Vice purveyor for Obligation?

Blades in the Dark
#1

It is relatively easy to understand who the vice purveyor might be for the ones which are most traditionally vices - gambling, luxury, pleasure and stupor.

For Faith an Weird I can easily imagine a key priest or person who is a contact there.

But what about Obligation? What kind of ‘vice purveyor’ have people seen in use for that?

I have one player who has chosen ‘Obligation’ and wants to help the less fortunate, but that is too diffuse and general. Would it make sense for the ‘purveyor’ here to be the person who organises the soup kitchen, say? Someone who makes it possible for the obligation to be exercised?

I’m interested to see what imaginative things people have come up with in this area.

Cheers

#2

I’d probably have it be someone involved in the same work to whom the PC is accountable, or simply the person to whom the PC is obligated! The steely-eyed, zealous woman who runs the soup kitchen like you suggested would be perfect! Or a fellow soldier from the war who also made a promise to help the less fortunate! Or maybe the PC made a horrible mistake at some past point, and instead of being turned in to the police to be jailed, they made a deal with a Spirit Warden that they would join him once a month and do good works.

If the PC wanted the obligation to be more specific, they could be caring for their sister/brother/cousin who’s dying of an unknown malady, or who isn’t neurotypical and who strikes the people of Duskwall as cursed or bizarre. Or maybe they have a previous spouse and child who they try to give money to, even though they’ve been banished from their life. I could imagine some great conflicts coming out of a fraught relationship like that.

Those are some of the things I’ve thought of/might do!

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#3

Lovely examples, thanks!

#4

Besides the great suggestions provided in this thread I would offer two other thoughts

  • The vice purveyor is someone the character hurt in the past and this person manipulates them for aid. Figure this keeps with the overall darkness of the setting.
  • Make it a little like Burn Notice and have the client of the week as their “fix” for that downtime.

Hope this helps

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