Forgot to put this in its rightful place! Also, this is my first shot at an adept school, avatar, or really anything involving rules, so try not to let any horrific balance issues or the like make you think any less of me. ;-)

I guess my only issue with this is the problem of significant charges. Where are you going to find out the deep secrets of a fictitious character?

My immediate problem with Superman is that he's fictional. In context people can put up James Bond and Spider Man as well.

C.

I suppose it's a matter of campaign setting. In my UA game I'd have absolutely no problem with someone using Iconomancy for Spider-man or James Bond, provided Spider-man or James Bond, as characters, became well and truly dead. In Infinite Crisis the original Superman, the same one that appeared in Action Comics 1, bit the dust. I figured that was final and iconic enough to work. But I also agree that it would not necessarily work for all games.

As for the sig charge, that's a remarkably good point, and I will be meditating on that. Thanks for the help!

Could also draw on the negative side of Superman as he original was- a big blue blob of American Masturbato-ganda

Giving the player the ability to see Commies and Nazis! For the price of never engaging in 'deviant' sex, politics or art!

And I was just planning to do Christopher Reeves too (with one or two supermanesque effects). ahh well.

I largely concur with people about the problem of fictional characters, not just for the problem of significant charges but more because using them really drifts from the core of iconomancy, not to mention the tension.

Not trying to be harsh, but I also kind of feel your Oh good now he's dead he's available tone isn't really the right mindset for iconomancy. Its not that they can only invoke the legend of dead people (so more famous dead=more power for them), its just that you have to die to transcend the mortal frame and become a god, empowered as they are by the mass of love and respect that the people have for them.

Its the active worship of people as gods, people who were ultimately just as human and flawed as you yourself that runs this school (hence the sig charge structure). A star dies, but because we love them, because we can't let them go, they remain, the shining Idols, once human, now gods, but hollow gods, one dimensional persona's who have lost the depth they had when alive (again hence the sig charge structure). Fictional characters were never human. They were never "once like us", they haven't risen up. nor have they lost depth and definition. Using them is certainly a different take on Iconomancy.(superman has gained depth over the years, becoming more and more a three dimensional personality and less and less a mere icon. And perhaps there is something in that)

That said if I allowed fictional characters I probably wouldn't require them to be dead, since they have no flesh to transcend. This leads to them being gods in a more classical sense rather than ascended mortals, which I don't really like the idea of.

Also good wordage to arcturus on masturbatoganda. very apt.

Thanks cal... just to be clear, not having a go at the americans there, just certain ideologies of america in the pre and during cold war era.

Ever wonder why sonic is blue and good while robotnik with the clearly russian name is an evil genius who is 1. fat 2. mustacioed and 3. building sprawling technological landscapes not entirely unlike a certain mr stalin? and sonic wears sneakers... available from all good shopping malls. Am I just being paranoid and silly? Am I? AM I?! hehe.


Maybe there is room for iconomancy of fictional characters, with a splinter school of some sort. maybe with a hint of avatar activity; definately like the notion that to channel certain superman qualties you need to wear the clerk kent glasses or the sleek hair with a curl. An iconomancer (or, I dunno, "Idolomancer"?) would need to wear a punisher t shirt and live rough on the streets to be able to use "frank castle just wont die" for example. Or, speak in whispers and shouts and wear a CTU cap in order to channel Jack Bauer and get anywhere he needs to be within 1 hour!

Ooo, I really like where you're going with that Arcturus.

You could get a Sig if you discovered some unwholesome secret about how the comic or the character was created or written or developed.

Finding out that someone who wrote a story about Superman defending America against terrorism, for instance, once commited high treason against the U.S.