You are an agent of the Illuminati, the New World Order, the Black Nobility: all names for the vast and shadowy cabal of power-brokers who control the course of human history. The list of groups who comprise the Illuminati (or are at least suspected of comprising it) is enormous: there are at least half a dozen alien species (from Reticulans to Reptilians to Nordics), ancient prehuman "root races" from lost continents like Lemuria and Atlantis, the Yetinsyny, the Merovingian dynasty, the Priory of Sion, the Knights Templar, the Knights of Malta, the Church of Satan, the Society of Assassins, the Gnomes of Zurich, the Bilderberg Group, Anonymous, the Discordians, "Time Meddlers", the Cathars, unspeakable elder gods like Yog-Sothoth and Shub-Niggurath, the British Royal Family, the Trilateral Commission, the Nephilim, the actual literal Devil, etc. If they've been accused of covertly manipulating world events to suit a sinister agenda, there's at least an outside chance that they're real and they've got a position within the metabyzantine power structure of the Unfinished Pyramid.
Anyone can become an agent of the Illuminati, or a "Man in Black", as you're sometimes known. Maybe you used to be an intelligence officer with the CIA or MI6, or an FBI special agent, already trained to work within webs of half-truth and intrigue that you can barely comprehend. Maybe you were recruited straight out of college when you accidentally joined an Illuminati front organization, like the obscure Zeta Gamma Tau sorority. Maybe you were an al-Qaeda operative or an IRA gunrunner who got a peek at the full picture and decided that power trumped philosophy. Maybe you were raised inside the Unfinished Pyramid, whether trained from childhood in a paramilitary chapter house run by the SMOM or indoctrinated into a hereditary cult worshipping the long-forgotten gods of the Bosnian pyramid-builders. Hell, maybe you're not exactly what we might call "fully human": you could be the product of a joint Grey-CDC hybridization experiment, a genetically-engineered clone, the psychic end result of an MK-ULTRA successor program, or an android with synthetic skin and synthetic memories. Or maybe you were just an average sheep who got caught reading the wrong thing on the wrong website and had a couple of scary-looking men in dark suits and mirror shades show up at their door the next day. A training course at an Illuminati "finishing school" made sure you'd have the necessary skills to be a Man in Black, but what really separates an agent from the legions of tools unknowingly doing the bidding of the NWO is perspective: the tool is so ignorant that he fools himself into thinking that he has grasped the bigger picture, but the agent, like Socrates, knows enough to know that she knows nothing at all.
Your work isn't all that different from that of an ordinary intelligence officer or special agent, only weirder. Gathering intelligence, running assets, infiltrating mainstream institutions, spreading disinformation, conducting counterespionage, plugging leaks, occasionally getting your hands wet with sabotage and assassination, etc.; the field work necessary to keep the vast machinery of the Illuminati from grinding to a screeching halt. You get your orders from someone higher than you on the org chart and maybe you have some idea of who they're working for and what their angle is, but when it comes down to it, it's immaterial. Doing what you're told by someone you may or may not know and not seeing anything while you do it is basically you're whole job description. You're well-compensated for your work in the twin currencies of the Illuminati: cash and secrets. Sure, a solidly middle-class lifestyle is how they keep your morale up, but the secrets, those are how they keep you motivated. You could probably ask to retire at any point and live out the rest of your days in comfortable, well-supervised anonymity, but that would mean that you will never, ever discover the truth behind the curtain and once you've known the feeling of true understanding, it's damned hard to walk away from that. Of course, getting handed briefcases full of unmarked Euro notes and uncut Colombian cocaine has its own addicting quality too.
You've got a team. Men in Black tend to work together in groups of three or five, for numerological reasons. You might even have a sense of who exactly they're working for and maybe, just maybe, it's the same people you are, but you'd be a pretty awful bunch of clandestine operatives of the sinister shadow government if you let something as petty as conflicting loyalties keep you from doing their job. You also have minders to make sure that you don't try to slip the leash, but your minders probably have minders of their own. And don't worry about them killing you for your first (or even your fiftieth) failure; policies like that just create Stalinist situations where the most successful agents are the ones who are the best at concealing their mistakes, not correcting them. Agents are generally only liquidated when their survival would risk exposing the Illuminati as a whole. If anything, it's your successes that'll put a target on your back, but that's something else altogether...
You've got a gun (probably something small and compact but still powerful) and you've got some fancy spytech, but your most powerful weapon is a smartphone with a well-developed contacts list. See, for all its enormous wealth and influence (and it cannot possibly be understated just how enormous the conspiracy's reach truly is), the Illuminati is surprisingly lousy when it comes to things like bureaucracy and infrastructure. Sure, you have things like the secret base on the dark side of the moon or the vast North American headquarters located underneath the Denver International Airport, but most of its day-to-day operational needs get outsourced to puppet organizations. Out there in the wilderness of mirrors, an agent lives or dies by her own networking skills, her own personal web of tools, pawns, and contacts in positions of information or influence. If the only thing that can save your life is a drone strike, you'd better hope you have the number of somebody at Langley that owes you a favor.
