Gaining magical power through debt.
Debtors
Minor Charge
Recieve a warning about late repayment of a debt. This can be a letter from a bank or utility or an argument with a landlord. Every discrete incident gives you one minor charge.
Significant Charge
Get into mundane debt that would bankrupt you if you repaid it, or imprison you if you fail to repay it, or mystical debt that would ruin a relationship or injure you personally when it is called on. You gain a significant charge only once for every discrete debt.
Major Charge
Get into a mundane or mystical debt that would kill you when it comes time to be repaid. This can be because you have borrowed from seriously questionable people, or because you have deferred a fatal injury with a significant charge.
Taboo
You break taboo if you either repay a debt by choice, without being forced to by a court or the direct threat of physical injury, or if you run out on a debt, by making sure your creditors cannot find you.
Mundane Debt
This is just like any normal debt. You borrow or owe money, you fail to pay it off, you accumulate interest or fines, and eventually you are either relieved of the debt, by being cut off by utilities or evicted, or are required to pay it by law. If you are forced to pay it by direct court order, you can do so without breaking taboo.
Mystical Debt
This kind of debt is somewhat different. You can borrow a positive effect, such as an increased stat, the goodwill of a person, a fortunate coincidence, or you can defer a negative effect, such as holding off an unfortunate coincidence, a partner breaking up with you, or an injury or illness. In general, one minor charge will let you borrow or defer for one day, and one significant charge will let you borrow or defer for one month.
The sort of things you can borrow or defer with mystical debt are the same kind of things a merchant can buy or sell with his channels. The difference is that when the time comes to pay it off, you must use another charge to put it off again. And each time you put it off, you will lose more once the time comes to pay it off. You can borrow up to ten points worth of something, up to ten body stat, or up to ten skill points.
Example: You put off an injury for a day. You should have a broken leg, four points of damage, but you need to walk on it to get away from the guy who gave it to you. He has an unnatural check, and you escape. You don’t want to end up losing the leg, so when the time comes to pay it off, you make sure you’re in a hospital. The injury is 10% worse, rounded up, so you get five points of damage.
Example: You put off your wife leaving you for a day. She is mad that you have got them into debt, and she doesn’t want to take it anymore. She’s made up her mind, but cant leave, so she gets a self or helplessness check, or two. The next day she is even more desperate, but you defer again. After six deferments you are unable to repair the relationship, and the wife attempts suicide to escape. You finally stop deferring, and she leaves, never to speak to you again. You have lost her for good, but gained a significant charge.
Example: You borrow twenty points of body (two minor charges), to help you break down a door to escape capture. The next day, you would lose twenty-two points off the improved body stat, but you put it off with a significant charge. After a month, you can’t afford to spend any charges to put off this debt, so you lose twenty-five points in total, adding 10% each deferment,cumulative and rounding up.
Using a Major Charge
The main use of a major charge is to remove all your debt, and leave you with any benefits you gained from acquiring that debt. This is done through a complicated ritual that involves transferring the debt to a third party, like a proxy ritual. To perform the ritual, you need at least one major charge, four significant charges and nine minor charges. When you perform the ritual, you gain a proxy skill, based on the rules for proxies. Every day after this, you get to roll against this skill once to determine if you can successfully transfer your debt to the proxy. If you do successfully transfer your debt, you must kill the proxy within a day, or the debt will rebound to you. If you kill the proxy, the debt dies with them.
This is a little unclear.
If I’ve gotten this right, you can at no cost borrow mystical debt, and in fact charge up from it, and can defer it by spending it.
This seems like a violation of the Law of Transaction to me. Your using mojo to get mojo.
I think that if I had thought about it more before posting, I would have removed the ability to get out of your debt by spending a major charge, and also the ability to charge off mystical debt. But sometimes an idea feels like you might never post it unless you do so right away.
So you would have;
Minor Charge; recieve a warning about late payment, such as a letter from a bank or utility, or an argument with a landlord.
