AKA Jetsetters, VFF’s, Flyboys/Flygirls

It already starts on the road. Before you’re allowed inside, the uniformed guards will order you, politely but firmly, aside, and you and yours and the vehicle you came in will be thoroughly inspected. You stand, after all, at a threshold; about to enter a place that’s both legally and symbolically further away from the outside world and closer to the sky. That entails having certain standards. There are ways that you have to behave and you mustn’t, and you better not be carrying anything that was deemed forbidden.

If you aren’t, you might be allowed to proceed; you will carry your belongings with you and be permitted to join the throngs pouring into the outer sanctum in a cacophonous, turbulent ecstasy. If you’ve never been there before, it is likely that the view will awe you. You might find yourself dwarfed against an immense space, with ceilings so high you can barely see their details and huge, tall windows that let-in light. These places are usually beautiful – they don’t skimp on the architects hired to design them. There’s prestige in having built them.

In all likelihood, a big part of the place will be given to merchants of every kind to peddle their wares. The prices are exorbitant, but where else will you go? Besides, this isn’t just some everyday occasion. You’ll probably let yourself splurge. You’ll buy food and maybe a gift for somebody while you wait for the lines to begin forming before the appearance of the lower functionaries. You’ll wait as long as you need, and when it is finally your turn they’ll look down upon you aloofly and ask whence you’ve come and where you’re going. You will hand them your package with trembling hands to be weighted, and if they’ve not found it offensive, you’ll have little trouble progressing. You’ll know that your journey is only beginning: the guards watching over the gates of heaven are as imposing as they’re known to be merciless, and they will test your virtue and subject you to an inquisition before deciding whether you’re worthy. Then, and only then, having gone through the ritual cleansing, removed your shoes and your garments and given away your earthly possessions, will you be allowed to pass into the oracle. There, huddled in hope and anxiety, countless others like you sit restlessly and raise their gazes to watch for the signs: for the indication that their time of ascension is close, and the horrible possibility that it may not be coming.

Once upon a time, they’d have called you a pilgrim. Nowadays, they’ll call you on the intercom thrice.

You don’t want to miss your flight.

Aviomancy isn’t the magick of flight: it is, specifically, the magick of commercial air travel, with its very distinctive system of symbols and associations. It doesn’t concern itself merely with movement through the air – in fact, that might be the least important part of the aviomancer’s obsession. Rather, it deals with the culture, laws, perceptions and experience that surround flight for those involved with this 837 billion dollar industry, in whatever capacity. They practice the sorcery of gate and terminal, delve into the arcana of air attendants and roundtrip, layover and duty free shopping. Their charging rituals are prohibitively expensive for the average adept and their taboo incredibly punishing, but within the limits of their paradoxically confining, globe-spanning realm they can be a force to be reckoned with.

Note: Let’s get this out of the way first: this is not a good School for PC’s. Between the inconvenient charging scheme, the crippling taboo, the niche abilities and rarely staying in one place for long, a campaign practically has to be tailored around an entire aviomancer cabal to function with one. Rather, I think that this School does two things: firstly, it could make for an interesting School for a GMC adept. They could either be a hard-to-catch antagonist with some very unusual ways of indirectly harming the PC’s, or they could be the kind of temporary ally one searches for when they need some very specific assistance. Second: I think it highlights an aspect of the Occult Underground which isn’t really addressed often but may be implied, which is that it consists of some groups of people which rarely interact with others. Some types of chargers – maybe even a lot of them – are just so uniquely weird in such idiosyncratic ways that they don’t have much to offer others and don’t get in their way. Aviomancers are an example of the type.

STATS

Generate a Minor Charge: Finish a commercial airflight, from the moment you board the plane in one airport to the moment you disembark at another (and it has to be another airport – you can’t just go on one of those flights that circles around once and lands so that the passengers can abuse the duty free store). It is crucial that you do this correctly, too: you can’t just steal an airplane and land it somewhere, or stowaway in the luggage compartment. You need to follow the procedures of a “proper” commercial flight, whether as a crew member (performing all of your normal duties) or passenger (passing through the security check, sitting down, putting your seatbelt on, etc.), the plane must legally lift off in a proper airport and it must land in another. You’re free to do other things during the flight, so long as you ensure to also follow all the “key steps”. On a transatlantic journey, you’ve plenty of time to murder a fellow passenger and hide the body – just make sure you’re seated down again by the time the sign lights up.

