Chain stores, that is.
The big chains speak to you and you alone…. just like they do for everyone else.
There is a magic to the uniformity of chain stores. The monoculture of the big chains unites humanity. We eat the same things, own the same things, and do the same things.
You thrive in the cookie-cutter culture of modern marketing. The big coffee store, the department store that anchors the mall, and the nationwide supermarket are your temples of perfect capitalism. Each store is identical, designed for maximum utility, comfort and profit. The logos are holy, the employee handbook is holy, the product is holy, and the advertisements are holy.
After all, everyone knows they’re ubiquitous and omnipotent.
Generate a minor charge: Spend three hours or $100 as a customer in a chain store. If you spend more than $100 in a three hour period, you still only get one charge.
Generate a significant charge: Improve a chain. You might do this by opening a new franchise, developing a successful new product or promotion, or eliminating a barrier to further growth. Usually this requires working for the chain, but not always – you could get a significant charge by, for instance, killing someone who was suing some chain in a promising class action suit.
Generate a major charge: Found a business that becomes a mahor chain.
Taboo: Buying from an individual or small business is forbidden. If you give money to anyone except a company with at least 100 store locations, you lose all charges.
Shopping by catalog or online is okay, but only if the company also has at least 100 physical stores. You can only go to major chain hospitals, rent or buy your home from very large real estate companies (who have at least 100 properties), and buy products from the big guys. You can still barter or give away anything but money. For instance, if someone was blackmailing you, you couldn’t pay them money – but you could buy them an enormous gift certificate to a ritzy department store.
Symbolic Tension: Chain stores are both personal and universal. Successful chains get and keep market share because they work very hard to provide familiar comfort and an individual connection to everyone in the world, simultaneously.
Random Domain: Pleasant Sameness. To the Master of Chains, every chain store is a symbolic effigy of every other store. Surprise and stress is unwelcome, and often inhibits the magic of a Master of Chains.
Note: For the purpose of this school, a “chain” is any consumer-oriented retail store or restaurant with over 100 store locations. Other commercial establishments (services, hotels, etc.) don’t count for charges, except to avoid breaking taboo.
Blast: The Master of Chains causes all store-bought clothing the victim wears to shrink very quickly and painfully. Depending on the damage, this can cause bruises, construction, or broken bones. If the victim is naked or wearing only homemade clothing, the blast fails.
Charging Tips: Charges are pretty easy to get. If you don’t have to work, you can probably gain 2-3 charges a day. For other adepts, 5-10 charges is about average.
Starting Charges: 4 minor
Minor Formulas
Know Your Customer
1 minor charge
Name a target and a chain store. The next time your vtarget enters any branch of the chain, you’ll know which one, and where, and how to get there.
Company Database
2 minor charges
Instantly know any one fact about a chain store that at least one store manager knows. For instance, you could find out which store a habitual or memorable customer visits, the name or work habits of an employee, or what product is selling best. You must be inside the store to use this power.
Polished Image
3 minor charges
To use this formula, all of the clothes you’re wearing must be from the same national chain – it doesn’t matter if it’s a discount store or a fancy boutique. For the next hour, you get the Soul skill “Well-Dressed” at a value equal to the result of your roll.
Shrink to Fit
3 minor charges
This is the Master of Chains minor blast. It does damage equal to the sum of the dice.
Marketing Copy
5 minor charges
Pick two identical objects at two different stores at the same chain – you must be in one of the stores and name the other clearly. The objects are identical. Anything that happens to one happens to the other as well. For instance, you could have a long-distance written conversation on a set of napkins, or soak a polo shirt in gasoline and light it on fire from across the country. The connection ends when you leave the store.
Significant Formulas
Company Policy
1 significant charge
Only usable against an employee of a major chain where you’ve shopped on the same day. The victim must obey your instructions. Lasts for an hour, or until the victim experiences something that requires a Stress check. (If the subject realizes what you’re doing, it’s a Rank 5 Stress check, and the formula ends after the next command.)
Chain Transfer
1 significant charge
Usable after you’ve bought something from a chain store and walked out without attracting any special attention. You can exit from any other open store in the same chain, worldwide. No one will notice you leaving.
Downsizing
1 significant charge
This is the Master of Chains significant blast. It does damage equal to the result of the roll.
Join the Team
2 significant charges
Fall asleep inside any chain store to take over the body of any non-managerial empoloyee of that chain, anywhere in the world. You have complete control over their body. Lasts until the victim leaves company property, someone wakes your real body, or something requires you to make a Stress check. The victim will have no awareness of what happened, only the aftermath.
For Customer Use Only
2 significant charges
Usable only inside a chain store restroom that is open to the public. Switch the contents of the restroom with those of another restroom of the same chain (and, if appropriate, the same gender) anywhere in the world. The facilities will remain the same.
