Changing the world in Unknown Armies usually involves breaking it with some kind of Unnatural force. You might:
- obtain and use a potent item (artefact)
- improvise to bruise reality (feature: use gutter magick; Secrecy)
- research and re-enact timeless rituals (feature: cast rituals; identity: Thaumaturge)
- be blessed (or cursed) with paranormal powers (supernatural identity)
- channel the cosmic power of archetypes (identity: avatar)
- bend it to your will with raw and powerful magick (identity: adept)
There’s a good range of options here to suit a variety of different character styles and backgrounds, and to avoid ending up with magic-user clones.
Artefacts
Without being gifted explicit Unnatural powers, any character can typically use artefacts that are imbued with reality-shifting properties. The way you change the world will be limited to the effect of the artefact in use.
You’ll certainly be able to break bits of the world, but you typically won’t have much scope for imparting any flair or personality beyond what is wrought into the device.
You do need to be an adept in order to construct an artefact.
To eliminate any dependency on artefacts, or to do anything with more agency, a character will need to either invest in their Unnatural shock meter or take an identity that opens up their powers.
Tapping into Unnatural Secrets
Even without using artefacts, every player character has the potential to make weird stuff happen without making it a central part of their being.
With just a single notch in your Unnatural shock meter – which every character starts off with – you can attempt to bruise reality with low-level gutter magick. Assuming any casting rites are observed, the default target to succeed is your Secrecy level.
This isn’t usually an efficient or effective route, but when needs must, it’s an option. While the mechanics are straightforward, the most important ingredient for success is that the character believes they can do it, and that they want it.
Unnatural Identity Features
To be more effective at manipulating the world through Unnatural means, characters could invest in an identity that has either the Casts Rituals or Use Gutter Magick feature.
- Use Gutter Magick allows characters to improvise low-level rites that, when performed with enough belief, can effect a small shift in the world. The effects are not significant, but can be used to coerce the Unnatural shock meter.
- Casts Rituals allows the character to activate pre-existing rituals that have been researched, studied, found or otherwise obtained. Even minor rituals are more powerful than gutter magick. Significant and major rituals have undeliably Unnatural effects, but require powerful charges to execute. This feature does not confer the ability to create charges – only adepts can do that.
An identity that affords either of these features can be quite mundane – it does not need to be intrinsically Unnatural.
What it does provide, though, is a background that exposes the character to a strong belief in the Unnatural. In the case of Casts Rituals, there is also some deep learning, study or practice that goes alongside that belief.
An identity also doesn’t have to have both of these features. For instance, a priest or cultist identity may have Casts Rituals, but without Use Gutter Magick.
The Authentic Thaumaturge (Play, p179) is a ritual specialist identity, based on a character background that is steeped in researching ritual lore. The identity has two features: the standard Casts Rituals feature, and a Unique feature that gives the character knowledge of two rituals.
Supernatural identities
Supernatural identities are a special type of identity, and are expressly not mundane. They are defined through a combination of scope and distinctive effects, that illustrate how they affect the Unnatural:
- effects:
- provide information, harm or protection
- exert influence
- other versatile effects
- vague or specific scope
This type of identity is perfect for characters that want paranormal or psychic powers, such as precognition, telekinesis, astral projection, seeing dead people and so on.
The actual name of the identity is entirely flexible, to suit the flavour of the game, character and cabal. However, any supernatural identity can only have one effect.
In addition to the effect, and only if it makes sense, the identity also takes the feature Use Gutter Magick and/or Casts Rituals features.
Avatars
A character with an avatar identity draws its power to break the world through its alignment with one of the prevailing archetypes that is lodged in the collective unconscious.
Their power is drawn into channels, which represent the Unnatural manner in which the avatar can change reality. The more closely an avatar follows the ideal of the archetype, the more synchronised they become with it, and the stronger their power and channels become.
Archetypes are central to the cosmology of Unknown Armies. There are sixteen archetypes in Book 1: Play, five in Book 4: Expose, and a further nine in Book 5: Mine, including the Hacker, the Demagogue, the Solid Citizen and the Warrior. See the index for a full list, including community generated examples.
A character with an avatar identity is aligned with one of these archetypes. This alignment does not need to be deliberate – it is entirely possible that a character is unwittingly following the lifestyle path of an avatar, and benefitting from the affinity incidentally. An avatar character may well have a different obsession identity.
Their alignment as an avatar could start off simply through wearing the symbols and carrying the behaviours of the archetype. Over time and with consistency, an avatar that perfectly models those expectations might come to be recognised as a universal icon of the archetype, or eventually ascend to be the archetype.
In the same way that an avatar’s power is drawn from explicit attunement with the symbols and manners of the archetype, by violating the taboos of the archetype the character risks diminishing their identity. In game terms, breaking a taboo results in the percentile rating of their avatar identity going down.
While most identities improve when you fail an identity check, an avatar identity rating only improves when you make a successful identity check.
Avatars don’t use charges or cast spells to execute their channel powers. However, their identity does include the Use Gutter Magick and Casts Rituals features.
Adepts
The Unknown Armies equivalent of a magic-user is the adept, or charger. Unlike other routes to breaking the world (such as supernatural or avatar identities), being an adept is a deliberate and obsessive character choice.
Adepts are consciously dedicated to the pursuit of their craft. As such, they are the only type of characters that can cast hard magick, using it to bend the world to align with their view of reality (as opposed to alignment with the world, as avatars attempt).
That idea of reality is shaped by whichever school of magick they are drawn to or belong to. Each school is identified by
- the domain through which its adepts shape and execute their power – for instance, the systems and trappings of photography, clothes and fashion, roads and cars, or even the tamed land.
- the taboos that counter the power of an adept if they break them, and the penalties for violating them.
There are eight suggested schools (p142ff) in Play, as well as a guide to creating your own school of magick (p131). Book 5 (Mine) has a further eight schools, mostly adapted from earlier editions of the game. An adept begins with a range of spells to reflect their way of breaking the world, in accordance with the motifs of their school.
Adepts begin with a handful of charges to get going, and these are used to discharge their spells. They are the only characters that can generate the higher order charges that are needed for more powerful spells and rituals, as well as constructing artefacts.
In identity terms:
- the adept’s school of magick becomes part of the identity description, eg, Adept: Motumancy;
- the adept identity automatically has the Casts Rituals and Use Gutter Magick features;
- a character can only have one adept identity;
- the adept identity must be the character’s obsession identity.
A character can start the game as an adept, and benefit from the initial reserve of charges. They can also acquire the adept identity during play in the same way they can get any identity – by pursuing it as a cabal objective. However, in this case, they do not get their initial charges. Some aspiring adepts believe that demons can be summoned to teach them magick.
If being an avatar is a lifestyle choice, being an adept is a lifetime choice. Once a character becomes an adept , they are always an adept, even if they choose to stop practising their magick. Their adept identity is also always locked as their obsession identity (Play p130).