Characters: Emissary of Power
This week’s character type is the emissary of power, a catch-all template for players in the supernatural community that get their juice with the backing of a powerful supernatural patron.
Emissary of Power
Emissaries are mortals who’ve been saddled with a burden of great power-and great responsibility-by one of the big dogs in the supernatural community: they might be vast powers from Faerie or the outer reaches of the Nevernever, one of the true dragons, or something stranger. Emissaries of power are often the bearers of items of great potency, able to tap into the power of their patron and bring it to bear on their patron’s behalf. Such champions are usually more victim than anything, though-powers such as theirs come at the price of dark bargains, be it a lifetime of thankless servitude and sacrifice, their eternal soul, or other such “petty” things.
Knights of the Faerie Courts are an example of this, as are (by certain lights) champions of God such as the Knights of the Cross. Both have their own templates found elsewhere in this chapter. This template, then, is for the outliers, the cases that aren’t covered by the more common, more easily identified emissary templates. Perhaps there was once the Autumn Court of Faerie that got crushed by Winter and Summer-and some hapless mortal is its champion. Perhaps the dragon Ferrovax has need of a functionary that can handle all of that insignificant mortal nonsense on his behalf. Perhaps something else is afoot.
HARRY: Billy, do me a favor and stop inventing problems I don’t already have.
BOB: Actually, there’s some merit-
HARRY: That goes DOUBLE for you, Bob!
For the player looking to play something supernatural, but unsure what, this template offers plenty of build-your-own options. GMs are, however, encouraged to make the demands of the emissary’s patron a regular (if not constant) pain in the ass.
Musts: An emissary of power must have a high concept aspect that speaks to the bargain or pact they have made with a patron of great power (e.g., LAST CHAMPION OF AUTUMN or FERROVAX’S TOADIE). This aspect brings with it all of the strictures and responsibilities the patron places on the character-which can sometimes be a moving target. It may also mean that the patron can occasionally exercise near-total power over the PC (think of Harry’s predicament when Mab decides to force him to do something-like stab himself in the hand).
HARRY: Thanks for that reminder.
Player and GM should discuss the terms of this agreement, to the extent they’re known by the PC. In addition, the emissary must take Marked by Power.
Options: Many of the abilities in the supernatural abilities chapter are negotiably available, assuming you can afford the refresh cost, matching the theme and nature of the emissary’s supernatural patron (if the patron is in some way a mystery to the character, the powers taken may offer a hint). Often some of these powers are essentially contained within an Item of Power.
Tune in next time for the focused practitioner!
This also seems like an awesome thing to have as a powerful NPC.
They can also slowly lose refresh, sometimes willingly, sometimes not. If they’re helping the party, having this NPC help them at the cost of their humanity could lend them pause before asking for the help.
so far this seems like the best choice for me… sure i may lose my soul to some dark demented being… but i can see the usefulness of having a superpowered patron watching over your shoulder.
I’m looking forward to reading some player contributions to this character type. Both edges for it seem quite, quite sharp: great power potential accompanied by a most uncomfortable number and strength of strings attached.
And please keep up the comments from Harry and Bob in the cheap seats!
Man this would be a fun RP class. Imagine if you where bound to Santa Claus. I say this cause i think he was mentioned in the books.
@Raef
lol You better not shout, you better not cry, you better not pout, I’m telling you why, Santa Claus owns your soul.
@Victor
lmao he’s making a list and kicking yours twice he’s gonna find out who’s naughty and nice, santa just ate your soul.
I want to play this template once the game comes out.
I do think though that along side LAST CHAMPION OF AUTUMN and FERROVAX’S TOADIE there should be a similarly downtrodden sounding example Emissary: CHANCY(CHAUNZAGGOROTH)’s B***H…
This is proabably impossiable, but could you be a brand new emissary of power? so that you could play at feet in the water? Because that character could become very powerful and fun if you do what my group is going to do, we are going to start at one of the lower power levels and advance as the characters have seen more and become more powerful. Which i thought from the start was why they were there.So could you make a emissary who is new at it?
I hope so my wife’s character idea is an emissary of a dragon with thieves skills tasked with recovering the dragons stolen horde one piece at a time from museums and collectors.
@Stoak ohh I like that idea!!! That leads to all kinds of interesting possibilities for mayhem on both sides of the GM screen.
@dante, sure, in my opinion EoP’s can come from all over the map in terms of their power levels. They’re one of the loosest templates we’ve got.
thanks guys, i am going to have waaaay to much fun with this guy!
what does an item of power do? i mean i know it gives you special abilitys, but why not just take up those powers on your character other wise you are dependent on an item, what i am trying to say is do items do anything special other then have awsome powers they can give you? it confused me a little.
Also, would it be possiable to give an emissary with evocation? because my idea is that my guy would work for this elf like warlord and his court[read about them somewhere] and id say he is a sidhe,it would also make sense since his buisness is war that he would have fire magic or somthing. you know the fires of war and all that? sorry if i didnt quite make sense there.
edit, [i read about them in a book about faries. it was a text book about fey]
never mind my gm bud just came over and answered the question!
Most awesome character ever, emissary of the wee folk
Is there going to be a Pantheon published. I mean… there are tons of high-level bad guys, good guys and gray guys out there in this world. I sort of want a list of all the bosses you might create a character around. i.e. The Red King, Raith, Mab, Titania, The Erlking, The Archive or Those Godly Norwegian Blokes.