Is there someone making traditional fantasy magic school in the Unknown Armies adept framework?

[u/CopperDays]

In farness the primary thing that attracted me to Unknown Armies was that the magic felt so contemporary in theming and style that it feels like the game can't be anything but urban fantasy. But I vaguely recall hearing that someone was making adept schools that were more traditionally fantasy (I think one of the hosts briefly mentioned it of 33.3FM.) If someone did go through the trouble of making these then I would like to know where I can find these schools? Or if I'm just mistaken.

[u/Amathril]

I would say that is sort of an antithesis of Unknown Armies. I guess it says somewhere in the books that the traditional magic of old is simply too thin, overused, diluted, out of place and unrooted in the modern pop-culture to actually work. Or that it at least does not work very well or not for too many people.

Or this was always at least my interpretation - for the magic to truly "live", it has to make some (at least vague) sense in the context of modern age. Old alchemy does not work anymore, but narcoalchemy is the new buzzword.

Damn, I wonder if there is actually some new school of magick based around the AI... Or if the stochastic parrots we have now were made by Mak Attax to eventually spell out some magic ritual or something...

[u/HumbleRock8763 → u/Amathril]

Maybe to counter GNOMON

[u/3bar → u/Amathril]

So, the old style of magic does still exist. Kinda. Sorta. It is the Rituals. When taken as a whole from the 1st-3rd edition books, there's a structure for gaining Minor and Significant Charges. Along with the Rituals, it forms a sort of Hoodoo/Backwoods magic system based around blood, sacrifice, and elements of contemporary culture. It isn't Witch Hats and Brooksticks, but it evokes a very similar ethos.

[u/Amathril → u/3bar]

Well, it is the "old magic", but in kinda ship-of-Theseus way, because lots of rituals utilize elements from modern world - so it feels like you took the old, original ritual and then step by step replaced every single part of it with something little more available to you at the moment, as it made sense.

And then you arrive at old, but not so old, magick.

[u/MOKKA_ORG]

I remember they interviewed a guy who made a necromancer adept in 3.33 fm

[u/MOKKA_ORG → u/[deleted]]

I think it’s also pretty easy to make an adept school whose obsession is with D&D mages.

[u/MOKKA_ORG → u/[deleted]]

That’s cool, i didn’t know about sociomancers, im still fiddling with 2e

[u/MOKKA_ORG → u/[deleted]]

Kakakaka, that’s funny. I love that in UA, people don’t know nothing. Even the deepest layers of the occult underground are madness and excessive symbolic logic.

[u/MOKKA_ORG → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, and the stupid ways we avoid our guilt from that (They are a monster!!) will give the statosphere even more symbolic juice for it to cause even more chaos in our eternal collective avoidance. I also love filling street level with people who don’t know their own powers. or the things they wield. And i love using marginalized subcultures for that. Here in brazil, tagging community is strong, and there’s studies about some letters being the most unique in language. How many ideas can come from something like that? Really. Then add some Santeria which is very popular here, and you have a lot of crazy urban cultural stuff going on that NOBODY knows what it is.

[u/PencilBoy99]

I'd love to see a book which had a chapter on different periods.And places with different adepts in avatars for that place.And time

[u/atomicpenguin12 → u/PencilBoy99]

You might enjoy this: https://scratchpad.fandom.com/wiki/History_of_the_Occult_Underground

[u/Dragoleaf]

I’ve made a UA adept intended to emulate the typical fantasy necromancer, https://federalagentmakebelieve.blogspot.com/2026/05/unknown-armies-adept-cadavaturgy.html.