It ties in super well with the white court archfrenemy, too. Nefarious Peace is their shtick, so if your Knight is all about finding the use/purpose in conflict/war (What
Is It Good For? The aspects write themselves), you can have a lot of tension between two fairly easy to justify viewpoints. It also hooks in perfectly with going from historical set piece to historical set piece. If one of the viewpoints starts getting a little too dominant, you can always just throw them into the reminder of atrocities past from being either too eager for or too avoidant of internal or external conflict. Make the setting itself a mediator in their dialogue. As for the opposites of fire and earth:
If fire is about change, intensity, and growth, and earth is about instinct, intuition, and primal impulse, then the opposite of both of those
could be civilized corruption and orderly cultural stasis.
A lack of liveliness, not just of war. A total denial of life unsanctioned by authority, a cultivated perversion of the wild strength borne by those who have proven themselves through Winter to be worthy of partaking in the fruitfulness of Summer. A sort of metaphysical necromancy extending to the meta-entities that humans make up. Social groups, towns, societies, those group entities that gain their own traits and identities, and are often drawn to a narcissistic fascination with preserving themselves eternally. White Court
Vampires tie into that nicely. Its also a super novel opportunity to explore the white court's vampiric traits outside of anthropophagy. I might actually use that myself, tbh. It sets up a really neat back and forth.
I come from the future. I got to writing a bit of backstory for them to get a sense of where their stats might be, and it just kept coming. I'll tuck all that into a spoiler, since it's only adjacent to the actual stats, but you picked a few really strong themes to link together. It's got so many parallels, and I barely scratched the surface of wikipedia. All of the parallels. All of them.
In their perspective, (this faction of) the White Court's philosophy requires waaaaaaaaay fewer mental gymnastics to justify than, as the spymaster would put it, “the sanctimonious contortions of a death cult, piously pressing poisoned chalices into the trembling hands of their pitiable flock.”
"We were created to shepherd the kine, to humbly shoulder a fragment of Christ’s burden. Where we hold sway, we consume the fraction of humanity that foments chaos and unrest, feeding upon the emotions and individuals that sow discord. Their cities flourish under our hand. Without us, the inmates would run the madhouse.”
They can make the Steven Pinker style arguments demonstrating prosperity. In fact I just realized that this concept is basically just Evil!Steven Pinker. Maybe your spymaster was a mentor of his.
To which William could potentially respond that they gain control, he blinks, and within a decade they're selectively shaping the "pitiful flock" into slaughterhouse-tolerant obedience while/by engineering society to become totally enslaved to lust, rage, fear, and despair. Intuitively the first place I go with that is a stagnant culture that stops growing and just goes through the motions of existing. The population has no life or will left to do anything but writhe underneath the perversely disciplined facade required to maintain their good relationship with their fixers. At least until a culture that didn't do that comes along and takes over, anyhow (perhaps backed by a Knight).
You could probably explore a lot more subtle flavors of (not quite) eternal decay and degradation without the mercy of mortality/death, too. The painful mutablility of growth/death vs an ego driven neurosis for eternal stability is a perennial human conflict. It'll fit just about anywhere if you squint hard enough
Our spymaster would say that the same as the argument for peace (or "peace," if you prefer), it's also easier to make an argument against conflict. Behold, a common privateer causing mass suffering and the deaths of countless innocents. It has to end eventually, someone has to come out top. Better them than a seething cauldron of chaos infecting its way from port to port. It's not like the nobility of the White Court lack food or influence in such conditions. They're just not complete psychopaths "driven by the mystical urge to burn the sacrée campagne to ash. To feed the spawn of a Dragon no less." That the masses could have been so graceless as to confuse them for villains in the face of such opposition is a grave, yet characteristically vulgar sin.
Getting all of those stories about white knights killing dragons going was barely propaganda, according to their records. That success is what gave him the idea for Stoker and the Black Court (and it was his idea, no matter what that Americanized "daddy's girl" Lara Raith says). The Whamps of 1333 simply had to associate the color of their fair Court with a few cherry picked stories about what the Knights of the Cross were doing anyhow. Then they had their boy Edward III make a noble title out of the cultural concept, gave it to the Irish to spite the Welsh, and therefore fed their rivalry to keep them both busy and prevent them from contesting the Whamps' inevitable political victory for another 70 years. Until Owain Glyndŵr and Y Ddraig Aur got involved, anyhow. Adapting the concept to novel fiction was simply a necessity so they could freely leverage such maneuvers of renown without polluting the political titles of their mortal assets.
