What’s Out There? (Part 1)
What’s Out There?
Here’s a quick and dirty breakdown of the mortals, “semi-mortals,” and monsters running around out in the Dresdenverse. Keep your eyes peeled, and you might recognize them.
(For further details on the political factions and recent history of these groups, see Old World Order. For more information on the nature of each of these types of beings, see What Goes Bump in the Night. For discussions of specific individuals, see Who’s Who in the Dresdenverse.)
Mortals
First, you have true mundane mortals. They are unaware of the supernatural goings-on all around them.
Then you have the clued-in, who have experienced the weirdness up-close and personal, and may know a bit about the various people and critters involved in occult stuff. Clued-in groups include some people of faith, law enforcement officers who specialize in “black cat investigations,” researchers who come across anomalous (read: supernatural) evidence, and even some members of organized crime.
Next are the minor talents. These are folks who have a (usually limited) supernatural talent of their own. Maybe they can cast a spell or two, know some effective rituals, speak to the dead, see the future, that sort of thing.
Sorcerers are more powerful magic-workers, often tapping the power of cults surrounding them to empower spells or rituals or to summon demons. Sorcerers usually don’t have the training, power, knowledge, or ethics of White Council wizards. White Council members have the tools and the talent, but they must abide by certain Laws of Magic. Those who break the Laws are known as warlocks. (Usually, the White Council sends its Wardens to enforce the Laws, but due to the current Vampire War, their hands are a bit full.)
Lastly, there are necromancers, who use the power of death to do magic, like raising ghosts and zombies and all other sorts of creepy business. (Playing with death magic is a big no-no to the White Council, by the way.)
HARRY: You could consider necromancers to be bigtime warlocks.
“Semi-Mortals”
“Semi-mortals” are people who have a foot in the mortal world and a foot in the supernatural world. They retain some aspects of choice, balanced against their nature.
These include some types of werewolf, scions of mortal-monster matings (such as changelings, which are part-human and part-faerie), and the poor folks who have been half-turned—or infected—by a vampire. (A large percentage of the membership of the Fellowship of St. Giles is composed of people infected and turned halfway into a Red Court vampire.)
HARRY: Per this breakdown, I’m almost tempted to put the Knights of the Cross under “semi-mortal.” It seems like Michael often does not have the freedom to choose not to follow his belief structure and mission. Does choice count if you choose to always follow your nature?
BOB: Hey, boss: Pot. Kettle. Black.
… Actually, Billy, I’d consider a “classic werewolf” like yourself and your compatriots to be minor talents, based on free will.
BILLY: That’s the thing about spellcasters. Everything’s a spell to them!
In two more weeks, we’ll bring you the conclusion of Harry’s World, as we look at Monsters and the Current Situation.
I was already excited about this project. I was already going to buy it and recommend it to my friends. But now that I have read these…well…now I must research a means of speeding up time so I can get the blasted book in my hands that much sooner! These teasers are…well…teasing me! Nice work, guys! Keep it up!
Excellent write-up for specific groups in the Dresdenverse, Fred.
Not to nitpick, but the phrasing in the Sorcerers paragraph for mortals confused me a bit. To me, it reads like only members of the White Council know about and are obligated to follow the Laws of Magic, specifically based on this sentence:
White Council members have the tools and the talent, but they must abide by certain Laws of Magic.
Some sorcerers have been told about the Laws and abide by them, and everyone that uses magic has to follow the laws, regardless of power level, moral leanings, or even knowledge of the Laws themselves. Ignorance isn’t an excuse for breaking any of the Laws, and a Warden will behead you just the same for it.
Sorry for being so critical of this, but I think it’s an important distinction, and I might just be processing this paragraph wrong as I read it.
Other than that, everything looks good, and I just have a question about the Semi-Mortal section. Just out of curiosity, will What Goes Bump in the Night detail the specifics of all the various semi-mortal scions in greater detail? Werewolves and changelings have such a huge variety of types already, and that’s without getting into any of the other, more obscure scions, such as children of a demon and human pairing.
Personally, I still can’t wait for the RPG to be done, and I won’t be content until I can read through the book at least twice, so thanks for everything that you’ve done so far and please keep up the hard work.
@Eric, you make a fine point about sorcerers. Honestly, the term sorcerer gets a pretty “flexible” usage in the novels, so that may have lead to some of the confused presentation. I think our much longer section on the Laws of Magic should make it clear that they apply to everyone who slings a spell — but I’ll make sure our editors see your note.
We’ll be getting into scions only as much as the novels themselves allow us to — we’re being careful not to assert too much additional stuff in the canon, since Jim’s still writing for the series, and we don’t want to end up accidentally blindsiding him or anything with stuff that doesn’t match up with his idea of reality. (He will be looking over the text & giving approval, but it’s a LOT of text — even just sticking to what the first ten novels give us.)
Thanks for the quick reply, Fred.
I definitely agree with you about avoiding assertions of additional stuff into the canon. Also, now that I think about it, you’ve also essentially covered a majority of the specifics in the Character Types series of posts, and those posts also allow for any sort of customization that a GM might want to build into their game. Combined with the use of FATE, I’m sure that getting what I want out of the game will be very easy.
The combination of the FATE system with the Dresdenverse is looking to be a great one, and I can’t wait to try out the game.
Another very interesting post… and the witt banter between Billy, Harry and Bob makes it even better!