Here's a secret about the Illuminati, something that people on the inside are only too aware of: the Unfinished Pyramid has no top. The leaders of the various factions and sub-conspiracies all sit on "steering committees" like the Committee of 500, the Council of 33, the Council of 13, and the Council of 5, but even at the highest levels of power, the members of those governing bodies (whose rosters are always changing and up for debate even within the Illuminati itself) have essentially Three Stooges'd themselves just short of the position of ultimate authority. And here's another secret: despite whatever positions of temporal power they might officially hold, within the structure of the New World Order, the power players of the Illuminati are basically warlords. Whatever influence and assets they have they must constantly defend from the advances of their ostensible peers. Like the ouroboros consuming its own tail, the Illuminati is in a constant state of low-level internal warfare against itself, with its agents caught directly in the middle. Being at a gathering of Illuminati power-brokers is a lot like what the afterparty for the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact must've been like. Everyone sips their drinks and smiles at their opposite numbers, knowing full well that everyone else's plans necessarily demand their own ruination, submission, or extermination, but until the literal moment that the long knives come out, all parties involved content to continue playing along with the charade of cooperation. And make no mistake: when the knives do come out and the invisible warlords rally their armies, the results can be spectacularly, historically bloody.
So, this is the horrible, disjointed pitch that I have going for a high weirdness Illuminati technothriller conspiracy setting. GUMSHOE, and in particular Night's Black Agents, is the obvious choice of system if I were ever to run a game based off of this, but I was hoping for a second opinion. My biggest worry is that it is too broad and/or inaccessible to inspire any one.
It's a neat idea! It's quite evocative, and conspiracy theories provide all sorts of great plot possibilities, and there seem to be a lot of options for the sorts of weird and wonderful characters that could be played in a world like this. I could see a variety of different "feels" working here: both a game with more of a spy thriller espionage feel or a game based more around raw Lovecraftian weirdness would both seem to fit right in, or a combination of both depending on which way the story goes.
As for being inaccessible, my biggest worry is that it might end up suffering from the same problem as a lot of WoD did-- you're this small piece of this very big and vast conspiracy that has so many layers that nobody can possibly hope to understand, that what you actually can do starts to feel really unimportant. If there's some powerful NPC around every corner, then the question becomes why they don't just do everything themselves and what the PCs are even there for. As a one-shot or a very episodic game, where the quest giver gives you your mission and you go do it, it could work well, but as something more campaign-oriented where the PCs are expected to grow in power and drive the plot with their own ambitions, I feel like the atmosphere might be a bit stifling.
I'll chime in that I like Fate, but this isn't news. It seems to have the necessary open-endedness to make a game like this work, for what it's worth.
Quote from: sparkletwistAs for being inaccessible, my biggest worry is that it might end up suffering from the same problem as a lot of WoD did-- you're this small piece of this very big and vast conspiracy that has so many layers that nobody can possibly hope to understand, that what you actually can do starts to feel really unimportant. If there's some powerful NPC around every corner, then the question becomes why they don't just do everything themselves and what the PCs are even there for. As a one-shot or a very episodic game, where the quest giver gives you your mission and you go do it, it could work well, but as something more campaign-oriented where the PCs are expected to grow in power and drive the plot with their own ambitions, I feel like the atmosphere might be a bit stifling.
That's a very valid concern and I sort of had a second thesis on the Illuminati that I left out was that one of the reasons that the Illuminati as a whole are so obsessed with micromanaging the lives
of every single person in the entire world is because a single highly-motivated actor, to say nothing of a group of them, has unlimited disruptive potential. Just look at Lee Harvey Oswald or Gavrilo Princip. Now, you will never bring down the Illuminati as an institution; the Eye of Providence is, after all, as much metaphor as metaphysics, but it's individual components are not so unassailable. Assuming that they survive long enough to enjoy the spoils of their victory, there's nothing stopping the players from seizing as much power as they can get their hands on. Are they likely to end up as the sole Secret Masters of the world? Probably not. Can they blow the heads off a few major power players and celebrate with the contents of their looted offshore accounts? Absolutely. Will sacrifices have to be made along the way? Almost certainly. Does that take away from the victory? It depends. If that was too meandering an answer, the gist is this: it is completely within the realm of the idea that players can achieve considerable wealth and power in their own right if they're willing to do the horrible things necessary to get it.
Part of why I really, really enjoy the system in
Night's Black Agents is that it's possible to leave very little to chance when it comes to critical showdowns. Do the necessary investigative legwork, identify and exploit the enemy's weaknesses, and spend your points liberally when you roll and you can cripple or kill powerful opponents surprisingly easily.
I love this idea, and actually I don't hate the idea of being swallowed by the conspiracy in a bleak, nihilistic, Lovecraftian/Ligottian way, though I take sparkletwist's point about WoD - for me where WoD went wrong was the rigidity of the metaplot's spine, so to speak, which is obviously connected to a lack of character agency but might not be quite the same thing. I really dig this though - it feels like a more developed, expanded version of your Black Chamber/Commision setting. It also reminds me a bit of Paranoia, especially the idea that the Men in Black might all be working for different cryptic powers and never being fully up front with one another.
