The Christmas cabal continues now, with the resident toymaker! My patrons, of course, are my wondermakers (or at least my Pieter Lyndon Kurois). Keeper, Jaina Bee, Ferny, Casey, Dave, and Darius are how I can keep doing this. To give me a lovely Christmas present, become my patron for however much you can give. Trust me, you may not think a dollar a month is much (only $12 a year) but it means a lot to me!
Doctor René Awakened late in life. Not even a scientist or professor, he'd spent an entire adulthood managing a junkyard tucked away in an obscure part of the city. Endlessly sifting through the forgotten waste of the city, he did what he could to feed the homeless around them and to get food and odd jobs to them. Life was quiet and small, cozy if not rich, and the TV always had good reception, thanks to the ready supply of parts to jury-rig onto it.
It wasn't obvious the moment everything changed for Rodolfo, because Emmanuelle (no last names, 'kay?) is very good at seeming like something other than what she is. Appearing as just a scrappy young child, this prodigy travels the world striking the fear of Science in the hearts of Nephandi wherever they rust the machinery of society. Talks like that, too, only it's cuter when she does it, cuz she's ten. She's still ten, thanks to her very own barriene/rackhame treatment.
Emmanuelle's quixotic wanderings had washed her ashore in the economically depressed neighborhood where Rudolfo's junkyard collected the things no one wanted. Well, no one but Emmanuelle who needed supplies for her latest Oblivion-opposing device. She made frequent use of junkyards, which could always be relied upon to possess enough potentiality to allow for any number of inventions. Nosy proprietors occasionally followed her through the heaps of stuff, concerned for her safety or with unpleasant plans for the young homeless girl with no ties. They always kept up a steady stream of irritating blather when she was trying to concentrate (and get away from Sleepers).
The old Black man at this junkyard didn't, however. Sure, Rodolfo talked with her, but he chose his moments well, let her lead the conversation for the most part, and his questions were sincerely interested. He impressed her, and even made a suggestion or two that proved helpful. When Emmanuelle left to track her quarry, she left behind her copy of Kitab al-Alacir and a tiny wonder of a cellphone that could contact her, regardless of her place in space, time, or other etheric and noetic dimensions.
A year passed without word, leading Emmanuelle to write it off as yet another casualty of the Avatar Storm, another mage who could've been but was denied access to those etheric and noetic dimensions beyond the normal by the disturbance extending into those dimensions. But then a text came through on her special cellphone: I SHOULDA CALLED HALF A DOZEN MONTHS AGO BUT CHARLIE SAID NOT TO; THIS IS A GOOD BOOK. She rushed back to Rodolfo's junkyard, where he had built himself a veritable paradise of junk engineering like something out of a Disney movie or park. He had a cup of hot chocolate waiting, just finishing the automated pour as Emmanuelle arrived.
The Nephandi-hunter spent a week there, chatting and asking questions about both his reasons for the occupation and life he'd chosen and testing the boundaries of logic in the usual Etherite way. It wasn't hard to get the romantic old man to admit that logic was a narrow and limited plank above a vast sea of potentiality, that Science had more to do with the heart than the mind. Emmanuelle, seemingly a sixth of his age, accepted him as her student eagerly.
In truth, Rodolfo proved a rather frustrating student, less out of a rebelliousness or obtuseness, but more because his Avatar urged slowness while talking to him in startles and surprises. He never did really understand when Emmanuelle explained that she wasn't mad at him, but at the deeper him. Nonetheless, his training proceeded apace, with Emmanuelle in constant pedagogical pride and enjoyment as Rodolfo built toy after toy after toy, throwing out whimsical theories almost without effort or notice.
While Emmanuelle and most other Etherites tended to emphasize the Science! in the phrase "the wonder of Science!", Rodolfo instead found greater depths in the other noun. Wonder was what he sought to experience himself and to spread to the world, his goal both as a feeling and as a virtue. In fact, that was the argument he was making at a roundtable organized by the Celestial Chorus's Sons of Mithras and the Etherites' very own Council for the Enforcement of Scientific Ethics. Entitled "Virtue Ethics as Paradigmatic Weapons After Defeat in the Ascension War", it was where Rodolfo met his future wife.
Pale and wan, thin and ethereal, she lurked on the edges of the gathering, seemingly content to to listen to the louder mages debate whether compassion was still useful in this post-bellum age, or if mages should be striving to embody solidarity instead. Her eyes in their motion revealed that she had thoughts about the Council's strategic goals going forward and how virtues might be employed to further them, but her voice remained still and silent. At dinner afterwards, he asked her her thoughts, and learned that his defense of wonder was the highlight of her day, the one thing anyone said that she thought had any value.
Placida was her name, she mentioned in her Italian accent as a quick aside before utterly devastating his entire argument with her critique.
Rodolfo laughed, and ordered another brandied eggnog for the two of them. For the rest of the night, they interspersed free and relaxed laughter with increasingly intimate ethical debate.
