As with all magic, you don’t gain charges for things you do magically. The debts are in service of the magic, not the other way around.

Taboo: Sociomancy has two related taboos. If you ever cash in on any of the favors you’re been promised, you lose all charges. Similarly, if you ever owe a debt yourself, or even express thanks or gratitude for something someone did for you that you didn’t pay them for, you lose all charges.

Symbolic Tension: Sociomancy deals with the give and take of a healthy society, while simultaneously undercutting the health of that society. It is a selfish generosity: giving without sharing, helping without caring. You gain by pretending that you don’t need.

Random Domain: Entitlement. Sociomancy can manipulate others (especially toward a sense of debt or shame), improve your standing, or free the Sociomancer from the constraints of societal expectation.

Minor formulas

The World Owes Me
1 minor charge per $100 value

You call on your entitlement to gather some physical object in the world. This will be a non-unique object, and will appear in some out-of-the-way place nearby that you can find with about a minute of searching.

Guilt Trip
1 minor charge

Ask someone to perform a small favor for you. If it would be inconvenient, expensive, or risky, they won’t do it, but if it’s a little thing (or seems like one) they will say yes or make a Rank-5 Isolation Stress check to refuse.

Potlatch
2 minor charge

To use this ability, you need to give someone a physical gift of some value, for free with no expected recompense. The recipient will be very impressed with the gift, and see you as a person of great importance and esteem, as appropriate to the situation. Depending on the situation and the nature of the gift, they might see you as wealthy, important, popular, talented, or just a really nice guy, but they’ll always be impressed in some way.

The Shame of Generosity
3 minor charges

Causes a victim to feel a sudden and acute sense of guilt and shame. The subject must make a rank-6 Self Stress check.

Voucher
4 significant charges

Target one person you can identify clearly. They don’t have to be present. For the next 24 hours, that person will speak of you in the most positive light possible. They won’t lie for you unless they’re naturally inclined to lie a lot, but they will phrase their descriptions of you in the best possible light. This will seem natural and normal to the victim.

Significant Formulas

Pity Fuck
1 significant charge

Ask someone to perform a single task for you, implying some sort of moral or social obligation. They’ll perform the task, out a sense of pity ot resentful guilt, but they won’t necessarily like it. If you ask someone to do something that would risk their life or livelihood, you must roll above their Mind score, or they can do something else for you instead (“I can’t suicide bomb the Pentagon for you, so I bought you this bicycle instead.”) The victim is under no obligation to keep the task secret, and can perform the task half-heartedly as long as they complete it. You can affect each victim only once ever.

Reaping Kindness
1 significant charge

This formula brings a new person, place, or object into your life: you can choose between a person, place, or object, but don’t get to decide anything further. The worse your current situation, the more powerful and helpful what you bring will be. This will seem to happen by coincidence, within 24 hours.

The Malaise of Gratitude
2 significant charges

A vicious guilt bomb, like a mass version of The Shame of Generosity. Causes everyone present except you to feel make a Rank-8 Self Stress check from guilt and shame.

Social Standing
2 significant charges

Usable in a single social situation, whether that’s a single conversation or a week-long convention. Openly declare some form of civil, legal, or social authority. For the duration of the social situation, everyone will accept that you have the standing you claim, unless given fairly solid proof to the contrary. For instance, if you claim to be an undercover cop, they’ll believe you unless they hear back from the police department that you’re no such thing. If you claim to own a building, they’ll believe you unless they already know who the owner actually is. If you claim to be the world’s greatest doctor, they’ll believe you unless you reveal you don’t know how to wrap a bandage.

Good Faith Renegotiation
3 significant charges

This ironically-named formula retroactively changes the terms of any deal you’re involved in. This changes a contract after the fact. This can be a subtle change, or dropping whole elements, but you can’t add or change major elements. You don’t need the other party’s permission to change this. You can definitely use this channel to shirk your own side of a deal after getting wha tyou want.

Those involved will realize that the terms have been changed, but won’t feel that they can do anything about it. Attempting to punish you for changing the deal will cause a rank-8 Isolation check.

Note that this does indeed affect magical contracts as well, including channels of the Merchant and Gambler. Merchants especially tend to hunt down Sociomancers beforehand so that they never fall prey to this formula.

Random Major Effects

Free someone’s soul from a contract. Steal someone’s fame and goodwill. Make yourself the leader of a group you’re not even a member of. Make everyone trust the scandal-ridden mayor again. Make yourself look like a celebrity. Exchange a viciously bad reputation for a new saintly one.

What You’ve Heard

There have been a few attempts to start a school or apprenticeship program of Sociomancy. Each time, they’ve earned the ire of Merchants or Gamblers or Plutomancers or others who rely on fair dealings, and the schools have been dispersed (or the leadership just kicked in the face until they stopped moving.)