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.

Of *course* the Soulstone Geode is a trap, but I'll go against my better judgement and suggest something different just for grins. Instead of being a 'trap' in the way it's considered to trap some massively powerful entity within it's facets or lure the foolish with promises of riches, perhaps the OG Neverborn harnessed it's massive soul-trapping powers to bind many souls to power the rituals needed to bind the Tyrants in the first place long ago. Perhaps the Savage and the Nephilhim carried out rituals to sacrifice their strongest warriors to empower the mighty workings. Perhaps a primordial god of old Malifaux was the only thing strong enough for such a spell.

Maybe the Hangin' Tree gets covered every year in papers of the names of everyone that's spent some time on it. Maybe nobody knows who puts them up there and the guild strictly prohibits it but every year, for one day, they show up anyway. . .

I like that Y'all are horrified by McMourning, but what's worse with having horrible surgery performed on you in a filthy hospital? Having surgery performed on you in a filthy sewer by a zombie that don't even have an M.D.! That's why my vote is for Albus VonSchtook. As if the man's creative taxidermy hobbies weren't' spooky enough, he's a man what TEACHES THE UNDEAD CONSTRUCTS HOW TO MAKE MORE UNDEAD CONSTRUCTS. And then he broadcasts fan-fiction about how cool it is to be an undead construct.

The Fated in our game had discovered the presence of a local Malifaux Critter fighting ring and so the Shape-Shifter though they would get in on that action by turning into a suitable skin. The PC's were not the most inconspicuous of criminal elements (downright notorious by some standards) so the House, suspecting something was afoot, said the only betting they could do was on the absolute worst odds. So she entered the cage-match and fought a pretty nasty Steam-Borged up former Guild Hound and when found they had bitten off more than they could chew, there was no where to run. The rest of the party begged clemency for their "beloved pet/fighting animal" knowing it would be their asses if she changed back to try to get herself out. They incurred a substantial amount of debt to some right nasty underworld criminals that I was able to use to neatly push the plot along if the players got a little too indecisive about what to do next. The 'Shifter had a few shiny new Critical Wounds to show off by the end of that session for their hubris. (my Fatemaster style isn't to try ans screw my players but hey, Bad Things Happen

I like the aspect that in a lot of place in lieu of a normal quarantine 'Wall' there are probably streets of closed buildings or less desirable real estate that shares a common border with the QTZ. These grubby little hovels are probably full of bolt holes, secret passages, and smugglers tunnels just full of interesting characters to help or hinder a group of fated.

I like to use the "X but Y" strategy since there are so many factions and variations in Malifaux. There are tons of mercenary outfits shown in the Outcasts but really you only expect to see the Famous ones in Malifaux games. So I came up with some lesser, less noble, less disciplined mercenaries by the way of Gilded Thorn. So you had a sniper that was "Hans but Guild" with all the things you could expect to find on a Guild Rifleman shooter instead of an Outcast one like Hans. She was missing an arm from a permanent wound, perhaps that is what ended her Guild career and made her join such a band of uncouth thugs as Gilded Thorn? That isn't up to me to have an answer for, unless a player asks (in my particular style of Fatemastering: don't world build every single aspect, you'll just drive yourself crazy). I always felt this was a way to make the world feel well occupied or lived in.

Sent DM

Awww poor gator's all tuckered out. I'm glad he has such a good friend to give him a piggy back ride to somewhere safe.