Debt, Gifts, and Offspring

[Obsid]

Something occurred to me along the same lines I was saying earlier. What if he's just trying to raise his progeny the best he can? Outside of the Nevernever he isn't the all powerful being he was. Even if he has greater glamors he can't create something lasting. I suppose it's relatively easy to get the basics, Food and shelter and such, through basic trickery (I.E. Steal it while veiled, pay for it with "money" or make bargains with mortals), but what about the big things? When she wants a car or similar, something expensive and lasting. I imagine it's suspicious to simply drop $25,000 cash for a car these days, especially if it went missing later, and you couldn't just steal it because that might have repercussions later. So the interesting question is, did daddy Fae get a day job?

FaeDad the Illusionist. FaeDad the supermodel. FaeDad the legendary supermodel. FaeDad the actor. FaeDad the alternative Actor. FaeDad the phantom thief. I imagine 3 and 6 would be most likely. Why make illusory money when you can use your illusions to get rid of every defense in the mortal world?

Alternatively, he could have been planning this for a long time. Playing the stock market for a couple hundred years, leaving money in banks and such. When you're immortal, you don't have to be good at investing, you just have to be thorough. Eventually something will pay off big time. (he can get the initial money through any of the means above or more)

[finnmckool]

I would simplify things for yourself and the character. Give the dad a goal. He wants x from his daughter. Make it something the character doesn't want, but maybe even not a necesarily bad thing. Like he wants her to accept her place at his side blah blah blah. Doing so would, of course make her a non-player character. So she doesn't want that. So he gets in Fae tizzy and starts using all the gifts he's given her as a handle on her, the way Mab used Harry's debt to keep him in her clutches until she got what she wanted.

This way you've set up some things. Lots of story possibilities and a fun prod for your characters. A deus ex machina to bail her out if needs be (but SHE owes HIM so she won't want him to but that also means...). A resource NO ONE wants to use, but may if things are bad enough. AND because he's got a specific goal in mind and the debt is just a means to achieve that goal there is the possibility of her doing something that will allow him to release the balance owed.

And an occasional story hook since she owes him, he can literally MAKE her do some things as he wants (like Mab freezing Harry's eye juice or making him stab his own hand, though those might be a bit cruel and overt for a dad).

Don't know if that answers your question but I hope it helps solve your problem.

[tetrasodium]

for the evening in question she accepted a dress and tickets to the event the party needed access to.

spoiler from small favor

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Mother Winter gave Dresden the unraveling and he asked if it was a gift or what, she said no it's a necessity. A Necessity can apparently skirt the binding rules of gifts that apply to fae.  Also mother winter/summer had nothing preventing them from telling him they had no unicorn when he said he was sorry if he damaged their guard/unicpirn even though that information was what helped him realize something incredibly important, possibly setting the record straight also skirts the rules

Another one from changes

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Dresden's godmother goes to visit his place & check on him after he weakens the barrier between it & nevernever by dropping in on her rose garden & leaving a bunch of nifty stuff there under the daisies.  When he gets back later from being interrogated by the fbi she has Susan & roger(?) suspended to the ceiling/walls and tells him that she simply put their demons to sleep when he asks what she did to them and says they were guests.  He himself had not thought about the possibility of putting the demon to sleep but there was not technically a price for that exchange of knowledge(at least not yet) unless you consider it as payment for her "wrong" of assaulting his guests.

Nonspoiler version I think that necessities are able to trump the rules binding fae & that a small thing could potentially maybe cover a small past wrong/breach of etiquette if the recipient could have been considered the host. also it's possible that setting the record straight skirts the rules (spoiler forget the book)

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In addition to the small favor example above harry asks why Mab, The winter Queen of air & darkness would need a translator.  At first she tells him that knowledge is valuable, but when he rephrases himself and makes it clear that the reason he was asking is because he wants to make sure it's really Mab she's able to skirt the rules and partly explain.  You could say that perhaps the knowledge she took from him was the cost of that information, but there was no agreement for exchange and she gives it all back (even though michal/god did at least some of it earlier) saying that he could not have completed his task had she not taken the knowledge to keep him from using fire magic laced with the summer court's power allowing the gruff's track him with it

  definately at least some types of needs seem to be special cases, seemingly those related to the needs of the summer/winter courts. another example

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Even though ummm...Lady summer(fix?) was under a pretty serious binding preventing her from helping Harry even if it was to pay off her debt sold to Charity, but she was able to gibe him the butterfly to keep them warm &supercharge his fire magic as the warmth was a need to keep them from freezing to death & the summer flame was a need so the summer court could get Mab to pull her forces back so summer could retaliate against the redcourt for sending outsiders into their territory.

