Unknown Armies 2025 Jamuary Jam Results

Ken Currie

A couple months ago Unknown Armies fan server user Cliomancer ran another Unknown Armies jam. It had similar rules to previous jams, with a list of prompts and a short wordcount limit.

UAJJ Lead A Horse To Water Example by Cliomancer (The Zodiac, The Aristotelian Elements: Water) Ritual, 298 Words.
Complicated and impractical, but with a clearly defined use case and a ritual action that's evocative without seeming hokey or purely random like so many Unknown Armies rituals.

UA JJ Salamander’s Review Of Books Example by Cliomancer (The Aristotelian Elements: Fire) Ritual, 139 Words
This ritual is not that useful for textual preservation, since the book you create can be destroyed by means besides fire, but it's a fantastic way to get a small amount of completely fireproof material for other uses.

UAJJ The Atlas Pillar Example by Cliomancer (Inspired by a video game: Pizza Tower, The Aristotelian Elements: Earth, Apocalypses) Artifact, 383 Words
This is my favorite of the example submissions. Fragile, difficult to move and handle, but extremely powerful. Lets you cheaply prop up an otherspace by turning it into a deathtrap.

WHOM HEAVEN RENOUNCED by Mechristopheles (Apocalypses) Worldbuilding, 1200 words
This doesn't address any of my problems with Rooms. I don't dislike them because I feel their metaphysical underpinnings are ill-defined, I dislike them because I don't like anything whose exclusive purpose is to zig while other people zag. This is also why I dislike Janedoes, the Fool Killer, Vote Thieves... The example room, on the other hand, is excellent, and should have been the exclusive focus of this entry.

 

UAJJ - Mal Gallagher - Herald of the End by Cliomancer (Teenagers, Apocalypses, The Aristotelian Elements: Air, Horns) 1,316 Words
Unknown Armies 3e gives out this sort of superpower like candy. The Motumancy and Sociomancy majors can cheaply shift the destiny of the human race, as can a high level Demagogue by simply meditating on the topic. This is the first time I've seen that level of power treated with appropriate gravity. 

UA - 2025 Jamuary Entry by MadJaymilton (Inspired by a video game) 906 words
I wasn't in love with this one until I got to the examples. The whole Special Orders/Mak Attax concept suffers from a real ???/Profit disconnect between the stated goals of the conspiracy (magickal revolution) and the modus operandi (put random magick in food). The beneficial effects of the charged cartridges are a much better example of why someone would do something like this.

UAJJ - Kotobuki by Cliomancer (The Zodiac, Horns) 995 words

Cool animals. I've come to accept that voluminous backstories for NPCs, artifacts, rituals, while they won't ever be relevant in play, are essential to the feel of Unknown Armies. They make the reader excited about the setting and content in a way that playable information can't do.