A Potent Portent: Prospective Professions

Fallen London
1

So, it’s been a bit since we’ve gotten a professions update. So, why not use it as a writing prompt?

In particular, for those unaware, the greyed out text above the profession icon used to have the following locked professions, presumably the final tier (and the final stage in the Bazaar’s scheme involving the entire enterprise of professions and notability). They were:

Speaker
Echoist[color=rgb(51, 51, 51)] [/color]
[color=#333333]Strangler
[/color]Oneironaut[color=rgb(51, 51, 51)] [/color]
Unbishop
Edit: I forgot the [color=rgb(106, 106, 106)]Laocoön[/color][color=#545454]ian! Sorry all. [/color]


[color=#333333]So why not write what you think might happen if your character were to advance to this step? You can use the above titles, or come up with something of your own![/color]

I’ll start:

Echoist


The Echoist operates networks within networks. Just as echoes reverberate far beyond their origin- so too does their smallest action. Their whispers create political upheaval. Your sayings become gospel. Your words transform into the law. Your agents command agents, who command agents, who command agents. You drop the pebbles that begin avalanches. And every action comes from you.

Unlocked with: Profession: Midnighter, Notability 12, The Great Game - A Fine Piece in the Game: A Veteran Spy, 1 x [color=rgb(255, 255, 255)] [/color]Rumourmonger’s Network, A Person of Some Importance: An Invisible Eminence, Connected: The Great Game 50, Shadowy: 200


Be warned: you will sacrifice that which you hold most dear. And be changed in ways you cannot imagine. Your qualities, your possessions, your friendships- you cannot ascend without staking it all.
[color=#ffffff]Difficulty: Chancy at Shadowy 250[/color]
Success


The Avalanche

The coldest night of your life was as you stumbled bleary eyed through the endless night of London for your very first time. Your stomach was empty- your feet and hands seared with pain. Your breath was ragged, as you stumbled in rags into the crypt. Would this be your grave? Was this some elaborate illusion before the moment of death? Wherever you had been- where your beginnings, now frayed and cracked like a daguerreotype long neglected, truly were, you were alone. Whoever you were then, that person was gone- subsumed into a new person, born shivering in the ever-cold of the neath.

You look down from a great distance, at what you believe ought to have been that graveyard. You are alone now, again. You have sacrificed everything to reach these depths.

And now, you look upon it all from above.

Getting to this height was nigh impossible. But your painstaking efforts have borne fruit. Months manipulating Earls and Parliamentarians to covet this particular narrow spire, mere minutes by airship from New Newgate. Still more beginning the rumbles in the papers, the whispers among the notaries. Weeks building the shell company within a shell company that would build the strategic fueling station that Mister Fires would rely upon. Days of research finding the zoning intricacies such that through sheer apparent coincidence, the land would be required (and eligible) to go up for auction at Penstock’s land agency, for a single night alone. Countless ordinances changed and tweaked to create avenues for legal recourse. Armies of lawyers- often mobilized at cross purposes to sow confusion. Reams of Blackmail, forgery, and theft to place the Irregular Airship and her Irrepressible Commander under your control and surveillance. And that countless degrees of separation, that would bring the spire to you.

Your most trusted chessmaster meets you, sallow eyed and worshipping in this place. They have undergone a becoming- a unmaking- as well. Their teeth have been stained faintly red. A beatific smile crosses their lips- they live for the cosmogone of your inner lair. Their midnighters- the puppet-masters who command their legions- come to them hungrily- they open coffins and flood them with sunlight smuggled from the surface. Their sins of forgetfulness are banished by the joy of true suns. They in turn command the networks which control the networks. Each level insulated by the ignorance of those below. Your Shrine has been torn to tatters. The irrigo veils are now the threshold for your servants to enter your domain. As they exit, your image is merely a specter in their minds. Your name, only a whispered name of a half-forgotten terror.

You control your chessmaster-general with much more elegance. A single sentence- so cutting and profound, it unraveled their will in a moment. Were you to complete it, they would be undone utterly. They are yours to command. You dismantled your shrine to Saint Joshua and instead fashioned a veil- a threshold of mystery separating your servants from you. You painstakingly eliminated your enemies before they realized they had earned your enmity. The Lady in White. The Honest Intriguer. The Thrice-Scarred Playwright. The Laughing Maid. The Howling Widower. The Forsaken Son. The Beloved Betrayer. Your One True Beloved. One by one, they all fell. Some day, some one can…no- that’s arrogance- will do the same to you.