Generate a Significant Charge: Finish a commercial airflight, as for a minor charge, landing in an airport you’ve never landed in before. At the moment, the US alone has at least 503 airports that accept commercial flights, Mexico has another 67 and Canada has 128, more open every year, and that’s before you’ve even left North America. An aviomancer can get a significant charge for each one, the first time they land there. Afterwards, the airport will only ever provide them with minor charges. Naturally, the vast majority of those airports are located in places nobody’s ever heard off and or has any reason to travel to, but part of the core paradox of aviomancy is that it doesn’t matter where you land, it only matters that you flew there.  

Generate a Major Charge: Finish a commercial flight, as above, with it being the first ever commercial flight of a new type of airplane (major derivative types, like the Boeing 747 MAX, also count as “new” for that purpose). Generally, these events happen about once every 1-3 years somewhere in the world. The debut flight of the A321XLR was in November 2024 from Madrid to Paris, before that the MAX 200 had its first revenue flight in June 2021 from Dublin to London, November 2020 had the A330-800 going from Kuwait to Dubai and then 2019 was a dry year after three models in 2018. They usually carry the full, normal complement of passenger, meaning there are several hundred opportunities to be on one each time. The main problem faced by aviomancers, as by other flight fanatics who are in it as a hobby (or because a lot of the time these debut flights include special amenities, souvenirs and prizes) is ensuring that one of those spots goes to them. You can’t normally request to go on an inaugural flight; you just buy a normal ticket and have to luck out into being on one, on either a lottery or first-come-first-serve basis. Finding a ticket for any flight on a major, busy route can be tricky in the best of times, and lucking-out into being assigned a seat on one airplane rather than another even moreso. The alternative is to wait for a debut flight that auctions the tickets as part of some special promotion or charity event – but in these ones, tickets can end up costing tens of thousands of dollars or more. Normally, aviomancers have no problem finding a seat on any flight using their spells, but the magickal Law of Transaction prevents charging up using charges. Experimental aviomancers have found, by trial and error, that the “key” moment seems to be legally buying or otherwise acquiring the seat. You can use magic to reach the airport, pass security or sneak into the first-class lounge, but you must get the seat on the flight by mundane means or you forfeit the major charge (you can still get a significant or minor charge upon landing, as normal, depending on whether you’ve been to the destination before).  

Taboo: Aviomancy flies only within the symbolic airspace of the halfway realm of the commercial flight industry and closely associated extensions. This basically means airplanes, airports, and the means and places one goes from airports. “Airports”, in this context, doesn’t cover just the terminal buildings but also the airside (the authorized personnel and/or ticketed passenger restricted areas, like the runways, aprons, and hangers), the landside (the areas within the property of the airport but outside the security perimeter, like the parking lots and public transportation hubs), attached aviation businesses like maintenance facilities, and extending all the way out to the legal limits of the airport. “Means and places one goes from airports” means any establishment reached via vehicle from the airport or another one that was. In other words, a jetsetter can take a taxi at the airport to drive them up to a hotel outside its boundaries and walk freely within the hotel, all without breaking taboo. They can even, then, take another taxi from the hotel (provided they don’t have to cross the street on foot to enter it), drive up to a car rental lot, get in one, then drive it to a train station and take the train to another airport for their flight back home. However, if at any point during this process they step onto sidewalk inbetween to reach somewhere else, they stall, nosedive, and lose all their charges.

And before one asks: yes, “establishments” precludes going into any private residences, including the jetsetter’s own. Aviomancers are not the type of travelers who think fondly of coming back home.

Starting Charges: Flypeople begin play with 8 minor charges in the tank.

Charging Tips: First thing first: you’re going to break taboo. It’s practically inevitable. Living one’s entire life in the air or on the road isn’t feasible for the type of people whose socioeconomic status affords frequent flying. Accept it and learn how to best deal with it. Spend your charges so that you aren’t left with too many going to waste at the end of your trip when you need to return home.

Second, and the other big thing to get out of the way: don’t be poor. Aviomancy is, for the most part, an upper-middle-class-and-above club. The average cost of a domestic flight in the US is about 400$. Aim to be the kind of person who can afford two a day or so for meaningful periods of time. A lot of aviomancers actually started out as the type of businessmen who fly around a ton for meetings, which is how their flight obsession was born, and also how they can afford the lifestyle.

