[OOC] Word on the street

[hafrogman]

Originally Posted by Wynamoinen

@Roe and Frog: You're mutually protecting each other. Cole had attracted some attention that wasn't on his radar, and Victor has deflected it. I'd like to hear what that threat is. Victor is under threat and I'd like to suggest that Charity could be that exact threat: a street-level supernatural vice dealer from Cole's past (and present)

I haven't fleshed out much about Charity yet, because I've been slacking (or on vacation). Either way, she's ripe for being pulled into our nonsense.

Charity, the Rival Charity is more classically minded than her predecessor, wrath is her favorite sin. Under her watchful eye, violent crime has risen among the city's poorest elements. Organized crime, disorganized crime, crimes of passion and crimes of hatred. She enjoys sowing the seeds of discontentment, and letting them fester to promote a feel of hopelessness.

I am certainly open to any ideas @Roe, but my first stab is something like Cole warning Victor to stay away from a local criminal type (gang leader or minor mobster?) because he knows they're in cahoots with demonic forces. But during the course of investigating his harem, Victor immediately runs across said person. In between revealing his mother's maiden name and his first pet's name, Victor also lets on that he is totally aware of the infernal connection. This turns out to be perfect, as the criminal has been looking for an impartial third party to broker a meeting with some local Wizards (spellcasters, not the basketball team) This could be anyone, but we haven't brought in any Power yet, unless I've missed something. Either way, Victor just volunteered, whether he wanted to or not.

Originally Posted by Wynamoinen

@Frog and Vis: I personally prefer the "Fae Lordling is a customer of Cole" version of the debt you share, over the "Brassa's cousin is the customer" version. (Unless, perhaps, BOTH are true? Was the cousin absorbed and ennobled into another court?). I think the courts could end up being an important thread in this game, and I feel like they need a lot of development. We can do that as the game goes on, and we will if that's a thread we want to tug on. But I'd really like to get something started in that vein now. For example (you don't need to answer all of these!), what Court is the lordling part of? Are they loyal or a turncoat? What kind of gossip does Cole hear? Why would Brassa be interested in this gossip? Is it vapid talk of trends, or is it life-and-death "the Wild Hunt might be summoned to find Brassa" type stuff?

My intention was definitely for both to be true, i.e. the cousin is a fae lordling. My main thought here was that it would give a method for the initial connection. I.e. Brassa didn't come looking for Cole, she came looking for her cousin and found Cole instead. But I'll leave that ultimate decision up to @Vis. Your question does raise a question about fae nobility that I'll circle back to in a moment.

For now, I'll answer all the questions for the customer, flexible if the customer ends up being the cousin.

Court: I like Spring. Definitely one of the major courts, their own ego wouldn't allow for anything less. Winter is too dark and dour, summer is too hot for finery. Autumn could work with the beautiful fall colors, but a little sad with it's downward trend.

Allegiance: Loyal (to a fault). Blindly patriotic. Their own court is the best court, their queen is the best queen, etc. Not prone to independent thinking enough to be any kind of revolutionary.

Gossip: Cole hears, unfortunately, everything. The lordling is absolutely in love with the sound of their own voice and chatters incessantly through their appointments. At one point, Cole tried to sift through for important or valuable information, but lacks the requisite context for most of it and now just dumps it all in Brassa's lap. The value is again up to @Vis, but I imagine she gets some base value from just knowing the political waves among the courts and the fae (Who's up? Who's down? Who's in power? Who has been sidelined recently? Could they be a potential ally?). I do like the idea that perhaps the lordling has been promoted to their level of incompetence and was recently put on a subcommittee (or inter-court panel) to discuss something of actual importance (the dissolution of Dusk having gone so well, perhaps Dawn is next on the chopping block?). Perhaps I'm projecting too much human politics onto the fae, but I like the idea that it's much like the house of representatives. There's hundreds of fae lords, most of them don't matter in the slightest and all that's important is how much noise they make.

