Mafdet
Marchioness of Mysteries
(Independent Song)
| Aspect |
0 |
5 AMP |
0p |
| Domain |
3 |
5 DMP |
9p |
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[1] A Mystery cannot be possessed, it must be lived and pursued |
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[1] Mysteries are bound by narrative conceits |
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[1] Mysteries must leave clues behind, to tempt you and draw you into their world |
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[1] Mysteries are fascinating and addictive, drawing you into their world |
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[1] Mysteries make perfect sense in retrospect |
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[1] Mysteries, once explained, end |
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[1] Mysteries get you into all sorts of trouble |
| Persona |
3 |
5 PMP |
9p |
| Treasure |
2 |
5 TMP |
6p |
Gift
Shapeshifter 1p (All forms of cat, real or mythical
Skills and Passions
Inherent Superiority: Cat 4
"I am driven by curiosity" 3
Paradoxical Physics 1
Shine 3
Bonds and Afflictions
[4] Affliction: I am the embodiment of the Mythical Cat
[2] Affliction: I live in the boundaries, free from constraint
[1] Affliction: Others are driven to understand me, and certain to be confounded
[4] Bond: If I understand it, I have mastered it
[3] Bond: Cats are the greatest race in Creation
[1] Bond: Too clever by half
Treasures
The Children of Bubastis- The cats of the world know of their sister’s ascension, and are wise enough to maintain ties. They provide her with information, she provides them with protection. (Mundane Collection)
Carrabas- A terrible shapechanging ogre, conquered by Mafdet in a duel of wits and secrets. Now he serves as her bodyguard and enforcer. (Wondrous Anchor, shapechanging killer)
Background
Appearance
It amuses Mafdet to have many forms, for it is good for a cat to stretch its limbs. Most often she goes about as a rather common grey cat, with a rather uncommon gleam in her eyes. If you look closely, you can see the reflection of the distant moon, even when it is not about. From time to time she changes her color, or her size, or her sex, but always the moon remains. At times when she wishes to be particularly ostentatious, she takes the form of a great black lion, winged like a peacock. Mostly though, she is just a cat.
Mafdet has yet to see any point in lowering herself to take the form of a human.
Personality
Mafdet is mercurial. At times she is enthusiastic, almost giddy at play, restless and driven and active. At others she reclines, peaceful and waiting, knowing that when the time is right her desire will come to her. Above all, she is curious, seeking answers, and seeking Mysteries to solve. For this is both her duty, and the source of her power.
She also has a rather huge knack for getting herself into trouble. Technically, nobody is quite sure how she claimed her Estate. The ways of Mystery are, unsurprisingly, mysterious, and no two holders have walked the same path in claiming it. Some Ymera seem rather bothered that she took it for herself rather than being chosen, and some Powers seem jealous of her independence. She merely ignores this, for none may judge a cat. At times though, she does long for some of the life she once had. If cats are the chosen of Creation, and she is no longer quite a cat, she has in some ways fallen even as she ascended. Yet her journey is entertaining enough that she chooses to stay on it a while longer. After all, she's just as good at getting herself out of trouble, so it'll work out eventually.
Speaking of trouble, there's Genseric Dace. About whom nobody seems to know anything. So she'll have to learn, and therefor she'll have to live a journey for a while. But won't it be fun.
Modus Operandi
Mafdet can usually be persuaded to join in on most anything, as long as it promises some interest and the potential of claiming a mystery or two. She's never been one to just rest on her position. On her own she'll chase after whatever new target has her interest, or try to spend some time among her sibling cats. She likes to try to keep in touch, even if they are a bit distanced from her now. While she is generally unperturbed, anyone who does the unthinkable and actually offends her is likely to find all of their secrets claimed, all of their allies subverted, and coincidence and narrative turning against them until the make amends.
In conflict she prefers to work somewhat indirectly. It is terribly hard to actually pin her down, or make any harm stick to her. She'll play tricks and conceal, lead enemies on chases that end in terrible things for them, and then sit and watch. If violence becomes necessary, well, lions and tigers (and bears) are followed by Oh My for a reason. Its a bit gauche just to eat someone though.
| Persona Miracle Chart |
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Domain Miracle Chart |
0: The Sight (Cost: 0 MP)
- Detect mystery authors, meddling detectives, and aloof bishie boys;
- See how someone’s life has been altered by unsolved mysteries or unexpected revelations;
- Detect powers of related Estates, or Excrucians engaged in attacks on Mysteries.
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0: Warning (Cost: 0 MP)
- Recognize when the Estate of Mysteries is in danger.