I think GUMSHOE is pretty much perfect for this - I'm mostly familiar with Fear Itself but from what I've read Night's Black Agents seems basically tailor-made for this sort of game. I haven't seen Esoterrorists but my understanding is that NBA has more detailed espionage mechanics and Esoterrorists is more setting-based.
Quote from: RhamnousiaJust look at Lee Harvey Oswald or Gavrilo Princip.
Even in the real world, these individuals are surrounded by conspiracy theories, so I figure that would only be heightened when it's a game that is
about conspiracy theories-- and then they stop being highly motivated actors, and start being pawns. They may be disruptive to someone's plans, but it seems fairly reasonable (again, especially in a game like this one) that some puppet master behind the scenes had this all planned out and is going to benefit from it. I mean, you even said, "Doing what you're told by someone you may or may not know and not seeing anything while you do it is basically [your] whole job description," which doesn't seem like it leaves a lot of room for motivation. Maybe a well-timed backstab of your employer, but then it just seems like you're changing whose pawn you are, and making a powerful enemy in the process.
It seems like the motivation is learning more and slowly disentangling some part of the great, complex web of conspiracies, and eventually, perhaps, getting "promoted" from pawn to some other piece. As the description says you're in it to get a peek at "the truth behind the curtain" even if that peek is fleeting and unclear.
Anyway, no mission is going to survive contact with PCs. People are going to go rogue, disobey orders, have ethical dilemmas, defect or work as double-agents. I imagine the longer a character plays the more they'd accrete personal goals.
Steerpike, first of all, I'm so glad that somebody remembers the Commission. Both are definitely the product of my fixation on conspiracy lore, but while the Black Chamber/Commission was pretty unrelentingly pitch-black in its tone, with Illuminati Mambo I'm aiming more for a mix of surreal humor to accompany the still-dark elements of the setting. High weirdness and comedies of error that still have real body counts, if that makes any sense.
sparkletwist, you're right that it's a mixed metaphor. To frame it another way, regardless of the conspiring and planning that took place behind the scenes, in the case of both JFK and Archduke Ferdinand, one of the most powerful men in the world was publicly assassinated out of the blue and in broad daylight. No matter how secure their positions might be, no member of the Illuminati is untouchable, especially by the same sort of people they trust to do their most delicate dirty work. True, the players aren't completely free agents, but one of the primary features of the Illuminati is that everybody is slaved together and nobody, not even at the highest levels, can be entirely sure that they aren't being manipulated by someone. I'd say what separates agents from true pawns is that while the people higher up on the food chain probably stand to profit more from their activities, the agents aren't without, well, agency. Knocking out the Chechen heroin pipeline that an Illuminatus master is using to fund his other schemes is most beneficial to his rivals, but the agents who actually get their hands dirty still driving away with a trunk full of pure Afghan horse; they find a some way to flip that and now they're in a stronger position than they were before. The New World Order runs with all the transparency and efficiency of a Soviet intelligence agency, so finding ways to quietly skim as much profit as you can off of your work is a key part of gathering strength and positioning yourself to eventually take the big leap to a higher tier. Is that intelligible to humans or am I just talking in circles here?
Yeah, the whacky absurdist/surrealist feel definitely comes through, if only through the sheer lunatic excess of everything.
This seems like a challenging setting to describe in a standard way, since so much of it is cloaked in mystery and uncertainty by design. Not that I'm not eager for you to proceed!
I'm a big fan of your Black Chamber/Commission, so if this is anything like those settings/concepts (which it heartily seems to be), I'd love to hear more.
At the same time, I do see sparkletwist's concerns. With the Commission/Black Chamber, one could play BPRD-esque PCs trying to save the world -and the setting allowed them to succeed (if only to avert the Big Unbang for a little bit longer). Basically, what is the draw for players of long-term characters? Do secrets of the setting serve to motivate players as well as PCs? Or is it basically Grand Theft Auto on an international scale with supernatural mojo thrown-in? Are there ideological factions and patron personalities you plan on detailing?
From the little I've seen, I prefer the Commission to this project -but regardless, I'd like to see more of either.
Vellum, asking me some biting questions. I am actually really enjoying this encouragement to reevaluate the ideas I've put forth. As for what drives characters forward in the long-term, I'm tempted to just say "spy stuff", but I know that's not a wholly satisfactory motivation. I would hope that uncovering the secrets of the Illuminati conspiracies would motivate the players as well as the characters, but there's also the personal drama of working within the wilderness of mirrors: intrigue, betrayal, maneuvering, etc. You know, spy stuff. And then there's the fact that there are a lot of extremely bad people within the New World Order (even by the internal standards of a conscienceless ultrainvasive global shadow government) who the players might just want to try and take down on principle. But I guess that it's hard to easily and succinctly frame conflicts because the characters are part of the same organization as most of the people they'd be fighting. Does that make any sense?
I totally intend to at least briefly flesh out some of the more iconic and/or influential factions within the Unfinished Pyramid; that's mostly a matter of deciding what groups warrant the most attention, which I guess is a problem that every "all myths are true" idea has to deal with.