Still, learn how to cut costs when possible: book your flights early and take advantage of sales and deals. Compare prices. Travel more during off-peak times when tickets cost less. Embrace your inner degenerate: red-eye flight that departs at 3:42 AM from the middle of nowhere? Optimal. A flight class below economy where there’s no legroom, no luggage allowed, and you aren’t allowed to ask for water? Completely acceptable. The airline reserves the right to take you behind the terminal and shoot you in the head at any moment? Cool. A layover that forces you to sprint through security to get to your next flight before it leaves and then another stop forty minutes later in a place with no public bathrooms? Even better. You’re cutting costs and gaining another significant charge from landing in an unfamiliar airport.

You almost definitely want to get on a frequent-flier program of some kind, though the need to travel with specific airlines can bring another complication into route-planning. A good aviomancer racks in more miles in a typical year than they do footsteps, and in the long run it can save you enormous amounts on flights, hotel stays, vehicle rentals, and other services. A lot of the advice that applies to frequently flying, high-powered businessmen (or professional tourists) – and there are great paperback books collecting it that you can buy from a basket in an airport store – applies to you, too.

One of the big ones is that planning is key: plan your route in advance and have several copies of your itinerary accessible at all times, just in case. Just bear in mind that your goal is fundamentally different than that of a typical tourist: you aren’t looking to get anywhere specific, you’re trying to create a route that would bring you to as many new places in as little time and money as possible, preferably with as many layovers as you can in the middle of out-of-the-way shitholes.

To gain minor charges, your main tactic should probably be to take advantage of short distance flights (the other common alternative is aviomancers who barely bother with minor charges at all, instead charting circuitous routes through ever more obscure rural airports, never returning to any, only ever gaining significant charges and breaking them down as needed). There are domestic flight routes in the US, like Los Angeles to San Francisco, that take a little more than an hour and can cost about 60$ (and you can find even shorter ones inside Alaska). If you have a great travel agent that doesn’t ask too many questions on speed dial (and a great travel agent who doesn’t ask too many questions on speed dial is an absolute godsend to a Jetsetter), there’s little to stop you from booking a pair of two-way flights along the route and gaining 3 minor charges by dinnertime. Don’t push it, though: flying the same route several times a week can be excusable if it’s part of your job; flying it twice each day is eventually going to start ringing alarm bells at the FBI (and not entirely without reason, because aviomancers make for superb smugglers and it’s one of the major ways for them to make up for their crazy travel expenses).

Speaking of speed dials: you’re going to want to fully become a 21^st Century Homo Onlinensis. If you can do your job from a laptop, all your business by Zoom, your taxes via a website and your shopping via an app, you’re less dependent on your physical location in living your life. Just as importantly, you have less reasons to ever leave an airport.

Which brings us to: learn to find good, cheap hotel room deals. You can only sleep in the airport itself for so long before they kick you out as a vagrant, and maintaining the sort of career you probably want for the benefits requires regular washing, shaving and tooth-brushing.  Your great, discrete travel agent could be a godsend here, too. As for sleep: virtually all Jetsetters of note have a “Frequent Flier” or “International Businessperson”-type Identity that means that Of Course They Can fall asleep anywhere, in any posture for however long they want. Airports themselves provide a surprising amount of amenities, from sleeping to showers to administrative services to shopping for anything you might want to buy, but it gets expensive quickly.

Finally, there’s the matter of career choice: obviously, a good one to have is one that requires you (then covers your expenses and pays you to) fly around a lot to meetings, conferences, presentations and the like. Some aviomancers try to cut a middleman here by getting a job within the airline industry itself: flight attendants, flight engineers, even pilots. The big issue here is that anyone working with or on airplanes is going to be under a huge amount of scrutiny, be screened to hell and back before they’re allowed near one, and always keep up a spotless appearance. These are hard to make coexist with being a member of the Occult Underground, who lives by bizarre codes of behavior and associates with an endless procession of criminal freaks and weirdoes.

Symbolic Tension: The commercial flight industry is an entire, inbetween world-within-the-world, with its own language, culture, rules and inhabitants, which is about getting to other places. It encompasses the globe, and yet, at the same time, is nowhere in particular: a world which is all about the journey instead of the destination. Like many of the obsessions fueling postmodern magick, it touches upon the fundamental, cosmic friction between chaos and order, freedom and structure: in flight, 10 kilometers above the world, hypothetically able to go in any direction, one is practically in as great a state of physical freedom as a human being can be. Yet, this freedom only exists while one is literally tied to their chair with no room to get up or walk inside of a narrow metal tube flying on a strictly predetermined route and subject to more regulations than a lot of military operations. Aviomancers “do commercial air travel wrong” because they view flight as an end by-and-of-itself. Their charging ritual encourages them to be constantly going to places they have no interest in being and then flying away without ever setting foot outside the airport, because to them, the destination is just an excuse for the journey, rather than the other way around.

