What can I do?

When you reach for it, it’s there. The Knife. Every knife that’s ever taken life.
It is never the same blade twice, and always comes into your hand as though you
were meant to wield it. Sometimes everything seems normal, and then you stick your
hand in your pocket and feel the cold weight of a heavy clasp knife. As your fingers touch
steel, the hairs all along the back of your neck stand on end. The Knife knows when it’s
needed, even if you don’t. See that man over there? What does he have folded up in his
newspaper? Why is he looking at you that way? The Knife knows it’s nothing good.
Here’s the thing about the Knife you have to remember, because it’s very, very
important: the Knife can kill anything. Murdering people is only the most mundane
thing it can do, and while it can do that with astonishing verve and efficiency, that’s
only the beginning. The Knife can kill ideas. It’s all vague and symbolic, of course,
but you’ll gain an instinct for it after you’ve done it a few times. You could kill
Communism in Cuba if you cut Castro’s throat with the Knife. The idea wouldn’t just
simply vanish, but it would be robbed of all momentum and social power, becoming
the ghost of an idea nobody takes seriously. Figuring out the right ritual for memeticide
is tricky—
might involve a little fiddling, maybe some wasted bloodshed, but it’s
always possible.
Even when it isn’t used to kill, the Knife is a powerful symbol for severance, able
to cut ties and bonds. It can slash through occult bindings, sever emotional ties, and
eviscerate relationships. Maybe that’s why people say that giving knives as gifts is bad
luck, because they will cut the friendship. Traditionally, you give a penny when you’re
given a knife, to symbolically buy the blade. You can’t help but wonder what you gave
to buy this one.

(1-2 dice) The Knife is in your hand, and someone will bleed. Sometimes, it’s hard to
keep it from killing, to just maim and wound instead, but you can do it if you
try hard and keep it from running wild.
(3-4 dice) There’s almost nothing you can’t murder with the Knife in your hand, and
nearly everything bleeds something when cut. Bloodless beasties of clockwork
and springs will leak oil if cut deep, and even a ghost might hemorrhage
the milk-pale mist of its soul if slashed open. At this point, nothing you can do
will keep the Knife from killing.
(5-6 dice) The Knife hungers for allegorical assault, for metaphorical murder. You
can kill ideas, relationships, emotional ties, anything you wish. The sorcery
holding a bound demon parts with a slash. The sick codependency keeping a
absuive relationship together is undone with a thrust.

How does it break me?

Fight—Oh lord, how easy is it to get carried away? The blade is there, in your hand,
like they were made for one another. If you relax, it’ll move your arm for you,
the cruel beautiful things it loves to do—carving flesh, notching bone just so.
It’s so hard to say no. It seems so wrong. And so sometimes, you just say yes.

Flight—Other times, the blood runs down the blade, slicking your hand, and you
let it drop to the ground. There’s nothing but the sick horror in your guts at
what you’ve done, and worse, what you’ve enjoyed doing. Run until you’re
sick, but you can never escape yourself. And when you finally stop running
and catch your breath, you’ll be left wondering what’s become of that Knife
you’ve left behind.

How do I change?

Why did she flinch back like that? OK, you’re pissed, but she usually gives as good
as she gets, right? Then you look down and—oh fuck, you’re holding a big bloody
cleaver. It’s happened again. The Knife starts coming even when you don’t want it,
don’t remember reaching for it. Worse yet, those flashes of bloody fury that everyone
gets sometimes—the ones that empathy and civility usually keep in check—those
flashes are getting brighter and hotter. More and more you’re finding it impossible to
say, “It was a good thing I wasn’t holding a weapon when he said that, ’cause I would
have used it.” Eventually, you’re going to kill somebody you don’t want to hurt, and
that’s only the beginning.

What am I becoming?

Everyone has things about themselves they don’t like. Things they hate. Things they
wish they could cut away. Everyone else just has to deal with it, but not you. You
can actually carve yourself anew, severing the things about yourself you despise.
Procrastination… gone. Fear of social situations… gone. Alcoholism… gone.
Pity… gone. Empathy… gone. Love… gone.
When you start cutting away the bad things, it changes your perspective. Suddenly
everything else starts to look worse and worse. So you cut a little more, and a little
more, and eventually there’s so little of you left, you have to look outside yourself to find
things to despise. Look! There’s a whole world of people with heads full of foulness.
The only voice in your head is the whispers of the Knife, and when you find
one, you don’t drop it when you’re done. At first you carry half a dozen, then a few
dozen, then hundreds. You’re a walking cutlery store, covered in blades that shine
and overlap like metallic scales. Driven by the desire to flense away everything base
and tawdry, you’re disappointed again and again when you’re left with nothing but
empty brains and screaming meat. Cut away all that is loathsome about humanity,
and there’s nothing left. You’ve become the Knifeman.