[UA] The Reality Mechanics: Chronomancy

[Luke Pendo]

from: Jade Hammons
Charging Scheme:
> Chromonmancers have no capacity to store charges, storing charges
> would require manipulating time, and would  therefore be admitting that
> time has some form of control over them. Instead the chronomancer
> accepts total control over a moment for the equivalent of reaching into
> Time's guts and pulling out a bunch of wires you aren't really sure it
> needs. Cause ceases to follow effect, everything happens at once,
> and the Chronomancer untethers for just a moment (or forever... it's
> so hard to tell)


This scheme works well for another school I had in mind - quantamancy.

Quantamancy takes the idea that quantum mechanics allows anything, so long
as no one notices. It's the magic of uncertainty. In any moment there's a
nonzero chance anything could happen. Over a small enough time frame,
everything happens, it just disappears before anyone can notice.

The Quantum Mechanic expand his wavefunction, reaches into the other
possibilities that weren't, and pulls effects from them.


This might be a bit restrictive as a taboo for a player school, but it's
nice for a shadowy NPC.

Taboo:
You can only perform your mojo as a an expanded wavefunction. Anything that
pins you down in the eyes of others, whether they know who you are, what
you've done, or where you are, collapses you. Observation is the bane of the
Quantum Mechanic.



from: Courtney
That sounds interesting, but I think that your symbolic tension definitely
has to involve the chronomancer being a slave to Artificial time.  In UA you
don't get to have your cake and eat it too.  In order to become somethings
master, you must become its slave.  The taboos you've set up don't really
reflect that.  Irascomancers don't get to be angry, Personamancers don't get
to be themselves, Chronomancers shouldn't be able to follow Natural Time.


Ah! Yes. Chronomancers free themselves from the cage of Artificial Time,
only to discover that they can't work magick unless they trap themselves in
another cage.


Taboo:
In addition to the strictures against accepting Artificial Time, all
Chronomancers must have a ritual object, called here the Master Clock. The
Master Clock ticks out their bubble of Personal Time. Chronomancers must
always, always be aware of the tick of _their_ time to use their magic.

Further, to maintain the potency of the magick, the Master Clock must be
nearby the Chronomancer at all times. In addition, to hold charges it must
always be functioning and giving accurate time.


Chronomancers free themselves from the cage of Artificial Time only to
realize that they have to create and entrap themselves in a new cage.
Chronomancers must always, always, listen to the tick tock of their murder
of Natural Time.


Incidentally, I haven't read that Cliver Barker story. Should I try to find
it?


-Luke
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