ParanetOnline

The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Taran on May 26, 2011, 08:19:28 PM

Title: How does an Emissary contact his Boss
Post by: Taran on May 26, 2011, 08:19:28 PM
I have a player who's an Emissary of a Fae that collects relics.  He's a bit of a cleptomaniac and doesn't often realize he's stealing stuff and giving it to his boss.  I need something that would work relatively fast.  I don't want the player to spend a lot of refresh on it either.

I as thinking, maybe, an item of power.  You touch an item to it and it gets sucked into a Demense in the Nevernever.  It sits there, relatively safe, until an angent of his Boss can retrieve it.

What kind of refresh would that be?

Also, how do most Emissaries contact their sponsors?
Title: Re: How does an Emissary contact his Boss
Post by: Haru on May 26, 2011, 08:29:28 PM
I'd say "it depends", as usual.

True Believers are sort of Emissaries of the White God, they can contact their "Boss" by praying, I would assume, but he is not really answering that way, or at all for that matter.

An emissary of a dragon would probably have a contact address or something like this.

If you want your guy to have an item that let's him send items to his boss right away, go for it. You could simply go with a "bag of holding" style item, that is really a portal to a part in the nevernever that his boss can access. I wouldn't even have him pay refresh, if it is only a one way thing, so he can't pull things out of it. It is just part of the deal with his boss.

Or give him a bag of pixie dust or something similar, and he has to draw a circle around the item with the dust for the item to be ported to his boss.

As long as he does not have any benefit for himself, I don't see the need to pay any refresh. The rest is just cosmetics.
Title: Re: How does an Emissary contact his Boss
Post by: Sanctaphrax on May 26, 2011, 08:30:35 PM
By phone.

By email.

By telepathy.

By courier.

By conveniently-located Nevernever Gateway.

Whatever seems appropriate. I'd recommend using tiny messenger faeries (like Toot-Toot but more professional) as couriers. Maybe give them the Worldwalker power.

I see no need to charge refresh for this.
Title: Re: How does an Emissary contact his Boss
Post by: EdgeOfDreams on May 26, 2011, 08:33:28 PM
I ran a character who was sponsored by The Great Phoenix but didn't know it.  All he knew was that he'd died in a fire, came back to life, and his magic worked differently ever since.  Eventually, he realized there was some external entity granting him power, so he did a thaumaturgical ritual to get in touch and have a face-to-face meeting.

As for a more direct, faster way to contact a boss, I'd say that you probably shouldn't need to spend refresh on that.  A good boss is keeping tabs on their emissaries anyway.

Some options:

* Do a summoning ritual, but with more of a "please show up" rather than "you WILL show"
* Call the boss's true name, or part of it.
* Changes Spoiler:
(click to show/hide)
* Have a magic item provided by the boss. This wouldn't take item slots or refresh, it'd be more like a plot device or mundane equipment. It'd be the magical equivalent of a mob boss giving his underlings a cell phone number they can use to reach him.
Title: Re: How does an Emissary contact his Boss
Post by: devonapple on May 26, 2011, 08:37:16 PM
I don't think there is any sort of mechanic for this sort of thing. You and your player can work it out however you think it best. Fae (especially high level Fae) seem to be always listening, so it may not need to be that hard to contact one.

Quote from: EdgeOfDreams on May 26, 2011, 08:33:28 PM
As for a more direct, faster way to contact a boss, I'd say that you probably shouldn't need to spend refresh on that.  A good boss is keeping tabs on

Exactly my thinking.

If you want more rules, Invoke/Compel the "Emissary" Aspect this player took. Does your player want his Fae Lord to show up to provide some weight or other support? He pays a Fate Point. Is your player busy with something unrelated to his Fae Lord? Would it be dramatically poignant to have his Fae lord butt in or throw in a distraction? Compel the Aspect and give the player a Fate Point. Can a relatively simple objective be complicated by the Fae Lord giving the player an additional objective, like "make sure I get X instead of that other guy" or "while you're meeting with your police contact, hide this inconspicuous twig in the soil of the police chief's desk plant" (sympathetic link)?

