Navare: Ranathim Witchcraft

Alternate Names: Chivare, Anala Inavale, Domen Achamor, Ranathim Witchcraft

Navare is the most common of the Divine Mask practices that falls under the categories of Anala Izathare, or the practices, and is so closely tied to the Cults of the Divine Masks that many modern followers refer to it as Chivare and its practioners as Chiva even though this is technically wrong. For most Ranathim or other alien followers of the Divine Masks who find themselves far from the temples of the Dark Arm of the Galaxy, finding a Navare witch is usually as close as one can come to an actual chiva, or cult priestess, and even many cultists supplement their own style by dabbling in Navare, especially Domen Venalina.

Navare, literally “Healing”, studies the divine energies of Communion and how they interact with the living. Navare teaches that most disease and misfortune come from misalignments of Communion energy, or from angering the divine. When someone comes to them, they first check to see how they’ve misaligned with their own destiny by using Fortune Telling, then prescribe a treatment that aligns with appropriate Path symbolism using Esoteric Medicine. Some witches use gentle massage or herbal remedies to speed the recovery process, or use modern technological medicine (though this tends to be too expensive for the communities where Navare is most likely to be practiced).

Navare witches can also double as low-rent priests or priestesses. They have an extensive knowledge of the basics of all cults, and often specialize in a deep learning of one or two specific cults and even fold that imagery and powers into their work. Rather than serve a single god, the Navare witch usually claims to serve all gods, to walk any path as needed. This gives them a relatively unique ability to take on and set aside any mask at will, often literally. The masters of the art can set on the mask of, say, Fitres Venalina to pardon you of your sins, and then Sefelina Midra to free you from your bonds. As such, they often serve as the spiritual center for their communities if no cults exist, and as such, tend to be mistakenly called chiva.

Finally, the most recognizable aspect of Navare are their amulets. Small stone, bone, clay or wooden amulets festoon their abodes, places of worship and shops, all for sale. These amulets provide modest protection from evil supernatural energies, or even grant the wearer a moment of power or a small, modest miracle. They tend to be expensive, but beautiful, and even non-practitioners sometimes take to collecting amulets.

Navare as Esoteric Style 6 points

Required Skills: Esoteric Medicine (Divine Masks), Fortune Telling (any), Occultism, Meditation, Religious Ritual (Divine Masks), Theology (Divine Masks)

Secret Traits: Divine Mantle

Perks: Amulets, Path Healing, Foretell Destiny, Healing Power of Touch, Psionic Style Adaption (Any Domen), Pure Organic, Unusual Training (Fortune Telling replaces Diagnosis for “psionic” diseases only)

Optional Traits: HT

Optional Advantages: Reputation (Respected spiritual leader)

Optional Disadvantages: Selfless, Sense of Duty (Divine Mask followers; the Ranathim).

Optional Skills: Artist (Body Art, Sculpture, Woodworking), Diagnosis, Exorcism, Pharmacy (Herbal), Physician, Professional Skill (Massage)

New Traits

Perks

Foretell Destiny: The character may use Fortune Telling to detect a character’s Destiny trait, as well as to analyze it.

Healing Power of Touch: Characters may roll Professional Skill (Massage) as a complimentary roll to Esoteric Medicine for up to a +1 bonus; Characters may also roll Pressure Points or Erotic Art as a miraculous Complimentary bonus to Esoteric Medicine for a +2 bonus.

Path Healing: The character may add path symbolism modifiers to Esoteric Healing rolls.

Psionic Style Adaption: As Magical Style Adaption, Thamautalogy: Magic Styles page 27.

Pure Organic: “Organic,” non-industrial medicines add +1 to any physician or esoteric medicine rolls for the character.

Technological Secret (Amulet): The character has mastered the secret to creating amulets, artistic receptacles for the divine energies of Communion. See below.

Abilities

Divine Mantle

If the character has learned to “wear the divine masks,” and can switch from archetype to archetype by temporarily taking on the symbolism of a specific path. This requires surrounding the character with symbolism appropriate to the path, in a space set aside for the ceremony, and meditating upon the path for one hour (and requires a successful Meditation roll). Success grants the character the appropriate Archetype advantage, and the Destiny trait “Destined to follow Path X”, which grants the character one impulse buy point per session that can be spent only on invoking miracles of their path. The character can set aside the mask whenever they wish, though doing so with less than an hour of meditation and a successful meditation roll might (at the GM’s discretion) result in a backlash of the divine against the character. Those who follow a path, even temporarily, can find themselves confronted by milestones!

