Their Finest Hour- Technological Magnetists p.2

Even as science fully eclipsed magic in the early 20th century, a new specimen of magnetists effortlessly mixed the two.  Here are a few more incredible gifts of the Technological Magnetists:

Capacitor

Difficulty: 2

Vril Cost: 2

After touching a power outlet or device plugged-into an outlet, the technolist uses this gift to draw tremendous power into their body. They may now release all of it as a single destructive bolt of lightning at their choosing. If they do not hurl it out as a raw destructive force, the technolist retains the electricity until the next time they sleep or fall unconscious. Until then small static and magnetic disturbances follow their presence wherever they go.

Absorbing electricity takes 5 minutes and casting a lightning bolt counts as an action. Lightning bolts have a range of 60 yards and do 15 dice of lethal damage. Casting the bolt requires a Presence + Technological Magnetist skill test. The target may attempt to dodge as in a normal ranged attack.

Arc Light

Difficulty: 1

Vril Cost: 2

Successful use of this ability charges the technolist’s Vril into bright arcs of electricity between the fingers of one hand, their choice. The technolist uses the chosen hand as normal, but they should avoid handling delicate instrumentation or anything which may be adversely affected by low wattage sparks. The illumination ends when the technolist chooses, they fall unconscious, or they run out of Vril.

While this ability is in use, anyone touching the technolist feels a mild shock but takes no damage. The low wattage is only dangerous to very small animals.

Tele-portation

Difficulty: 2

Vril Cost: 2

A technolist touching a telephone may call on this ability to near-instantaneously travel through the telephone’s wires, across the switchboard, and emerge at their desired destination’s telephone. The technolist must know the number they wish to reach and must be within 10 miles of the desired location. The destination’s telephone starts ringing a half-second before the technolist’s arrival, unless they pass an Electronics test with 6 black dice.

                If in combat, Tele-portation takes an action, as does arrival. Only about 10 pounds weight of matter follows the technolist’s transmission through the phone lines. Unless the technolist takes extraordinary measures, about half of that weight is taken up by their clothing.  If a technolist tries to take even more weight when they tele-port, some or all items may be left behind at the Gamemaster’s discretion.

Mend

Difficulty: 1

Vril Cost: 2

The technolist touches a damaged or destroyed target and focuses their Vril into its restoration. This ability works on any solid structure or device manufactured and utilized by humanity. This ability restores structure pips equal to the bonus successes of the ability roll x2.

In general the larger the target, the more structure pips it had, requiring many casting to fully mend. For example, one casting may only add a few bricks to a collapsed wall.

Meter

Difficulty: 1

Vril Cost: 2

With this ability, technolists sense the use of any technology powered by petrol, electricity, gas, or steam within Wits x 10 yards. Their gift also detects any increases in power, speed, and heat of devices in use. This gift cannot identify  devices but it can intuit the general size,  power source, and location (for example, a large device powered by petrol traveling quickly about 60 feet away, or 2 small devices powered by electricity upstairs in the bathroom).

Their Finest Hour- Technological Magnetists p.1

As revolutionary movements shouted for the world to turn away from the horrors of mechanized warfare and return to nature, and a new specimen of magnetist emerged. In 1928, young children around the world spontaneously manifested a remarkable affinity for the electrical devices spreading into middle-class homes. Small girls powered their father’s shaver by holding the plug. Gangs of young boys mischievously surprised inattentive adults in the street with mild shocks. The Guild studied this new phenomenon and classified the children as “Technological Magnetists”. They manipulate the energies and frequencies harnessed by mankind’s machinery. Their gifts rely on the control and the presence of technology.

By the start of the war, the first of these technolists reached adulthood. What was a nuisance to the electric company in peace, became a vital resource in war. Even during a blackout, power outages endanger civilian lives and interrupt national defense.