Originally Posted by Wynamoinen

@Frog & jbear: I think the "make THE WOLF a costume" connection is great. It's simple and straightforward, but gets to the base of who the characters are. I'm wondering if it's a pure coincidence that Cole picked a Wolf as someone he could help? Or did he know that Andre was a member of the Shadows? Are there other wrestlers that Cole also helped, and were they also in the Shadows? Given how shady the promoter is, I'm wondering if this this wresting league is just rife with Wolves and Vamps and whatnot.

I imagine that Cole has enough practical knowledge to spot the signs of probable lycanthropy. He probably didn't approach Andre completely at random, but he didn't know for certain until Andre asked if he'd be able to make the suit to accommodate an even bigger frame at times.

I like the idea that the local (what's the term here? they're not actually amateur... minor league?) wrestling league serves as a haven to all sorts of weird and wonderful. In particular (since nobody picked the playbook), I'd like to put forth Cassandra, the stage name of a blind-folded Oracle who wrestles with a giant python. Well, not with the python. But she flounces around with it draped over her shoulders pre-match.

Originally Posted by Elanir

I am fascinated by the idea of a changeling

Oooh. World-building. I like it, and since it's about the fae, I shall use this as an opportunity to bring up fae nobility.

Originally Posted by Wynamoinen

Was the cousin absorbed and ennobled into another court?

@Vislands @Wynamoinen Perhaps it's my own preconceptions from other media and internalized elf-racism, but I'd been kind of working on the assumption that fae nobility is less a case of being elevated to the peerage and more just "are you Sidhe (i.e. human-form)?" So Brassa's cousin would automatically be a (minor) lord of whatever house he was absorbed into on the basis of his fae sub-species rather than anything else.

In our world do we have different types of fae? Sprites and goblins and elves? Do these types have their own hierarchies? Does the king of the goblins look like David Bowie? Or does he look like a particularly royal goblin?

Just things to be thinking on.

@Everyone Unrelated, but still on the subject of world building, I had posed this concept in my own thread and throw it to the group for comments and suggestions.

World-Building Geekery I like the idea that there is no specific requirement for any given person (or perhaps specifically mortals?) to use magic. Anybody can do it. Sure, it takes a Wizard to generate and hold the raw power required to huck a ball of fire across a room in a combat situation. But given fifteen minutes, the proper focusing rune and incantations (plus a week or two of practice) and any loser off the street might be able to light a candle with magic. The trick is that the mortal world is chock-a-block full of snake-oil salesmen and fake practitioners prepared to deprive the unwitting masses of their money. So the main thing stopping your average hedge mage or wannabe witch from casting actual spells is knowledge, the ability to tell the real deal from some random B.S. that xXxDarkFyre420xXx posted to Reddit.

Mechanical impact: minimal. It's ultimately a question of what kind of things Wynamoinen might say Cole needs to make something in his Workshop.

Originally Posted by wodine

How very... Orthodox.

"Come on then, if you're coming."
Cole led the Dragon deeper into the workshop, but after a moment realized that he was no longer being followed. The tailor turned in place and glanced back to the still figure behind him, following Farhad's gaze to one of the neatly labeled drawers lining the wall. Dragon Hide.

"It's... not what it looks like. It's just a brand of flame-retardant cloth. You know how humans are with naming things after other things. Nothing supernatural about the stuff at all. Although it does sell remarkably well with the bloodsuc-" Cole started again. The shop should be warded, but it never hurt to be tactful. "my vampiric clientele."

[Roekahs]

 

Originally Posted by Wynamoinen

@Roe and Frog: You're mutually protecting each other. Cole had attracted some attention that wasn't on his radar, and Victor has deflected it. I'd like to hear what that threat is. Victor is under threat and I'd like to suggest that Charity could be that exact threat: a street-level supernatural vice dealer from Cole's past (and present)

Originally Posted by hafrogman

I haven't fleshed out much about Charity yet, because I've been slacking (or on vacation). Either way, she's ripe for being pulled into our nonsense.



