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Guildbook: Usurers



Credits

Written, & Developed By: Shawn Endreson

PDF Conversion, Layout, & Typesetting: MajorTomSawyer

Character Sheet & Page Borders: Mr Gone

Front & Back Cover(s) Design:MajorTomSawyer

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For a free White Wolf catalog of official White

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Check out White Wolf online athttp://www.white-wolf.comalt.games.whitewolf

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Guildbook: Usurers

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Chapter One - Diversification Page One

Chapter Two - Employment Opportunities Page FourChapter Three - An Audit Page Five

Chapter Four - Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable and Outsourcing Page Eleven

Chapter Five - The Dismal Science Page Fourteen

Chapter Six - Mostly Human Resources Page Eighteen

Appendix I - Employees of the Year Page Twenty-Five

Appendix II - Limited Liability, My Ass Page Twenty-Seven

Guildbook: Usurers



Holly cursed in frustration and put her foot

through the trashcan. Feeling the metal seem torace through her corpus, she held her leg there

until the pain had managed to obliterate every

other sensation. "Why does this crap always have

to happen to me when I’m alone?", she ranted

and no one in particular. Her notebook stared up

at her, silent and accusing, from the trash; all her

work, her scripts and screenplays, mutely

preparing to be interred in a landfill tomorrow if

no soul rescued them. She even knew how,

having learned the secrets of Embody. If she

hadn’t gone out trainspotting, as her friends

called it, last night, and spent her efforts on every

frivolous song and game that came her way,

she’d be able to manifest and simply lift it out.As it was, she’d be lucky if she could turn a page

of it.

The would-be screenwriter folded her hands

and stood up straight with what she hoped was a

look of determination. She couldn’t do this

alone, and all of her friends had left this morning

for Bermuda. Even if she could catch them at the

airport, they couldn’t come back; every flight is

booked solid over spring break. But people said

strange things about the little fellow down at the

theatre who always wore a bow tie, like he was a

Mafia boss or something. ‘He helps people tohelp themselves’, was the usual catch phrase,

that nobody would explain; maybe they were just

repeating what they’d heard, too, but she set off

towards the bus stop to find out for herself.

Holly peered around the edge of the alley;

there was the green relic scarf, just like she’d

been told. She cautiously untied it from around

the gutterspout and placed within it the two items

she’d already retrieved on this dementedscavenger hunt, a small mirror and battery.

Humming a meaningless tune to herself, she

wound the first two items in the scarf and

carefully dropped them down an open sewer

grating, trying to see afterward where they had

fallen to, and maybe there was a flicker of

movement down there, but she wasn’t

completely sure.

She nearly jumped in after them as she felt a

tap on her shoulder. Whirling around, she was

face-to-face with a stout man in a 3-piece suit

and a handle-bar mustache, holding a set of

scales in front of him. "I understand, miss, thatyou wish to engage in a transaction with us?"

"H-How can I Trust you?", she replied,

exactly as the man at the theater had instructed

her.

"Hope is what is called for, miss; the Trust

follows." Some of the tension escaped her

shoulders; at least he was following the script.

"I’m afraid I’m in a tight spot, mister. My

Quick are all leaving on vacation, and the trash

collectors are coming tomorrow. I know thatthose don’t have a lot to do with each other

usually, but y’see, somehow some of my

notebooks wound up in the trash and," she drew

herself up a little straighter, and tried to sound

more professional. This guy was a businessman,

and he wanted to conduct business with her,

right? "and I don’t have the Pathos to correct it

myself, and I don’t think much of my odds of

1Guildbook: Usurers



picking some up by chance between now and six

a.m. tomorrow. I understand you might be

willing to help me in this, mister..?" Much better.

"Please call me J. P., and you are Pandora."

He intoned.

J. P. scrutinized her. As Research had

informed him, Hope would be the most effective

currency for the transaction, and while he

customarily dealt in Wrath, he was not incapable

of manipulating the lighter Passions. The

contrast between her opening gambit and her

closing was remarkable; her stance had shifted to

match his, and she had seamlessly adopted his

affected manner, or a counterpart to it. All too

familiar character traits. "And how, miss, do you

utilize your leisure in more routine times?" He

had been told her name, of course, but it would

be improper during a negotiation to use it.

"I…I watch my Quick on the beach. I talk to

everyone I can; many of them have awesome or

terrible stories to contrast with my own, and

inspire my writing. I try to convince the Legion

patrols to relax and have a good time with us.

I’m not sure why you inquire..J. P."

J. P. carefully withdrew five tokens from his

jacket and placed them on one side of his scale.

He affected to study them while observing her

reactions. "I was lead to understand you would

need a loan of five sentimas of Hope. I confess to

having been skeptical; Hope is not easily repaid,nor am I well-stocked in it. You have allayed my

fears a great deal already; a self-possessed young

lady such as yourself, with such an easily solved

problem, should have little trouble at all. It also

sounds exceedingly simple to accomplish; I think

we can both be served in our aims by a loan of

only.." he swept three of the tokens back into a

pocket, "two sentimas, yes? No trouble at all."

As J. P. spoke, Holly’s face brightened. This

wasn’t anything to get worked up over, and she

felt silly for leaving her foot in the trash earlier.

She reached for the pile of shining tokens on thescale.

"An interest rate of ten per centum monthly,

first application immediately, increased to

twenty per centum after three months is

acceptable, yes?" He moved to interpose himself

between her and the scales.

"Oh, right. Yeah, that sounds fair. Do I have

to sign anything?"

Holly strode out of the alley, her countenance

shining with a confidence and belief that seemed

new-minted. As he watched her go, J. P. found

himself weighing the merits and drawbacks of an

employee with a gift for handling lighter

elements he himself did not possess; and

reflecting that not all Thralls were bound with

chains of soulsteel.

* * *

Wraiths have no need of money, right? I

mean, they don’t have to pay rent, or bills, or

buy food, and there isn’t much stuff to buy on

this side of the Shroud. What few material

desires they may have can be satisfied with a

little ingenuity in a few years or even months for

all time. So how on earth did the Usurers becomenumbered among the four Great Guilds, and

what do they do with their time?

The short answer is, plenty. Wars cost money,

or more accurately Pathos and corpus, and Stygia

is always at war. So does building Citadels, and

any meaningful interaction with the Quick. The

Usurers are seldom dealt with by the wraith on

the street, just as few of the living need to see a

broker or banker more than once a month. But

they are there, turning the wheels of the economy

of souls, and it would be impossible to

understand the Underworld without consideringthem.

If there is a single key to understanding this

most complex and arcane of Guilds, it is

increase. The Usurers exist to see that the

amount of Pathos, of corpus, of souls, is

continually increasing. Everything they do is

meant to accomplish this, and everything they

decline they do so on these grounds. Comfort

and security can only be achieved by increasing

the resources available to all, and someone must

see to it that all work toward this end. And it

won’t be a pack of jack-booted Legionnaires.

What are the Usurers like? The question can

best be answered by examining those who have a

flair for their Arcanos. Usury is fundamentally

the transfer of emotion from one soul to another;

the ones most naturally adept at this tend to be,

contrary to the stereotype of bankers among the

Quick, highly empathic. Motivational speakers,

leaders of hate-group rallies, revival preachers,

2 Guildbook: Usurers



selfless charity workers, open-mike poets, all

people who share their feelings and spread them

to those around them. The other side of the same

coin is that they appear to be conformists,

matching their actions and expressions to the

feelings of those around them and diffusing

tension for calm. A revival preacher may make a

good Usurer, but a streetcorner preacher defying

the attitude of his would-be flock does not. In

short, if Usurers have a common approach to

their existence, it is to make other people more

of what they already are, and to a lesser extent

more like each other.

Usurers recruit first and foremost from their

clients, typically repeat clients who have paid on

time and in full. This demonstrates a willingness

to fulfill obligations and an ability to generate

surplus Pathos in their minds; such talents, they

reason, can then be steered toward a higher goal

than merely making Aunt Shelly’s last daysmore comfortable or tormenting criminals among

the Quick. Recruitment is quite simply, an

employment contract, with work on commission.

To be honest, Usurers recruit more than they

need, because of their interest in expanding the

Guild and including others; the Usurers are

probably the easiest Guild still extant to sign up

with.

They don’t leave the results of their over-

exuberance lying about any more than the

Artificers do, however.

