Genial Magician

Genial Magician
Position	Chief Engineer
Effects	-1 x Hearts +6 x Veils +3 x Mirrors
Promotions	The Prudent Magician The Satisfied Magician The Urbane Magician

Genial Magician is a potential Chief Engineer crew member.

Character description

He's a good engineer, despite that missing hand. But zailors fall silent when he passes.

Obtaining

The Genial Magician can be recruited in Fallen London by doing the A new recruit! action and having a Another Day: A New Recruit? value of 3 or 4.

Promotions

The Genial Magician can be promoted to either The Prudent Magician, The Satisfied Magician or The Urbane Magician by following his storylet.

Interactions

Random event

If you let Terror get above 90 while at zee, you may lose the Magician in a Random Event where he says he can't get away from "them" (the Fingerkings) and throws himself overboard.

Speak to the Magician

He's a good engineer, despite that missing hand. But zailors fall silent when he passes.

Actions	Requirements	Effects	Notes
Increase your Veils A magician never reveals his secrets. He does, however, trade them.	1 x Secret Veils ≤ 100	Parting the veil “On the Surface, darkness is the absence of light. In the Neath - from a particular perspective - the opposite is true...” -1 x Secret +1 x Veils	Game note: Spend a Secret to improve your Veils, if it is no higher than 100.
Ask bluntly about his hook ...after a fish supper and a half-carafe of adequate Morelways.	1 x Supplies Learning About: The Magician ≤ 0	A profession-changing injury “A snake bit it off.” For once, he is not smiling. “I put my hand through an unwise mirror... and a snake bit it off. That ended my career in the theatre.” He leans forward. “I am not a spiteful man. But I lost my hand. Perhaps you can imagine what that means to a magician. I am looking for revenge, Captain. I need weapons against the serpent. I rather hope we might come across them. I may ask a favour of you, if we do.” -1 x Supplies +1 x Learning About: The Magician	Game note: Find a Serpent Image to continue the Genial Magician's story. They can often be found in Irem, and rarely in Venderbight and other places.
Ask how a magician came to be an engineer ...after a meal of salt pork and a glass of good Greyfields.	1 x Supplies Learning About: The Magician ≤ 0	A drained glass He gestures (carefully) with his hook. “This. It makes card-tricks difficult. But we know about mechanisms, we magicians. My speciality was mirrors, but there are principles in common. It was a good start. And I found that I needed to go to sea.” Why? “Because, Addressed As, someone owes me a hand. Once a friend: now an enemy. I am looking for a weapon to use against them. If once we find it, I may have a favour to ask you.” -1 x Supplies +1 x Learning About: The Magician	Game note: Find a Serpent Image to continue the Genial Magician's story. They can often be found in Irem, and rarely in Venderbight and other places.
Ask about the Khanate He needs to find help in the Khanate to enact his revenge. What kind of help? Invite him to dinner and ask about it.	1 x Supplies Learning About: The Magician = 10	“Foolish help.” “London isn't the first city that's been brought down here. The Khaganians came down on the last one. Their ancestors, I mean. They fell into the service of the kings behind mirrors. The sensible ones thought better of it, and made a sensible exit, to found the New Khanate on the Salt Steppes. Nothing remains of the others. A lesson in the dangers of meddling with Fingerkings. As is this.” He taps his hook. “But meddling will out: it always does. Some of the Khaganians are still silly enough to preserve the arts of their ancestors. It's the silly ones I hope to find.” +5 x Fragment Learning About: The Magician = 11
