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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Corinth" data-source="post: 291882" data-attributes="member: 497">I launch a DNW campaign next Sunday.  I could use a hand in as I sketch the villain's plans, and how the PCs might those plans as the villain advances her agenda.  First, the necessary context:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Time: Fall, 1990</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Place: The Twin Cities Metro Area</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The PCs: Sophomores at a local high school, all of whom are involved in the theater department.  All of them are 1st level PCs.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Villain: A well-known debutante from a rival school in the area who is also the favored scion of the Gentling family's ruling matriarch.  She influences the street culture under the costumed identity of "Queen Redalen", using her money and connections to finance her criminal activites and maintain her charades.  At the start of the campaign, she is also 1st level.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Villain's Motivation:  Greed and spite, coupled with some revenge.  She hates her family because; they squandered most, if not all, of her trust fund money; her parents are so poor that they have to live like common folk in the ghettos of Minneapolis instead of the rich-folk enclaves like Edina, which means that she's forced to attend a ghetto school when she should be at a school where scions of privaledged families gather; none of her relatives are willing to do more than make certain that she's got a hotline to the scholarship offices when she goes to collage; her elders' mismanagement of the family business threatens its survival in the near future, which means that the gravy train--such as it is--stops altogether.  Redalen believes that she alone has what it takes to stop all of this, that she has to do it now and then make everyone pay for all that's befallen her.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Villain's Secret: Her father is actually a half-forgotten god of darkness who seeks to return to the world, and he wishes to use Redalen to make it happen.  Redalen doesn't know this yet, but it will come out early on--albeit off-stage, from a PC POV--and then increasingly dominate her actions.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Her Quirks:  She hates rap music, the poor and people who do not pay her enough attention.  She likes classical music, college rock and fantasy fiction.  As Redalen, she acts like Morgan Le Fay; as her mundane self, she acts like an extroverted Guienevere.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Her Powers:  Her divine blood manifests in a pair of low-key (but hardly inconsequential) powers: the ability to call upon extradimensional aid when she needs to know or do a thing (DNW: Call For Knowledge) and an enhanced pheronome capability that makes manipulating men very easy for her (DNW: Pheronomes I); Redalen uses the combination to seduce young men and convince them to do her bidding, a combination whose effects are not unlike a cult's brainwashing.  In the near future, Redalen's studies of the occult will pay off and grant her the use of 1st level arcane spells.</li> </ul>As I see it, Redalen's first goal is to usurp control of her family's business from her elders and seize control for herself.  The will that governs how shares transfer dictate that there are only two ways for shares to change hands:  inherit them or buy them; only blood relatives may possess shares of the family business, unless all holders decide unanimously to dissolve the business.  To do this, she either kills them or convinces them to sell to her; I speculate that she uses intermediaries to accomplish most of her dirty work.  Money, hormones and sweet talk go a long way in the real world; with a bit of a super-powered punch-up, amazing deeds can happen.  For those she kills, she finds an enemy of the relative--none of them are angels--and points the enemy to the relative.  For those she buys out, she uses her father to convince her mother (through whom Redalen gains her claim to the family business) to buy out a relative.And here's where I'm stuck.  Redalen needs another source of cash in order to perform the buy outs, but I can't figure out what would fit her profile and still be lucrative enough to make lots of money in a speedy manner.  I can always default to drugs, guns, cars and fencing hot loot but if I can find something more in turn with Redalen's quirks I'd be up on that.OTOH, I'm okay with tying the PCs into this.  They're high school students.  They go to concerts, dances, dates, movies, etc. where they interact with rival school students; with enough school spirit BS, I can make anything happen.</blockquote>

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