I am certainly open to any ideas @Roe, but my first stab is something like Cole warning Victor to stay away from a local criminal type (gang leader or minor mobster?) because he knows they're in cahoots with demonic forces. But during the course of investigating his harem, Victor immediately runs across said person. In between revealing his mother's maiden name and his first pet's name, Victor also lets on that he is totally aware of the infernal connection. This turns out to be perfect, as the criminal has been looking for an impartial third party to broker a meeting with some local Wizards (spellcasters, not the basketball team) This could be anyone, but we haven't brought in any Power yet, unless I've missed something. Either way, Victor just volunteered, whether he wanted to or not.

@hafrogman: I am pretty comfortable with any path we take here. For the sake of throwing out a different option - what about a 'frying pan and fire' situation? Cole warns Victor about the local criminal; Victor gets a bit tangled up anyway because he is desperate, but he is really trying to heed Cole's warning; Victor stumbles on an "out" - Charity; things go really wrong that night/job with the local criminal and Victor clearly observes what would have happened to him if he had stuck with that criminal (i.e., there is no debating that Cole saved him); Charity starts to shimmy and shuffle to get information from Victor on Cole (maybe she doesn't know his exact whereabouts at the moment?); Victor manages to put the pieces together just in time and realizes who Charity is to Cole, so he goes full blockade and is currently very entangled with Charity to keep her at bay - he jumped right out of that frying pan and into her fire .

I think if we go with my suggestion, it would be fun to start with a couple things: (1) it is clear to both Victor and Cole that Victor owes Cole for saving his butt, (2) Cole does not yet know about Victor and Charity, or has only very recently found out about it, (3) Cole and Victor aren't really friends, but this was the first time where their relationship sort of moved in that direction.

Again, this is just an alternative suggestion - it does add some (unnecessary?) complexity to the relationship. I do like your suggestion as well and can work up Victor's side of the story there to build that up more. So do you have a preference? Maybe if one fits Cole's story better? Victor is still really flexible when it comes to the supernatural stuff, so either can work for his story.

[Wynamoinen]

We haven't had a check-in here from jbear or Vislands since I posted my follow-up questions, so I'm still in a bit of a holding pattern here. Not a big deal; once I exit this holding pattern, I'm going to put you all into another holding pattern. And I can start the one without completing the other. But for now, I'm waiting; I haven't started cooking up my Storms yet. I'll begin within the next few days under any condition, but I would like to hear feedback to the active questions before I move on, if possible,

[Vislands]

I'll be responding to feedback and proposing my own debts tomorrow!

[Vislands]

Originally Posted by Roekahs

Yep, I am tracking that as well, Wyn.

In fact, might as well get the conversation started surrounding Victor's last debt: Someone told you their secrets and you haven't told anyone about them yet. They owe you 2 debts.

The obvious answer with current connections would be Brassa. However, this is an interesting debt where the implications are that the 'secrets' are - at the very least - not widely known. It seems like Brassa's old Court might actually be a good candidate for such a level of secrecy, but the other implications (with 2 debts owed) is that it is a secret the PC doesn't want to get out. I do think there would be other options, including "other" secrets or a different PC entirely. I guess this is the place to start the conversation: @Vislands how does having a major secret (worthy of 2 debts) hit you for Brassa?

I like this, and for my idea of what that secret might be:

 

@Elanir I like your idea for a changeling a lot and it ties well into the debt of Brassavola protecting Annie from something. I would tweak it perhaps so that they're not so much two sides of the same coin, but more that Annie is a vessel and the reincarnated fae, in their early form, only exists in her dreamscape and can perhaps as they grow in strength reach out from there, with the ultimate goal being a kind of rebirth through possession and subsummation of Annie entirely.

@Wyn & Hafrogman Regarding the client, I think I also prefer random flippant noble vs Cousin. I like all the details that Hafrog suggested, like the Court choice and whatnot. But I don't think Cousin (I'll come up with a name, damn it) is flippant or foolish enough to spread news. I imagine they serve as a guard dog or enforcer or some other grunt work for the new Court, though still (like all fae) fashioning themselves a noble still.

