Vampire PCs are evil/bad, but this is the direction of evil/bad that seems to lend itself too easily to, "And then I mind-control and rape this person for fun."
It also, like, tears your humanity to shreds within a few sessions.
You get freaked out if you don't have a Hive, and making someone part of the Hive is a Humanity 2/3 hit each time you do it.
I mean, I guess you could make that in the backstory and never expand your Hive or use your powers and still have Humanity 7 somehow, but that's sort of cheating.
And you're a Ventrue, that is to say part of a group that already has trouble holding onto the least semblance of humanity.
She came from a conflict-ridden background, and was almost instinctually drawn to the world of perfect order that the Melissidae espoused.
That said, she was really an outlier, since her drones looked more like a really dystopian view of the indian Caste system, given that she was aiming for that.
Brahmin were embraced and then they lost more and more autonomy the lower you went, until you reached Dalit which was "everyone who hasn't been turned yet".
That said, it is time for:
Chehrazad looks at Fighting Styles and cries herself to sleep - Episode 3
Fuck I hate Armory edition.
Archery
This Fighting Style has the dubious honor of being absolutely useless in the modern age unless you are Meghanda from @ZerbanDaGreat's wonderful quest, in which case it would be great if we weren't CWoD. Luckily it's requirements are ridiculously low to make up for it, as it only requires Strength 2, Dexterity 2 and Athletics 2.
You gain +1 Strength for the minimum Strength requirement, damage and range for the purposes of using bows only, which would be a pretty neat level one power if bows weren't almost completely redundant.
This allows you to reflexively reload once per turn, meaning that you can fire your completely redundant bow faster and make it feel slightly less useless next to the person gunning down hordes with his AK-47.
When there is no roof over either you or your target's heads, you may ignore concealment completely.
Chain Weapons
This Fighting Style is pretty good, slightly average in power, but definetely in the higher echelons of "average Fghting Style". It requires Strength 2, Dexterity 3, Weaponry 3.
Yadda yadda, you may choose not to attack and instead gain +2 to Defense until the beginning of your next turn, and you start taking penalties to your Defense unless she faces three attackers at minimum.
If you haven't made your attack yet, and an opponent declares an attack on you, you may use this ability to reflexively make a grapple against them. You do not subtract their Defense from this and instead you compare your successes, and the one with most successes win. If you win, he is now grappled and he has to deal with the pain that is the grapple system, and if he wins you still subtract your successes from what he rolled.
This one can be pretty ridiculous, and I am slightly wary of it, especially due to the fact that grappling is nasty.
You may roll Strength + Weaponry, if you get a single success, the opponent is automatically grappled by this and can take an action to free himself on his own turn, by rolling Strength + Brawl - (Your Strength + 1). For every turn that the opponent does not break free, he suffers a cumulative -1 penalty to any attempts to break free. If the penalty rises as high as his Stamina, he is unconscious for the scene and takes a point of bashing damage. This does not work on things that do not breathe.
This is frankly hilarious.
Your average character has 2-3 Stamina, meaning that you need to hold a person with this for two or three turns, to take him out for the scene and then fuck him up while he's down. Combine this with the ridiculous ease of doing so, and you get a very silly combination.
Everyone who has a Strength booster will now laugh.
You may make a targeted attack that ignores two points of penalty from making targeted attacks at the drawback of losing your Defense until the beginning of your next turn.
This is a shitty level 4 thing, that does slightly better what Kung Fu does at level 2.
Combat Marksmanship
Everyone has been waiting for this gem, and you know it. This is quite possibly one of the most ridiculous Fighting Styles in the game, primarily due to the capstone ability that you will soon learn to love just like me. It requires Strength 2, Dexterity 2, Composure 3 and Firearms 2.
a): Han shot first.
b): He did it with this ability, that allows you to add your Firearms to your Initiative while wielding a firearms.
c): This is pretty good and can be terrifyingly effective at letting you turn someone into swiss cheese before they can do the same to you.
To make a mockery of Archery, this ability allows you to take a reflexive reload action once per turn if it possesses detachable magazine or you use a speedloader.
You now become capable of making Short Bursts of autofire with any lever-action, pump action and semi-automatic firearms even if they were not capable of doing so in the first place
This allows you to ignore Defense when using a gun in close combat, which makes it easy to turn people into swiss cheese even when they strongly object to your attempts to do so, usually with a sledgehammer to the face.
Rapid Fire allows you to make a single extra Firearms attack for every dot of Composure you possess in excess of 2. Each additional attack suffers a cumulative penalty of -1, and each attack not directed at the original target suffer an additional -1 penalty. No it does not require Willpower, yes the drawback is that you cannot use it with bolt or break-action firearms.
This is of course, hilariously broken and will make your Storyteller hit you with the World of Darkness core.
Next up: More fucking Armory, because the pain never ends and neither do my tears.
(Would be reeeeeally convenient if this was threadmarked... )
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Chehrazad looks at Fighting Styles and cries herself to sleep - Episode 4
Because I am practically livid with anger right now at what is going on in Panopticon Quest, I figured I needed to channel this into something:
Chehrazad looks at Fighting Styles and cries herself to sleep - Episode 4
In which we look at the following Styles:
Fencing
Fencing is on the 1-4 scale and has a requirement of Dexterity 3 and Weaponry 3, making it rather easy to pick up. It can also only be used with curved swords, fencing swords, rapiers and sword canes, using other swords take a -1 penalties.
Make an attack roll as normal, if successful you may call a feint and not do any damage to them, instead disallowing them to apply their Defense at all against your next attack. This one seems good, and is fairly acceptable but it really isn't that good.
This one, however is absolutely hilarious when used one on one. If you are Dodging, and an attack misses you, you may immediately make an attack at a -1 penalty that the opponent cannot apply Defense against, the drawback is that other attacks aimed at you will ignore your Defense until your next turn.
Now this one is glorious, it allows you to spend a point of Willpower and forego the usual benefits of doing so, this allows you to add (your Dexterity) automatic points of damage if you do at least one point.
Observe as a Life Mage boosts his Dexterity to 10 and laughs and laughs and laughs and laughs...
Filipino Martial Arts
This Style can only be practiced with blunt weapons, when you reach the final dot you may perform it unarmed. It requires Dexterity 3 and Weaponry 3.
If someone makes an attack against you, you may make a Strength + Weaponry roll, if you succeed this, they are automatically grappled. This is not contested and has no other drawbacks. You may also add your Defense to the roll, but then you can't apply it to anything else.
Make a Dexterity + Weaponry - Defense roll that needs a number of successes equal to the target's Stamina, if you accomplish this, the opponent drops his weapon and takes (your successes/2) points of bashing damage.
You no longer take Defense and Dodge penalties from multiple attackers.
Yes I am serious.
Sniping
With a requirement of Dexterity 3, Resolve 3, Firearms 3 and Stealth 2, this stands in stark contrast to the earlier Fighting Styles and can only be practiced with weapons of rangefite.
The benefit you receive for Aiming is now capped at your (Composure + 1), unless you use a bolt-action, lever-action or break-action, in which case it becomes (Composure + 2). In addition, you gain a +2 to your perception rolls when you use long-range optic devices such as binoculars or scopes.
This ability is either absolutely hilarious or absolutely useless depending on the situation.
With this ability, you double the number of attacks that benefit from using sighting tools. Also your weapon's short range is extended by (5 * Wits), medium range is extended by (4 * Wits) and long range is extended by (3 * Wits).
Whenever you make an aimed shot, you halve all penalties for shooting into close combat and concealment, rounded down. I don't think I need to mention how neat this is in Dogs of War.
So she has a custom 10-point Enhancement representing being a Literal Living Statue. And she has flaws to match it. Life magic doesn't affect her, Matter does, and she does not heal naturally anymore but can literally solder her wounds close. And her punch has stats slightly superior to that of a sniper rifle, and her natural soak is about equivalent to full plate armor. Also the magical effect that diguises her features as being flesh-and-blood is... Imperfect, and she went overboard on the artificial beauty of said features.
It's custom because I wouldn't use the canon Enhancements system and the Aberrant 2.0 Enhancement system is (as pointed out by @Havocfett) designed for the assumption that everyone are superpowered Quantum demigods and that Enhancements are supposed to give you an edge so that mere mortals can attempt to come closer to the heights of the Novas.
