A compassionate variant of Thanatomancy.
Like thanatomancy, this school is about life and death. However, while thanatomancy focuses on the death, Euthanatomancy focuses on the dying individual. Rather than death as destruction, it treats death as the fulfillment of life.
Euthanatomancers are uncommonly social creatures as adepts go; they have a deep empathy with their fellow living beings. From the point of view of “normal” people their priorities come across as messed up, however. If you tell someone you want to kill yourself, most people’s first reflex would be to try to talk you out of it; an euthanatomancer, however, would want to help you go through with it.
Symbolic Tension: normally, death is something every living creature tries to avoid. The paradox of this school comes from death that is not feared, but desired.
Nicknames: euthanist, Kevorkian.
Charging
Generate a minor charge: euthanize an animal that is better off dead – e.g. a terminally sick one. This must be done with care and attention, comforting the animal and gently sending it off to its final journey.
Generate a significant charge: euthanize a person, as above, or kill a person who genuinely desires to die. The latter is actually more potent mojo – if someone genuinely wants you to kill them, without coercion or magickal trickery, doing so will give two significant charges. Again, you must commit the deed reverentially, with attention and care for the person whose life you are taking. You must do it exactly the way the person wants to, within reasonable limits. If they want it to be painless, it can’t hurt even a little. If they want to be holding the hand of a loved one when they die, that person must be there, participating willingly. If they want to die in the throes of orgasm, you must get them off or no charges for you.
Taboo: killing any creature in a non-ceremonial context. If you mistakenly euthanize something unnecessarily (e.g. an animal you thought was terminally ill) or fail to fulfill a voluntary victim’s desires to their satisfaction, you get no charge but it doesn’t count as taboo violation as long as you acted in good faith and made a genuine effort.
You also lose your charges if you don’t show proper respect for the dead – and this includes animals. An euthanatomancer can cook and eat meat, but must do so respectfully and with gratitude to the creature for the nourishment it provides.
Random Magick Domain: life, death, and desire.
Blast Style: euthanatomancy has no blast. Nonconsensual violence in general is anathema to this school.
Charging tips: the easiest way to gain minor charges is to work as a vet. Gaining significant charges is quite a bit harder, especially in countries without legalized euthanasia (which is most of them). As far as charging up goes, this is definitely not an easy school.
Starting charges: new euthanatomancer characters start out with three minor charges.
Minor Formulae
Escape the Pain
1 minor charge
This spell heals damage equal to the ones place of the roll.
I Shall Not Fear Death
3 minor charges
The target becomes fearless of death and physical suffering for an hour. During this period, he can ignore all Stress Checks resulting from danger or injury to himself; other Stress Checks are still made normally. E.g. he would not need to make a Violence check when attacked or a Helplessness check when held captive by a potential killer, but he’d still have to make checks normally for any violence he commits himself. Being under the influence of this spell may block the target from invoking his Fear passion, depending on what it is.
Release the Bonds
5 minor charges
This spell sends a revenant or demon beyond the Veil, terminating any possession or haunting. The creature can resist the spell by making a successful Soul check that is higher than the spell roll, but doing so leaves it exhausted and unable to do anything for an hour.
Rest in Peace
4 minor charges
The target slips into a trance. Sensory impulses fade away, and all motivations and pressing needs no longer matter; he’s content to just sit calmly in place, ignoring all that goes on around him. This lasts for half an hour; however, if something disturbs him enough, e.g. he’s prodded, in the middle of combat, etc. he can roll Mind at the start of each round to act normally. As soon as the disturbance passes, however, he slips back into his reverie.
Show Me Your Heart
2 minor charges
The target feels compelled to confess his most secret desire. To resist the urge, he must keep silent for an hour; if he tries to say anything during this period, he’ll blurt the confession out.
Significant Formulae
Guiding Hand of Fate
1 significant charge
This spell is identical to the Pornomancy spell Synchronicity (UA2, p. 155).
Life Goes On
1 significant charge
This spell will keep the target from aging for the next six months.
Successor
2 significant charges
For the next six hours, you can use any single skill possessed by someone you’ve ceremonially killed within the last year, at the same level they had it; this ignores attribute limits. It can even be an Adept or Avatar skill, but if you choose such a skill it replaces your Euthanatomancy skill, which is unavailable for you for the duration. You do not get to flip-flop rolls with this skill, even if the skill was the donor’s Obsession skill.
While using the borrowed skill, you will display some of the mannerisms and body language of its donor.
A school I was inspired to write after reading a fucked up little guro manga.
You may notice it doesn’t say anything about major charges; this is because I couldn’t think of a good way to gain them. Thanatomancy’s method (“kill a singificant person”) didn’t feel right for the school – an euthanist who doesn’t treat every patient as equally significant is Doing it Wrong(tm).
How absolutely fucking bent – I love it!
Still, it’s not a minor school, so it should be able to generate Major Charges.
I suggest branching off the Significant method. You get a major for giving The Good Death to someone, such that they feel utter fulfillment in the moment of expiration. All the conditions for double-sigs apply, plus:
You must ensure that their lives are utterly fulfilled. If they die with a single wish unfulfilled or a single nagging doubt, you get no Major – but you do get a sig.
At the very least, this involves finding out the patient’s Obsession and Passions. resolving them as best you can.
Major Effects: Ensure that you die The Good Death, having fulfilled your purpose – but not always in the way you prefer. Change a society’s view of death. Curse someone with wretched eternal life, sans eternal youth.
That sounds like a pretty good fit. Thanks!
I thought of another good Major effect.
Make someone immortal until they fulfill some grand goal, chosen when the immortality is granted (similar to a Pilgrim quest); if they ever succeed in their quest, they die.
I don’t know, I kinda like the idea that it doesn’t have enough metaphysical oomph to get a major charge. That giving death isn’t quite as powerful as taking life.
(Thus making these guys and thantomancers even more twitchy around each other.)
Or how about in order to Generate a Major charge you have Euthenise an entire Culture or Race which would be better off dead?
No, a culture or race is just a collection of individuals. For a Major, I’m thinking you’d need to euthanize an Archetype.
I like the concept of euthanizing an archetype, there. But it seems to me that shouldn’t be known ahead of time. That’s a goal to be found out.
I’m all for leaving this school without a major.
And WOO! How come I wasn’t told this place was back?
Well done! I like the idea, but at the same time, I’m not sure that “compassion” has any place in a game of transcendental horror.
As for a major, I think that the school works without it. However if it was to have it, I think the major would be generated by swaying the public or world’s opinion on compassionate death. (for example making euthanasia more acceptable or making vegetarianism more common.) As for what the charge could do: Perhaps remove a terminal ailment from the world, cause people of the world to have more respect for a specific dead person, or maybe bring a dead person back to life until they have accomplished some task.
I’d suggest treating the major like Elemental majors. “No one’s been able to pull it off yet, but there are theories.” That way you can put down the “euthanize someone after fulfilling their every wish,” and “euthanize an archetype.”
A “what you hear” type rumour and possible plot seed:
There is an Euthanatomancer out there who hosts a sort of “suicide club” cabal. She helps her followers – mostly morbid teenagers – commit suicide in various creative ways, while recording the whole event.
The videos are then spread online through secret channels, helping to recruit new members – some of these recruits will be the next in line to star in a death video themselves, while others support the cabal’s activities financially.
A few members of the cabal’s “outer circle” are actually Thanatoscopists. They gain significant charges from viewing the videos, and can cause a lot of trouble to anyone who starts hassling the cabal.