Author Topic: Jonah "Lucky" McDermot  (Read 5440 times)

Offline brujon

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Jonah "Lucky" McDermot
« on: June 02, 2012, 07:32:43 PM »
Reproducing for convenience:

So, Nanshork gave me my solution! Thank you very much, sir, you are a gentleman and a scholar!

Jonah "Lucky" McDermot

Born in 1793 in Dublin, Ireland, son of a successful building contractor, Jonah's family was relatively wealthy, having acquired their wealth in the rebuilding of the Kingdom of Ireland after the Great Famine struck in the first half of the 1700's. Jonah had an unremarkable early childhood. All of that changed when riots caused by the fighting of Protestants and Catholics caused his father's construction factory to burn down, taking the life of his mother, who was brutally raped and murdered amidst the chaos. Heartbroken and poor, his father took to heavy drinking and gambling, and the life Jonah knew ended in his late teens, replaced by a gloom existence amidst the lower classes of Ireland. Unable to depend on his father, soon Jonah took to gambling and conning as a means of garnering survival, and he soon found out he was a natural. Jonah lost all faith in God and the world in general, and took a keen interest in fate, especially the mythology surronding the Wheel of Fortune, in which all men can rise and fall...

His rage against religion led him to conning clergyman from Protestant and Catholic churches, stripping the men from their wealth, and then extorting them of their secrets before exposing them before members of the faith. He soon found out that got him too many enemies, though, and he was forced to flee from Ireland, or else he would end up dead in a ditch, or worse. But Jonah's hatred didn't settle, and his faith in the Wheel of Fortune, and the roll of the dice led him to believe that all wrongs need to be met with equal opposite strenght. His vengeance was justified in his view of the world, in which every action garners an reaction, and the cosmos never fails to deliver the punishment deserved, and hell would freeze over if he, with his knowledge, would break that law by forgiving anything. From town to town he went, changing identities as a man changes clothes... But no matter what type of situation he got, he ALWAYS managed to pull through, even against overwhelming odds. In Blackjack, Poker & Dices, no matter what the game, or even the big game that is life and death, Jonah always seemed to get the upper hand. His luck was only paralelled by his amount of enemies, however, and so Jonah kept wandering, becoming ever increasingly obsessed about Chance and Fate.

It was only a matter of time before that belief in Fate and Chance became something more for him. Jonah took to every fortune-teller and every seer and Gipsy on every town he went, debunking the frauds and learning from the truthful. Jonah always had a knack for telling if someone is lying... Secrets of the trade, i guess. With his education, Jonah frequented the libraries of cities he went, musing over tomes of old arcane knowledge and ciphers, and even mathematical probabilitity sciences... Every mantra for good luck, every lucky charm and four-leaf clover Jonah tested, and tested, and swore to himself that he wouldn't EVER refuse a bet, because he was to be blessed by Fate herself. And to Fate he swore himself, chanting every tongue he knew, and pressing his luck at every opportunity.

That's about when his luck caught up with him, though, and the Churches he despised started to follow the rumors of one Lucky wanderer that started to appear throughout Europe and Western Asia. One particular priest was insanely obssessed with him, and followed him dilligently, hell bent on getting revenge against the one that took God, the Church, and everything from him. His name was Leoric McCloud, a Catholic priest that Jonah took as one of his first targets. Jonah found out the priest was breaking his chastity vows, and that he sold confessionary secrets to get money and fuel his gambling addiction... Jonah found that out, and conned the priest of all his money. When he was broke, Jonah outed the priests practice, blackmailing the men the priest sold their secrets to. The priest was expelled from the church, but swore to God that he would make him pay. He was SURE that Jonah practiced sorcery, and the way he openly dismissed the idea of God and used pagan apparel openly was only more cause to suspect it...

The priest found Jonah, and cornered him. With a flintlock pressed firmly against his forehead, he fired. Nothing happened. As soon as the gun was pulled to inspection, it fired with no warning. And again. And again. And again. No matter how badly the priest wanted him dead, the gun simply REFUSED to fire against Jonah. Beaten and bloody, and at the mercy of the ex priest, Jonah couldn't but see the irony in that. When he thought fate had left him, there it was back on his side, making the gun misfire a WHOPPING 7 TIMES.

