The Prudent Magician

The Prudent Magician
Position	Chief Engineer
Effects	+6 x Veils +4 x Mirrors

The Prudent Magician is a potential Chief Engineer crew member.

Background

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

Character description

"He has turned aside from his revenge."

Obtaining

The The Prudent Magician can be obtained by following the Genial Magician storylet:

• Get a Serpent-Image by one of the following methods:
  • Go to Venderbight, do the Explore Venderbight action until you get the A Serpent-Image random event (5% chance). Since random events depend on luck, you may have to return to Venderbight many times with Something Awaits You before you get this.
  • A more reliable way is to bring 1 x Sack of Darkdrop Coffee Beans to Irem and choose The House of the Amber Sky to enter the Mirror-Marches where you can Retrieve a Serpent-Image.
• In the A Serpent-Image event, do the The Genial Magician has a use for it action.
• Go to Khan's Heart, do the Find help for the Genial Magician interaction and choose any of the actions.
• Go to The Forgotten Quarter in London, reach the Third part and do the Dissuade the Genial Magician from his plan action and be successful at the Hearts challenge.

You will also need the following:

• One of these three:
  • 500 x Echo
  • 1 x Watchful Curio + 2 x Bale of Parabola-Linen + 5 x Secret
  • 1 x A Pewter Horsehead
• 1 x Firkin of Prisoner's Honey

Interactions

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.
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 Prudent Magician "Yes. Yes, I would like that." 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 Prudent Magician Learning About: The Magician ≤ 40	Diminished The Magician is both accomplished and inventive, but you have the sense that he is not what he was. The time passes pleasantly enough, but he leaves rather abruptly, with a mumbled apology, while your appetite is not yet entirely dulled. Game note: Opportunities for other trysts 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	The Pages requirement isn't actually listed by the game.
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.