Random Magick Domain: The rules, culture, etiquette and technologies involved in commercial air travel. To a lesser extent, it also deals with the realities and challenges involved in frequent or international travel, but only insomuch as they pertain to the airport and its extensions. An aviomancy spell could make you instantly fluent in a foreign language, provide the benefits of a shower and deodorant after 48 hours without or simulate a magickal injection of espresso when you haven’t slept since Monday, but it couldn’t tell you your position in the middle of the jungle or deflect a mugger’s bullet (because, what are you even doing out there in the woods or in the middle of the street? There aren’t any airplanes there). More high-powered aviomancy spells may deal with the physics of airflight – it’s a big part of why the School has such an unexpectedly spectacular blast and how Jetsetters with major charges can summon natural disasters.

Ω: -2. Charging isn’t dangerous but it is majorly inconvenient, and while the taboo is neither illegal nor deadly, it’s completely incompatible with leading a normal life for any period of time.

AVIOMANCY MINOR FORMULA SPELLS

DENIED BOARDING

Cost: 1 minor charge

Effect: With a simple pull on the strands of synchronicity, this spell lets a Jetsetter make it almost certain that a given person that’s either within eyesight or they have a sympathetic connection to will not be flying today. It lasts for a number of hours equal to the sum of the successful casting result, and within that time the cosmos will fight tooth-and-nail to prevent the poor victim from getting on that airplane. It won’t directly cause them physical harm, but it’s not pulling many other punches. They’ll get a flat tire on the way to the airport. When they replace it, they’ll get stuck in traffic. Then there won’t be any parking. Then they’ll find out that their online tickets were never processed. And they’ll wait forever on the line with the airline to fix it. And then the computer will break. And they’ll be selected for a random search. And the security guy will be in a bad mood that day. Getting onto the flight will require a minimum number of rolls equal to the singles digit of the aviomancer’s successful casting roll (e.g. Knowledge to fix the computer, connect to placate the guard, fitness to make it to the gate before the airplane moves away, etc.), each one wasting time if failed.

FIDS FORETELLING

Cost: 1 minor charge

Effect: Approach the hallowed gates of heaven and behold the reverent masses gathered around the Flight Information Display screen. They look up to it with fear and with hope. Some are quietly praying. Some mutter curses under their breaths. They tap their feet nervously. The oracular sequences of sigils that flash across it will divine their near futures: will they make it to the meeting, or will they have to reschedule? Will they be home by Christmas or spend the night sleeping on a metal bench? Will their vacation be ruined? This spell utilizes the prophetic power of FIDS, giving the aviomancer or a person they’re presently touching a hunch with only a brief look at the screen. Alternatively, instead of a hunch, if the aviomancer is touching someone who has an upcoming flight, they can gain a general sense of its purpose (“they’re going to be meeting a friend they haven’t seen since 2012”, “they’re going to a relative’s funeral”, “they’re going to see their mistress”, “they’re going to assassinate their business associate”, etc.).  

FIRST CLASS UPGRADE

Cost: 1 minor charge

Effect: This spell is named after its most common use, which is for thrifty Jetsetters to literally upgrade their seats to first class (or at least business, for God’s sake) without paying for it. It just gives everyone who meets them an unconscious feeling that they’re the type of person who deserves premium treatment. It’s also good for making reservations in exclusive restaurants (it works through phones), being let into the VIP area of clubs, and getting celebrity discounts. Mechanically, it provides a 20% bonus to status rolls for a number of minutes equal to the successful casting dice result. The aviomancer stops giving off the superstar aura once the time lapses, but an air attendant who transferred someone to first class and already handed them their complimentary champagne is unlikely to admit it and send them back into the paddock when they begin silently questioning why they did it an hour later.

LUGGAGE CHECK

Cost: 1-2 minor charges

Effect: This little charm lets a Jetsetter instantly tell, with a glance, everything currently on somebody’s person and in their immediate belongings, as if being given the results of them having gone through a thorough security check. To save the GM the need to make and recite a list of undergarments, it’s probably best if this be handled by saying “they have everything you’d expect them to have, but also…” and then give specific responses to specific questions. For 2 charges, this spell can be cast on someone in a vehicle, and then it’ll give a similarly detailed manifesto of everything they have hidden there. Since it’s powered by the magick of airport security, it’s especially good at recognizing contraband: if the person being scanned carries anything that would be seriously illegal to bring on an airplane – a gun, a knife, heroin (the spell is smart enough not to flag random tubes of toothpaste), or if they have any magickal artifacts on their person, they only miss it on a matched failure of the casting roll.

