Cameron Delacroix, Excrucian Deciever

Cameron Delacroix is the oncoming storm, the great terror that reveals your sins, the death of angels, and the heart of the Excrucian War on Earth, and the great boogieman invoked by the Imperators to frighten their powers.  He is these things because he chooses to be these things, because he has defined himself thus.  Those who speak his name in frightened whispers, who speculate of his coming and what that will do, unknowingly invoke, and participate in, the Dark Tidings of Cameron Delacroix, and thus summon him.  So terrifying has this possibility become that many no longer refer to him directly.  He is only "him," or "the trouble."  Even this has become a euphemism for Cameron Delacroix, and so now some people just discuss the Excrucian War rather than discussing him, ie "I worry that the Excrucian War is going badly.  I worry that IT might come for us soon."

His flowers are Vervain, the Key of the Dragon, and the Star of Bethlehem, the Key of Burdens. He bears his abhorrent weapon, One Truth, also known as the Windflower Blade, which carries within it the heart of Sebastian Saint-Smythe, whom the blade is destined to destroy.  He rides on his terrifying skyship, the Dreadship, and is served by his prophet, Thomas the Mouse.  No Imperator hates him more then Meon and Joktun, for he regularly undermines the power of Scorn and Desecration in the world, by making the mocked beloved, and by making the ruined sacred once more.  According to whispered rumor, Cameron has wounded Azrael, but none have yet noticed where.

Meon, Desecration's Regal

Today I cleaned the shield of Nuri, a brash and noble Power, who found his own answer to the Windflower Law. Cutting forth his atman, he bound it into a shield, decorated with his love’s Design, as a gift for her. His body would forget her; his Estate would forget her; but he would be with her always. It hangs in Meon’s halls in Locus Entropy. I do not believe his Ramona ever learned of its existence. Such are the ways of life and love.

—from the Thought-Record of Martin Cravitt 

“My lord,” the Dominus said, “I have done no wrong. Driven no one mad. I was not present at the scene. I used no power.” 

Lord Entropy’s eyes narrowed. Two fngers moved slightly, against the stone. Meon lifted his eyes from Lord Entropy’s hand. “The Locust Court grants,” he said, “that it was not you but the portrait that broke the crowd; and in some sense the artist, who captured too truthfully your inner self.” He glanced back at Lord Entropy, but the fngers were silent. After a moment, Meon continued, 

“The Court recognizes the salience of your point. It should comfort you to know that the portrait and artist shall both share your fate.”

—from the Thought-Record of Hugh Rosewood

“Do you love me?” I asked, when our time was done.

Diamanta leaned her head back to look at me. “Is that why you think I come to you?” 

“Why do you, then?”  

She looked down. “I committed a sin I cannot bear,” she said. “Tis is my expia tion.”

—from the Tought-Record of Desecration’s-Regal Meon

Lord Entropy has many servants. He has three extremely competent Powers — Meon, who is the Power of Desecration; Baalhermon, Power of Destruction; and Joktan, Power of Scorn

Meon cannot possibly be as bad as people say, because if he was, then there would be nothing left for virtue in this world. There wouldn’t be any point in anything, in even trying, if Meon were as bad as people say. 

And I’ve never noted him explicitly as doing harm. I’ve never seen it, never heard of it, never obtained an authoritative documentary reference to any cruel and monstrous thing that he has done. He doesn’t even have his own wing of the palace; he isn’t part of the government of the evil world. He’s just there. 

But I’ve seen him. I’ve seen a photograph of him. I’ve seen his smile. So I know why people say what they say. I’ve seen his smile. He keeps all the worst things in the world in that smile, behind that smile, like he’s holding them all back. Like he’s holding back all the worst things that could ever happen, all the time.

Sometimes it seems that the thing Meon holds back behind his smile —the thing he is struggling so desperately to keep inside him, to keep from leaking out into the world — is the realization of Lord Entropy’s dreams and desires. Sometimes it seems he is not so much Lord Entropy’s Power as his jailor. When it most seems like that is so, Meon has unpleasant days in turn.

He could be that thing which makes things discordant with themselves and the entire world, the thing that rips and ruins, the thing that is the worst face of every monster in the world. He could be that. He maybe even might be that. But for right now, he holds it back. He holds it back, so maybe he’s fghting it. Maybe on some level he’s trying to do good. But I don’t think that’s why. 

Meon is the god of defilement; he is the Power of Desecration. 

And it seems to me that he is leashing himself because it is more pleasant to him that people desecrate themselves, and one another, and their own holy things. It seems to me that he is choosing not to be so very great an evil as he ought to be, as he could be, as people say he is, because he loves how very wicked people are, even without Meon. 

--Jenna Katerina Moran, "Nobilis -- A Field Guide to Powers"

The Camorra of Vancouver

Negotiate a Deal

0 or less: Walk away with something you didn’t want and a huge debt to the Camorra. Good job!
2: You negotiate a deal and you get something useful, but you’re not sure if it’s precisely what you wanted.
3: Maybe you didn’t get what you wanted, but the Camorra always like a sucker. You’ve made friends with them! Good job?
4: You negotiate a deal and get what you wanted, but it comes at a cost.
6: Your streetwise impresses the Camorra. They look forward to working with you again.
7: You negotiate a deal and get what you wanted, and you manage to outwit the Camorra enough that your payment seems minimal.

Troubles, Tools and Bonds

• The House Always Wins (Trouble -3): You must face this trouble if you attempt to out-negotiate the Camorra and gain some kind of benefit without any real payment. The Camorraalways wins in the end. This has the backing of Lord Entropy’s power, so the -3 also acts as an Auctoritas against miracles to get something form the Camorra for free.
• Anything for a Price (Tool +2): If you are willing to pay the Camorra’s price, they can definitely improve your chances of finding anything illegal or illicit to help any mundane effort you might have. They have girls, they have boys, they have blue-skinned space-princesses; they have guns, they have explosives, they have ritual blades; they have booze, they have drugs, they have doorways to lost dimensions. If you want it, if its forbidden, someone can work it out for you. The bonus doesn’t apply to negotiation, but to any other mundane effort

Rajani Jones, Dark Marchessa of Coffee

Rajani is not a Vancouver native, but is instead darkly, dreamily, exotically American.  Rumors swirl around the mocha-skinned beauty: She came from the American South and sacrificed her soul to the Dark, that she and Abigail Ng were ferocious rivals or the best of friends, that she broke the Windflower Law for the world famous Yukimura Yuji, her prophet and lover, that she sacrificed her hometown to the Camorra in exchange for protection from some dread crime.

Rajani is certainly a very attractive and successful African-American woman with two degrees, one in business and one in philosophy, who is often the most popular girl in the room.  She's as hot as an espresso, as sweet as ice cream, and as strong as the blackest coffee in the darkest of dawn.  She serves the Dark, and often worked closely with Magnus Carter on previous occasions.  With the death of Abigail Ng, Rajani dropped all her plans and took the first flight to Vancouver, where she plans on getting some answers.

Rajani's flowers are the Lotus, the Key of the Descending Angel, and Chamomile, the Key of Something Romantic.  Her anchors are Rebekah Jones, the ghost of her dead grandmother, Yukimura Yuji, her prophet and the greatest barista to ever live, and Starbucks, which is her temple.

