The Scientist – science-gone-too-far in Unknown Armies

Science-gone-too-far in Unknown Armies:

The Scientist

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
-Arthur C. Clarke

“Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
-J. Robert Oppenheimer

Attributes: The Scientist is unaccepting of blind dogma. Everything is up for scrutiny. Nothing is secret. Nothing is sacred. Science is an end to itself. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Progress for the sake of progress. Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That’s someone else’s responsibility.

Taboo: Limits. Not doing something just because it happens to violate your noble passion is a surefire way to lose connection to the archetype.
Plagiarism may be something of a tradition, but it still weakens the archetype in its purest form.

Symbols: Glasses, labcoats, books, calculators (especially original TI82s), lab glassware, research grants, Latin, manuscripts, formula (with E=mc² being something of the Scientist’s universal creed), optical instruments (telescopes, microscopes, endoscopes, really anything with a -scope at the end), tweed jackets, academic grades and titles, museums, particle accelerators, as well as a large number of other artifacts.

Masks: Daedalos (antiquity), Johannes Faustus (16th century), Viktor Frankenstein (19th century), Reed Richards (20th century), Rick Sanchez (21st century).

Suspected Avatars in History: Aristoteles, Wernher von Braun, Marie Curie, Leonardo Da Vinci, Fritz Haber, Ishii Shirō.

1%-50%: Occam’s Razor. Often the simplest explanation actually is magic. With a successful roll on his Avatar: The Scientist skill, a character may identify the cause of an event as being unnatural.

51%-70%: Ivory Tower. In his own lab or similar place of power, an avatar of the Scientist can generate minor charges simply by researching a ritual. A successful roll on his Avatar: The Scientist skill reaps one minor charge. All of the charges necessary for athe ritual have to be generate in direct succession. If the avatar interrupts his work or if he fails on one of the rolls, all previously generated charges are lost.

71%-90%: Can implies ought. When committing an act – any act – for the first time, an avatar of the Scientist does not have to take stress rolls because of it.

91%+: Now I am become death. The moment an avatar reaches this level, he gains a major charge.