Firstly, if you are a member of Fuck the Moon, do not read further!! I will know if you do and there will be consequences....
Right. So this is basically an unholy amalgamation of thanatomancy, plutophagy, and cthonomancy, I guess?
The Vicariturge
AKA karma whores, Fausts, commodites
Vicariturges are the boddhisattvas of late-stage capitalism. In an era where content creators are turning every aspect of their daily routine into Youtube vlogs and Patreon extras, and an increasing portion of the population can only pay their medical bills by panhandling with a sob story online, it’s no wonder an adept school has come about, too.
Where normal people are motivated by money to do this, or sometimes in the maligned hopes that expressing their suffering to strangers on the internet might help them heal, Fausts, like any kind of adept, are only in it for the peculiar mystical power of such digital flagellation.
Central Tension: Vicariturges devalue and desecrate their most precious experiences, beliefs, and connections in exchange for assigning them a dollar value.
Generate a Minor Charge: All vicariturgy charges come from the creation and sale of vicariturgy fetishes, somewhat like those of thanatomancy. Each fetish is a physical embodiment of meaningful loss, grief, or trauma experienced by the adept. The charge comes from the exchange of the fetish for money (which can be received in digital form).
Charging only works if the buyer has no prior personal connection to the vicariturge.
There are a couple other important things to note regarding vicariturgy fetishes of any charge level. First, they must be made incorporating a symbolic or physical part of the pain they represent (more details below).
Second, selling a fetish in no way unburdens the karma whore. (At least, not emotionally or spiritually. Selling a fetish made from the corpse of your boyfriend murdered by unnatural entities can at least kill two birds with one stone as far as avoiding police questioning.)
Not only do they not feel better after selling it, but doing so also prevents them from healing that pain. If a fetish was made from a failed stress check, for example, that notch cannot be healed in therapy. If it represents the loss of a Relationship, and the Faust later reconnects with the ex in question, they can never get close again enough to recreate a mechanical connection with each other via the Relationship rules.
It should go without saying that there is a limit of one fetish per instance of suffering.
Lastly, there’s no particular restrictions on the materials fetishes are made from aside from the aforementioned representation of the pain. A gold-plated locket with a strand of hair and a tongue depressor dipped in blood from the same person are worth the same in mystic terms to a vicariturge. Likewise, the price is irrelevant to charging. Being able to offload fetishes for a quarter is often a boon to Fausts who make off-putting art objects from living remains.
That said, creating fetishes is an emotionally laborious and highly meaningful process for karma whores. They aren’t known to half-ass it, even if they need a charge in a hurry. If the end result is a tongue depressor dipped in blood, then most likely acquiring the blood was itself a complex and ritualized process, with personal significance to the karma whore.
With all that out of the way, vicariturgy fetishes worth a minor charge can either include a symbolic representation of a lost Relationship (the person needn’t be dead, just gone from the commodite’s life) or a physical part of a beloved pet or friend (not one who’s “top 5 relationships”-tier), or an item related to a failed stress check or an abandoned objective which was tied to the commodite’s obsession or one of their passions. For example, a commodite who was stabbed in an alley (failing a Violence check in the process) might make jewelry incorporating the bit of knife tip that got fished out of their chest cavity at the emergency room.
Generate a Significant Charge: Significant-value fetishes must include a physical part of a lost Relationship (again, they don’t need to be dead; nail clippings are enough if you’re squeamish or insufficiently vindictive.)
Because this is highly limiting, innovative Fausts have found another option: you can sell a minor fetish for a sig charge if and only if the manner of selling it or the buyer is upsetting enough to provoke a stress check itself on the Faust, and they fail it. For example, the gaucheness of selling part of your dead child’s body to your own parent as some kind of awful keepsake of their grandson is likely to cause a Self check. Or, perhaps they’re selling the mummified paw of their beloved family dog to some freak charger who is going to use it for something unthinkable, which they described to the Faust in detail, provoking an Unnatural check.
Generate a Major Charge: Sell your soul in fetish form. What exactly this means is likely somewhat subjective to the individual Faust, but it generally requires a proxy ritual or similar. Invariably, upon completing the transaction, they take a Self (10) check. The ensouled fetish is also a very potent symbolic item, and dangerous to the Faust, even in the hands of mundanes who don’t understand what it is.
Taboo: The first taboo for vicariturges is to spend any of the proceeds from their fetish sales. This one is broken strategically pretty often, since adepts are often hard up for rent money, and they are able to stockpile for as long as they want. Spending two bucks on a beer or two grand on a new (used) ride both break taboo equally (assuming you’re not making monthly payments on the beater.)
Second, vicariturges can’t cope normally with their emotional anguish without tabooing. If they lose their Favorite in a tragic accident but eventually find another, they taboo once the bond is strong enough to write it on their character sheet. Similarly, if a commodite wants to heal a failed Helplessness notch in therapy rather than making a fetish about it, or bury Fluffy in the yard without commodification, those would also break taboo.