As for passing on items: the Fae Lord could have any number of Fae underlings, like Pixies, Malks, Brownies, what have you. A savvy criminal dealing in stolen items will have a whole network set up to pass an item on from a blind drop, using several intermediaries, so you don't really have to put this all on the player: just have him drop it in one of a set of predetermined blind drops.
Title: Re: How does an Emissary contact his Boss
Post by: Bruce Coulson on May 26, 2011, 08:47:41 PM
In Nomine (Steve Jackson Games) had some suggested rituals for getting in contact with your Superior.

Basically, spending time engaged in activity that supports the interests of the sponsor had a chance of attarcting the attention of your 'supervisor'.

So, whenever enough items are 'liberated', the Sponsor appears and collects them.  Mind you, the PC may not know they're meeting anyone important at the time...
Title: Re: How does an Emissary contact his Boss
Post by: skakid on May 26, 2011, 09:07:32 PM
When you talk about collecting things for a "master" I immediately think about the show Reaper.  The main character was supposed to capture souls for the devil and return them to hell.  He did so by dropping them off with an intermediary. . . a demon working at the DMV. 

I'd imagine you could have an underling working at some other sympathetically linked location be the drop off point.  For example if it was a Summer Court Fae your player might have to drop them off at a Nursery with a greenhouse that was excessively lush even in the dead of winter.
Title: Re: How does an Emissary contact his Boss
Post by: InFerrumVeritas on May 28, 2011, 02:11:34 AM
My Olympian Emissary summons Hermes by putting a letter in his post box.
Title: Re: How does an Emissary contact his Boss
Post by: paul_Harkonen on May 28, 2011, 07:18:21 AM
As has basically been the response thus far "Any way you want".  There is no reason why calling your boss to report in, deliver items or otherwise generally just check in should require a point of refresh.  That said, if you wanted a character who could call upon his or her boss in combat (or other conflict) situations that would be very different.  You could certainly assign some level of refresh to calling upon your boss to save your life, or help you escape, or SMITE THINE FOES! (or whatever else you wanted).  But just a phone call home probably doesn't need any sort of special power.
Title: Re: How does an Emissary contact his Boss
Post by: Bubba Amon Hotep on May 30, 2011, 02:26:45 PM
One of my players is an Emissary of a Dragon.  Contact so far has been:

Cell phone
Random Payphone
Dreamings
Hearing Voices
Subtle controls of the players body.

IE: Why did my character just pick up the newspaper and flip to the article about Blah and start reading.  "Okay boss I get it"

I also play on the belief that once you are marked by power and begin to channel that power granted to you.  It is a direct link to your soul.  You are a puppet on a string, free thinking (most of the time).  But still a puppet.
Title: Re: How does an Emissary contact his Boss
Post by: jadecourtflunky on May 30, 2011, 03:16:07 PM
I have a character who is the emmissary for a very old, weak god who lives in his sword.

Try a constant Demense where the boss lives if (s)he is a nevernever liver, or mundane means if they're this world.
Title: Re: How does an Emissary contact his Boss
Post by: Chris_Fougere on May 30, 2011, 06:46:30 PM
Quote from: devonapple on May 26, 2011, 08:37:16 PM

If you want more rules, Invoke/Compel the "Emissary" Aspect this player took. Does your player want his Fae Lord to show up to provide some weight or other support? He pays a Fate Point.

Man, I've been screwing over my Winter Knight PC (we're not strictly sticking to canon) by having him at Mab's beck and call without compelling his High Concept.  I'll have to make it up to him somehow and then run it as a standard compel from here on out.  I don't know why this never occurred to me so thanks:)  Maybe I'l retroactively give him a FP or two because he's in a hurting position after a nasty encounter with the PC White Court Vamp he butted heads with (it ended up with him both occurring debt to Mab, rutting with the vamp on a bathroom floor and completely out of Fate Points).