Better late than never.

Description: The Mad Scientist is a fairly recent archetype, younger than many of the best known, such as the Fool or the True King, but older than more “modern” ideals such as the Flying Woman. The original archetype was the Eccentric Inventor, a largely European concept, from the time when science was often a hobby of the aristocracy and well-to-do.

This changed with the advent of electricity and its mysterious properties. Whereas the moving parts of mechanical innovations, such as elaborate music boxes or crude automata (and some which were not so crude) were merely refinements to principles used for thousands of years and wagons and weapons, electricity was new and by extension terrifying. In the minds of many, it was the ultimate expression of mankind’s hubris, taking the sacred lightning from the gods and chaining it to do mundane tasks such as lighting and cooking.

It didn’t help that electrical equipment could be used to make freshly dead bodies grimace, twitch, or spasm.

When Mary Shelley’s novel was turned into a movie, Frankenstein finally added enough pressure to the collective unconscious to replace the benevolent (if scatter-brained) aristocrat with the man with ambitions arguably beyond his station. Instead of being born to wealth or title or knowledge, he sought to take it from the world by force.

The archetype’s power has grown exponentially as more and more uses for science to destroy or ruin life have been found. Nuclear warheads, nerve gas, germ warfare, and so on seem to cement the Mad Scientist’s place in the Clergy, but that could soon change; more and more of science’s ills are being heaped onto irresponsible businessmen greedy for profit, leaving the playing field potentially open for a return to a more positive incarnation, such as The Man Too Clever For His Own Good, The Absent-Minded Intellectual, or The Inventive Slacker. In the meantime, mad scientists can choose to use their knowledge and skill to benefit themselves or others; regardless of intentions, someone will probably get hurt.

Symbols: The greatest symbol is the white lab coat. Eyeglasses or safety goggles are also potent. Baldness was once a very strong symbol in the 50s, but now it has expanded to cover unkempt hair also. For female avatars, a shaved head can go a long way. Physical deformity, crippling injuries, and scars were once very important symbols that set the Mad Scientist apart from the rest of humanity, but now prosthetics and other technology that helps compensate for such differences is just as strong. Even if the avatar does not know anything about chemistry, having chemistry equipment set up in his/her mystic sanctum is very helpful.

Masks: Lex Luthor (America), Victor Frankenstein (America/Europe), Rotwang (Metropolis)

Suspected Avatars In History: It’s possible Nikolai Tesla was channeling the Mad Scientist when he developed the principles behind alternatic current motors and generators, fighting Thomas Edison, the advocate of direct current electrical power; they may even have been rivals for the Godwalker position. Other possibilities include Dr. Ishii Shiro of the Imperial Japanese Army, who did extensive biological and germ warfare research on Chinese soldiers and civilians, and even more negatively, Dr. Josef “Todesengel” Mengele, infamous for his experiments on the inmates of the Auschwitz prison camp during the Nazi regime. On the other side of the coin, Albert Einstein may have channeled the Mad Scientist more positively to develop Relativity Theory, and some suspect that it was he, not Tesla, that ascended to the Invisible Clergy.

Taboo: The Mad Scientist is almost always driven by the shadows of past failures or humiliations. The negative side of the archetype is usually out for revenge, and while this can mean killing a person or group of people, it can also mean humiliation and vindication of the Mad Scientist’s theories, or some combination of the two. The positive side, while not acting to the detriment of humanity, is certainly not at ease with humanity; all that time spent studying and experimenting instead of interacting with other people means that the social skills of the mad scientist, as well as his ability to be comfortable with others, is impaired.

In game terms, no Mad Scientist can have a social interaction skill higher than 30%. This includes Charm, Lie, Seduce, Acting, Bluffing, or anything similar. Also, since a Mad Scientist is driven by past injuries, he must have at least one failed mark in Helplessness, Isolation, or Violence. He does not have to be out and out crazy, but he does have to be a little disturbed. If a Mad Scientist ever removes all failed notches, he cannot use his Avatar: Mad Scientist skill until he fails another stress check.

