Bureaucracy Charms
Benevolent Master’s Blessing
Cost: 1 mote or 1 mote per two
dice
Duration: One scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Bureaucracy: 2
Minimum Essence: 1
Prerequisite Charms: None
Using this Charm, a Dragon-Blood
administrator can imbue is underlings with an echo of his own innate grasp of
the workings of state. The bureaucrat may grant one trusted assistant a bonus
of two dice per point of Essence spent. The assistant may not more than double
her Bureaucracy, and the Exalt cannot donate more Ability than he has.
Alternately, for merely 1 mote
of Essence, the Dynast may turn a group of dullards or even the soul-dead
victims of the Fair Folk into passable temporary help by splitting his
Bureaucracy Ability among them, giving a maximum of one point to each. This
Charm requires some supervision ― the assistants will have questions, and
if they cannot find the Dragon-Blood to ask him their questions, the Charm
fails. While supervising, the Dragon-Blooded technically has no Bureaucracy,
and can do nothing but look after his charges. Temporary assistants must have
originally possessed no dots in Bureaucracy.
Confluence Of
Savant Thought
Cost: 2 motes
Duration: One scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Bureaucracy: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Benevolent
Master’s Blessing
The Essence of bureaucracy is
the same everywhere ― the day-to-day affairs of a household or mercantile
establishment tend to pool and eddy in predictable patterns no matter how grand
or humble the scale. An Exalt may use this Charm to tap into the bureaucracy
around her and understand its general nature and some specifics of its
operation, such as where goods or documents are kept or who is responsible for
what aspects of administration. This Charm does not grant unfettered access to
guarded or locked areas, but it does allow the Dragon-Blood to use her
Bureaucracy Ability in place of her Socialize Ability for the purposes of
dissembling about paperwork, permissions and passage.
Geese-Flying South Administration
Cost: 5 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: One task
Type: Simple
Minimum Bureaucracy: 4
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Confluence
of Savant Thought
An administrator with this Charm
can bend her entire bureaucratic apparatus to expedite a designated task: tax
collection, troop recruitment or selling merchandise, for example. Her
followers perform their duties exceptionally well for the duration of the task,
serving with the utmost dedication. At the completion of the task, the
Dragon-Blood reaps additional benefits. Monetary profits increase by one
percent per success on an Intelligence + Bureaucracy roll. If the end result is
goods rather than coin, the amount is increased by two percent per success.
Conscription and other recruitment are improved by two percent per success on a
Charisma + Bureaucracy roll. The Storyteller is responsible for determining the
base result of any such endeavor, before the improvements granted by this
Charm. These improvements are strictly magical and do not actually improve the
bureaucracy in the long term.
Bestow The
Saffron Mantle
Cost: 1 mote + 1 mote per dot
lent
Duration: Special
Type: Simple
Minimum Bureaucracy: 4
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms:
Geese-Flying-South Administration
This Charm is priceless to
Dragon-Blooded who must travel but cannot bear to leave their affairs in the
hands of others. Before leaving on a journey, a Dragon-Blood knowing this Charm
may designate a proxy to make decisions on his behalf (most give a token of
some kind, perhaps a seal, scroll or garment). The designee administers
precisely as the Exalt would have were he present, making decisions and placing
resources with her master’s remarkable skill. Dusty legends popular only among
scribes tell of assassinated Dynasts who reach out from beyond the grave to
wreak havoc on the affairs of the murders by way of their faithful servants.
The Charm is effective for a
number of weeks equal to the successes scored on a Perception + Bureaucracy
roll, but the exact duration is not obvious to either the proxy or the
Dragon-Blooded, who must simply trust in his abilities. The Dragon-Blood may
end the Charm sooner if he wishes. If he does so, the committed Essence begins
returning normally.
Thrashing Carp Serenade
Cost: 3 motes
Duration: One scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Bureaucracy: 3
Minimum Essence: 1
Prerequisite Charms: Benevolent
Master’s Blessing
There is an art to impeding the
flow of a bureaucracy. The Thrashing Carp Serenade is only the beginning of
that art. By means of this Charm, an Exalt may slow administrative tasks and
productive deliberation in the area within the sound of his voice to a near
standstill. In order to make any progress, the player of the opposing
bureaucrat must best the wielder of this Charm’s player in an opposed Stamina +
Bureaucracy test. Any Water-aspected novice can hold
a roomful of aged scribes at bay, but only the experienced or rash use this
technique in an august body such as the Deliberative.
