Friday 15 November 2019

199 - Memetic Putty

Artifact: Memetic Putty

Power: Significant.

Description: Memetic putty is odd for an artifact in that it isn’t a physical object, it wouldn’t be unfair to label it unnatural phenomenon (or a magickal flu) except that the adepts that keep “rediscovering” it manufacture it in the same way as magickal artifacts. It's a conceptual object made of magick.

To begin with the putty is malleable since it is an idea not yet fully formed. It has some shape, imparted by the person who created it but they all end up with less control over it than any of them would like. Memetic putty is flavoured after one of the creator's passions or obsession, on a matched success the creator can pick which one instead of determining it randomly, on a crit they can make it about anything). It will stay this way, in the creator’s head, for up to a month before it begins to spoil. They’d best use it since the cost of creation is the hard work and drive invested in something genuinely important to the creator (1d10+5% percentiles off of their current objective).

There’s an Agrimancer down in Oklahoma who has come up with a way to invest the memetic putty he creates into chicken eggs. Unfortunately no one else has been able to replicate this feat and the flavours of idea he has aren’t particularly useful to most people. Still, it’s a big enough deal for him to get regular visits from TNI goons who aggressively buy up his whole supply. Word is that he’s sick of the money and wants some help getting out from under them.

Effect: Memetic putty can be used to communicate anything with perfect clarity. It's platonic potential as an idea that throws signal to noise ratio completely to out the window. The restriction is that it must be related to the core concept invested into it. If you can fulfil that requirement it offers either a +20% shift on Connect or Status rolls (it’s ineffective at attempts to Lie) or +2 ranks on a coercion attempt made with it.

It retains this quality after you’ve shared it but loses some of the original flexibility when exposed to grubby reality. Each person it is used on may turn around and use it on someone else for the same benefit. They can’t change what they’ve been told but they can put their own spin on it (this is inevitable even if they don’t intend to, like a big game of telephone), gradually shaping the putty into something more concrete.

As it spreads the putty loses effectiveness and becomes increasingly inflexible. After a number of people equal to the sum of the casting roll have been influenced the benefits are cut in half (to a +10% shift or +1 stress check rank), once this number reaches the total of the casting roll (plus 100 for results below 10) it loses effectiveness entirely. Stretched across too many preconceptions and permutations whatever compelling seed once laid at the heart of the putty is spent. Quite a few creators see this, assume it was really a one-off bolt of creative lightning and never make a second or third attempt.

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