Peng Lai, where dreams come true, the Chancel of Kirin

Properties of Peng Lai

• Everyone has a purpose
• Destiny shapes all lives
• Doubt will destroy you

The Geography of Peng Lai

Peng Lai is a great mountain in a still, sun-set sea, with great clouds rumbling above its peak and a lazy, perpetual rain. It has a picaresque quality, like a fantastic painting brought to life. One can only arrive at Peng Lai by boat, which leads to a great gate and wall. One must pass the gate and then travel the 10,000 steps to reach the top of the great, craggy mountain, and only there, at the top, can one petition Kirin herself to grant your destiny. The path taken is called the Pilgrimage and one must necessarily encounter the whole of Kirin’s estates and Powers along the way in some fashion.

The Poison of Peng Lai

Something rots at the heart of Peng Lai. A great crack runs up the entirely of the mountain that has split the temple at the top itself. At first, it was barely perceptible, but it grows worse. Something blackens the plant life and the water, and sometimes, off the beaten path, terrible beasts roam. Not everyone sees these things, but they always flicker at the edges of your vision. This is the manifestation of the poison of Peng Lai, which Kirin claims is the result of some attack on her domain and her estates, perhaps the act of an Excrucian, or perhaps even treachery by Lord Entropy himself (for he is Dark and Kirin is Light). The poison can infect and wound those who stay in Peng Lai via numerous possible paths, but only one vector for infection is certain: If you give into your doubts about Peng Lai, you’ll be poisoned. This definitely includes a player asking if “Will this poison me?” Just asking such a question results in the poisoning of your character. The severity of poison depends on how deep one has traveled into Peng Lai, and manifests as a wound.
Other possible ways to become poisoned may include (or may not include!):

• Accepting food/help from strangers
• Suffering the scorn of others
• Drinking the water of Peng Lai
• Accepting a lie as truth
• Acting in a way contrary to your true dharma
  

XygXygl "Budd" Zardoz, the Repentent Destroyer, Baron of Immigration

Excrucians have launched wave after wave of attacks on Earth, but few were weirder than the time they brought aliens. First, they arranged for the death of Zeta Reticula, among other worlds, and then enslaved the desperate, homeless refugees and hurled them with excrucian-powered weaponry. Budd led one of these attacks, wielding one of Zeta Reticula’s most lethal weapons. Alas, Deirdre and Magnus combined forced to fend off this attack, the first working with the Power of Science (who wielded Occam’s Razor) to prove that the Zeta Reticulans really couldn’t be attacking, and then Magnus turned the engines of economy and hype to popularizing the attack. Through their efforts, mankind was saved and the Zeta Reticulans reduced to jokes and tchotchkies.

As Deirdre waded through his armada, her red blade glowing with disdain, Budd made sure to surrender to her. Deirdre brought her to Peng Lai and cast the war-criminal before Kirin’s throne for judgment. When she demanded to know why he shouldn’t be brought before the Locust Court for serving an Excrucian, Budd claimed he had only his race’s best interests in mind. Kirin understood this and judged that he should serve her as her power: He would save all of humanity by taking them away from this doomed world and to other, safer worlds, far from the threat of Excrucians. In exchange, she would allow him to move the refugees of dead worlds, including his own, to Earth. When humanity was safe, she would allow him to be free once more. He graciously accepted slavery as preferable to death, and gained the Estate of Immigration to better serve Kirin.

He works now to repair the harm his armada dealt to the fabric of Earth’s reality. His Reticulan Conspiracy works tirelessly to ferry people to and from the world. The conspiracy vanishes people from the world, bringing them to a safer world far from the Excrucian war. They also go to dead or dying worlds and brings the desperate back to Earth. Many of them congregate in refugee camps at the base of Peng Lai until they can find some secret nook and cranny on Earth into which they can secret themselves.


Despite his good works, the Powers and Imperators of Earth remember well that he once served an Excrucian and continue to question his motives. Can we really trust the aliens he brings with him? Have they been properly vetted? And are the people of Earth being safely taken care of? Kirin assures everyone that everything is fine, but many people are suspicious of Budd, despite his claims to be a true Earth-man now, having even taken an Earth name (borrowed from one of his abductees).

Budd serves the Song of the Wild; His flowers are the Wild Rose (The Key of Something Different) and Gorse (The Key of Something Enthralled).  His anchors are the Reticulan Conspiracy and his Interstellar Death Engine and flag ship of the Reticulan invasion, the Arc of Extinction.

Immigrants

Budd brings a variety of important races with him into Earth as part of Kirin’s exchange program of hope and redemption. They’re not technically anchors, but they often serve Budd’s purpose. Among others, these include:

Gnomes

From a dying world full of rich greenery, giant bugs, mushroom houses and colorful, twee deciduous trees, Gnomes have escaped the dread hand of the Excrucians to make their way to Earth. Budd often holds them up as an example of model immigrants, as they’ve integrated fairly well with humanity. They’ve found a place in the gardens of mankind and employment in the banks of Zurich. Often, when humans discuss gnomes, they universally imply that gnomes are jewish. This is a stereotype! Most gnomes might be jewish, but there’s quite some Buddhist and LeVayan Satanist minorities among the gnomish populations
Rules of Gnomes:

• Bond: Gnomes are adorable +1
  
• Bond: Gnomes are very good with money +1
  
• Affliction: Gnomes turn to stone while a human looks at them 2
  

Steampunks

Not all aliens from other worlds aren’t human! Steampunks come from a world that’s dying of airship piracy. Starvation, war and general collapse have turned the world into a vast ruin of decaying monuments, badlands and deserts full of lost cities and toxic smogs that hide the land. They came to Earth recently, and have mostly settled into the Pacific Northwest. Some have mistaken their technology and style as a fashion trend and begun aping Steampunks, which the Steampunks consider offensive cultural appropriation.

Rules of Steampunks:

• Bond: Steampunks look great +1
  
• Bond: Steampunk technology is beautiful, wholesome and impractical +2
  

Zeta Reticulans

Hailing from Zeta Reticuli, they mounted an ill-fated invasion in the early 20^th century, under the threat of Excrucian extinction, who employed robotic inquisitors to ensure that the Zeta Reticulans obeyed his will. Since the failed war, wiped from humanity’s memory, which remains only as audio-recorded thought records that some have mistaken for a radio play, the Zeta Reticulans have taken up residency in the world, where they serve in Budd’s conspiracy, helping to transport humans off world, often leaving duplicates or tracking devices in the humans that remain. They also work closely with the governments of the world to give them new technology (and, it must be said, those governments often use Zeta Reticulan assistance to maintain power)

Rules of Zeta Reticulans:

• Bond: Zeta Reticulans are small, weak and ugly +2
  
• Bond: Zeta Reticulans are smarter than humans +1
  
• Bond: Zeta Reticulans experiment on others +1
  
• Bond: Zeta Reticulan technology is dangerous, frightening and powerful +2
  

Abigail Ng, Saintess of Tea

Ah, here she is, the tragic Abigail Ng.  Who is she?  Where did she come from?  What happened to her?

This post has no spoilers, not even after the jump, because she's too central to offer any information on.  She's on par with a few other figures who won't even get a post at all.  But I can tell you a few things about her.