Thoughtful Gift Technique
Cost: 2 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Bureaucracy: 4
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Thrashing
Carp Serenade
Presenting an appropriate gift
can take the edge off an uncomfortable social gathering or gain favors and
access that would otherwise seem unattainable. Using this Charm, a Dragon-Blood
intuits what would make the perfect gift, for public presentation, or the
perfect bribe, for private dealings. Specifying gift or bribe, the Exalt’s player rolls Perception + Bureaucracy. The Exalt
must know the intended recipient; knowing him by reputation raises the
difficulty of the roll by 2. This Charm does not provide the gift ― or
even easy access to it ― it merely provides the information. The brutish
administrators of the tributary lands may be fondest of gifts of wealth, but
the nuanced tastes of the Dynasts may require that the would-be gift-giver
acquire unusual items such as a lock of hair from a vain rival or a sapphire
exactly the color of a favored mistress’ eyes.
Testing The
Waters
Cost: 3 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Bureaucracy: 5
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Thrashing
Carp Serenade
The quickest path to disaster
for a political gambit is to call a vote before knowing how the votes will
fall. Armed with this Charm, a master bureaucrat can safely avoid that pitfall.
With but a moment’s consideration, the Exalt knows how many votes yea, nay or
abstaining would result should the matter under discussion be called to a vote.
It does not reveal by whom the votes would be cast. The Dragon-Blooded do not
only use this Charm to pass their own agendas. They also hurry their rivals’
plans to failure or simply judge where their vote will bring the highest price.
Note that this Charm can only be used on groups of seven or more; it simply
fails if used on a smaller group.
Finding
The Waters’ Depths
Cost: 2 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Bureaucracy: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: None
The Dragon-Blooded of the Realm frequently buy and sell
goods and negotiate agreements much like ordinary mortals. Since most deals are
accomplished through elaborate haggling, this Charm is
invaluable. It instantly allows the character to know if the person she is
bargaining with has reached the limit of the price she is willing to pay or the
general degree of concessions she is willing to make. In addition, the Charm
allows the character’s player to make a roll to determine if the target is
approaching the limit she is willing to spend or agree to or if this limit is
far beyond what the character is currently asking. A single success on a Wits +
Bureaucracy roll allows the character to know if the current offer is half or
more of her target’s maximum or minimum offer, two successes allows the
character to determine her target’s limit within 10 percent, and three or more
successes allows the character to exactly determine the target’s limit.
Sparkling
Fountains Of Eloquence
Cost: 1 mote per two dice
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Bureaucracy: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Finding the Waters’ Depths
This Charm lends special timbre and eloquence the character’s
voice for the purpose of convincing someone to buy an item or to agree to a
deal. So long as the roll is being made for one of these two purposes, the character
can improve her Bureaucracy dice pool by two dice for every mote of Essence
spent. The character cannot more than double her Bureaucracy Trait with this
Charm, and she must pay the full motes of Essence even if she can only raise the
Trait by a single die.
Distraction
Of The Babbling Brook
Cost: 4 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Bureaucracy: 4
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Sparkling Fountains of Eloquence
The Dynasts of the Realm must regularly engage in trickery
to preserve their ancient empire. One of the keys to such trickery is
convincing someone to agree to a deal without looking too closely at the fine
print. This Charm increases the difficulty for a character to discover hidden
traps in a contact or to be able to locate hidden defects in merchandize the character
is offering for sale. In all cases, the tricks or traps must be reasonably
subtle. This Charm will not cause someone to sign a contract to sell themselves instantly into slavery when they think they are
signing a contract to purchase a villa, nor will it cause a character to
overlook the fact that the horse she is buying only has three legs.
However, if noticing a problem would require a roll, this
Charm adds 1 to the difficulty of the Wits + Bureaucracy roll needed to
discover the problem. This Charm has no effect on the Intelligence +
Bureaucracy the character’s player can use to attempt to further conceal such
problems. As a result, the most subtle of the hidden problems become almost impossible
to find, while problems that are more obvious are simply slightly less easy to
spot. This Charm only works on a single target. If several people are examining
the item or contract, then the character must use it on each of them
separately. Also, the target must be examining the item or contract while the
character is present for the character to use this Charm.
Dashing
Brook Method
Cost: 4 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: One task
Type: Simple
Minimum Bureaucracy: 5
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Geese-Flying-South Administration
Regardless of whether they are working for or against a character,
large bureaucracies almost always move quite slowly. This Charm does nothing to
sway the outcome of a petition or to dictate the success of an edict, but it
will cause any single request to be processed at the maximum possible speed.
Reduce the time needed by 10 percent for every success, to a minimum of 10
percent of the unmodified time. In the most extreme cases, a petition that
would normally take several days to be resolved requires only a few hours.