.)
next several social interactions with people in the One power relates to changing between human and art

5: LAYERS
group who’ve heard or seen her art get a +10% bonus, form — name it appropriately. Galateas often have unusual
unless that person is self-hating over being in the ways to travel or hide, depending on their nature. Lorraine
group, in which case there’s no effect. could, perhaps, turn into a song and emerge from a nearby
• It’s for a narrow segment. The GM gets to decide how radio, and in this fashion cover a lot of ground in a short span
big a narrow segment can be. Generally, the overlap of time. A traditional sculpture wouldn’t be able to move
of two broad segments is probably a narrow segment. about, but could possibly petrify itself and become nonde-
People within the targeted group give the Artist a script (or, at least, hard to damage). A creature emerging

6: REDUX
+20% bonus to her first social roll with them, and +10% from a novel might be able to travel between stories being
afterwards until she does or says something stupid read, in books or on cell phones or printed in magazines, the
or offensive or embarrassing. Moreover, the first time character inserted into the narrative but soon forgotten
they experience the work, they are thunderstruck by when they emerged near the reader. However they move or
it. If it’s a painting, they have to stare at it for three hide, these art-people can only travel or emerge from hiding
to thirty minutes, rapt, or else take a Helplessness (5) when heard/seen/read or otherwise attended to. It’s also
check to pull themselves away earlier. A song, poem, possible to trap them with enough preparation and a little

7: VEIL
or short story? They must pay attention to the end, gutter magick. The gutter magick practitioner has to time it
doing nothing else, or take that Helplessness (5) check. carefully and stop paying attention at just the right moment.
A novel can be set aside temporarily, but engaging in Their second identity is defined by the GM and, again,
any other form of entertainment forces the check, until should be relevant to their nature, description, and the
the novel is completed. Even if someone is trying to Artist’s intent. Just keep the guidelines in Book One: Play
kill them while they listen, watch, or read, they have to firmly in mind. 8: BESEIGED
suck up that Helplessness check to escape. (Most, of The creature starts with neither failed nor hardened
course, choose to risk madness over death.) notches, though the Self, Isolation, and Helplessness rolls
• It’s for one person. The person feels compelled to own tend to come hard and fast as this mystic naïf realizes that
the piece, if it’s unique (like a painting or a statue). it’s surrounded by humans, isn’t one, and owes its existence
Failing to acquire it forces an Isolation (10) check, to a particular individual. It’s educated (high Knowledge) but
which is serious shit. Whether it’s unique or not, every not sophisticated, and it starts out with its Artist in every
time the work is present, the person can’t concentrate relationship, rated at 20% (they tend to cling). But their
9: SELVES

on anything else and suffers a –20% to any rolls that attentions are volatile. At the end of every session, the GM
might be negatively impacted by being in a scatter- should discuss with the Artist how she behaved towards her
brained state of artistic engagement. creation, and decide which relationship role was strongest
and which weakest. Then, 1d10 percentiles are transferred
91+%, Galatea Creation: The Artist can only use this from the weak to the strong, until one relationship hits
channel once, but that really should be enough. Creating 100% and the Galatea achieves emotional perfection.
the Galatea (often called the “Demon Lover” in Great
10: MEDIA

Britain) can only be attempted by someone who has an

empty, yearning place in their life — mechanically, it means

70
 1: MEAT
2: THROAT
3: SMALL
4: BIGGER
5: LAYERS
THE COLLECTOR
ATTRIBUTES a spymaster with a collection of blackmailed, bribed, and
According to the ever-reliable internet, John Powell and sexually compromised moles all might be channeling the

6: REDUX
Spencer Kimball must be the same person because they’re Collector. So might a minister saving unbelievers from their
both credited with saying something along the lines of, “Use sinful behavior.
things and love people, but don’t love things or use people.” Each Collector has a particular category of thing (or
This is solid advice, but toxic for those who would follow the person) that exercises fascination over them. They are
archetype of the Collector, because it’s usually about loving driven to get these, either by putting them physically in
things and, on occasion, using people. containment (for tangible objects) or by cultivating loyalty,
The urge to acquire seems hardwired into the human dependence, or obedience (for people) (who may also get

7: VEIL
organism. Consider that eschewing material goods is a spir- placed in containment, ick).
itual accomplishment, only achieved after decades of prayer Collectors must search, must frequent the places where
or disciplined meditation. Compare with a two-year-old their particular interest might turn up, and must protect
grabbing a toy and shouting “MINE!” and maintain their collection within the parameters of what
The Collector, of course, has refined that urge and elabo- “keeping it safe” means to them. For objects, this usually
rated on it, but that’s the primal fire at the core of the arche- means keeping them from being stolen or getting rusty 8: BESEIGED
type. Collectors wish to possess the finest, maintaining their or molding. For people, it can mean preventing escape —
treasures in peak condition and displaying them to their whether that be financial, emotional, or physical freedom.
best advantage. There are book collectors (often in direct
conflict with bibliomancers, a style of adept that focuses on TABOOS
book hoards), photo collectors (who might easily fall afoul Losing something from the collection is obviously forbidden.
of cameraturges), and car collectors (to whom a viaturge’s It’s also against type to see something that belongs in the
cherished vehicle would be nigh irresistible), among others. collection and leave that unaddressed. That’s not to say the
9: SELVES

There’s a pattern here, isn’t it? Adepts who twist their Collector has to be stupid or self-destructive in his pursuit of
lives around abstract pursuits often collect because it offers vinyl Yes records or middle-aged bankers looking for some
some kind of tangible handle to tack on to their obsessions. strange on the DL, but if something within the category is
Collectors simply elide the sickening symbolism and want spotted, it must be pursued, at least until it becomes clear
the things. that there’s meaningful resistance.
Now, an ugly subset of Collectors are those for whom a
particular type of person is the object of their fascination. A SYMBOLS
10: MEDIA

madam with a bordello full of Estonian blondes, a producer Vaults, museums, display cases, auction catalogs, and piles
with a stable of tightly controlled teen pop sensations, or of coin.

71
 1: MEAT
SUSPECTED AVATARS IN HISTORY persists, coming at least once a day at unpredictable times.
Ed Gein, Alex Jordan, Jr., Dr. Claribel and Etta Cone. It goes on and on until one of the following conditions
is met:
MASKS
Croesus (Greek), Smaug (Tolkien), Alberich and Fáfnir • The collected person gets five failed notches.

2: THROAT
(Norse), Mephistopheles (German). • The collected person gets enough hardened notches
to ignore it.
CHANNELS • The avatar dismisses the summons.
1%–50%, Acquire: The avatar develops a sixth sense for the • The avatar is killed.
object he desires. It has a range of about a mile for every 5% • The targeted person comes into the avatar’s presence.
he has in his avatar: Collector identity. With a success, he
gets an idea of where the nearest thing fit for his collection 91+%, Fulfillment: At this level, the power of the Collector

3: SMALL
is, that he hasn’t already got. (It would suck if it just pointed and the sanctity of his collection become one. This channel
straight at his stockpile, right?) With a special success, he is the reason some high-powered Collector avatars are
gets a sense of how accessible it is. Something that’s locked pissed that J.K. Rowling introduced the concept of a
up in someone else’s collection gives a different sense than “horcrux” to the general public.
something that’s for sale at the Goodwill. To use it, the avatar places his soul into different things
He can roll to acquire as often as he wants, but the in his collection. In this instance, “soul” translates to
effect is lazy. Once he’s detected something, every use of “percentiles in avatar identity.” The percentiles are divided

4: BIGGER
the channel indicates that particular thing until he either evenly between the objects or persons in order to protect
collects it or it’s no longer in range. the avatar.
If he’s a collector of people, the effect is pretty simple.
51%–70%, Oversee: In addition to the sixth sense for uncol- Each person involved becomes a proxy of the avatar, but
lected things, he gains a seventh sense for what’s already with a critical difference. “Normal” proxies are equal with
been obtained. If something goes missing from his collec- the caster, so if there are three proxies and you target the
tion, the GM can roll in secret and, on a success, let him caster with something he’d rather not endure, you have a

5: LAYERS
know immediately. If he opts to check in on his objects, one in four chance of getting him — one chance for him,
a successful roll provides either alarm or the reassuring three chances for the unfortunate proxies. With Fulfillment,
feeling that everything’s where it belongs. Same thing with there’s no chance of it getting the avatar. It’s only a matter
checking to make sure the collection isn’t damaged. of which proxy takes the hit.
If something does get taken (or liberates itself), a Of course, if one of his human proxies dies, the Collector
successful roll lets him know the direction in which it lies loses the percentiles in avatar: Collector that were invested
and how far it is. The range on this one is a mile for every in it. It’s possible to shift the percentiles — removing them

6: REDUX
percentile point he has in avatar: Collector. With any special from one person and putting them in someone else — but it
success, he gets a brief audiovisual hallucination about the requires the Collector to get an entirely new person into his
item he’s checking or seeking, no matter how far away it is. collection and then make a roll to effect the transfer.
If someone does manage to steal away a human proxy,
71%–90%, Summon: Having something great isn’t nearly as they can then use channels or cast spells on the avatar
fine if it’s not there for you when you need it. Using this as if the Collector was in their presence, avoiding all the
channel, the Collector can call something from his collec- other proxies.