The modern Guild is organized into

gargantuan Trusts, combinations of Master

Usurers who specialize in a single form of

Pathos. Wrath is the most well known and

largest, but there are also Love, Pride, Faith,

Avarice, Fear, Fidelity, Hope and Jealousy

Trusts. In theory, the nine Trusts are all equal in

their votes when the Guild as a whole must

determine policy, but in practice, Wrath

dominates. The so-called "lesser portfolios",

such as Guilt, Sorrow, and Curiosity, are

typically attached to a major Trust, and do not

have an independent vote; corpus is a basiccommodity which all Trusts trade in. Within a

Trust, all Usurers may vote proportionately to

the level of Pathos they have presently stored in

their Trust’s Grand Vault; in practice, few

Apprentices or Journeymen bother, and either

decline to vote or allow their Master to do so in

their stead. The distinction between an

Apprentice and Journeymen Usurers are simple;

Apprentices are under contract to work for a

Master, while Journeymen have bought their

way out of their initial indenture. The distinction

between Journeymen and Masters is equally

simple; Masters have employees. However,

many independent Journeyman have as much

Pathos or more than some Masters, and thus

more influence on overall Trust policy. All of the

Trusts have their central offices in Stygia itself;

within a Necropolis, there may not be enough

Usurers for each Trust to operate independently,

so officers of differing companies frequently

share office space. Within each Trust, a given

Usurer also has a specialty and a political

position, making for a bewildering array of

interconnected loyalties whenever Usurers

congregate en masse; the Trust representatives

maintain that this promotes cooperation

throughout and between Trusts, while detractors

hold that it means you can never be sure of a

Usurer’s next move.

* * *

3Guildbook: Usurers



While there are subtle differences in the wayTrusts operate based on their stock in trade, they

are similar in overall organization. Certain jobs

need to be performed in any corporation,

regardless of the exact business model or

product.

Brokers

When most wraiths hear "Usurers", they think

of the Brokers, who are the most public face of

the Guild. In some ways, a Broker’s task is the

simplest; evaluate the prospective return on an

investment of Pathos, and determine an interest

rate, collateral, schedule of repayment and the

like based on it. Brokers, unlike their mortal

counterparts, need know little about industry or

the task at hand, but a great deal about

psychology; most of them elect to learn

Castigate as well. Terms of repayment on loans

vary substantially from Trust to Trust; Wrath, for

example, implies immediate action of a drastic

nature, and so the loan will either be repaid in

full soon or not at all. The gap between those is

the gap between Apprentice and Master within

the Guild’s Brokers. Hope, by contrast, is more

likely to trickle back in slowly, but the risk tends

to be much lower for the Broker. Also, a Wraithwhose Dark Passions are organized around

Hatred and Anger may take the loan of Wrath

and run straight to the Labyrinth, while virtually

no Dark Passions involve Love or Faith. Brokers

also traffic in corpus, maintaining both volatile

and nonvolatile accounts in their ledgers for

those with the Memoriam or Legacy to spare,

and issuing loans to those who anticipate battle.

However, a Broker, contrary to popular belief,only rarely deals with individuals; individuals

require precise and specific personal information

to appraise, and many Brokers won’t even talk

about a loan without a "credit report"—a sealed

letter from a Pardoner the Broker knows and

trusts concerning the client’s Shadow. Brokers

deal with institutions, such as the Hierarchy, the

other Guilds and the largest of Renegade or

Heretic groups. Need to pay your company of

Legionnaires their monthly corpus paycheck? A

Broker will handle it when you come up short,

Mr. Anacreon. Losing souls, o Smiling Overlord,

and need to up the murder rate of a

neighborhood? That extended campaign of Embodiment and Puppetry will take a great deal

of Pathos. Just what level of increase can you

expect to see? Need more Hatred to fuel the

forges, Lord Ember? If in return we could

harvest the Pathos from souls marked for the

forge, taking the balance in souls if the

contractual minimum is not achieved…you get

the picture. Brokers form the backbone of the

Guild, but there are more interesting parts of a

body…

Short Sellers

Every Guild has a dirty little secret or three;

the Short Sellers are one of the Usurer’s. Just

because a wraith becomes Shadow-Eaten does

not mean he lacks self-knowledge or goals, and

in their relentless drive to help every wraith

achieve their wants, the Usurers have not

overlooked Spectres. Having fallen once, most

Spectres are loathe to accrue too much Pathos,




lest their Psyche regain enough composure to

steer them away from Oblivion. Thus, Spectres

wish to be rid of their Pathos, Usurers want

Pathos, and bargains are struck; the Short Sellers

act as a sort of macabre parody of Pardoners,

winging through the Tempest and crawling the

Labyrinth to harvest the Pathos that Spectres so

desperately wish to be rid of. Every Short Seller

learns Argos, to escape a deal gone bad; many

also learn Inhabit, Puppetry or some other ability

that lets them hide in the Skinlands when their

"clients" overreact to something. The Hierarchy

would say that the Short Sellers are traitors,

giving comfort to the enemy rather than

converting him; the pragmatic Short Sellers reply

that it takes vast amounts of time, effort and

Pathos to Redeem a Spectre, and that the

outcome is never even close to certain; in the

long run, it’s more cost-effective to simply help

them hurl themselves into the Void. How useful

is the average member of the Redeemed anyway,and who can resist money being given away?

Almoners

The Almoners are a curious collection of

those who stood with the Guild before the

Breaking and the most recent scions of Marxist

states and organizations. While they attempt to

acquire vast hoards of Pathos and corpus just like

any other regular member of a Trust, they hold

that a great many wraiths do not know what they

truly want, nor the limits of their own

capabilities. As such, it is an Almoner’s self-appointed duty to dispense Pathos, not to those

who ask for it, but to those who they think will

use it productively and remember the favor.

Some young wits also refer to them as Venture

Capitalists. An Almoner frequently learns a bit

of Fatalism to assist them in their vocation. Lest

it be thought that Almoners represent the saints

of the Underworld, it bears mentioning that a

great many destructive conflicts have been bred

by an Almoner offering a sum of corpus and

suggesting to a Regent or Renegade leader that

he or she can probably take a certain opposing

force, realizing a handsome return. It’s smallconsolation that the Almoner is often right.

Almoners are far too self-righteous to keep more

than a fraction of their holdings in the Grand

Vaults, meaning they have little say in Guild

operations, but more than a few wraiths in

positions of authority remember who it was that

helped them get there.

Collectors

The Collectors are the other aspect of Guild

operations that are simply not talked about in

mixed company. The Collectors reason that they,

the entire Trusts, and everybody else they get to

interact with is dead, and that as such, the Quick are a resource to be mined. Usury works

perfectly well on the living, if touch can simply

be established (not a simple matter). There’s a

near-infinite amount of corpus for the taking if

one learns Inhabit, Puppetry or some other

means of touching the living, and the Quick will

even heal it back soon if you’re not greedy. If

you’ve ever suddenly had a sharp, painful twinge

upon touching someone or someone, or know of

a place where people seem sickly and never get

better for no particular reason, perhaps a

Collector has taken a dividend. And if they

should accidentally kill someone, well, souls are

a form of wealth too, simply not the abstract and

portable kind the Usurers prefer. Embody is

disdained by Collectors as an expensive and

risky way to go about achieving contact. Since

virtually none of their donors are aware and

willing, Collectors tend to rack up Angst at a

frightful rate, and Pardoners dread their

approach; few Pardoners turn away a wraith who

can pay double the going rate, however. In their

travels through the Skinlands, Collectors also

scout for Relics, sources of Memoriam, and

anything else that might possibly turn a profit; as

callous Guildmembers with access to the

Skinlands, they are also typically tapped toresolve the Guild’s "painful situations".

Market Research

Sound financial decisions must be based on

sound information. Every Trust must have

accurate information on how much Pathos of

what sort is being acquired by whom and where,

what military forces various factions have access

to in order to determine the risk of military

expenditures, and so forth. Researchers jobs boil

down to keeping tabs on every wraith in their

immediate area, and on trends within theSkinlands. When they know what everyone

wants, they only need to supply it. Since

Researchers chiefly talk to people, and nearly all

Usurers are sympathetic as a matter of course,

many Usurers spend time as Market Researchers

and enjoy it; some elect not to buy out their

Apprentice Indentures in order to remain in this

capacity. Unlike organizations such as the

5Guildbook: Usurers



Magisterium, Market Researchers tend to be

network based and highly cooperative; they

delight in sharing feelings with people, and they

can do so most freely with each other. Despite

being frequently looked down upon by the more

strenuous and academic of the professions within

the Usurer’s Guild, Market Research is as

valuable and as vital as the Brokers themselves;

they are the ones, constantly interacting with the

world at large, who identify prospective clients

and recruits. Also unlike the other professions

within the Guild, they tend to work together, at

the insistence of their fellows: Market Research

are probably the most empathic of all the

Usurers, and it is difficult to prevent them from

altering little details in their summaries and

reports to better please their audience.

Trendsetters

To maintain a pattern of steady growth rather

than a cycle of booms and depressions, it is not

enough to control the supply of Pathos; one must

also manage demand. If there is a surplus of

Wrath Pathos in an area, seekers of other Trusts

must be made to accept Wrath; likewise,

deficiencies within the Trusts must be overcome,

and perhaps even the sources of Pathos

themselves convinced to change their tunes.

