Alchemical Recipes [Promethean: The Created]

Open Development, Promethean: The Created

So, it was a close vote, but Lineages won out (32 votes for Lineages, 20-some for Refinements, and one inexplicable vote for “alchemical burps”).

Promethean 2nd Edition includes seven Lineages: Frankenstein, Galatea, Osiran, Tammuz, Ulgan, Unfleshed, and Extempore. But why, you might ask, is Extempore included out of alphabetical order?

Well, because the Extempore aren’t properly a Lineage. But we’ll get to that.

“Lineage,” as a concept in Promethean, refers to the method by which a Promethean is created, rather than an unbroken family line. The six Lineages (again, minus Extempore) all have some pedigree; the youngest (Frankenstein) is only a couple hundred years old, but the others are far older. (Even Unfleshed, you might ask? Sure. People have been making human-like representations of themselves forever. Terracotta warriors. golems, and all other forms of living statues were Unfleshed long before Karel and Josef Capek gave use the word “robot”.) But even with that pedigree, what you’re actually choosing when you create a character of a particular Lineage isn’t a clan or a family. It’s an answer to the question: Where does life come from?

If you’re playing a Frankenstein, for instance, life comes from lightning. It’s fast, painful, bright, beautiful. If you’re playing an Ulgan, life comes from beyond. It’s unknowable, and understandable only by experiencing it. When creating a character, Lineage informs how your character came to life, what methods her genitor (if the creator was a Promethean) or demiurge (if the creator was human) used to impart the Divine Fire.

Of course, a large part of what makes a particular Lineage is the humour, the alchemical material that saturates the Promethean’s body. Tammuz are full of black bile. It makes them sleepless and vigilant, but can also make them irritable and despondent. The Unfleshed humour is oil, not one of the classic four humours, granted, but still the humour that makes the Unfleshed useful…whether they want to be or not.

And this brings us back around to the Extempore. Sometimes Prometheans just happen. A massive Firestorm, or just a natural disaster, might kick up enough energy to impart the Divine Fire into a nearby corpse, and it rises up, confused and alone. Extempore don’t have the same drive and innate knowledge of the Pilgrimage (called Azoth Memory) that other Prometheans do, so it seems likely that the methodical system of creating Prometheans that leads to the Lineages also leads to that Memory. But does that mean that the Extempore can’t reach the New Dawn?

Azothic Memory is silent on the matter, and Extempore are rare even among Prometheans, so it’s hard to know. But the Pilgrimage does seem to function for the Matchless. They can take Roles and study Refinements and generate Vitriol. So that should mean that they have a New Dawn to look forward to, right?

They can hope.

OK, ask me questions in the comments. I’ll answer them tonight or tomorrow. Sunday, I’ll put up a new poll for Tuesday’s Promethean update!