Besides, does not taking up cause against God's enemies, the Dragons and Swords notoriously being at frequent odds, put one on the side of righteousness? Honestly, losing the identity of Wales to a manifestation of madness itself, even after they had managed to seal it under a castle for a time, reveals a deep sickness crawling forth from the heart of that isle.
And then William calls bullshit, puts him in a headlock, and makes him repeat the last things he said in a victim's bedroom under magical oath. Or however you'd like to characterize him pulling the rug out from under typical White Court diplomatic shenanigans.
You could go back and forth forever, it's a pretty robust duality. Mechanically that could translate into a pair of aspects, maybe even their Troubles, that constantly provide justification for the GM to invoke when they're in the same scene. If the GM prefers a super liquid fate point economy, you could each get as much as a compel every round of combat as their fighting styles conflict. Rather than tossing out mind bullets from behind cover, the whampire spymaster might be compelled to create pockets of stability and control (if not necessarily calmness) so that he can actually influence anything as a primarily social/mental combatant. Then the mystical force giving William his powers subtly influences him to disrupt it, since that's basically why this metaphysical category of energy exists. Not enough influence to overwrite his free will and waste his turn, but he might get tunnel vision on smashing that particular pocket of resistance (and the horrible stillness spreading from them) instead of his actual most rational objective.
If you set it up that way beforehand, you can turn each conflict into a fate point printing session, and as a bonus each encounter become super dynamic as absolutely nothing ever goes to plan. The extra fate points should be enough to punch a refresh or two above their weight class, and with some practice you can even work the compels into a kind of teamwork. When one party member starts getting overwhelmed and has to throw around a ton of power, the other is automatically drawn over to where they're most required. To help. Drawn over to help, they both meant. Totally.
As for why they would ever work with each other...
For William, an optional Faerie tie-in could be an absence of both Summer *and* Winter in an area was bad for their business, so Mab and Titania mutually hired out a Dragon to take care of it as a neutral third party (whatever shenanigans it's using to metabolize both Summer and Winter power without exploding could be an interesting plot hook, and would explain why William isnt himself attached to Faerie). Managing continent-to-planitary scale forces of nature being their day jobs, and Dragons are one of the few entities both Queens know that the other can't bully into favoritism. Downside, they're expensive as hell, so its gotta be a Dragon-scale problem, like the mysterious waning of the influence of nature itself.
After discovering that these dead zones are a Mortal Thing in origin, and therefore beneath a Dragon to handle directly, said Dragon (maybe Y Ddraig Aur?) will put a half mortal scion, Y Ddraig Goch, on the job. Who then subcontracted the job out *again,* to a Mortal(ish) Knight. Ultimately the source of the problem was discovered, and the problem was solved partially by the Brothers Grimm planting the Fae into wide mortal tradition, and ultimately by Walt Disney tempering the Fae directly into the mortal yearning for a hollow, what we would now call plastic, existence.
Yes, Mab did alter the very nature of all Fae to preemptively prevent another Iron style allergy. Have we mentioned that Mab is fucking scary. Downside is that she actually hates the results, and hates Disney for them. Honestly she got off kind of light for doing the immortal version of violating the 2nd Law, and she still pawned off the weakness for mortal "Peace"/stagnacy to the Dragon line feeding off her (and Titania's) power. So they're keeping the vassals around and finding work that they both can agree on. They don't agree on much.
Even as scapegoats for a weakness, it's still a basically free lunch, and I don't think Dragons are metaphysically capable of saying no to offered wealth.
But now Mab and Titania actually have a specific request, and they put it in with his god's god (or his dad's dad?) as that guy's Patron. And it's a request to tell the mortal to accompany some other mortal on some bullshit mortal errand. Y Ddraig Goch will tell him that he's going along with whoever the Queens damn well tells him to go along with, and he'll be ffwcio pleased about it (Take a Compel).
