Unknown Armies: Difference between revisions

The world you know is only the surface. The Occult Underground swarms beneath it like a nest of bugs. Adepts alter reality with the power of their own obsessions and madness. Avatars gain the favor of the cosmos by playing their part in the collective unconscious. Those without magick hunt down those with for their own purposes--topurposes—to control, to suppress, or to assimilate. Sounds pretty interesting, right? There's a catch. There's always a catch. All labor in secret for fear of [[Torches and Pitchforks|the sleeping tiger]]--magick—magick may be powerful, but all the forces of the arcane aren't worth much compared to the panicked masses on a witch hunt. Further, magick power is bought at a steep price. You can alter human flesh only by scouring your own. You can gain the strength of the archetypal Warrior only by never relenting, even when tact or sanity say you should back down. You can bring about anything with magick--providedmagick—provided you're willing to sacrifice your humanity to do so.

This is a fantastic and extremely gritty roleplaying game. Combat is brutal and bloody--thebloody—the combat chapter opens up by describing several ways to ''get out of a fight,'' since more often than not you're gonna get torn the hell up if you're not careful, or even if you are. The rules are light, but clever and flavorful, with fancy dice tricks adding spice to the usual d% system. The powers of magick are even more flavorful, bizarre, and amazing. The setting is imaginative, detailed, and engrossing.

* [[Adult Fear]] -- Possibly—Possibly more common than unnatural fear. Sure, you might have your body torn to bits by an [[Eldritch Abomination|Unspeakable Servant]], but there's a much higher probability that you'll just lose your mind, become a recluse whose divorce from society is directly tied to a divorce from reality, and watch everything you loved or cared about slip away from you, until all you've got left is [[Lonely At the Top|your power]]. And that's if you're ''successful.''

* [[Ambiguous Gender]] -- The—The shtick of avatars of the Mystic Hermaphrodite. At upper levels, this evolves into instant sex changes.

* [[Amusing Injuries]] -- The—The Laff Riot videomancer spell protects everyone in the area from gunshots, reduces other types of attacks to five damage, and can turn a fall from a skyscraper from street pizza into an embarrassing pantsing. Watching the Detectives can retroactively turn any major injury short of death into a single point of damage. [[Game Master|Game Masters]]s who enjoy the [[Rule of Funny]] can have quite an lot of fun here.

* [[Another Dimension]] -- The—The Otherspaces are like alternate realities where the rules of existence are fundamentally different. Since they're disconnected from real time and space, they can be useful for transport... but they're generally difficult to reach, and they're often very dangerous, if not [[Sanity Slippage|maddening]].

* [[Anti-Magic]] -- The—The sample NPC, Eustace Crane, is a walking fifty yard bubble of this that ironically wants to believe in magic. Other sources exist.

* [[Arc Number]] -- 333—333, {{spoiler|the number of seats in the Invisible Clergy. Once it's filled, the world will be reborn.}}

* [[Ascended Fanboy]] -- A—A whole team of them: the Team Salvation is a team of occult do-gooders who used to play RPGs and read comics together as kids. The team leader's motivation is explicitly defined as "Be a superhero".

* [[Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence]] -- A—A very popular goal in the game is to ascend as an Archetype, a fundamental principle of the universe. {{spoiler|This is the ultimate goal of many cabals, since they can then shape the next ''universe'' under their own principles.}}

* [[Body Horror]] -- Various—Various, but Epideromancy is the #1 source in the game. It's a magic style revolving around molding the bodies of others like clay and powered by self-mutilation... think about it. Its signature attack spell ''isn't'' the one that lets you break bones or tear flesh just by touching someone, it's the spell that lets you mold flesh about the area of your palm. Its most common use? ''Seal someone's mouth and nose.''

* [[Brand X]] -- {{spoiler|Mak Attax}} is using a certain multinational corporation ( {{spoiler|1=McDonalds}}) to further its agenda. The corporation is almost never mentioned by name. Ostensibly, this is because of the power of [[True Name|True Names]]s.

* [[Cast From Hit Points]] -- Epideromancy—Epideromancy works this way, as do certain rituals. There are also many magick schools that are more indirectly self-destructive.

* [[Clockwork Creature]] -- nearly—nearly anything made by Mechanomancers.

* [[City of Spies]] -- While—While not ''explicit'', the Sleeping Tiger (ie. The general public) pretty much turns any game of Unknown Armies into spy central. With weird ass magic.

* [[Crazy Homeless People]]: There's plenty of these, but watch out. [[Unknown Armies]] has a disproportionate number of hobos who are also powerful wizards.

* [[The Trickster]] -- Another—Another one of the archetypes a character can channel. The powers of an avatar of the Trickster are pretty much straight from the trope, which is of course the idea.

[[Category:Tabletop GameGames]]