Speaking to the Leaves (Ritual + Supernatural Identity)

My entry for the UA3 game jam ZomnoCon2
Categories: Green Thumb, Something Important Has Been Stolen

This plays off the minor ritual I Have Become Phobetor (Book 2, pg 75). Its main purpose is to show that the format for the Sleeper identity is actually surprisingly flexible. Unknown Armies frequently has characters with weird sets of abilities outside of what Adepts or Avatars can do, like the Cigarette Hag from To Go. Maybe someone met a god or married Death or accessed invisible bands of energy or learned the secret language of flowers. Powers that seem like they may not come from the Clergy or the collective unconscious, for whatever reason. It's called “the world of our desires.” Our desires are contradictory, and we frequently chase after things we can’t have. Sometimes that involves making a pact with a garden for the purpose of tormenting a wealthy family who is responsible for the urban development that paved over the tenement you were living in. Whatever floats your boat. 

Speaking to the Leaves (Minor Ritual)

Cost: 3 Minor Charges
Ritual Action:

• Wear only clothes made by hand, without a machine
• Do not remove until you’ve bonded with your target location
• Meditate in a garden of your interest that belongs to someone else
• An image will come to you, get that object as a gift for the garden
• Give a piece of wise sounding advice to a complete stranger before returning
• Place the gift in the garden and roll your ritual identity or ability

Effect: Gain the Garden Hermit supernatural identity at 25%

1d10 Garden Gifts

1. Lawn gnome
2. Tin can with label removed
3. Self-help tapes, played out loud
4. A very smooth rock
5. Hummingbird feeder
6. Sundial
7. Bonsai tree
8. Water from a sacred spring
9. A new plant
10. Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey

Garden Hermit (Versatile Supernatural Identity)

Taboo: Sleep in the garden nightly. Do not get caught. If you are caught or the garden is abandoned, take a Helplessness stress check at the rank of the tens digit of the identity. The features can only be used when accessing the bonded garden.

Features:

• Sleeping in the garden protects you from the elements (weather, temperature, animals)
• A single fruit or crop eaten nourishes you completely for a day
• Meditate in the garden to get an answer for any question about the property or the owners
• Grow a new plant to cast a gutter magick effect on anyone who lives on the property
• Uproot a plant to cause a minor unnatural phenomena to happen on the property within 24 hours
• Faeries are drawn to the garden (Postmodern Magick, pg 129)

Ending the Ritual

The simplest way to break the bond with the garden without taking the stress check is to once again meditate in the garden until an image of a gift comes to you. This one will be harder to acquire than the first in some way. The ritual can also be ended by burning down the entire garden, but you will be cursed with the feeling that all plants cultivated by humans hate you. This can fuel a paranoia that might lead to multiple stress checks over time.