Also, everyone should check out Steve Jackson's amazing "50 Awful Things About The Illuminati" (http://www.sjgames.com/illuminati/50awful.html) and these (https://truthtalk13.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/666vatican-down-power-pyramid.jpg) organizational (http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/False%20Religions/Illuminati/occult-illuminati_power.jpg) charts (https://socioecohistory.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/the_illuminati_elite_organization_n_plan.jpg) made by actual conspiracy theorists if you want a sense of my inspiration. Just ignore the bits about World Zionism. Antisemitism is like the dark matter of conspiracy theory.
Hopeful the bites come across as helpful and good-natured (since that is their intent) versus petulant or caustic.
As for spy stuff, I think one of the major themes of many spy plots is "Us vs Them", and the the difference between what happens if They or We win. Take Cold War fiction (rather than reality). The methodologies of spies on both sides may have been similar, but the ideological (if not pragmatic) goals (even if half-hearted or not) were distinct. The Commission and Moscow Hotel were mirrors, but clearly gave the Us vs Them vibe. Moreover, you described how the post-Hotel Commission deals with rogue esoterrorists and irrational states, and that if the former don't stop the latter, all realities are in serious jeopardy. Even if some Commission plots and personas might sometimes be similar jeopardies, there is at least a meta-plot or assumption that players can fight to save the world. That if they don't act and succeed, the singularity apocalyptic disco will begin, and it will be very bad. With this Mambo, I currently don't get any of that. It's just Us vs Us(es), and everyone yet seems to crave the same thing (pursuit of control devoid of ideology). Sure, the factions and their bosses likely do have differences in aspirations, ideologies, and methodologies, but none of that is currently presented.
Basically, in many spy stories, you have these salient differences from the get-go. Sure, many of these plots end up showing that the differences are actually pale and insignificant, which creates a whole other set of tropes, because loyalty (and disloyalty) is part and parcel to spy fictions (moles, counterespionage, duty, temptation, etc.). But with the current (and understandably nascent) presentation of Mambo, it seems like we don't have any Thems, just an unclear Us, with loyalty and disloyalty all defined by personal gain, and there isn't even an illusion (much less reality) that it matters which of the Us(es) win the constant infighting and intrigue.
Granted, more material might rectify those issues. Or those issues might be mine alone and not in need of rectifying.
I think what Rose is partly getting as is the potential fuzziness of the stakes of any given mission when so much is nebulous and opaque. But I do think if there are salient differences between factions within the Unfinished Pyramid then this could be mitigated a lot.
One thing perhaps to note here is that most games have very clear stakes, including most occult/horror games. If there's a way to pull off a game where figuring out the stakes themselves is actually part of the fun... that could be really unique.
Part of this would be very DM dependent. If a given mission is super bizarre, with just enough clues to suggest that something strange and interesting is going on behind the scenes, most people will probably bite. In my experience most PCs like mysteries provided they're presented well.
Aye, very GM dependent and largely setting independent. The mysteries and their path(s) to revelation (i.e., individual adventure plots) become the draw, rather than the setting, characters, and the influence of the latter upon the former.
My two cents prefer a game where the setting, characters, plot, and their interactions are all reinforcers/motivators to players (and GMs).
Quote from: RhamnousiaI would hope that uncovering the secrets of the Illuminati conspiracies would motivate the players as well as the characters
It would, and should! Except... maybe I'm reading too much into the way you've framed it, but it seems like it's never really going to be possible to uncover the truth, if only because
nobody actually knows it. Like, every time you peel back a layer, there's another one, which I think is at the root of my worry that the PCs might not ever feel like they're able to get a handle on anything. And maybe that's just the style of game it is! I'm perfectly willing to concede it is just my preferred play style at odds with what type of game this is supposed to be, if that ends up being what it is.
Quote from: RhamnousiaJust ignore the bits about World Zionism. Antisemitism is like the dark matter of conspiracy theory.
I'm not trying to start any political or religious arguments here, but I don't think that it's necessarily inherently anti-Jewish to include Zionist conspiracy theories-- any more than it is inherently anti-Christian to include the Knights Templar, or inherently anti-Muslim to include the Assassins, or whatever. I won't deny that the people initially writing the conspiracy theories probably thought nasty things about the groups they were portraying, but that's probably true of most conspiracy theories, and
that is the kind of thing that can be neatly excised from your setting by focusing more on the actual shadowy conspiracies and not assuming large groups of people are automatically up to no good.
What if among all the myriad secrets, there are some that are very special. Occult secrets. Profound cosmic secrets. The pieces of some kind of supernatural puzzle that, when all put together, result in something incredible happening to the people that did so. Maybe it's the vaunted place on the top of the pyramid. Maybe it's apotheosis. Maybe it's the singularity. Maybe it's the end of the world as we know it. Actually, none of those things are mutually exclusive, are they? :P Initially the game would be about discovering that these special secrets exist. After that it would be about collecting them all before anyone else. You could even have the measure of character advancement (xp/levels/skillpoints/whatever) be based on acquisition of secrets - the more you know, the more you grow.