Blast Style: Vicariturge blasts are cast via cursed fetishes. Specifically, the fetish in question must come from either a violent incident that produced a failed stress check or the violent or sudden death of someone or some (living) thing important to the karma whore. Upon completion of the sale, the cosmos will bend synchronicity to recreate whatever loss happened that spawned the fetish.
As an added benefit to karma whores, a cursed fetish whose blast has been carried out disappears if unobserved, or else decomposes rapidly or simply disintegrates if not perishable.
Random Magick Domain: Desecration, martyrdom, the intersections of commerce and human expression, exhibitionism and misery, spectacle and private pain.
Generally speaking, vicariturgy can only improve the lot of others at the caster’s expense. Karma whores can never make any good come to themselves from their own suffering using their magick.
Ω: +0. Neither taboo is too difficult, essentially boiling down to not doing things that you mostly wouldn’t even have to consider if you didn’t practice vicariturgy. Charging is restrictive in some ways, but there’s nothing stopping a lazy Faust from selling fetishes on Facebook Marketplace all day and never having to leave home in order to stockpile juju.
A Note on Timing: A lot of vicariturgy spells must be cast in the process of selling a fetish. In face-to-face transactions, this is simple enough. However, given the online behaviors that spawned the school, there’s actually an edge to remote sales. In this case (assuming the casting roll is a success), the karma whore gets to choose whether the effect begins upon the receipt of payment, their shipping the fetish, or the fetish’s being delivered to the buyer.
There is one downside to this, which is that if someone buys your freaky matted hair doll and has it shipped to a vacant address in the middle of nowhere, it’s liable to mess up the spell.
Minor Formula Spells
Commercial Commiseration
Cost: 1 or more minor charges
Effect: When you cast this spell, you enchant the money someone paid you for a fetish (normally, it doesn’t matter if they pay in cash, but in this case it has to be.) You can spend any number of minor charges when you cast it; each case adds an additional use of the effect before it runs out and the money becomes mundane again.
While handling the cash and thinking about the buyer, the commodite experiences their current emotional state for up to about fifteen seconds per use of the spell. Note that only the commodite can make use of this effect, since they are the one bonded by commerce to the target.
Keep Your Blood Money
Cost: 1 minor charge
Effect: As part of casting this spell, the Faust must return the fee they were paid for a fetish created due to failed stress check. This is the one case where giving up fetish money does not break taboo. If they were paid in cash, they need not place it back in the buyer’s hand; it’s fine to Paypal them the same amount or leave it in their mailbox.
Upon the payment’s return, if the spell works, the buyer faces a rank-3 stress check of the same meter as the fetish’s impetus due to hallucinations that set in at a random point within the next 1d10 hours.
Gone But Not Forgotten
Cost: 1 minor charge + up to 1 significant charge
Effect: The vicariturge enchants a fetish made in memory of a dead Relationship upon selling it with a vestige of their talents in life. While the fetish is on their person, the buyer gains a single use of one of that person’s identities at the percentage it held when they died.
This spell can be used to confer magickal identities, but only at the expense of a significant charge on top of the base cost.
I’ll Never Let It Happen Again
Cost: 1 minor charge
Effect: As they sell a fetish borne from a violent death or an attack that caused a failed Violence stress check, the commodite enchants it with a ward. There is no way for the commodite or the buyer to tell if the spell worked, but if it did, the next time the same thing would happen to the buyer, synchronicity smiles on them and causes the attack to miss.
By “the same thing,” we’re talking a pretty high level of specificity. For example, a warded fetish from a dog that was hit by a car will not prevent any car accident. It would, however, activate on a street in the same city, or in a prospective accident with the same make of car.
If the casting roll is a critical fail, synchronicity’s smile is a sadistic one, and the buyer can look forward to suffering the same harm that prompted the creation of the fetish at some point in the next 1d5 days.
No Pain, No Gain
Cost: 1 minor charge
Effect: The Faust must cast this spell on someone who is already interested in buying a fetish. If it works, the target is overcome with sympathy or pity for the Faust when they tell them the inevitable sob story behind the merchandise, and insist on paying more than the asking price (if they do decide to buy it). The exact amount varies, but you can expect at least as much as the buyer’s Status score in USD. Note that this does nothing to circumvent the taboo of actually spending the money.
Vicarious (Blunt Force) Trauma
Cost: 1 minor charge
Effect: This is the vicariturgy minor blast. Generally, it will be a lesser version of the fetish’s impetus. For example, a fetish made with a bit of grey matter from the karma whore’s dad that died of a stroke used for a minor blast is going to cause a minor aneurysm or even just a burst blood vessel.
Deals damage as fists and feet and provokes an Unnatural (5) check, as is typical.
What Doesn’t Kill Me Makes You Stronger
Cost: 2 minor charges
Effect: This spell must be cast as the karma whore makes the sale of a fetish whose impetus was a failed stress check. The fetish becomes a good luck totem of sorts, warding the owner from shocks to the same meter of the check that was the fetish’s impetus. The next time the buyer would face a stress check of that meter while they have the fetish on them, the stress check’s rating is reduced by two ranks (if it’s below rank-1, it simply doesn’t faze the buyer.)