And suddenly, it hit him. The Epiphany. The Awakening. No... Fate NEVER abandoned him. He was a SERVANT of Fate, he was DEDICATED to it. Fate LISTENED. He DIDN'T want to die... HE WAS MAKING HIS LUCK... Ever since he started believing in it, ever since he started dedicating to it, it was his will all along that was making his luck... He was making the Wheel turn as he pleased....

Jonah started laughing manically. The priest was wroth with seething, frothing foaming rage. He started beating on Jonah... When he realized his sack of Black Powder had caught fire. And then it exploded, taking his right hand when it exploded... And all the while Jonah was laughing, when the blast from the explosion caused a chandelier on the abandoned church he was being held in sway in JUST the EXACT way to widen the crack on which it was bolted to, and falling in exactly the right angle to break away a shard of glass that cut the ropes that bound him... At the same exact time, the Flintlock that the priest was helding on the hand that wasn't blasted off fell and fired a bullet smack straight into the padlock holding the only exit out of the abandoned church... That just about that time was starting to be engulfed into flames from some of the candles the priest was knocking down in his agonizing pain.

Thinking himself the luckiest son of a bitch alive on the planet, and believing the priest dead and gone forever, Jonah took off to resume his wandering... Now with a much clearer purpose in mind. With his newfound ability to bend fate to his whim, Jonah didn't need to resort to petty cons and gambling... No, he would dedicate himself to learning ever more about fate, and to gain an ever more firm grip on the Wheel. Oh Fortuna INDEED!

And so, for the next 5 years, Jonah went accross the sea and through the plains, to mysterious Arabia and savage Africa, to the Americas and back to the old country... All the while researching on lucky charms and ways of better communicate with fate. He learned about Quintessence, and Tess and the Prime, and about the existence of the Traditions and the war of Ascenscion. He stayed under the radar of the former Order of Reason and reformed his identity, better concealing it and keeping magic strictly Coincidental, only using his gift when it needed using, keeping to the mundane abilities he got before as his primary weapons. He thought the priest died for good, but knew he had other enemies, and couldn't shake off the feeling he was still being hunted, by someone, by everyone...

One day, in a visit to the Vatican, Jonah got word of a newfound archaeological dig of a temple dedicated to Fortuna... Immediately, that piqued his interest, and traveled to Palestrina, to the Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia, where he disguised himself as an experienced Archaeologist, and conned his way inside the dig, deep into the bowels of the temple, where, by chance, he stumbled on a loose rock, which revealed an underground passageway into an inner sanctum. Feeling clearly the pull of magic, he followed it into the depths of earth, where he found a small gathering of Statuettes of the various aspects of the Goddess, below a wooden Wheel of Fortune, that, miraculously, looked as if new, although it was certain it had at least 1500 years. There, he found an obsidian amulet representing the Moon, one of the aspects of the Goddess. The pull of magic of that amulet was incredibly strong, and as he put it in his neck, he felt his connection to Fate increase tenfold.

The amulet itself is pure black obsidian, but only when it's the New Moon. As the moon rises to a Crescent, the black slowly turns to a silvery hue, eventually becoming, in a Full Moon, a perfect round sphere of milky silvery glass, not unlike obsidian, but with a glow identical to that of the moon. Immediately he took the amulet as his most prized possession, eschewing other lucky charms in place of it, and using it exclusively as his Foci.

But again, Fate played a trick on him, and standing outside when he left the temple, he caught a glimpse of a man garbed in the clothes of the Faith, and in his right hand was a golden crossbow... Actually, his hand WAS a golden crossbow...

The man looked at him, and Jonah knew. It was Leoric. And not the Leoric he knew. He saw the man... He was changed, but his purpose was the same. And then Leoric saw him, and almost instantly, Jonah was forced to be Vulgar in order to change the path of the silver bolt that zoomed in on his head almost instantly when the eyes met. Jonah ran, and Fate saved him from further confrontation that day...

Jonah is fleeing ever since, brooding on his inability to end the priest's life on the day of his Awakening, and planning his eventual revenge...