Sender/Receiver

Difficulty: 2

Vril Cost: 2

When using this ability, the technolist can transform their thoughts into radio waves and send their signal to a specific wireless at a distance of miles equal to their Presence Attribute. Those listening to the wireless clearly hear the technolist’s voice coming in over the set. As a side benefit,  technolists “hear” radio waves when using this gift, and their brain translates the signal into “sounds” as desired, allowing for two-way communication.

This ability can also send a burst of “static” directly into a person’s mind, disrupting their nervous system. The technolist picks a target in eyesight and rolls a Technological Magnetist test against the target’s Resolve + Concentration. If successful, the target feels a terrible pressure in their ears and suffers 6 black dice to a single test. If performed during a combat round, this test counts as an action and can be sustained each round with an action and a single pip of Vril but no roll is needed.

Prime Mover

Difficulty: 0

Vril Cost: 2

The technolist channels their Vril as raw energy to power a nearby device  requiring petrol, electricity, gas, springs, or steam. One of the technolist’s hands must remain in contact with the device for the Vril to continue powering the device. If contact ends, the Vril stops flowing but the technolist may establish contact to power a new device or power the same device again.

Once activated, this ability is passive and does not require effort to maintain, only Vril. Other tasks may be attempted while this power is activated with no penalty provided the tasks do not require two hands. This ability may be turned off by the technolist at any time.

If the device can be carried by a human-sized creature, it costs 1 pip per hour. If it can only be carried by an Ogre it costs 2 pips per hour. If even an ogre cannot carry the device (such as a car or airplane), powering it costs 3 pips per hour.

                While I was planning to unveil the fantastic gifts of the Technological Magnetists in a single post, we'll have to return next Friday with the five remaining abilities.

Their Finest Hour- Sigil Magic for the Great Depression

In 1929, the Great Depression spread across the world, leaving many millions without jobs or homes. The legions of wandering vagrants (known as hobos in America) in England, Continental Europe, and the United States developed a series of symbols called Hobo Signs. They carved their mysterious symbols into fences, painted them on tree trunks, and drew them with chalk onto rocks. The symbols gave succinct and coded information about the area, such as pointing out safe places to get food or warning of inhospitable towns.

As the world’s economy recovers, sigil scribes of the lower and lower-middle classes and criminals still use Hobo Signs as runes. They inscribe thier symbols on tools, practical clothes provided by their customers, or whatever they have on hand.

This way- Direction, Help, Clues

Barking dog nearby- Ferocity, Bluffing, Silence

Good place to hop a train- Progress, Smoke, Machinery

A dangerous place- the Wild, Hunting, Peril

This is the right place- Guidance, Learning, Leadership

Get away from here immediately- Speed, Preparation, Warning

A well guarded home- Security, Walls, Treasure

This man owns a gun- Stealth, Accuracy, Death

Careful, the law is watchful here- Vigilance, Skullduggery, Safety

Good road for traveling- Endurance, Travel, Weather

Be on your guard- Defense, Wounds, Caution

This man/woman is a cheat- Dishonesty, Thrift, Suspicion

A gentleman- Society, Bravery, Family

You can use the telephone-Communication, Distance, Sound

Doubtful- Mystery, Suspicion, Fear

Tell a sympathetic Story- Trials, Charm, Manipulation

Rich people- Prosperity, Provision, Neglect

Don’t drink the water-Poison, Survival, Hazard

Hospitable People - Accomplishment, Refreshment, Home

Home of a policeman- Risk, Authority, Rules

Nothing worthwhile here- Failure, Searching, Misdirection

Jail- Locks, Time, Crime

Medical care if you need it- Trauma, Healing, Shelter

Their Finest Hour- The Secrets of Vril

Mechanically, Vril dice work the same way as the Quintessence dice of Victoriana. Casting spells, using magnetic abilities, activating runes, etc. spends pips of Vril just like Quintessence. During character generation, player characters still start with Vril dice equal to their Resolve. Unlike Quintessence dice, Vril dice only have 4 pips each, to represent the world’s diminishing magical fields. While an hour’s rest still restores 1 pip, a good night’s sleep now only restores Vril dice equal to twice the caster’s Resolve Attribute.

