Character and World Creation

I think it felt like a friend with money was bailing me out, until the very end. The agent that turned me was supportive, friendly, and absolutely convincing. After things reached their worst, he stepped in and offered to connect me with a venture capitalist friend of his. I signed paperwork, I saw the massive sum and what seemed like *excellent* business terms for me. He encouraged me to start [I]dreaming[/I]
about the future with this money. She was all in. it was only then that my friend explained that the "investor" is very old school and idiosyncratic, from the old country, and he likes to hold a formal ceremony when deals are struck. You know, kind of like getting initiated into a secret society or something. Seemed weird, but she agreed. Thus when she arrived and was brought into a ritual chamber (modern, classy, but indubitably a ritual chamber, with sigils and folks in robes, incense and fire), she was willing to go along. The very last thing required was to sign in blood. That's when my "friend" made the truly hard sell, badgering me with reminders of what life was like before, how I'd destroy my parents, my family, my life, my future. How I [I]had no choice.[/I] I broke. I signed.

As for meeting Emma, I am fine with hand waving that. Maybe I had been avoiding her and finally saw her out somewhere. So I pulled the trigger and sent a text. An d then she invited me over "tomorrow". And even if Emma has forgiven or forgotten about Persephone's ghosting, Persephone hasn't and she feels guilty about it. Pers won't reveal the true nature of her employment, however. She tells everyone she works in HR, headhunting for new recruits, and completing contracts. "It's boring corporate stuff, but it pays the bills!"

And I think when I am executing one of my patron's contracts, I am not getting my patron to do anything for me at all. On the contrary, I wish it wouldn't[/I] happen. My job is to get a signature; after that, I may be required to watch, though I do what I can to avoid that. I can't invoke my patron to suck someone away in a vortex like an ability or anything. At other times, though, I can call on my patron for a favor or for assistance, in which case I might Let It Out or call in a Debt. But sure, I would imagine that my patron wants to gradually increase my Corruption, slowly turning me away from what little of my humanity remains. I'm happy to let you decide which jobs actually give me Corruption and which are merely distasteful corporate nonsense. I mean, some of the work is probably more like when a bank agent forecloses on a house -- it's gross and can be horrible, but it doesn't incur actual metaphysical Corruption.

But


To an uneducated outsider this may look a lot like [i]you are the one responsible for these deals. You might want to keep these actions secret from Emma?
To get your Patron to act on your behalf in this way you might need to '• summon your dark patron's attention directly on your location' (via Let It Out), this and the 'watching' is probably not good for your soul, leading to corruption. You may, eventually, find that is is cleaner and nicer to do it yourself (though that is also what underlings are for).

(Doing it yourself does not lead to Corruption, so that tells us something.)
Does this count towards your Corruption Trigger: When you convince someone to meaningfully act in your patron's interests, mark corruption.

It sounds like it should, or do you try to weasel out of that part even though you Patron wants you to? What does that cost you?[/quote]

Oops! Please ignore all the text below the "But" . I was using the Quote feature so I could keep track of all the questions and issues, and forgot to delete the "raw materials" I was using. I wanted to edit and delete real quick, but I resisted

Yeah, Benji has no idea there will be any kind of Payout. He’s just doing it because Jacob asked him to in his farewell note.

:) It happens.
'real quick' is the problem. Once you have put something out there on the internet, you have to assume people have read it, and having it vanish without trace can be disturbing for many.

The prohibition against editing is reasonable. It is meant to help us all understand what is happening. So long as we keep it clear, editing is fine.

In this case, I would just strike out the text, and add a note about what happened (right before it, so people don't bother reading the crossed out text to see what it was).

At first, yeah.
Yes. You have to know what you are signing for it to work. So, in the end, you might not have fully believed, but you were —more of less— 'fully informed'. You can't be tricked into signing over your soul. You are accountable.

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We can do. But I think it could make for a good scene. I would like to see it, but only if you two want to play it out.

If you decide to play it out, we can decide which of the many options we like. I think we suggested: Coffee shop while Emma nips out to get something in the midst of a serious discussion with David; Coffee shop with more time on our hands; Coffee shop with Sarah in tow and Pers can recognise the taint; Coffee shop 'tonight', after the meet with the hunter (or even with the vampire hunter in tow).

