Unknown Armies

Avatars

The Pervert

Fap fap fap...

Handcuffs (spiked), chains, stockings, feet, toenail clipings... whatever you can think of, someone in the great big mass counsciousness of humanity has already thought of it first, and perhaps already came up with 20 different variations of the same theme, each more depraved and gory than the earlier. Fetishes: everyone has one (or more), but not many are willing to admit to harbouring such "filth", and even less are going to act on them. Not the Pervert, though; he's tried every single one of them, and he loves every one of them.

He's the man outside your window with his pants down, watching you eat while whacking it off. He's the kind of man who you shield your children's eyes from while he walks down the street flashing himself, while you yourself look away in disgust. She is the sort of woman who enters a resturant wearing a form-fitting leather piece and a metal choker, rubbing herself up against the corner of the table while horrified diners try to stop looking. The Pervert's Archetype is everywhere you look today, and would become more predorminant in the near future as fetish pornography gains more of a foothold in societal acceptance... and soon, the Statosphere would demand another to represent him.

Taboos: The Pervert cannot refuse any form of sexual fetish, no matter how depraved it is or may seem to be. Paedophilic necrophilia? The squashed maggot gunk were a bother to wash off. Gorilla scat? Just keep running... This doesn't mean that the Pervert must partake in every imaginable form of depravity, of course; that would take forever to accomplish. However, he cannot be seen to refuse or somehow, in any way, reject the notion of sexual fetish: he is the manifestation of such perverse behaviour.

Symbols: The used condom, whip, mask, furry handcuffs... nearly anything that has a predorminant theme that relates to a sexual fetish of any sort or a distinct phallic association would be a symbol for the Pervert. Sleazy red-light districts tend to serve as anchors for these Avatars, and animals associated with the Pervert would be the pig for men, and the praying mantis (who devours the head of its male mate during intercourse) for the women.

Masks: Pan (Greek), Dionysius/Bacchus (Greek), Apollo (Greek)

Suspected Avatars in History: Every single sleazy looking old man you've ever seen in your entire life trying to get his rocks off flashing at you. It isn't too hard to think of these people, is it now?

Channels

1% - 50%: A Pervert often has to "boldly go where no man has ever gone before": as such, upon a successful roll against the Avatar: Pervert skill, any one security fixture on a house or similar can be bypassed. Motion sensors die, cameras look else where, windows open to the touch and similar... The Pervert is also able to get all forms of recording instruments- cameras, tape recorders, microphones, whatever- working in the worst circumstances even without touching them with a successful roll. The device cannot be further than the sum of the Avatar: Pervert skill in feet, so someone with Pervert: Avatar 42% can only affect devices 6 feet away and so on.

51% - 70%: At this level, the Pervert is nigh untouchable: any attacks dealt against the Pervert only deal the sum of the dice instead of the actual roll if it is under one's Avatar: Pervert skill, and a subsquent successful roll against the Avatar: Pervert skill is then made. How else can he get around to raping a Great White shark?

71% - 90%: With a mere thought and glance, the Pervert at this level can invoke blazing desire in anyone who he locks eyes with. This desire would be the most obscene thing that the person has ever thought about doing, but would also be his or her deepest and wildest fantasy. Rejecting his desire is a rank-10 Self check and, possibly, a rank-5 or higher Isolation check.

91%+: What one usually takes forgranted as the norm today was once considered to be "dirty", but time and society changes everything. With a successful Avatar: Pervert roll at this level, the Avatar can throw an idea into the backdoor of mass acceptance. This means that, if an Avatar so chooses to do so, rape can slowly become regarded as "normal" with this ability. However, this doesn't mean that the idea would be instantly accepted: it just means that, slowly, more and more people would begin to regard this idea as being "not so bad, after all". The wilder an idea, of course, the harder and longer it takes for it to be accepted.

thanthos | profile | Mar 05, 03 | 7:25 pm

Visitor Comments

Compared to other avatars, this one's channels are far, far too powerful... at least, IMHO. Might want to tone it down a bit.

InfinityWpi | profile | Mar 05, 03 | 7:49 pm

Hmm I dunno, I thought it was worth the power if one had to go around screwing dead little children and/or goat, you know what I mean? :P The Avatar himself would probably be racking up a helluva load of Self checks and Helplessness if he continues down the path at any rate... but you have a point. =)

thanthos | profile | Mar 06, 03 | 3:04 am

How about something more like the Hedonist? With the dark aspect being the perverse. I think the concept may be a little more widespread, the idea of anything for pleasure. I wouldn't know what to do for the channels but something that makes a person feel emotions they're not ready to handle, possibly imposing a shift to skills as they are overwhelmed. Something like that. Again, the darker aspect can be applied too. Think of "Little Miss Perfect" suddenly feeling the urge to be beaten for being a bad little girl...