Most Trendsetters learn a bit of Keening as

absolutely vital to completing their assignments.

If Market Research watches the ebb and flow of

emotion, Trendsetters push it, mounting

campaigns of psychological manipulation akin toadvertising agencies among the Quick. While

there are no widespread media among the

Restless Dead, Trendsetters use gossip

campaigns, posted flyers and bills to influence

the needs and drives of those around them.

Manipulating the Quick en masse is substantially

more difficult, but some Trendsetters use

Puppetry to influence living advertisers,

community leaders and celebrities in order to

alter broad patterns of feeling. They may also be

the first to deal with default clients, in the hopes

that the soft touch will be adequate and the

Collectors need not apply themselves. MostTrendsetters quickly relocate to Stygia as the

principal market for their services; in generating

Pathos to cover gaps in supply, they typically

acquire hordes of Thralls and run them through

controlled environments with Keening applied to

produce more Pathos. Such an arrangement

requires a substantial initial investment, and

would be useless if implemented on a small

scale; on a large, however, the Passion Factories

can be made to pay for themselves, in hidden

corners of the Tempest. Although they work

more with large numbers and abstract

generalities than individuals, their expertise in

compelling and utilizing emotion makes them

vital parts of both the Legions and any number

of conspiracies. All Usurers may strive to help

people fulfill their desires through the

application of energy and effort, but only the

Trendsetters examine competing desires and

determine which to support and which to

subvert. Despite this, they are more frequently

advisors than commanders, as their work has

such a low profit margin that while the Trust as a

whole benefits greatly from them, they as

individuals seldom realize wealth.

* * *




A History of the Guild of Usurers

"Money is a singular thing. It ranks with love as

man’s greatest source of joy. And with death as

his greatest source of anxiety."

--John Kenneth Galbraith

Welcome to your new employee orientation.

My task here today is to educate you on the

history of our Guild, and you will find that, for

all our status as one of the four Great Guilds and

our participation in the creation of Stygia, it is a

comparatively brief one.

The ability to transfer Pathos and corpus from

one wraith to another, for all its simplicity today,

is one that requires a certain level of social

stability and organization to generate a return on

effort invested, and as such it is likely that our

Arcanos was entirely unknown, or practiced in a

severely limited manner, prior to the foundation

of the Republic of Stygia. As Charon began to

deploy armies to clear the Byways of Spectres

and subdue rebellious and misguided groups of

wraiths, it soon became clear that said armies, if

expected to remain in the field, would need more

corpus than they could reasonably be expected to

carry with them. A number of military strategistsof the Republic bent their attentions to this

problem, and the earliest form of Usurers took

shape, as quartermasters and adjuncts to Legion

cohorts. The Simple Arts, up to and including

Investment, were codified by this time, as

hauling vast numbers of Thralls about as storage

batteries was impractical and tactically unsound.

The Provisioners, as we were known prior to the

first millennium Anno Domini, set aboutharvesting Pathos and corpus from wherever

they could, grouping together to divide labor

between Collectors and Legion attaches and

organized and lead by Marcus Crassus,

sometimes now identified as our first

Guildmaster. As Stygia became more complex

and divided a society, and both our Guild and the

Legions grew, infighting between groups of

Provisioners over corpus resources became more

intense; Crassus thus established a system of

precedence whereby the Provisioner with the

greatest resources contributed and stored in the

Grand Vault would be considered to have

precedence in any given dispute. Naturally,Crassus himself had the greatest accumulation of

corpus thus stored and was therefore first among

equals, so to speak. As our resources grew, it

became possible to loan out portions of our

accumulated wealth to private individuals for

specific projects, but this was chiefly done as a

way to establish debts in our favor rather than for

any overarching purpose. While still somewhat

loyal to the Empire of Stygia up to this time, our

sheer utility to both the high and low government

officials allowed us considerable freedom of

action. Then the Artificers got a strange notion to

rule Stygia in the Deathlords’ stead, and theRevolt of the Guilds transpired.

We, with the Masquers, were the first to

desert the revolt once it was going in earnest. I

understand Lord Ember, and the Monitors, are

still somewhat bitter over this. I make no

defense, for none is required. By way of

explanation, I should note that Crassus

7Guildbook: Usurers



worried; while the system does have some

inherent drawbacks among the Quick, most of

them can be explained by the constant need of

the Quick to consume resources simply to carry

on. They must maintain a 5% profit margin or so

simply to avoid joining us, and "profit" they can

count only above and beyond that. Communism,

or at least its proponents, actually helped us to

grow and solidify; it was a far more accessible

and comprehensible doctrine to Old Souls who

had joined us in order to be part of a great Guild

without fully adopting our new modus operandi.

It told them that our lack of interest in politics

was a passing phase, a temporary measure to

refill our emptied Vaults, that the morals of the

lender were not in fact irrelevant. Some of them

have gradually come to understand since then;

others are at least still working.

The other great event of the era was the

Nativity Compact, the agreement betweenCharon, the Jade Emperor and the Ivory Queen

that a wraith’s cultural origin determined his or

her proper place in this world. Colonialism had

made many of our living counterparts vastly

wealthy, and we eagerly attempted to follow in

their footsteps. We needn’t claim a soul to turn a

profit, after all. Our experience, however, was

radically different from that of our living

predecessors. The Jade Empire had a well-

defined and closed social structure, with an

established Merchant’s Guild performing a

function not dissimilar to our own; attempts to

intrude on their monopoly or share techniquesmost often met with failure. The society of Swar

was simply built along principles utterly alien to

us, and we were politely rebuffed at nearly every

turn. Africa was moderately better for us, but the

few Europeans were motivated chiefly by Pride

and Greed, and the legacy among the Africans

was overwhelmingly that of Wrath, colored only

by Fear and Despair. In short, the majority of our

Trusts found nothing of value whatsoever

abroad, and those few who stayed frequently

found themselves in difficult straits. While most

Trusts continue to maintain overseas branch

offices, our foreign adventures can reasonably becalled failures. This was actually an important

and valuable lesson to us; to wit, that Pathos is

not money and that triumph would require more

than merely aping the Quick in their matters

financial.

Our Golden Age spanned seventy-five years,

and what a time it was. Everybody was making

Pathos hand over fist, we were finally at peace

with one another, no one knew how long it could

last and so every new development among the

Quick or the Restless was met with eager

anticipation of vast new profits. We crept back

into Stygia to ply our new trade among the static,

eternal Old Souls who dwell there, much as

modern businessman gaze with avarice at China;

it was such a vast untapped market that even a

two per centum stake would represent a

substantial real increase in business. It also

provided a convenient place for our younger and

older members to cement their relationship, the

citizens of bygone ages acting as local guides

and instructors while those children who

understand modern profits made business

decisions. Alas, it was not to last, as the Fourth

Great Maelstrom erupted and our Golden Age

came to a close.

The Fourth was a breakdown of civil order

and a return to war; our ancient Stygian memberswere once again in their element. We are not by

nature a martial Guild, and typically pay

Masquers or Spooks to handle situations too

volatile for our own Collectors, but those

Masquers and Spooks had their own concerns at

the time. Arts were developed for use on

Spectres specifically for the first time, and our

Short Sellers came into being. It was not a good

time for us, however, and our Shadowlands cadre

was decimated. It frankly took us all of the

intervening period to recoup our losses and refill

the holes in our organizations; the Depression

among the Quick, while well-named, was oneamong us as well. Particularly since we noticed a

disturbing trend during this period; the Higher

Passions among the Quick were dying. The First

World War eroded Faith, Fidelity, Hope and

Pride to an unprecedented degree; others slowly

washed away in a tide of Despair as well. What

had been a slight edge for Wrath on account of

its African trade blossomed into a commanding

lead, not through any effort of its own but

through the downturn in business for other

Trusts.

The Fifth Maelstrom was a mere eyeblink later; our Executors met in full council only

twice between the two. We fared substantially

better than in the Fourth, ironically because we

had not had time to liquidate our military assets

yet. When Charon fell, it was a blow to us all;

business was no longer protected in Stygia, but

increasingly became caught between the

competing aspirations of the Deathlords. There

were compensations, however; the control of the

9Guildbook: Usurers



Jade Emperor had been shaken loose in Japan,

and our businesses there at last began to show a

return on investment despite ongoing violence

among the Restless. Swar likewise found a few

cautious wraiths interested in our efforts at last.

And the subsequent disarray in the Shadowlands

was nothing but opportunity. As the decades

wore on, the old social order eroded, and we

have found fewer and fewer obstacles in our

path.

