[UA] [UA} The UAest profession ever

[Matthew Rowan Norwood]

Harper's has a fantastic article this month about insurance adjusters. I
believe that this profession has come up on the list before (and isn't
that what the guy does in Fight Club?), but reading this story has me
all riled up to include these guys in a UA campaign.

Think about it: their whole job is to determine the dollar value of a
human life. They have knowledge of medicine and the law, which aid them
in their investigations. They go around, interviewing everyone who knew
the person who just died (or the building that just burned down, or
whatever), trying to dig up dirt. The article talks about adjusters in
terms almost identical to the OU ("Twenty-five years ago there was an
esprit de corps. Adjusters were... they were social misfits and
outcasts. The industry was full of extremely colorful people who had
certain problems."), and it has an amazing UA paragraph where one of the
adjusters being interviewed talks about his mentor:

	"A guy in his sixties. Bow tie. He looked like Howdy Doody. 
	I'm embarrassed to be 	seen in the same car with him. He 
	would go into the bathroom, look in the mirror, comb his hair, 
	and say to himself, 'John, don't ever change, Mr. America.'" 
	Ed mimics, rolling his hands over his hair before pointing 
	both forefingers out cowboy-gun style. "Crazy. But he was a 
	great adjuster. He made great settlements."

The Plutomantic tie-ins are rich, but it works even better in
conjunction with the idea of a debt-based school of magic like the one I
half-heartedly tried to suggest on the list a few months back. These
guys try to "even things out" after an unpayable debt has been incurred.
Their job is to translate one kind of "value" to another, preferably in
an exchange rate favorable to their employer. This is closer to the
Merchant, in fact, than it is to Plutomancy. Mr America, avatar of the
Merchant, who can translate life into money... and vice-versa.

More than anything else, though, this provides a great basis for a
campaign. I hadn't quite figured out how to frame my food-based
campaign-in-planning (which I WILL post soon, really), but this clinches
it: the PCs will be adjusters who work together, travelling all over
doing adjustments for insurance policies in the food industry.

-Matt Norwood

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