Major Effects
Become incredibly likeable to everyone. Create a perfect duplicate of a person, place or thing. Cure someone of all madness and stress. Create a thriving store out of thin air. Hire any organization to work for you.
What You’ve Heard
Dale White, a manager for the Scotsman’s restaurant chain, has started studying under a very capable duke who’s a Master of Chains. In practicing the skills he’s learning (especially influence over employees), he has attracted the anger and fear of a local Mak Attax Krew, who believe (pretty correctly) that he’s hijacking their magick for the opposite of its true purpose.
Collaboration with the unstoppable juggernaut of awesome, Ralph Lacy, who came up with the idea and let me run with it, write it with him, and post it here.
I really, really, really enjoy the mallrat approach, but I’ll avoid the money-related scheme. Kind of like urbanomancers but not as bound by geography as they are motif – perfect for a Mak crew.
but I’m not sure about the starting a business aspect it would remove players from a game. I’m thinking of alternative charging schemes for significant or major charges.
Perhaps getting a job or a promotion within the job signifies as a sig charge? How about spending a full 48 hour weekend in a mall for a sig charge?
Cheers,
Chris.
I’d like to see the ability to buy online ramped up a little. While the at-least-100-locations is fine, something like Amazon is virtually an online chain store. Everyone knows it- when you think of ‘books,’ you think of Amazon.
Ignore this if Amazon actually has store locations, mind. I’m from the barbarian plains of Australia.
Spend three hours browsing amazon.com doesn’t sound like much of a sacrifice unless it’s amazon.com’s warehouse. I’d insist a tactile element with actual human traffic no online wussiness – you buy your porn when the manager yells at you that this is not a library.
A chain store you can buy food at and eat it before leaving is the yeardstick I’d use.
Wow, lots of ideas! Thanks!
Johnboy, I think you’d have to shop at the Barnes & Noble online store instead. The physical ubiquity is part of the magic. Of course, if you ever have one in a game, and decide to allow Amazon purchases, I promise I won’t come out to Australia just to disrupt your game. 🙂
Insect King, I see your point on the charge structure. The major is prohibitively difficult (which is sort of the point), but I think you’re right: the minor doesn’t need the cash possibility. I think “get a job at a chain store” is too easy for a significant charge – you could probably do that every few days in a big city. I usually assume that a significant charge should require uptime adventure to get, and a major charge requires a campaign worth of planning.
Hmmmm. I think it would work better if the charging was associated with the store, but the taboo forbids you to even enter (or at least purchase anything from) any “big brand”. You get this nice “symbolic use only” feeling for the brand you draw your power from, you get your power there, but you cannot “dirty your mojo” with touching it otherwise. Or you cannot “touch the holy” for mundane purposes, same effect.
Prolly need a different charging structure then…..
I enjoy the aspect of a lonely person just drifting around another bleak, dull superstore with a look of childhood wonder, eyes sparkling, maybe a unannounced giggle here and there.
I think I’ll have a go at a new charging scheme.
C.
Woot! Love to see it, Mattias.
And you too, Chris!
I love alternate charging schemes!
Hey, is this named for the novel by my friend Jess Lebow?
I just meant the spending, but it doesn’t quite gel. So ignore me.
It actually kind of was named after that book!
Well, it was named after the 3.0 D&D Prestige Class in “Sword and Fist”. I don’t know which came first, the D&D class or the D&D novel. I’ll just have to pick up the novel now, too!
Ok, how about this for an alternate charging system:
Taboo: First, obviously, you cannot own any big-name store, stores such as that are for magical purposes only. Secon, you may not buy anything from a big-name store. (With a really strict GM, you may not enter a big-name store outside of the ritualistic context.)
minor charge: Worship – spend 3 hours inside any big-name store without buying anything. It has to be a single store, cruising the mall won’t do. You may not leave, and you must perform a personalized ritual while in the store.
Significant charge: Sacrifice – Burn down one big-name store.
(If you want a softer sig charge version: Ritual – spend 24 hours in a single store, perfoming a longer, personalized ritual)
Mayor charge: Nope, I got nothing. Funding a chain won’t do, obviously. Perhaps – Mayor Sacrifice – Burning down every store of a single big-name chain?
Nice charging scheme, Mattias!
Maybe the major charge could be a greater sacrifice? “Kill someone close to you, in a ritual context, on the grounds of a major-brand store, in a way that somehow helps the brand as a whole.”
Difficult, but not quite impossible.
Another option would be to leave the major charge blank, up to the GM, unknown by the player. Makes for an interesting game.
Query:
What does it take for a victim of Company Policy to realize that they’re being controlled, mechanically?
This school is awesome, by the way–I’m definitely making a note for any global campaigns I’m in, and also getting a little short story inspiration. Who knows?
Thanks again, TedPro.