7: VEIL
tion to him, regardless of distance. This can be attempted If the Collector has objects, that’s a different matter. As
once per hour. soon as someone steals one of the objects, the Collector
With inanimate objects, it’s pretty easy. Roll a success and loses the percentiles invested in it until it’s recovered. (Given
the item appears in his hands, tucked into his bag, or other- the Oversee and Summon channels, that’s only a tempo-
wise on his person. Seeing something like this appear if it’s rary gambit unless you can grab at least a quarter of the
implausible can cause stress checks, of course. Fulfillment objects simultaneously.) Destroying the objects 8: BESEIGED
For people, it’s a different matter. Roll a success and the does permanently suck away the invested avatar identity
person feels a nearly irresistible compulsion to go to the points in them, which is clearly a risk. However, while even
avatar. If the person summoned doesn’t immediately do one object of Fulfillment remains in the Collector’s power,
all in their power to go to where the avatar is, they take all damage against him is reduced by 10 wounds, and
an Isolation (7–8) check. If the summoner rolled a matched when he gets within 5 wounds of his wound threshold, he
success, increase the check’s rank by one. For an 01, just call becomes impervious to harm.
it an Isolation (10) check and be done. This inexorable call
9: SELVES
10: MEDIA

72
 1: MEAT
THE MUSE/PATRON
ATTRIBUTES must, but they can’t let it cut into their interaction
Any artist — or Artist — is the vessel in which with others’ work. Naturally, this is an easier path See “The

2: THROAT
truth and skill combine to form something that for extroverts whose own work flourishes when Artist.”
outlasts and outstrips herself. But she’s also a they play with others’ concepts.
person, with all the baggage and needs and uncer- Note that it’s perfectly kosher for a Muse/
tainties that come with physical form, with being Patron to be abusive towards artists — if they’re
an individual in a cosmos where collectives are the helpful towards others or, perversely, if their abuse
source of all growth, all disruption. spurs them to greater efforts. A critic who flogs a
Alongside the artist and the Artist alike are the hated writer into ever deeper efforts is effective,

3: SMALL
people who experience the work, who accept or though probably not very pleasant.
reject the truth of it (for there are as many truths
as there are artists, surely). With them but sepa- SYMBOLS
rate and higher, sits the Muse or the Patron, who Lorgnettes, opera glasses, backstage passes, and
are really just people who occupy the same role in advance review copies.
slightly different ways.
The Muse inspires the artist. They are neither SUSPECTED AVATARS IN HISTORY

4: BIGGER
the singer nor the song, but they’re the one the Peggy Guggenheim, John Soane, Lorenzo
song’s about, or the subject of the painting, or de’ Medici, Marie-Thérèse Walter, Gala Dalí,
the lover whose idle question and Scotch-rough Pattie Boyd.
laughter inspires a short story. The Patron
supports the artist, though in another way. MASKS Those who
Perhaps (most obviously), she writes checks Obviously, Calliope, Clio, Erato, Euterpe, can’t do,
because she loves the work and thinks that Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia, and

5: LAYERS
flinging cash at a talented author’s Kickstarters is Urania. Non-Greek masks include the leannán
teach.
better than stuffing it into certificates of deposit sídhe (Celtic) and Kvasir (Norse). And those
or buying more goddamn Florida real estate. who can’t
Perhaps they’re the dealer who can find the few CHANNELS teach,
selective buyers who appreciate what’s really 1%–50%, Inspire: The Muse/Patron can improve
being painted, or they’re the producer who tweaks the efforts of anyone engaging with their chosen muse.
the knobs to brighten the sound while quietly creative form. There are two ways to do this, close

6: REDUX
running off the gold diggers and drug dealers. Or up and distant.
maybe a Patron is just a sensible manager or agent Close up is easy. If the Muse/Patron is present
who has their feet on the ground paying the bills while the maker is making music, pottery, fiction,
while the actor or singer or sculptor wanders with or whatever, and is being in some way helpful or
her head in the clouds. appreciative, then whatever identity they use to
Of course, there’s a dark side, as there always is. create gets a +10% bonus. If they don’t have an
Patrons can be controlling, agents can rip off their artsy identity, they can still roll as if they were doing

7: VEIL
clients and cook the books, all the while telling it at 10%. So if the Muse/Patron is listening to an
themselves and anyone who listens how much orchestra attentively, everyone in that orchestra
worse the creator would do trying it alone. Muses gets +10%. If they’re making tea for the writer and
can be manipulative, capricious, withholding, and letting her bounce ideas off them, she gets +10%. If
cruel, especially if they’re inspiring more than they’re cleaning the potter’s shop and stoking the
one artist. kiln while she molds the clay, she gets +10%. The 8: BESEIGED
The Muse/Patron is in the arts, and may also Muse/Patron doesn’t even have to roll.
be a creator. The job description, however, is to Long-range inspiration isn’t much more compli-
enable the work, to glorify and support and direct cated. If the Muse/Patron has engaged with the
it. Therefore, to stay attuned to the archetype, the creator somehow — talked to her about her work,
Muse/Patron has to be involved with an artist (or gazed approvingly at one of her pictures when she
multiple artists), in a way that supports, assists, or could see them liking it, sent a check to purchase
challenges them. Just about any form of involve- or underwrite construction — they can roll their
9: SELVES

ment is all right, but a meaningful investment of avatar: Muse/Patron identity (results described
time is required. below). Note that the Muse/Patron can only do
this if the creator knows they’re aware of what
TABOOS she’s making and have formed an opinion, good
If the Muse/Patron spends less than twenty hours or ill.
a week interacting with artists and creatives, they
loose their focus within the creative realm and, • Fumble or Matched Failure: The creator
10: MEDIA

with it, percentiles off their avatar rating. They can gets a frustrating feeling that she’s not living
go off alone and work on their own stuff if they up to her potential. It’s not enough to push a

73
 1: MEAT
2: THROAT
3: SMALL
4: BIGGER
stress check, but it sucks. 91+%, Ecstasy: At this level, the Muse/Patron does not so
• Failure: Nothing happens. much encourage creation as demand it. With a successful
• Success: The artist thinks of the Muse/Patron while avatar roll, the Muse/Patron inflicts the following effects on
doing the work and gets a +10% to the relevant art or one person:
craft identity.
• Matched Success or Crit: As a normal success, but • The target permanently gains an artistic identity at
the bonus is now +20%. 20%. If the target already has an identity based around

5: LAYERS
creation or performance, that identity increases by
51%–70%, Tranquility: The Muse/Patron doesn’t need 10% for the duration of the ecstasy.
to roll to activate this power, it’s automatic. While in • The target is inflamed and inspired to create an epic
their direct presence, artists don’t suffer from madness. work on a topic determined by the Muse/Patron. The
“Madness,” in this case, means the effects of having five Muse/Patron can simply tell the target, “Oh, you
failed notches in one or more meters. While they’re nearby, should write a rock opera about Donald Trump raping
an alcoholic painter can resist the urge to drink, or a para- truck stop busboys,” or can incept the idea and have

6: REDUX
noid writer can calm down and evaluate threats rationally, the artist believe it’s entirely her own.
or a delusional sculptress can briefly see the flaws in her • As long as the target is working on the Muse/Patron’s
unreal beliefs. work, she can twin all art-related rolls, as per the
But this doesn’t work on anyone, only “artists.” For Muse/ Presence channel.
Patron purposes, an artist is anyone who has an identity • Any time the target works on an artwork that
focused on creativity at 30% or higher, or which is her obses- isn’t the idea dictated by the Muse/Patron, it’s a
sion. Alternately, anyone who’s an avatar of the Artist can Helplessness (7) check.

7: VEIL
benefit from their soothing presence, no matter how low • Any day that the target does not spend at least eight
her rating. hours working on the epic, she takes an Isolation (5)
check.
71%–90%, Presence: Now, no matter what art form the • Any time one of the Helplessness or Isolation checks
Muse/Patron usually inspires, anyone who cares about is failed and the creator chooses to react violently, she
making culture recognizes their value and importance. They destroys all the work already put into the epic. 8: BESEIGED
may now substitute their avatar: Muse/Patron identity for • After putting in at least eighty hours of profound
Status, Lie, and Connect, as long as they’re directing their effort into the project, the target can attempt to
persuasion or deception at someone who could benefit complete it by rolling her artistic identity and showing
from Tranquility. The people who know, no matter what it to the Muse/Patron. If the roll fails, or the Muse/
they know, know the Muse/Patron. They may not know the Patron rejects the artwork, the artist faces a Self (5)
Muse/Patron by name, but they sense what they are. check and has to start over. If the roll succeeds and
If the Muse/Patron has a relationship with someone — the Muse/Patron accepts it, however, the creator gets
9: SELVES

meaning favorite, responsibility, or protégé or, less likely, to keep the +10% identity improvement permanently
guru or mentor — and that person attempts to create art and has created a lasting work of artistic value. It may
in their presence or under their guidance or encouragement, not be recognized in her lifetime, but it’s something
she can opt to only roll one die and use it for both her tens that will last hundreds of years (or until the end of the
and ones place result. Thus, if she rolls a 2, she gets a 22, and universe, whichever comes first). It’s also quite likely
if she rolls an 8, her result is an 88. By making this choice, to change the creator’s position in society — either for
she’s going literally double or nothing, getting a matched better or for worse.
10: MEDIA

success or matched failure and nothing else.

Only one person can be subject to Ecstasy at a time.

74
 1: MEAT
2: THROAT
3: SMALL
4: BIGGER
5: LAYERS
THE SHAMAN
ATTRIBUTES could be a harrowing trek through the desert with only a
The practice of shamanic religion is common throughout the spear and a water bottle until she sees her spirit animal, or it

6: REDUX
world, and ancient. It takes different forms, but its outlines could be years of grad school and psychoanalysis. With that
are as follows: shamans undergo trials and initiations into complete, the shaman must take her place as a repository of
mysteries that do not yield practical and tangible rewards wisdom, set apart from ordinary people. Again, that could
(like traditionally hazardous undertakings such as war mean accepting the burden of keeping the tribe protected
and motherhood) but instead reveal the truth about the from angry ghosts, it could mean going to a monastery and
cosmos and the abstract or invisible factors that influence speaking only with those who’ve sought her out, or it could
the lives of the people in it. Often shamans wear animal mean providing therapy in a skyscraper for hundreds of

