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| | These new Artificers were angry, broken, frightened, and desperate. They weren't, as the peers like to believe of themselves, the world's intellectual aristocracy, but a new sort of creature, lean and hungry and very, very dangerous. Born into want and rage all over the world, they had been ignored and derided by the other foundations, enslaved and exterminated by the Lemurians. While the rest of the Peerage reorganized itself and purged its corrupt elements, the Artificers had no natural defense against these New Makers, the scions of the desperate and the disaffected. The Artificers had, since their inception, been the poor, patient cousins of | | These new Artificers were angry, broken, frightened, and desperate. They weren't, as the peers like to believe of themselves, the world's intellectual aristocracy, but a new sort of creature, lean and hungry and very, very dangerous. Born into want and rage all over the world, they had been ignored and derided by the other foundations, enslaved and exterminated by the Lemurians. While the rest of the Peerage reorganized itself and purged its corrupt elements, the Artificers had no natural defense against these New Makers, the scions of the desperate and the disaffected. The Artificers had, since their inception, been the poor, patient cousins of |
| − | the other foundations, too humble or obsessed to ask for much, and all that changed overnight. Today, the Council of Artifice is a disorganized medley of anarchists, cast-offs, failed scientists, and post-punk engineers, desperate for resources and respect. | + | the other foundations, too humble or obsessed to ask for much, and all that changed overnight. Today, the Council of Artifice is a disorganized medley of anarchists, cast-offs, failed scientists, and post-punk engineers, desperate for resources and respect |
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| − | ===Organization:===
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| − | The Artificers are the least organized of all the foundations, and they've always been that way, despite occasional attempts to revive the Medieval guild system of Masters, Journeymen, and Apprentices. Currently, however, some Artificers take the "Union" part of their title seriously. In some cities where Artificers are numerous and times are hard, Artificers form into Unions, made up of workers and led by a figure referred to simply as Boss. Artificer Bosses keep in touch at an International level via email and Apokalypsi, but there's no head to the organization, at least not currently, though they do produce a newszine called Collaboration. A Union Hall provides a place to stay, protection, and equipment, forming a sort of extended collaborative that resembles a Lemurian zotheca in its sprawling extent. Most Union Halls don't mind members of other foundations using their facilities, as long as they give back in kind. A few of the more powerful Unions work to regulate Mania and technological supplies, and have begun to encounter harassment and attacks from Lemurians, who don't appreciate a disorganized mess of a foundation honing in on their turf.
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| − | Other than the Unions, the Artificers are mostly a bunch of harmless old tinkers and punk kids. The older generations of Artificers, those who haven't been radicalized by the influx of new blood, are almost entirely unaware of the younger generation's activities, or really of anything else. Though there are numerous short-lived zines, forums, and magazines, the newsletter Mechanical Experimenter is the best-regarded piece of print that Artificers reliably produce; everyone reads it, from the most clueless old kitbasher to the most aggressive revolutionary.
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| − | ===Members:===
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| − | The Artificers learn by doing, by getting their hands dirty, and every Maker has an incredible, intuitive grasp of how things fit together. Members of the Union of Artifice are interested primarily in building: the theory behind what they do, and even useful applications for their wonders, come second to the joy of creation.
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| − | But the Artificers are about more than just factory-work: all geniuses build, and most build compulsively; they cannot help it. The Artificers are about building from whatever is at hand. The new Union is still young and poor, and so are its members. They are disaffected college students, third-world revolutionaries, first-world revolutionaries, punks, pranksters, and pissed-off super-smart gutter trash. The other foundations are old: they have money and philosophy, but the Union of Artifice has attitude. Anyone who joins the Artificers is expected to be self-sufficient, at least in theory, and to be able to make something wondrous from whatever is lying around, with whatever resources are available.
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| − | ===Aesthetics:===
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| − | Style among the Artificers is eclectic. Older, more traditional members favor mechanical styles, whether spotless brass or dirty, oil-stained gears. Many are also fond of electricity and explosives, but their focus is typically on structure and design, rather than power. Whether elegantly-worked metal or crude plastic, Artificers' wonders look they were put together fast, hard, and with superhuman skill and precision.