But not today.

You stand on the balcony looking down at the city. A riot of lights rebel against the darkness. Today you would change the Neath forever. You can see the strings- all of them. The Fingerkings, the Prioresses, the Masters, the Revolution’s Seasons, The Rubberies, the One who Pulls the Strings…

You know what the Bazaar is planning here. And you have outsmarted it. It has unwittingly allowed you to grow beyond it. The greatest power isn’t in being a part of the stories. Or rejecting them. It’s becoming subtext. Unseen context.

An irresistible truth.

Flares of light erupt throughout the city. Spite. The Flit. Ladybones Road. Veilgarden. Watchmaker’s Hill. Those who are paying attention will understand the message. Some will resist this. Some will submit. But a reckoning will not be postponed indefinitely.

The words you whisper will echo for years to come.

Your voice, low and husky, intones a single sentence.

&quotAll shall be well…and all manner of thing shall be…as I will.&quot

You are now a Echoist.
You no longer have any of this: Shrine to Saint Joshua.
You no longer have any of this: Spouse
You no longer have any of this: Acquaintance
You no longer have any of this: Connected: Urchins
You no longer have any of this: Connected: The Church
You no longer have any of this: Connected: The Glass
You no longer have any of this: Connected: The Masters

[/b]You’ve changed lodgings. Your new lodgings are a Spire-Fortress above Fallen London [5 cards] (Description: The most lavish accommodations imaginable- silk as fine as the Empress’s clothing, tenfold more resplendent and mystery-inscribed than Puzzle Damask. Wings populated by spoils of conquest, theft, and the rare virtue. A place enshrined in its margins by irrigo, illuminated by cosmogone. A palace fit for an army and a Sovereign. A place for a reckoning to come to pass.)
You now have 1 x Remote Address
You now have 1 x Heart of Darkness (+11Shadowy, +11 Watchful Home Comfort: Item Description: This is the centre of the web. The heart of the conspiracy. Where the mystery ends, and horror begins. Irrigo forms the shell of the Heart- and Cosmogone and Apocyan flood the core. Those who enter here are forever changed)
You now have +3 to Nightmares (This is your new base value for nightmares).
You now +5 to Dreaded. (This is your new base value for Dreaded)

Subtle is increasing [+5 levels (uncapped)]
Ruthless is increasing [ +5 levels b[/b]]
Shadowy is increasing…[+15 to 215]



Your power opens some positions, and closes others.


An Occurrence: Feared by the Innocent is now 1: A Terror in the Night (Parents assure their children you do not exist. Children and the disadvantaged will fear you and your emissaries instinctively. [You will have opportunities to reinforce this fear.])
An Occurrence: Your A Challenge to the Masters is now 1: A Threat to their Control (You’ve frightened someone.)
An Occurrence: Your A Nation Unto Yourself is now 1: Recognized (Surface nations, the wealthy, and the powerful send their ambassadors and representatives to you…or your intermediaries, at least [You will have opportunities to spread your renown through the opportunities deck]).
An Occurrence: Ruler of the Night is now 1: (Criminals, spies- they do not know your name, but they know your will [You will have opportunities to spread your influence through the opportunities deck].)
An Occurrence: A Power in the Neath 1: (Those who aspire for dominion will resent you. [You will have opportunities to deepen this enmity through the opportunities deck])
edited by friendshipranger on 1/8/2017

2

Wow, that is really well written!

3

Thank you! I had a lot of fun with it!

4

Very well written, but I wonders if it is too presumptive. Maybe as the end of an Ambition-style end game content? The fact that it’s nature permits a singular entity as opposed to a profession’s multitudes is also a factor to considers.

All that aside, I enjoys it greatly! Waiting with baited breath for the other professions.

5

[quote=friendshipranger][color=000000]Speaker
Echoist
Strangler
Oneironaut[/color][color=000000]
Unbishop
[/color][/quote]How dare you forget the Laocoönian! ;)

Requirements:
Profession: Monster-Hunter
Dangerous 215
Notability 12
A Scholar of the Correspondence 21
A Shattering Force
A Bringer of Death
1x Ray-Drenched Cinder
1x Breath of the Void

There is no beast on or under the Earth - or under the Zee - that does not fear you, that would not shudder like a leaf at your approach. You have become a terror unto living things like none before you.