LUGGAGE CLAIM

Cost: 1-2 minor charges

Effect: Millions and millions of items make their way into and out of passenger jet cargo holds each day, and it is a truth grimly accepted by frequent fliers that not all of them are going to turn out on the conveyor belt on the other side. Between overzealous security, greedy baggage handlers, and an infinite variety of technical problems, things get lost all of the time. Infrequently, it’s because a Flyperson was out of cash. This spell lets you discretely teleport an item from some random suitcase being handled by the airflight industry around the world and straight into your own suitcase, handbag, fanny pack, or even jeans pocket if it’s small enough. It has to be something that could believably fit in regular luggage (generally, that’s below 23 kg and 55x40x23 cm) and be allowed in one (so it can’t be a loaded gun or plutonium). The cheaper version gives you things that are clearly and obviously going to be found in somebody’s airplane suitcase: spare clothing, a toiletries bag, a phone charger, Toblerone. The premium version lets you stretch this limit as far as the GM would allow: somebody, somewhere has got to be currently flying with their guitar, or their telescope, or the family silver. Yes, you can use this spell to steal somebody’s passport if they forgot it in the luggage (it happens a lot), but since you can’t conjure a specific item you’re most likely to get some random American’s (it’s the country that flies the most, followed by China and the UK).

MILE HIGH CLUB

Cost: 1 minor charge

Effect: Apparently, there’s something about being tied to their chair inside a narrow metal tube 10 kilometers up with a Bloody Mary in their hand for 12 hours that makes people start seriously fantasizing about getting freaky with the hunk in C15 inside a closet-sized bathroom. It may have something to do with the thrill, not to mention psychological comfort, of screwing someone that you know you’ll never see again. Whatever it is, if it really works, this spell does it. It’s the school’s answer to The Spell That Helps You Get Laid which almost every one’s had at some point (which tells you a lot about the kind of people adepts are), and it gives you a 20% bonus to connect checks for seduction purposes for minutes equal to the result of the successful casting roll.

PLEASE REMAIN SEATED

Cost: 1 minor charge

Effect: When the seatbelts sign is on, don’t leave your goddamn seat. No, not even if you really have to go to the bathroom. You had eight hours to go to the bathroom, wait until the airplane’s landed and stopped moving. This spell lets the aviomancer root a person (or other animate entity) within eyesight to their place and stop them from moving for a number of turns equal to the sum of the dice roll or until they’ve cancelled the magick. Their legs feel petrified in place. They can still do whatever they want with their face, body or arms, but they can’t move their legs. Yes, this does work wonders on someone who’s currently sitting down, who’ll be basically out of luck.

PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR ELECTRONIC DEVICES

Cost: 1 minor charge

Effect: As everyone knows by now, a single person having their laptop on during takeoff isn’t going to make the airplane crash. Turning them off is more about preventing distractions from the pilot at a point of potential danger – even a single cellphone could accidentally cause a buzz in their headphones in a critical moment – courtesy to other passengers who don’t want to be stuck for the next four hours seated next to someone talking their head off, and the airline wanting to avoid complaints about low battery and crazy roaming charges (because you aren’t going to get signal where there isn’t, but your phone is sure going to try its darndest). Nevertheless, it’s become such an integral part of the flight experience that Jetsetters have been easily able to magickally weaponize it. This simple spell makes a single electrical device within eyesight stop working, and refuse to turn back on at least for a number of hours equal to the sum of the successful dice roll. Note that if used on a device that’s part of a network, it will only affect that one device – so it’ll turn off a security camera but not all the security cameras in the building, and it can disable a part of an electrified fence but might still trigger an alarm because of it, etc.

THIS IS YOUR CAPTAIN SPEAKING

Cost: 1 Minor Charge

Effect: Nobody argues with the captain. It’s not even just that they’re holding the lives of you and several hundred other passengers and 110 million dollars’ worth of jet in their hands. Simply being the pilot – wearing the uniform, having sunglasses on, sitting in the cockpit – carries an unmistakable prestige. The pilot must be highly trained. They must be cool. They must have nerves of steel. This spell temporarily imbues an adept’s voice with the same charisma and authority. You give someone a command that can be spoken in a single breath, and for them to refuse it forces them to face a rank 4 Helplessness check as they’re flooded with the sense that they’re knowingly defying someone who knows much better than them.