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| − | The new Makers, drawn from an entirely different society, aim for a raw, authentic look, and in the worst parts of the world, that means building with (for lack of a better word) trash. Katastrofic weapons made of broken bottles and battery acid, wonders of Skafoi carved from the burned-out hulks of abandoned automobiles carried on the backs of metal centipedes, forbidden automata cobbled together from old Nintendos and stray dogs; whatever is in reach is a potential ingredient. More than that, many Artificers delight in deliberately making their wonders difficult to produce (and recreate): why build a wonder with the best biomedical waste when you can drag organic filth from sewers and poisoned wetlands? Of all the foundations, the Artificers are the most keenly aware of their own aesthetic sense. Young Artificers are a profoundly self-aware group; they preen, they strut, and they sneer at anything that doesn't meet their narrow definitions of "New Maker," and they spend their time trying to disgust and outrage their peers without themselves being shocked. Other foundations would worry if it weren't all so juvenile, little more than the super-scientist equivalent of kids sending one-another pictures of dead celebrities while complaining that they were sick of your favorite band (or in this case, engineer) before he sold out and got popular.
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| − | ===Character Creation:===
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| − | Artificers are hands-down the poorest foundation, and with the exception of the Navigators, the most ethnically diverse. People who catalyze in the world's worst industrial hellholes, from Jakarta to Toledo (Ohio, the other one is pretty nice), often join the Artificers if they're not tempted by the wealth and prestige of other foundations, or have no way of accessing those luxuries. Artificers, in their disorganized way, have recruiting stations all over the world, and their ranks swell every day with the desperate, the disaffected, and the betrayed. Geniuses drawn from non-technical professions, however, are comparatively rare: a Maker must know how to make, and while many Artificers are less than glamorous, having once been car mechanics, refugee nurses, militia members, or unlicensed doctors, most begin their Inspired careers able to create something.
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| − | Catalysts of Grimm, Hoffnung, and Neid are common among the Artificers: there is a lot of rage and resentment there, but also a spark of hope. Staunens are comparatively rare: the Artificers want to grow a better world, not admire the detritus of the current one.
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| − | Most Artificers, with their interest in creation over theory, favor Craft over Science and Science over Academics. They put little stock in hypotheticals and abstract reasoning, but many are nonetheless gifted mathematicians and draftsmen. Those Artificers who think to record blueprints of their wonders take up Expression. Artificers are increasingly diverse today: hackers and roboticists bolster their Crafts Skills with Computer, while genetic engineers favor Medicine.
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| − | Many Artificers have a gift for bashing together an immediate solution, meaning that Wits is as important as traditional brainpower. Embracing the New Makers' gutter-punk ethos means good Survival, Streetwise, and Investigation, to find what they need, and often a bit of Stealth, Larceny, and Subterfuge to grab it. Artificers like their Katastrofi, too, which means that combat training is common, with a focus on unusual Firearms.
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| − | The Dumpster Diver Merit is popular among the younger set, though Social Merits are comparatively rare: the New Makers are rarely scions of the powerful. Most Artificers, in addition to their intense focus on whatever helps them build the next wonder, pick up an eclectic mix of Skills and Merits due to their haphazard lives.
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| − | ===Role:===
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| − | Members of The Union of Artifice are often outsiders, loners, and weirdos, as close to rogues as proper members of the Peerage can get. But they still join collaboratives, and within one they make excellent urban scouts, investigators, and intrusion experts. Not every Artificer can double as a low-down dirty thief, but many have a knack for mundane machines, especially those centered around security. Many also have one foot in the world of the street and connections with the culture there, allowing them to get information from mundane sources that might escape even the most polished Director. In addition to this role, the sheer speed with which they can build wonders can make them important in emergencies as walking armories. Many a collaborative has been saved because their Artificer slapped together a weapon before the bad guys could
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| − | kick in the door.
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| − | ===Axioms:===
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| − | Artificers' favored Axioms are Automata and Prostasia. They are natural robot-makers, and often supplement their own creation with factories and duplicators. The Artificers' traditional focus on metallurgy and heavy construction also makes them the best armorers in the business.
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| − | Artificers are fond of Katastrofi and Skafoi, two Axioms where building is its own reward. Katastrofi is especially popular, since kitbashing a zipgun is an invaluable talent in the dangerous places many Artificers live. Apokalypsi, Epikrato, and Metaptropi are focused more on application than on the construction process itself, though many Artificers still incorporate those Axioms, putting their own rough spin on things. Artificers who build, then move on, neglect Exelixi, but others appreciate being able to fix the things when they break.
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| − | ===Grant:===
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| − | No one builds faster than an Artificer. From a humble Czech doll-maker to the most revolutionary gunsmith, Artificers can stick the decals on a new wonder when other geniuses are still organizing their screwdrivers. Artificers reduce the time needed to build or fiddle with any wonder by one step (to a minimum of one day for non-kitbashed wonders), and suffer no penalty for doing this.
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| − | For kitbashed wonders, this time reduction does not make the wonder fall apart faster. A two-step kitbashing job falls apart after one day for Artificers, not one scene. (See Kitbashed Wonders, Page 138.)