[Elanir]

Originally Posted by Vislands

@Elanir I like your idea for a changeling a lot and it ties well into the debt of Brassavola protecting Annie from something. I would tweak it perhaps so that they're not so much two sides of the same coin, but more that Annie is a vessel and the reincarnated fae, in their early form, only exists in her dreamscape and can perhaps as they grow in strength reach out from there, with the ultimate goal being a kind of rebirth through possession and subsummation of Annie entirely.

Sounds good, Vislands!

[jbear]

@Wynamoinen Sorry for the slow reply.

I think the question you would like answered is if the wrestling circuit is just a cover for a werewolf vs vamp war.

I think I may not have a firm grasp on how out in the open or prolific the supernatural is in the setting.

If it is a cover for an open battleground for wolf vs vamps then Andre has no clue. Initially I was just putting out the idea something weird was going on but I wasn't sure what and was looking forward to discovering what that might be. I think your proposal is a lot of fun! Let's roll with that!

[Wynamoinen]

"An expression of open war" is one extreme, and it would certainly open up whole vistas of drama. But the other end of the spectrum could be "bros from different backgrounds crossing lines to heal old wounds." I definitely don't have a pre-fab thought in asking.

It's taken as given that your typical normie has no idea that the world of the Shadows exists. They are sleepers, and you all are awake to reality, in that sense. So to the extent that people from all backgrounds are watching the wresting, I don't think a Shadow war can be an explicit and open part of the individual wrestling matches. At least, it's not part of the front. That's part of what would make Andre's "Wolf" persona special, after all.

There don't have to be any shadows involved in the wrestling at all! Not everything is part of the web of supernatural intrigue. But, well, the INTERESTING bits tend to be.

Edit: Missed one lingering issue of confusion: Supernatural folk are as prolific as we want them to be. So I don't have a fixed definition there; we can define it in our narrative and worldbuilding. The presumption is that the "shadowier" the place, the more they concentrate - there are probably not a lot of supernatural types in the suburbs, whereas in dark alleys and between the skyscrapers they are rife. I'm also happy to accept a broad range of non-PC type shadow-folk as well. If we want goblins and unicorns and mummies, then by gosh we can have them!

[Wynamoinen]

Checking in briefly again. I said we'd start slow, and I'm a man of my word. I'm now going to skulk off and start building all the pieces that will be in motion in the background (the Threats and Storms, in Urban Shadows parlance). I think I've got the start of a framework in place, so I'm hoping that with a few hours here and there over the week, and some prolonged cogitating over the weekend, this phase shouldn't take much longer than a week. But I'm going to mostly let this forum lay fallow in the coming days. After which, it's game on!

We still have a few Fae debts to hand out. And there are lots of loose ends. So if you want to chat here, please feel free. That said, loose ends don't need to be tied. They can instead be left to dangle, if they are not relevant to the game as it plays out, or they can be opportunties for surprises or worldbuilding as they become relevant.

So please bear with me as I wrap up this "session zero-plus" phase of the game.

[Vislands]

Sorry for the delay gang, but I wanna wrap up this debt session so I'll throw out some thoughts. I've been having a bit of trouble since Brassa has a nice collection of debts already and some of these might feel a bit redundant at this point (particularly the second one). So if you see something that you feel like it speaks to you, feel free to throw out an idea or don't like what I've put forward, no prob we can work through it.

Someone broke an important promise to you and swore they would make it up to you. They owe you 2 Debts.

I think I'd like this to go to @wodine's Farhad. Brassa is looking for Corona Australis ('The Southern Crown'), a powerful artifact that just might be powerful enough to circumvent the Accords and allow her to re-establish her Court. And I think in exchange for watching Agent Kensington, Brassa extracted a promise of, if not the crown itself, documents that could help lead her to its location which Farhad has failed to deliver.

You are keeping something hidden for someone. They owe you a Debt.