7: VEIL
masks, interact with spirit guides, or go on psychedelic inner dollars per hour.
journeys that, externally, look like fevers or drug binges or
starvation-induced hallucinations. TABOOS
The form shamanism takes doesn’t matter. The important The shamanic taboos depend on her relationships. First
thing is, it works. Through inner effort, the shaman gets a off, the Shaman can’t have a mentor. The acts of building
grasp on invisible but well-studied factors that cause trouble and using that sort of “tell me what to do to get by in life” 8: BESEIGED
for commonplace people who don’t understand them. With connection are a profound distraction from the Shaman’s
their specialized knowledge, they can heal mysterious path of finding what to do to understand the meaning of
illnesses, cope with curses, and exorcise unwanted entities. life. It shows a materialistic focus that can only drag down
Or, on the other hand, they can ruin your life in deniable the spirit. (Having a guru is fine though.) Secondly, every
ways you won’t even comprehend. No one said a shaman Shaman must have a protégé — it’s that whole master
has to be nice. and apprentice thing. If her relationship with her protégé
There are Shaman avatars who run with wolves and take decreases, it imperils her Shaman percentiles. The Shaman
9: SELVES

traditional peyote. There are New Age avatars with crystals, should work to keep that relationship safe. Secrecy is often
communing with Space Brothers to repair energy imbal- a good idea, especially if her enemies are clued in. Or if
ances. There are Shaman avatars with psychology degrees they’re just bastards willing to kill someone to inconve-
who can alleviate that stomachache — the one that you get nience her. (If the Shaman’s protégé is killed on her watch,
whenever you have to speak in public, the one no medicine that decreases her score by 1%–5% and it won’t improve
could treat — by talking to you about your dreams and until she has a new protégé. If her protégé gets killed when
your childhood. there was absolutely no way she could have prevented it,
10: MEDIA

Whatever the stage dressing of the avatar, it always she gets a lunar month’s grace period to find a new student.)
involves some kind of effortful quest for knowledge. This

75
 1: MEAT
SYMBOLS tell the difference.) Choke it down, watch the world
Drums, feathers, pipes, masks, and costumes. squirm, and go to sleep when it’s time to enter the
dream realm. The Shaman may or may not face stress
SUSPECTED AVATARS IN HISTORY checks, depending on what she sees in those dreams
Joseph Campbell, Carlos Castaneda, Sigmund Freud, Carl while she’s still hallucinating. Dream plus hallucination

2: THROAT
Jung, countless indigenous shamans such as Nehanda is a hell of a one-two punch. Urban shamans may fall
Charwe Nyakasikana. back on hallucinogens with a more scientific pedigree.
• Fasting and Prayer: Go without water for a full day,
MASKS or skip meals for two days, and sit in a trance-in-
Raven and Coyote (Native American), Odin (Norse), ducing pose while trying to either empty your mind
Legba-Grand-Chemin (Vodou), Nanook (Inuit), Etügen Eke completely, or fill it with the Holy Spirit. This takes a
(Mongolian), Leib-Olmai (Sami). lot of time, but it only does 1–5 wounds.

3: SMALL
CHANNELS After completing the ritual, the Shaman rolls her avatar
1%–50%, Dream Journey: When the Shaman takes a rating. On a success, she enters the dream of their target.
dream journey, she falls asleep and enters the dreams On a failure, she only thinks she did. On a matched failure,
of another. What she sees in there is likely to be a mix of she gets lost in immaterial realms for one to ten hours. She
symbols, suppressed desire or hidden fear, and plain ol’ could wind up immaterially trespassing on an otherspace,
weird crap that pops up when the brain cleans house on seeing a dozen people’s dreams in sequence, getting inside

4: BIGGER
behalf of the mind. She can pass on messages, but it’s up the mind of an immaterial entity, or even pass beyond
to the GM whether they’re remembered in the morning, the veil.
or if they seem significant. (Most dreams don’t, and if you
don’t believe me, get someone to tell you about what they 51%–70%, Spirit Totem: An animal that’s not exactly an
dreamed last night.) As a rule of thumb, the more myste- animal starts hanging around the Shaman. When other
rious and symbolic the message, the more memorable. “I’m people see it, it looks like a cat or a dog or an unusually
being held at 1411 Smith Street” is not very memorable. “I large raven — something archetypal and capable of moving

5: LAYERS
am trapped beneath a giant shoe,” when 1411 Smith Street around without people paying too much attention. Square
has a shoe store with a big neon sneaker on it — that’s a lot mundane types who see the Shaman talking to the animal
likelier to stick. or gesturing to it and indicating that it’s a peer can very
She can act within the confines of the dream, but not rationally dismiss this as delusional thinking or eccentricity.
control it — it’s like doing improv with really great scenes But to the Shaman, this creature is a connection to the
and costumes, but you’re still stuck taking suggestions from hidden world of spirits and similar abstractions.
the audience about your situation, and you’re not allowed The spirit animal is not a slave or a servant. It’s more

6: REDUX
to negate. like an equal coworker. It can talk to the Shaman, though
There are two ways that the Shaman can undergo a dream no one else ever hears it. (Unless they have some kind of
journey — consciously or spontaneously. Spontaneous unusual resources that makes the GM say, “Oh of course she
dream journeying is simple: the GM tells her that she had can eavesdrop on other people’s guardian spirits!”) While
a dream that seemed really real, man and she navigates that its animal form is tangible when it comes to unimportant
and interprets it as she will. This is the way that Shamans tasks — it might be able to pick up some keys and fly them
who don’t know their avatar nature do it, they have weird to the Shaman, or claw through the duct tape around her

7: VEIL
intense dreams and either ignore them or (if they’re the ankles — they can’t fight in the material realm. Nor can they
kinds of people who unwittingly become Shamans), they be fought with nor contained. The Shaman just can’t grab
pay attention and are fascinated but maybe-kinda chalk it the thing before it gets away, even if she thinks she’s in a
up to intuition? totally enclosed space. It darts behind her back and vanishes.
The deliberate way to go into a specific dream varies What they can do is interact with intangible entities,
from person to person, but it’s usually something arduous, even those the Shaman can’t see or hear. Demons, astral 8: BESEIGED
something that induces an altered state of consciousness. parasites, unfortunate douchebags who got trapped on the
Possibilities include, but are not limited to: astral plane… the totem spirit can perceive and converse
with them all. It’s unable to harm them or be harmed,
• Suspension: The Shaman pierces her flesh by her though they’re usually able to harass an astral parasite until
pectorals with hooks and hangs from them until she it detaches and goes away.
leaves her body and enters the dream. This does The easiest way to deal with a spirit totem is to treat the
1d10 + 2 points of damage, and unless she’s careful avatar: Shaman rating as if it was a relationship. Roll it to
9: SELVES

with her ritual rationales, can be used as evidence coerce or cajole the spirit, and the better the roll, the more
in her commitment hearing. Other methods include it likes the Shaman and tries to make her way easier. Its
self-flagellation or exercise unto collapse. They all do ambition is for the Shaman to become better and better, so
about the same amount of damage. gaining avatar percentiles maps very cleanly to its esteem for
• Peyote: It’s certainly more mythically authentic to her. Violating taboo pisses it off, and sometimes it’s going
harvest it by oneself, if the Shaman wants to go the to ask the Shaman to do things for it in the physical world.
Huichol route. (Just make sure to get the good kind Rarely are these terribly dangerous, but often they’re incon-
10: MEDIA

that provides helpful insight, not the bad kind that venient or convoluted. These spirits care a lot about keeping
causes a nightmare bender. It can be very difficult to different abstract factors of life in balance. In practice, this

76
 1: MEAT
can come out as environmentalism, social justice, 91+%, Transrational Solutions: The highest devel-
or sacrificing some species that’s gotten way too opment of the Shamanic art is to seek answers
prevalent. (Live in a city? Better hope it doesn’t ask to questions that can’t be found in the material
you to kill 333 rats for it. There’s way too many rats, realm. Finding a transrational solution is a quest,
yo.) it’s heavy stuff, it’s not like nipping down to the

2: THROAT
Spirit animals are informed about weird imma- corner store when you run out of milk.
terial stuff, so asking them about the nature of These answers are usually about spirits and
this spirit or that invisible phenomenon might hauntings, or else illnesses that confound medi-
yield something. The GM should decide right off cine. They can, however, be about personal
the bat if the spirit doesn’t know for sure (usually questions (“Why doesn’t Ginger love me?”) or
because “asking the spirit for help” shouldn’t turn psychological problems or mysteries that have
into “take a shortcut around lots of cool plot”), or been devoured by the past. (For example, a tran-

3: SMALL
absolutely does know for sure (because the players srational query could be used to find out where
are stuck and need a kick to get moving again). If the Shaman’s claim is, if there is one. Another See “Claim of
it’s neither of those — it might know but might query would be needed to discern its effect.) the Clergy.”
not — roll the dice and see what happens. To go on one of these spirit quests, the
Shaman first needs to purify herself by spending
71%–90%, Astral Projection: Astral projection is twenty-four hours without ingesting anything See “Specific
the ability to leave one’s body and move around, — no medicines, no vaping, no food or water Information”

4: BIGGER
unseen and intangible. People appear as their or Gatorade. During this time, the Shaman has on page 47 of
auras, places are visible but look kind of like black to touch base with all her relationships. She’s Book One:
light posters, and animals are sketchy shadows. not going to get an answer safely if she’s out Play.
Demons, spirits, astral parasites, and other of balance with her personal junk. (If she’s on
miscellaneous entities inhabit this plane, normally bad terms with a relationship, she’s sure to face
unseen and unfelt. While you’re floating around some symbolic version of the conflict while on See “Astral
like Doctor Strange, they can attack you by her voyage, and it could do anything from rip Parasites” on

5: LAYERS
attempting to gnaw on your psyche. Other astral percentiles off her avatar score, to damaging the page 14 of
creatures primarily inflict stress checks of one relationship score, to tearing visible bloody chunks Book Three:
type or another. Astral Shamans can fight back by out of her flesh.) Reveal.
rolling their avatar ability as if it was Struggle. (Are Once the Shaman has done that, she calls her
there astral weapons? Sure. The Siberian guys who spirit totem (from the second channel) and makes
craft them aren’t big on sharing, but they work sure it’s OK with this. Assuming it is, she goes
just like normal melee weapons. The PLA suppos- astral as described with the third channel. (Why

6: REDUX
edly has astral Norinoco 56s, but most people would her spirit guide refuse? Because your GM
think that’s just a myth.) Note that these critters has decided that letting her get the answer she
can only be perceived and attacked while one is wants would completely derail the game. If the
astrally projected. spirit guide suggests a different quest, that’s what
Entering the trance requires a good ten hours GMs call a “subtle hint.”)
of preparation. The nature of the prep varies The Shaman’s spirit guide can then take her to
from Shaman to Shaman. Some go in for the where the answers lie. Rolling again isn’t neces-
Why does

