Civic Virtues of the City
The Troikan civic identity is elastic, inconsistent, absorbent, and contradictory. It is characterised by tolerance of misfortune and peculiarity supported by an utterly unspoken but deep seated and near universal civic pride.
Phlegmatic Hospitality
Outsiders, drifters, animals (talking and otherwise), demons and things without names are treated with dispassion. To do otherwise would be unthinkably rude.
Perfunctory Politeness
Even during political purges, the alcalde apologize when stepping on toes.
Optimistic Resignation
A Troikan assumes the future will only get worse, but still remain manageable.
Civic Literalism
Laws and dictates are followed to the letter and no more.
Honest Work
The act of working is inherently virtuous, the nature and value of said work is immaterial.
Institutional Forgetfulness
Past disasters are forgiven quickly, allowing the same mistakes to be made with renewed enthusiasm.
Cultural Curiosity
New customs are celebrated, misunderstood, and then incorporated.
Ontological Plurality
Multiple, incompatible explanations for reality coexist peacefully. Often in any given individual.
Stubborn Orthopraxy
Even broken systems are trusted more than individual improvisation.
Festive Resilience
When things go poorly, the response is a parade. The poorer, the bigger.
Existential Pigheadedness
The city knows it should not exist but carries on regardless.
Implicit Patriotism
To acknowledge it even in wartime would be gauche.
Religious Virtues of the City
Like its civic attitudes, the Troikan folk religion is a pluralistic melange of cultures, traditions, festivals, gods, rituals and philosophies. The most uniquely Troikan aspect, besides its pathologic eclecticism, is the presence and aspiration of sainthood; a very real condition that only occurs in the confines of the City of Troika.
Indifferent Orthodoxy
Correct performance matters more than correct understanding.
Polite Agnosticism
The gods are addressed with respect, even if their authenticity is doubtful or while cursing their name.
Manifold Prudence
Worshipping several incompatible gods is not only acceptable, but advisable.
Sacred Caretakers
Relics, saints, and holy spaces are preserved, even after losing relevance, and prioritised over making new ones.
Pragmatic Devotion
It is right to pray for what is useful rather than what is good.
Sincere Heterodoxy
Incorrect belief is acceptable if done without irony.
Festival Fidelity
Participation in festivals proves faith more than daily conduct.
Quiet Reciprocity
Offerings are given with the unspoken expectation that something will come back.
Inverted Praise
Small gods are thanked first since they are near and jealous.
Sacred Bureaucracy
Forms, signatures, seals, and procedures are believed to carry some divine authority.
Profound Mystery
Questions are encouraged and forthcoming, answers are treated with suspicion.
Pretentious Orthodoxy
Doctrine bends to circumstance, but never acknowledges it.
Devotional Uncertainty
Doubt is treated as a form of meditation and worship.
The Paths and Signs to Sainthood
Different schools of thought exist over the primacy of any one aspect of the path to sainthood, and for every theory there are dozens of confirmed saints to which it fails entirely to explain.
Unnecessary Suffering
The saint bore a hardship that was completely avoidable, confusing as to its purpose, and helped no one. A road the wilderness hermits and urban stylites walk.
Immutable Observance
Performed the same ritual act for years without benefit, improvement or explanation. The anchorites are proponents of this path.
Public Doubt
Suffered significant and widely known humiliation. Flagellants advocate this path.
Perfect Imperfection
One flaw so obvious it proves their perfection. A route taken by many philosophers and special interest clubs.
Inexplicable Generosity
Giving that harmed their own prospects and confused recipients. The act, not the effect, is virtuous. Cenobites and society clubs often focus on this.
Small Miracles
The proto-saint fixed what should not have been fixable, but only a little. Craftsmen and doctors often enter via this sign.
Wasted Authority
When attaining power, they immediately misused it to their detriment. Common of saints from the civil service.
Ambiguous End
Their death or disappearance was deliberate, sudden, suspicious, or unclear. A classic martyr move.