So where are we now? Behind every local

throne, among every cult or gang large enough to

attract our notice, in the alleys of the Iron Hills,

and even at the gates of the other Dark

Kingdoms. The Quick feel more and more

strongly every day, as reason’s hold on them

lapses, and they acquire more and more to feel

about. The diversity of goals and ideas among

the modern Restless allows us to pick and

choose, to shape our society in the manner wewish without once having to assume command

of anything. It’s true this increase has not been

evenly distributed; Wrath has more accumulated

Pathos and corpus and personnel than any two

other Trusts, as the Quick see their ideals further

dragged through the mud by every new politician

or organization. Fear remains stagnant and

isolated, as they reap great quantities of Pathos

from the Quick yet find no market for it among

the Restless. Greed as a virtue, despite a brief

resurgence during the 1980s, would appear to

have run its course, and now finds its greatest

markets and opportunities among the Restlessrather than the Quick. Love remains a strong

second place to Wrath, well above the other

seven, but it reports dramatic internal shifts in

business, as the Compassion portfolio withers

and Lust booms. Some efforts of course are

made to alter this balance among the Quick by

our Trendsetters and Collectors, who attempt to

provide appropriate stimuli to diversify the

Quick’s palate; thus far, they meet with limited

success. We are optimistic, however; there is

capital in our Vaults and Tills. There is

opportunity for change in the wake of Charon’s

disappearance. There are other wraiths willingand able to make it happen. Sounds like a good

climate for business to me.

* * *




"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. "

--John Maynard Keynes

Your previous instructor seems to have made

us out to be Gnomes of Zurich or the Bavarian

Illuminati or some such drivel. While a wraith as

wealthy as a Trust Executor or Crassus himself is

surely no one to cross lightly, we are hardly the

be-all and end-all of Restless society, even

within the Dark Kingdom of Iron. I thus submit

for you a summary of our current marketing

strategies and priorities, to assist in making the

difficult decisions that will inevitably come

when you are brimming with Pathos and othersare not.

The Hierarchy and the Great Guilds

Given that the Hierarchy is nothing more or

less than a vast bureaucracy whose major

purpose is to reallocate resources, one might

think there is little room for free enterprise

within Stygia. One would be sensible, but wrong.

Even Hierarchs have Passions of a sort, and

visions of how they can make Stygia better and

employ more souls in genuinely productive ends.

These Anacreons and Overlords can then burytheir repayments to us in endless payroll and

expenditure documents. Furthermore, in the

event of a shortcoming, every Anacreon needs a

friendly Usurer in order to make up temporary

shortfalls in resources or accomplish goals,

which cannot be committed to paper; none will

move against us too openly. They may have the

option of going to Crassus, but if the

shortcoming is blamed (accurately or otherwise)on their poor judgment, they may be replaced or

even forged. We are numbered among the Great

Guilds, after all, and it wasn’t for our charming

manners. Thus, we and the Hierarchy regard

each other with some appreciation and no more

caution than would seem reasonable. This is

fortunate, for besides our non-martial nature, we

are also the greatest consumer other than the

Hierarchy itself of a resource only they can

provide: paper. We are not the Artificers, and

have no ready access to computers; ledgers must

be kept, memoranda composed, flyers circulated

and contracts signed. We could not possibly

collect enough souls to be Moliated into thepaper we require; we must have the papyrus

made from the reeds which grow along the River

of Death. Our entire operation would swiftly

degenerate into chaos if this relationship were

broken off. In the same vein, we have a

longstanding relationship with the Artificers,

however cool personal relationships tend to be;

they need Wrath to fuel their forges, and we find

it useful to acquire both Thralls from their

scrapheaps and finished products. We are less

cordial with the Masquers; their ability to

confound identity renders a great many contracts

unenforceable and null, and thus we will onlysell, not loan, to them. Lastly are the Pardoners,

whom we need as much as anyone; our vital

Collectors and Short Sellers would swiftly be

serving Nephwracks were it not for them. The

rest of us can take or leave them personally, but

we do need our colleagues.

11Guildbook: Usurers



The Renegades and the Criminal

Guilds

The Renegades are definitely not our

customers of choice. Our purpose is to build up,

to allow more Pathos to pour across the Shroud

and Stygia so that more work can be done moreeasily. It’s a vague purpose, to be sure, but it’s

more than most Renegades have. The largest part

of them want nothing more than to destroy the

Hierarchy, while another large bunch wants to do

nothing at all. Those few Renegades with a

vision of a new society they wish to build, either

beside or atop the ashes of Stygia, are as valued a

customer as any Anacreon. Few Renegades have

any such vision.

Those Guilds which either stand in natural

violation of the Dictum Mortuum or whose

Arcanos has no legitimate, constructive use, weare cautious in our dealings with. Our Collectors

and Trendsetters find great use for the

Puppeteers, and to a lesser extent the Proctors,

Spooks and Haunters; each of them fancies his or

herself creative, however, and tend to either

interpret contracts flexibly or entirely disregard

them. The Monitors are a special case; when one

has tagged you, it’s best to pay his price, then

offer double that to a Masquer or pack of Spooks

to destroy him. I can barely conceive of a

situation in which we would wish to deal with a

Monitor personally.

Heretics

The Guild has no official position on Heretics

or Transcendence. Unofficially, I think you’ll

find that many of them make excellent clients.

They are marginalized and ridiculed, yet

possessed of strong desires and Passions; an

exclusive market, with interest rates quite

favorable to us agreeable to the client. The Trust

of Faith continues to do the bulk of its business

with Heretic cults, but it is certainly possible that

others may have something to offer them as well.

We seldom recruit from Heretics, however; their

ultimate goal, after all, is to quit this place and bedone with it. While we will not argue the

opportunity to redistribute resources, this strikes

us as every bit as sensible as committing suicide

among the Quick to get to Heaven; the search for

Transcendence may produce excellent Pathos,

but attainment of the goal implies doing nothing,

ever again. No profit in that, and such an attitude

is not useful to us. Let’s move on, but in parting,

I would warn you of a most insidious Heresy

organized around our very own Arcanos; certain

wraiths hold that arrival in the Shadowlands

represents a failure to adequately connect with

others and establish bonds of community and

empathy with others, thus excluding one from

the Fellowship of God. Their solution is to

exchange Pathos and corpus with one another

with manic frequency in order to artificially form

the bonds they failed to in life, thereby lifting

them out of this place. Communism doesn’t

work any better on this side of the Shroud.

The Other Guilds

Certain Guilds attempt to straddle the fence,

so to speak, and are not immediately identifiable

as pro-Hierarchy or pro-Renegade. Among these,

we have great respect for the Harbingers, Oracles

and Chanteurs; each provides a useful service to

us in the advancement of our goals, and each can

be generally relied upon to treat honorably in

business matters. The Sandmen, Mnemoi and

Alchemists, by contrast, are essentially

purveyors of luxuries unnecessary to our

economy; we bear them no ill will, but have little

use for them. Our Trendsetters and the Solicitors

are locked in a dance reminiscent of the mating

of mantises or black widow spiders; each could

be phenomenally useful to the other, yet the

majority of attempts at rapprochement end in

violent confrontation as suspicions and hostilities

boil over. Hope springs eternal, as its Trust will

tell you, but progress in this field is painfullyslow.

Shadows and Spectres

Usurer’s Shadows, given our emotionally

resonant natures, tend to come in two varieties.

They are either domineering in the extreme,

attempting to crush or twist other’s emotions to

match their own, or they belittle every attempt at

independent action and initiative, however slight

or trivial. The former make loans to those likely

to default; the latter are incapable of decision-

making and doomed to the lower echelons of theGuild. Persons of the first variety are frequently

encouraged to join the Collectors, Short Sellers

or Trendsetters, where they will not be in a

position to squander vital capital; the latter make

fine Market Researchers. Almoners recruit more

heavily from the former, but have some of each;

a Broker must avoid either pitfall, and so only




our most trustworthy, controlled or unusual

members assume those duties.

Spectres are, in our vision, simply the most

risky variety of client. We have an entire

department devoted to dealing with them, and its

turnover rate is secret but apparently quite high.

Spectres cannot usually be encouraged to do

anything which would inspire Passions other

than Hate or Fear, or those minor portfolios no

reasonable Usurer will touch, and so we have

few business dealings with them. They do not

often trouble us on account of our Short Sellers

and our stockpile of Pathos with which to fight

them, however; most Spectres understand that

there are easier prey along the Byways, and more

certain means of suicide within Stygia.

Vampires

We know little of these, but from what I

understand, they are Dead who are compelled to

Rise through some unknown means. This

compulsory, slipshod Rising results in a corpse

which is somewhat mobility impaired and in

constant need of infusions of corpus to maintain

its state, but in which the Shadow is less

powerful or integrated with the Psyche. They

would seem adequate tools in the Skinlands if an

accommodation could be reached, but I see no

reason to abandon those Puppeteers who have

performed satisfactorily to date in favor of a

virtual unknown.