They were married within a week of their respective graduations into full mages in their own right. Barely nine months into their domestic life together, the roar of a fancy engine and the crunching of gravel brought Peter Lyndon Kuroi to their door. The former Syndicate apprentice had an idea for a Venture he wanted to talk about with Doctor René.
Peter offered to fun Rodolfo's experiments and work, if he pursued them with a goal he thought might be amenable to the older man. He suspected that the Ascension War wasn't as finished as everyone thought, and the stories of that roundtable that had come to him as he was nestled among the Chakravanti told him that Rodolfo might just agree. The toymaker did, and in that moment the Workshop of the Manger Beneath the Tree of Knowledge, LLC, was born.
Peter would find leverage points in his hypereconomic models, moments when an individual's Desires and their fulfillment would have the greatest effects on the system as a whole, and then work with Rodolfo to plan a device embodying that fulfillment. Once the device was built, Peter would send it through his delivery channels as a corporate heir to get it to the people who needed it. By working on these sort of weak points in the Primal Utility Field, the two would work together to increase investment and wonder in the world, re-enchanting everything in the eyes of the Sleepers and bringing the power of magic exploding back into the Bottom Line.
Doctor Rodolfo René, toymaker & paterfamilias
Researcher of Etheric Chemistry and Engineering & Noetic Science, Apprentice of Etheric and Memetic Dimensions
Tutor: Emmanuelle the Forever Genius of Childhood / Avatar: A Charlie-in-the-box
Tradition: Society of Ether / Faction: Utopian
Essence: Primordial / Arete ❇❇❇▢▢▢▢▢▢▢ / Nature/Demeanor: Architect/Caregiver
Essence: Primordial / Arete ❇❇❇▢▢▢▢▢▢▢ / Nature/Demeanor: Architect/Caregiver
Paradigm: Tech holds all the answers, since all the world's a stage when everything's a prison
A prison is just a stage, in which the captive audience are also the performers. More than that, a sense of joy and wonder is vital to a prisoner, for the wardens of the jail stupefy their inmates with boredom, deprivation, and grayness to make them easier to control, to kill the curious heart that is the beating heart of freedom. Pixee Gost says that the Hermetics of her House call the keyholder of our prison universe "Grayface"; Rodolfo might not know about all that, but it certainly does seem clear that some forces in both society and the cosmos ~ probably aligned ~ have declared themselves the enemies of wonder and the allies of rulership. Problem is, these archontes tou kosmou have their hands in every mechanism of the world, so a raw, improvisational rebelliousness is required to resist their efforts to dull our souls. Humor helps, too, of course, with the efforts to turn the wardens' tools against them, to reclaim the control they seek to steal. But turning the prison into a stage ~ even this sheer act of revolution ~ can be turned to Grayface's benefit. Entertainment is a powerful tool to convince the inmates to accept their lot, after all. No, all these efforts must be aimed at communal escape. Technology, here, holds the answer when approached with that same raw, improvisational rebelliousness. The Enlightened inmate first hones their skills providing low-budget special effects to the shows that keep the inmates free, and then turns those skills to the quest for the walls' tumbling down. More importantly, by revealing the mechanism of the special effects, they inspire others to join in the quest, sparking ever more numerous ideas, until one day, the wardens shall be no more.
Practices: Craftwork, hypertech
Long used to tinkering away in the humble home he nestled among the heaps of garbage, Rodolfo works his Arts by marrying fancy, complex practices with humble methods (and often even humbler materials.) Like most Etherites, he develops theories (drawing them from wide-eyed heart to poetic brain, not the other way around) and makes endless blueprints of devices to take advantage of or enact those theories. He then cobbles those devices together, re-purposing discarded scraps of mundane devices to form the hand-made (moreso even than most Etherites) basic components of a new and liberatory device rising from the rubbish of the prison bars like a phoenix from the flames. Or Jesus Christ Himself, as Rodolfo's wife Placida keeps reminding him.
Instruments: Artwork, devices and machines, gadgets and inventions (personal for Mind, unique for Spirit), labs and gear, mass media, music, toys (personal for Mind)
As has been stated repeatedly, Rodolfo primarily performs magick by means of toys that he's designed and built himself. He often ends up playing with the toys himself, too, if we're being honest. Of course, the distinction between toys and tools can be quite academic at times, leading to any number of devices, machines, or just plain gear proving useful vehicles for his Will. Though he enjoys his personal workshop in the junkyard he used to (and still does, technically) run, he has been known to settle into any junkyard in his path to tinker and cobble together these mechanisms and electronics. Of course, as any child could tell you, a toy isn't merely the sum or action of its parts. Joy can be sparked by plain, silent, blocky shapes without color or decoration that nonetheless do cool things, but it is so much more powerful and delicious when spiced with delightful artwork in a mess of primary colors and catchy tunes in a minor key. To this end, Rodolfo has studied and mastered the uses of these two spices to maximize the might of his magick, and even occasionally been able to muster them in isolation to work certain effects: eliciting emotion, suggesting thought patterns, and depicting extra-normal entities and locations. Even before Peter approached Rodolfo, he had developed a significant following on YouTube, TikTok, BoardGameGeek, and other such websites as he shared video of his toys, blogged his thoughts about design for play, and even occasionally shared a blueprint or two. Now, with an entire marketing department behind him, this instrument has been supercharged. His posts are getting promoted, the network of social media influencers are viralizing his posts, and there are TV, radio, Internet, and print advertisements for the Workshop of the Manger Beneath the Tree of Knowledge's products. Peter has even floated the possibility of a product tie-in Netflix show! Bass is still alive; maybe Placida could help with Rankin?
