Magic can make you rich! (Wait, no it can't)

[Becq]

Two reasons why the above won't work:

1) All that blood has to come from somewhere ... the subject has a -1 to all mental skills for the duration.
2) "If you have an erection than lasts more than four hours, contact your Wizard immediately to schedule a Counterspell..."

:p

[ralexs1991]

Two reasons why the above won't work:

1) All that blood has to come from somewhere ... the subject has a -1 to all mental skills for the duration.
2) "If you have an erection than lasts more than four hours, contact your Wizard immediately to schedule a Counterspell..."

:p

year one i'm sorry all the blood from my brain was in my boner epic LULZ!!!

[Sanctaphrax]

METHOD TO GET RICH: Insurance fraud. Nobody will ever be able to trace that fire back to you...

WHY IT WON'T WORK: The insurance companies play as dirty as you do. Even if they aren't in the know, they'll use every imaginable (and unimaginable) trick to avoid paying. If they are in the know, expect a visit from some bound demons soon.

STORY IDEA: The players are contacted by an insurance company that wants them to help the company get out of paying compensation for a series of incredibly bizzare and unlikely accidents that have befallen their ratepayers. The company is partly clued in and suspects that there is some sort of magic stuff going on. What they don't know is that the accidents are all the work of Myron Antrovick, a disgruntled former employee and entropomancer. Even if the players catch Myron and defeat him, they'll still need to find a way to compensate the innocent victims for their accidents without putting an honest insurance company out of business.

[Drashna]

Sanctaphrax: another variation to the insurance fraud, is a company that hires wizards to ward the houses/objects insured.  That's lots of premiums with none or little payout. (and yes, the idea is from sookie stackhouse/southern mystery/true blood series).

[Kaldra]

Method to get Rich: manipulating dice and other games at casinos. using ectoplasm to change your appearance so you look like deferent people every time.
Why it wont Work: The WCV's that feed on greed are already there and they are rigging the odds
Story: that you happen to be changing, welcome to the darkside, your the new recruit in the operation or you die. now bring the rest of the party in for some         fun and games 

[Ranma1558]

METHOD TO GET RICH: Thaumaturgy divination, to search for minerals - gold, oil, gems. Even the weakest wizard could get better results in minutes than world-class prospectors could get in days or months of searching.

WHY IT WON'T WORK:
1) you don't own the land its own duh!
2) You don't have the equipment or skill to get your ill gotten good out of the earth
3) Tracking it down would mean you're in a few miles (Harry thought he couldn't track someone out side a Chicago proper at one point) and have a 'piece' to link yourself to or go scavenge up information some other way....and likely own someone something....
4) Great increase of these objects would lower their value, good old supply and demand.
5) You find oil/minerals the people who have a strangle hold over that market, who've made LOTS of money, aren't likely happy about an independent popping up, sell or else.
6) wow, finding this stuff was easy, why hasn't anyone else done this before?.... ohh.... oil elementals.....
STORY IDEA:
1) PC are asked to clear a mine of beings so mining can begin. It is an area the nevernever is close to and domain of Summer....
2) PC inherits a plot of land teaming with oil.... big oil wants it and you'd better not say no.
3) Gold has been popping up all over the place, devaluing the US reserves, is another recession coming?

[Drashna]

Another why it won't work for divining for wealth: those dwarves (fae) or other such creatures are now pissed that you STOLE their stuff. Maybe they're nice enough to lay a small curse on you till you've returned all of it... but you've already sold it off!

(oh and I wouldn't say *another*, I'd say the current just gets worse enough to be an *official* Depression)

[Ranma1558]

Or, included on top of that, you find something that was buried away with good reason, think Balrog or Pandora's box kind of bad.

[Bruce Coulson]

Method to Get Rich:  Art Theft/Recovery.

Means: A large amount of artwork has been lost/stolen throughout history; World War II and the Nazis are only the best remembered.  Getting accurate picture/descriptions is easy.  Even allowing for 'supernaturally' held collections, that still leaves a lot of stray items to be 'found'.  And if it's in private mundane hands...well, thieves can hardly complain about having something stolen!

Why it Won't Work:  Collectors are obsessive.  Anyone who has the kind of artwork worth stealing has enough money to hire professionals to get it back.  And if the wizard has any enemies, they may be willing to work for cheap...