Werewolves

Thankfully, these alien predators are rare, and

keep to themselves. Useful only for rampages of

destruction, it would seem, and so ultimately

useless to us, with the possible exception of

certain employees of Fear.

Mages

I shall be blunt. Some of these understand

passion, yet are too disorganized and selfish to

be of any use. Others understand economics, butwould stifle passion in search of cold precision.

Yet others understand Death, and fixate upon it

to the exclusion of passion or progress. In short,

the lot of them are useless to us, and best

avoided.

Changelings

The Sandmen appear to have a solid working

relationship with the Living Dreams, and guard it

jealously. I move that we disregard their rancor,

as these appear to inspire emotion, particularly

positive emotion, among the Quick like nothingelse; I am certain that the Trusts of Love,

Fidelity and Hope would be eager to explore this

untapped market. I am told that some among

them can perceive us, and we should seek these

out with all reasonable haste. Oops, excuse me,

I’m late for my appointment with the Grim

Overlord of Boston now. What was I saying?

The Quick

One of our major sources of revenue still, but

slipping ever away from the Higher Passions in

headlong pursuit of Wrath, Fear, Depression andLust. This is not a problem a priori, but a limited

selection of emotional responses inevitably leads

to situations for which no emotional response is

possible. This is our loss, and must be rectified.

If you have concrete suggestions in this matter,

the Trendsetter’s office is the third door on the

right.

A brief word on ghost-hunters; those that

employ technology are generally harmless to us

personally, but may negatively impact our goals

with their publicity. Avoid them if you can.

Those who use trappings of faith or magic are

somewhat more dangerous, but can be useful for

their onlookers and followers. If you get a

moment and have the Pathos and the skill, you

may consider harassing them, in order to

provoke faith or wonder in their audience.

* * *




"The wealth of a soul is measured by how much

it can feel; its poverty by how little." --William Rouenseville Alger

Before we undertake a detailed examination

of the Arcanos Usury, we must first examine

Pathos itself, the medium of exchange among the

Guild. Having long ago realized that the full

amount of corpus a soul can hold is generally

equivalent to ten times the smallest achievable

discrete unit, these units were called decinimae, a

contraction of deci animae, or one tenth of a

soul. The unit of Pathos which will produce one

decinima of corpus is called the sentima, a

corruption of the Latin word for emotion,

sometimes abbreviated among wraiths of American origin as "sents". Usurers make use of

fractional and decimal notations within their

ledgers, but always round to the whole unit most

favorable to the Usurer in an actual transaction.

Pathos comes in varieties, exemplified by the

nine Trusts of the Guild, and a wraith is

incapable of using those forms of Pathos for

which he or she is not emotionally equipped.

This extends to the Usurers themselves as well.

This never comes up concerning Pathos garnered

the hard way—persons with a Passion of Hate

acquire Pathos from actions stemming fromHate, not Charity, unless they also have a

Charity Passion. However, a wraith with no Hate

Passion cannot acquire and utilize Hate, even

from a Usurer. Worse still, if they have a Dark

Passion involving Hate, their corpus will

interpret the infusion of Hate as Angst. If they

have both, it is interpreted in the ratio of the

strength of the relevant Passions and Dark

Passions. Thus, those Trusts which specialize in

questionable commodities, such as Wrath, Fear,Pride and Avarice, must have skilled

psychologists as Brokers (this comes up less

often among Fidelity, Faith, or Hope, but it can

never be completely disregarded). Despite the

fundamental equivalence of Pathos and Angst, a

Usurer can NEVER use his or her Arcanos to

manipulate Angst, even when the client is in a

moment of Catharsis or is Shadow-Eaten; the

Shadow represents all that is repressed, denied

and buried within a whole mind, and it is simply

too guarded and deep within the soul for the light

touch of the Usurers to get a grip on it. There’s

tell of a Dark Arcanos named Larceny which

would confer such abilities, however, and suchinformation is heeded quite closely by the

reckless and mad among the Guild. But then, the

reckless and mad are also shipping off to Hong

Kong in yet more futile attempts to understand

the Way of the Merchant as well.

The Guildmarks associated with Usury are

rather more subtle than most, typically identified

as a clipped, precise and dry speech pattern and

the constant presence of a set of scales. The latter

is, of course, nothing more than a trademark, just

as the iron lanterns of the Pardoners. Still, most

Usurers are quite proud of their chosenavocation, and upon receiving a set of scales

upon becoming a Journeyman, are loathe to go

anywhere without them. The former is a bit more

complex; on a deep psychological level, Usurers

come to distrust their own medium of exchange,

as they feel emotion pass into and out of them in

response not to genuine events but to their own

will. How relevant is Wrath when you can pull




••• First Option - While Arbitrage is an

excellent start along the path to formulating a

universal medium of exchange, it can and must

be refined further. With this power, a Usurer

implants in himself the temporary ability to

utilize another emotion, by using the principles

of Arbitrage on his own Passions. Each success

on an Intelligence + Usury roll allows this power

to last for one scene; if it reverts while the

inappropriate Pathos is still in the wraith, that

Pathos is lost. This power costs 1 Pathos. It is

chiefly used to accept payment on behalf of

another Trust, which will return the favor at a

later date. While most Usury arts are not linear,

Arbitrage must be learned before this art.

•••• Stock Split - This power is devilishly

simple, and requires no roll if used on oneself.

By upsetting and destroying her own emotional

equilibrium, a Usurer may infuse herself with as

many points of Pathos as she likes, up to hermaximum; her Shadow gains an equal amount of

temporary Angst. Using it on a willing subject

requires 1 point of Pathos and a Charisma +

Usury roll; the number of successes equal the

maximum amount gained, although the Usurer

can choose to cause a smaller disruption. It

cannot be used on an unwilling subject, and its

use on someone else gains the Usurer a point of

temporary Angst.

•••• Bankruptcy - While the Usurers disdain

combat as something clients should be paid to

engage in on the Usurer’s behalf, they are notwholly without the means to defend themselves

(just have a look at Lien). With a Manipulation +

Usury roll, difficulty of the target wraith’s

Willpower, they may reduce the target’s capacity

for Pathos by one point per success. If the

target’s temporary Pathos exceeds her new

maximum, the excess is lost into the surrounding

area in a colorful cloud. Use of this power costs

1 Pathos and gains a point of temporary Angst,

and it can be used multiple times. With the

sacrifice of a Permanent Willpower point, the

Usurer can make the decrease resulting in a

single roll permanent; this is virtually neverdone, in part because of the cost, in part because

it violates the very purpose of the modern

Usurers. If no such point is spent, lost Pathos

capacity returns at the rate of one point per

scene.

••••• Collateral - Transfer of Pathos about is all

well and good, and makes for excellent

economic stimulus; occasionally, though, more

drastic measures are called for, nor were the

Usurers always so principled. This highly

guarded secret of the Usurers allows them to

move not Pathos, but Passions themselves,

between Usurer and client. Doing so requires a

Charisma + Usury roll, with the Willpower of

the target wraith for the difficulty in an unwilling

transfer, or difficulty 4 for a willing. Each

success allows for a point of a single Passion to

be transferred; extra successes delay return by

one scene each. Passions return to their proper

"owners" at the rate of one point per scene; the

transfer can be made permanent by the

expenditure of one Permanent Willpower Point

per point of Passion thus transferred. Use of this

power on an unwilling client gains the Usurer

two points of temporary Angst.

••••• Inflation - A wraith who masters this

power has learned how emotions fit together and

balance each other, not in stasis but in dynamicequilibrium. She understands how to slip Fear in

between Hope and balance Love against

Selfishness, fitting more Pathos into a wraith’s

form. A roll of Dexterity + Usury, difficulty 6 is

required, and the number of successes is the

number of additional slots gained in Pathos

capacity. They fade at the rate of one point per

scene, and any Pathos which exceeds a wraith’s

new capacity is lost. Use of this power costs 1

Pathos. A wraith may be Inflated only once;

subsequent uses of Inflation count from the basic

Pathos capacity of 10 (or whatever else it was),

although a Usurer can always try for moresuccesses. Inflation can be made permanent with

the expenditure of as many Permanent

Willpower points by the Usurer as the increase.

New Merits and Flaws

Natural Projector (1 pt Merit): You find it easy

to give of yourself to others, and to share your

excitement or horror. You have a -1 difficulty to

give Pathos, corpus or anything else transferable

to others via Usury to another.

Sympathetic Ear (1 pt Merit): You enjoylistening to others and figuring out what makes

them tick, in a rational manner. You have a -2

difficulty to take Pathos or corpus from willing

donors.