Channels

1-50%: Shield of Hubris. Whenever faced with a stress check against the Self gauge, the Mad Scientist has limited protection against the idea that they might be in the wrong. If the rank of the stress check is lower than the tens place of the Avatar’s Mad Scientist skill, then that check is automatically negated. The avatar does not receive a hardened or failed notch.

51-70%: New and Improved. By fiddling with any mundane machine for a few days, the Mad Scientist can make a particular feature twice as good, even if that would violate the laws of physics as commonly understood. These improvements remain even if the avatar is killed or loses the avatar status, but tinkering by any thumb-fingered normal person will break that improvement. These upgrades take a number of days to complete equal to the Avatar skil minus the roll used for the innovation.

Example: Mike Patterson has an Avatar: Mad Scientist skill of 40%. To save money, he decides to poke around in his car’s engine and add to the gas mileage, which is now an average of about 30 mpg. He rolls a 12. After 28 (40-12=28) days of work, he’s gotten the car to get 60 mpg on the same amount of gas.

71-90%: It’s Alive! At this level, Mad Scientists can create new forms of life or pseudo life, similar to the way a Mechanomancer does. On the plus side, the Mad Scientist is not limited to the technology of the 1880s. The downside is that it takes a spot of luck to develop anything higher than the equivalent of a minor clockwork.

These creations can be purely mechanical, electromechanical, biochemical, computerized, or whatever field the avatar is most comfortable with. The rules for construction follow the rules for creating Clockworks. The equivalent number of minor charges that goes into the creation are equal to the sum of the roll to create it; the roll itself is how long it takes to make. If a match is rolled, then the equivalent of one significant charge can go into the creature. A Critical Success or 01 means the equivalent of three significant charges.

Finally, this channel can only be used to create machines and creatures. It cannot be used to modify them, say to increase their intelligence so they can perform more tasks. It’s all or nothing.

Example: Mike Patterson wants to build a robotic attack dog for protection and companionship. He rolls against his Avatar: Mad Scientist skill of 40% and gets 29. After almost a month in the machine shop, the robodog is complete, with Body 50, Speed 70, and an attack skill of 40%. However, the robodog is only intelligent enough to know when Mike wants somebody attacked and when to stop. Unless he builds another dog, he will have nobody to play fetch with.

91-98%: Playing God. With a succesful roll against his avatar skill, a Mad Scientist can build/do/grow something that every leading scientist in the world would say is impossible. Antigravity machinery, laser guns, cloned dinosaurs, earthquake generators, and even mind control are within the grasp of a smart enough mad man — but there’s a catch. In addition to the time and energy required to pull off this kind of stuff, there’s a huge risk of failure and serious injury to consider. Explosions, accidentally evolving superplagues, space-time warps that can erase people from reality… the list goes on. Play with fire and there’s a chance you get burned.

To build such a project anyway, the avatar skill is rolled. The time required to finish the project is equal to the Avatar skill minus the roll to create the project, only instead of days, it’s measured in weeks. If a fumble, matched failure, or even simple failure gets rolled, the project goes up in flames before it can even get off the ground; the exact nature of this disaster is up to the GM, but should be relevant to the project — you’re not going to be electrocuted if you botch the raptor DNA resequencing, and you won’t catch the superflu virus if your laser gun shorts out.

Example: Mike Patterson is in love with some girl, and in typical back-asswards fashion, decides to grow a new type of flower to give her. He rolls against his skill of 40% and gets a 58. Less than an hour after he planted a new genetically engineered seed, some sort of green monster like the Pirahna Plant from the Super Mario Bros. games has taken root in the lab and is trying to eat everything in site, including its maker. Even with the robodog helping to weed the killer flower out, it still takes a big bite out of Mike’s leg, sticking him in the hospital for a while.

Final Note: Mind Control Technology is not as fun as it sounds. No matter how persuasive, forceful, or intimidating the message sent, the person cannot be MADE to do anything, what with free will and all. Use the rules for Cliomancy, Pornomancy, and Amoromancy spells for any such technology, but allow the target to resist with a Soul roll higher than the roll used to create the machine itself.