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| − | Concepts: Back-alley machinist, caffeine-addled computer hacker, master bladesmith, automotive grease-monkey, pious golem-maker
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| − | '''Quote:''' ''"Good, fast, and cheap: you get all three. And if you talk like that to my people again, you're going to wake up as a collection of spare parts."''
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| − | ===Stereotype:===
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| − | Directors: Rich idiots in charge of other rich idiots. They don't own me.
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| − | Navigators: Someone needs to test this thing out. I bruise easy.
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| − | Progenitors: They make okay stuff, but this "Long live the new flesh" crap has to stop.
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| − | Scholastics: They actually believe that we've already figured everything out. Weird.
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| − | Rogues: A million wannabe punks all pulling in different directions, getting nothing done.
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| − | Lemurians: Oh no! That Lemurian went and built a Tandy-9000! And that other one just designed a steam locomotive! However can I compete?
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| − | The Illuminated: A polite reminder that metal and tools go in one category, and your fellow human beings go in another category.
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| − | Other Creatures: These monsters might last forever, but the things they make don't.
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| − | Mortals: There's no love in what they make. It just gets churned out, then forgotten. What a waste.
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| − | ==The Fellowship for Manifest Direction==
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| − | '''Name: Directors'''
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| − | '''Nicknames: Overlords, Disputers, The Loud'''
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| − | Many of the Inspired shy away from interaction with others, but not the Directors. Instead they seek out other mad scientists, mundane scientists, and laymen and attempt to expound and expand upon their theories. They are often met with scorn, but that rarely slows a Director down. They know, deep down, that they are right, and they know that with just the right application of charm and rhetoric, they can bring anyone around to their side. They might even learn something along the way.
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| − | Directors are horrifying yet familiar. They don't seem interesting in ripping away the comforting veils of ignorance that keep mortals from scissoring out their eyes to escape the blasphemous truth. They don't spit out legions of unholy half-born things. Or when they do, at least it's not for it's own sake, it's for a purpose that regular people can understand: power. But this makes the Directors all the more scary. The Fellowship for Manifest Direction is the smoke-filled room, the penthouse boardroom where old men make decisions that ruin lives in order to gain tiny increases in their portfolios. Directors are the blank-faced advisors sitting beside presidents, kings, and prime ministers, subtly guiding policy for their own ends. They are the censors who decide what we watch and don't watch, think and don't think. To mortals, it's a group like the Fellowship for Manifest Direction that controls the media, the government, and the finances of the entire world.
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| − | Of course that's not entirely true. The Directors are powerful, but they aren't the Illuminati, they aren't the International Banking Conspiracy that manipulates the world economy from New York to Dubai. In fact, what the Directors really are can seem more terrifying than the shadow-government fears that course through many people's minds when they hear the Directors described. Each Director burns with ambition, with vision, with a terrible yearning for more: more power, more wealth, more control, more safety, more revenge. It doesn't matter what it is, but all Directors live lives of restless dissatisfaction. An individual Director might be afraid, or uneasy, or ambitious, or merely curious, but all want the same thing: to accumulate power, at nearly any cost. It's the naked ambition that shocks people, more than what the Director plans to do with all that power. A genius' catalyst often strips away certain subtleties in a person's nature, exposing something smooth and archetypal, and in the Directors is this tendency most strongly manifested. Some might climb the greased pole to escape the machinations of their underlings, to exercise control over the pitiful world of mortals, or merely to get laid every weekend, but all Directors possess a horrible, blank, all-consuming lust for power that exists outside of any concrete goal or desire. A Director is a scientist-aristocrat, a wealthy master of hypnotism, a would-be ruler of the world, who wouldn't even know what to do if at the end he sat alone and unchallenged on a throne of pure diamond and looked out over his dominion of the Earth.
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| − | ===Focus:===
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| − | The Directors are masters of mad psychology. They specialize in mind control machines, splinter
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| − | personalities, implanted behaviors, and drone servitors that do their bidding. Some are diabolical masterminds, pulling strings from the shadows, while others are out there mixing it up on the lab floor, beacons of Inspiration.
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| − | Psychology is an interesting and subtle science with many branches, some barely explored. Some Directors focus on traditional psychology, including hypnosis and psychological manipulation; these may only break out the wonders for real emergencies, instead relying on good Social Skills and an ability to read a situation. Wonders are obvious, but few people distrust a winning smile. Others focus on mind control machines, pheromone manipulation and biological impulses, or the implanting of hidden personalities. Many younger Directors (and not a few older ones, as the Fellowship for Manifest Direction does not reward the crotchety
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| − | and out-of-touch) have begun studying the psychology of the artificial, creating machine intelligences.