There remains but one challenge to you: the beasts that Are Not. The dream-serpents of Parabola.

How does one slay a Fingerking? Not with any weapon of this world. But a single word - uttered in a very specific language, at a very specific time, by a very specific light - might be enough. To kill, maim or enslave. You know these words. You know them all. And so, now, does your Harpoon.

The flesh you have eaten would have fatally poisoned any other living creature. But not you. You even bathed in that poison, and so did your weapon. It is not just a weapon anymore, now.

Nobody goes near the place you live anymore. It is decorated - inside and out - with snake-skins reflecting impossible colours. Your eyes are no longer just peligin - they’re a fireworks of Neathbow hues. You are no longer considered human. Your friends and aquaintances hide trembling behind closed doors when you visit. Your spouse has left you in a hurry. Let them. You don’t need anyone. Already you have turned your gaze towards new hunting-grounds: they say there is a Sea More Sunless…

You have a new Companion: Ray-Drenched Mirror-Harpoon (Dangerous +25, Watchful +25, Dreaded +4). It is always with you, even though no one can see it in this realm - except as a reflection in mirrors. But it sees, and it knows, and it hungers…

[i]An occurrence! You no longer have any Lodgings. (*** except upgraded Royal Bethlehem Suite!)

You have a new Lodgings: Laocoönian’s Lair (A Remote Address).

A twist in your tale! Your ‘Committed’ quality has been reset - You’ve lost your Spouse!

[/i]You’ve lost an Acquaintance: Regretful Soldier
You’ve lost an Acquaintance: Repentant Forger
You’ve lost an Acquaintance: Sardonic Music-Hall Singer
You’ve lost an Acquaintance: Wry Functionary

(note: There will be one more level above Laocoönian - Dragonslayer)
edited by phryne on 1/8/2017

6

[quote=Aoditor]Very well written, but I wonders if it is too presumptive. Maybe as the end of an Ambition-style end game content? The fact that it’s nature permits a singular entity as opposed to a profession’s multitudes is also a factor to considers.

All that aside, I enjoys it greatly! Waiting with baited breath for the other professions.[/quote]

Thank you! I’d agree for actual content it’s a little too specialized. This was more of a &quotwhat would bring me the most joy&quot type deal, so I allowed myself to get a liitle (that is to say a lot) out of hand.

Woops! Sorry. I’ll make the edit. Thanks for looking out. I really liked your piece! I also really dig the idea of killing words. It makes me think of the correspondence, which would make sense- the language of stars is the most opposite to is-not that exists.

7

[quote=friendshipranger]I really liked your piece! I also really dig the idea of killing words. It makes me think of the correspondence, which would make sense- the language of stars is the most opposite to is-not that exists.[/quote]Thank you! And yes, I was meaning the Correspondence - which is why I included both &quotA Scholar of the Correspondence 21&quot and &quotA Breath of the Void&quot in the requirements. :)

8

slow claps They are super nice.

What non-notable professions could match these, I wonder? Notaries and Doctors kinda feels they are still on the same level as the notable ones.

9

[quote=Koh Kai Ying]slow claps They are super nice.

What non-notable professions could match these, I wonder? Notaries and Doctors kinda feels they are still on the same level as the notable ones.[/quote]

Notaroctor!

&quotA Notaroctor works all day and night to achieve that which nobody else did, owning two professions as one, he/she/it gets payed 200 echoes a week, the 60 not from the profession come from admirers who admire the insane skill of basically owning two professions at the same time&quot.

10

While I had similar ideas as Phryne (seeing as Laocoonian must have some serpentine connection) I have a take on it as well. I try to follow as close to the current formula as I can, by increasing the item’s stat bonus by +3 each time, and the notability requirement by +3 as well.

Laocoonian


Requirements

  • Profession: Monster Hunter
  • Notability: 8
  • ??? (next level of the Dangerous Story Line)

A Laocoonian’s Penny
x 5 Direful Reflections (65.50 echoes)
x 9 Memories of Light (225 Cryptic Hints = 4.50 echoes)
Collective Value - 70 echoes.