Background

British archeaologist Matilda Carter believed that a secretive “tea blossom cult” existed in on some lost island off the coast of China, and that this cult had a direct line to God. Her obsessive pursuit of it put her in the cross hairs of the guardians of the cult, the Five Divine-Beasts. One, the accomplished and handsome Ng Sin-Feng fell for her wit and beauty and sought to bring her into the cult. Another, the sinister Li Xuan, saw a danger in her and demanded her destruction. Kirin whispered her judgment and spoke of the destiny of Matilda Carter, that she and Ng would bear her a child that would become her heart and saintess. Li Xuan declared “This must not be,” and was exiled from Peng Lai by Kirin.

To fulfill Kirin’s command, Matilda and Ng married and moved back to Britain to raise the child.
Abigail was born beneath an auspicious sign of the pheonix and enjoyed a well-heeled British life, thanks to her mother’s lingering fortunes and her father’s mysterious wealth. Her father raised her in the ways of the tea ceremony, and her mother raised her as a proper British lady. While they journeyed off to China to prepare her entrance into the cult, Abigail was left in a boarding school, dreaming of a new life for herself where she could decide for herself what she wanted to be, rather than being forced to live up to her parents’ legacy.

On her 16^th birthday, the time of her sacrifice came and she journeyed with her parents to China to become the saintess of the Tea Blossom Cult.

Unwittingly ascending to godhood didn’t set well with Abigail. She understood it. She felt as though it had always been there, but she found it unduly interfered with her life. And so, in a fit of teenage pique, she left England when she turned 18 and chose to study journalism in the University of British Colombia. She remained duty bound to serve Kirin, though, and so Kirin shifted Peng Lai to connect to Vancouver, embedding Sun Yat Sen’s garden throughout Vancouver’s history.

She was found killed in an abandoned warehouse by an unknown assailant.

Notes

Abigail's flowers were the Alyssym (the Key of Something Spiritual) and the Gorse (the Key of Something in Thrall).  She had the Cult of the Tea Blossom (with both Sin-Feng and Xuan) as her (known) anchors.  She followed the Song of Heaven, for Abigail sought to make the world a better place.

Ng Sin-Feng

Li Xuan

Deirdre Brooks, Bodhisattva of Education

Dierdre Brooks worked very hard to earn her PhD (in Education, with a thesis on “Epistymology and Education: On knowing when something has been taught” and when something has been learned) and it launched her from the world of mere mortals into the magnificent world of academics, where she had always yearned to be. Only there, she discovered that she was locked in an endless wheel of dissertation, publication, argumentation and lecture. She realized that she learned nothing and knew nothing. So, she abandoned her lofty position and wandered the world.

She studied in the secret laboratories beneath the Rocky Mountains she found data without context. She sought knowledge in the sacred libraries of the vatican and found only dust. She meditated with mystics in India and found empty babbling. She journeyed further east until she found her path blocked by endless ocean, and a single island, and upon the island, a deer. She sailed to the island and clambered the winding paths of its mountain, always following the strange deer. Finally, the deer stopped by a fountain in a cave, and bowed its head.

“You may drink,” it said “But you will forever be burdened with wisdom.”
Suddenly, all became clear: the context behind the data, the meaning of the dusty books, the truth in the babbling, and the purpose of the fountain. “I know what I came to know.” She said, and the deer became a kirin and bowed its head

“Then you should teach me.”


And thus, was Deirdre enlightened. Kirin became her student and offered the Estate of Education as her payment. Deirdre came back down from the mountain bearing a new great work: The Eightfold Path to Smarter Living: the Art of Self-Engagement, a wondrous treatise that laid out the steps necessary to improving ones life. But though the wisdom contained unparalleled wisdom, those who followed its precepts needed a teacher, and Deirdre became that teacher, for she had transcended her professorship and became something greater: a life-coach.

Dierdre follows the Song of Light, and her flowers are the Vervain (the Key of Something Powerful) and the Alyssym (the Key of Destiny Fulfilled).

Kirin, the Koi Goddess, the Light Magister of Tea, Immigration, Education, Etiquette, Koi Fish and Rain

The Chinese Unicorn, the k’i-lin, is one of the four animals of good omen; 

the others are the dragon, the phoenix, and the tortoise. 

The Unicorn is foremost of all the 360 creatures that live on land... 

Its appearance foretells the birth of an upright ruler. 

To wound the Chinese Unicorn or to come across its dead body is unlucky. 

The span of this animal’s natural life is a thousand years. 

-Jorge Luis Borges, the Book of Imaginary Beings

No Imperator is more beloved of Vancouver (and perhaps the world) than the beautiful Koi Goddess, Kirin. She is your dreams made flesh. She descended from her Island that Isn’t, the Mountain of Dreams, Peng Lai, and brought with her the promise of a better life. Her passage makes turns peasants into kings. A wish in one of her ponds can give you the most loving of wives. Invoking her name can substantially improve your efforts to find the cure to dangerous diseases. She has been worshiped throughout the world in a thousand small cults, by those who would be kings, or who would fall in love, or simply those who wanted a better life. Even so, the goddess of Rain struggles with a tragic existence. Peng Lai has been poisoned and cracked by saboteurs unseen, and now her precious Abigail Ng has been taken from her. Torment is often visited upon her, and she makes no secret that she believes this comes from her opposition to many of Lord Entropy’s Laws:

• The Windflower Law: We must all learn to love
  
• The Chestnut Law: We must learn to forgive
  
• The Rule of Man: Humanity deserves our respect.
  
• The Rule of War: Why must we make war on the Excrucians? Has none tried to understand their grievance?
  
• The Crowfoot Law: Makes us all complicit in Entropy’s tyranny.
  
• The Code for Humanity: Let humanity be as they would be.
  

Thus far, she merely voices her objections, but she has begun to grumble that Lord Entropy seeks to destroy her.

She has three powers.

• Abigail Ng, the Power of Tea, who was always destined to be Kirin’s power, who brought solace to the the tormented Koi Goddess. She’s taking Abigail’s death pretty hard.
  
• Bob, the Power of Immigration, a Zeta Reticulan who has forged a pact with Kirin to evacuate doomed humans from this world and resettle them elsewhere. In exchange, she allows him to smuggle aliens onto Earth.
  
• Deirdre Brooks, PhD and the Power of Education, a Bodhisattva who transcended both life and academics to become Kirin’s most potent power.
  

Her Flowers are the Lotus (the Key of the Descending Angel) and the Star of Bethlehem (the Key of Something, Changed Forever)

The Nemesis System

The Nemesis System

Properties of the Nemesis System

• The Final Law: All Things End
• The Law of Laws: Laws have physical weight, and must be followed.
• The Law of the Black Sun: Only the truth may be spoken under the gaze of the black sun.

The Shape of the Nemesis System

The sun has a sinister twin, the Black Sun, the Occulted Star, which orbits at the rim of the Solar System. The Black Sun, also called Nemesis or the "Apocalypse Clock", travels on an elliptical, and its pertubation can send asteroids and comets cascading down upon the inner solar system. Nemesis, thus, determines the end of the world.

The detritus of slain worlds circles the yawning mouth of Nemesis, and the bones of dead civilizations decorate these free-floating boulders and world-fragments. Upon these, Azrael resides, gazing upon her Black Sun and waiting to be called to End All Things.