But we can also meet in a night-club, dancing, as you both do that. But Emma may have domestic issues that make that tricky... but tricky can be good? Possibly Emma needs to 'get out to blow off some steam'?

Just spitballing, here.
If you want. That can change the dynamic between the characters. Does it feel 'in character' for Pers?

That could get you into the story, but does not add much to the story. It won't really bring you in 'faster'.

PbP can be difficult to coordinate. We can wait for Emma to have a moment in her busy schedule, but we can't predict how long the scene with David will take, and we don't want to rush it. We can run a scene with Pers first, but we can't predict how long that will take, and we don't want to rush the introduction.

Honestly, the neatest might be to accidentally meet tonight, before David. That way we only have to wait for the vampire hunter scene, and we could incorporate that, though with difficulty if we don't reveal that Pers knows about the supernatural... It could even be fun for everyone to dance around the topic, but that could make it very hard to get anything valuable out of the vampire hunter. We could use ...what's her name? Miriam?... as someone Pers knows (in passing, she is retired), as a catalyst to talking about the supernatural (when we are ready for that reveal).

Up to you guys.

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OK. Though someone has to do the deed. It is your Job (with a capital J) to broker these deals, and to collect their souls. You have to do that Job.

Either it is you who makes the soul available, or you get someone/something to do it for you.

The person has to die? Fate worse than death if they don't. If so, and it is not 'old age' doing it, it is your Job to make them die. Them's the bones.

If you try to keep your hands clean, you can get your Dark Patron to 'drag them down to hell', but that may require you to Let It Out, which has a price. Or, once you have proved yourself, you could get your underlings to do that dead for you, but that could get messy.

You still have to do it. It is your Job, whether you like it or not.
It is not directly stated in the text, but that is the closest to 'and then her patron sucks them down to hell in a vortex of hellfire or something' [ref] there is:

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I am not sure how much they care about 'gradually'. :)
All they care about is not pushing it so hard that you break and can not continue to Corrupt yourself.
That is purely up to you. Your choices bring you Corruption, there are mechanics for it that we follow, and you know it is happening before it happens.

I could hand out Corruption as a GM Move, but that is seldom the fun option. Corruption is in the player's hands, and you would know beforehand what the price of a GM Move would be.

You can incur Debts instead of Corruption (though in your special case those Debts can translate directly back into Corruption), and you may have to Let It Out to bring your Dark Patron's attention to you so you can engage the Debt mechanics (unless you have a mechanic to do it at a distance? I can't check the book right now). Or you can get your hands dirty and do it yourself, force the signing of the contract, or 'free' the soul.

The fact that making someone's soul available for collection does not incur Corruption in the mechanics is definitely interesting in the fiction. It is almost like whatever the your Dark Patron does is worse than anything you can do to them. Like you are doing them a mercy by 'murdering them' (or whatever).

When you 'convince them to sign', or 'convince them to release their soul', though, that is your main Corruption Trigger, so honeyed words are worse than violence, it would seem.
Sure... the jobs we don't see, the ones that occupy your time off-screen or in the background. :)

They said it was an easy-out, they never said it would be easy. :)

That is the nature of The Aware. Your Relationships get in the way of your adventuring life, it is meant to be complicated and messy. The conversation with David is only really interesting because there are other things pulling your attention away; else you just talk about his work and sort it out.

You are welcome to ignore some of them, but there will be in-story consequences.
These people exist to drive your story. :)

Henry is slightly 'safe', as he is part of your sheet, and his story is just stating.

No. It would mean that Emma never 'resolves her personal issues' :)

Two of the options I listed above push that PC-to-PC scene forward to pretty soon.
Yes, but we don't really care about what Emma wants. Her life is a mess and that is the way it is. She won't have time to get it all nicely sorted before another complication comes alone, she will just to keep as many plates as possible spinning.

We also don't care that Emma is tired and it is late. If she runs in to Pers after/during the meeting with Miriam, she will need to decide if she brushes that off or accepts a little suffering to spend time with a close friend she has not see in years. Either option is fun.