I realize that's venturing pretty far into the supernatural and gonzo, so it may not be appropriate for the style and feel you're going for. But it would present a definite victory condition for the game, a long-term goal for player characters to pursue.
Yeah, the setting doesn't really allow for the players to ever assemble a "unified field theory" of how all the pieces of the Illuminati fit together, especially since by their actions, they're necessarily causing changes and realignments within the power structure. But I'm not aiming so much for a quasi-Lovecraftian "you cannot know these secrets because they are arbitrarily incomprehensible to humans" (to frame Lovecraft's cosmicism in the harshest possible manner); the characters can absolutely uncover, for instance, who is secretly pulling the strings behind the HAARP program, what their ultimate endgame is, and how the Reticulans and the Hyperboreans factor into things. You can find the answers to your questions if you look hard enough, but what you won't find is a single answer to all of your questions because that's not the way the system works. Peel back enough layers of the onion and eventually you'll find the truth, but there will still be lots of other onion-filled compartments.
Rose, I completely understand where you're coming from and like I said, I do plan to flesh out individual power players as soon as I can. I would say that people you don't know trying to murder you for reasons that you don't understand is a pretty big trope in espionage fiction that can serve as an excellent motivator, but, you're right, there really needs to be enough of a sense of what makes the various factions different enough that you'd ever bother killing for one over the others. The confusion is probably my own fault for not emphasizing enough the mutually exclusive differences in the Illuminati endgames. Some want to radically reduce the human population to a smaller and more easily-controlled number, while others want to drive us right to the edge of a Malthusian extinction so they can provide the largest possible blood sacrifice. Some promote eugenics and ethnic cleansing out of a sense of racial superiority (but not necessartily races we'd recognize) and some are only using that ideology as a front for what is essentially a vast monocropping scheme. Some want reascended Christendom, some want totalitarian Global Communism, and some just want a lawless world of libertarian chaos. I haven't exactly worked out who wants what (and if everyone within every sub-conspiracy even want the same thing) but hopefully that it's not that ideology isn't important to the Illuminati, but they're such a bucket of crabs that nobody has a realistic chance of ever implementing their master plans while their peers drag them down out of spite.
And maybe this is my personal preference totally coloring the concept, but I've always thought that getting some payback on the people who tried to kill you before "selling out" for a cushier office job (or the closest equivalent) was one of the better ways that a spy story could possibly end. Like the best fate that a PC can achieve is to become an NPC.
I look forward to reading more.
In many ways, the Bilderberg Group is the face of the Illuminati. Sharing much of its membership with connected think tanks like the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations, it is a conference of political, business, media, and military leaders, primarily from Europe and North America, that has been meeting annually 1954. The Group's objectives are simple: to leverage its members' enormous collective influence to manipulate world events in favor of authoritarian neoliberal corporatism and thereby ensure the oligarchs' continuing power and prosperity. This ideology is fundamentally atheist, which puts the Bilderbergers at odd with the more alien and esoteric elements within the Unfinished Pyramid, whose value conventional economics has difficulty quantifying. The Group is perfectly aware of the fact that the system it is profiting off of cannot be maintained indefinitely but most members are content to delay the inevitable meltdown for all long as absolutely possible before implementing any alternatives. However, a small number of alternative working groups within the conspiracy would prefer the collapse come sooner rather than later and are actively plotting to disengage the safeguards and drive the global economy straight into the ground.
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, known more commonly as the Knights Templar were not, as is popularly believed, completely disbanded in 1312. Arguably the history's first multinational corporation, even when the lion's share of their assets were seized by the Church, the surviving Templars still had a vast network of secret chapterhouses hidden throughout Europe where they could hide and regroup and stockpiles of treasure looted from the Temple of Solomon itself with which they could fund renewed operations. There are two ideological strains within the Knights Templar: some have retained loyalty to the ideals of Christianity despite their persecution, while others worship a gnostic deity they discovered in the Holy Land that came to be known as Baphomet. These two sub-factions, known as White and Black Templars respectively, nevertheless maintain a pragmatic working relationship even as they vie for the position of Grand Master, who still oversees the operations of the Order. Templar influence can be found in the practices of two of their offshoot conspiracies, the more temporal and politically-inclined Freemasons (the Templars were among the many groups rumored to have bankrolled the Protestant Reformation) and the occult Rosicrucians, who inherited much of their knowledge of alchemy and black magic from Solomon's Temple. The Knights Templar do not dictate (at least directly) the activities of their successors and instead remain a separate organization. The Order maintains a now-global network of chapterhouses where they continue to train paramilitary forces, funded by their activities in investment banking and antiquities trafficking.