Strength ❇❇ / Charisma ❇❇❇ / Intelligence ❇❇❇❇❇ Creative
Dexterity ❇❇ / Manipulation ❇❇❇ / Perception ❇❇
Stamina ❇❇ / Appearance ❇❇ / Wits ❇❇❇
Willpower ❇❇❇❇❇▢▢▢▢▢
Alertness ❇ / Crafts ❇❇ Toys / Academics
Alertness ❇ / Crafts ❇❇ Toys / Academics
Art ❇❇❇ Pleasing Children / Drive / Computer ❇❇
Athletics / Etiquette / Cosmology
Awareness ❇❇ / Firearms / Enigmas
Awareness ❇❇ / Firearms / Enigmas
Brawl / Martial Arts / Esoterica
Empathy ❇❇❇ / Meditation / Investigation
Empathy ❇❇❇ / Meditation / Investigation
Expression ❇❇ / Melee / Law
Intimidation / Research ❇ / Medicine
Leadership / Stealth / Occult
Streetwise ❇ / Survival / Politics
Subterfuge / Technology ❇❇❇ / Science ❇❇❇ Engineering
Blatancy ❇ / Hypertech ❇❇ / Jury-Rigging ❇
Quintessence ❇▢▢▢▢▢▢▢▢▢ / ▢▢▢▢▢▢▢▢▢▢ Paradox
Resonance: Excited ❇ / Synergy: Entropic ~ Forgotten ❇
Etheric Chemistry & Engineering (Matter) ❇❇❇
Etheric chemistry & engineering are a means to an end for Rodolfo, used to create wonderful devices or improve normal ones to demonstrate the incredible possibility of the world. The traditional tools of chemistry and engineering perform beautifully in his hands. Although he can use strange chemicals and advanced forges, he prefers to use this Sphere through relatively innocuous tools, the gentle wisdom of age guiding normal lathes, saws and screwdrivers to perform with superior precision in an Etherite’s hands. A junkyard is all he needs to work wonders. An added benefit: no one ever notices the dirty pots, hot Bunsen burners, beakers, grease, and general detritus left in his wake.
Noetic Science (Mind) ❇❇❇
Psychology, sociology and psychic research all contribute to the Etherite understanding of the mind, but so do art, metaphysics and political theory. Reichian psychology, existentialist philosophy, and quantum psychic theory all have something to tell Rodolfo about thaumatopoiesis ("creation of a sense of wonder", the central function in Rodolfo's pet theory of Mind) and this guides his design philosophy. Of course, sometimes simple carnivalesque hypnotic effects are useful, such as spinning wheels painted with spirals.
Etheric & Memetic Dimensions (Spirit) ❇❇
There is little more useful in thaumatopoiesis than the idea of going to a new and unknown place. Despite the power the promise of travel among the stars or magical lands gripped in an eternal winter at the back of the closet has, however, Rodolfo is intrigued by the effect that large number of conscious, independent observers has on the quantum waveform underlying reality, increasing its intensity and loosening the restrictions imposed by a regularly rhythmic frequency. With enough observers, the waveform can only be modeled in far more dimensions than the archontic four. In those models, memetic dimensions spring from humanity’s massed psychic capabilities. Two types of dimensions appear to arise from the math, sidereal space and the entropic dimensions Rodolfo generally leaves to his wife. The psychic remnants of the dead seem to react well to her prayers and hymns; perhaps it has something to do with the vibration of space and its strings. Rodolfo is far more interested, anyway, in sidereal aliens, the psychic manifestations of living consciousnesses. He studies them to gain insight into minds of Sleepers.
Avatar ❇
Backup ❇❇❇ Subordinates, lab techs, and laborers employed by the Workshop of the Mange Beneath the Tree of Knowledge, LLC
Familiar ❇❇ Moonracer (robot cobbled together from broken toys in the shape of a crowned, winged lion)
Resources ❇
Absent-Minded (3 pt. Flaw)
Impediment: reduced vision (1 pt. Flaw)
Uncanny (2 pt. Flaw)
Whimsy (1 pt. Flaw)
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