[UA] Your Assignment

[Alex Duncan]

On Wed, Jul 02, 2003 at 09:17:46AM -0700, John Tynes wrote:
> Come up with a scenario seed based on this article:
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/02/arts/design/02STAT.html
> 
> <- John Tynes - john at tynes.com - http://www.JohnTynes.com/ ->
> What is the opposite of slumming? What do you call it when you're poor
> and you hang out in places full of rich people? The opposite of
> "slumming" is "vagrancy." It's a misdemeanor. They arrest you for it.
> 
> 
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> UA at lists.uchicago.edu
> http://lists.uchicago.edu/mailman/listinfo/ua


I really enjoy reading this list, and I've been looking for a good
chance to delurk!  I've never had a chance to run or play in a game, and
I've only read the 2nd ed rulebook and parts of PoMoMa, so I'm not sure
I fully have a grasp of the UA world, but here's my shot at the scenario
seed.  (I'm also composing this immediately after reading Tynes'
challenge and before reading anyone else's-- we'll see how original I
am, or ain't.)

After running a couple names from the article through the Anagram
Oracle, and googling a bit on the results for inspiration, I come up
with the following:

Our magnate is a low-to-middling-level True King Avatar with
considerably less knowledge of the Way Things Work than he _thinks_ he
has.  He has a true mystical connection to his Texas holdings that he is
very much aware of; he _believes_ that he has a similar tie to his
real-estate holdings across Europe and Asia, and that as they increase,
they are bringing him closer to the position of Emperor of the World,
but as an absentee landlord with no tangible ties other than the
electronic flow of cash, he just doesn't meet the requirements of
kingship with regard to them.  He combines a vaguely benevolent
paternalism towards the formerly communist nations with a belief that
extending his protection over them will catapult him to greater power.

His assistant is a self-taught Tyrannomancer, an adept who draws power
from the relics and trappings of authoritarianism.  He can enforce his
desires by creating suspicious coincidences-- the kinds of things that
make armchair conspiracy theorists go all squinty-eyed-- at the cost of
always projecting a personal air of docility and submissiveness.  He
used to scrounge for minor charges by scouring thrift shops for red star
tietacks and other such bricabrac, but he was always on the lookout for
a way to expand his power, and his schemes and research eventually led
him to our magnate.

He presented himself to this somewhat deluded Kinglet as a humble
scholar who had discovered the true ritual behind the ancient Roman
practice of _evocatio_, or extracting the protective deities of enemy
peoples to render them vulnerable to conquest.  He made the case that
this ritual had a peaceful and benevolent modern application, namely,
extracting the spirit of totalitarianism from lands under its sway,
weakening it or preventing it from returning where it had momentarily
fallen.  To do this would require daring expeditions to retrieve
important icons of tyrannous influence, a task which the scholar was
prepared to undertake as his liege's agent.

By expertly playing upon the magnate's vanities, imperfect knowledge,
and overreaching hopes, the adept won his confidence totally.  He now
plies his bogus ritual with the backing of a generous expense account,
bringing home crates full of totalitarian trinkets to a warehouse under
his control, and gaining practically unlimited minors and sigs.  The
statuary garden is just the tip of the iceberg-- each statue was much
more than enough to give him a sig; he thinks he's just a few statues
away from getting a major by completing a grand slam of countries that
were ruled by tyrants in the 20th century.  He's currently angling hard
for a good Saddam.  If he gets that major, he's planning to use it to
transform his benefactor's personality, making him a ruthless and
power-hungry political animal with frightening domestic ambitions and a
weakness for his one favored advisor-- the ideal vehicle for the sly
jackbooter.  (Which might be the nickname for his school, if anyone but
him knew it or even knew that he practiced it.)

Players with a noble streak might be recruited by the magnate to assist
his agent in his quest to draw the venom of Communism from Eastern
Europe-- other players might find money to be a sufficient inducement.

Maybe the players end up competing with the Tyrannomancer for a
particular statue, having heard that it's a powerful artifact.  Or has
one concealed inside of it.  Maybe they reach a tense stand-off, and
eventually agree that the players can carefully cut the statue into
quarters to excise their magick goodie before surrendering the
restorable pieces to the fascist fancier.

Or maybe the players only come on the scene in time to deal with a new
player in far-right politics, one who the local dukes whisper must have
gone through the House lately...

--
"...a pickled soul is _not_ good..."  
  --E. A. Poe, "Bon-Bon"







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