7: VEIL
mind-altering drugs and physical suffering, while sary because the Shaman already rolled for astral
others dispense with all that drama and just lie projection. The GM can describe this whacked-out the bear
down until their hearts almost stop. (Oh yeah, inner vision however she likes, with encourage- have two
while the Shaman’s off on her Secret Journey, her ment to go extra-symbolic and to have lots of stuff
body goes into such a state of suspended func- in wrong contexts. She’s also, presumably, going
mouths?
tion that it requires a successful roll of a Medical to be switching to the non-astral characters and 8: BESEIGED
identity to realize it’s not freshly dead. Projecting giving them plenty of spotlight time during the
Shamans aren’t aware of what’s going on with session too. She probably switches when tension
their body unless they check on it, so more than is highest. Enjoy that.
one has woken up in an ambulance, body bag, or The perils of these journeys can consist of
morgue closet.) riddles, spiritual combat, stress checks, diabolical
The Shaman needs to roll her avatar score to go bargains, quid-pro-quo deals with inhuman enti-
astral, and if it fails she can’t try again for three ties, but in the end, it yields the solution. Whether
9: SELVES

sunsets. If she succeeds and goes a-wandering, the Shaman in a position to enact the solution is
after she comes back she can’t try again for neither here nor there, but that’s what cabals are
three sunsets. for, right?
The Shaman can only seek a transrational solu-
tion once every week, but if she’s doing it that
often, the GM should definitely make them more
challenging, costly, and perilous.
10: MEDIA

77
 1: MEAT
2: THROAT
3: SMALL
4: BIGGER
5: LAYERS
THE TAMER

6: REDUX
ATTRIBUTES It goes without saying that the Tamer’s channels only
Most people alive today are cyborgs. Maybe it’s major, with allow him to affect animals, not clockworks or demonic
a powered prosthetic limb, a cochlear implant, or a tita- supernatural beasts or other weirdness unless specifi-
nium hip. Maybe it’s minor — eyeglasses, braces, and a cell cally stated.
phone dependency. The Tamer engages with animals, spends most of his time
Before we had machines, we expanded our capacities not around them, pays attention to them, and extracts use from
through creations of metal and plastic, but blood and fur. A them. Doing something without an animal that could be

7: VEIL
man with poor eyesight could train a pig to sniff out truffles. done just as well with one (or better) just makes no sense
A woman with spindly legs could learn to ride and outrace to a Tamer.
the quickest of mere humanity like a magnificent centaur.
Not strong enough to uproot that tree? Get an elephant TABOOS
to do it. Training a kestrel isn’t as good as flying, but it’s The Tamer can’t disregard an animal. If an animal tries to
better than not having a trained kestrel, and (of course) engage with the Tamer, that must be respected. Swatting a 8: BESEIGED
people have always been training dogs to bite those they’re mosquito is all right, but ignoring it (assuming it’s noticed at
unwilling to bite themselves. all) might be a tiny transgression. The dog that barks must
Animals aren’t just the other tenants on the planet, to be acknowledged, either by withdrawing, by winning it over,
whom we nod in the lobby. They are our companions and or by destroying it.
our coworkers. Losing a beloved pet can hurt as much (in,
perhaps, a different way) as losing a friend. Despite the SYMBOLS
technological advances of warfare, donkeys and dogs are Bit and bridle, saddle, leash, whip and chair, and, to some
9: SELVES

still used, even as their multimillion dollar replacement extent, the flaming hoop.
devices stumble around DARPA facilities. Plus, even if you
don’t like animals as pets or for work, you very well may SUSPECTED AVATARS IN HISTORY
enjoy eggs, milk, or bacon. Cesar Millan, Marian “Mouse” Breland Bailey, Nadezhda
With animals so crucial to humanity, the human who Durova, Dorothy Harrison Eustis.
mediates between us and the beasts holds a position of
authority and power. The zookeeper, the veterinarian, the MASKS
10: MEDIA

lion tamer, the horse whisperer, and the dog trainer are all Dr. Doolittle (English), The Beastmaster (American), Adam
aspects of this ambassador from us to them. and Noah (Biblical), Pied Piper of Hamelin (German).

78
 1: MEAT
CHANNELS
1%–50%, Companion: While a Tamer probably has a number 71%–90%, Equilibrium: Animals won’t, don’t, and can’t
of animals around, one is special. It’s a large, beautiful attack the Tamer. He could walk into the middle of a stam-
creature of its type, unusually intelligent and impeccably pede and the cattle would part around him like the Red
well-behaved. Whatever it is — probably a cat or dog, rarely Sea. He could play with a beehive like a piñata and not get

2: THROAT
a bird or horse, very rarely anything more likely to get a stung, or cavalierly stroll between a mama bear and her cub.
weird look when walking down the street with it — it’s got a With a roll, he can force an animal to lie down submissively.
wound threshold of 50 and an identity at 50% that relates to Animals forced into this submissive posture won’t get out of
doing whatever one would expect a dog, cat, or pot-bellied it unless released, even if physically harmed.
pig to do. (In order, that’s probably bark at intruders, scratch For the purposes of mystical categorization, humans are
your eyes out, and find things by aroma.) not animals. Nevertheless, there is something imposing
In addition to the utility of having a well-trained beast by about the Tamer, even to the most modern of people.

3: SMALL
his side, the Tamer can also communicate with it, somewhat. Attempting to injure the Tamer inflicts a Helplessness (7-9)
This doesn’t mean the animal talks — it’s not humanly intel- check.
ligent, it’s only as bright as a clever example of its species This ability does not need to be rolled.
— but the Tamer does have some sense of what’s pleasing
or bothering it, and the animal is very quick on the uptake 91+%, Command: Any and all animals within earshot fall
when the Tamer asks it to do something. Basically, if it’s beneath the Tamer’s sway. With a successful roll, entire
something a normal person could train an animal to do after flocks of birds, swarms of bees, and schools of fish can be

4: BIGGER
several busy hours, the Tamer’s companion gets the gist of commanded as if they were exquisitely trained. Under the
it the first time the Tamer asks. Also, the animal starts, very Tamer’s command, a herd of charging horses begins to move
slightly, to resemble the Tamer. like a single unit. All the rats of Hamelin Town could be
piped away, or a hundred cows could form an orderly line
51%–70%, Dominion: Biblically, all animals are subject to and march into the slaughterhouse.
humankind’s command, but when stalked by a mountain
lion, it becomes apparent that not all animals have biblical

5: LAYERS
values. Tamers, however, are a breed apart. If a Tamer looks
at an animal, addresses it in a firm tone of voice, and rolls a
success on avatar: Tamer, then the animal is cowed. Cowed
animals won’t attack the Tamer, and slink away looking
ashamed unless they’ve been very well trained. Another
Tamer’s companion animal can’t be scared off, but it still
won’t attack.

6: REDUX
At this level, the Tamer’s companion also goes up to a
wound threshold of 70 and 70% in its identity. If at all plau-
sible, its resemblance to its Tamer deepens.

7: VEIL
8: BESEIGED
9: SELVES
10: MEDIA

79
 1: MEAT
CLAIM OF THE CLERGY
The Invisible Clergy, the collective and immaterial a claim, any more than every ascension leaves
body of ascended archetypes, is unseen (if felt), behind some weird magick artifact. In any event,
intangible (if powerful), and generally held to be the fewer-than-333 sites are scattered throughout

2: THROAT
entirely unsentimental. It’s the safe way to bet. the world and throughout history as well. Are
Yet there are places that bespeak, if not affec- they permanent? No way to tell. Maybe they stop
tion, some form of connection to a particular working if their patron gets displaced. Moreover,
archetype. Those who know about them refer to since their functions are often specific, subtle,
them as claims. GNOMON does not believe claims or counter-intuitive, the great sweep of history See more
exist. TNI agents have filed two reports, both of is entirely capable of erasing them. There could information
which got to Alex Abel before being skeptically be one under your home and in order to activate on these in

3: SMALL
dismissed, resulting in recriminations for the its mojo, you’d need to sing a praise-chant to its Book Two:
people who filed them. The Sleepers? Some believe, particular patron and sacrifice an all-black rooster. Run. “Flex
some don’t, some argue, nobody has proof, and Have you tried that? How about at your neigh- Echo” on page
conversations about them tend to end on a vari- bor’s house? 57, “The New
ation of the common Sleeper refrain of, “Fuck you, Inquisition”
you’re full of bullshit but can I borrow fifty bucks THE HAJJ on page 85,
‘til next payday?” All claims have one trait in common. It’s called the “Sleepers”

4: BIGGER
The cabals that have the firmest grip on claim hajj or, for Islamophobes, the pilgrimage. If you’re on page 77,
information are Mak Attax and the Sect of the an avatar, and you make a respectful journey to “Mak Attax”
Naked Goddess’ splinter groups. The Sect knows the claim specific to your archetype, meditating on page 91,
because they’ve been to one: the grotty base- there on the meaning of the role strengthens and “The Sect
ment where the second coming occurred and your connection to it. This doesn’t need to be an of the Naked
their godwalker was unveiled in front of all her objective or anything so drastic (though finding Goddess” on
FBI colleagues. They’ve bought the building and the claim might be an objective, or might need page 72 of that

5: LAYERS
keep trying to entice Mira to come back and to be one). All you must do is go there, get calm, book.
lead a ceremony or a re-enactment, but she’s not and have some uninterrupted thoughts about
having it and, honestly, they’re not even sure if your place in the cosmos for four or five hours.
she’s still using the cell phone they’re trying to call. (“Uninterrupted” is where it can get interesting.)
But anyone who claims to be seeking the Naked Avatars who do this experience three outcomes,
Goddess could get sent there, if the three Naked pretty much all at once.
Goddess camgirl entrepreneurs decide they like