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| − | Those Overlords who do not study psychology often study related fields, such as economics, sociology, ecology, and even agriculture. But the Directors are ultimately a pragmatic group, and will recruit intelligent, capable people from nearly any field―especially if that field looks like it won't disrupt the existing power structure.
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| − | ===History:===
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| − | The Fellowship for Manifest Direction originated in the industrial age as an answer to Lemuria's superior organizational abilities. The Peerage's response was to appoint a council of "directors" able to mobilize the other foundations. (The Fellowship for Manifest Direction was, in fact, originally just a fellowship, not a foundation. They never bothered to change the name.) This organization quickly manifested some of the worst traits of 19th century Lemuria, becoming exclusionary, racist, intolerant, and paranoid. Reforms shortly before the Great War stripped the fellowship of many of those elements, replacing them, though, with something many in the Peerage considered even worse: a taste for the fruits of industry.
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| − | Throughout the 20th century, the Directors represented the excesses and triumphs of industrial civilization. They were ruthless capitalists, gifted entrepreneurs, and super-science economists, shaking the monetary foundations of the world with their transactions. Their ruthlessness was matched only by their usefulness to the Peerage: the Directors provided drive, focus, and political expertise. It was the Overlords' ability to organize the Peerage that led to Lemuria's downfall.
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| − | Without an enemy to fight, though, the Directors lost their focus during much of the latter half of the 20th century. They became decadent and sluggish, interested only in maintaining their own power. Old boy's networks and secret economic societies popped up, devoid of accountability or long-range ambition, apparently dedicated only to maintaining the status quo. In recent years this has begun to change, fast: the "smoke-filled room" has given way to loose groups of independent organizers and peripatetic contractors, as the Directors, like everyone in the Peerage, adapts to a smaller, more mobile world. This generation gap has produced tension in the Fellowship for Manifest Direction, as older members fail or refuse to adapt to the new changes in direction and philosophy. New Directors are truly new creatures: fast, mobile, stripped-down, not bound to the ponderous lairs and laboratories that kept their predecessors stationary. Their motto is "A Phone and a Gun," because that's all they need. Their beholden aren't waiting around in the Volcano Fortress; they're an Instant Message away from showing up armed and ready to go. Their destructive wrath isn't measured in mountain-sized ray guns, but instead whatever they can find, transformed with ruthless, elegant efficiency into instruments of death and destruction. This new breed terrifies the old guard, and tensions are growing worse as the years pass and the elders cling to power in a changing world.
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| − | ===Organization:===
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| − | The Directors are more organized than other foundations. Every Director, whether she knows it or not, belongs to a Dominion, a geographic region that contains from ten to 30 million mortals. The United States contains twenty-three Dominions. Each Dominion is run by a Heterogeny, made up of three, five, seven, or eleven influential Directors called Dispensers, one of whom is appointed the Overlord and manages the regional finances. Many lesser ranks exist beneath the Dispensers. This group manages the affairs of the Directors in that area from some central location. Every ten years, the Heterogenies vote on a Clade, which consists of 44 Directors (currently; the population grows with the total number of Directors). The Clade, in turn, sets policy for all the Directors from a central location in one of the world's major skyscrapers. (The exact location varies from year to year.)
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| − | Directors technically have a single source for all Director-related scholarship, a monthly magazine called Control. However, that's the old way. The new Directors, the up-and-comers, favor an ever-shifting network of newsgroups and contacts squirting micro-assessments to their phones or laptops in a constant stream of evaluation and analysis.
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| − | Most rank-and-file Directors, whatever their style, interact only vaguely with the hierarchy of their Dominion, instead working on small-scale projects within their collaborative. Those that focus inward often serve simply by remaining loyal to those on top and fighting for scraps of power in predictable ways. Others, though, join some of the cultural groups within the Fellowship for Manifest Direction, organizations that exist not for the benefit of their individual members but to protect and enhance the foundation as a whole. The Jaguar People serve as the Directors' elite guards. The Mirror People handle counterintelligence and espionage. The Stochastic People deal with issues of raw material, transport, and extraction. The Sigil People monitor internal affairs and handle audits and personnel. The Tower People (whom everyone calls the People People) deal with the mundane population. These groups were once vitally important to the foundation's well-being and had intricate hierarchies and protocols; now, with the power structures of all the foundations flattened, most of these groups are little more than a news feed with jobs to be done and rewards to be offered.