The spymaster, for his part, has been given his orders face-to-face from the head of his house. And not even in that wink wink, nudge nudge way. He actually has to help the mad Knight, or they'll kill him. He even asked directly, like a gawping peasant, to be sure. Le petit seigneur confirmed it. If he is to watch a ship sink, he'll muse with an air of poisoned magnanimity, it’s only proper to help nail the planks together first. He'll do exactly as ordered, and not lift so much as a finger to help when this lunacy reaches its inevitable conclusion.
Which is pretty much exactly the reaction the Archive had calculated from him, and one if the reasons why she gave the order to to tap him in particular for this project. His boss being one of the White Court involved with researching how to kill supernatural sources of power in the Oblivion War, that being the objective their projects over the centuries have been focusing on. This fact is also why Mab is just eating the cost of buying off a weakness, instead making the whamps the first Court to bite it for the audacity.
Getting the Archive of the era to sign on to publishing the Big Book of Vampires was a headache, but promising to shift the mortal conception to "sparkles and smoldering angst" was enough to sway her. Because then the demons inhabiting the corpses can't use it as a tether. Yes, really. YES, REALLY.
Why the Archive and Queens are coordinating to send these two into a series of obviously cursed holes in the ground could tie into the larger plot. Why they specifically chose these two can come down to having an ideal mix of being quasi-local to the plot (situationally if not necessarily geographically), their antagonism towards each other to maximizing the free will they can express from under their templates/mantles/conditions/whatever (at the cost of their personal sanity), all while still having the prerequisite phenomenal cosmic blow-shit-ups to actually get the job done. Also they were already paying for these guys anyhow.
Use all, some, or none of that as you like. It's just what I'm building this around.
I prefer to start at the absolute minimum stats I can thematically get away with, since it's never difficult to figure out how to add refresh if you need to. Mid-fight, if need be. Tactical dings are always crowd pleaser. If the PCs are struggling enough that it's necessary, it'll be easy enough to justify and feel earned. If they need too much of a power boost to justify with DBZ logic... what happened?
What did you do? What did they do?Besides, you'll have a better idea of what you even want with some time in character, anyhow. Starting out with more refresh is just robbing yourself of a phase of growth and a chance to make powerups meanful in the context of the game. At least that's just how I feel
For William that's 6 refresh, to cover Marked by Power and Sponsored Magic. He'll gain Inhuman Recovery for free thanks to the Catch he's been stuck with. I mean, it's
almost free immortality, mostly in exchange for the fact that he's incapable of being stagnant and passive. If it wasn't for the fact that just being around a person who's Withering makes him viscerally uncomfortable, there really wouldn't be any downside at all.
His centuries of experience could be conveyed with 30 skill points and a single skill at the Superb skill cap. You can mix and match the priority depending on the build you go with. This one is focused on up close physical combat with Earth magic "grapples" in the form of enhanced swordsmanship, forcing the enemy to struggle to fend him off and generally aiming for the feel of swashbuckling. It has lots of maneuvers available, and blocks can fend off groups simultaneously while controlling where people move on the battlefield (very important when playing stab-or-swim in the middle of Fuckoff Nowhere, The Ocean). A strong use of the cutlass would be making it a +2 focus to defensive power for Earth evocations. That boosts both a defense and opens up blocks and grapples for aforementioned shenanigans. Just make sure to brush up the grapple rules. They make perfect sense and work super well, but almost everyone misremembers them, which sometimes causes issues.
Probably save Fire magic for times when you just need to blast something, or at least occasions where fallout is probably more of an asset than a liability. You could also go with a folk hero social leader who rouses passion with sponsored Thaumaturgy, a glass cannon blaster caster, or a few other varieties that are workable with only a few swaps/rotations of skills.
Note that Resources is missing because Marked By Power provides a Contact that can roll it for him. The points in Resources that Y Ddraig Goch rolls for him are more about how cheap he's being about the request than an actual restriction of buying power, so consider bonuses for requests along his agenda. Alternatively, take on a point of sponsor debt to make a declaration for anything covered by the Buying Things table on YS322, and seriously consider a roll for more absurd requests. Frugality is one thing, but favors carry significantly more weight than gold to creatures that are
probably capable of casual transmutation. Also, being Dragons, their sense of proportion is totally obliterated. They really are just
that cheap about his requests, and Intellectus prevents them from being taken for fools in such amusingly petty bargains as physical property.