Description
The Laocoonian hunts in the realms beyond the mirrors to face the mystical predators that is not of the mortal world. She has vanquished that which roam the dreams and rule the nightmares, and ensouled its power within her chosen weapon. She may now be something other than a mere mortal hunter.

Failure
You went to sleep with a hunt in mind, you don’t remember the fight but when you finally wake you know you fled the wrath of something that was more than a mere bad dream. It takes many days before you dare sleep soundly again, and weeks before the nightmares lessen. But with each tormenting dream you gleam a little more insight into your ophidian foe.

  • Wounds Increasing +?? CP (small amount)
  • Nightmares Increasing +?? CP (moderate amount)

Success
You know of unseen foes cunning and mysterious unlike any that walks this earth. One such creature has long hunted your dreams, sensing your longing, strength, and weaknesses. Taking your trusted weapon in hand as you go to sleep, you face it not in the land of the living, but the realm of dreams, where it is strongest.
For nights on end the two you hunt each other through the marches beyond the mirrors. You probe for weakness, you stalk illusions of fear and desire, you hunt across memories that you had long forgotten, and battle through dreams the likes of which you didn’t know you had.The Fingerking strikes not at you body, but your spirit, and you know that each sting leaves a drop of metaphysical venom that poisons your mind. You know that if you fail here you will die a death from which there is no coming back.
Your foe is cunning, but so are you. It wears a trusted face of a loved one, a friend, but you see the deception beneath the veneer of familiarity. You feign weakness, and when your ophidian foe goes in for the kill you strike. Your dream weapon sinks deep and impales the serpent.
The viric light of your foe’s death throes soak into you. You are no longer a stranger to this alien realm, but a natural hunter of its mirrored marches. You bathe your weapon in the green light and it hungrily drinks in the dying essence of the ophidian entity and morph into something more appropriate for a hunter of nightmares.
When you wake your irises are no longer peligin, but in the mirror, and when the light catches your eyes just so, there is a glimpse of viric, like an ember of emerald.

Dangerous is Increasing +?? CP
You are now a Laocoonian
You no longer have any of this: A Notched Bone Harpoon
You now have 1 x Ensouled Dream Spear

Ensouled Dream Spear (+15 Dangerous, +15 Watchful, +1 Dreaded, +1 Bizarre)
Dwelling partly in the real world, and partly in the realms beyond it, this weapon is called into being in your hand with but a familiar thought. It senses its prey wherever it hides, and whatever its deception. Its viric-tinted edge slays not only the living but the things that lurk beyond the reach of mortal blades.
.
edited by Akernis on 1/11/2017

11

Sounds fun! I think I’ll give it a try! ^_^


Strangler
The Strangler’s work is thankless, but vital. Her alliances and concerns run deeper than the Bazaar, to the hearts of stories themselves. She does not kill. Rather, she unwrites. She omits. She is history’s editing pen; holding the line against tragedy, or ensuring it.
Unlocked with: Profession: Licentiate; Notability 8; A Bringer of Death 2; The Boatman’s Opponent 40

Oblivion
She closes the door with a heavy thud. Dust rises from the carpet. No one has kept her father’s country house for some time, but its obscurity may give her an edge. Over the past several weeks, copies of her work have been vanishing from bookshops and personal collections. Her ship was stolen from harbor. Her bank accounts were closed, her position at the university given away without her knowledge. Her friends and family have moved far away, or died true deaths in tragic accidents. Vital documents have been erased from public record. Her townhouse burned down. Even devils have stopped expressing an interest in her soul, and she is worried it may have been stolen from her.

Now all she has is this house, and she has elected to make it a fortress. She barricades doors, sets traps, boards up windows. The prickfinger wastes that encircle much of the grounds will provide a natural defense. She carves two holes in the attic’s western wall, and aims a rifle through the lower. And she waits. She doesn’t know for what. Hours go by. She grows tired, edgy. It is only then that you emerge from the armoire. To her credit, she makes it halfway to the stairs before you catch her by the throat. &quotOracle-kings,&quot she manages to choke out, &quotXibalba… a rite of questions…&quot but then your grip constricts, and she can only gag. You watch dispassionately as she falls still, as her breathing stops, as the light fades from her eyes. Then you excuse yourself to the downstairs parlor, and permit your hands to find your own neck. Tighter, tighter… and the world goes dark. Again, on the slow boat, surrounded by the listless dead, your fingers wrap around her throat like serpents, and you can see the fear and rage in her eyes as you drain away what is left of her life. &quotWhy?&quot she gasps.