(click to show/hide)

So, what's getting vetoed? :D
« Last Edit: June 06, 2012, 03:05:55 PM by brujon »
"All the pride and pleasure of the world, mirrored in the dull consciousness of a fool, are poor indeed compared with the imagination of Cervantes writing his Don Quixote in a miserable prison" - Schopenhauer, Aphorisms: The Wisdom of Life

Offline brujon

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Re: Jonah "Lucky" McDermot
« Reply #1 on: June 02, 2012, 07:50:43 PM »
I should probably clarify that i *have* played quite a bit of Mage back in the day, but i almost never DM'd it, and my friends really gave a hell of a lot of leeway when they were DMing, so we didn't always played by the book on what you could do with each sphere and whatnot... I was also not into min-maxing so much back in the day, and my characters were all for fun. Crazy mages that thought they were Jedi, Harry-Potter-esque characters (We even did this one-shot where everyone was a character from Harry Potter... We were a cosplaying group that awakened at once during a 3-day Harry Potter marathon), i once tried to do a mage that worked like the Wizard from D&D (He had spells per day, followed the rules for researching spells and stuff lol), and so on, so forth... So i'll probably try to do stuff that is way ahead of me, or try to disregard paradox for the rule of cool (as we always did), so bear with me please if i say i'm about to do something stupid lol
"All the pride and pleasure of the world, mirrored in the dull consciousness of a fool, are poor indeed compared with the imagination of Cervantes writing his Don Quixote in a miserable prison" - Schopenhauer, Aphorisms: The Wisdom of Life

Offline Dictum Mortuum

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Re: Jonah "Lucky" McDermot
« Reply #2 on: June 03, 2012, 04:49:43 AM »
I don't want to veto anything, it's just that the limit on flaws is 22. So you can either

a. Remove a flaw/choose a different one.
b. Pick up the "Enemy" flaw at 3 points for your arch enemy, instead of the "Witch-Hunted" Flaw. The enemy will be pretty much the same, only somewhat weaker.

I should probably clarify that i *have* played quite a bit of Mage back in the day, but i almost never DM'd it, and my friends really gave a hell of a lot of leeway when they were DMing, so we didn't always played by the book on what you could do with each sphere and whatnot... I was also not into min-maxing so much back in the day, and my characters were all for fun. Crazy mages that thought they were Jedi, Harry-Potter-esque characters (We even did this one-shot where everyone was a character from Harry Potter... We were a cosplaying group that awakened at once during a 3-day Harry Potter marathon), i once tried to do a mage that worked like the Wizard from D&D (He had spells per day, followed the rules for researching spells and stuff lol), and so on, so forth... So i'll probably try to do stuff that is way ahead of me, or try to disregard paradox for the rule of cool (as we always did), so bear with me please if i say i'm about to do something stupid lol

Don't worry, we'll be talking about the effect you want to create (if you're fast casting) before you roll.
« Last Edit: June 03, 2012, 04:52:27 AM by Dictum Mortuum »
Dictum Mortuum's Handbooks: My personal character optimization blog.

Offline brujon

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Re: Jonah "Lucky" McDermot
« Reply #3 on: June 04, 2012, 12:21:10 PM »
Well, seeing as i'm going to go from 23 freebies to 22, i'll have to extirpate a point from somewhere... I'm thinking i'm going to pull 1 point of off Resources, going from 3 to 2, because my character really doesn't have any permanent residence, and travels light from place to place, relying on his earnings to sustenance. I'll be a bit more ragged, but i think Resources 2 isn't too poor, right?

What can i get with Resources 2?

I also want to talk about my Wonder. It's going to be my Unique Focus, reflecting how my character believes that Necklace is a creation of Fortuna Primigenia, the most powerful manifestation of Fortuna, which helps him establish that connection with the Threads of Fate that he believes is how he can influence the world.

I was thinking the Necklace could cast off strong Entropic energies which help my Character influence the Tellurian when using Entropy, reducing the number of successes needed to achieve a determinate effect and/or reducing the difficulty of achieving said effect. I also envision the Necklace as functioning as some sort of "Luck Battery", as per his belief that the necklace is his "Lucky Charm".

Maybe he can infuse the Necklace with Quintessence to keep it "charged" with luck, that he can then burn off to help him succeed in difficult tasks or dire live-or-die situations? Or maybe, he can manipulate the threads of Fate, siphoning luck out of others, which he then stores into the necklace, pulling out of that pool of stored Luck when he needs it bad. I think that second option would fit quite well with the characters concept as a "Luck Mage".

