Geeking

[alpharaposa]

Last night, before going to bed, I leaned out from under the covers and scribbled down an idea so I wouldn't lose it. A random thought was how to write up The Junior Woodchuck's Guidebook as a Mage: the Ascension talisman.

It'd probably cost 10 background points, considering. (If I were running, I might be nice and make it 7 or 8 instead.) Arete 6, Quintessence 20.
The Junior Woodchuck's Guidebook uses some Mind, Time, and Correspondence to find the relevant information, then uses Matter to provide the information in printed form on its pages. If it actually contained all the information available, nobody would be able to carry it around.

Effect: When activated (requires no special actions beyond leafing through the book and looking for something specific but does require at least one Quintessence point), the user rolls 6 dice versus standard difficulty (diff 6). The user finds information suitable to a Lore skill in the subject equal to the number of successes. However, the information should be found in an appropriate cultural context.

Example- Players find a desanguinated (blood-drained) corpse. Character goes hunting through the guidebook to figure out what could have caused it.

1 success: "Well, it mentions vampires drink blood and has some quotes from Dracula."
3-4 successes: "It also says that some vampire legends could come from blood cults that drained blood for rituals and stuff."
6 successes: "Oh, and there's this legend from Africa about magic-weaving, human-sized spiders that drank blood, too."

Note that Storytellers are not required to provide the correct information, only stuff that's relevant to what the player is looking for.

Botches bring up generic survival information (unless that's what's being looked for, in which case the ST could substitute some Thoreau or something). This talisman can only be used once per day. Further uses bring up either the same information or the above botch result.

This talisman was created by a Virtual Adept, a Carl Barks fan.

Comments

[collinsmom.livejournal.com]

As I recall, The Junior Woodchuck's Guidebook gives true information about a particular subject. The catch is how you can use that information to proceed with the next action you take. Donald Duck's nephews always found the information in the Guidebook true but the intelligence of the nephews is what determined the usefullnes of it. For instance I don't think Donald Duck would be able to use the information as well as the nephews who also had experience using the book and knew where to find the information they needed and then put it to use effectively.

Good idea BTW

[aefenglommung.livejournal.com]

I want a copy of The Junior Woodchucks' Guidebook!

[xaq.livejournal.com]

...Why do I find myself thinking of this more as the Mage version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (the version used within the book series of the same title)?

Granted, it would be rather amusing trying to explain to people why you're toating a small, leatherbound booklet with the words "DON'T PARADOX" written in large, friendly letters on it. :D

[stryck.livejournal.com]

Well, as collinsmom pointed out, all information in The Junior Woodchuck's Guidebook was either factual or accurate quotes of literature. That's a FAR cry from THHGTTG. Not to mention THHGTTG has always been electronic- which is no barrier for a VA, in any case.