Sociopath (3 pt Flaw): You are utterly unable to

emotionally connect with others. You may not

give Pathos or corpus to others, although you can

count as a willing donor for other Usurers. You




may not learn the Empathy talent. Obviously,

this is worth no points to a non-Usurer.

Self-Aware (2 pt Merit): You understand the

intimate workings of your own Shadow and how

it connects to the greater "you". You are able to

accept Usury transactions of your Shadow

Passions as Pathos rather than Angst.

Broad Experience (1 pt Merit): despite having

no Passion built around it, your experience

allows you to understand one other emotion well

enough to conduct transactions in it and store it

within you as Pathos.

Considerate (1 pt Flaw): something in you balks

at using your craft to take advantage of others.

You may not use Usury on an unwilling target

without spending a Willpower point, and if you

do so you gain an additional point of Angst.

No Core Identity (2 pt Flaw): The emotions you

presently contain determine your drives and

actions, and your personality changes whenever

your Pathos pool does. You must spend a

Willpower point to do something not in keeping

with whatever "flavor" of Pathos presently

predominates your pool, and your emotional

states are extreme and obvious.

Corpus Sink (4 pt Flaw): Your corpus is

somehow unstable, and you naturally lose a point

of it any time you would gain Angst. This is nota substitute for the Angst gain. Many Collectors

have this Flaw, and select their occupation as a

way to have access to plenty of replacement

corpus.

New Artifacts

Tills (Variable level Artifact) : A Till is simply a

storage Battery for Pathos, resembling a complex

array of moving brass parts and beveled crystal

panes. It can hold 10 points per level of the

Artifact. While expensive devices, they are

infinitely more reliable and accessible, if not assubtle, as the Investment art.

Private Ledger (level 3 Artifact) : This is a book

whose text seems to blur and shift when it is

studied; only its owner is able to make the words

legible. Traditionally, the owner was designated

as the possessor of a companion ring, but other

identification methods (only legible in a specific

Haunt, useless if stolen; only legible after a

certain pattern is traced on the cover with six

fingers) have been utilized. Once set, the

identification method cannot be reset.

Jeweler’s Glass (level 1 Artifact) : This

monocle-like device allows its wearer to

determine the emotions which the Passions of a

target wraith are organized about; Perception +

Awareness is rolled, diff. 6, and each success

tells the wearer of one Passion of the target

wraith, highest first. If the target resists scrutiny,

they may oppose with their Willpower, but they

must be aware of the scrutiny to do so.

Prospector’s Pick (level 4 Artifact) : This

unassuming digging tool is a favorite of Short

Sellers who prowl the quiescent sectors of the

Labyrinth (see Doomslayers). It makes for a

serviceable improvised weapon and is crafted

from Stygian steel, allowing it to do Strength + 1

Aggravated damage, difficulty 7; its true value,however, is that it allows the wielder to take

Pathos from Slumbering Spectres without

incurring the Angst penalty normally associated

with an unwilling donor. A typical dormant

Spectre only has 1 Pathos in it, but they seldom

occur alone, and for the impatient it might work

on Slumbering wraiths as well.

Scattered Coins (level 5 Artifact, Issued) : A

few coins in the right place can make all the

difference. Why, some 2000 years ago, thirty

pieces of silver changed the whole world (and

the Usurers have been looking for the Relics of those particular coins ever since). These coins

are alleged to be from somewhat earlier, when a

certain prophet and heretic of the day drove

moneylenders from a Temple with a whip. As

the currency used to pay God, they allow their

user to trade any number of Pathos for double

that number of automatic successes on any single

roll. When the coin has thus been spent, it will

not function for that carrier anymore, and is thus

typically returned to the Guild, although it could

be passed to another person first.

* * *




"I have to keep breathing. It’ll be my worst business mistake if I don’t. "

--Sir Nathan Rothschild

Notes on Roleplaying Usurers

While the Usurers style themselves as a collection of modern corporations, they are not dead members

of the Syndicate. They are applying the theories of capitalism, not to an intellectual abstraction like money,

but to real feelings. The Usurer’s business is using emotions to generate more and stronger emotions, which

conversely implies the deliberate breakdown of discipline, moderation and reason in their clients. Their

vision of a perfect social order thus becomes one where every wraith indulges every Passion at every

opportunity, largely heedless of long-term consequences. While protesting that they are actively working to

diversify the emotions of the Quick, and by extension future generations of Restless, the simple fact is that

it’s easier to invoke Hate or Fear than Loyalty or Pride, and so as long as they allocate status by the amount

of Pathos produced, those who specialize in the baser emotions will hold the balance of power within the

Guild and develop a greater hold over the Quick. The Usurer’s share of blame for the breakdown of social

order on either side of the Shroud, with subsequent breakdown in living standard, is more than average.

Usurers want everyone to feel things, together, because that’s what they did in life and what they’re

good at. While it’s perfectly normal to attempt to advance one’s own profession or lifestyle, the Usurers

ultimately have a problem with diversity. Either they attempt to conform to a perceived mean or they

attempt to bring others to a conceived mean of behavior. Even the nominal separation of the Trusts does not

allow for much real division within the world the Usurers work for.

Now that we’ve illuminated some flaws within the current Usurer business model, let’s not forget what

they do that’s good. They allow wraiths to practice their Arcanoi to their fullest, and they allow grand

visions to be realized by providing the resources to do it. They help individuals with problems, and they

provide a genuinely sympathetic ear to anyone who wants to talk. They help wraiths of skill and vision

achieve power who otherwise may have languished unnoticed as a mere Legionnaire for decades. The

Usurers are called a Great Guild for a reason, as they do as much good for Restless society as the otherthree Greats and more than the other twelve Guilds. They know this, they’re proud of it, and they want to

keep doing it more and bigger and better; but they don’t know what of a good thing is enough and what is

too much.

With these things in mind, some Usurer templates for you. Don’t say I never gave you anything for free.




Quote: Gimme a ‘G’! Gimme a ‘R’! Gimme an

‘E’! Gimme another ‘E’! Gimme a ‘D’! Whazzat

spell!?!

All your life, you were in center stage. You

became a cheerleader because you wanted to

make people excited about the good things

around you at school; you made yourself pretty

because cheerleaders were supposed to be pretty;

you got good grades in honors courses more

through diligence than intellect, because it made

your parents and teachers happy; you were

generous and friendly and polite to everyone, no

matter how strange or unhygienic they were,

because a school symbol and the mayor’s

daughter was supposed to be like that. All you

really ever wanted was to have everybody get

along and really like your town and each other.

And maybe you would have done something like

that after college, but you never got to go. You

were killed in a drunk driving accident over the

summer after graduation.

After a scuffle between a couple of people

who called themselves Reapers, you found

yourself in the Emerald Legion, who were much

nicer and friendlier than the creep from the

Penitent Legion who said you were his. They all

got along with each other, and they tried to get

along with people who weren’t lucky enough to

be in the Emerald Legion, and while youcouldn’t fight (which you thought was stupid

anyway) you could look for neat things that used

to make the living happy, Relics y’call’em. After

a while, you met an odd man with a handle-bar

mustache, very old-fashioned but friendly and

polite, and he showed you how the Usurers make

people who are only doing OK do a lot better.

You were thrilled to be asked to join, even if you

were supposed to keep it a secret, and all he

wanted you to do was ‘Market Research’, which

was really just talking to everybody and being

nice and if a good person needed some help, you

all helped him. Heck, that’s what you’d doanyway! Maybe the Shadowlands could use a

better decorator, but you’re doing very much

what you always wanted.

Fetters: University acceptance letter ••••, Dad’s

wrecked car •••, Cheerleading uniform •••




Quote: Just relax. We’re going to get you

everything you asked for, and it’s on its way here

now. We just need a little something, a little

show of good faith, first.

You never wanted to join a gang. Guy gets in

a gang, he gets a little money and a little respect,

and then he doesn’t give that up, he can’t let go

of that little local prize to reach for the big one.

You saw that early on, and every time a gang or

a gang member approached you, you talked your

way out of it. You made it through school, but

found that talking your way into a good college

was a lot harder than pulling the wool over an

inner-city high school teacher’s eyes; in the end,

your insights in one essay into the "gang

problem" won you an AJ (Administration of

Justice) scholarship. Hey, it was school, and it

wasn’t like your family could pay. And so you

became a cop.

You found you had a special flair for defusing

domestic disturbances, the calls every cop hates

most, but you didn’t stay on a beat long, making

detective in a record five years. You got put on

Robbery, and it wasn’t bad work, and eventually

someone noticed that you didn’t have a single

resisting-arrest, no charges of police brutality, no

demerits, never fired your gun even when you

had to draw it. You were sent to school in

Quantico and you became a hostage negotiator.