However, Vril now has a few other uses:

Thaumaturgists

By precharging their Hermetic operations with an existing vril field, thaumaturgists momentarily soften the walls of reality making their spellcasting easier. When a thaumaturgist casts a spell, they may reduce the black dice in their pool by 1 for every 2 pips of vril they spend beyond the spell’s cost. Vril may be spent in the same manner to reduce the black dice of Concentration tests. In this way, thaumaturgists can reduce the black dice in a test down to zero.

Sigil Scribes

While a sigil’s activation lasts hours, sometimes that’s not long enough. A scribe's will creates a sigil. A scribe’s will sustains it. Sigil Scribes may spend 2 Vril pips to extend the duration of a sigil’s activation by an hour. They may keep the sigil active in this way until they run out of Vril. A sigil scribe can keep multiple sigils active at a time, but it still costs 2 Vril for each sigil every hour. While the sigil is active, the scribe can choose to extend its duration at any point.

Magnetists

A magnetist’s connection with the deeper world around them grants them amazing abilities. Sometimes their mind snatches insight from bursts of cosmic inspiration. Before a magnetist rolls any test using the Wits attribute, they may spend Vril to add dice to their pool. Every 4 Vril pips spent adds an extra dice to their pool. Dice added in this fashion cannot exceed the magnetist’s Presence attribute. A player character must have one of the Magnetists Talents to spend Vril in this way. Even though all Eldren start play with a magnetist ability, they cannot spend Vril in this way without a Magnetist Talent.

Conjurors

Conjurors call on nature’s power to create their enchantments. Wherever there is nature there are nature spirits. Conjurors make deals with nature spirits (such as Sprites, Nymphs, Leshy, Genius Loci, Kami, Vilas, and Dryads), leasing their vril for the spirit’s labor. Ordinarily, enchanting takes hours. With a little help, it takes minutes. For every 4 pips over the enchantment’s ritual cost, its ritual duration is halved (rounded down). For example, if a ritual duration is 3 hours long and the conjuror spends 8 extra vril, the ritual duration is now 45 minutes.

Vrility (New Talent)

Even as magic leaves the world, you spark with vestiges of its old power. Through strength of will, training, innate ability, or luck, your stores of vril surpass those of most magicians. All of your Vril Dice posses 5 pips instead of 4.

Their Finest Hour- Magic in Nazi Germany

As the western world crumbled to the economic collapse of the 30s, German fascism rose and certain unconventional theories about Vril rose with it. Nazi science rejected quantum mechanics and sought forgotten magical traditions. The Nazi’s rebuilt Germany’s Aluminate Churches in their image and expelled the Guild in 1935. The Ahnenerbe (a division of the SS dedicated to race theory and research) holds total control of magical practices in the Third Reich. Sigil scribes openly craft runes, but only with the properly Germanic Futhark sigil alphabet. Nazi occultists at the top (including Heinrich Himmler and Rudolf Hess) embrace petty conjuring as “the one true Volkish magic, long suppressed by the Western Inquisition (the Hermetic Guild)”. Ruthless Conjurors leverage their new prestige, foster an occult air to their enchantments, and climb into the highest ranks of the Wehrmacht, Ahnenerbe or SS.

Until 1935, the German branch of the Guild instructed all Thaumaturgists. After Hitler dissolved the Guild in Germany, most fled the country. The remaining thaumaturgists joined the Ahnenerbe under threat of death to teach their skills to a new generation of young magicians loyal to the Führer. While the Nazi regime embraces many fringe mystical theories and pseudosciences, their tyranny leaves no room for magic practitioners outside the approval of the state.

