Heroics

Heroics (as in Heroic saga; weaponized history), Heroic Practitioners or Historic Practitioners can evoke specific, notable historical individuals for various effects.<ref name=":0">Heroic
Heroic practices tap into history, legend, and the strengths of individuals to bring out the best in that person or point in time. While most historical figures of extraordinary strength are already earmarked and reserved by families and powers the world over, lesser figures can be tapped as summons, familiars, and shared memories. In general practice, approach combat with the assistance of some very skilled help, and approach problems with the assistance of great minds. - Pact Dice: The Practices - Wbow Version</ref> They overlap with Historians, studying the emergent patterns in the history of bloodlines.<ref name=":1">The families of heroic or historic practitioners tend to be as hard to assail as the castles of old, because the study of heroic and historic practices is the study of family, of blood and the patterns by which families rise and fall. - Pact Dice: Heroics</ref><ref>“[...] I’m a historical practitioner. I study ​families, bloodlines.”

“Ones that tie themselves in incesty knots, right?”

“I study ​one that… yeah. It tied itself in knots, so to speak. The practice is in finding patterns, working out which family members are exceptional because they meet criteria that recur over and over. Third son of a third son or whatever, like a ritual carried out and recurring over generations. Incest is admittedly one of the patterns.” - Excerpt from Poke 1</ref>

Methodology

Heroic practitioners are categorized as focusing on Conflict and Lore practices. Conflict, because they are fearsome warriors who solve problems head-on with the preternatural skill of heroes at their back; and lore, because this form of practice requires constant and intensive historical research.<ref>Heroic practitioners are a suggested practice for Conflict x Lore.  For Conflict, they tend to do their best work hands-on, in the field, and on the battlefield, with very skilled warriors and problem solvers at their back.  For Lore, they lean heavily on research and the same skills that help them uncover the summons they call to the battlefield in the first place are ones that lend themselves to investigation, awareness, and information gathering. - Pact Dice: Heroics</ref> However, they can fall under any category; Conjuration (for Heroics who focus on temporary summoning), Tools (for Heroics that focus on heroic relics - see below), Protection (for defensive summons), Deals (for those focused on bargaining with Names, Echoes and Anima), Visceral or Immaterial (for those who manifest their Heroes in an especially physical or non-physical way), Divine (for those channeling and seeking communion with a specific notable family), or Realms (for those with a "family estate" - see below - or who physically travel into visions of the past for research.)<ref>The core idea could be taken other places on the conflict line by way of emphasizing offhand summoning (conjure), the relics of the heroes (tools), or specialized heroes for protecting territories (protection).  

Delving into other practices than Lore they might lean into scientists or rogues rather than soldiers, and they might shift their emphasis away from something more mission-focused and into the contracts made with these Others (Deals), stronger manifestations of the Named and the Heroes and the material things important to them (Visceral), or even the inverse, emphasizing echo over spirit, or incarnate principles and what these individuals or bloodlines represented.  A Divine approach could intend to gather the family again, elevating them to a position or manifesting a pocket realm where their bloodline is at its strongest, or it could mean finding one’s own roots, uncovering the pattern of the bloodline and trying to channel the power of the family and heroic potential to yourself.  A practice could also be rooted in a Family Estate, an oddly coherent pocket of the real world or spirit world, visiting the endpoint and uncovering what happened. - Pact Dice: Heroics</ref>

In addition to Heroes and Named (see below), they frequently deal with Animuses and Echoes.<ref>Relevant & Related: Heroes, Names, Animus, Echoes - Pact Dice: Heroics</ref><ref>If you like the notion of befriending a Librarian animus or bringing a viking berserker into the modern day, perhaps the Heroic Practitioner enables that, or even builds on the idea. - Pact Dice: Heroics</ref>

By studying the natural patterns of history, the rise and fall of families, and the natural rituals human society has fallen into, these Practitioners can bring out the best in an individual or family, as well as summoning them physically (see below).<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" />

The most notable figures in history have generally been claimed, and are the subject of fierce conflict. As such, most research in this field focuses on more obscure individuals who may still fall at the confluence of bloodlines and/or have notable achievements.<ref name=":2">Through the research and investigation of families, heroic mages discover names, and draw on those names.  While the true heroes of the history books may be out of reach for most, co-opted by other historic practitioner families in an ongoing, endless game of chess, the discovery of the right predecessors and descendants of the heroes can lead to the poaching of such a hero of old.