Statistics: Modular Abilities (20 point slot; short list, requires aligning with path for one hour; Trait Limited: Archetype and Destiny Only -50%) [22]

New Rules

Amulets

An amulet is a small symbolic sculpture or artwork meant to be worn, typically a wooden or bone carving, or a small clay or stone sculpture, on a cord to be worn on the wrist or neck or stitched into clothing. Alternately, some amulets can be “stitched into the skin” as a tattoo, which is quite popular among Ranathim. All amulets must be crafted in a ceremonial space to align themselves with the power of that particular path. This requires an hour constructing the actual recepticle of power (using an Artist skill roll), and then another hour of chanting and religious ritual to imbue it with its proper power (and a Religious Ritual roll). The final cost of a completed amulet is $5000 and weighs 0.3 lbs.

An amulet grants the wearer the equivalent of a perk or a single use of an impulse buy (they are, specifically, self-powered psychotronic equipment worth 1 character point). The most common perks are resistance against specific diseases or powers, the Purpose perk for something highly specific, the Focused (Task) perk, or an impulse buy effect as a “single-use” power (or, alternatively, a single use of an advantage worth up to 5 points), after which the amulet breaks or loses its potency. Characters who take the amulet as a tattoo should purchase the perk directly (and should not purchase single-use amulets), and note that it’s a tattoo. Amulets serve to concentrate “divine” energies onto the character in a particular way, and so the GM may choose to limit how many amulets a character may benefit from at a given time. A good value may be three amulets.

Characters who see an amulet may roll Occultism or Hidden Lore (Communion) to recognize it for what it is, and to get a sense of what sort of power it might have.

Typical amulets include:

Amulet of Health: the character wearing the amulet is immune to a single, specific disease. Such amulets tend to be the purview of Fitres Venalina.

Amulet of Protection: The character wearing the amulet is protected from a single wound. The first time the character would take damage, some random event interferes and the character takes only a single point of damage instead. This consumes the amulet. Such amulets tend to be the purview of Fitres Venalina.

Amulet of Warding: the character wearing the amulet gains a +3 to resist to a single, specific psionic power, typically Mind Control, Mind Reading, TK Crush, TK Lock, Steal Energy or Steal Life. Amulets of Protection cannot protect a character from a Communion Miracle or Anti-Psi powers. Such amulets tend to be the purview of Fitres Venalina.

Passion Amulet: This amulet must be constructed with something connected to the target (a strand of hair, a drop of blood, a rag torn from a garment once worn by them, etc). Those who wear this amulet gain a +1 to any attempt to woo, seduce or court the target, and grants a +1 reaction modifier from this specific target.

Amulet of Fortune: the character wearing the amulet can sees desired random values arise more often, granting him a +1 to Gambling. This amulet tends to be the purview of Sefelina Midra, and casinos that spot a character with one tend to throw them out.

Amulet of Luck: The character wearing the amulet can improve the result of a non-combat roll by one step: a success to a critical success, a failure to a success, etc. This consumes the amulet. Such Amulets tend to be the purview of Sefelina Midra.

Amulet of the Hunt: The Amulet of the Hunt must be crafted with something connected to a single target (a strand of hair, a drop of blood, a rag from a garment worn by the character, etc). The wearer of the amulet gains a +1 to all rolls to find this specific target.

Amulet of War: In combat, against a non-named NPC, after successfully defending against an attack, or successfully attacking a foe, the player may narrate how they defeat the target, or how the target’s own bad luck defeats them. This consumes the amulet. Such amulets tend to be the purview of Thamet Sonostra.

Amulet of Vengeance: The character, if he dies, is gauranteed another 1d+1 seconds in which he may act, usually to gain vengeance. If this rule is already in effect, the character gains another 1d+1 seconds in which he may act. This is a popular tattoo, and tends to be in the purview of Thamet Sonostra.