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| − | ===Members:===
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| − | Inspired who join the Manifest Fellowship are interested in power. Not all are interested in accruing it, however: while there are many sharks and ladder-climbers among the Overlords, others are interested in power as a concept: how it moves, how it flows, how it relates to money, to charisma, to talent. They want to know how power can be organized, and they want to explore the many subtle forms that control can take. Geniuses who join this foundation often hail from wealth and privilege: before their catalysts, they were power-brokers, high-profile lawyers, wealthy entrepreneurs, or political administrators. Others came from fields interested in the study, not the acquisition of power and prestige: sociologists, policy analysts, and stock forecasters. Still other members of the foundation started with nothing, catalyzed, and now see a bright, wealthy future for themselves in this foundation.
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| − | Though not all Directors are wealthy, all understand that wealth does not equate directly with authority, and authority is what interests a director. They dress and act to demonstrate their authority in whatever society they find themselves. Some are obsessive about being the center of attention, while others use their talents to blend in and control an organization from within. However they approach issues like power and authority, however, geniuses who become Directors possess an almost intuitive ability to gain and hold power.
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| − | Directors can catalyze in almost any way, though few are motivated by sorrow and loss. Those more interested in the process and theory of power are Staunens, while ambitious Hoffnungs, bitter Neids, and even righteous Grimms are common among those Directors who see power in more practical terms.
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| − | ===Aesthetics:===
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| − | Directors are capable of flexibility in their style, changing the superficial appearance of themselves and even their wonders to match the expectations of clients, friends, or enemies. An Overlord in tailored suits and smooth plastic one day may be in tattered street clothes and worn cybernetics the next, if that's what the people around the Director need to see.
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| − | Members of the Manifest Fellowship who need to project a clean, professional image often favor smooth and elegant fashions. Others see their persona as "Director" as separate from their behavior as a genius and favor brutally functional styles for the wonders they create. Other Directors build to shock: though they may care nothing about the philosophies and cultures behind a style, they take on horrific or bizarre aesthetics to keep their enemies (and potential enemies) on-edge and uncertain.
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| − | ===Character Creation:===
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| − | The Overlords focus on Social Attributes and Skills as much as Mental ones. They are orators and administrators, and they often view themselves as the "elite" of the Inspired, best able to command the efforts of other geniuses. Composure often trumps Resolve, as looking in control is more important in the Manifest Fellowship than actually having it together. Physical Attributes are sometimes neglected in favor of Intelligence and Presence, especially among Directors who prefer to act through proxies.
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| − | Social Skills are also prioritized, though Directors of different styles focus on different approaches: a scheming, manipulative genius may focus on Subterfuge, while an expert at raising money and giving presentations might emphasize Expression and Persuasion. This is not to imply that Directors neglect their scientific training: most are as technically competent as members of the other foundations, though they often seem reticent to emphasize that fact. Academics and Computer, to fit their favored Axioms, are common, though medical Directors, aeronautics Directors, and even occult research Directors all exist.
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| − | Many Directors define themselves by their Social Merits: Allies, Contacts, Status, and Resources are all common. Some even stay in the mortal limelight with Fame. Directors enjoy large numbers of beholden, and can always find work for them. They're rarely the Dumpster Diver sort.
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| − | ===Role:===
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| − | Directors, unsurprisingly, serve as the "face" for a collaborative. The Director allows the group to interact with the mortal community without getting committed to a psychiatric institute. She is also first-in when interacting with other collaboratives or unfamiliar social situations. A collaborative's Director may or may not also be their leader. Some Overlords are natural organizers, making plans and finding tasks for everyone nearby (sometimes annoyingly so), while others use their super-secret powers of "making eye contact" and "smiling" only when they're needed to charm other people. Unless they are masters of Automata, Directors prefer to stick closer to the tougher members of the collaborative when things go wrong, and are rarely interested in direct confrontation.
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| − | ===Axioms: ===
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| − | A Director's favored Axioms are Automata or Epikrato. Directors have a gift for control, and they prefer to surround themselves with guards and allies rather than face challenges directly.
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| − | Directors in general prefer subtle uses for Axioms: few focus on fields such as Katastrofi or Prostasia, instead devoting their time to the more subtle applications of Exelixi (to enhance mental faculties) and Apokalypsi (to monitor friends and enemies). Directors who study Skafoi use their machines as launching-points for contacting different orders of intelligence, rather than mere ferries to move the collaborative from one locale to the next.
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| − | ===Grant:===
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| − | Directors are more familiar with social mores than other geniuses, and receive the training and support to keep abreast of developments in sane science. They can spend Mania to enhance their Social Attributes (Presence, Manipulation, and Composure). When they do this, they do not suffer penalties for low Obligation, nor do they suffer Jabir penalties.