At the center of the Reich’s occult politics sits the mysterious Vril Society. In 1919, the progenitors of the National Socialist German Worker’s Party (the Nazi Party) gathered with occultists to communicate with the unknown. Two beautiful young women named Maria and Sigrun led the men in a séance and shared wonderful and terrible truths from primeval earth. The participants of that séance formed the Vril Society (also known as the Luminous Lodge) to guide German fascism to their secret ends or the ends of their secret masters. The Vril Society hosts demonstrations open to the public with slide shows depicting artist's imaginings of ancient civilizations from the lost continent of Thule and promises to awaken the magnetic abilities inherent to all Aryan people. Before the war, the Vril Society even performed demonstrations in London. Members of the Vril Society holds key positions in the German government, industry, and military, but no one outside their membership can explain the vast amounts of money and war materials funneled into the society by the Führer.

When the German army triumphantly marched into Austria, the international community gasped at the incredible strength of Vril at their disposal. Nazi magicians performed with ease wonders the world had not seen in 200 years! Lindwyrms bore swastika-laden banners through the skies! Skilled spells singers, known as Fächer, dispersed clouds and split open hills to make way for marching platoons of soldiers! The world saw this same show of strength in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Luxembourg, and France. The Axis war effort overcame whatever universal law dwindles magic. None of the Allies know the source of this endless  antediluvian energy, but European refugees and Whitehall politicians share plenty of theories: 

-During the 1939 German expedition to Tibet, Nazi mystics learned ancient forgotten methods to harness Vril from an ascended Master in Shamballa known as “the King of the World”.

-Nazi scientists and musicologists discovered the potent mythic reality suggested by Wagner’s operas. Through their fanaticism and skill they draw strength from Nordic myth cycles and Aryan folksongs.

-The SS breeds magically adept children through the Lebensborn (Fountain of Life) project. SS officers kidnapped Polish and Russian children gifted with psychical abilities from occupied territories adding to their breeding stock.

-An Ahnenerbe archeological team uncovered or “recovered” an ancient artifact out of Aluminate legends. In Hitler’s hands, it acts both as a symbol of power as a source of power.

-During the séance at the founding of the Vril Society, Atlantean sorcerers living beyond the physical world outlined an ancient machine from the lost continent of Thule in minute detail. German industrialists developed blueprints from the description and developed a strange bell-like device kept in a secret location.

Their Finest Hour- The Science of Vril

As I finished working on The Blitz Spirit (available here for download), I recognized I left out an important part: the Magic. Don’t worry, it’s coming. During this series, we’ll explore how magic changed in the preceding 90 years, what new spells rose up, and where all the Nazi mystical power came from.

The Day Science Conquered Magic

In ancient Greece it was Aether- the substance breathed in by the gods as man breathes air. The Hindus believe in Prana- the life force in all things living and inanimate. For alchemists of the Middle Ages through the time of Queen Victoria, it was Quintessence- the substance of the heavens. All cultures identified substance connecting them to the universal magical power. Thaumaturgists, conjurors, and other magicians manipulate this connection to alter reality through will. Now the concept of Quintessence is gone, swept away when mankind’s reason cracked open the inner workings of the universe and peered inside. 

In 1916, Ernest Rutherford performed a number of experiments testing whether magical sources of light emitted alpha particles. By igniting a block of wood with a thaumaturgical spell and encasing that block in a lead box with a single hole, he was able to detect minute fluctuations emanating from the hole reflected by a sheet of Cold Iron. Rutherford theorized these fluctuations were caused by stray magical particles released during magical reactions and named these particles “Vril” after the eponymous mystical energy described in Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s book, Vril, the Power of the Coming Century. Further experiments revealed the Vril detected by Rutherford’s experiments was in fact Quintessence, detected solely by scientific apparatus for the first time. Later work by Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn pioneered the containment of Vril fields using ferrous metals and magnetic fields. In 1931, Walther Müller invented the Vrillometer, a device capable of detecting and quantifying a Vril field’s strength.