Significant Charge; get called to court, or get into enough debt to bankrupt you if repaid, or imprison you if not.
Major Charge; get into a debt that will kill you if left unpaid, such as with some seriously bad dudes.
Taboo; paying off a debt voluntarily, the only way to get out of a debt is by either avoiding it long enough that the creditors cut thier losses and stop hassling you, or if your wages are garnished by court order, or if the bad dudes you are endebted to physically take it from you. You also break taboo if you run away from the debt, this basically means that your creditors must be able to find you within a week at most.
Magic will still work the same way, you can borrow a mystical debt much like the avatar of the Merchant, and then you must pay it back plus ten percent at the end of the term. You can extend the term of a minor mystical debt once, by spending one significant charge.
This school obviously makes it quite simple to wrack up a major debt, if you know any loansharks at all, and a debt dodger likely would. But what can a major charge do? I haven’t thought of a good spell that would fit.
I think this version is a lot cleaner and more playable.
Well, I’d say you have to spend charges to get into magic debt. make guidelines for costing… this is a good idea, the execution just needs work.
Proper name: Debeomancy
Paradox required.
Proper spells requested.
Major (and perhaps Significant as well) Charge Use: Trade one form of debt for another, presumably worse, one. You really want the guys to stop trying to repossess your house? You can make all traces of the debt disappear if you don’t mind permanent quadriplegia. You want to get rid of your AIDS? Have fun as a bankrupt social pariah.
I really like the desperate flavor of this school – getting yourself deeper and deeper into debt.
I’d suggest breaking it up into five minor formulas (borrow skill, borrow stats, borrow cash, borrow item, and a blast that lets you borrow someone’s health) and five significant formulas (borrow time on a misfortune, borrow position/friends, borrow magical effects, borrow servitude of a demon for your time later, and a significant borrow blast).
And for each one, specify how let adepts spend charges to delay the results but the interest goes up another 10% each time you do.
You’d generate charges by borrowing material things (and taboo on paying material prices), and use them to borrow mystical things (no taboo there).
That’s how I’d do it.
Anyway, I really, really dig this school idea. Bravo!
^ nice, TedPro.
I don’t see how one could improve on the minor and significant formula’s you’ve presented.
You can spend a minor charge to borrow skills, stats, health or cash. Up to ten points, or a thousand dollars. You can only do this once per category, per week. After a week, you have to repay, or use another minor to extend the deadline a week, increasing the interest. You can use a significant to borrow one of these things for a month, instead.
You can spend a significant charge to borrow named items, time on a misfortune, position/friends, magical effects or the service of a demon. You can only do this once per category, per day. After a day, you have to repay, or spend a minor charge to extend the deadline another day, increasing the interest.
I should add that you ought not borrow straight from the ether, you have to borrow from someone. But you can choose to borrow from a single person, or from people in general. If you borrow from people in general, there is no effect, you just get whatever you want to borrow, and repay it when the time comes. If you borrow from a single person, they will lose it for as long as it is borrowed. When you repay it, they do not get the interest back, only the initial amount, the interest is lost. This lets any of the formulas be used as a blast, taking skills, stats, cash, whatever, off a person, and they must deal with the consequences. However, with magical effects, you must borrow from a single creditor. When you borrow a magical effect you must first have witnessed them using it, or they must be about to use it on you. For a significant charge, you can take it from them, and they will lose the amount of charges that it required. You can only hold one spell at a time in this way. When you have to repay the debt, they get thier charges back.
See, a blast formula called “Pay the Piper” or “Knee-Capper” makes sense, too. Or borrowing a moment of their time, causing them to stutter physically. Or borrow their attack and give it back to them (so the blast is based on the damage you’ve returned to them).
More importantly, “borrowing” something against someone’s will, particularly without any intent to return it, is ah actually not borrowing. It’s theft. Like kleptomancy.