Editing Genius The Transgression/Chapter Two: Character Creation (section)

====Jabir:====

As a genius grows more powerful, his Inspiration shines out of him to illuminate the world. This can be a curse for those mad scientists who want to look more "scientist" than "mad." The genius' Mania begins to tamper with perception and procedure, skewing any attempt to engage in normal science or to perform normal experiments. Though the genius himself suffers no penalties―the odd effects from his perception "cancel out" when brought into conjunction with the odd effects from his behavior―he struggles to communicate his ideas to others. Modern geniuses call this "technobabble" in an attempt to soften the horror of the phenomenon, but it's formally known as Jabir, a sudden, paralyzing loss of clarity and coherence when a genius interacts with a regular mortal.

Any attempt to explain research or to communicate ideas with mere mortals suffers a -1 penalty as the genius' own Mania scrambles the presentation of his ideas. At Inspiration 5, this penalty grows to -2, and then to -3 at Inspiration 8. This penalty covers a number of scenarios. It arises if the genius: "talks shop" with a group of mortal researchers (Presence + Socialize), attempts to cooperate with a group of technicians in fixing a computer (Intelligence + Computer), defends a new scientific theory (even a mundane one) before a group
of scholars (Wits + Expression), and so on. In general, it is an indicator of how badly a genius can alienate a crowd once he starts talking about his ideas.