So instead I wrote this thing:
The Crucible of Talos
Named so for the automaton of bronze that once patrolled the island of Crete from pirates, invaders and worse. The automaton was built by the spiritual ancestors of the House of Verditius, and the techniques used to build it continues to serve well in the house that Hermes built. From medieval cataphractii to the devices and tricks of Ancient Rhodes, this reliable design has been improved age upon age with the solid work of crafty Hermetics and even early Daedalans of the Order of Reason in a show of uncharacteristic cooperation and fellow appreciation of the most noble mechanical art. Unlike the soulless machines of the Technocratic Union, the Crucible of Talos is designed to contain the bright soul of a human magus, turning them into a living alchemical crucible.
The Crucible of Talos is a package of Enhancements (10 points) which has the following functions:
The character deals lethal damage with her unarmed attacks (1 point).
The character adds four dice to all her damage rolls (2 points).
The character adds four points of bashing and lethal soak (4 points).
The character adds two points of aggravated soak (2 points).
The character can soak lethal with her full Stamina trait (1 point).
In return, the character suffers from five points of permanent paradox and cannot be affected at all by Life magic, it is possible to affect her with the Matter sphere as if it was Life of an equivalent rating, however. Furthermore, should Matter be used to deal damage to the character, she automatically takes two additional levels of damage of the type predominantly inflicted, in case it gets past the character's countermagic.
You can probably figure out how the point system works if you're familiar with the Revised spellcasting system.
So because I'm sure @ManusDomine cares, if nobody else, I'm posting notes from Panopticon because this is easier than updating it (I have a post 90% written that I don't know how to finish ). This was an implant which Jamelia could have gotten had she gone for the full Augmented Agent background, Jason Brakowski possessed an equivalent of, and Yinzheng had as one of her Enhancements. In line with most NWO augmentation it was significantly more coincidental but less powerful than radical ItX/Progenitor bioscience.
Implanted Combat Effectiveness Maintenance Suite (ICEMS/"I-Chems/Invulnerability Chems")
6 pt Invention
NWO agents prefer the kinds of subtle augmentations which don't out them as obviously inhuman. Sometimes you want a cyborg who can walk through a wall of fire from a SWAT team and shoot them all in the kneecaps, but other times you don't need that kind of capability. Instead, you just need to be able to keep moving, unimpeded, if you get shot in the gut or exposed to tear gas. With this subtle nanotech Enhancement, a NWO agent has a mostly Coincidental ability to survive small arms fire and the ability to rapidly (but not implausibly) recover from wounds. The ICEMS surgery comes in two parts. First is a replacement of much of the lymphatic system with customized nanotech hives programmed to build, and maintain, a small swarm of nanomedical robots in the Operative's body. Second is the implantation of a handful of small biochips along major nerves. In conjunction, these biotech implants are invisible and nearly immune to rejection by Reality Deviance, but ensure that the body retains full combat functionality up to the point of total, irreversible organ failure. As a result, an ICEMS user can stay fully functional even after suffering multiple gunshot wounds, heals quickly (but not implausibly quickly), and feels no pain.
The first effect is that whenever an ICEMS user takes damage, they heal up to 4 bashing or lethal health levels per turn, but cannot heal more damage than the user has taken in that turn (e.g. if a ICEMS user takes 5 levels of lethal damage turn 1, then 6 more in turn 2, then 0 on turn 3, she heals 4 levels of damage the first turn, then 4 the second turn, and 0 the third turn, suffering a net 3 levels of lethal damage). Second, this healing is illusory and disappears at the end of the scene, although this will never take the agent past Incapacitated. Unlike a combat homonculus's enhanced regeneration, ICEMS 'healing' just allows the Operative to ignore the wound, the wound itself is still there. As a side benefit, an ICEMS user recovers from wounds as if they were being cared for in a high-end hospital by a Medicine 4 doctor, even if they're in the middle of a disease-infested swamp.
Finally, the ICEMS user suffers no wound penalties or similar dice penalties from the discomfort caused by poisons or diseases. The Operative still suffers from them and can still infect others, but the ICEMS takes care of the symptoms.
As a result, an ICEMS user can survive far more punishment than a normal human. An ICEMS is pretty much always coincidental. Stories of PCP users who survive entire magazines of handgun fire and run on broken legs explain away the implausible toughness of an ICEMS user well enough that only the most ridiculous feats can inch into the implausible territory.
Like ItX combat cyborgs, ICEMS users tend to wear body-concealing clothing (but theirs tend to be more NWO-issue black suits) to hide the bullet wounds. Unlike ItX combat cyborgs, ICEMS operatives find this significantly less convenient because they spend a lot more time undercover in the Masses.
God, for a hyperbolic time chamber to churn out homebrew to drown out this argument.
So, @ChineseDrone , if we were doing that Shard you proposed, what would the Not!Traditions be? If we're doing it, it'd make sense to narrow it down/try to make the Traditions more leaner and etc.
So we have the Evangelicals (who broke off from the Theological Union)...
(Leads to ?: What about Islam? Do they get a faction?)
If we're doing thematics, having someone like the Hermetics via the Silver Ladder could be interesting. A group that believes in the power of man to seize magic for himself, without relying on Godly philosophy and etc, etc, with the ultimate goal of uplifting all men into power and glory and overthrowing the Gods, etc, etc!
So that's two factions. Would we have a technology faction, or should each faction be derived around a religious focus/idea?
I'd want to make things as much like canon oMage as possible, so I'd keep 9 traditions, a few of which are derived from the Theocracy but with the rest representing beliefs that the Theocracy has suppressed. That sounds like a great take on the Hermetics in this universe though.
Islam is... actually really difficult to mesh with a world like this, unfortunately. Actually I think that the best point of divergence for a world like this is one where Islam never arises, which allows Christianity to eventually come to dominate the globe.
Prosperity Gospel, Theocratic Government and Culture (printing presses churning out bibles for days and requiring any office holder to swear an oath to uphold God's law), Godlike Philosophers (the 'Techies' of the group, who believe that through understanding secret names of god, etc, etc, they can help humanity live in the yada yada) who spend all their time arguing minor points of theology...
I don't think wealth and the prosperity bible should be a thing in the Theocracy, actually. It's too personal (your personal belief rather than the doctrines specified by a priest will bring you closer to god) and too materialistic (it's literally about wealth). I've given it some thought and here's what I came up with for the Theocracy
Shard World: The Grand Inquisitor
The Theocratic Ecumene: The Theocratic Ecumene is a world-spanning conspiracy that exists across the five Churches that dominate the modern world (the Catholicism of the Papacy, the Puritanism of the Commonwealth and Swedish Empire, the Oriental Orthodoxy of the Egyptian/Southern Roman Empire, the Church of the East of the Empire of Eran, and Chinese Imperial Christianity of the Liao Heavenly Dynasty)--it holds itself above their doctrinal squabbles and believes that it knows the highest religious truth, of which all sleeper religions are merely imperfect reflections and which must be guided and slowly and incrementally introduced to the masses through those churches so that they may come to follow it property and be turned from heresy. The Theocracy is controlled by Sanctum, the secretive Sacred Council of the Theocracy residing in the Horizon--the Theocracy believes that they alone, through many centuries of study and learning, have the ability to commune with Angels and receive the messages of God.
In earthly matters, the Theocracy is divided into 5 Covenants
Manus Dei: Manus Dei, the Hands of God, concerns itself with the manner in which faith is manifested within ordinary life, and thus controls most of the services of the Theocracy that directly interact with the sleepers and promote the faith among the masses. Within their ranks are healers--who synthesize the medical practices of the material world and the blessings of the Bible and Theocratic doctrine to help provide the world with new ways of healing the sick, educators--who make sure that children are guided in such a way that they can become part of God's flock, evangelists--who travel to the territories less touched by Christianity to spread the faith, philanthropists--who operate the religious charities that the Theocracy uses to exercise its social teachings, and soldiers--who spread the word of god by arms (the primary military order of the Theocracy, the Order of the Paladins of Christ, are under Manus Dei's authority). Manus Dei's paradigm is based around the strength of one's personal faith--it believes that one can express faith and recieve the favor of God through personal virtue, self-abnegation and devotion of one's life entirely to religion, and fanatical dedication to the doctrines and dogma of the Theocracy and church. Most of their members are monastic or otherwise celibate. Basically, think of a mix of Jesuits and MURDER JESUITS. They map to Iteration X, and have the ability to do things like deploy 10-foot fall nigh-invincible knights in blessed holy armor who empower themselves through a single-minded fanatical dedication to honor god by stamping out reality deviants like you.