And this is what you were meant to do. You

were saving innocents and getting bad guys

without even usually carrying a gun. You

convinced jumpers to come down off of ledges,

bank robbers to give up peacefully, drug pushers

to trust in their lawyers and come quietly. It was

a good career, and you got to think you were

good at it. So good, that when the police

commissioner was impeached on corruption

charges, you decided to run for his job. With

your ethnicity, your blue-collar background, your

perfect record and above all your ability to makepeople like and trust you if you could just talk to

them, you won in a landslide.

Two months later, you were found floating in

the river, tangled with piano wire.

You stayed with the Grim Legion for a while,

and even served on a couple of their murder

courts, but they were just too disorganized and

brutal for you. You knew that if Stygia was ever

going to get better, it would happen by building

consensus rather than imposing it with a sword.

You shifted your allegiance to some IdealistRenegades, and it was a step up, but it didn’t

work for you ultimately because your objections

were not to the Hierarchy in principle but to the

specific bunch of yahoos that were currently

running it. Then you found a job where you just

might have a shot at what you want, and you

became an Almoner.

Fetters: Commissioner’s office •••, Sidewalk

where you failed to talk down a jumper ••,

Newspaper announcing your victory (kept by

little brother) ••• , University that rejected you ••




Quote: Good to see you again, how was your

week, fantastic! Listen, we’re going for coffee

after, and Carla’s coming, do you know Carla?

Oh, you’ll love her. Really you will. We’ll see you then.

You were born and raised among a highly

religious family, with church three times a week,

lots of closed eyes, raised hands, beautiful music,

and interrupting the Reverend to shout out

Hallelujahs. When you learned that your

classmates in elementary school didn’t have

church like you, you pitied them, and invited

them along. They never came. Outside of school

and family camping outings, church was your

life.

Then about high school, things got more

complicated. You had learned that evangelism

costs more friends than it makes, but the first

twinges of real doubt and temptation began

flickering about your mind. You got a part-time

job after school, for college of course, and

reasoned between your job and church and the

track team you really didn’t have time to date

much.

Your world fell apart your senior year, when

another boy kissed you. You were too ashamed

to tell anyone, and you barely left your room for

a week. You stumbled through the month left of school, and thought of him every night when you

went to bed. You told your parents you were

moving in with a friend and going to community

college. They never saw you again. You

hitchhiked your way to Baltimore, following no

particular plan or purpose, and figuring you’d

come far enough, you took a job as a gas station

attendant. After six lonely, dull months of

movies and night shift jobs, you found a bar with

a drag contest. You were the life of the party in

no time.

You had never truly reconciled your faithwith your nature, but God’s love was never a

theoretical abstraction to you; it’s something

real, immediate, and as easy to feel as the carpet.

And it had not left you up to this. But harmless,

funny, generous and even faithful people like

you can contract AIDS. And suddenly, you

weren’t so sure about God as your best friend

anymore. At the suggestion of your doctor, you

joined a support group for people suffering from

terminal diseases. And your first thought was

that you’d found what church was for adults.

The idea of a personal long-term relationshipwith anyone but God never really crossed your

mind, and you were determined not to bother

now that this had come up. You seemed to have

a much clearer idea of how these things were

supposed to go, though, than anyone else in the

group; they fumbled, you drew on your church

experience and on countless cocktail parties, and

had everybody talking enthusiastically and

smiling in no time.

The next six years were a blur; but they were

six years, which was about three times what the

doctors gave you. You made friends, you drew

them out of their shells and you buried them,

time and again. You were the solid backbone of

the group, and you even took to arranging dates

between members you thought compatible. You

had an eye for that sort of thing, and most of

them thanked you afterwards. One pair even got

married before the end. You cried the whole

time, and you thanked God that, if your life was

to be short, at least he gave you this before the

end.

And when it went away, you were here, and

suddenly you had proof that God was all in your

and your parent’s heads. You weren’t scared, ordisappointed; you were furious. You beat your

Reaper into a Harrowing and went traveling

again. You didn’t get very far this time. But

eventually you calmed down, enough to make a

snide comment about the dreadfully old-

fashioned and tacky suit some fellow with a

handle-bar mustache was wearing. To your utter

surprise, he stopped and engaged you in a

conversation about fashion, how you would give

certain impressions, what demeanor you would

use to overcome a particular handicap in front of

a crowd. You’re not sure why you talked to him.

Perhaps you had gotten lonely again. But when itended, it turns out there’s people paid to be the

life of the party around here, and shake things

up. You’re a Trendsetter. You like the sound of

that.

Fetters: Bible •••, Podium at Community Center

••, Drag bar ••, Favorite Theater •••




Nathan Rothschild

The careers and rise of the Rothschild

banking syndicate could fill books, and need not

be recounted here in full. Suffice to say that

Nathan founded the London branch of the

family, and turned a small fortune into a gigantic

one without more than a dollop of mud being

raked up at him. Despite being entitled by birth

to style himself a baronet, later promoted to

knight and then Baron for personally financing

the defeat of Napoleon and being elected the first

Jewish member of Parliament, he insisted on

being addressed as "Mister Rothschild" or, even

better, Nat or Natty. Despite his Austrian birth

and non-Christian faith, Natty became an

admired public figure to the English, a hero to

Jews of the day and the richest man in England.

Some of his descendants have been less

impressive, but his family still sits in the House

of Lords. He was known for his wicked sense of

humor and lack of regard for propriety, paying

clerks to stand at every window at the Bank of

England and keep the tellers occupied for days

until they would honor a wire from his brother in

Frankfort. Today, he is the Executor of the Trust

of Pride, and looks after his family when he can

spare the time from his work in Stygia. Nathan’s

gift for Usury is merely adequate, but his graspof money is peerless, and his arrival was greeted

(much to his own chagrin) with great celebration

by the Usurers. He was reaped a Usurer, has

known no other death and regrets it little; in his

limited spare time, he thinks of ways to return

the Quick to Pride without rekindling the

nationalistic horrors of the Fourth and Fifth

Great Maelstroms and their causes (which he

blames partly on the Trust he now oversees).

Antonio Gramsci

Antonio Gramsci was born the son of a

Sardinian signori, in conditions which might

have been described as poverty, as opposed to

the grinding poverty of his classmates and

neighbors. Crippled from birth with a curved

spine and frail health, he became a moody,

scholarly young man, publishing a broadsheet

blasting the authorities of Italy for their

reactionary positions. When Lenin overthrew the

Czar, Gramsci became a great admirer of him

and attempted to remake Italy along the same

lines; The dogma of Karl Marx proved unequal

to that of the Roman Catholic Church, however,

and when Mussolini came to power he was

imprisoned for sedition. Many of his less public

followers were simply shot. Never a well man,

he succumbed to his illnesses in a Fascist prison.

Gramsci found the Shadowlands a patchwork

of the tyrannies he had opposed in life;

aristocratic Monitors tangled Lombard wraiths in

their webs from Florence, Venetian merchant-

necromancers enslaved the wraiths of the Po

Valley, and a bewildering array of Heretic cultsheld fast in Rome itself. Gramsci has sworn to

upend them all, and scours the countryside for

Renegades or Hierarchs willing to establish a

more equitable way of life among the Italian

Restless. He has become the most well-known

Almoner within the Guild, and a loud voice

within the Trust of Wrath. Those who have a

sword and wish a kingdom have a willing backer




in Antonio, and no tyranny can last forever…can

it? Today Venice, tomorrow Stygia.

Donna Kosygin

There are jobs no human being was really

meant to have. Enough despair will wear downthe toughest souls until the most terrible things

seem quite reasonable. Donna was a nurse in an

intensive care unit, treating primarily advanced

cancer patients, although occasionally some

other terminal case would be assigned to the

same ward. She watched people die who had

done nothing wrong, and not dignified or

graceful deaths either, but long, slow painful

deaths, for which in many cases the doctors

would prescribe no or not enough painkillers.

Listening to groans of agony day in and out was

too much for her. She was a nurse. She was

supposed to make them feel better, to help them.

She helped them.

Donna was convicted on twelve counts of

first-degree murder, and forty-three more were

thrown out as unprovable. After a stay of twelve

years on death row, she was electrocuted. Today,

she is far and away the Trust of Love’s most

productive Collector, bringing in more corpus

than they could spend in a decade. There are so

many people in need of help, people attached to

machines that are waiting for her to Inhabit them.

HMOs are about efficiency, and sacrifices must

be made, so the papers say.