Her relationships will always be pulling her in different directions. You specifically have 'A loyal significant other who expects you home by midnight', and say 'His patience and genteel manner are being tested to their limits these days, with his wife’s ‘research’ having her away from the house at very odd hours', so these are going to need to be contended with in play. The game tries to keep you out, your marriage tries to keep you in, that is the constant dichotomy of The Aware.

So, I am getting a little overwhelmed, if I'm being honest, by the level of scrutiny here.

I am much less interested in the details of how exactly the demonic contracts are enforced. My attraction to the character is to explore her emotions; she has to work for an awful boss, doing awful things, and she is trapped staying in the job because of her circumstances. That is literally me for most of my life! No, I wasn't literally sending people to hell, but working for a credit card company is pretty damned close. I want to explore that inner pain of knowing you are making the world worse, and hurting people, but feeling like you have no choice because of capitalism a demonic contract. The details are much less important to me.

So, sure, she can be the one who shows up with the paperwork. maybe she accompanies the senior agent who does the "hard sell" and she simply assists, like a secretary. That way she has to watch it happen. Or, if you prefer, she can be the one doing it herself. Honestly, at this point, I am happy with whatever.! I'd rather hand wave a lot of this, or find out in play.

As for meeting up with Emma, whatever is easiest. It sounds to me like Delirium has a preference and I'd prefer to do what they would want.

Sorry about that. Just trying to make sure we are on the same page, and that the rules work with how you see your character.
Cool. But game mechanics don't deal with your emotions, these emotions will stem from what your Jobs do to your soul.
We could do that, at the start. But it is your Job.
I am just trying to make sure you don't get blindsided when you find that you are the one who needs to make the contracts happen and collect their souls. You can not keep your hands clean.

Might be your character is blindsided when we first see them without the training wheels of the 'senior agent'. Do you want to do that scene?
We won't always be dealing with your Job, but when we do, we can't hand-wave that, it is a core mechanic of your chosen character, it drives your character development.

But we can see in play how it works out. I will want your help and guidance when we set up a scene for that so we end up with something you can play with.
Someone needs to make a decision. :)

'Easiest' is a loaded term, and all I care about with 'easy' is getting the new character into the action without too much delay. That can be achieved by forcing them to meet tonight, then Emma and Pers can both do their own things tomorrow. 'David' is an NPC, he does not have a player waiting and does not care if it takes us a month to get to 'tomorrow' to deal with his issue.

Or we can have Emma do her family responsibilities first and run a scene with Pers on her own. I am happy to do that, but do prefer to have scenes where the PCs can play off each other rather then just GM and PC. Trying to have separate scenes wrap up at the same time is hard.

OK.
If you don't want to play out that meeting, then it does not matter how it happened or why you get in contact (facebook update, text, whatever), we can meet later.
Alright. We make Pers' first scene be without you, so you can deal with your domestic situation.
It would not affect the character or that scene. That will still happen 'tomorrow'. This is about whether we play a scene 'tonight' before that happens.

But scrap that idea since you have said Emma would not do that.
Let's have them meet some other time. We will bring Pers in in her own scene. That may lead to reasons for them to make contact.
I was thinking of suggesting that. Not sure what it would accomplish (aside from freeing us up for you to post more frequently than the others, in two threads).

The issue with that is that we have to make sure what happens in one thread does not impact the other. I would still have us set the Emma/Pers thread after the David thread, in case something happens with the multi-PC thread that would change your getting home or something.

It does not matter to the game what happens 'tomorrow' or 'tonight'. I only care about optimising the players' time.
Yeah, so I am not sure why doing that tonight was being resisted. But let's run Pers in her own scene, which could be any time.

@Drgwen: Maybe we start you off with a 'soul collection' scene related to your Job? You don't have your helpful senior agent here in London, so you would be on your own (for the first time?).

Who do you think you are being sent to? Do you have ideas? Do we start with Archibald Charlesworth III giving you the Job, or skip to the action?

Or: is there something else you would rather do with your first scene? We can do that instead.