Story Idea:  It seemed like a good idea: 'recover' lost artwork, sell at Sothebys, = profit.  Now a very junior White Council Wizard has some very heavy hitters on his/her tail.  Seems the collector was just holding the artwork for someone...and that Someone now wants more than just the artwork back.  Your job?  Save this wizard, and find out why this obscure piece of artwork is so valuable to Someone in the supernatural community...

[Richard_Chilton]

Two reasons why the above won't work:

1) All that blood has to come from somewhere ... the subject has a -1 to all mental skills for the duration.
2) "If you have an erection than lasts more than four hours, contact your Wizard immediately to schedule a Counterspell..."

Now you've gotten me thinking about a new concept:
Mark by Power or Envoy of a Power - with the power being the Roman god Priapus, from whose condition they derived the medical name priapism.

Richard

[Sanctaphrax]

METHOD TO GET RICH: Go public as a wizard. Become the biggest celebrity the world has ever seen.
WHY IT WON'T WORK: This is another one of those ideas that will make you more enemies than you can count. Expect to be made into an example.
STORY IDEA: Some sleazy little minor talent is planning to sell his story to a news network in order to pay his gambling debts. Go kill him, and do it brutally as a warning to other people with the same idea. Or if you're some kind of bleeding heart pacifist, you could try to find a non-murderous solution. You pansy.

[Wyrdrune]

METHOD TO GET RICH: Go public as a wizard. Become the biggest celebrity the world has ever seen.

that could produce a nice dumbass-magician knowing nothing about the world or the hidden struggles, neither really caring for it, like that drake stone character from sorcerer's apprentice. i somewhat liked that guy because he didn't care for all the mystical struggles until the film happens. just a narcistic self-absorbed chris angel type of magician, oblivious to the rest of the world.

[ralexs1991]

METHOD TO GET RICH: Go public as a wizard. Become the biggest celebrity the world has ever seen.
WHY IT WON'T WORK: This is another one of those ideas that will make you more enemies than you can count. Expect to be made into an example.
STORY IDEA: Some sleazy little minor talent is planning to sell his story to a news network in order to pay his gambling debts. Go kill him, and do it brutally as a warning to other people with the same idea. Or if you're some kind of bleeding heart pacifist, you could try to find a non-murderous solution. You pansy.

something about that reminds me of the Geicko comercial witht the drill sargent as a therepist 

[ScrupulousNecromancer]

A stunt I pulled two sessions ago.

METHOD TO GET RICH: Resurrect people suffering from brain death.  Use necromancy to rebind the spirit of the original owner of the body back into their brain with a duration of mortal lifetime.  The body already has a heartbeat, so no need for an artificial one.
Become the most expensive doctor in the world. 
WHY IT WON'T WORK: They can't get wet.   
STORY IDEA: Alistaire Grey is a wizard with a talent for reaching across the barrier between life and death, but has never used it to hurt anyone or bind a human spirit.   He encountered a man who had been dosed with a massive amount of MPTP. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPTP  In trying to track down the culprit who administered the drug, Alistaire theorizes that he may be able to temporarily restore some semblance of movement to the man by binding his soul back into his body.  When he does so, and procures an identity of the culprit, he can't bear the disappointment of the man when he tells him that the cure is only temporary.   So he sets up a ritual to extend it for his lifetime, and tells him he can't ever take a shower.  "Shave your head and use baby wipes."

There's so many ways that this can go wrong, it would be impossible to list them all.  But here are some ways.  I would be fine with my GM using one or more of these.

White Council finds out about this EXTREMELY grey area. (Kinda boring, but pretty likely.)
Alistaire starts hanging out in hospitals ready to shove trauma victim's spirits back into dead tissue.
A living subject suffers a heart attack, and in the absence of the controlling heart beat eats their spouse/children. 
Unscrupulous Necromancers find out about this technique...
What else?

[mostlyawake]

METHOD TO GET RICH
Two words:  Male Enhancement  

It's not against the Laws of Magic if it is not against their will (they are paying for it...)

Careful with that, it might be Transforming another... lawbreaker!

One of my group members does just this, only he sells them potions so that he can argue that they took the potion themselves, thus giving them the "choice"... so they transformed themselves. He also makes it temporary (lasting a week I think?) so they have to keep paying him.. and so it isn't permanent. I ruled it a grey area (due to it not being a full transformation), but really just because I know that character is going lawbreaker anyways...I don't need to be tough on the rules there lol