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| − | ===Concepts:===
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| − | Lab director, wannabe Bond villain, professional debunker, millionaire industrialist, member of the Mad Ethics Board, unconventional psychologist, New Age techno-guru
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| − | '''Quote:''' ''"Like even the strongest iron bar, every man has a weak point, and it can be found."''
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| − | ===Stereotypes:===
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| − | Artificers: If only we could convince them to make something useful.
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| − | Navigators: Arrogant, insufferable hotshots! I like that. Besides, someone has to break heads when negotiations break down.
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| − | Progenitors: Busy swallowing their own tails. At least they won't take too many people with them this time.
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| − | Scholastics: Research and development, that's where it starts. It's just not where it ends.
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| − | Rogues: Usually poor and looking for work. But I'm glad to work outside the system...when it benefits me.
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| − | Lemurians: How sad it is, to watch gifted geniuses worshiping at the altar of their dead ancestors.
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| − | The Illuminated: No, I'm not like them. They don't pay their test subjects.
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| − | Other Creatures: Generally dangerous, horrible, and uncouth, with a frightening lack of manners.
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| − | Mortals: They never listen.
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| − | == The Center for Circumferential Navigation ==
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| − | '''Name:''' Navigators
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| − | '''Nicknames:''' Daredevils, Guardians, Fire Bait
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| − | Navigators are the test pilots, the dangerous-environment explorers, and the people-who-make-power-suits-and-fight-crime of the Inspired, as comfortable using their equipment as they are designing it and promulgating the theories behind it. Rather than send minions or automata to confront obstacles, they go themselves, armed with death rays or transformed by the experiments that they have performed on their own bodies. Larger than life, heroic, and often terrifying, the Navigators take their work seriously, and they are as brilliant as any other genius, and even more eager than others to use their inventions.
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| − | Travelers and explorers, Navigators drift into town and disappear on the wind. Mortal stories that involve Navigators describe the sudden appearance of a stranger, a drifter, who heralds nightmares and chaos. Some are prophets, warning of the horrors to come. Others bring the wicked things with them: psychic demons pulled from inner-space, gibbering betentacled things from some far realm, or simply the evil creatures that the Navigator dug up in the last town. Navigators are nomads and vagabonds who live at the edge of survivability, and when their dangerous activities intersect with the mortal world, the results can be disastrous and bloody. These geniuses leap into the unknown, break apart the walls separating this reality from the next, and build wonders dedicated to taking them farther, faster, or deeper than ever before.
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| − | The life of a Navigator can be a terrifying and lonely one. Few settle in one place for long, and though they might have a place to rest their head, their home is always in the great unknown. It's hard to form mortal ties when soaring across space and time, and even those Navigators who stop to guard mortals from the horrible things beyond the horizon rarely stay long enough to receive their thanks. Navigators, simply, are ill-equipped for civilization. Many are recklessly irresponsible―with money, with safety, with other people―and the rest run the range from nihilistic thrillseekers to people who never quite fit in. Even in the Inspired
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| − | community, few ever feel entirely comfortable, and sooner or later, wanderlust or madness takes hold and the Navigator leaps, blind and laughing, into some new world.
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| − | ===Focus:===
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| − | The Navigators focus on mad physics. They were the scholars of heat and of lightning; today they are masters of radiation and of gravitation. Navigators are also, as their name implies, travelers, able to bend their knowledge to the creation of fantastic vehicles and dimensional gates. While the classic image of a Navigator puts one behind the seat of a Wondrous hot rod or stratospheric flying machine, powerful Navigators also explore the depths of space and time. Navigators are all over the board with how rough or refined their techniques are: some are fireburned blacksmiths or overall-wearing grease monkeys, while others are refined scholars of hidden energies and forces not yet understood, let alone explored, by mortal science.
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| − | Of all the foundations, Navigators are the most focused on their field of study. Mad physics serves as the springboard for nearly all Navigators. Exceptions include medical Navigators, who build bizarre vehicles of bone and sinew, dimension-hopping occultists who explore the half-real worlds of specters and phantoms, and cybernauts who plunge, body and mind, into the uncharted depths of the Internet. These alternate groups often appear in phases or fads: the heyday of Web-Navigation is past, for example, and no one's sure what the new direction will be.
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| − | Though many people figure Navigators are too reckless to keep careful notes, many Daredevils, especially as they get older, keep meticulous records, and many are gifted physicists and researchers who, if not for their manic wanderlust or other flaws of character, could be top-flight researchers, not just test pilots and explorers. Of course, just as many Navigators live up to their stereotype, taking just enough notes and doing just enough work to build that flying machine or open that gate, then leaping through.