Practical Worship
During life or after death, people pray to them for everyday things. When done for long enough it provides social proof of results.
Persistent Reputation
They are a popular topic of argument during and after their lifetime.
Inadvisable Apostles
People tried to live like them and failed publicly.
Posthumous Endorsement
Official approval of a living aspirant is an extreme way the Congress can derail an undesirable saint. However, standards of saintly behaviour makes it very hard to grant them official sanction.
GM Rules: Sainthood
Sainthood is not a reward, it is a problem and works best when no one agrees what it means. Truth is irrelevant, repetition is holiness.
When to start tracking an aspirant
Do not announce it to the player until they have advanced to 1 in their Aspiration. They may not decline to advance aspiration, now or in the future.
Begin tracking their advancement when...
- an NPC sincerely, logically, and spontaneously attributes religious significance and worship to a PC’s actions
- a religious authority becomes interested and observant of the PCs deliberate aspirational behaviour
- the PC’s actions acquire long term ritual repetition
- they achieve level 12 in an advanced skill.
Advancement and Beatitude
Advancement is triggered by consequences, never intent. Give their Beatitude an advancement tick after every session where they clearly fulfil a sign or path to sainthood without trying to hide it or minimise the repercussions. It is, however, not a reward for causing deliberate chaos for the sake of chaos. Sincerity is key!
Beatitude is advanced like any advanced skill, except that it is in addition to the usual 3 tries per game session and is mandatory. If players try to optimize sainthood, accelerate and intensify consequences.
Beatitude:
- 1 A common sincere believer might get here.
- 2 Priests, holy people or the regular sort, miracles become possible though unlikely.
- 3-4 The path begins in earnest.
- 5-7 Authorities will take interest in them and their burgeoning grace. Churches, councils, gods, etc. will be watching.
- 8-10 The arc of an aspirant.
- 11 They will be challenged at the final hurdle.
- 12 Canonisation and death (or vice versa).
Miracles
- Miracles can immediately solve small problems
- They leave undeniable evidence
- The act must be witnessed by others
- A miracle must never clarify anything, only mystify.
- It will always increase attention on the aspirant.
To perform a miracle, the aspirant Rolls Under their Beatitude and reduces their Luck by one. If they fail, they must test again, losing 1 Luck every time, until they succeed or reach 0 Luck. If they reach 0 Luck it means that they have failed in their miracle, fallen from grace, and are removed from play via a process dependent on their current Beatitude.
- At 4 or less Beatitude they are marked as charlatans, abandoned by their followers, and roam the city in disgrace for the remainder of their days.
- At 5-7 Beatitude their followers violently reject and dismember them, selling their remains as cheap remedies and psuedo-relics.
- At 8-10 Beatitude an authority will soon arrest and publicly execute them to great applause, putting a stop to their cult.
- At 11 Beatitude they will abandon their followers and secretly descend into the Undercity alone, never to return.
Miracles can do almost anything, but some examples of tone and scale are:
- Fully heal one person's Stamina
- Cure a disease
- Reattach a limb
- Command the weather
- Summon apparitions of the host of saints (their appearance is varied, but commonalities are a cthonic origin, fungal texture, and amorphous shapes)
- Turn inedible objects into vascular meat
- Banish someone or something which has not accepted the civic virtues of troika; often demons and ghosts
Followers
Followers are obligations, not allies. Gain 1d6 followers every time you perform a miracle. This is either immediate or between sessions, as it suits.
If players want to use followers tactically, such as taking some on adventures, or giving them useful tasks to perform, explain that this favouritism might (will) intensify their behavior in such ways as:
- misunderstanding instructions
- imitating you, badly
- acting preemptively and recklessly to gain your favour (maybe kidnapping an alcalde or robbing a bank)
- form schisms lead by followers turned rival aspirants (lose d6*10% of your followers to them)
Canonisation
In the end, at 12 Aspiration, the aspirant transcends either through death, transformation, or by becoming a mindless, elemental living saint. Either way, they retire and have won Troika.