Significant Formula Spells
Is This Loss?
Cost: 2 significant charges
Effect:
The vicariturge
must
physically touch a
fetish at least four
hours
after selling it as part of
casting this spell. Once they
spend the charges and pass the roll, the
fetish begins to emanate the
negative emotions they associate with it like
a targeted miasma on the buyer.
So long as the buyer of this fetish is within thirty yards of it, they are overwhelmed by depressive malaise so severe that doing anything more than taking care of their body’s basic needs, including getting rid of the fetish, requires a Self (4) check.
This effect lasts for four days, which is incidentally a typical amount of paid bereavement leave in the US states where that’s required of employers.
Needful Thing
Cost: 2 significant charges
Effect: As they sell it, the Faust transforms a fetish made in memory of a dead person with whom they had a Relationship into a vessel for their demon. (Naturally, this only works if they have in fact remained around in demonic form.) The demon appears inside the fetish after 1d10 days. It can communicate telepathically with the buyer and cause one minor unnatural phenomena per day, originating from the fetish.
There’s one other requirement here: there has to be a contract involved in the sale of the fetish, signed by both the Faust and the buyer.
No End to My Suffering
Cost: 1 significant charge
Effect: This bizarre spell requires the karma whore to sell a fetish based on themself. This act does not generate a charge, of course, but it is part of the casting process. If the spell worked, that fetish becomes sort of like a mini-proxy for the karma whore. The next time they would suffer wounds, the first 33 are dealt to the fetish instead, so long as the buyer has kept it on hand. This causes the fetish to disintegrate noticeably but harmlessly.
This effect is only active for 1d5 hours. If a karma whore casts it again before this window ends, it replaces the previous casting rather than creating a second instance.
Pity Party
Cost: 2 significant charges
Effect: As they cast this spell, the Faust focuses on the buyer of one of the fetishes they sold to generate the charges for it. If it works, they create a sympathetic link to that buyer. The next time the Faust fails any stress check, if the buyer is within a ten mile radius, they immediately become inexplicably aware that the Faust is in crisis, and feel an unnatural compulsion to help.
If they choose not to immediately rush to the Faust’s aid, they face a Self (10) check, but then the compulsion passes. If they instead give into the compulsion, they risk a Helplessness (4-5) check if anything prevents them from arriving on the scene where the check was failed as fast as they can, or if, by the time they get there, the Faust has left (or died).
Rubbernecking
Cost: 1 significant charge
Effect: This is the significant blast of vicariturgy, so its name is liable to be literal. It works the same as at the minor level, except it deals damage like a gunshot.
See Some Evil, Hear Some Evil
Cost: 1 or more significant charges
Effect: Yet another spell the commodite must cast as they conduct the sale of a fetish. This spell allows the commodite to use any of the buyer’s five senses (only one at a time), regardless of distance, so long as they keep the fetish on their person. This doesn’t prevent the target from sensing things, only allows the commodite to share sensations. There is no obvious sign to the target that any magick is going on while the spell is in use.
This effect lasts for an hour per charge spent during casting. If desired, the commodite can continue to feed sig charges into the spell as long as they want.
Signal Boost
Cost: 1 significant charge
Effect: The vicariturge casts this spell as they sell a fetish. One of the next 1d10 people to see the fetish in the possession of the buyer is oddly compelled by it. They will reflexively feel the buyer out as to where they got it and synchronicity will nudge them into the vicariturge’s path (or that of their online storefront) or vice versa at some point in the next few days, unless one or both parties is actively trying to avoid this. When they encounter each other, the target will face an Unnatural (5) check if they do not try to purchase at least one fetish from the vicariturge for themself.
The encounters this spell creates, if face to face, are fleeting and generally in public places. It is generally hard to do more than exchange contact information or a few bills for a fetish on hand When they happen.
Vicious Cycle
Cost: 2 significant charges
Effect: The Faust must cast this spell as they sell a fetish, but wait, there’s more! The fetish for this spell has to be made from cash (and cash specifically) that was paid to the Faust in exchange for another fetish. Maybe it’s the profit from one they sold to a dearly departed spouse when they first met, or maybe from a sale that went horribly wrong.
If the spell works, the buyer becomes a proxy for the Faust for as long as they retain ownership of the money-turned-fetish (see Book 1: Play, p. 180).
Major Charge Effects
Make a fetish buyer suicidal. Cause a massive riot that escalates from a bidding war over one of your fetishes. Synchronously cause a buyer and all their loved ones to go bankrupt. Make a buyer immune to harm from any source except whatever killed the person the fetish commemorates. Cause a whole city’s worth of people to turn up to your funeral, crying their eyes out.
What You Hear: Vicariturgy is the brainchild of a merchant avatar whose unhappy husband tricked her into entering a Room of Renunciation rather than having to pay alimony.