This one I'm having a bit of difficulty with because it feels like Brassa is already hiding/protecting a few people. If you have something that you feel would fit well here, lemme have it. Also this could also go to an NPC of @Wyn's design.

You entrusted someone with a dangerous task. Ask them if they succeeded or failed. If they succeeded, you owe them a Debt. If they failed, they owe you 2 Debts.

I feel like the only two PCs that Brassa would be able to make this ask of in a way that makes sense to me are Victor or Andre. The others feel too experienced or ethereal to put themselves in harms way for her, at least for now. And of those two, Andre is too young and foolish (in her eyes) to be put in that position so I think this should go to @Roekah's Victor.

I think Brassa asked him to tail the gabby noble customer of Cole's, to find out where the Spring Court's HQ might be. Did he succeed?

[Roekahs]

Originally Posted by Vislands

You entrusted someone with a dangerous task. Ask them if they succeeded or failed. If they succeeded, you owe them a Debt. If they failed, they owe you 2 Debts.

I feel like the only two PCs that Brassa would be able to make this ask of in a way that makes sense to me are Victor or Andre. The others feel too experienced or ethereal to put themselves in harms way for her, at least for now. And of those two, Andre is too young and foolish (in her eyes) to be put in that position so I think this should go to @Roekah's Victor.

I think Brassa asked him to tail the gabby noble customer of Cole's, to find out where the Spring Court's HQ might be. Did he succeed?

This is pretty nice actually. I have been meaning to get a response to the acceptance of the Aware debt. I like the secret - which by the way, I have no issue sharing with the players even if their characters aren't supposed to know, so share or keep secret at your discretion. One of the questions that jumped out to me is: Why? Why did Brassa trust Victor with this big secret. A moment of weakness? Accidental spillage? Victor has a trustworthy face? I don't know that we need to answer that specifically at the moment, but it may be interesting to explore as the game begins.

Of course, that could be answered with your proposal here. Did Brassa share her secrets as a part of Victor trying to track down the Spring Court's HQ? Or were the two things separate incidents? There could be some really interesting dynamics between the two depending on the answers (e.g, Victor was asked to track down the Spring Court then Brassa spilled her secret ... ooh trust issues, etc.).

Ok, enough of my questions! I am going to actually answer yours! Here it comes... Any time now (). I am going to say that Victor did succeed in finding the HQ. I have sort of envisioned Victor as being pretty decent at 'detective-style' work, though he failed as a police officer, so this would support his effectiveness in that arena. Now the question: where is the HQ. Is it particularly compelling that he tracked it all over the city and wound up back in Andre's neighborhood (where Victor also lives)? Has he not told Andre yet? I think I like that, but I leave it open for any and all comments!

[jbear]

@Vislands Well, if Brassa thinks Andre is young and foolish, then perhaps she is keeping something important from him.

Could she have an inkling as to his disappeared father's whereabouts? Might she know about his messy other life when he became a thug? Could it have some ties to the Fae Courts?

Or might she have a clue about what ails his mother? And she doesn't want to say cos she has some connection to it that she isn't proud of? (this would probably require some conversation with Wyn)

[hafrogman]

Originally Posted by Roekahs

I think if we go with my suggestion, it would be fun to start with a couple things: (1) it is clear to both Victor and Cole that Victor owes Cole for saving his butt, (2) Cole does not yet know about Victor and Charity, or has only very recently found out about it, (3) Cole and Victor aren't really friends, but this was the first time where their relationship sort of moved in that direction.

Again, this is just an alternative suggestion - it does add some (unnecessary?) complexity to the relationship. I do like your suggestion as well and can work up Victor's side of the story there to build that up more. So do you have a preference? Maybe if one fits Cole's story better? Victor is still really flexible when it comes to the supernatural stuff, so either can work for his story.

Sorry for the delay here, I didn't want to clutter up the thread with just our back and forth at first, but then I realized I let it sit for a whole week.