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| − | ===History:===
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| − | The Navigators joined the Peerage only recently, and many older peers do not yet consider them "proper" members. The term "Navigator" referred to those Lemurian geniuses who were considered Inspired enough that they were not beholden, but not worthy of attaining the higher secrets of mad science. They were "low-caste" geniuses, tasked with the transportation and maintenance of their self-styled betters. This low position was based on old Lemuria's strange race hierarchies, and the ethnic makeup of the Navigators is still slightly skewed toward Lemuria's "middle races," which includes most people of Asian and Middle Eastern descent.
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| − | The Navigators abandoned Lemuria between the World Wars, not just because Lemuria was full of evil racists who oppressed them, but because it was full of incompetent, bumbling idiots who couldn't even conduct Armageddon properly. They remained independent, a unified rogue program, until the 1960s, when they became part of the Peerage. The Navigators quickly gained a reputation not just for efficient movement of troops (and money―they are a rather wealthy organization, as a whole), but for a military veneer that at times bordered on the fascistic. This element has declined in recent years, but many Navigators possess a distinctly militaristic style. In recent years, after the collapse of the old Peer hierarchies, the Navigators have moved further from their martial traditions to embrace all kinds of wanderers, explorers, and adventurers, but in some places the old ways die hard.
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| − | ===Organization:===
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| − | Today's navigators are a disorganized and solitary lot, and they like it that way. As the Navigators emerged from the shadows of Lemuria, they found dignity and honor in a military structure, complete with an archaic but rewarding rank system that resembled a cross between feudal Europe and the modern armed forces. Newly catalyzed Navigators, without anyone under their command, were just called Navigators. Command of an entire collaborative earned the rank of Captain, while administrating an entire zotheca (Navigators kept the Lemurian term) of at least ten geniuses earned the rank of Chevalier. Control of an entire metropolitan region fell on the shoulders of a Dux Bellorum, supported by a handful of Lieutenants. Above the Dukes were the Marshalls, nine of them, who elected from among their own number an Imperator every three years.
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| − | This hierarchy survived the reorganization the Peerage underwent in the nineties, but its influence did not. The quasi-military structure, coupled with the natural aggressiveness of many Navigators, resulted in a foundation reviled as a pack of thugs and would-be feudalists out for money and obeisance from their fellow geniuses. The new Navigator hierarchy is considerably looser and employs the honorific "Palatine," which previously signified a Navigator too mobile to make full use of his rank, as a default. Only in a handful of places where Navigators exert great influence, such as Los Angeles, are the old systems still enforced. Now, most Navigators are only dimly aware of their rank, if any, and social climbing is seen as somewhat vulgar and pointless by younger Daredevils.
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| − | ===Members:===
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| − | Many Navigators come from military or quasi-military backgrounds, their ranks swelled by demolitions experts, military scientists, pilots, and members of elite police and rescue forces. Even a Navigator who comes from a different background will find herself bumping against so many ex-military sorts that some of that mindset rubs off. Geniuses from non-scientific backgrounds are common, and include test pilots, truckers, and merchant marines who saw too much or got too obsessed and so catalyzed; these tough, aggressive individuals fit naturally into the Navigator hierarchy. But most Navigators still come from some kind of technical field, though rarely is it too refined or sedentary. The grease monkey Navigator is a stereotype for a reason, but others lived lives as EMTs, elite assassins, or even occultists before Catalyzing.
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| − | Due to their propensity for travel, and for coming from economically disadvantaged regions of the Middle East and Asia, Navigators are more likely than other foundations to be foreigners and refugees, wherever they are. Many have strange or unusual tales from their homelands, whether they originally manned an oil derrick off the Alaskan coast or fled to Japan on a makeshift raft.
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| − | Members of the Circumference Center are as interested in using their wonders as building them. This is not the machine functionality of the Union of Artificers, who are often very interested in how their devices run, but a "use-it-first" approach to wonders: potential Navigators are interested in what their wonders do and how well they do it, and they see direct tests as the best way to figure that out. This means that Navigators are often direct and somewhat aggressive, with hard-nosed and well-grounded personalities that seem at odds with their wonder-working. But the Navigators are by no means stupid―very few geniuses are dumb; most are just crazy, and the Fire Bait are just crazy in a different way from their fellows.
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| − | ===Aesthetics:===
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| − | Despite their rough-and-ready philosophy, not every Navigator favors a brutally functional style. Though hard-edged military designs are indeed popular, many Navigators look to the explorers and soldiers of the past for their inspiration. One of the classic images of the Navigator is the jet pack, and this item can lend itself to a slick art-deco style, all fins and swept-back chrome. Other Navigators draw their imagery from the last great age of exploration, focusing on polished wood, gleaming brass, and a beautiful hand-crafted look that belies their wonders' toughness and functionality.