In practice, with a name at the ready, the historic practitioner can call forth knights, assassins, geniuses and thieves, or they can hold that name as a card, sometimes literal, a font of knowledge or talent to be tapped or a burst of strength at the right moment. - Pact Dice: Heroics</ref> Holding claim on a single famous and powerful Hero can define a family.<ref name=":3">Heroic figures are more or less the same thing, but the Heroic figure sits in a position important to the family and often has absorbed power of some variety. They’re almost always stronger, multi-dimensional, and carry some weight.  A strong hero can define a family, but other families may attempt to summon it, so having a firm grip, relics, and strong claim can help keep the hero firmly aligned with the practitioner.  Coup, the act of defeating or otherwise weakening a practitioner’s metaphysical grip, can help the attacking party, but necessitates acting against the family that has the hero. - Pact Dice: Heroics</ref>

Named

When a person falls at a confluence of history or bloodline, thrust into a role by history (somewhat similar to an Animus' role), they are referred to as Named.<ref name=":4">Where an Animus represents a role, often narrative or conceptual, such as the swordbearer who exists to empower heroes on their quests, or the pugilist that goes looking to fight the strongest and remind them there’s always stronger (or loses and reaffirms said individual’s position), the Named individual finds their way to a role, or history, family lore, and patterns help cement the role around them in retrospect.  The echo of the individual may persist through written word and history, and they can be called out as versions of their former self, some combination of animus, echo, and vestige.

- Pact Dice: Heroics</ref>

A key part of this Practice is the physical summoning of deceased Named individuals,<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /> also known as Names of Note.^{[citation needed]} These summons are a mixture of Echo, Vestige, and Animus, reinforced by the pattern of history and lineage.<ref name=":5">John wasn’t unfamiliar with this sort of thing.  They were the province of some old families.

He could identify them by the way they stood, the shapes of faces, and the colors they wore.  That there was a theme, a commonality.  One that tied them to Reid and Abraham Musser.

Mussers.  Mussers of past generations, crystallized echoes, or a bit of Animus, a bit of history forming its own patterns.  Some held whips, others held muskets.  They’d fought for a long time.  And of course, some were practitioners.  As they rose up out of the ground, some had to move away from the swelling fire at one side of the building.

[...]

The summoned highlights of the Musser bloodline turned to face John.  Some readied weapons.

[...]

“Give the order,” one Musser said.  He was more echo than Animus.  Vague, blurry at the edges, but what wasn’t blurry was sharp and adorned in gold.  “Child, descendant, you have to command us, by the terms of the summoning.” - excerpt from Break 5</ref><ref>Heroes and Names of note, the practice called them.  Part echo, part vestige, part animus.  The patterns mapped by their lineage was supposed to make them great. - excerpt from Playing a Part 15.z</ref><ref name=":4" /> When they are particularly strong, occupying a special position and/or bolstered by a power source, they are known as Heroes or Heroic Figures.<ref name=":3" />

Many old Practitioner families, even those that are not primarily Historians, will make use of their own notable ancestors in this fashion.<ref name=":5" />

Relics

Relics, also known as Keepsakes, are items which a Named has some power invested in; more powerful individuals will have more such items. Rituals exist which can summon these items, but this requires a lot of power; more common is to track them down through research. When weilded by a summoned Name, a relic will empower them and give them more personality, but also give the owner of the item claim over them.<ref>Relics and keepsakes are objects that the hero or named have some power invested in.  Rituals may summon a keepsake for a high cost, while lore magic might be a lower-cost way of finding them, wherever they may be buried, held, or on sale at antique stores.  Giving a named individual or hero a relic, of which any figure might have two to ten possible (usually scaling with power) will bring out added dimensions and facets of that individual, giving them added powers, capabilities, personality, while also giving the practitioner more claim. - excerpt from Break 5</ref>

Estates

Estates are Realms tied to Named and Heroes. Often fragmentary and shadowy, they may be accessable through the Spirit World, Ruins, and/or require travel to specific locations in the real world. Heroic practitioners often work to clarify them by researching their origins.<ref>Estates are the realms of the Named and Heroes.  They are accessed through the realms that echoes and spirits dwell in, but travel may be necessary to get to real-world counterparts.  They can exist in fragments, and may be populated with shadows of the named, clarifying with discovered lore. - excerpt from Break 5</ref>

One such a place exists at a Crossroads near Thunder Bay, a European-style castle foolishly constructed at ruinous cost in the New World, and has been claimed and developed by the Dark Fall as a market.<ref>Playing a Part 15.z</ref>

Notable practitioners and Others

• Users
  • Benjamin Trover and presumably family members
  • Behaim Circle members
  • Musser family members
• Named
• Cranaus (familiar)
• Hylas (familiar)

Related Others

• Named
  • Heroes
• Keepers

Trivia

• While many elements in Pact could be said to copy from or draw on other sources it should be reiterated that as Pterry said, "we're all fishing form the same stream."

References

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