Who let the frogs out? (OOC)

Seems feasible. Add the roll.

The roll has been added!

Do any of you think your characters know the statue of the Boy and the 'Dolphin' [ref] [map]?

If so, you could roll Put a Name to a Face [ref] with Wild to see if you know them (and also possibly to define if you have any relationship/interaction with the Statues of London).

It's in Max's territory, so maybe she knows the statue? Let's find out!

Nice, they tend to come faster at the start, when there are so many new Faces to Put Names to.
You can start working on that in the fiction, finding people to turn and such, then you can solidify your control, out from the fiction into the mechanics with this Advance, if you take the Advance before it is supported in the fiction then we need to quickly work with the fiction to make it true, either direction works. You can even gain a wolfpack without taking the Advance, if you do it in the fiction then we add it to your sheet, but I still recommend taking the Advance else you can just as easily lose it through fiction (that which your sheets gives you is less likely to be taken away).
Agreed, I noticed that deficiency too. :)

Bear in mind that you still need to use Persuade with Heart in situations where you are not threatening people or making 'alpha' appropriate promises, but this can make your low Heart mostly irrelevant since that is not how your character operates.

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There are two aspects to that:

'obtain Circle Status-2' is only available after you have taken five Advances already. But, since PbP is slow, consider that a 'recommendation', and we can take those whenever they make sense in the fiction, though still 'later'.

As the Advance says: '+1 Status (max+1)', so these can not bring you to more than a +1 Status in that Circle (same way the normal Stat upgrades can not bring you above +3 in a Stat). If you want to get higher Status you have to work for it, either in the fiction or via the Advance. If you ever want to get Status-3 you will have to do that in the fiction, there is no mechanical way to get there, Status-3 is all about the role play.

Since you are already Status-1 in your own Circle, this is about your Status in another Circle. And, by the rules, you can never have Status-2 in a Circle other than your own.

Status is not about your Rating, or course, Status is about how important you are in that Circle, Rating is about how much you understand (and can work with) that Circle.

Remember that your Circle Ratings can move and change over time. By the rules you can change them at the End of Session, but PbP does not gel well with 'sessions' so we are doing the End of Session Move all the time, whenever it makes sense. (Urban Shadows 2's End of Session is mainly bookkeeping anyway).

Does that help?

Well done.

Once we know if anyone else is rolling I will come up with a little bit of lore (there seems to be an Alice/Wonderland connection, so fae-adjacent?), but you are all welcome to add more. I did not know about this statue till the fountains were brought up, so don't worry about breaking cannon or anything. :)

If you add details to the lore for an NPC (or organisation, or location, or anything) we can always treat it as 'what your character has heard' so parts may be less-than-true and may be corrected later in play.

However:...

Does knowing something 'interesting or useful' align with your exclamation of surprise in the RP?
We can work out how you would know more (overheard rumours, most likely?) if you want.

But does it not seem more appropriate for it to turn out that they owe you a Debt you did not know about for something you did in the past?

Does it help to say you are 'only two marks away'? No, probably not.
Only one away from getting a Corruption Advance, though.

Do we think this is Hit the Streets [ref]?

Sure! I added the roll but alas - it was a 6 :(

I think I'll just have to work on those then. How can I get those other than to "convince someone to meaningfully act in your patron's interests", which is extra hard, since I don't know what my patron's interests are!!!

This does seem particularly tricky given that you are acting against your Dark Patron's interests.

Remember that you get to shape your Dark Patron, so anything you say is in their interest would count. Of course, any demonic-driven 'seduction' or 'manipulation of friends and allies' towards what you think their 'secret designs' are, would do it too.

As would any act towards getting your Jobs done. So getting someone to help you conscript Viv would do the trick, of course.

Any action in favour of the demonic forces would count... unless they are directly against your Dark Patron.

I don't see these Playbook specific Corruption Triggers being the main driver for Corruption, only Benji has done that, once, most other Corruption has come from Let It Out.

Yeah that's what I was going for, Max was surprised because the statue talking confirmed something she heard was true.

But you know what? Let's go with debt. A pair of teens were about to dump some laundry detergent into the fountain and she scared them off (dumping laundry detergent into a public fountain is, of course, hilarious to Max, but this is her territory and therefore it's only hilarious when she does it).

Which, of course, you have not done? Not around here anyway? :)

Well, if she ends up putting a name to a face for another statue fountain and ends up in its debt then maybe. Other than that, she's a bit busy with being a working mom to be engaging in juvenile pranks, and she's certainly going to think twice about such shenanigans after this encounter.

so sleeping with Viv as a demon, which clearly enhances her openness to demons, after all, would count? It’s a step toward the goal here.

What’s odd is that the Tainted has the "jobs" element that works for strings, but then any time you do one you also mark corruption? That seems weirdly redundant.

I think I may have made my demonic patron TOO mysterious and opaque because I just have no idea what its interests are apart from the jobs I’m given. So if I don’t wanna do a job… that whole part of my playbook (jobs and the strings it earns me, as well as the playbook specific corruption mechanic) are unavailable.

And I’ll be honest — I’m hesitant to complete my patron’s jobs because of how strongly Delirium responded to the very possibility of my doing so. Like, they made it clear in no uncertain terms how much of a red line that would be crossing and Emma would literally hate Persephone forever and I think that would ruin the game. So…. I’m not sure what to do here.

If you still want to do jobs for your patron, but you don’t want to damage your relationship with Emma, perhaps you could just have Persephone keep it a secret from her? Benji killed someone the other day but he’s not planning to tell any of his friends about it because he knows that would upset them and damage those friendships