[Richard_Chilton]

Going with the "using a daughter for a plan", there's an old Mercedes Lackey book where there's a elf lord with a half blood mortal daughter.  The lord is unseelie and a big nasty and at one point his daughter says "Look, there's no profit in that - we aren't doing it".  Then her father took control of her, and her mortal magic (a different flavour than elf magic, able to do different things) and made her body do exactly what he wanted.

How?

Back when she was too young to know any better, he cast spells on her and made deals with her.  When a father asks a 4 year old, or a 5 year old, or an eight year old "Will you do anything for me?" he's going to get a "yes".  If he phrases it right (and what centuries old manipulator couldn't do that?) so he can get her to agree to what he might need her to do then he can get the kid to agree to practically anything and then 20 or 30 years later call enforce the agreement.

Which is a very nasty thing to do to a PC - but a great hook for an NPC villain.  One who doesn't want to hurt people or break the laws of magic, but back when he/she was a kid good old Uncle <blah> got him/her to agree to things and it turns out that Uncle <blah> is a fae or other creature of the Nevernever.  Now he/she has to commit those crimes because Uncle <blah> asked "If I buy you an ice cream, will you help me take over the city?".

As for a source of resources - I can see any sidhe getting all the money he wants.  Would a billionaire pay a million dollars so his daughter would look perfect for her wedding day?  Would another rich man pay $$$$ for the ability to play an instrument/paint/dance/whatever at a world class level (like those poor mortals in the Winter Court swing band Harry stumbles over when he first meets the winter lady)?

And how about just tricking people - Bernie Madoff swindled billions without needing Fae magic to do it.  A good con job can take in $$$$.  In fact, here's a real life example of one that might get hundreds of millions - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_International_Treasury_Control - which (according to one source I found) seemed to be revolving around getting memorandums of understanding on deals worth billions and then getting loans (or selling privately placed bonds) backed by those agreements.

Since money matters to mortals and not to fairies, I see the Winter and Summer courts having slush funds.  A "You want to pay some games with the mortals? Here's some money.  Do you want a hundred dollars? A million dollars? Take what you need" type fund.  Maybe only only the nobles would have access to it, but I can't see the Lady of Summer having to run a con job to stay in that hotel in Summer Knight.

Richard

[dger]

I would absolutely say that ignorance is no excuse.  That is what most if not all fairy tales are about.  Discounting the Disney versions, they are warnings about the fae.  Don't take apples (or other "gifts") from strangers.  Don't fail to invite a fairy or she'll put you into an enchanted sleep.  Don't eat pomegranates in the underworld (not fae, but same vein).
Also, the fae follow rules, but they are FAE rules; incomprehensible to the minds of mortals (or anything else probably).  All that really matters is if the fairy in question truly and to the depths of its soul believes there is a debt.  If the father loves his daughter, there might not be anything.  If she is a tool, then yes everything he has done for her might be considered in the balance owed.
I enjoy playing the fae as almost haphazard and watch my in the know players try in vain to see the logic.  IC, its there even if not OOC.

[JustADude]

I enjoy playing the fae as almost haphazard and watch my in the know players try in vain to see the logic.  IC, its there even if not OOC.

Sooo... basically the exact opposite of the Idiot Ball way most people seem to handle NPCs?

[dger]

I try to pass the idiot ball to someone else a soon as possible.  I fancy my self an author to be (read Jim's live journal, its excellent, Thanks Jim!) so character motivation is very important to me.  Especially NPCs.  If I don't know whats going on with the NPCs, I can't expect my players to figure it out like they should.  Sometimes I get too obsessive about it though.
Any way, on topic, those fae are CWAZY PEOPLE!