SPOILERS!

Working on a Ranaldian Pilgrimage of Fingers card that uses the Secret Society rules from Liber Ecstatica / Lure of Power. Tried to post it here but the Forum Software doesn't like me. It should be viewable at dropbox:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5ba4vrwz5n1mij2/Pilgrimage-of-Fingers-Front-Face.png

That's just the front. I've made a back, but it's currently just the three existing paragraphs of text about the Pilgrimage from 2nd Ed Tome of Salvation. So, copyright issues prevent me from sharing it. Not that the crossed fingers on the front aren't also somewhat infringing...

Anyhow, I might write up a new back for it if I could figure out a good "secret" to reveal when the PC reaches the Inner Circle. All the standard Secret Society cards have a terrible dark secret that's revealed when you gain membership. I'm not sure what (if anything) to have as a dark secret for the Pilgrimage. It kinda works without it, since I can just lean on mafia and crime movie tropes. You might decide to leave the life after one last big score, etc.

Thoughts on that, or on balance, etc, would be helpful.

I tried to follow the pattern of the existing Secret Society cards. The most common configuration was Member track: Space 2 white die, Space 5 major power. Inner Track: Space 7 major power plus insanity, Space 3 major consequence, space 0 you're free.

Potential Ranaldian dark secrets:

"There is no Kaiser Soze."

"The cult of Shallya is behind it all."

"The town merchants are all members too."

Thank you. Great ideas. Now you've got me thinking outside the box:

More possibilities:

The Pilgrimage of Fingers is actually an entrapment operation set up by the Vereneans or the Witch-Hunters or some other law and order enforcing group to fool criminals into marking themselves. (Insanity: Paranoia)

There is no Ranald, it's just Tzeentch running a particularly long con. (Insanity: Mental Mutation... or maybe I just replace the Insanity slot with a Mutation slot.)

There is no Ranald, or at least he was never a God. Any blessings and miracles are just manifestations of psychic group thought, or dumb unguided luck. All those crooks and gamblers have fooled themselves into thinking there's someone watching over them but there really isn't. (Insanity: Lack of Confidence or Faltering Steps)

The entire cult of Ranald is secretly run by some foreign entity. A mob of crooks based out of Tilea or Marienburg, and some percentage of your "income" has to be passed along to this outside group. (Insanity: Paranoia or possibly Xenophobia depending on the group, maybe Don't Leave Me if they're likely to kill to keep the secret.)

Ranald and Handrich are the same God... and this is... somehow... scary... or something... I dunno.

There is no Verena (or Sigmar, or Shallya, etc. Insert-your-favorite-God-here)... they are just Ranald running a particularly long Con. (Insanity: Dreadful Insight)

Ranald is actually just the God of luck, and nothing else. All this "God of Thieves" criminal nonsense is a perversion of his cult that was inflicted intentionally by some outside meddling force. (Insanity: Thrill-Seeker?)

The Pilgrimage of Fingers is actually dedicated to tearing down the institutions of nobility. The last few fingers aren't just fetch-it quests, they're assassination orders or market manipulations that will devastate entire provinces. (Insanity: Easily Goaded)

You're not sure what the secret is, but there definitely is one. Everytime you meet up with the higher-priests who would give you your orders, you black out and loose several hours of memories. They must be using some sort of mind control blessing, but to what ends? (Insanity: Fading Memories or Straying Thoughts)

I just realized the card I posted needs revisions. The Reputation slot for space 5 just isn't going to work. It would be really complicated in play since Players aren't supposed to be able to see the Secret Society card. I don't want my players attempting to manage Talent socketing when they can't see the card that has the talent.

For that matter, it seems all the Secret Society sheets from Lure of Power have similar (but mostly milder) issues. Most don't give you talents, but they do all give the PC multiple special abilities... that they can't reference since they aren't supposed to look at the sheet. Those abilities from Lure of Power probably should have come on individual cards instead of a big tracking sheet. I suspect I'll break out Strange Eons and make little cards for each Secret Society granted ability, but that's still less than ideal for something like a Talent socket.

IMC, it's considered an "open secret" that will get you in trouble with either side to admit that "It's Ranald if property is acquired outside the law and Handrich when it's acquired within the law - Ranald for the poor taking it from the rich and Handrich for the rich taking it from everyone they can."

Excuse the many month thread necro, but I finally gave up on hooking the Ranaldite in my campaign into a Pilgrimage of Fingers subplot. With that out of the way, I decided to post (here and on my blog) the final version that I would have used had she pursued it:

Further discussion of the card (along with images of the back, and talent-sized hand-out cards of the unlockable powers) can be found on my blog: http://transitivegaming.blogspot.com/2014/05/pilgrimage-of-fingers.html

Might be fun to check out the scenario in LF8.

jh

Very nice stuff, whether for NPC Ranaldians (what's with the guy with more and more x's on his fingers?) or PC's, I like the various insanity ideas on your blog site as well.

Keep on brewing stuff and sharing it please!