Superb: Discipline
Great: Weapons, Athletics
Good: Empathy, Conviction,
Fair: Endurance, Driving (Ships), Alertness
Average: Presence, Rapport, Contacts, Might, Lore
Marked by Power [-1]
Sponsored Magic (Y Ddraig Goch) (Earth/Fire Evocations and Thaumaturgy) [-4]
Inhuman Recovery [-2]
The Catch (all above): Stagnacy [+2]
Basically no one knows about this hidden weakness of the Dragons of Wales, but it's a hazard they have to constantly fend off. An active lifestyle, strong habits, living with presence and intentionality, and strong connections to worldly matters of power. The strength of natural rulers is literally what keeps them powerful. Artifacts of listlessness and passivity, such as tranquilizers or a social media feed, range from mild discomfort to compels. It can become outright mental attacks against their Discipline if the area is saturated with the aimless and controlled. Likewise, their magic withers to an equal proportion it attempts to wither or ensnare another to their detriment (For example, True Leadership would not fall under this limitation).
I sure hope no archfrenemies he's in constant close contact with ever find out about it. That would be just terrible.
The spymaster may be a bit younger and a lot less experienced, and he'll have the default -7 refresh white court powers, but miraculously his actual refresh is at 8 (to be fair, wiping out a vampire court also bought Harry a point or two). In terms of skills, he's also the type to apply the resources of his house, more than
personally dealing with anything. His skill cap would be at Great, and 25 total skill points. He also used to have a few of Lore feats with Black Court Vampires as a specialty, his intense specialization explaining some of his stunted growth in other areas, but those have been refunded because
everyone with a Lore of 1 knows about them now (or at least the important parts). That "noble sacrifice" didn't buy him as much political capital as he thought it would (man got played hard), so now he's starting to question things. Well, now more than ever, with the ascendancy of
Lara Raith. Sometimes, quietly, to himself. It's a pretty self absorbed and undignified way to have clawed back a shred of humanity, which is probably the most upsetting part about it for him (if he's not just in outright denial).
Contacts to find someone to solve a problem, Contacts to get his yet unnamed family to pay them to do their job, Deceit to lie about why he needed the money. The rest is either basic survival or a hobby. Trying to catch him in information leaks is the name of the game, so they approve the requests to buy more lies from him, hopefully to piece together blackmail material. The fact that mother dearest still makes sure he's sharp after centuries shows how sentimental she is, which is a terrible weakness that he only occasionally exploits.
At least until he got thrown into
a series of ditches with the Dragon Whelp. He's more of a talker than a fighter, but that's still crazy dangerous. Particularly if he can get close enough to touch. Admittedly, less useful against... is that? Oh, good, he previoualy thought that type of Golem was mythical. Adventure.
Great: Deceit, Contacts
Good: Discipline, Presence
Fair: Alertness, Conviction, Lore
Average: Endurance, Rapport, Empathy, Intimidation, Scholarship (18th century Classical Education)
Human Guise [-0]
Emotional Vampire [-1]
Incite Emotion (Touch) (Lassitude, a subtype of despair) [-1]
Feeding Dependency [+1]:
Inhuman Recovery [-2]
Catch is True Engagement (Intentional, acceptable growth/loss from risk. A subtype of Hope) [+0]
Inhuman Speed [-2]
Inhuman Strength [-2]
Thanks for what turned into an unexpectedly fun writing project.
EDIT: Fixed the spymaster's Catch so that it's a precise mirror of William's. Dueling Lifestyles, with one angrily jogging in place while the other inhales a bag of potato chips, both while making unflinching eye contact, is on the table. On an RP level, it's a bit that starts off with punch and has room to evolve as they hit milestones in their partnership. The mutual bullying and resulting character growth can gradually escalate in stages, keeping it fresh but familiar.
On a practical level, the GM has a built in mechanism to bribe the PCs onto the railroad tracks. I mean that's normally the case with aspects and compels, but one of the characters is an accelerator and one is a brake. This is railroad tracks with power steering, but done through excessive bribery so that everyone's happy. The PCs can negotiate about how badly they want a thing to happen/not happen. In exchange the PCs either gain loads of fate points and can exercise very narrow but significant slices of control over specific points in the narrative, or they're driven to
actualize the hell out of themselves/their preferred aspects, so they can spend those tiny morsels of free will to deny their nature (and perhaps start to justify an aspect change down the road). Player's preference, both are fun and keep the momentum going.