&quotI am the tip of one finger,&quot you reply quietly, &quotEverything is owed.&quot When your work is done, and she is less than a husk, the boatman takes your gloved hands in his own. He washes them carefully in water from the river, and looks at you for a long time. You think he is going to say something, but instead, he closes your eyes with two fingers, and gently guides you back to the parlor. You burn her body in the fireplace, then burn down the house for good measure. After a moment’s thought, you turn and drop your list in as well. It will only be a liability in your new line of work. And there is so much work to be done.

You no longer have any of this: A List of Aliases, Writ in Gant.
You now have 1 x Pair of Black Leather Gloves.
Your Profession quality is now Strangler.
A Bringer of Death is increasing…


Pair of Black Leather Gloves (Dangerous +15; Shadowy +15; Dreaded +2)
Supple calfskin, lined with soft warm fur. A nice black too, before the Boatman changed them. Now, they are the fathomless peligin of the silent river, and freezing to the touch.[li]
edited by Gul al-Ahlaam on 1/12/2017

12

[quote=Koh Kai Ying]
What non-notable professions could match these, I wonder? Notaries and Doctors kinda feels they are still on the same level as the notable ones.[/quote]

Become a Pâtissier
Society is united by gluttony. Even the huntsmen of Parabola consume sandwiches. Competition is fierce, however. Murgatroyd has a stranglehold on the food industry; you will need nothing less than paramount prestige to crave a foothold. And a healthy appetite to sample your own goods.

Requirements
Notability 15
A Connoisseur of Neathy Delights 11
Unaccountably Peckish 10
[b]

Mundane beasts and where they dine (Failure)[/b]
A surprise sale of Murgatroyd’s Fungal Crackers has caught the attention of London. No one was there for your grand opening except the Northbound Parliamentarian, who rejected everything on the menu and ate your waiter.

It was until next morning that you discover your first group of patrons - a menagerie of beasts belonging to Mr Inch. Two marsh-wolves and Bartholomew lie asleep on your counter. And here is Shoshana’s little goat, devouring the last of your stock.

Both promises to spread the good word for you, if you will waive their fee.

Melancholy is increasing… (+1 CP)
Connected: Bohemian is increasing… (+1 CP)

Delicious friends (Success)
No human is present at your grand opening. There are rats, cats, bigger cats, diplomats from the Teeth, and Lyme with a sixty-pound camera.

A fight almost broke out, but the bickering ceases when you bring out the nibbles tray. There are rock-candy pigs. Sugared wax candles in the shape of faces. Candy-serpents of seven-coloured stripes, infused with catnip. Some sort of sugared evil snail things that cure gout.

When you bring out the Spider-Council made from cream cheese, the applause begins.

Within the week, your Spider-Council is plastered all over London’s newspapers. The Duchess is spotted visting your establishment in person. Aunts scramble for your scones to serve with Prisoner’s Honey. Urchins raid your pantry in the name of Storm. Zee-Captains ferry your goods to Tomb-Colonies and the Surface. Several Dauntless Temperance Campaigners mark you as their nemesis. Mr Apples instate a tax on the export of foodstuff with your name.

With every move of your whisk, London trembles. But not Murgatroyd. Yet.

You are now a Pâtissier.
Nothing seems to have changed. But perhaps one day it will.

(I had a nice cake recently, if you are asking)

13

Laocoönian (Wow this seems to be the favorite)

The Laocoonian has forsaken London and the people who inhabit it, living instead within the mind of the monsters themselves.  No petty politics or romantic squabbles for them.  They are beyond and incomprehensible.

Unlocked with profession: Monster Hunter, Notability 8, A bringer of death 7, dangerous 200

Once you have chosen this profession, you cannot easily leave it.

Difficulty: Chancy at dangerous 250, Chancy at watchful 250

Failure:  A fame reviled.

The signs were there.  Peligin colors danced and sparked behind your eyes.  You would wake in a puddle of drool, harpoon trembling in your hand.  You do not remember sleeping with it.  Something was coming, something dangerous, something large and forgotten, something to kill.