The Nemesis System houses

• the Crossroads of Worlds
• the Library of Truth
• the Gaming Underworld
• the Tomb of Azrael

Zee's Achievements

Zee fundamentally views the world as one would view a game.  She would even argue that she, and all other powers, are but characters in a larger game, and if the whole world is nothing but a game, then she can have profound control over the very fabric of the world itself, to shape it into what she thinks it should be.  Using the dark wizardry of the Konami Codex and spending days to concoct the right rituals, she has managed to weave a certain dharmic magic into the world, one which can empower her own ambitions and power, but one that can empower anyone's ambition and power, if they understand them and accept the Zee's premise that life is but a game.

This magic takes the forms of an achievement.  By accomplishing an achievement, one gains sudden dharmic weight.  Achievements lend meaning to the meaningless and that meaning can translate into the ability to move one's life forward and in a direction one wishes.

Anyone playing in the Price of Tea in Vancouver may choose to pursue achievements.  Successfully gaining an achievement grants you a single point of destiny that can be spent on any project you wish, however you must also fundamentally accept Zee's premise, which means any project that benefits from achievement destiny can be manipulated and controlled by Zee herself.  She promises that any changes she makes will be awesome and a total blast, though, so I'm sure you have nothing to worry about.

The Achievements

Bastion
-Suffer a divine wound without dying

Blue Rose
-Give or recieve true love's kiss

Call of Duty
-Defeat an Excrucian

Capitalism
-Collect one million gold pieces

Crusader King
-Earn a Title

Dark Souls
-Condemn one soul to hell

Girlfriend Rescue
-Rescue a princess or be rescued by a knight

Love Plus
-Go on an official date!

Orcs Must Die!
-Kill one million enemies (humans, mannequins, robots, demons, zombies, etc)

Portal
-Unlock a bonus stage!

Progress Quest
-Complete one Project

Starbound
-Set foot on a new world in the world tree

Time Splitters
-Travel through time

Witcher
-Speak a Word of Power

Yahtzee
-Roll a critical success!

Zee, the Marquesssa of Gaming

Ada McQueen had little time for life, preferring to lose herself in her beloved video games. Then she died.  The aneurism struck her in the midst of an epic, record-breaking gaming marathon.  As her body slowly cooled before the glow of her CRT, to the chiptune music blaring from her speakers, a yawning void opened behind her and Azrael, angel of Death herself stepped forth.

“Be thou not afraid” spoke the Angel with a voice that shook the earth itself “I am come to escort you to your final resting place.”

Zee suddenly sat bolt upright “Wait,” she said with furrowed brow “Don’t I get to challenge you to a game for my soul?”

And the angel did roll her eyes in a most exasperated manner and gestured dismissively with her bony hands and did say “Choose thy game, Mortal.”

Zee grinned and said: “Tekken Fighter Instinct Ultra: Hyper-Tournament Omega Edition – Limited.”
Only one copy existed.  With flashing fingers, Zee promptly defeated Azrael, who dashed her controller to the ground, drew herself to its full, majestic height and with the voice of a roaring ocean, did say unto Zee “Only by the whims of fortune was thy victory earned.  Also, Mortal, thy father did lie with a whore to bear thee into this world.”

Zee nodded patiently and said “So, double or nothing?”

Thus did Zee claim the Estate of Games and became Azrael’s second power.

Her rise has not been without controversy.  Zee believes in rules, but only in the rules she chooses to accept, and she prefers to have fun than to perform her obligations.

She has set aside the old “boring” games of yesteryear, like Chess, Checkers, Parcheesi and Monopoly and, in fact, her rise to Power has come with an equal rise in status for video games (allowing them to “rise to art”), and a new phase of boardgame/RPG development divorced from its past, while the old form of games become “solved problems” to sufficiently complex computers, gnawing at what it means to be a game.  This has earned her the ire of the old guard of her Estate, including the Black Bishop, a bane of her own estate who conspires to remove Ada from power and return the Estate back to Azrael.

Meanwhile, Zee was the first true gamer girl.  With her rise to the very essence of what it means to game, every other girl who wanted to “be a gamer” had a saintess they could bend knee to, and many did.  A cult grows up around her while the Inquisitors of the Old School, or the “Grognards” as some call them, serve the Black Bishop and make quiet war against one another.

They are not the only, for Zee’s reign has been tumultuous, marked by wars of consoles and even wars of fandom. For Zee is not only the Goddess of Gaming, she’s also a fan of gaming.  When she accepted her Estate, when Azrael introduced her to the other Imperators, Kirin bestowed a fragment of the shattered estates of Fashion, something new and unseen before: the Estate of Cosplay, and Zee enthusiastically embraced.  It forms a core element of her power now, giving her the ability to change into any video game character (though, for some reason, she only changes into a female-version of male video game characters).

Zee's flowers are the Star of Bethlehem (the Key to Something Changed Forever) and the Wild Rose (the Key to Something Different).  She follows the Song of the Wild.  Her Anchors are the Cult of the Gamer Girl, and the Gaming Underworld is her Sanctum (and the source of her opposition, the Black Bishop).

Estate of Cosplay

-Cosplay is the most beautiful form of fandom (3)
-Cosplay is totally impractical (1)
-Cosplay tries to bring fiction into the real world (2)

-Cosplay is just a fad; it cannot last (1)

Deadwood, Marquis of Death

Walter "Deadwood" Fitch was a good-fer-nuthin' low-life, good at poker and bad with whiskey until he met a good christian woman who refused to back down when faced with his nonsense, so naturally he did the only thing he could and married her. He enjoyed his quiet life on a ranch, living a reasonable life until the Devil came, and took his bride away from him. So naturally, Walter did the only thing he could and went to rescue her. Faced with the power of Bhaal and his minions, Walter was soundly defeated, but not before stealing a precious treasure from the Devil, which he traded to Samuel Colt in exchange for crafting a revolver that could kill anything. So armed, Walter Fitch killed the Devil, but it was too late. His wife had been dragged to hell.

Lord Entropy arrested Walter Fitch and dragged him in chains before his court, for Deadwood had violated the law “Be as I would have you be,” and mortals should not, as a rule, be killing Imperators. But Azrael beheld Walter Fitch and his deeds and proclaimed “Lo, he follows a higher law!” and when asked what higher law he followed, she replied “Mine,” and took him as her Power. Thus, he fell under the Chestnut Law, and the death of Bhaal was no more than seven times worse than the kidnapping and enslavement of a wife but, frustrated at being overruled, Lord Entropy declared that if Fitch freed his wife, then he would be in violation of the Chestnut law. To serve the Imperators of Earth, Walter would have to give up his mortal life and accept his role as Death.

Deadwood has three anchors: the Colt, the Nameless Horse, and Persephone Cross (his ex-wife, separated by Death).  His flowers are Vervain, the Key of Something Powerful, and Mimulus, the Key of Something Restless.  Deadwood, particularly beloved by one or two of our players, has his own playlist.

Azrael, Angel of Death, Games, Void, Truth and Bridges

"Not so," the eager Poet said;

"At least, not so before I tell

The story of my Azrael,

An angel mortal as ourselves,

Which in an ancient tome I found

Upon a convent's dusty shelves,

Chained with an iron chain, and bound

In parchment, and with clasps of brass,

Lest from its prison, some dark day,

It might be stolen or steal away,

While the good friars were singing mass."