The Studium Omnimodus: The Universal University (yes it sounds much better in Latin and thus we shall keep it that way) emerged out of the secular disciplines of the universities operated by the Catholic Church, and believe in reflecting the will of God through exploring His natural natural world and building/creating things that reflect His grace and design. Their paradigm is centered around science and the arts--their ranks include both those who honor God through the humanities, creating art, music, literature, and what not that shall bring people closer to God, and those who honor Him through the sciences, who believe that uncovering the fabric of God's design and building machines and devices that reflect it honors God. While they're not nearly as advanced as the Order of Reason (Technocracy as rebels), they've got more advanced tech than anyone else, and are the engine of technological and scientific progress in this universe. They map roughly to the Progenitors.
The Synarchic Priory of the Risen Temple: The Synarchic Priory of the Risen Temple is concerned with governments, and making sure that the nations of the world support the Theocracy and that their policies reflect the will of god. What originally began as a fraternal order of the religious advisors that the Theocracy maneuvered into the courts of princes and kings has become a sprawling organization rooted in the various mixed political-religious institutions that dominate government in most of the world--things like countries' Inquisitions, the administration of bishoprics, ecclesial courts, religious institutes that create new governmental ideas akin to our think tanks, etc. They map to the New World Order, but unlike the New World Order they are not in control of the Theocracy as their mission is derided as materialistic (although they very much resent this and are trying to get control, arguing that their work is the most important among the Theocracy's branches). That honor goes to...
The Magisterial Synod: The Magisterial Synod concerns itself with religious doctrine and theology, and controls the actual churches of the world of The Grand Inquisitor, as well as the internal doctrine of the Theocracy. They are the ones who make sure that the Popes and the Patriarchs reflect the will of god and the doctrines of the Theocracy, and that the actions of the other branches of the Theocracy are acting in line with the holy writ of the Theocracy. Their ranks are priests, theologicians, and religious lawyers, and they spend most of their days debating over various religious disputes to determine what best reflects the will of God and the Sanctum, and the blessings that they derive from the Theocracy's doctrine fuels all the Theocracy's holy powers. They map to the Syndicate--the Synod has access to the sphere of Primal Grace, which derives Prime from faith and fanatical devotion to the Theocracy's doctrine. They draw prime from actual churches (or more accurately from the worship of those within them) by making them reflect the Theocracy's dogma, and use it to fuel the Theocracy's machine.
The Librarium Mysterius: The Library of Mysteries is a concerns itself with the investigation of miracles, holy artifacts, and other direct manifestations of god's will in the physical universe. For this, they tend to be derided as mystics by the broader Theocracy (which is not a fan of mysticism because mysteries cannot be codified by the Theocracy's doctrine, although they do begrudgingly acknowledge that miracles do exist), which has resulted in the Librarium becoming the black sheep of the Ecumene. The Librarium maps to the Void Engineers, and has access to the sphere of Revelation, the Theocracy's equivalent of Dimensional Science, which allows its users to access the higher realms through hallucination and fight the battles of god in the worlds above.
Origin: Many are the Tokens that are obscured by the mists of time and rumor. An easy guess when one knows what it does would be that it was a themed True Fae. Just as the Civil War seemed to excite certain Keepers into recreating the slaughter in their own realm for their own amusement, so did the coming of Prohibition give some Keepers ideas, both then and long after the fact. But in this case, to the learned Changeling scholar the origins are quite clear. In San Francisco, a city that was never even touched by Prohibition, there was a certain powerful Changeling, part of the courtless faction that was rather large at the time, after the collapse of a non-seasonal system left many stranded.
Her name was Aniseed, a flowering fairest with a love for parties and drink, but strange and occult politics. But what was most important was that in those days drink couldn't be trusted. Less so there than elsewhere, but often the hard liquor that clubs had was smuggled and then mixed and adulterated, and perhaps it was that frustration that spawned the Token, though she clearly did not choose to make it, and it eventually would cause her great harm.
From her it passed to several others, and now might be found anywhere in the continental United States, in the possession of some lucky, or unlucky, reveler.
Effect: The cup has two effects, both quite interesting. When a drink that is offered by someone else is poured into it, in a case where the other person has made a claim, explicit or implicit, as to what it is, it can tell if that person is a liar. If a person pours mixed shit and says it's Jack Daniels, the cup feels warm to the touch, and the person who spent the glamour implicitly knows that the alcohol was not what was promised.
It then converts the alcohol into what it truly should be, but only if the false drink was poured to deceive the buyer or receiver [1]. Each new drink would require a new application of glamour to prime it, but for its first owner and many afterwards, this was perfect as a way to make sure the night got off to a good start. Which was nice, since...
Drawback: The next morning, whether the user even drank the alcohol converted, and regardless (in fact unrelated) to how many drinks they took, the user has a raging hangover, the sort that can ruin an entire morning and should be accompanied by a somewhat steep penalty to all actions. It's the mother of all headaches, the kind that makes you regret all of your sins. And yet, if you're going to have the headache...why not have the fun?[2]
Catch: For each time the mortal (or Changeling low on glamour or not trusting his Wyrd) uses it, the next day he finds himself vomiting heavily, and he suffers one point of bashing damage that heals as if it were lethal. His insides come up and for days afterwards he's shaky. This stacks, and if all health boxes are filled with damage, then he has vomited until he has passed out on the floor, and is probably in for a rude awakening.
Afterlife: After Prohibition, most of its uses were done with. Some who held it in the years afterwards were wine snobs who used it to fight against the tide of alcohol that claims to be the vintage of such and such a year, but is reality watered down.
And there are historians and other figures among Changelings who think it a lovely piece of history to own...and never use, of course.
But the greatest use was one that didn't really occur to that many people at the time. Among a certain paranoid set who nonetheless had to drink with enemies, its ability to clear out poisoned drinks (if the poison was in the bottle and not added afterwards while they were looking away) of their effects was deemed worth the miserable next morning. And the fact that it told the user when this happened meant that it was perfect for uncovering assassination attempts, at least certain types of attempts.
In this guise it has seen use down to the modern day, though currently it is likely in the hands of an interested collector.
[1] This is a way so that someone can't say, "This is Thomas Jefferson's wine" and then wink and thereby let the Changeling try something like that. The syntax here is weird, I know.
[2] That's about two-thirds of the point of the drawback. It encourages absolute excess in anyone using it, and the penalty doesn't stack, so use it as many times as you want in a night. Destroy your liver, destroy your life, what does it matter, because you're getting the hangover anyways, so might as well do the 'fun' stuff too. It's designed for that sort of fatalistic, throw everything away, drinking.
*****
So, I decided to start small with a Token. I need to decide the cost, and I still need to figure out just what the penalties for a hangover are, but I hope you enjoyed reading this.
The 'Afterlife' section is something I'll do for all of these sections, explaining how they might be used or show up after the 1920s, when they are set. In the case of people (who aren't vampires) it might not go all the way until the modern day, but I'll at least try to give a view of things so that someone could tear it out from the Roaring Twenties and use it if they were so inclined.
So, thoughts? Next I'll do a character, though I need to decide which one. I have a few ideas. A vampire of the Ordo, a Hunter based off of a real person, and a Mage Bootlegger/Rum Runner who runs more than just Rum.
Charles Casey, Shadow Name: Duster Bootlegger and Artifact Peddler
"If you want it, I can tell you it's from an Atlantean ruin. And you won't get a better price. I promise you that. Have a drink while you're at it, there's plenty to go around, and you're my customer, if you agree. That makes you a friend, doesn't it?"
Background: Born in a middle-class Canadian family, Charles Casey has recreated himself as a proud and even flamboyant bootlegger captain of Rum Row. Together with his cabal-mates, he has done incredibly well for himself in a very short time, despite being essentially an amatuer at the entire business, and a man who in fact doesn't particularly like alcohol, let alone the rum that makes up most of his cargo. He's polite, urbane if he needs to be, surprisingly salty and down to earth if that's what sets people at ease.
He's also an Awakened, a man who knows how other people's minds work, and understands just what people want. His awakening drove him from his family in some ways, but he still has access to their wealth, and early on in prohibition, it is a very, very promising venture. The money he makes helps finance his more profitable and important business.
He trades in secrets, rumors, grimoires, artifacts and other tools with Mages who are willing to journey by boat three miles beyond the shore, in international water (which is where he does his bootlegging business). He has very specific rules. He'll sell to anyone, as long as he can assuage his rather bruised conscious that it will not cause immediate harm. He's unlikely to hand a grimoire listing a rote that allows a Moros to devour souls to extend their lifespan, and if he suspects that the person involved plans something immediately 'bad' and not merely a little underhanded, he might refuse the trade.