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1: Blessing/Curse (Cost: 0 MP)
- Bless or curse people with the power of Mysteries:
- Make a tree conceal much more effectively than it should in a game of Hide and Seek;
- Cause someone to generally obey narrative conceits, giving monologues about their petty schemes and failing to notice gaping flaws in them;
- Make that aloof bishie boy a little less intriguing and addictive;
- Remove a professor’s tendency to leave clues, screwing over his students;
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1: Ghost miracle (Cost: 0 MP)
- Conceal the location of someone’s dinner;
- Wrap someone in a mysterious aura that makes people briefly forget their back story;
- Invoke the “Mystery of the Lost Pencil!”, leading everyone on a fantastic narrative chase for the 5 minutes it takes to find the Pencil (which was made lost by another Ghost Miracle).
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2: Lesser incarnation (Cost: 0 MP)
- Incarnate in a mystery investigation, learning of its progress (and having a rollicking good time too);
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2: Lesser Divinations, Communications (Cost: 0 MP)
- Learn the particulars of a Mystery, what clues people are aware of, what the consequences were;
- Question a Mystery about its nature and ask it for hints (though it can’t give complete answers without ceasing to exist);
- Persuade a Mystery to produce a small nudge at coincidence for her, perhaps making a clue fall out of someone’s purse;
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3: Lesser Emulation (Cost: 0 MP)
- Become intriguing and addictive, spawning a host of gossip;
- Obey narrative conceits, letting her escape danger at a dramatically convenient time;
- Become supernaturally capable at concealing her thoughts;
- Cause her driving a school bus through a crowded mall to make perfect sense in retrospect;
- Take the shape of a meddling kid;
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3: Lesser Preservation (Cost: 0 MP)
- Make it impossible for anyone to solve a mystery;
- Repair a partially answered Mystery, making people forget or doubt exactly who shot Mr. Burns;
- Strengthen a Mystery so it draws even skeptics in, resisting their attempts to withdraw or debunk it;
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4: Lesser Enchantment (Cost: 1 MP)
- Make a game intriguing and addictive, causing people to be trapped inside it;
- Turn someone’s clearly stated confession into a baffling mystery;
- Cause a car engine to lose all of its power once someone explains how it works;
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4: Lesser Creation, Summoning and Animation (Cost: 1 MP)
- Shroud an object in mystery, preventing anyone from finding it without a long drawn out search;
- Initiate the Mystery of the Stolen Diamond, causing said diamond to vanish (and turn up in Mean Old Mr. Flanagan’s safe eventually!);
- Summon meddling kids, snoopy old ladies, and hardboiled detectives, then make them dance to her tune;
- Conjure up a murder weapon or lost formula (which may produce legal inquiries);
- Direct the particulars of a mysterious ritual;
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5: Lesser Sacrifice, Greater Incarnation (Cost: 2 MP)
- Cause Scooby-Doo to no longer be a mystery series, just a stoner comedy;
- Remove the addictive nature of heroin;
- Cause previously logical event to be non-sensical in retrospect, possibly producing more sensical events retroactively;
- Make a lie’s power to hurt continue even after it has been explained;
- Incarnate in every mystery investigation in the state, or in the ineffable mysteries of a True God’s nature
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5: Lesser Destructions, Greater Divinations (Cost: 2 MP)
- Conclusively prove The Mystery of The Missing Link, revealing the truth;
- Make someone no longer mysterious, so that everyone who runs into them knows their backstory and is bored by it;
- Undo a problematic piece of narrative logic, or make Mr. Burns no longer shot;
- Delete a Mystery’s trait of losing its power once revealed, letting it draw newcomers in repeatedly;
- Question all the Mysteries of the world for tantalizing hints of secret knowledge, possibly spawning a few casualties;
- Skip to the end of a detective novel and find out the future (and that the Butler did it! Gerard Butler that is, not poor maligned Jeeves)
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6: Greater Emulation, Lesser Binding (Cost: 4 MP)
- Turn someone into a meddling Mystery-Solving teen, and give them super powers in pursuit of their investigations;
- Make someone obsessed with the mystery of their wife’s death;
- Cause mystery-solving licenses to be treated with legal respect on the scale of James Bond’s license to kill;
- Become intriguing enough to lead the children of a town away forever;
- Perform a wildly implausible act like stumbling over what happens to be the entrance to the Lost City of Gold and have them turn out to be perfectly reasonable;
- Conceal everything about herself from the strictest scrutiny;
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6: Greater Preservations, Lesser Motions (Cost: 4 MP)
- Cause someone pursuing a clue to accidentally end up in a VERY strange new location;
- Declare that solving The Mystery of the Sticky Cracker will grant Shaggy a life of fame and fortune, but lead to Mr. Jenkin’s execution for vandalism;
- Make a good riddle worth millions on the open market;
- Prevent anyone from proving conclusively whether God exists or not;
- Erase the world’s memory of Julia Child’s spy activities;
- Give a mystery the power to draw in entire nations;
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7: Greater Enchantment (Cost: 4 MP)
- Turn water addictive across the face of the earth, making people die if they don’t consume it;
- Force entire countries to obey narrative logic, turning them into a fairytale world;
- Cause the sun to lose its power to warm anyone who understands nuclear physics;
- Make it so all crimes committed in France leave clues and temptations behind.