-Tales of the Wayside Inn, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Azrael has existed for as long as most other angels remember. She did not participate in the creation of the World Tree; instead, she stands ready for that day when the World Tree must perish. She has stood as one of Lord Entropy’s most ardent supporters and one of his most ferocious warrior in the Excrucian War. Azrael does not answer questions about her origin or purpose, merely fixes those who ask her with an unwavering gaze, usually shortly before they die from remaining too long in her presence.

Azrael doe not care for mortals. They are too ephemeral, too minor, to concern so universal being as herself. She refuses to create any Powers other than the one she always creates: the Power of Death, her personal, private Reaper. Any mortal she takes as a Power must necessarily become Immortal, for they cannot die without her permission, and thus they will not pass until she withdraws her Estate. Recently, one other mortal has acquired an Estate from Azrael: When Azrael came to claim Zee’s soul and guide her to the afterlife, Zee challenged her to a game in exchange for her soul and won, thus for the first time in centuries, Azrael has more than one Power.

Azrael makes her home in the Nemesis System, the hidden black star that orbits the Solar System at a great distance, whose pertubations send comets raining down into the inner system. The Nemesis System houses the Plaza of Bridges, the True Library, the Gaming Undeground, and Azrael’s Tomb.

It should be noted that though Azrael appears in female form, she does not refer to herself as female, but as “We,” and this current appearance is relatively recent, perhaps a reflection of taking on Zee, or in response to a prophecy in graphic novel form.

Azrael's flowers are Vervain (the Key of Something Powerful) and Oak (The Key of Something that Hasn't Changed)

Estate of Death

-Death ends things (2)
-Death is terrifying (1)
-Death comes to all things (1)
-Death brings both grief and peace (1)
-All men are equal in death (1)
-Death leaves a corpse (and other evidences of its passing)

Domain Miracles of Death

1. Finish off something that doesn't matter. Frighten someone. Kill off someone who is on the verge of death (Mercy killing). Speed the grieving process or help someone get over an event. Inflict a surface wound with a little bit of death.
   
2. Know something about the death of someone just by looking at the corpse. Talk to corpses or ghosts.
   
3. Make someone even more frightened of their death. Bring death very swiftly from something that could kill (a nick kills someone). Make the grieving process intense and all-consuming. Make a death really easy to investigate, or make a battlefield particularly messy.
   
4. End someone's life instantly. Conjure up the fear/specter of death for nothing. End something immediately (such as a fight).
   
5. Know how someone will die. See moments that surround future deaths or funerals. Ask the dead generally useful questions. Prevent someone's death, or prevent the end of something. End the grieving process for someone (but prevents them from moving on). Remove someone's fear (or their fear of death). Remove a corpse or evidence of a death. Animate the dead.
   
6. Change how someone is destined to die, the hour or the form of death. Ensure that death can come even to the immortal. Make something more lethal on a wide-scale (paper-cuts can kill, in San-Francisco)
   
7. Kill everyone in a city or a region. Kill an immortal. End a vast movement or principle, such as “killing a civilization,” or “the Death of Punk.”
   
8. Prevent the death of everyone in a vast region. Remove the fear of death from a huge portion of the populace, or ensure that someone never fears death again. Make someone immortal (so that they will never die).
   
9. Chart the deaths of large scale things, such as when and how the American way of life will die. Shape someone's destined death to a ridiculous scale, in a way that ensures that they will end up somewhere (“You are destined to die during the colonization of mars”). Shape how an immortal is destined to die. Animate an army of the dead. Bring the dead back to life.
   

Persona Miracles of Death

1. Make someone a little spooky. Make someone a little corpse-like. Make people a little more equal. Make someone leave additional evidence of their passing.
   
2. Become any corpse. Be present at the moment of anyone's death.
   
3. Make yourself terrifying. Bring yourself to anyone. Make yourself the equal of others. Leave more evidence of your passing.
   
4. Make someone else terrifying. Bring someone to you. Turn someone into a corpse-like creature. Make someone your equal, or the equal of others.
   
5. Become present in any corpse, at all possible deaths. Make a corpse appear fresh and alive. Make someone not particularly scary. Create inequality between people.
   
6. Make someone undead or a ghost or a reaper (“Guardian of Death”). Make death follow someone and kill those around them. Teleport to someone from across the world. Make even the whisper of your name terrifying. Make yourself the equal of immortals.
   
7. Teleport someone from across the world. Make someone epically terrifying. Make someone the equal of immortals.
   
8. Prevent a nation from grieving. Prevent a genetic lineage from even leaving a corpse, ghost or any other sign of passing.
   
9. Make someone a local death god. Tuck a city/nation away into the world of the dead, as a salvation for the passing dead, with a cult of reapers to protect them.

Estate of Games

-Games have winners and losers (1)
-Games are governed by rules (2)
-Games always have an element of uncertainty (1)
-Games are fun! (2)
-Games challenge their players (1)

Domain Miracles of Games

1. Make a situation a little more fun, a little more abitrary, or a little more chancey.
2. Know the rules to any game, even abstract “head games.” Know where the nearest game is. Find a specific game.
3. Make a game last longer. Make a gamer harder to win, or make a game even chancier than usual. Enforce fair play.
4. Declare that events are “really” a game (fun, governed by rules, chancy). Create a new game out of nothing. Create a new player out of nothing.
5. Declare that a game is boring, or nonsensical, or its ending already known. Excise players from the game. Remove rules from a game. Learn something about the larger world or the future by playing a game.
6. Shape a game's destiny so it is bound to encounter a particular person. Shape the results of a particular game (who will win, who will lose, what the outcome will be). Transport a game from one culture to another (“Monopoly has always been Japanese”). Redefine the rules of a game. Shape a specific game (as in, a particular copy) so that it can grant special powers to its winners. Make it so a person is destined to win or lose a particular game (or all games).
7. Create an entire line of games or a franchise out of nothing. Create gamers out of nothing. Declare a vast set of ongoing events are a game and follow the rules of games (such as a war), making them largely fun, fair, etc.
8. Wipe out games from an entire region.
9. Make a specific game deeply important to a religion or a nation. Make gaming sacred in a city (like Vegas or Monte Carlo or Tokyo). Make the result of a particular game something like gaining magic powers (“Those who manage to finish Amnesia: the Dark Descent can become immortal”). Manipulate the rules of war, or the rules of etiquette, changing a game on a large, metaphorical sense. Declare someone a winner or a loser of something more abstract (like a game of love, or a war)

Persona Miracles of Games

1. Make someone slightly more fun to hang around, or force them to follow one particular rule, or conjure a random set of events for them that irritate or amuse them.
2. Be present in any game. Show up inside of a video game. Suddenly turn up at any gaming table.
3. Make yourself fun to be around. Surround yourself with uncertainty. Declare particular rules apply to you. Become a character from a game. Follow the rules of a particular game.
4. Create a geas for someone, a rule that they are required to follow. Declare a particular element of someone's character as uncertain. Declare someone fun! Turn them into a character from a game (not making them a specific character, but giving them qualities like someone from that game).
5. Make someone dreadfully boring. Remove the rules that govern a person's life (such as the rule that gravity affects them). Remove an uncertainty of their character. Make a video game character real by kicking them out of the game. Kick people out of games.
6. Make someone a “true gamer” giving them a deep connection and/or skill with games. Make someone the denizen of a game, bound to that particular franchise or lost within the game. Allow a video game character to interact with the real world. Connect video games and the real world via a portal. Become an extraordinarily powerful character from a game. Follow extremely powerful rules (such as immortality, or admin-rights to a city's world-space)
7. Turn entire cities into video-game like spaces, or turn everyone around you into a game-like qualities. Make a region fun, or follow arbitrary rules, or fill it with chance.
9. Make someone an enormously powerful denizen of a game. Make a permanent, region-wide connection between game and world, creating a cultural connection between the two.

