I’m burning a Vaylen GMFoN who is a charismatic cult leader, but I’m still unsure how to best translate that to game mechanics. Therefore your input would be much appreciated.
Some background:
The Church of Everburning Love is fastest growing religion on the planet. It is unorthodox offshoot of the Mundus doctrine (i.e. heretics), and unwashed masses are drawn to its message of love, liberalism and social progress. It is headed by a well-beloved patriarchess*, who in reality is a Valen sleeper agent. Unbeknownst to the public the inner circle of the church consists of hardcore zealot insurrectionists poised to overthrow the current government. The inner circle is ignorant of the Vaylen invasion…yet. Local Mundus proper influence is weak, and the heretic church is rapidly becoming a significant player in the planetary politics.
To express this should I burn the character with:
A)
-A reputation, say 3D (Head of the Church)
-Two affiliations, one for inner and one for outer church (3D flock of peaceniks + 1D bug-eyed jihadists)
or B)
-Use ‘I need a Gang or Crew’ rule for the insurrectionists and affiliation for the rest of church, plus the reputation as the head of the church
Now, the Gang rules require a reputation within the gang. It would seem strange to buy two different reputations as ‘head of the church’ and ‘head of the jihad’ since these would be, in effect, the same thing. Could I use the reputation ‘head of the church’ to satisfy the Gang requirement, and still claim it can be used in circles outside the gang of insurrectionists? That is, are reputations always tied to some specific group or affiliation, or can they exist as just ‘general’ reputation?
Personally I’d veer towards option A, since it seems simpler. However, option B would make character’s leadership of the secret inner cabal more concrete. Or is there some option C which I simply haven’t thought of?
The public one should be “The loving had of the church” or similar. The internal one should be “The ruthless bringer of the Fire” or similar. They’d be used for different situations.
I’d use Gang and Crew for the Jihadis… if I want to be able to call on them as needed.
But that’s 7 Circles points!
Reputation 2D Respected head of the peaceful cult
Affiliation 2D Peaceniks of the Outer Circle
Reputation: Inner Circle’s Fiery Leader 1D
Relationship: Senior Jihadi ___ answers to me as head of the inner circle
Affiliation 1D psychotic Jihadis of the Inner Circle
The questions IMHO are:
1st.) Do the radical members of the church accept the church, rather the patriarchess as the head thereof?
2nd.) Are they a splinter group within, or rather like a faction of its own right?
I’d treat it as one affiliation and have multiple reputations perhaps?
3D affiliation “The CoEL”
3D reputation as “The Prophetess of Lurrrrve” (or whatever)
1D reputation as “Committed Leader of Our Righteous Struggle”
Relationship to the next-highest person in the CoEL
[all numbers examples only, no idea how important the cult is or the “scale” of the game]
The multiple reputations concatenate (er I think) with all who would have heard of them, so the die-hards in the inner-circle would know both, whereas the greater part of the flock would only know the first.
If you define the Church as having a violent extremist arm then there’s probably no hassle with Circling up Insurrectionists or Desperate Killers; all depends whether you can sell the other players on it.
Thanks for the suggestions, they are all very good. I think I’ll go with Stormsweeper’s idea, since ruleswise it seems the easiest sell how this character has some disposable martyrs at hand. Besides, ‘The ruthless bringer of fire’ has a nice ring to it, I’m totally gonna run with that one.