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7: Greater Creation, Summoning and Animation (Cost: 4 MP)
- Create entire cults of devoted mystics out of thin air;
- Set out to discover How I Became the Mayor, with Hilarious Results;
- Summon a 300 foot Miss Marple to crush London, with Hilarious Results;
- Make the location of China a mystery;
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8: Greater Sacrifice (Cost: 8 MP + Wound)
- Cause a legal system to no longer make perfect sense in retrospect, unsettling nations;
- Remove the power of Excrucians to conceal and confuse;
- Erase every clue as to her past life from existence
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8: Greater Destruction (Cost: 8 MP + Wound)
- Prove conclusively that God does in fact exist (possibly producing a very confused Creator Deity of questionable morality);
- Give everyone in the US a detailed knowledge of the lives of everyone they meet;
- Make Mysteries as a whole no longer fascinating and addictive, killing large chunks of the literary industry;
- Bring The Mystery of the Excrucian Explosives to a quick, unsatisfying but safe conclusion;
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9: Greater Binding (Cost: 8 MP + Wound)
- Make New York a city dedicated to solving mysteries, full of detectives and superhuman investigators
- Curse someone to be beset by Mysteries, ruining their lives at every turn, or leading them to their heart’s desire
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9: Greater Motion (Cost: 8 MP + Wound)
- Declare that solving the Mystery of the Lost Egg will lead the people of Chicago to eternal happiness;
- Cause every mysterious woodland path in the world to lead to a certain place;
- Manipulate Fiction, Faith, and Curiousity;
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| Treasure Miracle Chart |
0: Claiming An Anchor, Communication (Cost: 0 MP)
- Anchor a particularly rare Mystery novel she wants to hold on to, at the cost of a Surface wound;
- The cats sworn to her service never want for mundane needs, and can always reach her with information;
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1: Possession (Cost: 0 MP)
- Possess Carrabas and use him as her emissary on a rampage of instructive destruction
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2: Guidance (Cost: 1 MP)
- Ride along with one of her siblings as it investigates a mystery, giving +1 Edge to any conflicts
- Use a silently looming Carrabas to gain +1 Tool bonus in an intimidation attempt
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3: Unleashing Wonders (Cost: 1 MP)
- Unlock the mythic resources of one of her Cats, turning it into a golden fire-breathing lion, or claim a mysterious artifact she has investigated, at the cost of a Serious Wound;
- Unleash Carrabas’ brutish powers, allowing him to change his shape in defiance of physical law, and giving him +3 Edge in his assaults;
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4: Getting Some Help (Cost: 2 MP)
- Declare that one of her cats has turned up a vital piece of information and contacted her with it;
- Summon Carrabas from across town, and have him transform into a cat-bus to get her out of trouble.
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5: Weaponizing Anchors (Cost: 4 MP)
- Turn Carrabas into a giant Kaijuogre, wreaking massive amounts of havoc and ravaging even Miraculous targets;
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6: Weaving Destiny, Unleashing Miracles (Cost: 4 MP)
- Elevate Carrabas to Miraculous power, a true God-Ogre who shapes the world as well as himself, or Anchor Genseric Dace once she has conquered the mystery of his nature, at the cost of a deadly wound;
- Declare that Carrabas will conquer Sweden, bringing it under his ogrous reign;
- Command Genseric to unleash his miraculous powers, whatever they are;
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7: Getting Miraculous Help (Cost: 8 MP)
- Declare that Genseric arranges a cunning mysterious scheme which lures other Excrucians into a terrible trap;
- Summon Carrabas to Heaven from the depths of Hell, and send him on a rampage through the ranks of Angels
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8: Communion (Cost: 8 MP)
- Combine her Mystery Solving powers with Genseric’s mysterious Estate to reshape the world in their image;
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9: Imperial Miracle (Cost: 8 MP)
- Speak an Imperial Miracle through Carrabas, declaring that Atlantis will be sunken into the Sea by a terrible rage of Earth, its people transformed into new strange shapes to live beneath the waves
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On The Mythical Cat
Mafdet, through her ascension to Divinity, is now the embodiment of every myth ever told about cats. As long as they are well rooted in myth and folklore, they apply to her, as long as she is in the appropriate shape. For example:
Housecats…
Always land on their feet
Can steal the breath of sleepers
Bring bad luck when black
Have 9 lives
Sense moods, secrets, and spirits
Lick the butter
Hate water
Lions…
Are the Kings of the Jungle
Are ferocious maneaters
Respect the Circle of Life
Sphinxes…
Can fly through the air
Feel compelled to engage in riddle contests
This is both a blessing, and potentially a terrible curse.