Estate of the Void

-The Void is the space where something could be (2)
-The Void hungers to be filled (2)
-The Void is home to very strange things (1)
-The Void is without form, substance or qualities (2)

Domain Miracles of the Void

1. Expand space a little, making something a little farther away. Draw things together. Show a glimpse into the weird. Create a blast of wind/shrapnel from a sudden void-pulse that causes surface wounds.
   
2. Know a creature of the void just by looking at them. Know the distance between things. Sense a nearby void.
   
3. Make the pull of an emptiness very intense (or the strength of an implosion very great). Make the things within a void even stranger. Make a void last longer than it naturally would.
   
4. Create a vast, suffocating emptiness that threatens to kill everyone in it (local only, but often has an area effect). Creating a vast emptiness where someone was is a Deadly wound, creating a vast emptiness around everyone is a area-scope Serious wound. Summon creatures from the void.
   
5. Fill an emptiness with... something logical (closing bullet wounds, for example, or filling a room with air). Allow a void to have form, quality or substance (but you cannot define what it is). Learn something from spending time in an empty space, by listening to silence, by staring at the darkness between stars.
   
6. Change what strange creatures live in a particular, local void. Change what is destined to occur within a particular void. Transport a particular bit of space/emptiness to another place. Create a gulf between two people emotionally. Fill someone's heart with emptiness.
   
7. Summon vast armies of unnatural creatures. Erase a city or a vast chuck of landside or a mountain. Create a world-shattering implosion.
   
8. Create a planet out of nothing (filling a vast with void with something. Cannot define the planet). Give a vast area of space (such as the solar system) a particular unique quality (such as ether, or space-warping capabilities)
   
9. Change the destiny of a vast area of space's destiny (“The home of the Arquillian empire!”).
   

Persona Miracles of the Void

1. Make someone feel a little empty inside, or a little hungry, or space out a little, or attract weird things to them.
   
2. Be present in any void.
   
3. Make yourself filled with strange monstrosities. Make yourself hunger greatly and able to devour nearly anything. Remove some specific form or substance from yourself (“I am without that specific substance”) such as purging yourself of poison, or removing your eye color, or removing defining elements about you.. Be insubstantial.
   
4. Make a hideous monster erupt from someone (likely killing them). Make someone feel empty and a great yearning to be filled (physically or emotionally). Remove undesired qualities from someone. Make someone a place where something else can be, allowing them to be insubstantial.
   
5. End someone's hunger. Give someone qualities or fill them with substances they did not have before (though you cannot define them). Become one with the space of the Solar System.
   
6. Make someone a bizarre denizen of the void. Give someone the ability to survive, even thrive, in a void. Become able to spill out great armies of monster. Become able to devour mountains, or even worlds, to fill your endless hunger. Remove emotional or abstract qualities from yourself.
   
7. As 6, but to others.
   
8. End hunger across the world. Give everyone in a city undefined/uncontrolled qualities.
   
9. Make someone a god of the Void. Make a city a denizen of the void.
   

Additional Estates

Estate of Truth

• Truth shows the world for what it really is
• Truth hurts
  
• Truth will set you free
  
• You can't handle the Truth
  
• Truth requires wisdom and sacrifice to uncover
  

Estate of Bridges

• Bridges allow you to go from one place to another, unconnected place
• Bridges carry you over obstacles
  
• Bridges grant power to those who control them

The Minimum Viable Session

"This is the sort of thing that kills my campaigns."

I growled that comment over IM to Raoul Roulaux.  As one of my Nobilis players, I think he had a suspicion as to what I was talking about.  We have a good relationship, often complaining to one another, only to get advice on how to solve a particularly sticky gaming problem, and our preferred tactics is asking questions, a habit gained either from reading one too many of Plato's dialogues, or from being veterans GMs.

"What are you talking about?"

"The Reincarnation Engine.  That took forever, and honestly, I haven't finished half of what I wanted to."

"If that's the sort of thing that ends a campaign, why do it?  What exactly is the problem?"

"It's not the Reincarnation Engine specifically.  It's just that I get a vision, and then I can't finish it before the deadline."

"But what's finished?" He asked me.

And I was enlightened.

The Reincarnation Engine, Chancel of Belphegor

Properties of the Reincarnation Engine

• Promises carry physical weight. They can chain someone, they can create weapons, they can even power animated mannequins.
• The power of the Reincarnation Engine depends on the power of the New World Order's machinations.
• Beauty is the currency of the Reincarnation engine. It can be traded, given away, and accepted.
• The Reincarnation Engine hungers.

The Structure of the Reincarnation Engine

The Reincarnation Engine is built in the Earth's future, when it lies rotting beneath a dying sun, after Belphegor's plans culminate in the Rapture that allows for his army to invade Heaven. Thus, the closer Belphegor comes to aligning the future to the one of his design, the more powerful the Reincarnation Engine grows.

The Reincarnation Engine is constructued in six layers, each deeper into the earth and larger the one before, like a buried pyramid.

• The Topmost level, the pinnacle of the pyramid jutting above the dying world, is called The Promise and consists of Belphegor's throne.
• The Second level is called The Principle and consists of Belphegor's Library of the Damned and the Vault of Wonders.
• The Third level is called The Purpose, and consists of the vast machinery that creates souls, the Soul Forge, and then constructs the artificial flesh and metaphysical machinery of the mannequins, combining the two into a new person.
• The Fouth Level is called The Prison, and contains the devilish enforcers of the Reincarnation engine, and a prison that contains rebellious Mannequins, captured gremlins, or stray humans who wandered deeper than they should. The Prison protects the Reincarnation Engine from what lies below, and also houses its greatest secret.
• The Fifth Level is called the Truth and collects the industrial runoff of the Reincarnation Engine.
• The roots of the Reincarnation Engine, the deepest level, has no name (and Belphegor will correct anyone who says otherwise), but its denizens call it Liberty while some the security forces higher up often refer to it as the Lie. It houses the outcasts and offal of the Reincarnation Engine, who have forged their own civilization in its deepest bowels. This lowest level ground the Reincarnation Engine in the dying Earth, and allows it to draw in the raw materials necessary for the construction of Mannequins, as well as providing an outlet for waste products.

Damien Bogsworth, Viscount of Toys, King of Toyland

Belphegor acquired the Estate of Toys by contract, which stipulates that he must honor the laws of Toyland, the seat of the Estate of Toys and a complex world home to a variety of lesser estates. The law of Toyland states that Toyland itself chooses its King, who is also made the Power of Toys. Upon turning 13, the King of Toyland must give up his position to the next king of Toyland.