6: REDUX
the cut of her jib. Or his jib — there was a guy Consolation: There is an enjoyable sense of
once, though they sent him packing pretty quick. oneness with the universe. It’s not necessarily
(He immediately went to the motumancer branch comfortable — if your archetype is turbulent, it
and started stirring shit, which didn’t take much, probably leaves you manic and chattering and
as any group claiming exclusive rights over a para- enthusiastic, but mellower members of the Clergy
normal location, solely because they discovered it leave their followers blissed-out and relaxed. The
and purchased the property, was bound to rouse GM gets to erase one failed mark from your shock

7: VEIL
the flag-burners’ bountiful ire.) gauge. It’s her choice which one, based on what’s
As for Mak Attax, they believed stories about holding you back from being of value to your
claims because believing in things is directly in ascended master or mistress, so it may not be your
their wheelhouse. Once more, being naïve and worst one, but still: healing is healing. You won’t
trusting played right into their hands. They heard forget the event that gave you the failed notch,
about “shrines to archetypes” and that made but it loses its hold over you. You accept (if not 8: BESEIGED
sense to the Attaxers who believed in the Invisible forgive) and move on (if not forget).
Clergy instead of Space Brothers or Nordic
Archons, so they crowdsourced it. They investi- Obligation: Fused with the pleasant feeling of
gated “weird places” and tried to cross-reference oneness with a higher power comes a sense
them with suspected archetypes and, long story of duty, a renewed zeal for the abstract princi-
short, they found one. It’s in western Oklahoma ples espoused by the archetype. It’s distracting,
and may explain why the Comanche nation held and can lead to annoyingly excited or puzzling
9: SELVES

out so long against European invasion. It’s where blather with non-avatars. Also, you don’t get any
the archetype of the Warrior can most cleanly experience checks for a day or two. No matter
contact the tangible realm. how many rolls you fail, you don’t learn from it.
But before we get to the specifics about what Your learning circuits have all been overloaded
claims can do for you, it’s important to hammer by enlightenment.
home that they are incredibly rare. There are fewer
than 333 archetypes ascended (obviously, since Enlightenment: The loyal avatar feels like the
10: MEDIA

the world is self-evidently undestroyed) and it’s clouds that stood between her and her patron
not at all certain that every ascension creates have cleared away, or at the very least lightened.

80
 1: MEAT
It’s not the kind of understanding that can be put They did so under the auspices of Applied Equity
into words — it’s intuitive, emotional, mystic, the Property Management LLC, which is essen-
kind of thing that leaves atheists tearing their hair tially the three of them and their IT expert. (Lil’
and making mordant internet comments — but Scratchy — formerly known as Sarah Elizabeth
it’s true, for all that it can’t be proved. The avatar Parker, Attorney at Law — got disbarred in

2: THROAT
identity goes up by 5%, to a maximum of 98%. Alabama, but she still knows her way around arti-
Like losing one’s virginity, the hajj only happens cles of incorporation.) They’ve made vague noises
once. There’s before it, and after it. Once you’ve about turning it into a B&B (something its cruddy
done it, you can go back and revisit, but it’s not neighborhood absolutely does not need) but
the same. It’s probably very fulfilling and spiritually mostly have been keeping it clean and subsidizing
nourishing, but the overwhelming sensations of it with their online profits. The people who claim
consolation, obligation, and enlightenment do not to be avatars and want to make their hajj there are

3: SMALL
reoccur. One to a customer, pal. evaluated on a case-by-case basis: a willingness
to pay cash money to “contribute” greases the
OTHER PRACTICES wheels, as it does at so many sites controlled by
Every claim has an additional paranormal effect, the faithful but cash-strapped.
probably. At least, all the ones Mak Attax has Other people have come there because its
heard about do, though admittedly they’ve inves- occult powers are sometimes useful, if not awe-in-
tigated dozens of these things with indifferent spiring. If you go to the basement, set up an old
AEPM

4: BIGGER
success. The Goddess’ Basement, for sure, has a video camera (which Applied Equity Property LLC =
strange nature that fits its thematic resonance. Management LLC can rent to you on-site for a CCTV?
A claim’s unique effect works on anyone, reasonable fee) and pan from left to right while
regardless of their beliefs, fitness, or relationship watching through its viewfinder, the claim
to the paranormal. It doesn’t care about your faith temporarily alters your attitudes towards sex
or attitude or previous behavior — if you trigger acts. Specifically, the next sex act that would be
it, it happens. It’s like getting sweated on at an disturbing or unpleasant or unpalatable to you is…

5: LAYERS
Andrew WK concert: doesn’t matter if you like the meh. It’s whatever. Neutral-to-OK. Even if this is
music or not, if you push your way to the front of something that would normally make you vomit,
the show, you’re getting moist. send you into a shame spiral, or call up all kinds of
The effects are thematic, and they happen every neurosis from your strict upbringing? It becomes
time their preconditions are met, and they range a matter of indifference. You may not like it, you
from the subtle to blatant transgressions of phys- may find it physically uncomfortable, but it’s
ical reality. The examples below are illuminating. no longer a thing happening to your personality.

6: REDUX
It’s just an event devoid of emotional weight.
THE GODDESS’ BASEMENT Mechanically, if a sex act would impose a stress See “The Sect
Remember the story about Mira’s sexual awak- check, it does not. The person still remembers it of the Naked
ening? As mentioned previously, the Sect of and knows it happened, but it has no power to Goddess” on
the Naked Goddess found that the place had terrify, humiliate, or depress them. page 72 of
become connected to the archetype after that. What’s this good for? Oh, there’s at least one Book Two:
Those within the Sect who believe they’re Naked unlicensed therapist who has found out this stuff Run.

7: VEIL
Goddess avatars travel to Los Angeles, in the works (he’s in Double-D Dani’s food co-op). He
same way that Christians go to Lourdes, except in uses the “emotional prophylaxis” effect on occa-
drastically smaller numbers and carrying more K-Y. sion in couples’ therapy. The Sect has also found
There, they go to the basement where Mira got it a useful way to get pornomancers-in-training
her revelation and they try to get theirs. accustomed to some of the less vanilla behaviors
Did you remember that it was a church base- that can build one a charge. 8: BESEIGED
ment? That was trouble, because the porno-
mancer branch of the sect wasn’t really crazy THE MERCHANT’S CHAMBER
about drawing attention to the avatar branch. The Navigator Club in London is not one of the
Eventually, one of the motumancers was… old ones from the 1800s that is renowned for its
tricked? Persuaded? Coerced? The stories the Conservative politicians, its signature dessert,
people involved tell vary a lot… into socially disin- or its staunch refusal to let women in. (Don’t
tegrating the congregation there which, it must kid yourself though — no uterus has defiled its
9: SELVES

be said, was not thrilled when the rumor hit that confines except for the cleaning staff, and even
not only had a porno movie been filmed in the they aren’t allowed into the Games Lounge, which
church basement (“What? No! I’ve run bake sales is exclusively tidied by the staff majordomo, a
on those tables!”) but that a celebratory re-enact- fellow called “Bolero.”) It’s not known for anything,
ment occurred as well. by design. Its founders are three young men with
The congregation ceased to congregate, the old money, jobs in finance, and access to this very
church was deconsecrated, and three entrepre- old site of mystic power.
10: MEDIA

neur camgirls (professionally known as Double-D The building which houses the Navigator Club is
Dani, Jody Hots, and Lil’ Scratchy) bought it out. from 1983, but before that the site had a drab brick

81
 1: MEAT
pile that was built there after the drafty old struc- let a non-member burn cash for a demon even
ture before that was blown into dust during the though it would save them loads of dough. It’s just
Blitz. That place (three back, if you’re counting) not done.
was home to a merchant shipping insurance firm. The pile of money sufficient to summon an
The founders of the Navigator Club are entity is however much it would take to reduce

2: THROAT
Merchant avatars employed by prestigious banks the character’s Status by one step on the char-
and finance firms, and they were the ones who acter sheet. Conveniently, the cost of conversing
winkled out the secret history of the Merchant’s with demons — paranoia, contempt for the
Chamber. See, that shipping insurance concern? sheeple who aren’t smart enough for demonolatry,
Like their club, it was run by a clued-in Merchant, an urge to run and hide from shadows on dark
one who was leveraging the powers of the claim foggy streets, a smug sensation of having life’s
on the second floor, in the space now occupied cheat codes — are all well modeled by simply

3: SMALL
by the Games Lounge, which is a painstaking putting a hardened notch in Isolation. So the
recreation of the conference room that was in ceremony (1) summons a demon, and (2) puts a
that same volume of air before that German bomb hardened notch in Isolation, thereby reducing your
took out the building. They hoped that the space Status, increasing your Pursuit, and making you
would retain the properties it once had, and their more likely to handle challenges to Helplessness.
hopes were rewarded. Again, once the demon arrives, you’re safe
The Merchant’s Chamber has plain wooden from it, but it’s not compelled to do anything but

4: BIGGER
furniture, a big antique map along one wall, two be present for whatever pitch meeting you have
windows in another, a spare but elegant marble in mind. You don’t have to be a Merchant avatar
fireplace, and shelves filled with ledgers on the to use the fireplace, but the Navigators don’t
third. It does not look terribly conducive to games, know this.
though the Navigator boys do play cards and What do the Navigators want to do with their
chess there to keep up appearances. demon-backed powers? Well, they’ve found out See “Ordo
But on certain occasions, they burn money about a group called Ordo Corpulentis and they Corpulentis”

5: LAYERS
in the fireplace and summon demons. That’s have a drastically inflated and paranoid opinion on page 67 of
the special power of the claim: it summons and of the Order’s influence and power. They want Book Two:
contains the spirits of the shitty dead so that to stay undiscovered by the American cannibals. Run.
they can be conversed with in relative safety. All Because they are entitled Merchants, they believe
it costs you is your ability to get along in society. they are clever enough to use demons to do this.
Oh, and a bunch of money. But let’s consider the Because demons are clever too, they encourage
demons first. the Navigators in this belief, while at every turn

6: REDUX
The evil spirits still must be offered an incentive, undermining their safety. After all, without an
but the guys running this are Merchants, so they enemy they have far less motivation to truck with
always have something on order. Demons want the undead. Basic supply and demand, really.
bodies the most, and London is full of people who
are poor and desperate enough to offer control THE TAMER’S MOUNTAIN
of their flesh to paranormal entities in exchange The Kyrgyz peoples have used golden eagles to
for cash (which, natch, this Merchant cabal has in hunt wolves for generations, but the first person