Ask again about the Khanate He needs to find help in the Khanate to enact his revenge. What kind of help? Invite him to dinner and ask about it.	1 x Supplies Learning About: The Magician = 11	“Foolish help.” “As I said... London isn't the first city that's been brought down here. The Khaganians came down on the last one. Their ancestors, I mean. They fell into the service of the kings behind mirrors. The sensible ones thought better of it, and made a sensible exit, to found the New Khanate on the Salt Steppes. Nothing remains of the others. A lesson in the dangers of meddling with Fingerkings. As is this.” He taps his hook. “But meddling will out: it always does. Some of the Khaganians are still silly enough to preserve the arts of their silly ancestors. It's the silly ones I hope to find.” Learning About: The Magician = 11
Dispel the darkness? He's mentioned before that he was in the theatre. Could he arrange a... diversion... to improve morale? His eyes are opaque. “Yes,” he acknowledges. “But I will require some very particular materials. Don't ask why.”	1 x Live Specimen 1 x Outlandish Artefact 2 x Bale of Parabola-Linen 5 x Firkin of Prisoner's Honey 10 x Terror Learning About: The Magician ≥ 1	An event on the afterdeck The crew gathers before a backdrop of parabola-linen marked with stars and eyes. Their mood is jocular, sceptical, but anticipatory. They could use a show. The Magician appears. His eyes are mirrors. (Lenses, no doubt!) He has four arms, like an Indian god. (Surrogates, like his hook, surely.) He exhales blue fire! (Alcohol vapour, probably.) He raises his arms, and the air is filled with golden petals. (Up his sleeve!) Vines leap from the deck, twine his legs, creep up past his waist. (Did he release narcotic vapours?) The air is filled with viric light, and the Neath-roof above trembles, seems to open to a sky with an orange sun. Long grasses rise around you. (Er...) It's as if you wander in a meadow. Here and there your crew stand, chatting, laughing, eating fallen fruits. Rich juice runs down their chins. The sun is warm. Walls of jungle rise around you. Beneath your feet, the dark earth churns like the sea, and in the shadows of the undergrowth, serpents hiss like steam - but here, for a while, you are safe. Until you wake. You wake. You are in your bunk: the ship is quiet around you, bar the throbbing of the engines that the Magician tends. The watch-bell rings, and you hear crew rouse from their hammocks. You can still smell hot earth, dark fruit. -5 x Firkin of Prisoner's Honey -1 x Live Specimen -1 x Outlandish Artefact -25 x Terror -5 x Hunger +1 x Bale of Parabola-Linen +20 x Fragment	A very expensive way to reduce a large chunk of Terror and some Hunger. Although it requires Bale of Parabola-Linen ≥ 2 you will gain one Bale.
Proposition the Genial Magician “Honestly, I could use the distraction. Don't look at me like that. You're terribly desirable. But I could use the distraction.” Game note: The Magician enjoys erudition. Ensure that your Pages is at least twenty points higher than your Iron.	Romance: an Affair with... ≤ 0 1 x Genial Magician Pages ≥ Iron + 20	A certain reserve The Magician is both accomplished and inventive. You do detect a certain reserve; and for your part, there is always the delicate menace of the hook. But you exhaust each other delightfully, and the watch-bell comes only too soon. Game note: Opportunities for other trysts with the Navigator will occur while you're at sea, substantially reducing Terror. However, if you have a lover in port, they might find out. Romance: an Affair with... = 6 [ You have begun an affair with the Magician ]  Romance: Love in the Dark = 1 to 100  -5 x Terror
Exchange a secret smile A romance with an Officer might be considered unseemly. You'll need to be discreet.	Romance: an Affair with... = 6 [Magician]	Later... Game note: Opportunities for other trysts will occur while you're at sea - but not quite yet.
Answer his questions about your past You've kept your secrets long enough.	Your Past = 1	Triggers event: Revealing your Past	Game note: Unmask yourself! This will allow you to select a Past, Ambition, and form of preferred address - also providing you with a specialist ability bonus.
“Do you have any use for this?” Offer the Magician a Mirrorcatch Box Full of Very Angry Dream-Snakes.	1 x A Mirrorcatch Box Full of Very Angry Dream-Snakes	“...no.” “No use to me. They're not royalty.” Perhaps that's why he's in such a tearing hurry to leave the room. But perhaps you've properly disturbed his composure.