Damien Bogsworth, the current King of Toyland, refused. The only child of a wealthy lawyer and a doting trophy mom, Damien has lived a life surrounded by the best and most exclusive toys. He’s learned to collect limited edition toys that he leaves in their box (“It preserves their value”), and his parents ensure he has better toys than everyone else, which he uses for leverage to ensure that he’s “the coolest kid in school,” bribing those he’d like to be his friends by letting them watch him play with his awesome toys. His magnificent collection contained such occult weight that Toyland selected him to be the King of Toyland when he was 8.

As his thirteenth birthday approached, Damien realized he had already been replaced and that toyland had selected a new king, Tommy Tinkerton, who would ascend to the throne on Damien’s birthday. Furious at the prospect of losing all the wonderful toys of Toyland, Damien turned to Belphegor, who was all to happy to agree to help him. Belphegor and Damien found Tommy Tinkerton and kidnapped him. Damien keeps Tommy locked up in a dungeon in the bowels of toyland in a magical cage that slowly drains the youth from Tommy and keeps Damien eternally twelve. Soon, Tommy will be too old to be king, and Damien will be the immortal emperor of Toyland.

As the toys of toyland become increasingly aware of these, they have rebelled and tried to free Tommy. Damien has responded with brutal crackdowns and secret police. The toys of Toyland are now divided between those who support Damien’ revolution, enforcers and informants, and those who fight it: rebels and guerillas.

Damien's flowers are aconite, the Key of Rage, and oak, the Key of Something That Hasn't Changed.  He follows the Path of Hell, and his anchors are Tommy Tinkerton, the True King of Toyland, the Pinup Princess, the Great Toy Hoard, and Toyland itself, his Sanctum.

Estate of Toys

-Toys are the playthings of others (3).
-Toys tempt you to use them (1).
-Toys spark nostalgia and fond memories (1).
-Toys bring fun and amusement (1).
-Toys are childish (1).

Domain Miracles of Toys

1. Summon a common toy from nothing, or change one toy model to another, common toy model.
   
2. Know a toy’s true name at a glance. Know everything about an obscure toy. Talk to a toy, get it to talk back, to find out whatever it knows.
   
3. Make a toy even cooler: More fun, more tempting, more nostalgic. Upgrade a common toy to a limited-edition, exclusive, high-end toy. Make a toy physically stronger and tougher.
   
4. Create a toy to spec. Bring a toy to life, so that it’s animated and able to act according to its will. Make a toy enact your will. Give a toy a new function (“Kung Fu Grip!”)
   
5. Use a toy like a ouije board or a magic 8-ball to see the future. Damage or destroy a toy. Strip a toy of its value, or its color, or some of its functions.
   
6. Change a toy’s destiny, what purpose it serves, or how the world sees it. Make a toy haunted, or extremely valuable, or the last of its kind. Make a toy epic, making it immortal, unbreakable, or magical.
   
7. Animate all the toys of a region or a city. Summon one of the Seven Fabled Toys. Create a magical toy from nothing. Create a new genre of toy.
   
8. Destroy all toys in a nation. Destroy a genre of toys. Create an item capable of destroying even one of the seven fabled toys.
   
9. Empower a toy to become one of the Seven Fabled Toys.. Forbid toys from ever entering a particular area.
   

Persona Miracles of Toys

1. Make someone a little more plastic, a little more fun, or a little more childish
   
2. See through the eyes of any single toy. Become a specific toy.
   
3. Make yourself tempting. Make it so that someone remembers you fondly. Become enormously fun. Become a child.
   
4. Turn someone into a toy, or a toy-like creature. Make someone into your plaything. Curse someone with childishness.
   
5. Strip a toy of its fundamental toyness. Remove any fond memories someone has of someone else. Remove all of someone’s childishness. Destroy a toy-like quality of toys, such as making them boring (“An educational toy”), or remove the fond memories associated with them. Become an army of toys.
   
6. Connect someone to their toy. Change who is connected with a specific toy (“This teddy bear is now fundamentally yours”). Bless (or curse) someone so that they can see the true lives of toys around them as those toys come alive in their presence. Bless someone so that they may enter toyland, or that they may never enter toyland. Become a truly epic toy. Create a specific fond memory about yourself and put it into the mind of a god. Tempt the whole world to make use of you.
   
7. Turn someone into a magical toy, or into an entire genre of toys. Make someone into an eternal child. Bind someone into eternal servitude as your plaything.
   
8. Remove an entire genre of toys from your estate. State that all toys within a nation no longer count as toys. Curse someone so that nobody will ever have fond memories of them again, or that nobody will ever have fun with that person again.
   
9. Connect someone to an entire genre of toys, so that they are its king and defender, existing so long as they exist, granting them access to a minor estate associated with that toy genre (like one of the seven fabled toys).
   

The Seven Fabled Toys (and the Thirteen Hell-Toys)

The Estate of Toys is vast. Damien rules over far more than just toys. He rules over the balls that bounce in playgrounds, over the dolls that rest in a child’s crib, the teddy bears that watch over their children as they slumber. The Estate is so vast that no single Power can rule it directly, and the Estate of Toys has seven additional guardians, the so-called Seven Fabled Toys, who act as its lesser gods. When the Estate of Toys is harmonious, the Seven Fabled Toys are the servants and lieutenants of the Power of Toys, and the True Power of Toys approaches an Imperator in total power, his sanctum almost a chancel, and his Estate encompassing at least seven other estates! But Damien has lost control of the Estate of Toys, and the Seven Fabled Toys have fled him.

The Seven Fabled Toys are Spirits of the Ogdoad. They are not powers, but they are like them, only lesser. Each rules over a lesser Estate associated with one form of toy, and has power similar to a Noble, but lesser (typically between 10 to 20 character points, rather than 20 to 30).

Toys do not die, but they do break down, fade or become lost. Thus, in time, even Fabled Toys must leave their estate behind and when they do, a new Fabled Toy rises to take its place. This churn means sometimes the nature of the Estate of Toys change. There hasn’t been a Fabled Toy of Tin Soldiers for a long time, for example. Not all Fabled Toys are listed below, and Snickersnack is not listed here (it’s one of Jack Livingston’s anchors), but is the Fabled Toy of Toy Swords.

The NPCs of Toyland

Dolls

Ace (“Asu”) Daisho

Passions and Skills

Passion: “I believe in Justice” +2
Passion: “I am better than you” +1
Superior Quality: Elegance +1
Skill: Assassination +4
Cool +5

Bonds and Afflictions

Bond: I am the Coolest Doll (1)
Bond: I must protect my sister, Alice (1)
Bond: I serve the Doll-Maker (1)
Bond: I’m in love with Hazel (2)


Background
As a Japanese ball-joint doll, Ace is among the most expensive and prestigious of dolls, hand crafted from porcelain like the rest of his family, the House Daisho. Their prestige means the Daisho family resides within the Great Toy Castle, and often act as the courtiers, body guards, knights or maids-in-waiting for the King of Toyland. When Damien became the King, he allowed the Daisho to remain in the castle, for while they weren’t his favorite sort of toys, he acknowledged and admired their  collectability. Even so, he shelved them, preferring his franchise toys and his Commando Elite.

