My upcoming Libra game is built in the same way as my prior modern urban sandboxes. These games have usually included a patron - a mostly-neutral contact of the PCs who hands them their starting job. At the start of Go Away this was Carne, who had a lead about a technomonarchist bombmaker's workshop. In Rota Fortunae it was Labyrinth, who had heard both about a bit of work for the Vegas mob and about the giant crab currently throwing cop cars into the river.
For Libra, I decided to make this a choice of the players. The reasonable thing to do would've been to make this a party decision, similar to something like marsworms's patrons or grounded sept creation. Vote on your patron and starting job, then get going.
What I did instead was a) make them individual choices and b) make them all hate each other. This will either be a beautiful second layer onto the faction game (where these starting patrons act on a different layer than the four more active, lower-level groups in Libra's prep spreadsheet - none of the patrons are interested in the Philosopher's Stone as they already have, or at least claim to have, unlimited resources and eternal life) or a disaster. We'll see!
(oh, and c) the starting job has nothing to do with any of them and is, instead, running away from a police raid. really none of that plan survived, apparently)
Satan
A toothless smile under a pair of pilot-light eyes. The adversary, who offers you things against your best judgment. Seemingly completely unrelated to the geometric "demons" of the lawful planes.
Wants:
- The Templar corrupted until he sells away his soul.
- A small hurriedly-stapled together book. Whenever you kill someone, their name is added to its pages, and their soul may be traded to Satan instead of your own. He says this condemns them to Hell no matter their actions. C'est la vie.
- A particular golden fiddle returned to him, now that its owner has passed away.
- The points of a sigil set in blood at 5 places in the city.
- A lemure - a 1 HP head-sized, boneless, flying imp. Turns invisible, fits under doors, has a myotoxic stinger. If it dies, it will crawl out from your mouth next time you sleep.
Satan is always happy to make a deal for further rewards - and will throw in one of his gifts to sweeten the pot.
- Freikugeln - a handful (1d4+2) of cartridges. Black-anodized aluminum cases, bare lead bullets, no primer. +4 to-hit, +1d6 damage, starts fires, any humanoid killed with them explodes into a cloud of caustic black smoke that deals 1 damage per round to those inside. If you pull the trigger and Satan would benefit from someone near you being shot, the freikugeln flies off to hit them instead of your target. He promises that this barely ever happens.
- Cigar - tastes like smoked paprika and mint. Provides 1 MD, which is lost as normal on rolls of 4-6. Whenever this die is rolled, it deals damage to you equal to its result.
- Mimic Figurine - crush it in your hand to instantly heal to full HP and ignore all your wounds for 5 minutes. After this, take double the healed damage and a new wound for each one you had.
Characters sworn to Satan begin the game with one of these gifts.
Vampire’s Head
Four-eyed, elongated, and half-charred. The size of a person, carried on a litter by some of his favored descendants.
Wants:
- His body found and returned to him.
- Reward: one of his claws, long as an arm and sharp as a razor (as vorpal sword).
- One of 6 turned into one of his descendants.
- Reward: a wax phonograph cylinder. When played, no sound is made or can be heard within earshot.
- A wayward heir, Islwyn, hunted down and brought to him alive.
- Reward: a cupful of Islwyn's blood. The next step of your transformation.
Strange and unnatural bloods can be traded with the Head for further rewards.
Characters sworn to the Vampire’s Head begin the game as one of its sworn “children” - in direct sunlight their skin chars slowly. Their bite deals 1d4 damage to a target and provides them an equal number of “points” that may be spent on restoring their HP or providing an equal bonus to a roll.
друг
The voice on the phone 🙂. Always a good friend.
Wants:
- The brake lines cut on a green Honda Civic, license plate CFE-7912.
- A note with the words "damaging habit formation" stuck to a streetlight on 16th Street.
- One specific computer in the Cerulean Global building smashed with a hammer.
друг does not mention rewards, but rest assured a package will arrive promptly - as will more work.
Characters sworn to друг begin the game with a shattered phone (usable only to receive calls from друг - you can't call them, but whenever you would want to the phone rings) and two favors owed by друг.
Templar
A… something, under interlocked armor. Humanoid, under the hair and the teeth and the burning wild eyes.
Wants:
- The Vampire's Head as a trophy on his wall.
- Excalibur, granted to the Templar centuries ago.
- The gateway to his home found.
- The secrets of the Templar's posthuman augmentations.
- The nest of the City Bugs cleared.
- An M4 for all of you. Don't tell the ATF.
Templar will continue to trade the heads and bodies of monsters for weapons and ammunition.
Characters sworn to Templar begin the game with a .50 anti-material rifle (+2 to-hit, 1d10) and 10 rounds.
6
Always someone different when you meet - but always the same voice. Collected, far-thinking, sees violence as purely a last resort.
Wants:
- Provide overwatch while another set of 6's agents break in to a penthouse apartment.
- Reward: $6,000.
- Containment Center CATERPILLAR infiltrated, and certain rooms bugged.
- Reward: $18,000.
- друг positively identified.
- Reward: $72,000.
6 will always accept actionable intel in exchange for further reward.
Characters sworn to 6 begin the game with a skeleton key - 4-in-6 chance it instantly and silently opens any door.
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