Genius The Transgression/Chapter Three:Systems and Foundations - Revision history

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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.		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.

			==[[Genius_The_Transgression/Chapter Two: Character Creation\|Previous]]==

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	===Members:===		===Members:===
	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.		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.

			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.

			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.

			===Aesthetics:===
			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.

			===Character Creation:===
			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.

			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.

			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.

			===Role:===
			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.

			Earlier ages saw geniuses from the Circumference Center reduced to "second-class" status in
			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.

			===Axioms:===
			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.

			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
			when studying Exelixi, to repair and enhance both themselves and their vehicles.

			===Grant:===
			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).

			===Concepts: ===
			Deep sea or deep space colonist, jet pack flyboy, trailblazer, guardian of the city streets, spatiotemporal researcher, cynical scout

			'''Quote:''' ''"I've seen things you wouldn't believe. Hell, I've seen things I don't believe."''
			=== Stereotypes: ===

			Artificers: Reliable, quality construction and professional design. I can't say anything bad about that.

			Directors: Someone has to provide organization and funding. Shame it's these assholes.

			Progenitors: Their desire for bettering themselves is commendable, but change for change's sake is pointless.

			Scholastics: Evenly divided between useless antiquarians and people who know that real knowledge is farther away than the bookshelf.

			Rogues: Unpredictable when the shit starts. Don't trust 'em and don't turn your back.

			Lemurians: They're not pathetic or harmless. They're dangerous killers, and they need to be respected for that, if nothing else.

			The Illuminated: You can go out into the Void, but you always need to come back.

			Other Creatures: Good in a fight, and usually a lot more reasonable than people make them out to be.

			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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	Mortals: They never listen.		Mortals: They never listen.


			== The Center for Circumferential Navigation ==

			'''Name:''' Navigators

			'''Nicknames:''' Daredevils, Guardians, Fire Bait

			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.

			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.

			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
			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.

			===Focus:===
			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.

			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.

			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.

			===History:===
			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.

			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.

			===Organization:===
			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.

			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.

			===Members:===
			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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Grant:

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	Concepts: Back-alley machinist, caffeine-addled computer hacker, master bladesmith, automotive grease-monkey, pious golem-maker		Concepts: Back-alley machinist, caffeine-addled computer hacker, master bladesmith, automotive grease-monkey, pious golem-maker

	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."''		'''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."''

	===Stereotype:===		===Stereotype:===

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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.		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.

			===Character Creation:===
			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.

			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.

			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.

			===Role:===
			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.

			===Axioms: ===
			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.

			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.

			===Grant:===
			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.

			===Concepts:===
			Lab director, wannabe Bond villain, professional debunker, millionaire industrialist, member of the Mad Ethics Board, unconventional psychologist, New Age techno-guru

			'''Quote:''' ''"Like even the strongest iron bar, every man has a weak point, and it can be found."''

			===Stereotypes:===

			Artificers: If only we could convince them to make something useful.

			Navigators: Arrogant, insufferable hotshots! I like that. Besides, someone has to break heads when negotiations break down.

			Progenitors: Busy swallowing their own tails. At least they won't take too many people with them this time.

			Scholastics: Research and development, that's where it starts. It's just not where it ends.

			Rogues: Usually poor and looking for work. But I'm glad to work outside the system...when it benefits me.

			Lemurians: How sad it is, to watch gifted geniuses worshiping at the altar of their dead ancestors.

			The Illuminated: No, I'm not like them. They don't pay their test subjects.

			Other Creatures: Generally dangerous, horrible, and uncouth, with a frightening lack of manners.

			Mortals: They never listen.

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History:

Show changes

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	Becoming a rogue does not require any Skill training, and occurs automatically after a month if the genius stops keeping up her subscription.		Becoming a rogue does not require any Skill training, and occurs automatically after a month if the genius stops keeping up her subscription.


			== The International Union of Artifice ==

			'''Name: Artificers'''

			'''Nicknames: Makers, Tinkers, Artisans'''

			Currently the fastest-growing foundation, the Union of Artifice is undergoing growing pains as its influences reaches places not previously contacted, or even noticed, by the Yankee inventors who founded it three centuries ago. A seething cauldron of creativity, anger, and clashing cultural identities, the Artificers have changed, almost overnight, from the Peerage's eccentric hobbyists and harmless tinkers to a politically-charged nest of ideologues stumbling together into a new world.

