ashwoodContracts aren’t absolute, even contracts with a merchant avatar, and sometimes you can get out of one even if the law isn’t technically on your side.
Everyone gets a Break Contract skill at 20%. Make a roll, if you succeed the deal is negated .
Here are some modifiers to the skill roll:
-10% your payment was specificed when you made the deal (as opposed to an unspecified favor)
-10% if the merchant’s side of the bargin has already been fullfilled.
-1 to 99% if you are unable to return what you have recieved. Depends on how valuable the item/service was, how much of it you can return, and how much use you got out of it while you had it (you can give back a car, but not the three weeks it was available to for you to drive, for example)
-50% if you never intended to keep your side of the bargin.
+1 to 99% if the payment asked is out of proportion to the payment you recieved (the merchant helped you move your couch and it turns out the favor he wants in return is 20 years of your life)
+25% if the merchant deliberately mislead you about the cost of the bargain
+5 % every time you make a Break Contract roll.
If you fail a Break Contract roll, you take some kind of damage. Loss of stats/skills/youth, a failed notch on a madness meter, a physical injury, etc. How much damage you take depends on how much you owe the merchant and how unreasonable his request is. If you never intended to keep your side of the bargain, the merchant gets everything you lose. If the merchant made the deal in bad faith (deliberately misleading the customer about the deal) , he will weaken his connection to the avatar if the deal is broken.
Keep rolling until you break the deal, decide to give the merchant what he wants, manage to renegotiate your deal with the merchant, or you die.
ashwoodI should add a couple of things. First, trying to break a significant contract is as painful and frightening as stabbing yourself repeatedly with a knife. Your first Break Contract roll causes a self-check, the rank of which depends on how much you owe the merchant and how unreasonable his demand is.
Second, you can only try to break a contract if someone still has an outstanding payment to make. Once everyone has completed their part of the bargain, it’s a done deal.
ashwoodAfter some constructive criticism about godwalkers being forced to break taboo, I am simplifying the rules for breaking a merchant contract.
When your contract comes due you can simply refuse to pay. You’ll feel a sensation like hooked chains (think Hellraiser) in your flesh trying to pull you in the direction of the merchant. Resist the pull for long enough and the hooks will tear themselves out. The only question is how much flesh they take with them. In game terms the damage resolves like giving up memories for a major mechanomancy charge (damage is to mind or soul). You also forfeit any immaterial commodities you received from the contract, while any immaterial commodities already transferred to the merchant remain with him.
With this wording of the rule, the merchant can’t be tabooed over immaterial commodities like stats or skills because they come back to him if the deal if broken. It also allows for immaterial collateral. “I’ll give you 1 million dollars and you fetch the magic MacGuffin for me, in addition you’ll give me 10 years of your life span which will be returned to you when you make the delivery.”
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