Chance’ll be a fine thing…
All the self help books go on and on about positive thoughts, be optimistic they say.
So you hype yourself up, only to get your shiny new suit covered in bird shit a few steps outside the interview.
Then when you tried to clean it up in the toilets, the faucet breaks and sprays water all over your crotch. Not that something like this hasn’t happened to you a million times before.
Now of course you know better than to think positive. You know the universe, while not neccesarily cruel, has a sick sense of humour and just loves to surprise you.
You have found power in failure and bad luck. Now it’s time for pay back, what could possibly go wrong?
The origins of Pessimancy are pretty recent, and was, according to rumour, simultaneously and independently invented by an Entropomancer who had just lost another leg, three totally unconnected middle managers and the person who caused SIV to jump from monkeys to humans (you know who you are).
The paradox of pessimancy is that success is found only through failure, and through failure you turn your bad luck into good luck.
Taboo: Optimism, hope. A Pessimemancer can never be hopeful or expectant of success in any future endeavour, a Fuckup should always be (at least internally) surprised by anything good that happens.
Winning streaks or the regular absence of ‘bad luck’ will also break taboo, the Fuckup should be earning at least minor charges regularly or else they lose everything and risk gaining an optimistic demeanour. bad luck directly caused by other people’s magick will also stop you from breaking taboo, but cannot earn you charges.
Generate a minor charge: Attempt to do something, and fail. This can either be a skill check or you can have your plans thwarted through misfortune and/or outside influence. Note that you must have the ability, opportunity and will to succeed, but fail anyway. You have to want to succeed at your task or else. this is magick of misfortune and pessimism, it’s the emotional ties you have to the outcome that matter more than the losing itself really does.
Generate a significant charge: Fail spectacularly at an endeavour, matched fails, fumbles, inadvertant maiming, be creative and go wild. GM’s Discretion on what does and doesn’t count as “spectacular” of course.
Again, purposeful acts of failure would not get the charge.
Generate a major charge: No one really knows a sure fire way score a major, some believe it requires a fuck up that would effect the majority of humanity, which causes some to look suspisciously at the ‘inventor’ of HIV.
Another major may require a supreme act of self sacrifice, that ultimately fails and makes the sacrifice pointless an d unneccesary, obviously.
Charging tips: Pessimemancers are the weak, stupid, cursed and are usually well out of their depth, those that survive for any amount of time in the underground are often mistaken for body bags due to the ever escalating risks they take or epedermancers due to the huge amount of scars they have often earned.
Formalised gambling (such as horse races or card games) may seem like a simple way to charge up but is in reality an awkward and costly way to earn charges, as even a minor requires losing enough to seriously affects your life, a sig is estimated to cost every single bit of currency you currently have and/or all of your earthly possessions, though no one is certain enough to deem it worth the risk unsurprisingly.
Random magick domains: Bad luck in general and other people’s expectations in particular.
Blast style: random painful or embarrassing accidents befall the victim. What precisely happens cannot be consciously controlled by the Fuckup.
Starting charges: Pessimemancers usually start with no charges (not that they’re surprised) and have just trod in some dog shit.
Minor formula spells:
The kicked puppy effect
cost: 3 minor charges
This warps the target’s perceptions of you, impressing apon them exactly how unlucky you yourself think you are. This will of course elicit sympathy from some and definately give you a +10% shift to lie, deception or other subterfuge type checks you might make regarding them. Lasts for 1 day.
The Wilt effect
cost: 5 minor charges, 1 additional charge for every day the effect lasts.
Will cause any statements by the target to appear false, regardless of it’s believeability or any proof they ‘just happen’ to have. lasts for 1 day.
Fate’s bitchslap
Cost: 1 minor charge.
Minor blast. causes some nearby object to inconvenience the victim in some painful and often embarrassing/humorous ways.
Two Fuckups slinging Bitchslaps at each other have often been mistaken for improvised slapstick routines.
Significant Formula spells
What else could possibly go wrong?
Cost: 2 Sig Charge.
Causes murphy’s law to kick in in the most dramatic and chaotic way possible, inadvertantly leveling the playing field between you and your adversaries. All the doors in a prison will spontaneously unlock, creating a huge distraction for the guards while you try to escape, unfortunately, it will also present Bubba and his gang the opportunity to knock you down a peg or two, you uppity little pissant.