But even as science began to peel away the mystery of Vril, it also measured the power’s loss. Scientists and guild magicians across the world compared experimental results through the 1930s tracking the global weakening of magical ability and its acceleration. For centuries magicians noticed magic’s power waning from its antediluvian strength. Miracles devolved to spells practiced only by a learned few, as the industrial revolution spread across the world. By the 1930s radio, automobiles, telephones, electric lights, airplanes, and other conveniences took magic’s place. Now science quantifies and predicts the Vril field’s decay. Mathematician Arnfreid Froelich (for whom the decay is named) calculated mankind would be unable to perform magic by the end of the 20th Century.

Through the Great Depression and into the start of the war in Europe, scientists, mystics, and priests strive to rediscover and recapture magic’s lost might, some by welding magical formula with modern scientific theories (such as Albert Einstein), and others by embracing tabooed occult practices (such as Alistair Crowley). Now war brings extra desperation to their attempts. Worried by the Axis war machine’s magical superiority, Allied forces try to close the gap. Magical practices previously dismissed by the Guild, such as conjuration, became the subjects of careful study. Scientists and hermeticists exiled from their overrun countries (such as Froelich) added their expertise to the war effort. The Guild strives to harness Britain’s few magical resources and discover powerful treasures long lost. Some groups, such as the Ancient Order of Druids (of which Prime Minister Winston Churchill is a member), hope for a miracle from the past. 

Group Rolls- A Helpful House Rule For Helpful People

During my most recent Victoriana Campaign, I thought up another quick house rule worth sharing on the blog. Everyone needs help sometimes, and this rule helps helpers dramatically helping.

In most cases, characters in Victoriana attempt tasks on their own, or everyone attempts similar tasks at the same time. For example, a dwarf, an elf, and an ogre suspect the library hides a secret passage. All three search for the entrance at the same time, probably at different heights. All three make a Perception + Wits test. Those that succeed, find the book that opens the secret door. Those that fail, look at their successful peers with admiration. Everyone had a chance, but nobody helped each other. They simply all tried the same task at the same time.

Sometimes a task depends on the effort of one person, but others can assist through Group Rolls. The same dwarf, elf, and ogre discover the secret passage leads down to a large sewer canal. A rowboat bobs in the murky sludge. They climb in. As the strongest member of the party, the ogre takes the oars. The elf holds up a lantern and points out obstacles as the dwarf stirs up the water in front of the boat with a stick to ease its passage through the sludge. In this case, the ogre is trying to perform a task, while the elf and dwarf assist.

Page 163 of the Victoriana 3^rd Edition rulebook explains how Group Rolls work. The primary (in this case the ogre) rolls the test as normal, while the assistants (the elf and dwarf) roll the test with only dice from skills in their pool (no attributes). Their net successes count as automatic successes in the primary’s test.

That’s fine, but this is Victoriana. Let’s roll lots of dice and embrace dramatic tension! Here is how Group Rolls work at my table: First the assistants test whatever Skill + Attribute is pertinent to the task just like a regular test. For every success rolled, the primary removes a black die from the dice pool for their test. Then the primary rolls their test with a normal pool and the reduced black dice. If the assistant’s dice pools had black dice, they may roll a foul failure. In which case, they add black dice equal to their test result to the primary’s dice pool.

In this case, the ogre is the primary and the other two adventurers assist them. The ogre is about to roll a Might+ Strength test with six black dice to row the boat through the canal. The elf snagged three successes, directing the ogre to duck their head at low ceilings and avoid rushing water, but the dwarf’s frantic stirrings netted one black die success. Together their efforts reduced the six black dice in the Ogre’s pool down to four. If the ogre succeeds in their test, the party navigates through the secret canal to the cabal’s lair. If not, they wind deeper into the sewer at a pace slow enough for something awful to catch up to them.

This house rule is really a matter of taste. In Victoriana, I prefer more dice and less automatic successes. The rule in the book is fine. It works, but I wholeheartedly prefer this method.