Mission system

From Spiders

At any point, the PCs should confront a small set of possible missions. They all come from people, not organizations. There are no organizations: just people who work for other people. This is a part of the classical world-view I'll be trying to emphasize, though I may sometimes slip into modernity.

Most will come from department heads such as those of the Cerulean Lute of Harmony (Serenity) or the Violet Bier of Sorrows (Endings). Some will come from particular other Gods or Sidereal Exalted. Many will come from members or small councils of the Factions (Bronze and Gold).

Remember that Sidereals like the PCs are in an odd position: they are directly empowered by the Maidens themselves. So they're very high, one step below the Celestial Incarna. But they work in departments of the Bureau of Destiny, below two or three layers of Gods in the Bureaucracy. They have great prestige and honor commensurate, but their jobs are... less awesome. They don't tend to supervise lots of other people (i.e., Gods), so the Gods who think wholly in terms of the Bureaucracy will blow them off as prima donnas paid and respected far above their actual ability. What those Gods don't realize, of course, is that the Siderals are paid and honored that way for two reasons.

1. The Sidereals are the ones who get things done.

2. The Sidereals can kill Gods. It's not even that hard.

Each Mission will come in an envelope. The outside of the envelope will have a flowery title and five ratings. The ratings are assigned by impartial boards of auditors at the five Departments:

• Battles rates the requirements of combat.
• Serenity rates the requirements of socialization.
• Journeys rates the requirements of travel.
• Endings rates the likelihood of PC death.
• Secrets rates the conspiracy-and-intrigue potential.

In general, 1-2 means little chance, or perhaps a requirement to use this ability to reach the adventure. 3-4 is a moderate to high likelihood. 5 is quite high indeed, and rarely seen. Treat it seriously. These numbers are of course expressed in stars.

Inside the envelope will be a more full briefing, a card listing the rewards offered by the mission assigner, and a sealed envelope of notes for the GM. Most missions will have rider cards from others interested in the success of the mission, or in adding extra side-tasks. Some riders, particularly those from the Factions, will be privately handed to faction members.

Missions will have a timeout, probably in sessions, in addition to or instead of in-game time. Factional missions and riders will often have more aggressive schedules or offer better rewards for the risk: it's always easy to put off saving Creation to serve local political needs. This is in fact how much of the Bureau does business. Every once in a while, it comes home to roost.

Common rewards

• A favor from some God, who may not be the one requesting the mission. These have discrete sizes (Tall, Grande, Venti).
• A day, week, or month's work from some person: a guard to watch your back, a smith or craftsman who will build things for you, an archivist or librarian to look thinks up, a geomancer to do interior decoration, a Martial Choreographer to design a fighting style, maybe trainers to train your henchmen and minions, perhaps a company of mercenaries.
• Martial Weather
• Training in some Charm, Prayer Strip Technique, Martial Art (Terrestrial, Celestial, or Sidereal, sometimes only up to the Form or up to the grantor's Essence level), or Spell.
• Casting of a spell (often Sworn Brother's Oath, Imbue Amalgam, Elemental Empowerment, Spawning of Monsters, or similar) or use of an exceptionally powerful Charm (e.g., Endowment).
• An Artifact, by rating. May be a particular object (e.g., a Soulsteel Direlance), a class (e.g., Warstrider Weapon), or themed to particular uses (transport, communications, automata, or monstrous servant). May be magitech or specifically not magitech. May be fixed in place. May be only on loan, or in a timeshare. Some grantors may have particular access to First Age arsenals, or only to those of the Shogunate or later times.
• A Manse: the right to attune it, a time-share of the Hearthstone, or full-time use or delegation of the Hearthstone.
• Initiation into an Astrological College, or exquisitely crafted trappings of such a priesthood.
• The right to delegate particular destinies, or an offer of a countersignature on particular or general Astrological Petitions.
• Backgrounds (like change in Backing: Gold Faction, Familiar, or other social backgrounds). Gold and Bronze faction riders will often change *both* backings.

Example missions

Gold: Establish a training camp with five features: secret location, good things to battle, serene manses in which to recharge, etc.

Battles: Start the Trojan War, permitting a Grand Alliance for a century later. Paris is not being cooperative. Serenity Rider: Keep marriage a favored social relation in that culture. Faction: Embarrass/redeem the directional marriage goddess.

Endings: Get Caesar assassinated, despite his patching things up with Brutus and bribing Cassius. Even Cicero's back on his side. Secrets Rider: Ensure the assassin is unknown, even if you have to kill him too: make this a matter for conspiracy, JFK style. Faction: pin it on a particular Solar, demonizing/playing up his legend. That Solar may be secretly dating/impersonating Caesar.

Journeys: Marco Polo must go. Later, he must publish at home. Battles Rider: He must kick off a war while there, or teach particular tactics to particular people... who are instead being tutored by a Demon! Faction: only his book needs to make it home. Kill him, forge the book, and call it a day.

Serenity: Romeo and Juliet. Exactly two of Romeo, Juliet, The Montagues, and The Capulets must die. The parents are being apathetic because there's a Fey eating one, and the other's blissed out on Guild drugs and next on the Fey's list. Battles Rider: Mercutio and Tybalt must duel. The winner will exalt as a Solar at the conclusion of the duel. Faction: Kill/spirit away for training the winner. Better for the Bronze, make sure the duel never ends, tying up that shard for the long term.

Secrets: The Perfect of Paragon has this staff. Lose it. (Alternately, some other Artifact you'll turn out to want 5 sessions later.) Endings Rider: break it; we'd rather it weren't there. That may be harder than you think, especially since the legend of it must survive, or it's sentient, or it causes particular fireworks when it does, or because it makes its holder hard to rob. Journeys Rider: Put a recovery quest in place, ensuring whoever's going for it must hit all five Directions of Creation. Sow that legend.

Endings: Ensure a particular Wyld Hunt dies against some Solars. Faction: and ensure the Solars die too.

Bronze: Support a Wyld Hunt.

On the projection of missions

Herewith Kasumi's rating system, which I intend to modify.

Yellow

	In Heaven
	In city with gate
	Up to a week's travel
	Significant travel and/or likely to be a lot of Ride/Sail rolls in play (as opposed to getting there)
	Long way from any gates, Ride/Sail rolls crucial to mission success
	Malfeas, the Underworld, or Ride/Sail rolls crucial to Destiny itself.

Blue

	No contact with beings likely to socialise
	Some socialising posible, likely with little impact.
	Social results may optionally contribute to success of mission
	Mission requires social rolls/stunts to succeed.
	Highly political mission entirely revolving around social success.
	"Convince Mnemon not to be Empress and support V'Neef"

Red

	No action whatsoever.
	Action restricted to some athletics rolls or knocking over Extras.
	Likely to be some non-significant combat, other action stunts could help.
	Battle almost certain.
	Indiana-Jones athletics stuntfest (running, leaping etc), major confrontation, pitched battle against large forces (Dynasty Warriors)
	The siege of Minas Tirith

Green

	No need to engage brain.
	Some clues might be picked up, but nothing essential.
	Problem solving/investigation helpful but not necessary.
	Problem solving or investigation plentiful or necessary.
	Mission primarily based around problem solving/investigation - Mental primaries will shine.
	Discovering the Akuma behind the fall of the Sidereals.

Violet

	Utterly safe (most missions in Heaven)
	Potential for some wounds.
	Potential for serious wounds, small possibility of death.
	Likely all PCs seriously wounded, potentially one death.
	At least one PC killed.
	TPK.