stump_chunkman

Heck yeah he's a snappy dresser. I'd ask who his tailor is!

I ran a game where a Fated (@Thepolishammer83) made a date with another NPC, a tall woman with a harpoon launcher and sharp teeth. Unbeknownst to the group, they killed a powerful other character with ties to the Cult of December during a train heist. Well, turns out you might get stood up for your big date if you kill your would-be girlfriend's sister. Surprise! Your romance is now your nemesis!

That sounds really cool. I love the name of it too. I think it is a question of the GM's "artistry" over an open-ended sandbox or a linear ride. Nobody wants to feel like their character choices have no action in the world around them, but I would argue that a characters actions can have just as much influence on a on-rails story line as one that's completely open to interpretation. TTB has a lot of rules for stuff that don't come up in a game, and while a true sandbox game allows for use of all these skills in anyway player's want, it also makes a much more demanding task on the GM to insert things to make a sense of verisimilitude. There is a happy compromise sometimes. When I ran I had a number of job lines the characters could work for between factions. If they did faction 1 job A it wouldn't cut off Faction 2 Job until they did job B. Then the NPCs that would have helped them in Faction 2 Jobline show up as antagonists. That means you can show off your [read: my] cool set-piece Fatemaster characters regardless of which end of the gun they end up on.

Nah, go crazy with custom mechanics. The easiest way to crib this for flavor though might be to take a unique characters ability and 'Teddify" it though. I liked the effect "Cut By Hinamatsu" so I made it a ranged attack on a guy who would throw needles for tiny amounts of damage and then rip them all out with a magnet. Same mechanics as Hinamatsu's though.

all I can think is "shit I left it in arial instead of converting the font to Times"

Stitch in Time was the one that started it all for me. I played the guild guard with the bad drinking problem. We picked up a new player who had never played a TRPG before and he's remained in our little group for year. And the rest as they say is history.

Portraying the Guild as ruthlessly brutal to intimidate your players or corruptly bungling to exploit their greed are classic tropes of Guild NPC's and plot holes. Even though they are not mentioned or named I imagine other members of the Minerva Council entrust their dealings in Malifaux to the most adept (and expensive!) espionage agents. Having a suspiciously circumspect and capable member of the Guild show up with some "special dispensation" and motives that seemingly run completely counter to the goals of his more public counterparts can set the team for some cloak and dagger... or cat and mouse!

"What ways has your group used subordinate characters for in games? " Amazing Chavez's girlfriend/assistant. Always sad when she doesn't make it.

I always prefer a good character driven who-Dunnit full of Dirty Dealings and Dastardly Deadbeats.

Minor players in the breach. Mercenary losers who settle for less, gangs of street thugs, shadowy cabals, forbidden book clubs, accursed knitting circles!

What can you redeem the IOU for though?

The Fated decide to lay low for awhile, their Arcanist contacts have just the place: a remote observatory in the Badlands. The spot of the observatory was chosen due to having a solid foundation of rock in the badlands, and being an elevated place where the sky can be easily seen. Surrounding the compound are some curious stones that have fallen over, depicting the strange constellations in the stars above possibly left by the native denizens of Malifaux a long time ago. Padre Cormlieau, a human preacher turned Nephilim Half-Blood has decided that religion and spirituality are just as important as bloodlust to his new found flock. He plans to have his congregation raise the standing stones and re-dedicate them in blood to the Old Ways.

There's so many of them that already are, so let's go with a new one! Binh Nguyen. He's such a sinister little man, I can't help but think a ghostly puppet with a teeny lantern would be adorable. 💖

Whaaaat? There's nothing frightenin about the Bayou. It's just dangerous because folk don't know there way around it. Why, there's lots of fine folk that call it home. Just pay your guide handsomely, step where they step, and pray you don't run into one of Great Gator's disciples because you were fated for Doom anyway at that point and nothing you do will change it.