7: VEIL
bulk). Since the NHS reorg, desperate punters are to train an eagle — a Tamer avatar from a thou- See “The
practically falling from the sky like rain. sand years before the birth of Christ — did so on Tamer.”
The way the Chamber works is that you throw a a mountain in Kunlun range in China. Or, maybe
big pile of euros or dollars or other valid currency it’s in India. Both India and China claim the Aksai
on the fire and burn it, and then a demon can Chin region of Tibet, and the Tamer’s Mountain
speak to you from the fire. It can’t do anything is somewhere in Aksai Chin, if you believe the 8: BESEIGED
but talk, and once the fire goes out it’s dispelled. one western writer who experienced (and wrote
But if you have a question (and any reason at all about) the Tamer’s plummet ritual back in 1975.
to expect a straight answer), or have a ritual to That writer was a British mountain climber
get more out of a demon, this is a safe way to named Frances Merrick, and her account was
conjure one without any chance of it taking over roundly dismissed as delusional, allegorical, or just
your portly, pasty frame. (The cabal is also low-key plain rubbish. But she did accurately describe the
racist, so of course the people involved are all rite of the Tamer’s Mountain, which is still (as far
9: SELVES

extra white. All its members are also pudgy, but as anyone knows) practiced by the rural workers
that’s not a requirement for membership.) who live near it.
The balancing factor is that there’s no set The ritual is to climb up to a particular ledge
amount that you must burn to get your devil deal, about four-fifths of the way up. She described
except “a lot” — whatever that means to you. For the ascent as “somewhat difficult in bits,” though
the Navigators, the sums are just depressingly she estimated the mountain itself was only a little
vast. For the impoverished chumps they pimp over 2,000 meters. She got to the ledge with
10: MEDIA

out to the underworld, it could be as low as 333 five people from the village, including one “old
euros, not that the Navigators would ever, ever man with white hair and not a tooth in his head.”

82
 1: MEAT
This unnamed elder immediately walked to the Stuff, which brought him to the attention to the
edge and, without pause, stepped over into the only occult cabal operating in the rural Oklahoma See “Mak
swirly clouds. panhandle — Mak Attax. He and the Attaxers had Attax” on page
“I was certain it was some kind of trick — that an uneasy relationship until another Warrior avatar 91 of Book
there was a net beneath, or some way to catch went there, did peyote and gutter magick, and Two: Run.

2: THROAT
oneself, or that I had otherwise been misled dug out the story that Comanche braves would
by stagecraft or illusion. Despite that absolute commune with spirits there by beating the crap
certainty, I could not help but be amazed. Imagine out of one another. That is, of course, the trig-
how that astonishment was multiplied when the gering condition for the claim’s special power. It
old man flew back out of the fog beneath and connects to the Warrior, what else did you expect?
swooped above us, laughing shrilly!” The Comanche rite added some bells and whis-
She then goes on to describe how, of the tles, but they treated the cave like Thunderdome.

3: SMALL
four remaining villagers, three stepped over and Two warriors entered, one left. Those who
were similarly able to begin soaring and plunging emerged victorious from these duels were given
through the air “like the eagles whose nests we’d prominent positions in the next raids or attacks,
seen on the slopes.” Steeling herself, she stepped because it was believed they were under special
into the emptiness and discovered — after a protection. And oh boy, were they.
heart-stopping moment — that she too could fly First though, the fight. To activate the Cavern’s
“like a bird, as in a dream.” protection, you and another enter together. No
Suspiciously,

4: BIGGER
That’s the special miracle of the Tamer’s one else can be present. Then, the two of you the wind
Mountain. If you step off that ledge truly believing fight bare-handed (no sticks, knives, or guns — in Oklahoma
in its power to make you fly, then fly you shall. (If this is meant to be primitive). The fight continues blows only
you don’t step off then by definition you don’t until someone’s (1) knocked out, (2) pinned until
believe enough and it’s all academic.) Getting they collapse, or (3) killed. Actually, it is perfectly on the
pushed still kills you, but anyone who goes volun- possible to think better of it and quit before that plain.
tarily can fly around (though not hover) for about point, but people who give up before someone’s

5: LAYERS
twenty to thirty minutes, if they don’t go too high down and unable to continue — physically unable,
or leave the mountain. Anyone who tries that not just unwilling — get no benefit. Moreover, the
just… can’t. Whatever power lofts them won’t guy who gets KO’d, choked out, or slain gets no
take them there. advantage either.
To force oneself to step off a mountain like this To the victor, however, go serious spoils. The
is a Violence (6–7) challenge, and flying afterwards Warrior places protection upon the struggle’s
is an Unnatural (5–6) challenge. But hey, at least if winner, even if they are no Warrior avatar, even if

6: REDUX
you panic, you’re well equipped to get away. they’re an avatar of something else. The protection
That assumes you can find the place. Merrick’s means that the next physical attack that would
book never sold well, it’s out of print, and the strike the person does no damage. It hits, and if
cover’s ugly. Even with the book, finding the right it’s at all plausible the person who launched the
mountain based on her description isn’t easy. attack knows it hit — but it inflicts no injury nor
There’s that whole “disputed Chinese territory” even any discomfort.
aspect to it… and if you guess wrong, the reper- Depending on the nature of the assault that

7: VEIL
cussions are, to say the least, drastic. got shrugged off, the attacker may need to make
some kind of Unnatural check. A punch that does
WARRIOR CAVERN nothing can probably get ignored, but someone a
Currently known as “Comanche Cave” in local machete won’t cut? That’s probably an Unnatural
folklore, this claim lies between Waynoka and (3–5) check. You hit a guy with a Molotov cocktail
Mooreland in Oklahoma. It’s a dirty, shallow, and he just walks unharmed out of the flames? 8: BESEIGED
unglamorous gypsum cave that gets no love Unnatural (4–6) check.
because the Little Sahara dunes are more fun To get further protected, the person has to
and, even if you like spelunking or whatever, the go back into the cave and fight some more.
Alabaster Caverns are much cooler and have their Additionally, it’s always the next attack, not
own state park. No, there’s not much of interest in necessarily the next serious attack. It won’t go off
Comanche Cave, unless you’re a fighter. hair-trigger if someone feints at you or gives you
Warrior avatars twig right away that there’s a boisterous back-slap, but anything that could
9: SELVES

something special going on, and it rarely takes cause injury? It just doesn’t.
much to get them digging its consolation, obliga- Escarrá and the Attaxers have not yet figured
tion, and enlightenment. Lance Corporal Herve out that its protection is only against deliberate
Escarrá felt it right away when, after his medical assaults. The Warrior’s blessing is for war, not for
discharge, his girlfriend suggested a hike out to falling down the steps ‘cause you drank too much.
it. (He was through physical therapy and was well
adapted to his below-the-knee prosthesis, but she
10: MEDIA

felt that going on walks was good for him.) His

investigations into it led him to associated Weird

83
 1: MEAT
10: SYMBOLIC MEDIA
The last troublesome element of Unknown Armies proportionality. They operate at a deeper and
is symbolism, and it may be the least amenable more primal level. The fictions in this chapter,

2: THROAT
to rules and percentages. Symbols — at least then, aren’t powerful for reasons I can sufficiently
the artistic and emotional kind Unknown Armies explain. Like the best symbols, they can’t be
rings against to get its sounds — aren’t scientific. understood. They can only be experienced.
They aren’t controlled by logic and reason and

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD BY

3: SMALL
BENH ZEITLIN
If you’ve ever felt bad about your house being to the Bathtub, she may wind up as one as well.
messy, Beasts of the Southern Wild will put that Their final confrontation indicates Hushpuppy’s
right in perspective. This movie is set in the fate and her place in the natural world.
Bathtub, a section of swamp outside New Orleans, In the film, the aurochs bleed between
cut off from other communities by a levee. The Hushpuppy’s imagination and the tangible (albeit

4: BIGGER
main character is a little girl called Hushpuppy magical-realistic) world of her parents and the
who is way too young to fend for herself the way Bathtub. Now, I would not recommend using
she has to when her dad, Wink, disappears. (And giant mammals as a physical symbol in a role- See “American
hey, what is it with the word “Wink” and small playing game, unless you’re ready for your PCs Elsewhere by
communities hidden from the rest of the world? to kill them, or attempt it. But, while keeping in Robert Jackson
It’s a curious tie between this film and American mind the difference between a film for the eyes Bennett.”
Elsewhere.) The people of the Bathtub are excep- and an RPG as an experience for voice and imagi-

5: LAYERS
tionally poor and remarkably independent, living nation, this movie can provide some insight about
lives almost completely outside of the wider how to blend the symbolic and the tangible. First,
American society. the symbol is abstract and distant, an idea only.
Beasts of the Southern Wild has been called As it becomes more prominent, you can have it
a mythic film, but I’m more inclined to liken it reflected and projected, though not directly seen
to a tall tale. Unlike most tall tales, which are and experienced. As the issue represented by
just tongue-in-cheek entertainment, this film the symbol gets more and more prominent, and

6: REDUX
takes itself and its issues seriously. Characters as failing to deal with it becomes more fraught
rage, laugh, set their houses on fire, and strive or outright impossible, signs of its presence get
against nature and their fellow men as they try closer and less deniable. Only at the final reso-
to preserve their homes. But in the background, lution is the thing fully real — presumably when
there are the aurochs. the characters’ objective hits 100% and they can
The titular beasts, the aurochs — huge hairy actually do something about it.
prehistoric mammals — get thawed out of glaciers This approach, making it loom and loom and