YOU’RE EXPERIENCING SOME TURBULANCE

Cost: 1 minor charge

Effect: Lots of people are shocked that this school even has a blast, much less such a showy one. This minor version draws upon the collective dread of millions of passengers who’ve tightened their seatbelts and gripped their armrests as oxygen masks fell out the overhead compartment. It then channels it to, very briefly, subject its target to the conditions outside of an airplane in flight. -60 degrees Celsius cold and the weight of a 200 km/h gust of wind strike them all at once as the air is sucked out of their lungs by the pressure differential. It only lasts for a moment, but it’s a very traumatic moment. It causes damage equal to the sum of a successful casting roll and forces a rank 6 Unnatural stress check, and it can leave injuries that will baffle medical professionals afterwards.

AVIOMANCY SIGNIFICANT FORMULA SPELLS

CLEARED FOR STANDBY

Cost: 1 significant charge

Effect: No tickets? No problem. This spell guarantees that, for the next flight the adept wants to board, there will be an available seat for them, even if it’s 15 minutes from departure and they’ve just woken up in the terminal bathroom. It doesn’t actually get them a ticket, it just ensures with absolute certainty that if they can afford one, one will be available and the plane won’t leave without them (if they fuck around, assume it’ll buy them up to extra minutes equal to the successful dice roll result). A passenger will cancel at the last moment, get second thoughts about flying and leave, have to give birth, etc. This spell is generally used either for “last minute” course corrections, if for some reason the adept has to change their planned route right now, or if it’s absolutely crucial that they get on one, particular plane (because that’s where their buddy’s hidden the gun, that’s where the guy they’re stalking is, etc.). Few things drive aviomancers into a greater fury than the fact that this spell ruins major charges. They’ve tried so much.

DIPLOMATIC HANDBAG

Cost: 1-2 significant charges

Effect: This spell is one of the big reasons Jetsetters can make a fortune as smugglers. It doesn’t actually make airport security agree to let them take things onto the plane without screening (which is why some less dignified Flypeople instead refer to it as “I Swear It’s Just a Funny Looking Neck Pillow”, or “ISIJAFLNP”), but it makes them unnaturally inclined to ignore anything that screening shows up. What’s that bump in your jacket? Oh, nevermind, you must be happy to see me. Suspicious blot on the X-ray? Meh, it’s just one of those sex toys, let’s not publicly embarrass anyone. The metal detector must be acting up, and shut up that drug-sniffing dog, it’s driving me crazy. Any security person immediately involved in examining the adept for the duration of that, one, single checkup (or up to minutes equal to the result of the successful casting roll, if it stretches into that) takes a -30% penalty to their notice rolls to realize anything is out of the ordinary, and they have to roll even if their technology and the circumstances would normally make it unnecessary. It doesn’t affect anyone else, so if some other passenger gets the police called-in or something and they ask you to stand aside along the way, then you’re screwed. The 2 charge version of this spell also works on any vehicle the adept is driving, the contents of whose luggage compartment are then likely to be ignored by security even if they’re presently wiggling in their ropes and screaming into a sock. Also, bear in mind this spell only works on airport security. Not mall security, not military guards, not suspicious drug dealers. Just the airport guys.

FLIGHTLESS AVIATION

Cost: 1 significant charge

Effect: They don’t like doing it, because it practically defeats the whole point, but if need be a Jetsetter doesn’t actually have to go through the “get on an airplane and fly” part of air travel. This spell, which is the other big reason the DEA hates them, lets an aviomancer just teleport from any airport to any other airport they’ve ever properly landed in. They just pay the charges, open one of those inconspicuous “authorized personnel only” doors in the back of the terminal, turn a few corners amidst the samey-looking concrete corridors behind, then open another door and emerge out of a similar looking one potentially continents away. The whole process takes maybe 15 minutes, and most of it is really spent in an some kind of inter-terminal otherspace. As usual, if someone’s paying close attention to them, seeing somebody disappearing into thin air where there’s no possible place for them to have gone or stepping out from behind a door they couldn’t possibly have been is a rank 4 Unnatural check. It should go without saying, but this doesn’t gain the adept any charges, because they haven’t performed the proper procedure of flight. It also doesn’t generate any mundane evidence that they’ve ever gotten to their destination (say, flight tickets, or a check on their passports), which might lead to complications if they’re caught by the authorities.

