Bureaucracy Charms
Excellency
Geese-Flying-South Administration
Cost: 2m/success; Mins: Bureaucracy 1, Essence 1
Type: Supplemental (Any roll); Duration: Instant
Keywords: Balanced, Excellency, Water
Prerequisite Charms: None
The flow of systems is as intuitive to you as the flow of water is to a river.
Add 1 automatic success to the roll for every 2m spent. The roll gets disappearing 6s.
Essence 1
Finding the Water’s Depths
Cost: 3m; Mins: Bureaucracy 2, Essence 1
Type: Simple; Duration: Instant
Keywords: Water
Prerequisite Charms: None
Your eyes sparkle with energy as you stare into your target’s soul, spying the ebbs and flows of his desire.
Read Intentions on your target. Success reveals the amount and type of payment he would require in order to take a course of action. You also learn his strongest Intimacy related to the bargain.
Testing the Waters
Cost: 2m; Mins: Bureaucracy 2, Essence 1
Type: Simple; Duration: Instant
Keywords: Water
Prerequisite Charms: Finding the Water’s Depths
You understand your target’s politics better than they do themselves.
This Charm functions the same as Finding the Water’s Depths, except that instead of a price it reveals how the target intends to vote on an upcoming issue in which they have a say. It also reveals his strongest Intimacy driving his vote.
Sink-or-Swim Discernment
Cost: –; Mins: Bureaucracy 2, Essence 1
Type: Permanent; Duration: Permanent
Keywords: Water
Prerequisite Charms: Finding the Water’s Depths
Important people bubble to the top.
You may use Finding the Water’s Depths in order to get a general sense of what formal organizations, if any, your target belongs to, as well as his approximate rank within that organization. Ministries, religious organizations, clans – all of these are formal. Secret societies are not.
Essence 2
Benevolent Master’s Blessing
Cost: 1m; Mins: Bureaucracy 3, Essence 2
Type: Simple; Duration: Indefinite
Keywords: Water
Prerequisite Charms: None
Your might is so abundant that a mere token of your authority is enough to make your servant stand out.
Mark a servant with an obvious token – you may give him a swirling black magic tattoo if you don’t want to give him a physical token. You can cancel the token at any time by releasing your commitment.
As long as he has the token, everyone who sees it instinctively knows that he is your emissary and can negotiate on your behalf. He also gains a temporary +1 bonus on all Bureaucracy rolls related to following your commands or pursuing your best interests.
Dashing Brook Method
Cost: 2m, 1wp; Mins: Bureaucracy 4, Essence 2
Type: Simple; Duration: Instant
Keywords: Restriction (1/project), Water
Prerequisite Charms: Benevolent Master’s Blessing
The power of your leadership is a tsunami wave that clears obstacles to progress.
Mark a milestone on a project you are orchestrating. Immediately gain (highest of Charisma, Manipulation, or Intelligence) Progress (instead of the base 5 progress you get for marking a Milestone). This cannot be used to speed a project that would normally take more than (Essence) years to complete.
Unshakable Mountain Management
Cost: 5m; Mins: Bureaucracy 3, Essence 2
Type: Reflexive; Duration: Instant
Keywords: Earth
Prerequisite Charms: Testing the Waters
Your presence is a barrier that protects people from their own corrupt intent.
Activate this Charm in response to social influence you want to oppose. That influence must be attempting to convince the target(s) to betray an organization they are part of, or to abuse their position within that organization.
Anyone subject to that influence gets +1 Resolve against it.
EARTH AURA – Get +(your Essence / 2, round up) Resolve instead.
Water-Stained Ledger
Cost: 3m; Mins: Bureaucracy 3, Essence 2
Type: Supplemental (Conceal evidence); Duration: Instant
Keywords: Water
Prerequisite Charms: None
Beneath your skillful fingers, crimes and debts sink below the surface like pebbles into a placid lake…
Add disappearing 5s and 6s. The evidence you are concealing must relate to a bureaucratic process such as embezzlement or laundering money.
Anyone attempting to discover your deception must use (lower of Bureaucracy or Investigation).
Charting Unfamiliar Tides
Cost: –; Mins: Bureaucracy 3, Essence 2
Type: Permanent; Duration: Permanent
Keywords: Water
Prerequisite Charms: None
Even on the farthest shores, a bureaucracy is a bureaucracy. It doesn’t matter if those foreigners trade in shells instead of jade or keep their records in sketches in the dirt; where formal structures exist, you will exploit them.
You may Introduce Facts about bureaucratic and mercantile organizations even if you aren’t familiar with them and have no reason to know that. You must have spent at least one scene interacting with or eavesdroppping on that organization or its members acting in official capacity.
Shells-for-Silver Ruse
Cost: 3m; Mins: Bureaucracy 4, Essence 2
Type: Reflexive; Duration: One scene
Keywords: Water
Prerequisite Charms: Water-Stained Ledger
The calm surface of the ocean can conceal sunken treasure or rotted carcasses of dead boats. Only diving down can reveal which.
Choose one:
- POVERTY: Others perceive you as completely destitute, as if you had Resources 0. If you have obvious objects of finery, they perceive you as if you had Resources-1.
- WEALTHY: Others perceive you as if you had Resources 5. If your Resources is already 5, you are perceived to unimaginably wealthy.
You may leverage this imaginary status as thought it were a Minor Intimacy.
Thoughtful Gift Technique
Cost: 4m; Mins: Bureaucracy 4, Essence 2
Type: Supplemental (Bargain Action); Duration: Instant
Keywords: Water
Prerequisite Charms: Finding the Water’s Depths
What a coincidence, that you seem to know just what this person needs…
If you have already used Finding the Water’s Depths to discover a person’s price, you may use this Charm to double 9s on a bargain roll which leverages that price.