			The traditional image of the Artificers plays off mortals' fears of the irresponsible, disinterested inventor who cares nothing for what he creates or how it changes the world. Artificers were―sometimes still are―compulsive builders and designers who create because they need to create, indifferent to the needs and wants of the outside world, blithely unconcerned with the suffering they unleash. Artificers represent the proliferation of nuclear weaponry, the irresponsible use of pesticides, and―horrors imagined but not yet possible to mortal science―armies of robots taking lives or jobs with equal indifference. The shadow of the Artificer arises whenever people fear the Pandora's box of new technologies, and realize that they are being made to conform to a changing world, not that the world is changing to benefit them.

			Now, though, this image of the Artificers has grown tangled with a new one that plays on different but perhaps more intense fears. Humanity, since its inception, has sinned greatly against its fellows, and many people in power today fear that technology will level the old playing fields, letting the poor and the oppressed lash out―or worse, compete―against the people who once held all the cards. The Artificers once built for the sake of building; now, just as many build to claim what they see is theirs. Both behaviors are equally horrifying to those who have a vested interest in the old order of the world.

			Despite the fear the Artificers engender, no one better exemplifies the new spirit of creation that has swept the mortal world and now echoes in the society of the Inspired. Artificers literally create their own worlds: a Maker's laboratory, and even her home, takes on the forms and aesthetics she admires. Flowers grow to cover wrought iron when a floral Maker takes up residence. Art spreads across walls and ceilings wherever an artistic Artificer rests his head for the night. Charming electronic machines appear in the windows of a digital Artificer's office. This isn't magic, of course, but the byproduct of creation; Artificers are too full of life and passion to contain it all within their wonders, and it spreads out of them, in their work and free time, to transform the world.

			===Focus:===

			The Artificers are builders, designers, and engineers, and while their interest can turn to nearly any type of building material, they are typically considered the masters of mad engineering. The early days of the foundation saw a focus on metallurgy and clockwork, although now Artificers turn their hands to alloys and polymers, computer science and robotics, carpentry and masonry, even genetic engineering: if a material can be used to build things, there's an Artificer out there making stuff out of it, from acrylic oil to dead flesh.

			Artificers are pathological builders; that's what defines them. Navigators are better at using a wonder, Progenitors at shaping it, Scholastics at explaining it, but no one creates like an Artificer creates. While the traditional focus on metal and gears remains, Artificers are increasingly diverse in their interests. The Union has also traditionally been poor, or at least humble, and the foundation's current focus on the makeshift, the found, and the reused, means there aren't as many aerospace engineers or architects as there are watchmakers, cut-rate robot-builders, and back-alley bladesmiths.

			===History:===

			Tinkers, builders, and smiths have existed since the dawn of human civilization, and taken thematically, the Artificers are probably the oldest foundation. Groups whose ideas went into the formation of the Artificers have been recorded in ancient Egypt, China, and Rome, all over Medieval Europe from Byzantium to the Iberian Peninsula, and in Japan, India, and the Polynesian islands. Any time geniuses have been more interested in building things than in understanding, using, exploiting, or even perfecting them, the spirit of the Artificers has appeared.

			While legend holds that the Artificers appeared in North America in the mid-18th century (and ties them closely to the founding of the United States), the Artificers are actually the result of a great convocation of tinkers, smiths, and builders from all over the world, which took place in Philadelphia in 1752. These individuals―often poor, many foreign, usually eccentric, always ingenious―argued for nearly a month before rejecting Lemuria and founding the Brotherhood of Artifice and Mechanism. Over the next half-century, the Invisible College took interest in the rough-and-tumble group, referring to them as the "Little Brothers." The Artificers were one of the groups to join the Peerage when it was officially created early in the 19th century, after which they adopted their current name.

			Always a loose-knit foundation, the Artificers took in geniuses that other peers didn't want to touch: Africans whose rootwork hoodoo medicine the aristocratic Demiurges scoffed at, Jewish watchmakers, tinkers of Rom or other unusual descent, Yankee gunsmiths, and early steam pioneers, none of whom fit in with the clean, reasonable Renaissance Man image of the Invisible College. As new foundations appeared and the Peerage developed and grew more inclusive, the Artificers refined their image, eschewing philosophy (those who would not accept that change became the latest iteration of the Mechanist baramin) and focusing entirely on the creation of wonders. Throughout the 20th century, while the Inspired wars raged, the Artificers were the poor, eccentric auxiliaries to the rest of the Peerage, building what they wanted for the sheer joy of creation, asking little in return, and not being much of a philosophical threat to anyone―though their wonders did occasionally get out of control.

