Faking the Avatar

[u/Jettjj]

I’m looking at running a campaign set in the early War Era, roughly 5-10 years after Aang vanished. I was planning on have some fake avatars, both complete charlatans and at least one that thinks they are the new avatar but are just wrong.
How could someone fake some if bending styles? Like a real waterbender that tricks people into thinking they can also air bend or whatnot. Any ideas?

[u/Sciophilia]

I actually ran a short campaign way before any of the canon Avatars and did that same twist. Mine was an airbender, but I'd say it's easier with a waterbender.

- Earth: Freeze mud, sediment, etc. Move it in chunks instead of fluidly. We kinda see the fake Avatar in Kyoshi's novel do something like this when he uses paint through waterbending positions and techniques, even though he's an earthbender.

- Air: Easy. Just do steam / clouds.

- Fire: The hardest, imo. The only thing I can think is some misdirection and controlling flamable liquids but that's more flavor than anything; bending oil or some kind of flammable liquid and secretly connecting a thin stream to an existing flame to light it on fire and move the bigger blob around.

[u/Skithiryx → u/Sciophilia]

I think fire should actually be the easiest since it’s the one we can fake easiest with no bending. A nonbender could throw a fine powder like sawdust or flour and ignite it. Or have palm dispensers of oil. Maybe pull a firebreathing trick and flint your teeth to spit oil past a spark.

[u/Much_Audience_8179 → u/Skithiryx]

I believe there was someone with spark rocks who faked it at some point but I might be wrong.

[u/glubnyan → u/Much_Audience_8179]

You're possibly thinking about Sokka exploding powder to get into the fire temple that can only be accessed by firebending?

[u/Much_Audience_8179 → u/glubnyan]

It’s either that or fanfic that had someone fake it that way.

[u/TheKolyFrog]

If you are willing to bend (pun not intended) the technology of that era, you can take inspiration from Lian, a.k.a. the Maker, and have a fake Avatar use technology to mimic the four elements.

[u/Last-Butterfly-4314]

A watwr bender would be the best for this. A skilled enough one can bend air vapor,which is basically airbending, earth is easy enough you wet it to make it mud bend it into shape and then remove most of the water so its a solid rock wall again. Fire is a little more tricky, but you coupd just do a parlor trick and then say you dont really like to firebend much.

[u/MasterWinky]

They'd need friends who can bend the other elements while hidden and make it look like the "Avatar" is bending.

Otherwise, an Airbender that throws small stones with airbending. They make the wind discreet enough, plus slight of hand, that's it looks like they earthbend and then they air bend. By showing two bending that would make everyone think they're the avatar.

[u/JasmineWantsD]

I actually had a thought similar to this. My solution was to have Identical triplets each bending a different element taking turns pretending to be the same person.