Another question: Since my charater is already quite high on Prime, and the rules say the creation of minor trinkets with Prime 3 is possible, can my character create minor trinkets with his current spheres, or is the creation of artifacts & trinkets only possible with Matter as a sphere?
« Last Edit: June 04, 2012, 12:33:23 PM by brujon »
"All the pride and pleasure of the world, mirrored in the dull consciousness of a fool, are poor indeed compared with the imagination of Cervantes writing his Don Quixote in a miserable prison" - Schopenhauer, Aphorisms: The Wisdom of Life

Offline Dictum Mortuum

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Re: Jonah "Lucky" McDermot
« Reply #4 on: June 04, 2012, 12:24:37 PM »
Well, seeing as i'm going to go from 23 freebies to 22, i'll have to extirpate a point from somewhere... I'm thinking i'm going to pull 1 point of off Resources, going from 3 to 2, because my character really doesn't have any permanent residence, and travels light from place to place, relying on his earnings to sustenance. I'll be a bit more ragged, but i think Resources 2 isn't too poor, right?

What can i get with Resources 2?

Removing a point from backgrounds seems to work best. We can just say that you're getting your income by winning at poker or another card game of your liking. Resources 2 is ok, nothing fancy, but it does the job.
Dictum Mortuum's Handbooks: My personal character optimization blog.

Offline brujon

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Re: Jonah "Lucky" McDermot
« Reply #5 on: June 04, 2012, 01:13:00 PM »
We should probably talk about the Node, too. For it to be worth anything, it has to be close to where we will be going about during the campaign, or else it will be inacessible to my character. To fit his theme, how about a gambling parlor? :D
"All the pride and pleasure of the world, mirrored in the dull consciousness of a fool, are poor indeed compared with the imagination of Cervantes writing his Don Quixote in a miserable prison" - Schopenhauer, Aphorisms: The Wisdom of Life

Offline Dictum Mortuum

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Re: Jonah "Lucky" McDermot
« Reply #6 on: June 06, 2012, 09:24:39 AM »
We should probably talk about the Node, too. For it to be worth anything, it has to be close to where we will be going about during the campaign, or else it will be inacessible to my character. To fit his theme, how about a gambling parlor? :D

Check out the OOC thread! A gambling parlor is fine ;)
Dictum Mortuum's Handbooks: My personal character optimization blog.

Offline Popedanei

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Re: Jonah "Lucky" McDermot
« Reply #7 on: June 07, 2012, 11:01:30 AM »
@ brujon would you mind our character having have met?

Offline brujon

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Re: Jonah "Lucky" McDermot
« Reply #8 on: June 07, 2012, 03:46:58 PM »
@ brujon would you mind our character having have met?

Not at all. My whole background revolves around my character having wandered a lot, mostly seeking out people that have any insight on the inner workings of fate  & reality. So what you have in mind? Just eyesight contact, or some more personal connection?
"All the pride and pleasure of the world, mirrored in the dull consciousness of a fool, are poor indeed compared with the imagination of Cervantes writing his Don Quixote in a miserable prison" - Schopenhauer, Aphorisms: The Wisdom of Life

Offline Popedanei

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Re: Jonah "Lucky" McDermot
« Reply #9 on: June 07, 2012, 07:29:37 PM »
Could you have been around any gypsy families in France. I have been pretending to be part of a local Romany group near where we intend to start the game. I don't fit in there being of Indian decent. But if you ever found yourself testing fate with a gypsy fortune teller then you may have met me. I specialize in rumors so i hear things maybe i could be a contact of sorts for info you might need.

Offline brujon

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Re: Jonah "Lucky" McDermot
« Reply #10 on: June 07, 2012, 08:18:19 PM »
Could you have been around any gypsy families in France. I have been pretending to be part of a local Romany group near where we intend to start the game. I don't fit in there being of Indian decent. But if you ever found yourself testing fate with a gypsy fortune teller then you may have met me. I specialize in rumors so i hear things maybe i could be a contact of sorts for info you might need.

Yes, part of my character's background is that he spent a good amount of his life pursuing 'experts' on fate, debunking frauds, learning from the real deal. Gypsys would have been amongs the first that he would've seeked out, and likely would keep in touch with some of them, but not being really friends with any (otherwise i'd have Contact or Ally in my Advantages). But, he would know how to seek them out, and probably would know many by their names, you could be one of them.