The next day finds you wading out into the zee once again.  Perhaps for the last time.  The zee boils and shakes around you.  You pay it no mind, marching forwards to your duel.  Deeper, deeper, deeper.  You have no need for breath.  Not anymore.  Still and yet deeper, kicking aside the rotting corpses of weaker prey.  Nothing mortal can see down here, but you can.  The peligin bleeds out your eyes, and the current washes it back in.  It brings vision, of a sort.  But you are here.

Your foot steps down, and no corpse greets you.  You stand on the edge of a clearing, scars mark the earth, of battles long fought, of victors devoured, of the lives lost.  You kneel.  The boiling is strongest here.  Steam, even underwater, rushes past your face.  Your enemy is at hand.  You stand, and draw your harpoon.

The next day you awake in your bed, unharmed.  A bloody harpoon at your side.  It is no longer drooling, or trembling.  You go about your day, and open the day’s newspaper.  The headlines scream of a drownie, crazed with anger, that crawled out of the zee and sunk several boats, killing all inside.  Interesting, oh, there’s a knock at your door.

You’ve moved to a new area – New Newgate!

Your suspicion is now 8!

Your scandal is now 8!

Notability -2

Nightmares is decreasing…


Success!  To fight monsters, you must become one.

The signs were there.  Peligin colors danced and sparked behind your eyes.  Your harpoon left a layer of drool on every surface.  You trembled in excitement.  Neither you nor your harpoon sleep anymore, spending your time watching the zee, waiting.  A peligin lake watching a peligin storm.  Something was coming and you would kill it, consume it, become it.  You have forgotten how to blink, how to breathe.  People avoid your line of sight, and yet still you wait.  The zee boils, steam rushes at the shore and the visitors flee.  Still you wait.  They do not matter, the steam does not matter, your wounds do not matter.  There is only the hunt, and your prey.  Finally, a flash of green and gold beneath a wave.  It is time.

You wade into the peligin depths.  Corpses bobble and roll around you as you walk on.  The air is useless to you.  And you head deeper.  You pass zubmarines, drownies, flukes, and each turns away.   You cannot feel your body, a puppet pulled by the harpoon’s strings.  It whispers.  Deeper.  Deeper.  Deeper.  At last you arrive.   Where darkness consumes itself, where the light cannot trend.

The creature hides itself beneath the sand.  It sensed your approach.  The wires and hooks on your face stretch and bend, and a contorted grin forms.  It is time.

One stab and it is over.  Your blood rushes out of your body.  The current sweeps peligin back in.  You are the zee, and no other.  The creature emerges from its lair, covered in scars, stained with impossible colors, memories of forgotten places.  This one is old.  This one is yours.

Its mouth opens before you.  New strings, new wires, new hooks pull you inside.  Your sharper arm -your harpoon- digs up through its throat.  The flesh closes after you.  Only you can do this.

Inside its skull, it is different.  Calmer.  The creature has taken up residence in your head.  All is as it must be.  Even the itching in your throat starts to fade.

You no longer have any of this: a notched bone harpoon!

You have gained 1x sharper hand!  (+25 dangerous, +25 watchful)  It is a part of you now, perhaps it always was.

An occurrence!  You have lost all your lodgings!

You have gained a remote lodging!

You have gained a new lodging!  A monster’s, your own, skull.  (+10 dangerous, +10 watchful)  The three of you, the monster, the human, the harpoon, have forgotten your identities, but this is your home.

Wounds has decreased to 0!  (As long as you have this lodging, your wounds will stay at 0)

edited by suinicide on 1/14/2017
edited by suinicide on 1/14/2017

14

No love for the Correspondence Path?

Speaker
Your words echo between the Stars.

Requirements:

  • Profession: Correspondent
  • Notability 8
  • Scholar of the Correspondence 21
  • Connected: The Masters 1

Description:
Your mastery of the Correspondence has reached its peak. Your knowledge of the symbols and sigils have no match amongst those native to the Earth. But there are others, out there, who use it in a way vaster and more powerful than anything you can do with mere paper and ink. It is the language of reality. And you have learnt to speak it.

Speaker’s Penny:
1 x Night-Whisper
1 x Storm-Threnody

Failure:
Your throat is on fire. No amount of water you can drink, no liquid you ingest, is capable of putting it out. You faltered, very slightly, just the smallest amount. An attempt to practise, to prepare yourself for what was coming, and you uttered a syllable just slightly wrong, and now you find the skin and flesh of your throat consuming itself from the inside out. When you wake up from the slow boat, it will be days before you’re able to speak again.