I think that both suggestions have merit, and that they're not so dissimilar that we can't basically cobble something together right down the middle.

My only notes are

1. If Victor is already in too deep with Charity, then I feel like that would drive Cole out of "indebtedness" and into "overwhelming guilt", which is a fine place for him to end up, but probably not as good for a starting place. Yeah, Victor could just not let on, but I think I still like it more if this is a thread we explore in game. So Charity has perhaps only just begun to work her wiles on Victor.
2. If Charity just doesn't know where he is, that feels like it would just end pretty quick once the game starts. Sort of a one and done binary. I discussed this with Wyn in my thread, but I feel there has to be some kind of deeper reason why Charity doesn't just come straight after Cole, possibly to do with the terms of the agreement that freed his soul to begin with. But, hey, she's a demon. She's had (millenia?) of inventing new ways to hurt people. Victor is her new attack vector.

So we basically use your outline, tweak those two things a little and we end up with the warning, the getting into hot water anyways, and Charity (or someone working for her) shows up to kindly pull Victor's bacon out of the fire. But we sort of cut it off there to give us room to explore in character?

Originally Posted by Vislands

@Wyn & Hafrogman Regarding the client, I think I also prefer random flippant noble vs Cousin. I like all the details that Hafrog suggested, like the Court choice and whatnot.

Sounds good. I have added the notes and a brief write-up on Lord Daucus to the NPCs section of my thread.

[wodine]

Originally Posted by Vislands

Someone broke an important promise to you and swore they would make it up to you. They owe you 2 Debts.

I think I'd like this to go to @wodine's Farhad. Brassa is looking for Corona Australis ('The Southern Crown'), a powerful artifact that just might be powerful enough to circumvent the Accords and allow her to re-establish her Court. And I think in exchange for watching Agent Kensington, Brassa extracted a promise of, if not the crown itself, documents that could help lead her to its location which Farhad has failed to deliver.

I'm not a big fan of doubling up on the Agent Kensington debt since Farhad already owes you one for that.

Fahrad already has a history of dealing with other Fae - what if Fahrad promised not to tell them about Brassa (she's in exile right?) but sold that information off for another favor to someone else, thereby incurring the additional debts?

[Wynamoinen]

Originally Posted by Vislands

Corona Australis ('The Southern Crown'), a powerful artifact that just might be powerful enough to circumvent the Accords and allow her to re-establish her Court.

This idea is kind of blowing my mind. If Fae magic is all about promises, what promises are bigger than those of Rule and Majesty and Dominion? The kind of magic that would break that stuff seems like it must be some of the biggest magic there is. The holder of that crown is sure to garner some, uh, ATTENTION.

Originally Posted by jbear

@Vislands Could she have an inkling as to his disappeared father's whereabouts? Might she know about his messy other life when he became a thug? Could it have some ties to the Fae Courts?

Oooh, this is good, I was wondering whether Andre's father would be a dropped thread or not. Andre's father worked in an animal shelter, and that seems easy peasy to turn that into a Fae connection.

I'm not super hyped on starting with an NPC debt, but it could work. I'm wondering what kind of a debt we could build where Brassa knows what happened to Andre's dad but she can't just tell him (it's a mystery to Andre to start out with, at least). The baying hounds of autumn, the sprightly puppies of summer, they brought interested parties from the autumn/summer court to the shelter. Maybe Andre's father, working at the shelter when these weirdos came in, became the keeper of the hounds, hired by the Court. Maybe he tried to protect the dogs and was imprisoned. Brassa has made a promise not to of course, there are always ways to let people know things, without TELLING them...tell Andre what happened. I can imagine a promise like that to a Fae NPC. I can imagine a promise like that to Andre's mother ("It would break Dre's heart..."). That would get Brassa very closely connected to Andre's story, while not technically having that debt connection. I'm failing to think of a way to get a direct Andre --> Brassa connection with a storyline like that, though. This is all obviously just an idea, of course, feel free to reject anything along these lines.

Edit, lol, I got double-ninja'd there!