Nephandi Doloromancy

[Toldolth]

In a Mage the Ascension game I'm running, an NPC ally of the group is falling under the sway of a Nephandi. This ally, we'll call her Mandy, has had nothing but misery in her life. Her mentor is cautious with her and refuses to teach her the devastating magicks she wishes to learn. Thus enters a Nephandus who offers to teach her how to use her pain as power.

I wanted to bounce some ideas off you guys about this style of magic. I call it "Doloromancy" from the Latin "Dolor" meaning suffering. I want to have a good idea on what these rituals and foci would look like because Mandy is going to start doing some dark stuff little by little. When the chips are down she is going to start screaming in anguish about her abusive mother and use it to fuel her magic to devastating (and horrific) result. She will become a "cutter" and start slicing her arms while she meditates. But I want this wicked influence to start as subtle ad possible and then grow until it warps her.

I wanted to get some insights on how you guys think this could be done. Keep in mind, all pain works for this: physical, emotional, long term physic trauma. Also, I was wondering what you thought about pain being a kind of Tass? Or, where could Pain Resonanced Tass form?
What are some subtle rituals that could hint at her slow decline?

[LongVin]

In a game I played as where my character was slowly being corrupted by a Nephandi it starts out simple and subtle.

At one point we were having a pretty big interparty conflict and my character tried to cast a basic rote which basically would jam a gun if someone attempted to fire it. I decided this would be a good idea if the conflict escalated.

Cast the spell, my character's slightly nephandi corrupted soul decides "Nah...instead of the bullet jamming the gun when fired it is going to backfire and explode in the users hand." My character didn't intentionally intend for this to happen, but it was the subtle affects of nephandi magic.

[JeenLeen]

Doloromany sounds like a good name, and on the surface it could sound similar to some off-the-way Cult of Ecstasy, Euthanatos, or Order of Hermes stuff. Verbena can utilize self-sacrifice through cutting and similar things, and some Cultists try anything for experience so I could see that as well, so if she is a member of one of those Traditions or an Orphan, it might not look too odd at first, or at least be covered up easily enough.

In Book of Madness, parts of the book talk about using the suffering of others to generate Tass. It doesn't go into the mechanics, but the mechanics aren't always clear in WoD. There's a Nephandic investment that enables the Nephandus to create a temporary (and very corrupt) node. Maybe put it that she is tapping into a weak form of that, or she thinks she is doing it but her Nephandic tutor is actually doing it.

How hard it is for the PCs to detect corruption in Tass? Generating Tass might tip them off sooner than you want.

Also, does Mandy know this person (or suspect this person) is a Nephandus? If the Nephandi knows Mind or Qlippothic Mind, they can probably rather easily keep Mandy from suspecting them. But, again, this depends on what you want out of the NPC.

[Toldolth]

Mandy is a Hollow One, at least in attitude and appearance. Kind of a goth Orphan who got taken in by a husband and wife of other traditions because her home life was so severe it caused her to Awaken from pure anguish.

She doesn't know the Nephandi for what he really is. He's sort of a weirdo that loiters around abandoned parks and in front of strip clubs. He's got the "cool outsider" act down to a T and she's buying into it. When Mandy wants to learn some darker magic (her paradigm is pretty dreary already), her surrogate family balks at it. Its either too dark for them or they consider it too dangerous for her. When she gets fed up with that, she goes to the slimy side of town and looks up "that cool guy who I met outside of ABC Liquor."

He reminds me of Palpatine from Revenge of the Sith when Anakin wants to learn how to use the force to keep the people he loves from dying. Palpatine says it is possible to learn such things, "But not from a Jedi..."

He confirms that what she wants to do is possible and even gives pointers on how to make it even more potent. "All you have is your pain; why not use it?" he asks.

As far as style of magic, she is a tarot card/ouija board/New Age Paperbacks kind of girl.

[JeenLeen]

As far as style of magic, she is a tarot card/ouija board/New Age Paperbacks kind of girl.

Cool; so this guy seems Orphan in a Hollow One or CoE sorta way. Not too suspicious.

The New Age paperbacks gives me a good idea. Have him hand her a book on using magic utilizing pain, but the book is corrupted. I heard Nephandi often have books (usually ancient tomes of knowledge, but no reason not to use modern means as well) that are twisted with investments or Mind to make the reader slowly fall. It looks like a rare version of some occult book (if a modern 'spellbook' type of book), or it describes some witch using darker arts (if fiction), and he tells her to try out what it speaks of. It's not even him that's tempting her, so far as anyone can tell (at least easily); it's just a book she picked up.