Only, my character has a very high awareness, so he would probably have found out you're awakened, so tell me if you're comfortable with that... Mages aren't the most friendly sort
"All the pride and pleasure of the world, mirrored in the dull consciousness of a fool, are poor indeed compared with the imagination of Cervantes writing his Don Quixote in a miserable prison" - Schopenhauer, Aphorisms: The Wisdom of Life

Offline Popedanei

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Re: Jonah "Lucky" McDermot
« Reply #11 on: June 07, 2012, 08:44:12 PM »
So I have a few idea you can run by Dictum

Slay machine which is in the core book.
Adjusting the probability of being detected while sneaking. You just happen to be in the place they are not looking.
I think death when I think entropy what about some sort of feel of aversion making people want to avoid you or a place.
Then my wife came up with this one you should have a luck vacuum where any +1 difficulty you do change comes to you as a -1

found this online Entropy 2, Prime 2
Static magic functions through the creation of
coincidences - things that are unlikely, but possible. Fo
example, it is extremely unlikely that a coin flipped 100
times will land tails up each time. Possible, but
extremely unlikely.

Occam"s Razor states that explanations that are extremely
unlikely should be rejected in favor of more logical ones.
The rote that shares its name works by lowering the
entropy in a system, reducing the random chance that is
necessary for coincidences to succeed. This makes
performing static magic much more difficult - the
coincidences simply don"t happen.

[Anyone subject to this spell must make an Arete roll
(diff 7) each time she performs static magic, the number
of successes dependent on the outlandishness of the
coincidence desired. Failure means the spell dissipates
unaccomplished. A botch means that the spell manifests in
the most vulgar manner possible.]

I think that has good rules and can be very useful.
 

Offline brujon

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Re: Jonah "Lucky" McDermot
« Reply #12 on: June 08, 2012, 01:49:27 AM »
I liked that last one very much! That's the one i was thinking about when i said entropy was very strong against mages on my post in the recruitment thread, i just didn't remember exactly how it worked... Now combine that one with the hex that raises difficulty... Yikes.
"All the pride and pleasure of the world, mirrored in the dull consciousness of a fool, are poor indeed compared with the imagination of Cervantes writing his Don Quixote in a miserable prison" - Schopenhauer, Aphorisms: The Wisdom of Life

Offline PipTheBlue

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Re: Jonah "Lucky" McDermot
« Reply #13 on: June 08, 2012, 11:24:09 AM »
I liked that last one very much! That's the one i was thinking about when i said entropy was very strong against mages on my post in the recruitment thread, i just didn't remember exactly how it worked... Now combine that one with the hex that raises difficulty... Yikes.

This is where the hippie in me says something about being able to get a player out of a minmax game, but unable to get the minmax game out of the player :P

Offline Popedanei

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Re: Jonah "Lucky" McDermot
« Reply #14 on: June 08, 2012, 11:39:44 AM »
Yeah no prob once my character would have found you awakened she would have made herself know to you anyway Niyati is very open and trusting.  I also have awareness prime and mind.

Offline Dictum Mortuum

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Re: Jonah "Lucky" McDermot
« Reply #15 on: June 09, 2012, 09:45:37 AM »
found this online Entropy 2, Prime 2
Static magic functions through the creation of
coincidences - things that are unlikely, but possible. Fo
example, it is extremely unlikely that a coin flipped 100
times will land tails up each time. Possible, but
extremely unlikely.

Occam"s Razor states that explanations that are extremely
unlikely should be rejected in favor of more logical ones.
The rote that shares its name works by lowering the
entropy in a system, reducing the random chance that is
necessary for coincidences to succeed. This makes
performing static magic much more difficult - the
coincidences simply don"t happen.

[Anyone subject to this spell must make an Arete roll
(diff 7) each time she performs static magic, the number
of successes dependent on the outlandishness of the
coincidence desired. Failure means the spell dissipates
unaccomplished. A botch means that the spell manifests in
the most vulgar manner possible.]

The rote is well-thought in fluff, but weird mechanics-wise. I'm letting it fly, but be warned that the difficulty of the rote will depend on how large and how heavy-on-magic the area is (and what type or resonance the area has).
Dictum Mortuum's Handbooks: My personal character optimization blog.