But at the same time, the pretense matters as much as the reality, and some of the tools he has given away have wound up in the hands of Left-Handed Mages or even Seers, a fact that the unaligned Mercier doesn't seem to care that much about. It doesn't effect him, and it doesn't effect his Cabal, with whom he is quite close.
And for the moment, as of 1921, he's quite satisfied with his life.
Description: Mercier is a short, thin man with dark hair and darker eyes, his features a little rough. He is only saved from looking like a certain image of a jowly businessman by just how gaunt his face is. He seems to eat and drink very little. He's usually dressed in a manner that always perfectly fits the situation. With guests he dresses in a rather smart suit, but when working on one of the several crafts he owns, he dresses to work.
His manners are rather effortless, and as with his clothing, he is skilled at switching his tone and misdirecting people as to his motives. His nimbus is a distortion of space itself, in which small things seem larger and big things smaller, everything distorted and out of order.
Description:
Storytelling Hints: He doesn't take money, at least not usually, for the secrets and grimoires. Instead he prefers trades, things he can use as a Mage. Thus he's a repository of secrets and artifacts that might prove tempting to any number of people, meaning both good and ill. If approached by someone looking for information, he can be quite willing to deal, but he always drives a fair bargain, by his definition of the word.
He believes he exists outside of both the rules and the conflicts that engulf Mages, and his cabal-mates and the bribes he pays to port authorities and everyone else mean he has a lot of friends in places both low and high, but he might not be as immune from consequences as he would like to be, and if stolen from or otherwise crossed, he might turn out to be less harmless--he makes a point of not harming people, even if it requires rationalization and ignoring the results of his actions--then he first seems.
He is in his early twenties.
Scenarios:
--There is a distress message across several spectrums, both magical and otherwise, and when your Cabal reaches the boat, they find death. His four cabalmates, and the sleeper and sleepwalker crew, all horribly killed, burned by acid, violated. But he is nowhere to be seen and neither are the potent artifacts that he was about to sell. Could an enemy of the Consilium have them? Is he still alive? Tracking him down might yet yield results.
--Recently certain disreputable individuals have found themselves in possession of artifacts and tools that they should not have. Is Casey behind it? A visit to him might prove fruitful in furthering the search for and attempts to rein in these figures.
--Casey has been robbed, and he's on the war path. He's declared that he'll pay a mystic bounty to anyone who can help track down or capture those who stole from him, and the hunt is on. If you find them first, what will you do? Take the artifacts for yourself and face his wrath, or turn them in for a potentially less impressive reward.
Sheet--
Gnosis: 3
Wisdom: 6, he's done plenty of questionable things, but few of them quite push the right buttons for a Wisdom drop.
Virtue: Affable
Vice: Greedy
Dedicated Magical Tool: A delicately wrought brass goblet.
Path: Mastigos
Order: N/A
Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 3, Stamina 2
Presence 3, Manipulation 4, Composure 4
Intelligence 3, Wits 3, Resolve 2
Skills: Occult 2 (Artifact Lore, Atlantean Lore/Speculation), Weaponry 1, Seamanship 3 (Smuggling)*, Academics 1 (Law, Art), Crafts 1, Investigation 3 (Artifacts), Politics 2 (Bribery), Science 1, Athletics 2, Stealth 2, Larceny 2 (Concealing Stolen Goods), Empathy 2 (Motives), Persuasion 3 (Sales Pitches), Socialize 3, Streetwise 3 (Bootlegging 2), Subterfuge 3 (Misdirection)
Willpower: 6
Defense: 3
Speed: 10
Health: 7
Arcana: Space 3, Mind 3, Prime 3, Forces 1, Life 1, Matter 1
Rotes: He's a tricky one, because the secrets he's gotten include information that means that he has rotes comparable to an order mage. So, that said…
Forces--*Fording the River
Life--*Purge the Unbidden
Matter--*Mapping the Tomb, *Glimmer in the Shaodws
Mind--** Don the Inner Mask, ** A Face You Can Trust, ** Steel Trap,
Prime--** Claiming the Ancient Heritage, *** Forge of Power
Space--** Nothing Up My Sleeve, ** Twisting Threads, *** Escape Hatch
Merits: Here's where I get a bit reluctant to go searching for everything, so this will be an advice section. He has contacts with the local authorities, the wholesalers who sell his stuff to thirsty buyers on the East Coast, the distillers in Canada, and his fellow smugglers, and he'd close to his cabal mates, and he's rather rich, Resources 4 and even that obscures just how much he spends and uses on his other business, which has made him plenty of friends and enemies. Magically, this is where if you were using him as an ST you'd have the right to go hog-wild. He's a hoarder of bits and pieces of secrets. Does he have blackmail on a powerful local Mage that makes them look the other way? If you wish. Might he have a few somewhat potent Artifacts stashed here and there? Quite possibly. Useful grimoire? Certainly. Both as tools and as 'loot drops' he's one of the few people who can actually be justified to have such a thing. It all depends on what is needed for that particular game.
*It's basically Boat Drive+Other minor stuff
Afterlife: He is based loosely on a real person, who indeed was a Teetotaler himself, and Rum Row was a real place. In real life, the early days of easy commerce gave way to the threat of pirates hijacking the ship and stealing the money that the rum runners gained. In one notorious case, an entire boat of people were murdered, exactly as horribly as I hinted, and their money stolen. This, combined with the rise of cartels and professional operations, eventually shut out amateurs from Rum Row, and eventually the government actually managed to crack down on that particular form of smuggling, and focus was shifted to Detroit.
Charles Casey sticks in longer than most, but he's eventually forced off the water by the rise of professionals and the increased risks. If he gives up and returns home to Canada, he settles in and eventually joins the Mysterium, becoming a somewhat respectable member of his consilium, growing jowly and aged, and yet still with the well-bred manners.
Potential scenarios for Mage Noir or even somewhat later settings could include some of his information or some of the secrets he learned in the twenties becoming relevant. The return of an old enemy or information on an artifact thought loss might drive a cabal to his doorstep to pick his brain for old stories...at a price.
If he stays in the business, he manages to keep up, though the rise of the Great Depression and the fact that he's forced to go it overland creates difficulties, and getting a good supply of secrets to trade gets increasingly hard...and then the Seers of the Throne rip him off, murder three of his cabalmates, some of his best friends, and make the mistake of not killing him in the process.
This rather pushed him towards the side of 'The Seers must pay' and in a Mage Noir game he's a respected member of the Mysterium, but one who is startlingly close to the Arrows and other more aggressive factions, and who is devoted to destroying and rooting out Seers and their patsies. Whereas the first fate has him mature slowly like a fine wine, this one has him as a Triple Master of Mind, Space, and Prime, and skilled in other things besides. He's running hot even after all of these years, his amiable nature only occasionally peeking through his intensity, and where he runs hot, people are liable to get burned.
*****
A/N: So, some lessons. I really have trouble with rotes, the mechanics are still unfamiliar, and I'm not 100% sure about this. That said, I liked making the character and he does fit into a specific historical niche. Not sure about the politics and all, but his resistance to joining one of the Diamond Orders was pretty brief, relatively speaking.
TL Homebrew: Contracts of the Ecstatic Brush and the South
So, background to this stuff. Manus decided to make a character for a PbP we might do, we might not, who knows but either way...and they wanted to be a Rakshasa, and more than that they wanted to be from the South Court. And I was like, "I can make Contracts for the Directional Courts and stuff" and they were like, "I want one dot from one of the two, that's all" so I was like, "I'll make an Emotion and Direction contract for South."
And so I did. As well as that, I'm going to make notes on the kinds of things I imagine might fill in the rest of the five-deep tree, and other general ideas.
Contract of the Ecstatic Brush
Themes: Vice AND Virtue, Willpower, Overindulgence, Monkey King,
Notes: The Court Emotion is Ecstasy, and so I want to sort of combine some elements from Seasonal Courts with some original flavor. Ecstasy the way they describe it is not mere desire or indulgence, but radical overindulgence, and so the Contract should push for greater heights of indulgence. Example Contracts might include things that switch Vice and Virtue, reinforce Willpower gain in exchange for basically giving into a Vice for an entire scene. Like, spend an hour gorging yourself like a goddamn pig and in exchange you get 2-3 willpower or whatever. So it's an internal style...but also an external style, pushing others to the same level of indulgence.