The Sovereign Military Order of Malta, otherwise known as the Knights of Malta or SMOM, are the direct descendants of the medieval Knights Hospitaller, who benefitted immensely from the excommunication of the Templars when they absorbed many of the latter's assets. Officially, SMOM is Roman Catholic lay order, as well as a sovereign body that maintains permanent observer status at the United Nations, that engages in charity worldwide through its relief corps, Malteser International. Unofficially, SMOM uses its charity work as a convenient cover for its role as an intelligence apparatus of the Vatican; literal Knights even function as wetwork teams for the Holy See. The Knights of Malta control numerous Catholic organizations, such as the Knights of Columbus and the Society of St. Pius X and have deep working relations with Italian criminal syndicates and fascist movements throughout Europe, including the CIA-backed Operation GLADIO; SMOM even continues to secretly own several island nations in the Caribbean. SMOM has historically been an extremely reactionary organization and this has only barely tempered overtime: the objective of most of its leadership continues to be the reestablishment of Christendom a political force and the total destruction of Islam. To this end, it is willing to back far-right conservative parties and politicians even in majority Protestant countries like England and the United States.
The Society of Assassins emerged out of the medieval Nizari Ismaili Shia Muslim sect known as the Hashishin for their use of narcotics to indoctrinate their fidai operatives. Though their historic headquarters at Alamut were destroyed following a failed attempt to assassinate Möngke Khan, the Assassins survived by taking refuge in the Balkans and Eastern Europe. Their goals are surprisingly restrained for the Illuminati: to defend Shia Islam (and to a certain degree the MENA region as a whole) from its adversaries. What makes them so formidable is their reach. The Assassins have had centuries to refine their practices and hone their techniques; today, the fidai are quite possibly the finest (human) killers in the world, an order of magnitude above even the likes of SEAL Team 6 or Kidon. Their only limit is their fanatical avoidance of absolutely any form of collateral damage. Short of that, they can and will use any and all means to eliminate their targets, even at the cost of their own lives. The headquarters of the Society is believed to be an impregnable subterranean bunker complex in northeastern Iran, not far from the ruins of Alamut Castle, constructed from them by the Iranian government as thanks for their assistance in overthrowing the Shah; other bases of power include Syria, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. The Assassins have close working relationships with the Iranian VEVAK, the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence, and the Russian GRU, whom they use for funding and intelligence gathering; in exchange, the Assassins train these agencies elite operatives. It is rumored that for the right price (running into the tens of millions), you can have a fidai eliminate any literally target in the world, no questions asked.
Glad to see more. Upon reading this, I am seeing less of a supernatural presence in the Mambo compared to the Commission/Black. Is this correct?
Is it intended that player characters should be affiliated with just one faction, or can they be a more mixed group? In the latter case, how would you prevent potential conflicts between PCs -- or is that even desireable, in a game focused on paranoia?
Rose, you would be correct about that. Supernatural and occult elements are a big factor within the Illuminati but they're not the central one. Where the Commission uses temporal institutions as a cover for deeper occult weirdness, the Illuminati Mambo is a lot more about how alien and occult weirdness interacts with the real world. Let me know if that makes no sense.
Ghostman, the Night's Black Agents version of GUMSHOE has a Trust mechanic that gives players bonuses for cooperating with their team mates, which they can also spend for well-timed backstabs. They can also buy various sorts of relationships with Icons (originally from The 13th Age) that represent major powers and personalities: the CIA, the Templar Grandmaster, etc. It's expected that every member of a group will have their own allegiances, even if they are all ostensibly working for the same faction. As for how to handle conflict of interest between PCs, it's less a matter of avoiding it than it is keeping it manageable – not forcing them to make any major choices between their superiors and their teammates until the campaign's been going on for a while. I'm envisioning there being a lot of conflict when it comes to "optional objectives." For example, the players have to eliminate a target but their various superiors have differing designs on what to do with them: silence them permanently, hand them over to another team, etc.
Their name derived from a Hebrew word meaning "apostate" or "those who fell", the Nephilim are the hybrid offspring of humans and foreign entities identified as "fallen angels", though whether or not they were true angelic beings or some other manner of alien is up for debate. Regardless of their origins, the Nephilim have a well-deserved reputation as Gibborim or monstrous giants: averaging around eight feet in height and weighing several hundred pounds, their vast physical strength is rivalled only by their vast wickedness. They are difficult to interact with because they rarely see any need to restrain their often-violent urges, but at the same time, they are often extremely intelligent. Nephilim, even those who have achieved positions of considerable authority, are often "active" conspirators who prefer to tackle issues in a hands-on manner whenever possible. While effectively ageless and able to regenerate from all but the most grievous of injuries, the Violent Ones are few in number after millennia of conflict, but they are supported by their own half-human offspring, known as Elioud. The Elioud are much smaller in stature but share their progenitors' physical and intellectual prowess, as well as their penchant for aggression and sadism.
When discussing pervasive Satanic conspiracies, it is important to distinguish between two related but distinct personalities that are often collapsed into one. Satan is the Adversary who was cast out of Paradise for his rebellion against the Godhead and as result rages against all that is good and holy. Lucifer, on the other hand, is the gnostic Shining One who stands in opposition to an evil and controlling Demiurge. So while they both represent rebellion against the status quo, they do so for radically different reasons. Satan rebels as an act of spiteful sabotage, Lucifer as an act of liberation. Lucifer would give humans the freedom to embrace their true potential beyond the commandments of an abusive cosmic patriarch, while Satan would grant them freedom only so they could destroy themselves with it. Satan in a troll; Lucifer is an SJW. As with libertarians and leftists, their differences can seem academic to outsiders, but the conflict between the Father of Lies and the Son of the Morning can be cutthroat. Further blurring the lines between the two, both Satanist and Luciferian groups can be either atheist or mystic and often employ similar rituals and practices.