  • Persuasive is dropping (-250cp)
  • Watchful is dropping (-250 cp)
  • Wounds are now 8 – The Spirit Has Departed!
  • You’ve moved to a new area – A slow boat passing a dark beach on a silent river.

Success:
You’d thought you’d prepared. You’d gone over every scrap of knowledge, every tome in your possession, every source you could find. You’d even gone as far as to talk to the once source you knew had more information on the Correspondence than you did. But the Masters of the Bazaar, nearly to a man, were silent. Nearly. One, Mr Irons, simply looked at you, and gave you a single lead slab, with a single symbol on it. “The act of something attempting to understand its makers”. It is that sigil you find yourself trying to pronounce now. And nothing could have prepared you for this. Each syllable you speak sets the room on fire. Each sound causes fresh blood to flow from eyes, ears, nose. Every sound is torment. But you cannot stop now. You force it out, syllable after syllable, your voice making sounds that it was never intended to make, that were never intended to be heard on Earth, that to your mind seem impossible and wrong. But you force them out anyway. By the time you’ve finished, your house is on fire. The world around you has warped from the sheer weight of reality pressing down on it. Your pot of ink is shattered, beyond repair. Your throat, abused and aching, scars, the symbol etched onto the inside through forces beyond your comprehension. But you have done it. You have proven your mastery of the language of reality.

  • You’ve changed lodgings. Your new lodgings are: A burnt-out shell (1 card lodgings)
  • You are now a Speaker
  • You no longer have any of this: A Pot of Violant Ink
  • You now have: 1 x Correspondence-Scarred Throat

Correspondence-Scarred Throat (+15 Persuasive, +15 Watchful, + 2 Dreaded) (Hat)
Your voice is more, now. Your voice has a weight to it, a presence that no one can deny. When you ask questions, people answer. And when you order something, people obey.

EDIT: Minor spelling fixes
edited by Omega8520 on 1/14/2017

15

[quote=Koh Kai Ying]slow claps They are super nice.

What non-notable professions could match these, I wonder? Notaries and Doctors kinda feels they are still on the same level as the notable ones.[/quote]

A tailor / clothier? The bespoke kind, of course.

16

Since nobody else has taken a crack at it, why don’t I write something up for Unbishop?

The Impostor Church has a system of order and position more Byzantine than the Orthodoxy. However, your next rung is the Unbishop. While the Crooked Cross encourages action by their words, the Unbishop takes a more direct approach. An act of such questionable villainy is exactly what will bring you the needed notoriety to take the title. Instigating a conflict between Hell and the Bazaar should suit that purpose nicely.

Requirements:
-A Master Thief 9
-Profession: Crooked Cross
-Notability 8
-Level 2 PoSI
-Connected Hell, Constables 50
-Connected The Masters 2
-Renown Criminals 15

Shadowy Check

Failure:
Your plan has fallen through! One of your contacts must have let word slip. Or you weren’t as discerning as you needed be with your accomplices. Either way, a group of neddy men has heard of your plot to steal directly from the Masters, and has taken you for a proper bludgeoning. This will take some time to heal.
Your Wounds quality is now 10
Your Suspicion is increasing…

Success:
You sneak into the Bazaar in the quiet hours, and have stolen something… What it is, you aren’t quite sure, but you have planted the evidence that it was a Devil’s doing. You’ve almost handed your spoils off to an accomplice, who would have planted in the Brass Embassy, but you are accosted by a Hollering Clergyman. In response, one of the nearby officers you have paid off comes and alerts the nuisance of a shameful display elsewhere. The ensuing conflict rages for weeks, resulting in a momentary halt of the soul trade, but you have done it. You have made your mark on London history, and in the books of the Impostor Church. After the ceremony, you notice your Crooked Cross has vanished. In its place sits a note jointly written by Hell and the Masters, lauding you for your impressive job. However, if they see you again, you can be certain that you will find yourself on a river for a long while.
You have gained: A Curious Mitre (+15 Persuasive, +15 Shadowy, +2 Dreaded)
You have lost: A Crooked Cross
Your profession is now: An Unbishop
Your Suspicion quality is now 7