On the other hand, I didn't just want to make it about Vice, because that felt a bit too Judeo-Christian. Virtue is included because this is about excess. This is about the charitable person almost turning their virtue into a vice by emptying their wallet in the street and laughing as they run away. It's about the ambitious man in a frenzy of ambition that drives them forward to perilous heights, just as much as it is about the drunk who half-destroys their liver in a single night of absolute and shameless drinking.
All that said, here's the first dot.
(*)Ecstatic Intuition
The first step to bringing oneself or others into ecstasy is to know just what it is that drives them. Not what they want, but what they *are*. By learning their Virtue or Vice (one per scene), they can more fully understand them.
Cost: 1 Glamour
Dice Pool: Manipulation+Empathy+Mantle (South)-Composure
Action: Instant
Catch: The Changeling is currently indulging in their Vice or Virtue at the very moment they activate the Contract.
Dramatic Failure: The lack of knowledge of others turns into a lack of self-knowledge. They lose the ability to regain willpower via their Virtue or Vice for the rest of the scene.
Failure: They get nothing, and like it.
Success: Learn the Vice or Virtue of one target!
Extraordinary Success: Learn both!
Modifiers: The target is in a place where their Virtue or Vice discovered might be indulged (+1), the target is in a place where their Virtue or Vice is extraordinarily unlikely to be indulged (-1), They have indulged their vice or virtue in the same scene that this Contract is activated (+2)
As said, future elements include fortifying virtue or vice gain, extreme indulgence and, since I decided to take a small page from one of his stories.
The last dot is:
5) Set Free the Cloud Horses--The basic effect of it is to make a small group (it targets more than one person) basically have to resist a roll to indulge in their Virtue or Vice (the Ecstatic cannot choose what that is, unless they have some other way to change it, and merely chooses 'Virtue' or 'Vice' for the crowd.) I'm thinking that either he or she is naturally affected by it, or that's the Catch: allow yourself to be swept up in the same thing. Either way, it can turn a whole party into an absolute mess, but the user has no control over what those Virtues or Vices are, let alone how they indulge them.
Contract of the South
Themes: The Phoenix, Rebirth, South, Fenghuang especially (chinese equivalent to Phoenix), Ink, Song, Rebirth
So, this one is a bit complicated. South as a direction gets a little sketchy, but some future Contracts I had an idea for. Fifth dot could be a revival Contract where you burn off a lot of glamour (and all of your clothes) in order to heal all wounds, once. Or something like that. It feels thematic. But another Contract idea I had involves the Chimerism of the fenghuang. It has a rooster's beak, a swallow's face, a snake's neck, a tortoise's back, a stag's legs, a fish's tail...in other words, it's a pretty odd duck (and modern versions are also part duck.) So, the idea of a Contract based on that Chimerism, on being a thing of many parts, would be interesting.
As well, it is a symbol of virtue and good luck, so some sort of Contract to 'hide under its feathers' in some way, in order to appear virtuous even in debauchery, would fit the South Court to a tea.
But first, we have a dubiously balanced but quite amusing first dot that I'm definitely willing to modify, but liked. Not sure if it's a one-dot power, though.
(*)The Firebird's Migration
Sometimes discretion is the better part of valour. And sometimes it is best to exit stage right. The phoenix may never die, but her courtiers are often less lucky, and escape can be the difference between fighting another day and never fighting again at all.
Cost: 1 Glamour
Dice Pool: Wits+Athletics+Mantle (South)
Action: Instant
Catch: The Changeling has created some sort of long term chaos or problem whose effects will follow him even if he escapes[1]
Dramatic Failure: Sometimes the wings are damp, and sometimes the many parts of the fenghuang get in the way. Reduce speed by 2
Failure: Sometimes a bird just isn't that fast. Nothing happens.
Success: Per each success, gain either +1 Speed for a number of turns equal to the total successes, or reduce the enemy's speed by one or more. This latter bit represents not so much them going slower as the world and luck itself conspiring against them and in favor of the Phoenix. They slip on the wet floor for a moment, the train comes between you for long enough to slow them down that much, so on and so forth.
Exceptional Success: More successes is its own reward!
Modifiers: +1 (The situation has been caused by the Changeling pursuing his or her vice or virtue)-1 (The Changeling is chasing after someone instead of being chased.)
[1] This is to encourage shenanigans. IE: "You're under arrest!" "Nuh-uh, I run away." Well, genius, you're still wanted. It's meant to encourage the South court to strand themselves in deep shit and then work to dig their way out with a smile and a laugh.
*****
Finally, I had an idea of sorts. The idea was to create partial-directions. A 2-3 Clause chain for related ones. For instance, a South-West Contract that South and West Courtiers can both draw into, that includes, perhaps, indulgent warrior stuff, or 'I'm a berserker, basically, laughing as I feel pain' stuff. A North-West that includes the warrior that endures even death. Etc, etc. Four extra (short) Contracts shared between them, along with the center, to create short chains of affinity that can bind the Directions together.
******
So yeah, it's crude, but I think I like the general idea!
The Laurent Essay: The Throne At The Top of The World - Part 1
The Throne At The Top of the World, Part 1 (Intro, Not Nega, Hegemon, Panopticon)
So, this is part of my continued evaluation of the Seers, why I like them, how I could see using them and/or modifying them in a relatively minimal way that doesn't involve changing the entire setting, but still makes sure that what they're good at is focused on. So, I've talked a little about why I like them as villains, but what else should they be? What kinds of themes need to be addressed?
Like every other Order, the Seers of the Throne say a lot of things about faith and metaphysical belief. The Seers' faith is, if anything, the most rational and believable of all the things that the Orders can go after. The Exarchs definitely exist, and other than in a custom game where you make it a lie for the purpose of fooling with people (since of course, nMage is a game that can be played with), that puts them a step above the Hieromagus (GOTV), who might or might not exist, Atlantis, which might or might not have been in the fashion that people think it was, etc, etc. Even the belief that magic is a living thing, while it has plenty of evidence, isn't something that is as real and there as the dream they send you, ordering you to do great evils in their name.
As well, there is the theme that the world is made to be broken. The Exarchs are the Gods of this world, and that means that, in theory, everything bad about it is their responsibility. There are entities strong enough to oppose them, and they do not have ultimate power, but they made a world where certain things exist. The Exarchs are a justification, an excuse not to try to make things better, and I suspect more than a few true believers in one or other worldly ideal has managed to fit into the Seers by framing it as the will of the Exarchs. The rise of imperialist Empires is a symbolic representation, some Hegemons argued, of the nature of the Exarchs and man, and just like in that case, the superior was rightfully dominating the inferior. Communists, anarchists, racists, sexists, radicals and anti-radicals of all types can and probably have claimed that this or that aspect of history or the world is the will of the Exarchs.
Surely, as powerful as the Exarchs are, if they wanted to, they could make a particular group inferior, or set up the world so that certain things worked and didn't. Wouldn't it be the greatest trick the Exarchs ever pulled if they created a world where cooperation and trust were losing strategies? Or a world where suspicion and doubt bred like bluebottle flies? This world is theirs, and so, whether they believe in it or not, whether they idealize the Lie as a great creation of the Exarchs, testament to their power over the universe, or dismiss it as unimportant compared to the Supernal Will of such beings, Seers are at once the masters and the slaves of the Lie.
Even when they pose as revolutionaries, it is just that, a pose.
Thus, they're in one sense The Man, but not in the same way as the Technocracy was meant to be. They're the people for whom the status is quo. For whom victory is nigh. For whom it has been nigh for thousands of years. And they are rooted in the world.
Unlike the Orders, which can be traced very far back (I'm taking 2e lore as better than 'all the way back to Atlantis' stuff), the very oldest of the Great Ministries still can't have said that they predated Jesus Christ. And some are only a few centuries old.
They are temporal entities. They live in the world of the lie, and while all of them aspire to power, and some to Archmastery, that is part of what they are.
Why The Greater Ministries Aren't Nega-Verse Orders
One of the greatest dangers of portraying the Seers is that if you squint and don't think about it, some of the four Great Ministires can seem like the Orders. For instance, the Hegemonic Ministry often is said to act through governments, so is it a bad guy Silver Ladder? The Praetorians believe in conflict, but as violence rather than upward struggle, so are they just evil Arrow's? Panopticon consists partially of spies, like the Guardians, so…
The answer is no. For one, until modern times, while each worked together, each had separate cabals (known as Pylons). While one-order cabals exist among the Diamond, they're less common than one Ministry Pylons among the Seers, and so each of the Ministries, before they started to form Pylons with each other, had to have at least some self-sufficiency. The lines of organization and power mean that there are soldiers in all four great Ministries, that there are spies in all of them, etc, etc, because each often has to stand on its own, pursuing its own schemes, often with no ability to trust another group of Seers with anything so important as their security.