With nobody to play with, Ace watches the life slowly drain from his sister, Alice. He would tend to her, setting up tea parties for her, or inviting her to some of the most prestigious dollhouses with other Japanese ball-joint dolls, but nothing worked. So, in an effort to prove how fun it would be to play with him and his sister, Ace put himself in service to Damien as an assassin and spy par-excellence, working with the tyrant to take take down the Resistance. But when he hunted one of the Resistance members to Damien’s great vault of Packaged Toys, and Ace saw what an abomination Damien was turning Toyland into. Shortly after, he met the Doll-Maker, the leader of Toyland’s resistance, and he pledged himself to her, vowing to play both sides of the conflict.

Brat

Passions and Skills

Passion: “All the world is corrupt” +1
Passion: “You can change yourself for the better” +3
Skill: Flirtation +3
Shine: +1

Bonds and Afflictions

Bond: I serve only myself (1)

Background
Brat belonged to a tween girl, who didn’t like barbies. Brat was terrified that she’d be discarded and end up in the Dungeon of Lost Toys, but no, her girl changed her. She took a pen and paints and remade her face. She sewed new clothes for her barbie and changed her name to Brat, and Brat loved it. Other Barbies wore prissy dresses and attended dreadful tea parties, Brat got to attend the scene. She turned Ken’s head, and flirted with G.I. Joe, and danced her heart out in a tin-foil disco.

Eventually, her girl grew up and Brat slipped away into toyland. If she’d learned anything, it was that the status quo was broken, but she didn’t have to accept it. She violated convention, crossed boundaries, dated teddy bears and took joy rides with Transformers. She was her own doll, and she was on the look out for her and her alone. If she didn’t like her situation, she’d just change it.  As she strutted about Toyland, she saw whole broken and ruined the rest of Toyland was and felt better about being abandoned: It was all a lie anyway, and she was going to make the best of it.

Teddy Bears

Inspector Bearington

Passions and Skills

Passion: “Everyone lies” +3
Passion: “I want to bring justice to the dispossessed” +1
Skill: Conspiracy Theory +1
Skill: Street brawling +3

Bonds and Afflictions

Bond: I refuse to follow the rules (1)
Bond: I’m in love with Brat, even though I know better (1)


Background
Inspector Bearington used to work for the TCDP, until his instistence on solving crimes and exposing corruption in of Toy City forced Commissioner Gadget to take his badge away for being a “loose cannon.” Thus, Inspector Bearington was cast out into the mean, rain-wet streets of Toy City, where he became a private investigator.

His work for the poor and outcast of Toy City led him to the femme fatale, Brat, and into conflict with that other force against corruption, Commando Bear. He’s begun piecing together a vast web of conspiracies: the sock puppet mafia, the Commando Elite, the All-Former’s disappearance, Percival the Bear Knight, and the rantings of the Mad 8-Ball and he now believes that Damien has made some sinister pact with a devil who has secretly ruled Toyland for years, and through this pact now holds the True King of Toy Land captive and is somehow maintaining a grip on Toyland to become President for Life, but he doesn’t know how to reveal this to the toys of Toyland.

Commando Bear

Passions and Skills

Passion: “Evil must die!” +1
Passion: “If violence doesn’t solve your problems, you’re not using enough of it!” +4
Skill: Commando Bear Stare +3

Bonds and Afflictions

Bond: I must finish my crusade (3)
Bond: I always have enough firepower to finish the job (2)

Background
Once one of the Care Bears, Commando Bear and his friends and family were cut down by a battle between the Sock Puppet Mafia and the Commando Elite. His fluffy belly was ruined, with stuffing spilling out as a pool of growing foam around his still body. The local doll-hospital managed to preserve his stuffing, but not his adorable Care Bear symbol, which had to be cut away and replaced with scar-stitching. Driven mad by the loss of who and what he was, he had a skull stitched into his belly, and took up an armory of toy guns, and began to clean up the streets. His crusade took on religious connotations when he cornered the Sock Puppet Don and nearly died under a hail of gun fire, but was possessed with the righteous rage of the Primeval Teddy Bear. He didn’t defeat the Sock Puppet Don (who managed to get away), but now he believes that he is ordained by the Fabled Toys to clean up Toy Land, and he has his sights set on the highest prize, Damien Bogsworth.

Other Toys

The Mad 8 Ball, Prophet of the Sandbox Wastes

Passions and Skills

Passion: “If reply is hazy, you must try again later” +2
Passion: “Embrace randomness” +1
Skill: Prophecy +3
Skill: Sandbox Survival +2
Shine 2

Bonds and Afflictions

Bond: I serve the will of the Seven Fabled Toys (1)
Bond: My cult can rely on me (1)
Affliction: I know the future (4)

Background
Toyland is a vast realm, encompassing Doll Town, the Teddy Bear Reach, or the Asphalt Courts, full of chainlink and home to feral tribes of balls. But amongst the most dreaded are the desolate Sandbox Wastes. Exiled from Damien’s court for an unfavorable answer, the Magic 8 Ball found himself lost in them, his inner liquids draining out as he stared up at an unforgiving sun, and saw visions of wavering sandcastles in the distance. The outlook was not good: He thought he’d gasped out his last and would be a rattling, desiccated ruin when he looked up and the shadow of the All-Former looked down upon him. He spoke words, in his glorious, Peter Cullen voice, the last words any Toylander has ever recorded: “Without a doubt, you bear the truth of Toyland within you. Spread my word.” And it was decidedly so: The Mad 8 ball sprang to his feet, filled with religious fervor. He scribed new words into his hide, into his answers, and became the mad prophet of the Seven Fabled Toys. Toys from all over Toyland flock to the Sandbox Wastes to try to catch a glimpse of him, and to ask him about the future, and a new religious has begun to form around the All-Former and his wild prophet.

Rubik’s Tessaract, the Preacher of the Lost Toys

Passions and Skills

Passion: “The Puzzle Box is the answer” +1
Skill: Sermonizing +3
Skill: Dungeon Navigation +2
Shine 2

Bonds and Afflictions

Bond: I serve the Puzzle Box (3)
Bond: My words hypnotize (1)
Affliction: I can see a puzzle from all sides simultaneously (2)

Background

Originally just a traffic consultant for Toy City, a hot cars traffic snarl was blamed on him and he was thrown into the Dungeon of Lost Toys and promptly forgotten. As some toys do in the Dungeon, he managed to escape his cell and wandered the endless labyrinth of the Dungeon, trying to avoid ravenous Hungry Hippos and haunted dolls, when he found the Puzzle Box, floating serenely in one of the vaults of the Dungeon of Lost Toys. The Puzzle Box seemed to speak to him, glowing and humming as it floated from the ground. Parts of itself unlocked while Rubik’s Cube watched, solving itself before his gaze, and then unleashing a fragment of its horrifying cosmic truth, and Rubik was enlightened. The world shifted, and he saw it from an impossible new perspective. He knew what he had to do. He took his message to the rest of the Lost Toys, his wild, charismatic sermons hypnotizing them into following him deeper into the dungeon, where they meet the Puzzle Box. Some are devoured by what it shows them, but others are changed, and become as fanatical as Rubik’s Tessaract.