Well, it could be worse.
Cost: 3 Sig charges
Will cause a random enemy, or group of enemies, to find you completly by accident, if used while being pursued or in the middle of fighting one of your enemies, someone who hates both you and the person currently giving you trouble will usually show up and enter the fray, enabling chaos and confusion to ensue. Make of it what you will.
One of those weeks
Cost: 2 Sig charge +1 Sig charge per day the effects are supposed to last for.
Causes the target to suffer 10 minor blast effects per day for every additional charge put in. 3 Sig charges equals a one day duration.
He came out of nowhere!
Cost: 2 Sig charge.
Significant Blast. causes the target to suffer some near fatal accident as soon as is apt. Take care crossing the road…
Worse things happen at sea.
Cost: 5 Sig charges.
Will randomly cause one motorised vehicle to spontaneously breakdown in a life threatening fashion some where within a mile of your location.
Invented and named during a 2 week drinking binge for reasons that made absolute sense at the time i’m sure…
The cute little kitten with a broken paw effect
Cost: 4 Sig charges.
Significant variant of ‘The kicked puppy effect’. Lasts 1 week and affects everyone you meet.
Major Effects
Nothing better than rumours really, but in theory you could curse some with constant (but mildly avoidable) minor blasts for the rest of their short life or forever brand someone as a liar in the eyes of others.
What you hear…
The incredibly skeptical medical worker who inadvertantly caused SIV to mutate into HIV back in the late 60’s picked up a major charge, got sucked through a time warp into the future and became one of the many founders of this school. Shortly afterwards, the medical worker lost the major, but has no idea how.
Some say he accidently juiced up a passing black cat, who now causes random acts of Minor misfortune and bad luck for any who cross it’s path.
one of those weeks seems a bit overpowered, I mean, that will kill a guy in a day, two days max… The charging system is a bit strange, you have to go out and do stuff to get charges, and not only that, you have to go out and WANT to do stuff to get charges. And these things you want to do should be difficult! Minmaxing a character like this should be easy: 15 in everything (so you have automatic sucesses on everything insignificant and fail (charge) in everything else) and as much as possible in this school (since it’s the only skill where failures won’t give you charges)
How about if Minor and significant charges come from significant and major skill checks? Hmmm, still doesn’t quite work… The school is a lot like entropomancy (I took a risk – I deserve luck) Pessimancy (I had a bad break – I deserve a good break), only a LOT less dangerous and a bit trickier to follow. The spells should reflect this, I think. Needs rework, but has a good solid paradox (I want to succed in failing).
I REALLY like that you don’t write how you get a Major charge!
Damn, how did i miss one of those weeks?
make the effect more like, causes the target to produce 10 random pessimemancer minor blasts for ever extra sig put into it, like the cat who ate the major, the blasts cannot directly effect the target but rather effects thsoe around him, could see this version being cast on health care workers just for kicks, or on the adept himself just give himself an air of intimidation and menace.
the minor charging system is barely adequate, definately tried to tie it to the paradox too much. maybe something a bit more cerebral, requiring the adepts hopes to be dashed in someway and/or suffer an accident that reinforces his fatalistic world view.
might change the blasts about as well, have the minor blast become the sig blast, and get rid of minor blasts entirely.
tempted to keep the sig charging method, make the minor easier and then strengthen and definately simplify the taboo
had more of a haphazard charging system in mind originally, with the adept breaking taboo constantly one week and then picking up more sigs than he knows what do with the next.
Errata: Another possible major charging scheme might involve fucking up in a way that would kill off one of the adept’s long term hopes/dreams/goals. Inadvertantly killing off your one true love might work, so all you’ve got to do is pick up this gun, aim it in her general direction, close your eyes and pull the trigger. If you miss I swear I’ll let you both go…
Cool idea. I like the paradox also.
Although, ‘One of the those weeks’ is a bit powerful.
Maybe if it caused the embarrassing effects of minor charges, but without the damage of them?
Another idea, working off the second idea of the spell, and the failing aspect: 3 sigs
Whenever the spell is cast, for an amount of time determined by the GM (or possibly the ten digits of the roll) all skill rolls within a 33 ft radius of the caster are automatic failures. Excluding stress checks, Major charges, and second level and above avatar powers.
Just an idea.