Meanwhile, while there is overlap in the Diamond Orders (The Mysterium has spy-adventurers, the Silver Ladder can be surprisingly covert, the Arrows understand that there is more strength than just the physical), each also to some extent trusts that they'll be covered. They trust that when it comes time for a fight, their Arrow cabalmate has their back. That their Silver Ladder cabalmate knows the Lex Magica well enough to lawyer their way out of problems, etc, etc.
So each Ministry should be written and described in a way that, while they are all servants and slaves of the Exarchs, makes it clear that they could survive as their own organization, should (as some wish to do to the Hegemons) the balance of power change.
So, part of what should be focused on is building up design space that doesn't focus merely on the parallels between certain organizations, unless one is trying to write a spy thriller version of the Seer-Diamond conflict. In which case, sure, give a bit of mirroring to it.
Hegemonic Ministry
Servant of Unity, whose number is one, they have been around since the 1400s. Theirs is the will that drives governments into absolute states. They take credit for the development of the modern nation states (don't believe them) and for the UN, Nato...it's hard to find something about modern government that they don't take credit for, often with very little in the way of proof. They are, as presented, a decaying organization. Governments are too large for them to easily control, and as time waxes, so too does the power of commerce and industry to decide the fates of nations. A Hegemon does not control a corporation, or at least the old-style ones don't, but this desire for Unity, I think, can be twisted in many directions, and I think that there might be at least a few different ways one could be a Hegemon. I'm going to list three/four different sub-factions I think you could use, in addition (read the Seer book, it's pretty great) to the basic/'normal' ideology of a Hegemon. These are, it must be understood, methods and ways to do things, ways of thinking about the basics.
First, there are those who believed that Imperialism showed the way. They wish to try to find a way to return to (and at the time they held great power) the days of a few (not one, but a few) colonial powers, each of which, according to some Seers, would represent symbolically the might of the Exarchs if properly controlled, and which would oppress and undo all of the wrongs of the world (to their eyes) and return it to a state in which the Exarchs Will Is Law. They seek alliances with anyone and everyone, for their star is fallen, but Imperialists, with their roots into the deep states of a surprising number of countries, are still a force to be reckoned with.
Second, Nationalists. We are not speaking here of individual nations, though it is true that some are legitimately trying to redeem their nations by seeking power. There are odd sorts everywhere. But these are people who cheer for every splitting off of power. They want every ethnicity in the world to create their own enclaves, to fight and struggle, and some of them have quite a lot of truck with some more Darwinian Praetorians who feel that the will of the Exarch (or at least the 'winner') might be revealed in these large scale upheavals. The world divided into a thousand cells, and each united by an ideology as strong as steel.
Third, Unitarians. They are the people who believe in One World Government or (in some cases: see the sub-faction) one uniting ideology and system. But this One Government would not be one that would allow Sleepers to Awaken. It would, in the dreams of these Seer radicals who are often controversial even among their own, serve as a direct conduit from the top to the middle. Perhaps the Hegemonic Minister would be the absolute Dictator of the world, head of UN or some more powerful body, and thus every action in the world would be guided by Unity. Some obviously think that this would also be best for mankind, for in a world such as this, there would be only small, controlled, planned wars. In a world like this all faiths would be one lie. In a world like this, the boot on the face of the world would not be spiked. Others, obviously, have far more vicious and dystopian ideals. Unfortunately for them, the amount of power and influence it would take to achieve this is astronomical, and so some view them as mere cranks, and considering that some of their attempts to centralize the world have recently started failing, their claim to be the last, best hope for a retrenchment of power...strikes some as sketchy at best.
As a sub-faction of the above, there are those who believe that ideological reunification is best. These people, who study all of the doctrines of the world for hints of the Exarch's design want the world to be all Capitalist. Or all Communist. Or all...whatever their studies and search for hidden Truths (that they then destroy/hide/interpret as Exarchial) says is more wanted by the Exarchs. When all people follow the same religion (and here they do muscle in on Pasternoster territory, but then, again, each Ministry has arms in each thing) and believe in the same doctrines, then what does it matter that there is a national border, that there is not one lord, because there is: The Exarchs and their chosen ideals.
They tend to try to control from above, though in the last century they have been doing more and more and more work from below, backing revolutionaries on the way to dictatorship, supporting gang-lords that usurp the local government or even get patsies elected, and all while doing so, some Hegemons claim, betraying or ruining that which makes theirs a Great Ministry, their focus. And yet, as the power struggles grow, as the arguments fester, it seems as if there is no solution that can unite (eh, eh) the Ministry.
So, to try to wrap up the Hegemonic Ministry, they've faded for a while, but there is still the chance that they could come back, and part of what they've been trying is new things (the Unitarians) as well as attempting to stop outsourcing functions. Mammon, Panopticon (which eats into the security state that they might well think should be run by One Mind), [Tech], Paternoster, many are sure that relying on these and other Ministries has strayed from the true way, and thus they wish to return to the true faith in one technique and one Mind and One World, united against Awakening, but divided against each other, unable to truly seek 'Truth' that they do not deserve, never deserved, and never will deserve.
Panopticon
The eye sees all, from above and below. EarthScorpion's idea of the preacher Panopticon, making people paranoid about the view of God, about being seen by God and thus having their sins be known, is a perfect entryway. They wish to create a world where people think at all times about other people and their gaze.
But more than that, the Eye they worship, or so they think, is already like that. They're paranoid and others should be paranoid as well. People should feel naked at every moment, and yet, plenty of them feel that way. Plenty of them understand that they're on watch, that their faith is one that also might make them guilty as well.
Yet, they have to grow comfortable with it. The 'Tree of Eyes' is a doctrine that states that each person must spy on one superior and one inferior. That means that there is no such thing as privacy, and that they shouldn't want privacy. They're suppressing, often enough, the desire for peace and quiet, and their ideology is at once tempting (the religious angle, the angle of wanting to know) and yet, to those not sold on it, repulsive.
Even two centuries ago, they would have had very little traction, but the tides of history seem to be turning towards them. Sousveillance has been on the rise, cellphones revealing the crimes of cops that might have once lied about it, the weak showing the world the truth, and yet, to the dismay of some Panopticon members, people often shrug it away.
Some members want to empower Sousveillance, want the government and all people in power to be terrified of doing wrong, terrified of thinking wrong. They think that this is the perfect way to compliment other Ministries, and that the fear from below is the best way to control the powerful. Because as it stands, there is not enough fear in the system: create consequences, and then all will be terrified into line. These members believe that while the security state is expanding, the power for mere Sleepers to actually see is limited. An oppressive government records ten thousand conversations, but has only the man hours to to look over a small fraction of them. There is a limit to what the government, small as it is even in the largest state as a percentage of the population, can do. They believe that this is the best way to replace the Hegemons, who do not realize that the world has changed. One of the Lesser Ministries can do far better in a world where the reach of the state into the brain of every man is not so absolute.
Others, on the other hand, say that just you wait: they believe that the state still has legs when it comes to monitoring people. This is a matter of degrees (no good member of the Panopticon discards two of the three Gazes), but they try to focus on the top. Like the Hegemons that brought them in (and that they are now supplanting), they are most likely to work at the top than the bottom.
And finally, there are those that think that culture itself, the mass that is vague and all around them, can provide the best way to make others feel watched. They manipulate media to try to encourage people to judge themselves harshly. They understand that every doubt can be magnified in the right eyes, that every flaw can become large. Psychologists, advertisers, false friends, they think that it is best that man does not reach too far, and this fear of themselves, of their own judgment, is the best way to manage them: and after all, if this fear keeps them from sin, some argue, than it is not only useful, but it is just.
The Ministry is on the rise, and yet there are troubling signs on the horizon. It has existed as a real power for just over a century, and yet even now it does feel other Ministries nipping at its heels. Looking to take some of its functions, or question the way it works. But for the moment, unlike the Hegemonic Ministry, they seem to be doing well, and their diversity of method but relative unity of mindset has worked rather well in providing diversity. The gangland killer might find a place in them instead of the Praetorian if he trades in secrets and knows where the bodies are buried. Politicians, doctors, philosophers...the Panopticon has room for everyone.
Because it wants to watch everyone.
*******
A/N: Alright, so, this is part one of the rough draft, unedited effortpost. I have to go to work, so I decided to just divide it into parts because I want likes. I mean, because I want to show that I'm doing stuff and things.