HOLDING PATTERN

Cost: 1 significant charge

Effect: If stopping one person from boarding a plane on time isn’t enough, you can always ensure that the plane doesn’t land on time anyway. This spell pulls on synchronicity to cause a delay equal to the singles digit of the successful casting roll, in hours, in the arrival of a plane. The Jetsetter needs to either have touched the plane or have a sympathetic connection to at least one passenger. Depending on how high the casting roll was, this could manifest as technical difficulties during departure, an obstructed runway or bad weather at the destination, or a crazy passenger making such a scene during pre-flight checkups that someone has to show up to remove them by force while everyone else is filming with their cellphones. If it takes long enough, it could result in the airline having to compensate some passengers and give away free hotel stays. If it takes really long, it could lead to an emergency landing and possibly a news story. Planes normally carry more than enough fuel to get to their destination, anywhere  nearby they might need to divert to, plus 45-60 minutes of extra holding time just in case, but if it was supposed to be a one hour flight and you went and delayed it by 8, it could force something dramatic (though it’s far likelier to just cause the flight to get canceled without ever leaving the runway).

INCLEMENT WEATHER AT DESTINATION

Cost: 1-4 significant charges

Effect: Being forced to divert due to weather conditions is part of the experience of any frequent enough flier. That empowers this spell, which lets aviomancers play weather-wizard the next time an entropomancer makes fun of them for having a really narrow domain. Each charge lets the Jetsetter shift the weather over a roughly town-sized area around one step across the scale of:

1. Sapphire Blue Perfect Summer Afternoon
2. Cloudy, Chilly and Maybe a Drizzle
3. Sensible People Put on Raincoats
4. Sensible People Stay Home
5. Holy Shit, Our Town’s on the News

Even the most extreme weather possible to conjure with this spell isn’t enough to outright kill anyone, alert FEMA or force people swim out of their cars, but it could inflict an up to -30% penalty to appropriate rolls, such as for driving or running around outside or trying to eavesdrop on a conversation through all the rain and thunder. It could definitely force some flights to change course or schedule. The magickal weather takes a number of hours to build up equal to the tens digit of the successful dice roll, then holds for a number of hours equal to the singles digit. Past that point, it’s no longer being sustained unnaturally, so Mother Nature takes back the reins and if it would’ve made no sense for it to be stormy a few hours ago it clears up within minutes (this might justify a rank 1 or 2 Unnatural stress check, but only in areas where freak weather is truly unheard of – and with the global climate crisis, these are getting fewer and further between). Note that since this spell always affects the area around the aviomancer, they’re just as susceptible as anybody else involved to ending up with pneumonia.

INSTANT ACE

Cost: 1 significant charge

Effect: With magick, you can learn to fly by osmosis, and Jetsetters spend a lot of time osmosing on airplanes. This spell lets you temporarily use your Aviomancy Identity to engage in almost any sort of aircraft related activity. You can pilot them (unusually for this School, it’s not even limited to commercial ones, either; you could pilot a fighter jet if you somehow got in one – and in that case, you could your Aviomancy to launch missiles and perform evasive maneuvers), you can recite any amount of trivia about them, you can fix their engines, you could probably make a good oil painting of one if the GM is feeling generous. Unlike most “Substitute for Relevant Identity”-type spells, this one lasts for a number of hours equal to the sum of the successful dice roll, which means it can totally be used to pilot the aircraft throughout the entirety of most international flights. It’s also remarkably broad in scope relative to most such spells – basically, if you can justify it as being something that some member of an airplane crew would be trained for, it lets you do it. Provide first aid? Yes, you can – that’s one of a flight attendant’s jobs. Request permission to land in Korean, even though you don’t speak the language? You also could (though you might have trouble explaining to the authorities how you got into the cockpit once you do, because that’s not something they teach in any flight school, even in Korea).

MAYDAY

Cost: 1 or 2 significant charges

Effect: Aviomancy’s significant blast harnesses the power of a deadly airflight disaster. It works like the minor version, but conditions are harsher, last longer and are more concentrated. People killed by this spell end up with mangled limbs, ice flakes in their eyeballs, and frostbitten lips. It causes damage equal to the successful dice roll result, forces both a rank 6 Unnatural and a rank 5 Violence stress checks, and requires a target to make a successful fitness roll or be blown across a room-sized area. Alternatively, for 2 charges, it can be directed outwards instead of at an individual, in which case it will cause anyone in a room (or cockpit, for that matter) to suffer damage as per a minor blast and anything light or fragile to get knocked around and sent flying. This spell might have enough physical force behind it to blow open a locked wooden door, though not a reinforced or steel one.