7: VEIL
by the same upheavals of nature that threaten only show up when things are definitely going to
to drown the Bathtub in saltwater following a be final, saves you from a couple embarrassing
vicious storm. Throughout the movie, we hear problems. First off, have you ever introduced a
Hushpuppy narrate their approach and see the major villain in an RPG, only to have the players
destruction they wreak as they move closer and get a case of hot dice and demolish the poor
closer. The ending, which I won’t spoil, ties up the bastard before he even has a chance to mono- 8: BESEIGED
girl, the beasts, and the conflicts she’s had with logue out his fiendish plot? Yeah, we’ve all been
parents present and absent throughout. there. By having a symbol as harbinger for an
abstract issue, you avoid premature eradica-
WHAT IT EXPOSES ABOUT tion. (Plus, you can engage abstractions without It won
UNKNOWN ARMIES having an awkward human stand-in explain his awards.
The aurochs are a symbol, representing not only position.) The other advantage of holding back on
death, but extinction. Hushpuppy fears them full materialization until you have a 100% objec-
It won
9: SELVES

as she fears her own destruction, but she also tive is that, once it’s dealt with, you don’t have
identifies with them — they are remnants of a to worry about it hanging around being myste- more than
destroyed world, and she fears that with the peril rious. The beauty of a true mystery is destroyed you think.
if you can weigh it, measure it, and determine its
nature. By fully revealing your symbolic auroch (or
whatever) when it’s time to have its fate sealed,
ungulate you don’t give the PCs time to engage in a lot of
10: MEDIA

suspense-snapping engineering.
it was the 80s
everyone had massive wrenches
85
 1: MEAT
MAGIC FOR BEGINNERSoverwrought, BY KELLY LINK
In the short stories of Magic for Beginners, the absurd, and unclothed with logic
mundane and the surreal blend and dance around become alarming and terrifying when they aren’t
each other, both described with the same exact wrapped up in a protective sheath of comedy. In

2: THROAT
degree of interest, the same measured tone. I got playing horror games, there are often moments
the book after reading the first story in it, “The of hilarity — sometimes verging on hysteria. It’s
Faery Handbag,” which is about a handbag full of the release of pleasure from the built-up pressure
faeries, a family heirloom that carries obligations of unpleasant ideas, of notions we don’t want to
and makes everything in the modern New York of confront or don’t know how to process.
its setting seem a little bit more like a very old chil- John Dies at the End handles this issue with the
dren’s story. “The Hortlak” is maybe my favorite exact opposite approach. It chooses to be funny See “John Dies

3: SMALL
— a story about a guy who worked at a conve- and have the comedy trade jobs with the horror at the End by
nience store, and then wound up squatting at the so that neither gets tired. But Kelly Link’s fiction David Wong.”
convenience store, infatuated with the woman puts the absurd and the awful in the same harness
who puts down dogs at the dog pound, haunted and cracks the same whip over both, without ever
by zombies, and freaked out by the increasingly resorting to easy categories to help us handle
disturbing pajamas of the other clerk living in the them. Perhaps she has examined the foundations
convenience store. Then there’s “Catskin” which is of our stories so carefully that she has found their

4: BIGGER
just damn disturbing. unconsidered, invisible elements, and then pulled
them out and started over. However she managed
WHAT IT EXPOSES ABOUT it, she renders the commonplace unsettling, while
UNKNOWN ARMIES the stuff of nightmares becomes part of her char-
The ridiculous isn’t always funny. Like the acters’ daily routine. So, yeah, just do that in your
famous clown in the moonlight, things that are games, mm’kay?

5: LAYERS
UZUMAKI BY JUNJI ITO of identifying with the character. In the process,
I got this 640+ page manga compendium in the
mail, read the whole thing within twenty-four you become comfortable. But when the horror
Are you
hours, and then felt like I needed a cringe break starts, with grotesque distortions of the human hungry
and a grown-up. The story’s nineteen chapters, form, his art style gets more meticulous with yet?
originally released serially, tell the tale of Japanese denser lines and more detail. It’s jarring. You get

6: REDUX
schoolgirl Kirie Goshima and her hometown, used to the indicative style, and then the repulsive
which is haunted. Unlike many horror stories, stuff looks more real than the faces you already
though, it’s not haunted by ghosts or werewolves accepted as the comic’s default realism.
or cosplaying real estate developers. It’s haunted
by spirals. WHAT IT EXPOSES ABOUT
Each chapter/issue has a different spiral-themed UNKNOWN ARMIES
horror, ranging from snails to whirlwinds to curly If you want to know what paranoid schizophrenia

7: VEIL
hair and wheel-thrown pottery. But it’s not the feels like, Uzumaki is probably as close as you’re
things themselves that create such a distinct and going to get without hallucinogens and an iPod
powerful sense of unease, but the way that the full of spooky voices insulting you. It is difficult
idea of the spiral perverts flesh, spirit, and reality for me to express how disturbing Junji Ito’s work
itself, for no discernible reason. That lack of purpose is. (If you dug Uzumaki, I also recommend Hellstar
puts this more in the Lovecraft “it’s awful that Remina and The Enigma at Amigara Fault. I was 8: BESEIGED
humanity is just dust in this wind” camp, instead of kind of disappointed in Gyo.) There is, throughout,
the Unknown Armies “it’s awful that humanity could a sense that there is purpose and pattern behind
cure this problem but prefers to ignore it” camp, what’s happening… but it’s a pattern divorced
but it’s still a horror classic that any strong-stom- from logic, and a purpose that you can almost
ached fan of the genre should check out. discern, just not quite. Uzumaki in particular is
It’s also a live-action movie, but to me Junji also an example of how to take a threatening
Ito’s drawing style has a lot to do with the work’s abstraction and turn it extremely concrete. The
9: SELVES

skin-crawling power. I think he really has two abstruse becomes obsession, and obsession is
drawing styles. The first, which he starts with, is then engraved on physical reality.
a traditional manga style that relies somewhat on The Unknown Armies version would, I suppose,
pareidolia — the brain’s hard-wired face-seeking be focused on some omnipresent corporate logo
tendency, which lets you see human faces in instead of the spiral.
clouds, shadows, and knots in a plank. Ito’s work
when he’s drawing normal people being normal is
10: MEDIA

clean and confident and the faces consist mostly

of white space and a few thin lines to delineate
the features. Your own brain does the heavy lifting

86
The first time Danny showed me real magick, I threw up.
I’m not ashamed to admit it. Not really proud either, of course. I mean, it was
mostly… just completely unexpected, you know? Danny was not impressive. You
would not expect him to do… anything really.
He was in love with me or had a crush on me or whatever. In my defense, I always
made it clear that was a nonstarter. The best thing would have been for him to
just sulk off after that and never talk again, but he didn’t let it go, kept dropping by,
starting conversations, and we both really liked David Lynch and The Booth at the
End, so if I didn’t exactly believe his “oh we’re just friends and that’s all fine” line,
I took it at face value. Plus, sometimes it’s hard to stay away from someone who
thinks you’re wonderful, you know? Even if you don’t really like him much.

