In the World of Darkness there is a hunter group called "Network Zero" that is dedicated to gather information on the supernatural and expose their existence to the world. Could such a concept work in the Dresden Files. A character who wants to convince the entire world that the supernatural exists. Here is a concept for a character.

Shawn Vernen
Template: Pure Mortal
Power Level: Submerged

High Concept:

Intrepid Reporter On The Supernatural

Shawn Vernan is driven to expose the supernatural existence to the world. He feels that the  ignorance of the human populace makes them victims to the creatures that are out in the world. He's a reporter pure and true and believes in freedom of speech and the American way and that the supenaturals have NO RIGHT to remain hidden and use their powers to subjugate humanity. To that end he seeks supenatural events and reports on them, distributing his "Evidence" through secure internet sites, YouTube, underground newspapers, podcasts or other methods of getting the truth out.

Fate Point Uses: His high concept is useful when performing investigation of supernatural events as well as understanding what he sees in the field as well as actions to report on his findings to others.

Compelling Uses: This aspect can be compelled when Shawn gets wind of an excellent chance to investigate and report on a serious supernatural event. This of course can cause him to get embroiled into supernatural events that could be dangerous. It also can be compelled when someone tries to prevent him from publishing a story. As a journalist his duty is to report any and all truth, no matter who might be harmed in the crossfire.

Trouble:

Its a God Dammed Cover Up!

Shawn's actions rubs the wrong way a lot of supernatural groups. His efforts to break the news wide open about the supernatural meets numerous roadblocks. His works are discredited,  serious evidence gets wiped and he's had equipment confiscated by illegal seasure of his hard copies. At times he's been threatened and intimidated by numerous supernatural groups to give up on his muckraking. This only reinforces his belief that the supernatural are corrupt and drives him further.

Fate Point Uses: He can use this trouble to his advantage at times when he takes advantage of the cover ups to protect himself from being discovered.

Compel Uses: This trouble is a Fate Point mine! The storyteller can easily screw over Shawn's efforts by compelling this aspect. Such as "Woah! I've published a werewolf attack on youtube!" and its compelled and the video either vanishes from the site or adjusted so that people who see it think its a fake.

Background

Born the son of a James Vernen, an owner of a small left-wing newspaper business. The business shut down when he was 10, but his father kept the family afloat by working for a larger newspaper in the city. Taught his son the value and integrity of a journalist. A childhood beating by bullies inspired him to take up martial arts as a form of self-defense. Graduated from college and joined as a beat reporter for a respectable newspaper in town. Made a good deal of contacts and connections in the city over the numerous stories he covered.

Phase Aspect: Connections of Spooks and Mooks

Rising Conflict

When on a freelance assignment, Steven Varson followed a mage of the White Council and witnesses him using magic battle and kill a black court vampire. Intrigued he spent months digging and researching, finding out the existence of numerous other supernatural creatures. He decided that it was his duty as a reporter to expose these creatures to the public. Some rough customers were sent to rough him up and shut him up, but he turned the tables on these thugs, surprising them with his martial arts training and escaping. The bad guys then got him fired from his job and discredited, but he still fights to get the truth out to the world.

Phase Aspect: I Fight For Truth

First Adventure:
Tagline: When the Hard Broiled Supernatural reporter investigates a serious of occult murders in the city, looking for the scoop of the century, he crosses paths with an insane Outsider Worshiping Cult seeking to bring their master into the mortal world. There he crosses paths with a rookie police officer Penny Holton, who was captured by the cult and was an intended sacrifice. Using his skills he was able to sneak in and save Penny Holton, expose the cult's activities and get the police to arrest them. Penny awakened to the know, now believes in Shawn's cause and works as his bodyguard and assistant on his cases.

Phase Aspect: Penny Holton, Ace Assistant

Other Aspects:

Phase Four Aspect: I Cover My Own Ass

Phase Five Aspect: A Nose For Trouble

Skills:

Scholarship: +4
Brawl: +4
Investigation: +3
Stealth: +3
Contacts: +3
Rapport: +3
Awareness: +2
Endurance: +2
Resources: +2
Empathy: +2
Discipline: +2
Conviction: +1
Athletics: +1
Lore: +1
Drive: +1
Presence: +1

Stunts:
Let Me Tell You A Story: -1 (Rapport)
I Just Know a Guy: -1 (Contacts)
On My Toes: -1
Hacking Wizard: -1 (Use Scholarship instead of Burglary for hacking purposes)
Martial Artist: -1
High Quality Workspace: -1

Adjusted Refresh: 6

Ok the big and bad thing about mind reading is that it drives you mad because you create a connection to the targets mind and take their thoughts into yourself, blurring the line between your mind and the targets. This of course causes bad mojo as their thoughts become your own as well. However would it be violating the laws of magic to read someone's mind through through a magical object to filter the thoughts from a person's mind. For instance, having an enchanted object like a mirror that can tap into a target's mind and display their thoughts on the surface of a mirror. Or rig some sort of "Magical Radio" and listen to someone's thoughts with it? Technically you're hearing/seeing the person's thoughts in the 3rd person in this case so you won't get the problem with the Madness. But is it still a violation of the laws of magic?