			It wasn't until the late 20th century that things started to change. With Lemuria in shambles, the simple "make stuff" philosophy of the Artificers spread to places previously strangled by the Lemurians or wrapped up in the war, such as southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The Artificers also found a following in the traditional territories of the Peerage―the cities of Europe and the Americas―but with a new audience, one that did not traditionally catalyze. The poor, the desperate, and the angry came to the Artificers from slums and barrios, war-torn hellholes and depopulated villages, and their coming transformed the foundation.

			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

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	{\| class="wikitable"		{\| class="wikitable"
	\|Foundation\|\|Skill		\|Foundation:\|\|Skill:
	\|-		\|-
	\|Artificer\|\|Computer or Crafts		\|Artificer\|\|Computer or Crafts

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	It is possible for a genius to change foundations, or even to change affiliations, moving from rogue status to part of the Peerage or Lemuria, or back, or to move from the Peerage to Lemuria. This requires two things. First, the foundation requests a donation of Mania equal to the genius' maximum Mania, paid off either all at once or over a period of time. Second, the genius must devote time to study and retraining. In mechanical terms, the genius must gain one dot in a specific Skill. (If at the maximum number of dots for his Inspiration, she may instead elect to gain a Specialization in that Skill.)		It is possible for a genius to change foundations, or even to change affiliations, moving from rogue status to part of the Peerage or Lemuria, or back, or to move from the Peerage to Lemuria. This requires two things. First, the foundation requests a donation of Mania equal to the genius' maximum Mania, paid off either all at once or over a period of time. Second, the genius must devote time to study and retraining. In mechanical terms, the genius must gain one dot in a specific Skill. (If at the maximum number of dots for his Inspiration, she may instead elect to gain a Specialization in that Skill.)

	Artificer: Computer or Crafts		{\| class="wikitable"
	Director: Persuasion or Socialize		\|Foundation\|\|Skill
	Navigator: Athletics or Drive		\|-
	Progenitor: Medicine or Occult		\|Artificer\|\|Computer or Crafts
	Scholastic: Academics or Investigation		\|-
	Atomist: Politics		\|Director\|\|Persuasion or Socialize
	Etherite: Science		\|-
	Mechanist: Crafts		\|Navigator\|\|Athletics or Drive
	Oracle: Occult		\|-
	Phenomenologist: Academics		\|Progenitor\|\|Medicine or Occult
			\|-
			\|Scholastic\|\|Academics or Investigation
			\|-
			\|Atomist\|\|Politics
			\|-
			\|Etherite\|\|Science
			\|-
			\|Mechanist\|\|Crafts
			\|-
			\|Oracle\|\|Occult
			\|-
			\|Phenomenologist\|\|Academics
			\|}

	If looking to join a foundation, the genius must not be an unmada. Conversely, if looking to join a Lemurian baramin, the genius must be an unmada.		If looking to join a foundation, the genius must not be an unmada. Conversely, if looking to join a Lemurian baramin, the genius must be an unmada.

109.76.208.40 at 18:57, 27 May 2014

2014-05-27T18:57:52Z

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 ''"The fear of infinity is a form of myopia that destroys the possibility of seeing the actual infinite, even though it in its highest form has created and sustains us, and in its secondary transfinite forms occurs all around us and even inhabits our minds."''
--Georg Cantor
+''-Georg Cantor''
 A genius' Breakthrough is an amazing and hideous event, and a great accomplishment: those who survive the experience (somewhat) sane and whole should be commended merely for making it through in one piece. But catalyzing is only the beginning of a genius' journey. For weeks or even months, a genius might flail about with nothing but raw Mania and the effects it can engender. Some lonesomes might stay here indefinitely, with a touch of insanity separating them from mere mortals and a gift for understanding machines and pushing them to the limit.
 But eventually, most geniuses, even isolated ones, start to recognize patterns and systems. They look past the apparently random shifts of Mania, the equations that dance on the page or behind the computer screen, and find tangles of predictability and repeatability, something they can hold on to: the Axioms of mad science. From there a genius can start to build up a system and a philosophy.