He was always trying to impress me wasn’t having any of that. I grabbed her “How’s that your business?” She
and after we saw Night Watch he said it by the wrist and yanked hard. looked me up and down for the first
was a good movie but “got a bunch of “Bitch, I am talking to you.” time. “Oh, you must be Chris.”
details wrong.” And I said no kidding, When she spun around, she looked “How’d you know my name?”
like nobody can turn a human spine surprised. Also kind of scared. “I have “Danny’s asked a lot of questions
into a sword or whatever but he got to go,” she said. about you.”
kind of snotty and said, “No, about the “No, what you have to do is tell me Just then, a car honked its horn, a big
supernatural.” I let it drop, he didn’t. So where Danny went!” ol’ forest-green sport ute. She chugged
that’s how I wound up going to his Even though she was pulling away over towards it.
place because he said he could prove from me and her eyes were wide, her “You… Mavra?” The driver was a
that supernatural stuff was real. lip kind of curled a little. “Danny’s not big guy, brown beard contour-mapped
He was on his computer when I here right now,” she said, in this creepy, over rolls of fat red face. He had big
came in, which was no big shock. That scratchy voice. At that point, I hadn’t wide eyes behind battered metal-rim
was his whole thing. He turned to me seen The Shining, so I didn’t get it. glasses. He looked like he was meeting
and said, “OK, don’t freak out, I think “What are you and what’s going on?!?” a movie star.
I’ve got — ” and then he was a woman. “I have to go,” she repeated. “I have “Go to Morris and 33rd Street,” she
I don’t mean he looked like a to catch a car. He’s going to be here…” said, opening the back door and pulling
woman or there was a puff of smoke she looked at her watch. “He should be herself in. I pushed in after her.
and he changed places with a woman, right outside!” “Hey!”
I mean one moment I’m looking at “Tough tits,” I said, “You ain’t going “Oh, don’t think you’re getting away,”
Danny who’s young and blond and nowhere until…” I said.
skinny and tall, and then like a 1960s “Look, there’s no time and I don’t “Who’s this…?” the driver asked,
movie where they splice the film, want to start a fistfight with you. I kinda confused.
there’s this fat woman with stringy could scream and wake the neighbors, “This is Chris,” Mavra said, looking
black and gray hair in a ponytail, with a but that doesn’t get me where I need to poison at me.
double chin and a cardigan and sensible go. Danny’s not here. He’s… in storage. “You part of GNOMON?” he asked
shoes. That’s when I threw up. Because He’ll be back in one hour and fifty- me, looking eager.
it wasn’t like David Blaine or whoever eight minutes. He’s safe.” “No, Chris is an unwelcome inter-
where there’s a buildup and a rhythm “How did you get here?” loper,” Mavra responded.
and then something strange happens, it “Let go or I will scream,” she said, and “Um…”
was wrong. then I saw she’d pulled her other hand “Look,” I said, “You can try and
The woman stood up, looked at the out of her pocket and had her keys kick me out, but I see a cop car at the
computer, and started fiddling around laced through her fingers, women’s- block’s end and I don’t think you want
with her wristwatch while I put down self-defense-class style. So I let go. me to scream and wake the neighbors.
the trash can and wiped my mouth. She beelined for the stairwell and You don’t really have the time for that,
“Oh Jesus,” I said, staring. “How did… I followed. do you?”
what…?” “Who the hell are you?” I repeated. She glared, then shrugged and… and
“Goodbye,” the woman said, standing “I’m called Mavra.” She was huffing she looked like she felt really bad for
and heading towards the door. a little by the time we got to the foyer. me? But she said, “Suit yourself.”
“Wait! Who are you, where’s Danny?” She went straight to the front door “You said 33rd and Morris?” the
She didn’t even look back, just gave without breaking stride, but I caught driver asked, poking stuff into
me the finger and kept walking. Well, I up easily. his phone.
“Where are you going?”
 “Gimme that,” Mavra demanded, “I just cease to exist,” she said quietly. “Hey, you’re the one who puked
taking the phone from him. “Just go!” That hung in the air for just a when I materialized.”
“Buckle up,” he said. minute. “…what?” I finally said. “Yeah, let’s get away from, from…” I
Mavra snorted. “Or what? I already “Let it go.” trailed off and Q went on.
died once.” His phone started giving “No, you, what’s your name?” I said, “One NSA group went really far
directions, which he didn’t seem poking the driver through the back afield. Right past MKUltra remote
to need. of his seat. “Tell me what’s happening, viewing, straight through The Men
I gave her a flat look. “You died? you seem to know this stuff.” Who Stare at Goats and The Coincidence
You’re, what, Jesus now?” “Should I…?” Engine and on into the Deep Weird.
“It’s a matter of public record,” the “Oh go ahead.” Mavra was staring They were interested in precognition,
driver said. “That’s Mavra Piagetti. out the window, pensive, not even oracles, intuition, fortune telling…
Died in 2004.” checking her watch. patterns that were logically unrelated
“Never even got to vote for the first “You can call me Q,” the driver said. but consistent. Like, when hems rise
black president,” she muttered, staring “Oh c’mon.” the market goes up? That times a
out the window as we turned onto He reddened. “Right. Um. OK, so thousand. Snowfall patterns correlate
Morris. “Look, if you’re here, make after 9/11…” with Nordic runes and indicate
yourself useful,” she said, turning back “Here we go,” I muttered. military trends… numerology in the
to me. “See that bag hanging off the “Do you want to hear this or not?” third most popular movie of a month
street sign? Hop out and grab that.” “Sorry, it’s just… you can find a predicts global health hazards, and it’s
“Why should I…?” whole lot of crazy after that intro, never the most popular, always the
“C’mon, don’t be a butthole, just you know?” third, and it’s not that the director put
do it!” “Well duh, yes.” He sighed, honked them there it’s…” It was his turn to
So I did it. Inside were four glass at an Infiniti, then tried again. “After fade into silence.
bottles, a siphon, and a roadside flare. 9/11 the government was really “Emergent patterns,” Mavra supplied.
“What’s this for?” I asked, climbing interested in what they called ‘out “We built this big-ass computer to
back in. of context problems.’ Rumsfeld’s try and find patterns and we called
“Enemies of America, c’mon, move.” ‘unknown unknowns,’ stuff you can’t it GNOMON.”
She must have given the driver prepare for because it never happened “And?”
instructions, because he leadfooted before. That’s not too crazy for you, “It worked way too well. Look,”
it out of there and up a highway is it?” she explained, “The universe is a lot
on-ramp. “Sheesh.” less structured than you think. It has
“Look, I got your stuff and I didn’t “They formed this study group they to be, because of the limits on your
scream and all that but I need to know called the New Inquisition to look for perceptions and your cognition speed.
what’s going on.” ways to predict the unpredictable.” Everything you remember gets some
“You really don’t know anything?” “That’s not…” Mavra made a meaningless details stripped off it,
the driver said, craning his neck back face. “Ugh. TNI was a private thing, otherwise you’d run out of storage
to boggle at me. “I mean, most of predated 9/11. Anyhow.” space. You don’t remember every
it’s online…” “The… the NSA was looking for time you’ve caught a baseball, but
“Just drive, OK?” He turned back, ways to comb data and find correla- your brain builds a model that says
and for a moment we were all quiet. tions that humans would miss. Stuff how baseballs go and it’s close enough.
“‘Enemies of America’?” I asked. that didn’t make human sense but that Especially given the tolerances of your
“Fine, one enemy.” held true? They’re still at it, in fact.You perception, which can barely tell one
“Wait, how do you…?” the driver know those dumb online quizzes? ball from another.” She took a breath.
started, but shut up when she gave Like, ‘Which Character from Moby “Same with the consistency of natural
him another glare through the rear- Dick are You?’ That kind of thing? law and reason and logic. They’re not
view mirror. I wasn’t so easily satisfied. That’s the most obvious point of their infallible. But we have to treat them
“What are we going to do?” data gathering.” as if they are or else.” She shrugged.
“Don’t worry about it.” I looked at Mavra and rolled “If we couldn’t count on gravity and
“No, I’m worried about it because my eyes, but she shook her head. physics, we’d never get anything done.
I saw my f… saw Danny disappear “Wait, online questionnaires are an We’d be too existentially paralyzed to
before my very eyes and turn into NSA trap?!?” leave the house.”
you, so I’m not letting you out of my “Not all of them, obviously,” she “But some NSA supercomputer saw
sight until he’s back in… what, about replied. “Some are corporate through all this?”
an hour?” marketing. Any time you see brands “Well, people did it before, too.
“You saw it?” The driver couldn’t mentioned, that’s probably a busi- That’s what TNI was all about, trying
contain himself. “You mean you actu- ness. And of course they let people to bridge human reality to real reality.
ally saw the transmogrification?” just throw together quizzes — the For fun and profit.” She shook her
“Drive!” she barked. pointless ones constructed for fun are head. “I knew of at least five people on
“Jesus, they were right when they protective coloration for the security staff who could do impossible things.
said you were rude,” he grumbled. and metadata sweeps.” Literal, exo-logical, anti-Newtonian
“Sorry, I don’t get out much.” “You’re kidding me.” eerie shit. Spells and miracles and daft
“Out of where? Hell?” I said.
mad stuff. This is our exit,” she added, When you’re sniffing after unknown “Wait!” The big sport ute was pulling
turning to Q. unknowns, you’re not going to get too away. “How can you…?”
“I know,” he replied. far on a diet of known knowns, right? “Because he took a ‘Which Dirtbike
“Where do you fit into this? How’d But synchronistic, seemingly random Hooker are You?’ quiz and got Donna.
Danny get involved?” stuff? That’s gold. Well. To get random No one else ever got Donna. Big, big
“I programmed GNOMON,” input, you have to cast a wide net.” red flag.” Her second bottle went onto
she said. “It’s not that different from the the roof with a looping underhand.
“Then the NSA killed her and the onion router,” Q said. I looked around. I don’t know why
computer brought her back from the “The what?” I was getting pretty I didn’t stop her. I guess I was still
dead,” Q said. tired of being ignorant. freaked out over the whole materi-
“What?!?” “The government put out this thing alization thing and all that whacko
“Not…” She winced. “Look, I don’t called Tor that’s a supposedly unbreak- conspiracy exo-logic chatter. No one
remember much about dying, so I able secure communication protocol, seemed to be around. No one opened
can’t say… and I don’t think the guys but to be really strong it has to have the front door at the sound of the
I worked with at the NSA would a lot of people running it, so they third bottle breaking.
do that kind of thing. They had no gave it away to everyone. All the drug “Aw, crap.” The fourth bottle had
motive. And I don’t know who else dealers and Mossad agents and money rebounded off the window and was
would have opportunity. But I guess launderers using it make it equally safe pouring out onto the lawn. “Well,
it’s possible. I mean, if you think about for spies.” here goes.”
it, who’s going to be able to zotz your “That’s really stupid,” I said. “Hey! How did Danny turn
ass without you even suspecting they “Stupid or not, they did it.” He into you?”
were planning it, if not the US intelli- pulled over. “He volunteered to switch places. It’s
gence services?” “Why are we stopping?” I asked. how he got his answers.”
“Let’s talk about… the computer, “Because we’ve arrived.” Mavra “What answers?” I asked, but she’d
um…” opened the door and shuffled out. struck the flare and overhanded it,
“GNOMON was built to model I followed. end-over-end at the front door.
human behavior, human beings, on “You’d think it could also simulate FWOOSH!
a paraphysical level, and none of us some wet-works psycho,” she grum- I just stared, like when you pass a
really knew what we were doing. We bled. She’d opened the gas tank and crash on the highway. I guess I was
just threw everything in the blender, was siphoning fuel into the bottles. in shock?
gutter magick and vodou, religion and “I’m not cut out for this.” “What did you do?” I cried. “WHAT
statistical analysis… I’m probably not “What are you doing?” DID YOU DO?”
actually me. Not the Mavra Piagetti “Getting ready to burn out a “WHAT DID YOU DO?” shrieked
who died anyhow. I’m about eighty terrorist. The dude in this house,” she a voice at my side, and I turned to see
percent certain that I’m a meta-real said, pointing at a nondescript ranch- Danny staring, aghast, at the burning
simulacrum that perfectly duplicated style, “Is building his very first ever house. “Jesus Christ, arson?!?”
dead Mavra. Like a tulpa.” bomb. He’s a baby Kaczynski, just Given what I knew about his feel-
“A what?” about to come out of his shell. He has ings, I shouldn’t have hugged him, but
“An externalized, tangible thought- no criminal record, a mostly harmless it’s a good thing I did, because when
form, c’mon,” Q said. psych jacket, his fingerprints aren’t the house really blew up, neither of us
“Danny found GNOMON online even on file. He,” she said, “Is the was looking at it.
because it’s supposed to be findable. very definition of an out-of-context
The most valuable information for it problem.” With a grunt, she hurled a
was not what we put into it, obviously. glass bottle against the front door.
 1: MEAT
APPENDIX
BOOKS FILMS
A Shroud for Waldo The Babadook

2: THROAT
Alias the Cat Beasts of the Southern Wild
American Elsewhere Intacto
The Bible Repairman Terribly Happy
Big Machine
Black Hole PODCASTS AND RADIO
Clean Room Limetown
John Dies at the End Snap Judgment: Spooked I-V

3: SMALL
Magic for Beginners Tanis
MIND MGMT
The Mishkin File
The Prague Cemetery
Spellbound
Spook
Uzumaki

4: BIGGER
5: LAYERS
6: REDUX
7: VEIL
8: BESEIGED
9: SELVES
10: MEDIA

90