Marcus Crassus

The legend and bogeyman of the modern

Usurers, Crassus is still very much existent about

the Onyx Tower. He maintains vast stores of

Drones and Thralls, full of Pathos and corpus

and chained together in warehouses (Crassus

hails from before the development of Investment,

and still prefers the habits of his living days for

keeping his wealth). He is in charge of

maintaining the wealth of the Empire itself, and

his subservience to the Deathlords is entirely

theoretical. When one of them needs morePathos for a project, they requisition him, and

terms are set for the contract. Lesser members of

the Hierarchy may also petition him, but their

superiors would surely be informed. Crassus is

actually held to be a jolly old man, charitable and

friendly to all, and dispensing favors widely to

those who petition him as a private man rather

than Treasurer of Stygia. His abandonment of the

Guild he once lead was genuine, so long as

Charon was Imperator; once again, he was the

third man of a great Empire. He busies himself

studying who is using Pathos for what, and what

they might need soon, and who exactly they are

using to accomplish their tasks; privy to a great

deal of the finances of all the Deathlords,

Crassus may have the most complete picture of

Stygia of anybody. With Charon gone and

Nhudri uninterested in politics as ever, Crassus

has set his sights on becoming the next

Imperator, but for now he moves in secret and

attempts to reestablish contact with the Guild he

was once master of. He regards all of the

Deathlords as buffoons and madmen, but

believes he can keep them suspicious and at each

other’s throats long enough to exhaust might and

let wealth have its turn at Empire.




"Poverty is the openmouthed relentless hellwhich yawns beneath civilized society. And it is

hell enough."

--Henry George

For those who follow my posts on Ex Libris

Nocturnis, you may be aware that I reject the

Sixth Great Maelstrom as a load of baloney. The

bulk of this work is written from a perspective

prior to Ends of Empire. For the benefit of the

assembled canon-is-gospel-monkeys, however, I

will here attempt to summarize the effects of the

Sixth Great Maelstrom and Charon’s return and

abdication upon the Usurer’s Guild.

It completely destroys them. The Grand

Vaults have been sent plummeting into the

Labyrinth or spinning off into the Tempest. The

careful Ledgers indicating who is entitled to

what within them are lost. Short Sellers achieve

a new prominence seeking out Vaults and

hauling away all the Pathos they can carry, and

hopefully making it back out in one piece;

lunatics contemplate the potential number of

Redemption Harrowings which could be

triggered if the Vaults of Fidelity or Hope were

cracked open within the ruins of Stygia or the

Labyrinth. The Executors of the Trusts aremissing. Most of the wealth accumulated in the

past century and a half is vanished at a stroke,

with only the working capital individual Master

Usurers kept about as petty cash surviving. As

relatively younger wraiths, many Master Usurers

cannot conceive of a century and a half of

progress wiped out, and those vulnerable to

Despair become Shadow-Eaten or plunge

directly into the Void, while those who are not,desperate to recoup something for themselves,

set about seizing each other’s Tills and assets

even as Spectres howl about them. It will be

some time before the Usurers can settle their

differences and regain their collective sanity, and

when some structure emerges from the chaos at

last, it will likely be as radical a transformation

as that which followed the Breaking.

Crassus escapes to Rome, apparently with the

help of the Monitors. His personal assets are

wiped out like any other Master Usurer, but he

remains the unsolved variable in the Guild’s

equations, and attempts to rally as many as willtake direction around himself.




Name:Player:Chronicle:

Nature:Demeanor:Shadow :

Life:Death:Regret:

AttributesStrength___________

Dexterity __________

Stamina ___________

Abilities Alertness

__________

Athletics___________

Awareness__________

Advantages_________________

_________________

_________________

CorpusO O O O O O O O O O

¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨

O O O O O O O O O O

¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨

Pathos¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨

Willpower

Guild Marks

_______________________

_______________________

_______________________

_______________________

_______________________

Favorite Clients

OOOOO

OOOOO

OOOOO

PhysicalCharisma __________

Manipulation_______

Appearance_________

OOOOO

OOOOO

OOOOO

SocialPerception_________

Intelligence_________

Wits______________

OOOOO

OOOOO

OOOOO

Mental

O O O O O

O O O O O

O O O O O

TalentsCrafts

_____________

Drive_____________

Etiquette___________

O O O O O

O O O O O

O O O O O

Firearms___________

Leadership__________

Meditation_________

O O O O O

O O O O O

O O O O O

Melee_____________

Performance________

Repair____________

O O O O O Stealth____________

O O O O O

O O O O O

O O O O O

SkillsBureaucracy

________

Computer__________

Enigmas___________

O O O O O

O O O O O

O O O O O

Investigation________

Law ______________

Linguistics__________

O O O O O

O O O O O

O O O O O

Medicine__________

Occult____________

Politics____________

O O O O O Science____________

O O O O O

O O O O O

O O O O O

Knowledges

Brawl_____________

Dodge_____________

Empathy ___________

O O O O O

O O O O O

O O O O O

Expression__________

Intimidation________

Streetwise__________

O O O O O

O O O O O

O O O O O

Subterfuge__________ O O O O O

O O O O O

O O O O O

O O O O O

Backgrounds__________________________________________

__________________________________________

__________________________________________

Passions

O O O O O

O O O O O

O O O O O

__________________________________________

__________________________________________

__________________________________________

O O O O O

O O O O O

O O O O O

_________________

_________________

_________________

O O O O O

O O O O O

O O O O O

_________________

_________________

_________________

OOOOO

OOOOO

OOOOO

Arcanoi_______________________

_______________________

_______________________

Specialty

_________________

_________________

_________________

OOOOO

OOOOO

OOOOO

_________________OOOOO

Speak in Precise, Numerical Terms

q

q

q

q

q

q

q

q

q

Usury



Class:__________________

Rating:_________________

Penality:________________

Description:_____________________

_____________________

_____________________

Weapon/Attack Diff. Damage Range Rate Conceal Pathos Armor

_________________

__________________________________

FettersStanding:______________________________Rank:________________________________

__________________________________

__________________________________

Ancient/New Arts Known

__________________________________

__________________________________

__________________________________

____________________________OOOOO

____________________________OOOOO

____________________________OOOOO

____________________________OOOOO

____________________________OOOOO

____________________________OOOOO

____________________________OOOOO

__________________________________

__________________________________

____________________________

OOOOO

Experience

Gained From:____________________________

__________________________________

TOTAL:

__________________________________

Spent On:______________________________

__________________________________

Guild Standing & Contacts

Guild Contacts:______________________________________________________________

__________________________________

__________________________________

__________________________________

Apprenticed To:___________________________

Merits & FlawsMerit Type Cost_________________ __________ ____

_________________ __________ ____

_________________ __________ ____

_________________ __________ ____

_________________ __________ ____

_________________ __________ ____

_________________ __________ ____

Flaw Type Bonus_________________ __________ ____

_________________ __________ ____

_________________ __________ ____

_________________ __________ ____

_________________ __________ ____

_________________ __________ ____

_________________ __________ ____

Other Traits

Combat

OOOOO

OOOOOOOOOO

_________________

__________________________________

OOOOO

OOOOOOOOOO

_________________

__________________________________

OOOOO

OOOOOOOOOO



Expanded Backgrounds Allies

__________________________________

__________________________________

__________________________________

Mentor__________________________________

__________________________________

__________________________________

Contacts__________________________________

__________________________________

__________________________________

Notoriety __________________________________

__________________________________

__________________________________

Eidolon__________________________________

____________________________________________________________________

Status__________________________________

____________________________________________________________________

Legacy __________________________________

__________________________________

__________________________________

Wealth__________________________________

__________________________________

__________________________________

Memoriam__________________________________

__________________________________

__________________________________

Other(____________)__________________________________

__________________________________

__________________________________

PossessionsGear(Carried)

__________________________________

__________________________________

__________________________________

Equipment(Owned)__________________________________

__________________________________

__________________________________

HauntsLocation

______________________ __________________________________________________

______________________ __________________________________________________

______________________ __________________________________________________

Description

Artifact Level____________________________ _____

____________________________ _____

____________________________ _____

Relic Level____________________________ _____

____________________________ _____

____________________________ _________________________________ _____

____________________________ _____



History Life

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

Death__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________Description Age:_________ Apparent Age:_________ Date of Birth:_________ R.I.P:_________ Gender:_________

Height:________ Weight:_____________ Hair:______________ Eyes:__________ Race:___________

Nationality:_________________________ Garb:____________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

Other Distinguishing Features:____________________________________________________________

S H A D O W S H A D O W Psyche: Archetype:Shadowguide Player:

_______________________

_______________________

_______________________

Thorns Angst Dark Passions

_______________________

_______________________

_______________________

_______________________

_______________________

_________________

_________________

_________________

OOOOO

OOOOO

OOOOO

_________________

_________________

_________________

OOOOO

OOOOO

OOOOO

_________________

_________________

OOOOO

OOOOO

O O O O O O O O O O

¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨

O O O O O O O O O O

Psyche Willpower

guildbook: usurers

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