TSA Nightmare

Cost: 2 significant charges

Effect: When Denied Boarding doesn’t cut it, Jetsetters pull out the big guns and then slip them into the target’s pocket. Utilizing a principle not dissimilar to the one behind Luggage Claim, this spell discretely transports a piece of highly illegal contraband onto someone’s person or immediate belongings when they aren’t paying attention – a loaded gun, a bomb, a big block of cocaine. They need to be able to clearly see the target (which might get them embroiled in what comes next), or have a sympathetic connection to them. What happens once the target goes through an airport security checkpoint after varies based on the type of contraband the spell pulled out of the universe. Generally, assuming a typical, American airport setting post-September 11, it’s roughly like this: an alarm blares. Sometimes this just results in the security line stopping, which gets the other people in it grumbling. Other times it results in requests to remain calm and evacuate the terminal, in which case people may or may not refuse to remain calm and panic. The security personnel call on-airport law enforcement and/or a bomb squad. The FBI likely gets notified. The individual is arrested on the spot, interrogated intensely, and then hauled off and booked (this is where you’ll be invited to make some Helplessness stress checks). They are not unlikely to be detained pretrial in a U.S. district court, since they might be terrorists. Federal charges follow, often coupled with civil penalties. Fines can reach the tens of thousands of dollars. Imprisonment can be 5-20 years. You may very well end up on a watchlist and never be allowed to fly again. If you’re an immigrant, there’s a good chance you’ll be deported. Be grateful, because in Singapore you might get the death penalty. All this assumes, of course, that you are being reasonable and cooperative throughout the whole process. If you make a scene (or, God help you, are member of a racial or religious minority), you may get tackled, tased, or flat-out shot. Now: if it’s abundantly clear that you honestly have no idea what’s going on and it’s clear you’ve been patsied, things might go considerably better for you (look up what happened to Anne-Marie Murphy in April 1986, though those were simpler times). You’ll still be interrogated and there’s no way in the world you’re making it to your flight, but you might not be prosecuted or even arrested. Mike Epps was caught with a loaded .38 in his carry-on in Indianapolis in 2023; the police took the gun, verified that it was his and all his papers were in order, he explained that he’d forgotten it there, and that was about it. Some connect and/or status rolls, possibly with matched successes, might work. However, for most people on the Occult Underground, the odds aren’t in their favors. First, a lot of these chucklefucks aren’t polite, sane or normal-looking enough not to immediately offend the police’ sensibilities and escalate things. Second, they often have extensive criminal records, a known history of antisocial behavior, and/or known associates who do. Aviomancers may have a shitty charging ritual and be unable to ever go home without breaking taboo, but they got a spell that can get a sucker thrown in a maximum-security facility for the rest of their lives for two significant charges.

AVIOMANCY MAJOR SPELLS

Become permanently fluent in all currently spoken languages; Gain the ability to fly as high and as fast as a passenger jet for a day; Turn airspace of a size of a major city in a no-flight zone for 24 hours; Make an airport magickally unfindable and unreachable by any plane for 24 hours; Conjure any major weather phenomenon over a city; Permanently and retroactively create an active flight route between two, previously unconnected airports, potentially shaking up diplomatic relations between countries; Get a new item permanently added or a current one removed from the list of items commonly prohibited on airplanes (or make it legal to smoke in the cabin); Make it so a particular passenger jet never needs fuel or maintenance ever again; Bring down a commercial airplane at any point along its route

What You Hear

The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in 2014 was the result of an enterprising aviomancer’s attempt at inventing a new method of generating major charges. Jury’s out on whether they succeeded.

The School’s greatest secret shame, still driving a lot of aviomancers’ behavior to this day, was that they had prior knowledge of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

A Cabal of ultra-rich Jetsetters back in the 1990’s, in cahoots with The New Inquisition, had constructed a secret network of tunnels connecting the US’ major airports and key facilities, allowing aviomancers to travel about without breaking taboo.

These guys have been slowly rerouting the Earth’s ley lines by manipulating international travel routes since the 50’s. Their ultimate goal may involve an opening in the Statosphere they’d all fly up through to become gods.

There’s a secret meeting spot for Jetsetters in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle. They set it up to bring down any airplane they don’t personally approve of in order to maintain their secrecy.

Before the Hindenburg disaster of 1937, the School had a completely different charging ritual and taboo, presumably based around the symbolism of zeppelins. Few still remember what exactly it was like.