All of this could definitely be expanded with specific examples, but I wanted to try to work in some factions, but didn't want to give too many specifics yet. I might do that later. If you like it or want to build off of it (like doing an example Pylon of an Example Faction or whatnot) then feel free.
...also, I am going to shoot for threadmark or something because this is thousands of words long.
How did I write this much in an hour while being distracted?
The Laurent Essay: The Throne At The Top of The World - Part 2
The Throne At The Top of the World, Part 2 (Paternoster, Praetorians, and the Others)
Paternoster
God for me, but not for thee. That is at the heart of the Paternoster's faith. That all faiths are false...but one. That each religion is a lie and a tool, except the one they believe in: and that itself is a tool, but a divine, perfect one, that reflects the will of the Exarchs, especially the Father. Of all the Exarchs, He is the only one with a set gender, and though Paternoster is open to both men and women (and in 20th century America, women were often the most faithful and active, a counterbalance of sorts to other aspects), there is something distinct about this knowledge.
But it is true knowledge, knowledge known and indicated in hundreds of visions, each of which say, simply put: He. From the very first, from their foundation by a disaffected member of the Diamond Orders after the disastrous crusade that ended in the sack of Constantinople and nothing more.
The world has changed much since then, but it still remains at its heart a Faith as much as it is a "Ministry." And that entails conflict, that entails disagreement. The Father is the one truth, but ask Christians how much a belief in the father, son and Holy Spirit does to keep sects from arguing. This very arguing seems at times to belie the claim that this True Religion is different in form and content than the false religions that they believe should be the Sleeper's lot. They rifle through the Lie and try to perfect or purge Sleeper Faiths, or create their own religions, all to get at a Truth they can grasp, but cannot fully understand.
The Exarchs are Gods, yes, but what does that mean, what does that entail? This is a cause for debate, and it isn't helped by the fact that people come from cultures, and cultures include assumptions that can be very limiting. Among Paternoster Seers, it is a dangerous political insult (and thus carefully stated, a tool for advancement) to claim that a particular member is leaning too much on Sleeper beliefs, or thinks that they're a truth instead of a Lie meant for the masses.
Thus, each competes and argues and fights over ideology and belief, and yet despite this the Faith keeps them united. And whether or not they'll admit it, their real-life religion or belief informs the way they understand the faith. Muslims construct a version of the Father and worship of him that often incorporates prayer multiple times a day, or specific pilgrimages to sites thought to be magically significant, while Hindus, while worshipping the Father primarily, often place more emphasis on the Exarchs as a whole.
These are trends, and like any trend, there are exceptions, but the first and most lasting difference between Paternoster Seers are the very beliefs that make them so unique and bring them together. The Minister is a man who must balance a thousand sub-faiths that resist falling in line, while being closest to the Father and the Truth...at least in theory.
Other divides include whether the focus should be on building the True Religion or tearing down the religion of the Sleepers. For every belief has aspects of the Truth, the Supernal Truth that the Seers claim is meant to be hidden from the unworthy. This divide is often connected to the way that they present themselves. Those who act as debunkers and destroyers of special holy places often take a more simplistic or even mechanistic view of the Father, having far less time for the elaboration and complexity that those who seek to understand Him see as the only true way to serve him. They clash, time and again, and each 'side' (or rather, honestly, persuasion) thinks the other is either impractical or barely not a heretic.
Yet, when they do work together, they are terrifying and majestic. Their Holy Wars are the stuff of awed and horrified legends that keep Diamond Mages awake at night, their sheer faith makes it so that they sometimes cannot be bought off, fought off: they will fight for total dominance of a Consilium when other Pylons have long since weighed cost-and-benefit and decided to back off for a year or two, let the enemy get complacent, and then swoop in again.
Sometimes this is stupid, but sometimes their daring, their faith, their boldness lead them to victory after victory.
Their engagement with the faith systems of humans has had to run into the decay of religion in some places. While it remains powerful in many countries, there are those who feared for some time that Europe was being lost despite being the heart of a number of versions of the faith preferred by western Paternosters. But the influx of Muslims and the conflicts there have made some wonder whether a 'faith' in 'western culture' might be just as much a blinding tool, just as much a religion in its own way. Thus far such a view has gotten relatively little traction, though members of the Paternoster have long understood the importance of philosophy, and that philosophers, even ones who are not implicitly religious, are both a threat and a way to lead Sleepers away from truth.
Yet in this respect they have sometimes been born too late. Platonic forms, while only a vague approximation in some ways, are far more mainstream than the Paternoster would prefer, and other philosophical ideas, while usually almost entirely made of the Lie, hint at the Truth, and in a world where Paternoster had the power to do so, these too would be censored, since even a single breadcrumb might eventually lead a soul to Awakening.
Yet despite some struggles, faith is alive and well, and they are going nowhere. While the Panopticon expands while watching its back, terrified of their own shadow (in the view of others, they would call it justifiable paranoia), and while the Hegemon decays and desperately tries to regain relevance by one foolish scheme after the other, the Paternoster Ministry seems as if it will last forever.
And perhaps it will.
Praetorian Ministry
The Ministry of the General, whose number is two and whose Arcana is Forces, is a Ministry that has spent more than a little time spinning their wheels. Their belief in violence and war, in destruction and keeping humans living in fear sometimes seems to lock them out of a lot of actions [Ed note: before I found an angle I liked, I was worried that the Praetorians were too boring], and among the Diamonds, who have little reason to know the truth, they are often stereotyped as merely being the muscle for the other Ministries.
Or they are assumed to be mad enthusiasts for war above all else. But over the last centuries, they have become more than that, owing to a number of infamous Arrow defections, and a recontextualization of their mission, at least among certain factions. This has created a split of opinion and method that is central to understanding the Ministry. On the one hand, you have people who primarily support the means of violence, divided between those who focus on violence from above, and those who focus on violence from below. The former, the more classic Praetorians, fund arms dealers, encourage countries to go to war, work with police states to spread the fear of violence that they feel is far more effective than the Panopticon's fear-of-censure.
The latter feel that there is more to it than that, and focus primarily on gangs and interpersonal interactions. When a terrorist group forms in a basement in Iowa devoted to the White Race, perhaps the Praetorians are there. When some madman shoots up a school, perhaps it is the Praetorian's plan, for this faction works far closer with the other half of the Praetorians. Their job is not to encourage violence between nations, but violence within nations. They lament the death of dueling culture, think that capital and corporal punishment, whether it is effective or not (and it not being effective is just more reason for it to be pursued) should have a comeback. Society should be violent, cruel to those it views as 'lesser' and fearful always that someone above them will hurt them.
This is as the General desires, they say, and while many of them use more hands on methods, they have found an ally in the Perceptors, as some call them. This faction believes that while the actuality of violence is important, so is the perception and fear of it. That is to say: whether or not the crime rate has been going up, it should be perceived as going up even faster than it is, or if it is even going down, it should be seen as accelerating. Every incident that's reported on the news, every mass shooting, every friend-of-a-friend, every stereotype and racial fear that can be turned into a fear of violence, these should be encouraged. Obviously, there should be fire beneath all the smoke, but what matters is that it is the smoke that most modern people see. While in many parts of the world the actual use of violence is more effective, in modern nations, violence has been pushed too far back, and thus by making people see phantoms of violence and hate everywhere, to lock their doors and be terrified of the home invasion that was described in explicit, bloody details by the news agency that they control, they make a world where people cannot trust one another, where it is more than governments at odd with each other, and more even than warring gangs and the quixotic war on drugs. It is a world of fear and violence, and it is the world they wish to make.
And many of them, it must be said, believe in it. While some think that this will make the world worse, others think that fear and violence are the natural and rightful state of the world, and that to pretend otherwise is a delusion...a delusion that they will rip away to reveal the truth, even if they have to first create an impression of more violence than exists. Man, they suggest, lives on a bubble of temporary peace that only weakens them, and this weakness threatens to unman them and leave them vulnerable to destruction: against the will of the Exarchs, certainly.
Another group that holds some importance are the Theorists. They believe that there is a deeper value to be held in war: they believe in metaphysical war. But not in some quiet, "Inner struggle for peace" sense, but in a very real, very consequential sense. They want people to declare "War" on drugs and terrorism and racism and women and men and everything and anything. They want war and hostility to be part of the narrative of everyone's life, a basic piece of vocabulary, and that action follows thought. If you can merely get people to believe in war, and that it can solve the larger problems of the world (that you can beat Terrorism by use of shooting everyone who disagrees with you), then you'll be distracted from the real Metaphysical Contest that they believe they are engaged in.
