PREMISE OF ELVEN MAFIA RTD:In this RTD, you're member of the Elven Family, or Mafia if you will. Your goal is to take control of the Imperial City of Taizeron, and on the way there, you're free to use whatever means necessary: theft, assasinations, bribes, scandals.
The game comes in turns, and during each turn, you can performs up to three actions. These include negotiations, finding a buyer of your old inn, performing for a wealthy official, and so on.
Unfortunately Haspen no longer wants to GM his Elven Mafia RTD, so I've decided to pick up the reins. The original game thread was
here, if anybody's interested.
Name: If you're feeling uncreative, elven language file for Dwarf Fortress should provide more than enough examples!
Age/Gender: Elves become adults at 25 and easily reach up to a century of age before dying.
Relation to the current Head of the Family: From siblings, through children and aunts, to far removed cousins. But you must be part of the Family.
Skills: You have 4 Skill Points to allocate in any way you want.
Head of the Family?: Yes/No. One character MUST choose Yes!
Appearance: Short description of your character. In this setting, elves have hair in range from purple, through blue, to green. Their eyes are either golden or silvery.
Head of the Family:
If you have decided to be Head of the Family, you must also include these in your sheet:
Family Name: The two-part name of your Family. Akin to humans, elven family names often describe their lineage and/or work. A family of wine brewers, for example, could bear the name of 'Silverbrew'.
Family Crest: Description of family crest, for example: 'Seagull, perched on a thorny rose, on bright blue background.'
Family Building: You start with a Luxurious House, a Housing Block and $1000 to spend on any buildings you choose. Any leftover funds will not transfer over to the game, so spend them all.
These influence the dice rolls, when appropriate. For example, if you try to persuade a noble to help your family, the roll will include your Charisma stat.
The maximum level for any skill is 4. Any Skills that weren't given any Skill points start at 0.
Accounting: Trade, administration and bureaucracy.
Charisma: Recruitment, persuasion, leadership.
Covert Work: Spying, kidnapping, assasination.
Combat: Tactics and individual fighting prowess.
Education: Medicine, architecture and other learned skills.
Performance: Dance, singing and other pleasure arts.
Street: Dealing with citizens, gathering information.
Lieutenants are the 'officers' of the Elven Mafia. They are guards, squad leaders, accountants, traders, performers, housemasters and all those folks that have a bit of power in certain place, or amongst some people.
They get have between 1 to 4 randomly allocated skill points. This depends where they have been recruited - people you get at the inn will rarely be professionals, for example.
Each Lieutenant requires 1 Gold of daily payment.
Thugs are the hired muscle and brawn of the Elven Mafia. Quite often during the day these are normal, hard-working citizens, who are simply waiting for orders from the Family members.
Thugs come in whole squads and each Squad requires 4 Gold of daily payment.
You can buy the City Buildings and Family Holdings from their current owners, or build a new one from scratch.
Previous owners may haggle for a high price to give you the ownership papers. They also might be affiliated with one Faction or another, which might hamper or help your attempts to buy the building.
Constructing a building requires a Permit (obtainable in City Hall), and a hefty amount of gold, and certain amount of time for the building to be completed.
Prices and Times:
Winery: 10 Days, 200 Gold.
Inn: 10 Days, 150 Gold.
Guildhouse: 15 Days, 200 Gold.
Elven Lounge: 15 Days, 500 Gold.
Gambling Hall: 15 Days, 1000 Gold.
Apartment Building: 25 Days, 600 Gold.
Private Estate: 20 Days, 2000 Gold.
Large Villa: 40 Days, 5000 Gold.
Building's Effects
Winery: Can supply a minimum of 2 other buildings with wine. Each unused 'supply slot' generates 1 gold from selling the wine to local citizens.
Inn: Generates a base of 3 gold per day from serving travellers and citizens alike. Good place to recruit various thugs and lieutenants. If Wine is supplied, the base income of the inn increases to 5 gold per day.
Guildhouse: Generates a base of 4 gold per day by teaching youngsters various crafts. Better place to recruit professional lieutenants, but the choices are often smaller than at the Inn.
Elven Lounge: Generates a base of 6 gold per day by offering dances, massages, companionship and even more intimate services to those who can afford these. If Wine is supplied, the base income increases to 9 gold per day. Elven lounges are frequent targets for the various religious factions in the city, as well as the Emperor in his efforts to increase public morality.
