[UA] Re: Re: London (was American attitudes and things)

[Mattias Östklint]

Supermarket otherspace?

Mattias


----- Message from "David Tormsen" <tormsen at gmail.com> on Fri, 19 Jan 2007 
12:55:12 +0800 -----
To:
"The Unknown Armies RPG Mailing List" <ua at lists.unknown-armies.com>
Subject:
Re: [UA] Re: London (was American attitudes and things)
On 1/18/07, David M Jacobs <davidmichaeljacobs at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Thus, they began to infiltrate food distributors and supermarkets, 
pushing
> for more explicit food labelling and backing organic produce and non-GM
> foods.  The Protectors of the British Aisles were born.
>
> Does that work?
>
>

Nice, that works well.

I had a different take on it though. I was thinking about how the
sorts of places adepts were likely to end up working would be fast
food and retail. So it makes sense for loose cabals and organisations
of adepts to form in these places, leading to the Maks and the PotBA.
I was trying to think of someway of giving my version of the PotBA an
edge.

Here's my thoughts. In Ancient Egypt and Ursula K Le Guin novels,
there was the concept of a "true name", which must be kept secret,
lest people have power to work spells over you. Now, I've noticed some
people at my workplace have a tendency, for irreverant or mildly
sociopathic reasons, to wear nametags with false names while working.

So lets say that a retail mage discovers or creates a ritual, sort of
like a proxy ritual, which binds a person to the namebadge. Now, this
namebadge is very important, for it becomes the means in which the
person can affect and be affected by magick. The upside is that while
a person bound to a namebadge with their name on it, they can wear a
different namebadge with a random common name like Gary or Mike
instead; and while they are wearing the false namebadge they are
immune to the effects of magick.

This ability to cloak and defend oneself would be what gives the PotBA
the ability to form a powerful and potent cabal. But there is a
downside. Adepts and Avatars linked to a namebadge can only use their
abilities while they are wearing their own badge, and if someone
manages to steal your badge, well, you're fucked. That badge is your
magick and your soul and in the hands of your enemies is the most
potent weapon against you.

As to what they're agenda is, I dunno. If I was running it I'd
probably steal a few of David Jacob's ideas :-P.

I tried to come up with ideas for a magickal supermarket mileau. I can
see kleptomancers trying to get charges at work while avoiding the
ever-vigilant manager and the security cams. I see grand narratives
developing around the petty issues of work gossip and politics, and
the opportunaty for many unconscious avatars. Some of the characters
at my work seem Lynchian enough for UA (the baker with the red-rimmed
who looks like he's perpetually on crack, who's body ordour I can
detect in the taste of the store-baked bread; the bizarre twins who
speak with lisps and give out weird looks constantly, one who works in
deli the other in fresh produce).

How about some mythic figure whispered about by retail adepts, never
seen but only heard, believed to dish out enlightenment and death at
equal turns, the legendary He Who Walks Between the Aisles. OK, maybe
getting a bit silly.





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