For Theorists also believe that they are in a metaphysical war with the Diamonds, a war that they must win not *only* by force of arms, but by brutalization. To do so, they encourage the Diamond to take 'necessary measures' to stop them, to throw away its laws if they get in the way of getting after the devil, to devote less time to research and more time to violence against them, sure that the Exarch would not let them lose unless it is part of their plan. And thus, in encouraging Arrows to give into their most violent and mindless impulses, and trying to degrade and destroy the morals that only hold the Diamond back, some visionaries even dream of a time when, by hate and fear, the Diamond destroys themselves and becomes nothing more than a reflection of the Truth of the Exarchs.
These new ways to approach War have done much in spreading their power and message, enough so that they have run into problems with overexpanding, or with the possibility that their actions will lead to burnout as they ratchet up and up and up. Yet compared to the Hegemons, they are still healthy yet, and since their own 'new path forward' doesn't seem to be as much of a chimera, they are, they feel, sitting pretty.
The Dogs At Their Heels
I'm not going to detail Mammon and the Pantechnicon stories, DaveB has mostly and since I don't have two of the three books he recommended, I'm going to hesitate to go into details, and there are simple ways if you want to edit out the Free Council from the latter: simply have it so that they're the foundation of a number of nameless Orders who used what some call "Techne" and there you go. I will say that I think there might be room in the Pantechnicon for people who truly believe in the promise of technology...as a tool for enslavement, yes, but also the purest reflection of the Exarchs will. The Exarchs made this world as a prison, yes, but they are skilled prison-makers, and technology represents them putting in televisions and watching as the prisoners get more distracted. So some view it as a good thing, morally that is, without the cynicism that might seem to be obvious for them.
But more importantly, what should Lesser Ministries be? They should, as the title suggest, be dogs nipping at the heels of the Greater ones. In modern times they have seats on the decision-making bodies of many Tetrachies, a name that never had any special meaning: there have been three Great Ministries before, but now? Now if one falls, another will rise, and the two most likely candidates to rise are Mammon (by far the favorite) and Pantechnicon (rather unlikely, but one supposes it's possible if someone wants to try to elevate the weaker candidate) and yet other Ministries are also in the running. Or see themselves as, which is all that matters.
So, the question would then be: how do you create a Ministry? There are a few things. First, some MInistries claim limited/etc patronage of one or another Exarch, but some don't. So one clue to making a Lesser Ministry is to look at the list of unused main Exarchs and try to imagine what sorts of groups would TRY to attract their favor (even if the Prelacies came only rarely, if at all).
Note, they are also called "Seals".
The Chancellor is the Exarch of Matter, whose number is seven. He supports corporate capitalism and base materialism, but he could also be used (though with Mammon and Pan calling for his help, there's not much room for more) to, say, look at the base and fallen matter as a tool in different ways (drugs, mystic alchemy stuff, etc)
The Nemesis is the Exarch of Spirit, and her number is eight. She lets hate and ignorance breed dangerous spirits, and even encourages it. He tries to control the Shadow, or use it as a weapon, one that the Exarchs should control and yet also make uncontrollable. She wants people in rapt ignorance of the Shadow, and yet also enslaved by it.
The Psychopomp is the Exarch of Death, whose number is six. He guards any gate there is to heaven, dooming people to a horrible afterlife in the Underworld. She is the termination of things, all good things coming to an end, to be trapped and doomed. She frays and destroys institutions, rotting them from the inside just as she brings death on a personal scale.
The Prophet is the Exarch of Time, whose number is eleven, backwards as it is forwards. He is the Great Man whose progress of history is always his personal story. She is the cycle of history in which nothing seems to get better, only repeat, again and again and again. They are the wearying trudge of years in which there seems to be no end: for every man who declares that history has ended, or some great evil has been vanquished for all time, They laugh and reset the clock. Others of their followers, besides all of this, might get involved in attempting to make history rhyme in one way or another.
The Raptor is the Exarch of Life, whose number is twenty-three. Her mastery of the world is proven in the fact that the very humans of this world are based upon her, and she is a cruel master: she promotes psuedo-darwinian struggle and cruelty, but without, truly, any of the triumph that it was supposed to lead to. He supports base actions, without free will or thought, violence for its own sake, struggle, and yet he also supports the destruction of life: 'taming' nature in a way that sickens and destroys human potential is one of his more subtle tricks. They wish for men to believe that they are nothing more than slaves to their instincts, and in this they are...more successful than many might hope.
The Ruin is the Exarch of Fate, whose number is thirteen. She wishes to destroy people's belief in Fate, their ability to fight it, all while empowering those who worship her to greater and greater Fates. Free will is an illusion, and so far as one should choose...it should be away from great destinies. He works with Time and Death to move the tragic endings of things closer to NOW than it should be. They laugh when a man throws away greatness out of fear that fate will be unkind to them...and yet, when the man moves forward, they are quick to prove his fears completely right. For their favored servants they might forge or give access to great destinies, and there are rumors that they created special agents, once, for a proto-Ministry that died before the 19th century and left hundreds of splinters to this day, whose greatest power was to be invisible to Fate, and yet, lacking this, lacked the drive to rebel.
The Gate: We do not speak of the Gate. Their number is 0. Do not worship them. If he comes to you in the night, do not move, do not cry out. Let him pass. Of she whispers to you of the cage that is the Abyss, ignore it: please.
Second, one thing to remember about many lesser Ministries is in the name. They are limited in some way: either they are thin in their recruitment (such as coming from only a certain class of people) or they are limited in their scope. A Ministry that relies on some unique cultural feature of a single small region (such as the American South, a small country, or etc, etc) lacks the chops, usually, to expand their reach beyond it.
If they are thin in their recruitment, it might be that there is a Pylon here, a Pylon there, and thus they have to constantly defend their weak grip from Pylons spinning off.
So, any lesser Ministry you make, you should ask and answer this question: why is it Lesser. Is there a way it could one day become Greater? If not, what are their plans for advancement?
So, how to make an idea if you aren't (or aren't only) looking at unused Exarchs? Or used ones if you want to portray a splinter Ministry. You need an idea, and I know that this is an obvious statement, but finding ideas can be easy or it can be hard. Remember, a lesser Ministry tends to be a limited few things, rather than everything. All kinds of religious fanatics can be funded/supported by Paternoster, but a lesser Ministry can't be that far-flung. As well, if you know a particular part of history (for a former Ministry) or location that might have odd/different cultural characteristics, think about how that might lead into a Ministry. What if there's a Ministry that deals with drugs and drug culture in an attempt to destroy any possibility that Sleepers might accidentally stumble onto any Truth while hallucinating or 'expanding their consciousness' or whatever. Trying to steer people towards hard and also metaphysically non-dangerous drugs. As well, you can use organizations as an example: a powerful lesser Ministry might be behind a biomedical corporation whose ethics are almost nill and whose advancements clearly stretch the bounds of the possible, inviting Paradox. I'm not saying that a less-batshit and less-over-the-top Umbrella Corp could definitely be a Lesser Ministry trying to force its way into the top with Mammon as a 'backer' but...no, wait, I'm totally saying that.
Any organization or group that you can imagine in fiction might be small enough to be supported as a Lesser Ministry, and the brilliance of this approach, or at least the tempting thing, is that it allows you to mix things up. It allows you to have some degree of mystery or lack of knowledge, because if it's not written in a book, the players won't start out knowing about it until suddenly the enemy pulls out some crazy Prelacy that they've never seen before.
So, while I'm not going to give any specific Ministries yet, I'd encourage people to think about it this way, because it's probably the easiest way to imagine new Ministries, using these various guidelines. Obviously, one can get more specific advice once you know what you want as a Storyteller, because of course *all* of this is in fact subordinate to what works in your game.
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A/N: So, this was more interesting than I thought. I think I did some pretty decent clutch work with the Paternoster, and considering the Praetorians were my least favorite Ministry ever, well.
I think I thought of some decent ways to look at them. And more than that, I managed to avoid walking into the Mammon trap, and I made up for that vagueness by giving what I hope might be good guidelines? So, this is part 2. Part 3, if it happens, will be actual homebrew stuff!
). This was an implant which Jamelia could have gotten had she gone for the full Augmented Agent background, Jason Brakowski possessed an equivalent of, and Yinzheng had as one of her Enhancements. In line with most NWO augmentation it was significantly more coincidental but less powerful than radical ItX/Progenitor bioscience.