Gambling Hall: Generates 10 gold per day, which increases to 15 gold per day if wine is supplied. Excellent places to recruit certain types of Lieutenants, but remember that gambling is the territory of Rogues' Guild.
Apartment Building: Houses up to 4 Thug groups and 4 Lieutenants. Normal citizens living in the building will supply enough money for upkeep costs.
Running Buildings:
You can task Lieutenants to run your buildings to increase the income that you derive from them. The building's income is then multiplied by the Lieutenant's accounting skill plus one. So an accounting skill of 1 would double the income of a building, while 2 would triple it, etc. The amount of wine produced by a Winery is also affected in this manner. A Lieutenant can only run one building each, and family members can run buildings without using up one of their three actions.
Housing for the family members (aka you guys). Each house has individual suites and rooms for each family member, with only the head of the family having the master key for the house. Family houses limit the maximum number of prestige you can have.
Luxurious House: Poorest accommodations for the Elven Family, located in one of the suburbs of the city. You have this at the start. Upkeep: 5 Gold per day. Prestige maxes out at 300.
Private Estate: Sufficient to invite Merchants for negotiations, trade and the like. Staffed with large number of servants, maids and bodyguards. Upkeep: 40 Gold per day. Prestige maxes out at 600.
Villa: Luxurious enough to appease visiting Noblekin and city officials. Comes with a farm, but it's mostly for show. Upkeep: 100 Gold per day. Prestige maxes out at 1000.
Prestige represents the family's public standing in Taizeron. In such an intensely hierarchical and structured city, prestige is very important. Having high prestige increases your chances of organizing a meeting with important officials, merchants and nobles. Prestige also changes how the law acts towards you. Being executed for committing crimes is much more likely when you have low prestige, while high prestige lowers the amount of jail time you will receive.
Prestige is gained by funding public buildings and monuments, hosting parties and events, or performing for the public. Prestige is lost by being arrested or implicated in a crime. Rumours and slander started by other factions can also lower prestige.
Those are various groups in the city that might or might not be useful for the ultimate goal of the Elven family; taking control of the city.
Be wary, though - certain factions might dislike each other, or might get angry at you if you interfere in their operations in any way.
Imperial Estate: Representatives of the Emperor; sometimes even members of his family. The Imperial Estate possess unfathomable amounts of power and wealth, and shouldn't be crossed lightly.
Imperial Cult: The clergymen and administrators of the monotheistic cult of the Empire. Frown heavily on debauchery of any form, though they turn a blind eye to the antics of the imperial family.
Inquisition: Military arm of the Imperial Cult. Devoted to purge the land of those opposed to the Emperor, which of course includes criminals.
Office of the Truth: Judges and law-makers of the imperial administration. Second worst enemy of any criminal group. Sometimes clashes with Inquisition, when it comes to dealing with heretics and the like.
Nobility: With the Imperial Estate located in Taizeron, many of the nobility have their own houses and estates in or around the city. While very individualistic and scheming, the nobility are always willing to band together to protect their ancient privileges.
City Council: Mayor and his trusted advisors, in control of the city and its administration. Many councilmen and the Mayor himself are high ranking members of the Merchant's Guild.
City Guard: The brave men and women who hunt criminals and ensure that peace reigns in the city.
University: Scholarly building where young citizens are educated to cast aside the superstitions and embrace modern thought. That, of course, puts the University against the Imperial Cult.
The Nightblades: A professional guild of assassins and spies, with strong connections with the Imperial family itself. When a noble or merchant wants someone dead, they hire Nightblades. These professional killers are very sensitive about their 'income'.
Rogues' Guild: A cheeky name for the alliance between the different gangs and mafia in the city. They're in control of the alleys and sewers of the city, where they do their shady things. Because they rarely cause trouble, they're somewhat tolerated by the City Guard and the officials.
Merchants' Guild: The guild that controls the fees and prices at the local markets. Has strong ties to the City Council.
These buildings cannot be controlled by the Family... at least, not officially.
Estate of the Holy Inquisitor: Houses the Inquisitor, the religious overseer from the Imperial Cult.
City Hall: Offices of the Mayor, City Treasurer and Emissary of the Emperor are located here.
Office of the Truth: Legal matters, no matter how grandiose or mundane, are processed here.
Keep of the City Guard: The City Guard is stationed here; this is also where Commander of the Garrison has his office.
City Prison: Well, this is the place where family members might end if they get caught whilst doing something illegal...
Family Members:None... yet.