A Cult of Assassins? How would YOU build them? I ask because my players have shown an interest in it after revisting Skyrim and the Dark Brotherhood, so I’m looking for ideas/opinions/inspiration.
My fiancé and I created Bethiel, Goddess of Assassins. Aso known as the Queen of Stilled Hearts and Matron of Unclosed Eyes. Rare is her blessing which requires the ritualistic suicide of the supplicant, by way of prayer and a special poison. At the hairs breath moment where the heart would beat its last, time stops and the assassin is judged. If worthy, their heart beats on, Bethel’s gifts now granted. If found wanting, the heart remains forerver still as time moves on, the petitioner’s soul taken to the Red Realm. It is believed the unworthy become Bloodshades, the spectral minions of Bethiel. It is considered a terrible fate.
Anyway, we’re still working on the gifts patronage grants, but so far we dig it.
One thing I liked about the Dark Brotherhood in those games was the implication that it actually wasn’t that difficuilt to get them to kill someone; a simple ritual and someone will appear in your room in the middle of the night to get their payment and then the person’s dead, which is a very fable-like way of approaching it, one of the few truly fantastical things in a genre that typically makes magic the most non-magical thing possible.
The “Cult” of Assassins is a fan club that idolized a couple of notorious assassins. It’s a bit of a diverse fandom but they get together and dissect various hits, discus the merrits and flaws of various assassins (and most importantly who would win in a fight). Some aspire to be copy-cats while others write books or seek apprenticeships. Occasionally, assassins on the lamb will seek refuge with or aid from “cult” members, which greatly increases their status.
The original assassins from which we get the name were a cult 😀
For the mechanics I would suggest the crew be either Cult or Assassins and have the characters drives/behaviors/goals reflect their connection to the thing not chosen by the crew type.
Its more about what type of crew benefits the player’s want access to or perhaps its more about we are a team of X and but we finance ourselves by doing X and/or Y.
Also thematically it would depend on how mystical the players want to be. Having some characters having points in Attune but others or one having none could lend itself to interesting emergent narratives.
To be clearer, be a Cult with Assassins advances, or vise versa? I know the “how to” but it’s always good to mine other views.
A big part is fiddling with the turf choices, which I’m looking forward to. I can’t wait to finish our current campaign so we can finally dive in! This wait is killing me (no pun intended).
For a setting where ghosts, ghouls, and vampires run amok, I think there’s room for a couple of non-traditional approaches to an assassin cult:
1) Having a ghost sitting at the apex, using the assassins to strategically create new ghosts, and remove key assets to the Spirit Wardens and the like. In effect, an attempt to topple the status quo where being a ghost is to be hunted vermin. This can twist a couple different ways:
(1a) Get all political about it, play up the ghost-in-chief like a persecuted minority trying to topple the local Gestapo. Equal rights: dead doesn’t mean doormat.
(1b) Get all epic about it. Death doesn’t work in this setting; perhaps this is more than just a “ghost” in charge, and he’s looking to topple the mechanism by which death’s masses are kept at bay – perhaps he seeks to usher in the end of our civilization entirely, and leave it in the hands of the un-quiet dead.
(1c) Both!
2) A deluded cult, taken advantage of by a vampire or a ghoul, using their fervent service to bring them fresh bodies as needed, while advancing their personal crimino-political agendas.
3) A cult whose beliefs are largely unrelated to their assassination activities, who use assassination to fund themselves. They just happen to have a belief that, noting that death is dead, there ain’t no moral qualms in putting a body down so long as you save its spirit from the Wardens.
(4) Whatever did happen to the god of death in this setting? I wonder if a fragment of it is what the cult is attuned to; perhaps their works attune to a greater purpose: the restoration of Death itself.
(4b) Maybe the shards of once-Death are in-fighting, and this cult represents just one facet of once-Death’s goals. Other facets may be opposed, or indifferent, creating competing cults, some of which may or may not be assassins themselves. Of course, if pieces of Death are up and about, that probably has other implications for the setting.
(4c) Bonus points if the facets of death are just old, powerful ghosts gone mad with the passage of time, with no actual divine authority or power. Or, if they’re old, powerful, mad, and divinely touched by echoes of Death’s passing; a little of all of the above.
Or whatever. Just spitballing.
Mr Stein, I really like those, especially the first. Thank you.
Ben Liepis
You’re very welcome, and thank you.
Personally, I’d start with a Cult, but then let them choose Assassin’s advances. I think the turf options fit better.
Is there a certain bit you prefer?
All the “Ancient” stuff, really.
Looking at the two things side-by-side, I think maybe I’d take the Cult map, but swap out the top-left and middle-left squares for the Assassin ones: Cloister and Turf for Training Rooms and Victim Trophies.
All around, this has been a thought-provoking post. Now I really have to wonder what it means to work in a “death industry” in a society where true Death is no longer a natural conclusion, but a government policy. One sort of law-breaking to be found in providing Death where the government mandates life; another to be found in allowing ghastly existence where the government mandates extinction.
Exploring this topic could make for an awesome politically-minded game.
Especially if you look at Hulls and Vampires
Peter Cobcroft , could you elaborate? I’m interested in your take on it.
Hulls can be viewed as a form of slave labour, both could be viewed as a way to create an army. And both require the procurement of ghosts. If you put in cult ideologies, you get some interesting apocalyptic conspiracies.
Some pretty awesome social commentary could come about in play.