The Atlanteans are the third of the four so-called prehuman (or perhaps previous human) root races that inhabited now-lost continents in previous epochs. Physically-speaking, Atlanteans closely resemble modern humans of ambiguously Southeast Asian-Amerindian extraction, but closer examination reveals an utterly alien genetic structure. Atlantis supposedly reached its golden age roughly one million years ago, with an empire that spanned much of Asia and the Americas. They were masters of both science and magic, employing mysterious vril energy along with psychic powers, but they were also utterly without morality; they practiced a sort of "anti-Buddhism" centered around the worship of the dragon Thevetat. They were particularly accomplished in the field of biological manipulation, which they used to breed all manner of human-animal hybrids as both shock troops and sex slaves. While their civilization collapsed without a trace more than ten thousand years ago, the Atlanteans are somehow still very much active. What exactly they want is a matter of debate: involvements in mystical secret societies, globalization initiatives, and Third World development seems to suggest that they want to restore their old empire. How the Atlanteans are still extant is even more debatable: theories abound from classic hibernation chambers to a viral "stay-behind program" that implants modern hosts with millennia-old memories and genetics.
In the same way that the CIA uses Skull and Bones to groom future leadership candidates, the Illuminati uses the unassuming Zeta Gamma Tau sorority to identify and induct its future field operatives. There could be a chapter of ZGT at your alma mater and you'd never know it, but that's kind of the whole point, isn't it? With entry standards that are absolutely arcane and a hazing process that's more MK Ultra than Animal House, ZGT doesn't look to recruit the best or brightest candidates: it looks for weirdest, or rather, the ones most open to weirdness. ZGT alumnae can universally look forward to promising careers of pretending to be a market analysts or a political consultants. The sisterhood, and fraternities and sororities like it, are not beholden to any particular power within the Illuminati; everyone agrees that the benefit of starting agents off so early is important enough to not risk compromising with their internal squabbling.
Quote from: Rhamnousia
Rose, you would be correct about that. Supernatural and occult elements are a big factor within the Illuminati but they're not the central one. Where the Commission uses temporal institutions as a cover for deeper occult weirdness, the Illuminati Mambo is a lot more about how alien and occult weirdness interacts with the real world. Let me know if that makes no sense.
Makes perfect sense. Thanks.
What do you think of the individual elements I've presented so far?
Man, I really don't know (or know how to explain my feelings). They are all good, but... I'm likely just crying over the spilt milk (i.e., Commission), as none of them give me a flavor-punch-in-the-face like your work from Bastard's Bastards, Manticore Gardens, or Commission. Perhaps that's because they seem to me to be less original or innovative, as most don't deviate from common lore (e.g., the Nephilim, Atlanteans). Granted, there are some cool little nuggets like the anti-Buddhism (tell me more about that!) and the viral stay-behind-program, but I really don't feel inspired as a player to want to fight for any of these factions. Also, I don't buy the ultra-sectarian Illumunati respecting the ZGT's neutrality.
But maybe this setting just isn't my cup of tea, and that's okay. There are many other tea drinkers (for the cup you're brewing) and many other cups of tea (for me), including your all your other past work.
While Bastard's Bastards and The Plateau are my favourites of your work I think I prefer this one to The Commission... de gustibus non est disputandum, I suppose. I liked The Commission a lot, especially the code-words (SKULLFUCK ROULETTE!?), but I dig the frenzied superfluity of competing powers here.
Just the fact that Lucifer and Satan are different entities is super cool, for example. Nothing reduces in this setting, it's a real conspiracy kitchen sink.
Aye, include The Plateau in the list of settings I love and would love to hear more about!
I actually have a reworking of the Bastardverse in mind, but I'm waiting until real-life responsibilities have been fulfilled before I try to tackle another project. I'm thinking of dividing the Unfinished Pyramid into anarchist and hierarchical tiers to give it some semblance of intelligibility, with the mass of independent cells and covens eventually collapsing into barely more stable chains of command. Don't know if that'd be better or worse.
The difference between Satanism and Luciferianism is based off of a real ideological difference and it's interesting (read: surreal) to see members of the old-school Church of Satan pen actual op-eds in Breitbart about how the Satanic Temple are social justice liberals who're blaspheming the name of Devil-worship by culture-jamming in the Bible Belt.
And I really need to run a Plateau game once I graduate in December.
Quote from: Rhamnousia
And I really need to run a Plateau game once I graduate in December.
Why yes, yes, you do. :)
I would be very interested in a Plateau game.
Also, I'd humbly recommend you add it to your signature link-list of settings, Rhamnousia.
Quote from: Rhamnousia
What do you think of the individual elements I've presented so far?