Lilliana | profile | Mar 06, 03 | 8:19 am

Eh Lilliana that sounds great, although now I've no idea which channel I should replace... the second?

thanthos | profile | Mar 06, 03 | 7:43 pm

Indeed way, waaaaaaay too powerful.

nyarlathotep | profile | Mar 06, 03 | 8:36 pm

Hmmm, I agree that the channels (especially the last one) are a bit "buff"... Maybe for the last one:

91%+: With a succesful Avatar: The PErvert roll, you can force any victim that meets your gaze to become a willing participant in whatever perversion/fetish/weird activity you want. Resisting this power requires BOTH a rank-7 Unnatural check and a rank-10 Self check (at the DM discretion, if the victim has leanings toward those activities in the first place, either or both checks can be lowered).
The victim remains under the spell for a number of hours equal to the sum of the Avatar check, and comes out of it with only vague, fuzzy memory garanteed to give tehm very weird nightmares for a long time...
Additionnaly, coming out of it on the scene of the action or being presented with proofs such as videos later on forces a rank-10 Self check AND award a failed notch on that gauge in any case (so two notches in one sitting of the check is failed) unless the victims enjoys that specific kink to begin with - see above.
This after-effect makes this channel a touchy tool for blackmail, but then again, a pervert usually has seen (and done) far worse than that...

On a different note, I'm surprised that the Marquis De Sade wasn't listed as a suspected avatar in history...

Phenix | profile | Mar 07, 03 | 6:22 pm

Oooh now if this isn't working out better than I thought it would be. :D Thanks, guys!

(P.S. The Marquis who? Sorry, don't have cable this side of the rock I'm living under. Probably why the suspected avatars section is left so vague...)

thanthos | profile | Mar 08, 03 | 9:57 am

"If it is the dirty element that gives pleasure to the act of lust, then the dirtier it is, the more pleasurable it is bound to be."
"The degradation which characterizes the state into which you plunge him by punishing him pleases, amuses, and delights him. Deep down he enjoys having gone so far as to deserve being treated in such a way."
"Crime is the soul of lust. What would pleasure be if it were not accompanied by crime? It is not the object of debauchery that excites us, rather the idea of evil."
"There is a kind of pleasure which comes from sacrilege or the profanation of the objects offered us for worship."
"One must do violence to the object of one's desire; when it surrenders, the pleasure is greater."
"The pleasure of the senses is always regulated in accordance with the imagination. Man can aspire to felicity only by serving all the whims of his imagination."
"All universal moral principles are idle fantasies."
"Sexual pleasure is, I agree, a passion to which all others are subordinate but in which they all unite."
"It has, moreover, been proven that horror, nastiness, and the frightful are what give pleasure when one fornicates. Beauty is a simple thing; ugliness is the exceptional thing. And firey imaginations, no doubt, always prefer the extraordinary thing to the simple thing."
The Marquis De Sade, 'The 120 Days of Sodom' - 1785

Donacien-Alphonse-Francois, Marquis De Sade, 1740-1814.

Of course the real Marquis was all growl and no (or little) bite. His aim was to shock, to become the "bad man" in the mind of his contemporaries. He did most of his writting in his years imprisonned in the Bastille jail during the years around the French Revolution, and if he lived a fairly dissolute life for the time, there is little evidence that he ever actually practiced his own cathechism. Nonetheless, his work have been the core of many school of thoughts about sexual fetishes and he is often regarded as the spiritual father of S&M, B&D and a few more.

That's for the real De Sade. The UA one, on the other hand... If not the Ascended Avatar, then at least a godwalker, I would say.

Phenix | profile | Mar 10, 03 | 3:10 am

Additionally, a friend pointed two interesting facts to me this week-end. One, my proposed fourth channel has a flaw: someone inclined to participate in the kink offered should have a HARDER time with the initial Self check (if they like it, why would they resist?) so I woul dpropose to make it rank-8 for everyone, rank-10 for pervs (if not automatic failure.) But as they like it, they DO get an easier time being shown prooves of their activities (or not. DM, use your judgement on that one.)

Second, he mentionned that such an avatar would probably be trying VERY hard to destroy the Naked Goddess and her Cult - not only do pornomancers take all the fun out of sex as the perverts see it, but he can't conceive of anything that would pi$$ one off worse than meeting a porn star he can't get.

So there, just a few thoughts. Bored yet? 8-P

Phenix | profile | Mar 10, 03 | 3:10 am

Technically being all bark and no bite wouldn't *totally* rule him out of being an avatar, or even a Godwalker if he was good enough at putting across the image...

URNOVI | profile | Jun 07, 03 | 2:56 pm