Although its apparently discouraged, the temptation to play a Warlock (Someone whose violated the laws of magic) is something I'ed like players to try out.

The world might not care, but I do have concepts for a number of characters considered "Warlocks" but are not necessarily evil. For instance I had an idea of a Warlock character who uses mind magic to help people, by using magic to treat people with mental illnesses (Basically a Magical Psychologist style character). Other ideas include a Chronomancer historian who uses time magic to witness the past and witness history at various locations.

I definitely can see a lot of advantages of using Mind Magic in combat as well. Plenty of creatures have piles of health boxes as well as stuff like supernatural toughness, healing and the like. The ability to inflict Mental Stress on a target is a GOOD way to take out just about anything that has a mind. Inflict enough mental consequences to "Take them out" and Blamo, you've got an easy coup de gras on an enemy. Although its iffy of what "Taking someone out" mentally actually means. Would they go bonkers or fall unconscious? Mental attacks are also a good way of KOing a target without physically harming them. Although once again confusion comes into the mix of how Mental Damage actually manifests in a target.

The Denarians are interesting antagonists in the Dresdenverse, but are all of them irredeemably evil? In an old White Wolf Game called Demon: The Fallen, not all the Fallen can be defined as "Cookie Cutter" evil. Some were true rebels wanting to spit in the face of God, while others were just "Swept Along" with the rebellion, choosing the side of Lucifer out of Loyality or because his arguments swayed them to their cause. Of course as they say, the Road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

It reminds me of a Demon: The Fallen character I made called Alandriel, Angel of the Soothing Wind. She chose Lucifer's rebellion mainly because many of her close friends did and was suckered into believing Lucifer's word. And thus she got caught up in the Angel War, forced to chose Lucifer's side or oblivion.  The Abyss of Hell, took its toll on her sanity, but after her escape and merging with host, she realized her mistakes and joined the "Redeemers", trying to one day find herself forgiven by God and return to the heavens.

So in the Dresdenverse, are are the Denarians Evil Incarnate or are some just caught up in the flow and truly desire some form of redemption in the eyes of God?

Ok as you know, there are toughness powers that give characters bonus boxes to their physical stress. But what if you wanted to take an ability to represent someone who is either exceptionally "Strong Willed" mentally and/or "Extremely Stubborn" socially.

Could you take a variant of supernatural toughness that would improve mental or social stress boxes? Perhaps even provide some armor of some kind against mental and/or social stress? Now wizards having a low enough Refresh as it is probably wouldn't be able to take this but it could be useful for focused practitioners and sorcerers as it would allow them to cast more spells before taking mental consequences as well as soak more backlash (For the mental version of course). As for "Armor" it would be able to reduce mental/social stress from mental/social effects, but it would be pretty broken if it allowed spell casters to not take the minimum 1 mental stress for casting a spell, so the armor wouldn't work against something like that (But would help with backlash and reduce the extra mental stress for channeling above your conviction).

On the flip side, could one technically take some sort of supernatural recovery for  Mental and Social stress? For instance being able to recover quicker from said consequences?

So in the end, is supernatural toughness only applicable to physical stress or could you take different versions for other forms of stress?

The Gospel of Arares basically has powers that force mages to expend more power in order to cast spells, punish them in some way for casting a spell or disrupt their spell casting ability.

While I am a fan of the Dresdenverse, I am wondering if it is ok to invent some new organizations out of cannon or adopt stuff from other sources (Like White Wolf games).

One organization I'ed like to bring into the Dresden files is the Knights of St George, a fanatical Wizard-Slaying organization introduced in "Witch Finders" in the Hunter The Vigil line (Their organization supposedly founded by St. George the Dragonslayer). They have a pretty interesting backstory. The Knights see all magic as a threat to the world and thus hunt down mages without mercy (Other creatures as well but Mages are on the top of their list). They use Goetic Gospels to counter-magic wizards, allowing them to protect themselves from magical attacks, dispel magical effects as well as hamper wizard spell casting. An interesting thing about this organization is that the higher ups deceive their own members. Most of the organization believe they're doing God's work in bringing an end to the foul works of Magic, and the Gospels are merely special "Prayers" gifted by the heavens to fight magic users. The sinister part of the organization is that the higher ups know where their power really comes from. From entities called the "Faceless Angels", outsider entities who for some reason oppose the existence of magic and are manipulating the Knights to their own ends.

If you were to incorporate such an organization into the Dresden files, it could be just another group of "Servants of God"  on the lighter end of things, to an actual sinister organization of some kind being manipulated from the shadows by a powerful spirit, entity, fallen angel or worse still some Outsider of some kind.

They should have some unique template of some kind. Their powers should perhaps be a 1 to 3 dot refresh (each dot representing a different "Gospel" they've mastered.  Arares allows they to counterspell magic or hide themselves from magical detection. Amon allows them affiict wizards casting ability and Belith allows them to curse spellcasters with maladies.

Anyway what do you think?