OK, then let's just go for it and say she has to kill the people. The contract is for whatever they want, but in X years, they forfeit their soul. And sometimes that means working for the demon, like Persephone is. But other times it means dying and going to hell or wherever. Probably, Persephone has skills that the demon thought it could exploit, and a certain moral flexibility that it could take advantage of, eventually bending her into a willing, even eager, accomplice. So she goes all demon form and kills people for work. Whelp, it's a living!
OK, so let's do this! Yes, Persephone knows what she is getting into, what she must do. She doesn't want to, but knows she has no choice (or thinks that is the case). She receives the job from "Lord Charlesworth III" (eye roll, sigh) and then heads out to confront Noah Davies, who somehow won the lottery exactly five years ago tonight and has been living a life of hedonist excess ever since.

Sometimes. If it comes to that.
These terms are probably not written down in the contract. You get to try negotiate the 'best' outcome when the time comes. A soul serving your Dark Patron is more valuable than one in hell (that will, inevitably, happen anyway:). But you may learn, in time, that a simple death is, maybe, better. There are worse things than death... and you may be one of them.
Up to you in the scene. Whatever it takes to get the Job done.
OK. I will make the next thread and start this there.

@Delirium: Emma can finish out the talk with David in the existing thread —his issues are direct aftermath of the Arundel Caper /oops-spoiler— then she can join us in the 'current' thread, maybe with some posting overlap.

We don't need to define the exact date/time of the new thread till we have to, could be 'tomorrow' could be 'next week', whatever works best when we combine them.

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Sorry, "Lord Charlesworth" (definitely 'the third', since he is the third 'Charles' we have had in this story, but not a big conflict since one is sidelined by PC-loss, and the other is just an absent father-in-law, common name anyway:).



'Noah Davies' is definitely not long for this earth. Either we change his name, or he is one of the ones that does not stick around. He is a combination of two of Emma's three Relationships, David (her husband) and Noah (her boss), and you just know that his middle name has to be 'Henry'. :)

Maybe we generate a new random name for him, just in case? Unless we want to lean into the name-similarity as a spur to get Pers to contact Emma?

• Do we start with Lord Charlesworth, or jump straight to the night-club where our target is partying like there is no tomorrow?

LOL OK How about Howard Winters for the "target"? I easily shooting for a stereotypical English male name and I guess I succeeded too well!
And if it helps, he could def be Lord Wentworth III, just to keep names separate.

As for where to start, I think the night-club would be the most dramatic and fun.

Take it away in the new thread -> Paying the Price. The others can join you in that thread as it becomes relevant to them. They all have prices to pay.

@Verrain: How are you doing? This thread should be calmer now, and mostly under your control. :)

In case my reply got lost on the previous page, I am linking it here.

Did you find the Vessel Playbook? Not a big deal if you didn't, it was just an illustration of how a golem could be something different to a statue. I once played a Vessel that was created to appear completely human (as a sex-bot for a wizard and his friends), but when he found they were sentient he shipped them off to Canada. A being made of clay could appear completely human —in many creation myths we are made of clay, and the Jewish golem is a reference to that.

We can use the Night Sisters' Patron/Benefactor, but that links you with them (even if Malachi does not know this). It may be smoother if we create your Benefactor as someone new?

Either way we (and that includes me) know nothing about the being behind the Night Sisters, so we would need to create them in enough detail for you to play. We could leave any connection nebulous and find later that they are the same being or unrelated.

The Night Sisters have Arabic or middle-eastern sounding names. Your travels may have put you in those regions? If not, and we want forge this link, we can easily come up with a connection.

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Aside from the Benefactor and Starting Debts (see my previous), do you feel ready to start playing the character?

I see you have marked Status 1 in Wild, presumably they was meant to be added to the Wild Rating? The sheet is a little cluttered up there, to fit everything in. You increase one of you Circle Ratings during Character Creation, Status can increase through Advancement or through your actions in the story.

Is there anything else you need?

You don't have a house of your own. You Benefactor provides you with somewhere to live and a car (or Oyster Card) and such. We can work out these details as we work out your Benefactor.