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Lowell Francis
United States
South Bend
Indiana
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THE SECRET PILGRIMAGE
So last week I wrote quite a bit on Ken Hite's Night's Black Agents. I'm a big fan of spy thrillers and campaigns. The first 'adult' book I read was Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy in fourth or fifth grade. The first rpg I played that really hooked me outside of D&D was Top Secret. I'm not so keen on technothrillers but I love the combination of the mundane and the dangerous that comes in the best spy fiction and cinema. I like the world of mirrors implied by that. I'll admit that when I first heard that NBA would include elements of the supernatural I was skeptical, but reading through it and seeing the way Hite's framed it really makes me excited. It's something I want to run eventually- with unambiguously monstrous opponents and characters trying to stay ahead of the opposition while trading on their past lives and careers. Anyway this idea hit me and stuck, so I had to get it written down and out of my head.
DEFINING MONSTERS
Night's Black Agents has vampires- but they can represent any of a number of hungry, powerful and control monsters. Other supernatural creatures show up in the setting, usually as secondary adversaries (zombies, werewolves). Of course that got me thinking about the World of Darkness. Some might dismiss NBA as simply a Hunter game, but I think it is better than either the supernatural weird of Reckoning or the loose and cobbled grab-bag of Vigil. It offers a distinct atmosphere. And I'd want to keep that atmosphere intact in my version. NBA suggests that the group begin play with the burn- the moment they came into contact with the conspiracy and it smacked them down. It left them out the cold, isolated and now driven to do something about it. Optionally that may have happened before the start of the campaign- but figuring out who these supernatural adversaries are should serve as the lit fuse.
In some ways this riffs off ideas from a thread about HP from about a year ago. So what if the players discover a cabal operating behind the scenes? A group with a parallel government, one which gives orders to our own. They possess powers beyond those of normal humans, and treat that as a birthright- gifts handed them by destiny rather than earned. They fight, battle and have their wars in the middle of the daylight world- thinking nothing of wiping minds, causing collateral damage, and leaving others to hold the bag. They're wizards, and they are awful people. Even the most enlightened of them use derogatory terms to refer to those without the gift...muggles, or worse. They take for granted their role and position, a paternal control behind the curtain.
They're dangerous, wielding great power combined with a narrow focus on their desires, interests and hobbies. They have access to monsters and relics of massive power, and well ready even the lowest of them present a dangerous foe. Some can teleport, some can shapechange, some can blast your mind from across a room. They can walk among us and not be known.
SHOOT THE WAND
But they are not invincible. They're hidebound- clinging to old tranditions and ignoring the developments of the modern world. This isn't simply a question of ignoring technology, but everything about their culture remains traditional, a hierarchy of noble lines and old powers. Students in their schools are trained in their own history and stories, but almost nothing of the outside world. Beyond that, their training focuses almost exclusively on their craft, the arts and powers they possess. It is a kind of narrowly focused trade education- with no disciplines covering art, literature, the humanities, math, ethics, business sense, philosophy or any kind of training to make them into better people. They're stunted- with an enhanced sense of self based in the powers they've been born with. That's the way the upper echelon of their community want it. A happy class basking in their privilege and not wanting power, responsibility or answers to the why.
Beyond social and intellectual limits- limits to their thinking and planning, the mages operate under practical limits: the need for foci, the need for preparation for some of their more powerful effects, and certain somatic components. They can range from crafty to foolish, depending on their level in the conspiracy. But of course the agents will have to discover that in time.
SNAPE'S PEOPLE
So a couple of things about this idea- first, it would be really easy to set this up as a twist- with the characters "misreading" the world of the wizards and seeing a conspiracy where none exists. That's a little too empty a joke. Instead, I'd like to treat the wizards as a serious conspiracy. If you file off some of the softer details of the HP universe- the structure seems pretty dark. And Voldemort doesn't seem to be that much of an aberration- that in the past there have been similar battles over ideology among their society. Plus, if you stop to consider the sheer power put into the hands of these beings at a young age, without a real set of limitations, then you can see how that might turn out dark. If the GM wanted to stick closer to the original, then Voldemort or someone like him won- and the rest have been purged. I like that Ken Hite offers no good guy or ally monsters in Night's Black Agents, and I think that needs to hold true to make something like this work.
Of course how you do the reveal will depend on whether or not you do this as a one-shot or a campaign. In a campaign, you'll want some misdirection as to what these beings can do- perhaps they do read them as vampires or even psionicists. You'd have to consider the practical limitations of a wizard's power. Some seem potent, while others seem to simply uses wands like guns. You'd have to balance that raw strength against the careful planning and calculation of trained agents. The trick would be to make that satisfying- with the wizards appropriately dangerous. Of course, you'd also have to consider what a cell of the conspiracy looks like. As well, how the determination between muggle and wizard is made: how visible is it? How is it sensed?
Anyway, it is goofy bastardization of the original NBA premise, but might be fun to play with.
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Tyler
United States
Burlington
Vermont
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Having just read The Magicians, this adaptation particularly resonates with me. In that novel, magic essentially gives one a free meal ticket for life, creating the dilemma of what does one do with all that free time and energy?
Invisibly ruling the temporal world seems as good a goal as any.
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Posted Tue Dec 13, 2011 10:18 pm
