“Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity”
Richard III
A.K.A. Sunspotters, Peelers, Backburners (Ω + 1)
There’s something transcendent about the pain of a sunburn.
Sure it’s probably the constant irritation, swelling and peeling skin. But maybe it's the reminder that the sun, the giver of all life on Earth, is also that which bestows burrowing cancer, inflicts droughts and strikes all those who behold it blind.
That’s the paradox of the sunspotters, lobster-skinned adepts who accept Sol's wrath so they can channel its metaphysical power. Though every culture has worshiped or reviled the sun in some way, heliomancy started sometime around the Age of Exploration among white settlers invading locations far richer in Vitamin-D than their pigmentation ever evolved to absorb. Most modern sunspotters are still found in colonial states with year-round sun like California, South Africa and Australia.
Taboo: Miss a sunrise. So long as you can see the light rise above the horizon, you're alright. But if it's overcast enough you will catch a taboo - sunspotters are fair-weather friends in the most literal sense.
Generate a Minor Charge: Receive a first-degree sunburn on a good portion of your body (e.g. arms and shoulders, chest and back, neck and face, legs and feet). Sunbathing is the obvious method, but you can grab a quick charge by wearing short sleeves and no hat on a summer’s day. You can grind out ~4 minor charges a day by swapping between what body parts are getting exposed. After the erythema wears off you’re fine to charge using the same area again.
Generate a Significant Charge: Receive second-degree sunburns across your entire body. This requires hours of naked sunbathing (easy enough on a private residence or nudist beach), interspersed with repositioning to ensure total saturation. The burns cost 2d10 wounds and impose a -20% malus to rolls involving physical activity or concentration until they’re healed.
Generate a Major Charge: Cover yourself with third-degree sunburns, inflict permanent photokeratitis by staring into the sun for hours, allow untreated melanomas to metastasise into terminal cancer etc.
Sunburns can be expedited by a pale complexion (there’s a reason most sunspotters are Caucasian), taking medications like antibiotics and diuretics or stripping your skin’s protective oils with exfoliants. Using a Medical identity can abate a burn’s severity and duration.
MINOR FORMULA SPELLS
A Light Shining In Darkness
Cost: 1 minor charge
Effect: Casting this spell creates a beam of light emanating from the caster’s palm. It gives off the same illumination as a powerful flashlight and lasts for minutes equal to the casting roll.
Glare
Cost: 2 minor charges
Effect: Cast this spell as a reaction to someone making an attack, directing a beam of reflected light into their eyes to make them miss. Sunglasses impose a -20% malus to the casting roll. Proper eye protection (e.g. welding goggles) totally negates the spell. This doesn’t require sunlight, any bright light will suffice so long as there’s a reflective surface around.
It’s Such A Lovely Day Outside
Cost: 2 minor charges.
Effect: By repeating the titular spell to a target, you inflict a supernatural compulsion to bask in the sun. Resisting a sudden temptation to go outside and touch grass is a Rank 4 Self stress check. This spell requires there be sunlight somewhere reasonably nearby, else the casting fails.
Now That’s The Spot
Cost: 2 minor charges
Effect: Casting this spell enchants a patch of sunlight to be supernaturally appealing for a number of minutes equal to the casting roll. It doesn’t inflict a stress check, but anyone walking by or looking for an excuse to go outside will prefer standing in it or at least passing through.
Photosynthesis
Cost: 1 minor charge
Effect: Casting this spell lets you forgo eating for a day, converting a minor charge straight into calories. There’s no penalty for overreliance on this spell, sunspotters can hit all their macros on sunlight alone. You’ll still need to drink water however, just like any other plant.
Solar Powered
Cost: 1 minor charge
Effect: Hold any electrical device up to the sun to immediately power it. Even devices with a broken battery or missing power source function so long as they remain in direct sunlight.
Take Your Vitamins
Cost: 3 minor charges
Effect: The sun is the giver and taker of life. You’re one side of the coin, so here’s the other - laying on hands to heal someone. This spell can’t stitch up a gunshot, but it will cure minor diseases, vitamin deficiencies and triple the recipient's natural healing for days equal to the one’s die of the casting roll, meaning they heal 3 wounds per day of rest.
SIGNIFICANT FORMULA SPELLS
A Ray Of Sunshine
Cost: 1 significant charge
Effect: This spell permanently improves your charisma, giving your skin that healthy sunkissed glow that everyone knows and loves. Each casting increases Connect or Status by 5%. You have to pick which ability goes up beforehand. The highest you can build either with this spell is 60%.
Like Frying Ants
Cost: 1 significant charge
Effect: This is the heliomancy blast. Focus sunlight into a deadly space laser that deals firearms damage (equal to the d100 result of the casting roll). Even if the victim survives the initial blast, the fiery beam sets their hair and clothes alight. The spell can only target someone standing in direct sunlight; chargers who know a sunspotter is gunning for them tend to stay indoor.
Lord Of The Harvest
Cost: 2 significant charges
Effect: Cast this spell on plantlife lit by sunlight to make it rapidly grow or shrivel up and die. It can be used to undermine a highway with tree roots, wither a cornfield into dry husks or kickstart an algal bloom. Witnessing either version of this spell is a Rank 3 Unnatural stress check.
Mirage
Cost: 2 significant charges
Effect: Casting this spell lets you create a visual illusion in an area lit by sunlight - a suspension bridge, desert oasis, police checkpoint, etc. The mirage is only broken for someone if they walk up and touch it, or deliberately make a Notice check opposed by your casting roll. The illusion fills up to a square mile of space and lasts for minutes equal to the casting roll.
Solar Flare
Cost: 2 significant charges
Effect: Cast this spell to turn into a walking EMP - nearby electronics start malfunctioning in ways that benefit you. Automatic doors swing open, CCTV footage is fried, alarms are disabled, phone calls fail, car batteries explode etc. The spell lasts for minutes equal to the casting roll.
Too Hot To Breathe Today
Cost: 2 significant charges
Effect: You exacerbate an already hot day to the point of starting a riot. This spell works indoors or outdoors, so long as people are overheating and pissed off about it. If you want to put your thumb on the scales, try sabotaging a building’s air conditioning or starting a traffic jam (think the first scene of Falling Down). The spell gives you zero control over the riot once it starts.
You Could Fry An Egg On This
Cost: 1 significant charge
Effect: Casting this spell makes an area unbearably hot, melting pedestrian’s shoes to the asphalt, scorching the bare feet of beachgoers, and scalding motorists with their own seatbelts. Anyone who doesn’t flee from the sudden heat has to endure a Rank 4 Helplessness stress check. The spell can affect a number of targets equal to the one’s die of the casting roll.
MAJOR CHARGE EFFECTS
Create a heatwave that engulfs an entire country. Start or prevent a coronal mass ejection. Travel somewhere at the speed of light. Become a source of living sunlight.
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