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| − | ===Character Creation:===
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| − | The Circumference Center encourages high Physical Attributes in its members. Many favor Dexterity to become gifted pilots, while those who expect long periods of exposure in the wild focus on Stamina. Wits is often as high as Intelligence, since a quick fix is often better than a perfect fit while in the field.
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| − | Navigators possess an array of real-world skills in addition to their Axioms, and are the most likely to focus on unInspired abilities, trusting Skills like Brawl, Survival, Stealth, and Streetwise to keep them alive. Many are world travelers and learn a number of languages. Militaristic Navigators focus on Physical Merits like Fast Reflexes and Quick Draw to give them a fighting edge.
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| − | A Navigator's catalyst is often recognizable from her behavior. Many are Grimms and wear that rage openly, becoming rooftop avengers and enemies of injustice. Klagens often behave similarly, though for different and often more personal reasons. Navigators who catalyze through Staunen are infected with a kind of wanderlust and frantic curiosity that never lets them rest for long. Far-planning Hoffnungs and vindictive Neids are comparatively rarer.
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| − | ===Role:===
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| − | Navigators are, first and foremost, scouts and explorers, and not just "gentleman-adventurers" drifting leisurely above the jungles in their dirigibles. Most Navigators are capable survivalists and able to help their collaborative survive in harsh and alien environments due to training, diligence, and a fierce will to survive. Those Navigators that are not wilderness travelers instead possess knowledge of the weird and horrific places that their wonders can take the collaborative. Their fellow geniuses also recognize a Navigators' usefulness when the ray guns come out, and a collaborative often expects its Navigator to take the lead in violent confrontations.
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| − | Earlier ages saw geniuses from the Circumference Center reduced to "second-class" status in
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| − | collaboratives―hence the euphemistic and humble name "Navigator", which the foundation has kept as a badge of defiant pride. Navigators were seen as expendable scouts, transport specialists, and grunt soldiers, but not "real" geniuses. This attitude has died out almost entirely; younger geniuses often don't even know the stereotype in the first place and would react to it much like regular mortals react to "Irish Need Not Apply" signs.
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| − | ===Axioms:===
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| − | The Navigators' favored Axioms are Katastrofi or Skafoi. The Navigators delight in seeing new places, preferably at very high speeds. Both their role as the Peerage's foot soldiers and their interest in high-energy physics make them naturals for the Axiom of Katastrofi.
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| − | Navigators who focus on exploration instead look to Apokalypsi to give them a view of the wonders and horrors coming their way. The Daredevils have a tradition of building and employing armor suits, and they are also experts in high-energy shielding, making Prostasia a popular choice, especially for crime-fighting Navigators. The foundation tends to shy away from subtle and indirect Axioms like Automata: it doesn't discount those techniques for others' use, by many means, but not many Navigators possess the sorts of personalities that contribute to a study of those fields. Epikrato sees little use, as Navigators would rather see than control, but Exelixi is very popular. Navigators are most likely to make use of both Crafts and Medicine
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| − | when studying Exelixi, to repair and enhance both themselves and their vehicles.
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| − | ===Grant:===
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| − | A Navigator's Mania is as physical as it is mental, like lightning coursing through muscle and bone. Navigators can spend Mania to enhance their Physical attributes (Strength, Dexterity, or Stamina).
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| − | ===Concepts: ===
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| − | Deep sea or deep space colonist, jet pack flyboy, trailblazer, guardian of the city streets, spatiotemporal researcher, cynical scout
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| − | '''Quote:''' ''"I've seen things you wouldn't believe. Hell, I've seen things I don't believe."''
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| − | === Stereotypes: ===
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| − | Artificers: Reliable, quality construction and professional design. I can't say anything bad about that.
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| − | Directors: Someone has to provide organization and funding. Shame it's these assholes.
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| − | Progenitors: Their desire for bettering themselves is commendable, but change for change's sake is pointless.
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| − | Scholastics: Evenly divided between useless antiquarians and people who know that real knowledge is farther away than the bookshelf.
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| − | Rogues: Unpredictable when the shit starts. Don't trust 'em and don't turn your back.
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| − | Lemurians: They're not pathetic or harmless. They're dangerous killers, and they need to be respected for that, if nothing else.
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| − | The Illuminated: You can go out into the Void, but you always need to come back.
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| − | Other Creatures: Good in a fight, and usually a lot more reasonable than people make them out to be.
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| − | Mortals: A bit too obsessed with creature comforts, but in a pinch, it's nice to have some ex-special forces to point their guns at the problem.
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| − | ==[[Genius_The_Transgression/Chapter Two: Character Creation|Previous]]==
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