They are interesting but feel a bit disconnected so far. It's hard to see how some of them fit into the bigger picture, and how they might come into play. Especially the Gibborim don't appear to have any kind of ideology or interest beyond conflict with others of their kind and with whoever happens to get in their way. Also it's hard to picture PC agents giving a damn about the Gibborim and their politics, they'd have to be simply mercenaries who could be easily bought by a higher bidder. Contrast with the Satanist vs Luciferian conflict which actually is something I could see PCs getting very invested in.
One thing that I'm curious about, and would motivate me as a player, would be what conspiracies are true and what aren't. I can only imagine that the real truth is very different then what people have come up with.
How much super natural are you wanting? Are we talking about X-files, where it's heavily obfuscated? Or full on Ancient Alients/Angels/Demons/Cthulhu? You mentioned all in your OP, and it just makes me itch for answers.
I love conspiracy theories, and "Ancient Aliens" is one of my guilty pleasures. Secrets as a motivation is definitely an interesting idea, and I could imagine them working system-wise as a form of currency or XP for characters. Heck, just tying XP to secrets you've learned would be a great way to guide player actions away from fighting and stuff and to the true crux of the setting.
Quote from: XeviatOne thing that I'm curious about, and would motivate me as a player, would be what conspiracies are true and what aren't. I can only imagine that the real truth is very different then what people have come up with.
Honestly I'm still working on that. Something I've settled on is that
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which are the basis for a truly staggering amount of conspiracy fiction, are themselves a work of sinister disinformation to keep people from discovering who the real bloodsucking alien vampires are.
Quote from: XeviatHow much super natural are you wanting? Are we talking about X-files, where it's heavily obfuscated? Or full on Ancient Aliens/Angels/Demons/Cthulhu? You mentioned all in your OP, and it just makes me itch for answers.
First of all, never Cthulhu. Cthulhu is the Boba Fett of the Lovecraft Mythos. However, there’s a ton of supernatural forces at work at virtually every level of the Illuminati. On one hand, the truths of the supernatural are heavily-obfuscated, like whether or not Satan really is a fallen angel cast out of heaven by the Abrahamic Godhead or some other sort of malign alien prison-warder consciousness that latched onto (or inspired) medieval Christian doctrine. But on the other, an investigation by the agents into the bizarre transhuman experiments being conducted at a Quiverfull cult compound in New South Wales could take a turn when a Young of the Black Goat smashes through the door and starts eating people alive. Player characters themselves will have access to the Remote Viewing, Medium, and Magic general abilities. So I’d describe the arrangement as “weakly-
X-Files” in that the nature of supernatural isn’t always clearly-defined, but that that the supernatural itself exists isn’t hidden from the players.
And as to the idea of using secrets as XP or currency, you’re pretty close to what I had in mind. The GUMSHOE system doesn’t have a defined currency mechanic so much as it has narrative states (Insufficient, Steady, and Excessive Funds) that determine what the players can justify purchasing. Acquiring and selling secrets is a great way to bankroll big, expensive purchases or justify a big favor from a power broker who otherwise wouldn’t give you the time of day. This is canonically the way that a lot of transactions within the Illuminati work. There’s also a mechanical use of investigative abilities that
NBA calls “Tactical Fact-Finding Benefits”: in a nutshell, you uncover a secret, you make a roll to capitalize on it, you get a serious bonus in an applicable action scene.
I can’t believe I’ve gone this long without talking about the
United Nations. Yes, Alex Jones is absolutely correct on this one – the UN does want to destroy the sovereignty of individual nations-states and openly implement a One-World Government that will manage all of human development from the top down and
Agenda 21 really is intended to cripple the industrial capacity of developed countries. But here’s the thing: the United Nations is ultimately acting in the best interests of human race. The UN Secretariat’s vision of a better world is a little like a well-guarded nature preserve, where industrial development has been radically downsized to sustainable levels, growth is carefully controlled to eliminate the chances of a Malthusian catastrophe, and the planet is fortified against any “foreign” (i.e., alien) incursions. In fact, its opposition to mass-death solutions is one of the reasons why the UN hasn’t been more effective in consolidating power. The UN acts primarily through its many specialized agencies and programmes, including the
World Health Organization, the
International Monetary Fund, and
UNESCO, all of which act as convenient fronts for its intelligence-gathering and direct action operations. The UN also supervises at least twenty “invisible countries” that the international community is not ready to know about yet. Right-wing fears of invasions by UN Peacekeepers in black helicopters are not
completely unfounded. The
Department of Peacekeeping Operations is rumored to have a standing army of between one and five hundred thousand crack troops hidden in plain sight among the armed forces of its member states – and not the ones you’d expect. Joining this secret force is a lot like joining the Foreign Legion, only the DPKO will give you a new past as a natural-born citizen of any country in the world. As mediating international crises is one of its central justifications for existing, the United Nations is one of the biggest covert supporters of so-called “rogue states” in the world: North Korea is almost entirely run by their UN advisors, for instance. Of course, being such a massive organization means that the United Nations suffer from many of the same problems as the Bilderbergers, being absolutely lousy with infiltrators and fifth-columnists.