#and adapting the coaster's Advocates (and the coaster itself as Mar-Mal) to Blades In The Dark was an interesting task

[victorluvsalice]

Valicer In The Dark -- The Advocates

Hey everyone! Time to do a little worldbuilding in the Valicer In The Dark universe today, by talking about everyone's favorite cult -- the Advocates! :D While I plan for organizations and cults centered around all of the major coasters in Alton Towers to show up in some form or another in this verse (in particular, the Beornen of Wickerman will occasionally show up to cause trouble for our beloved Three Pillars), the Advocates are the ones I developed the most. Because, you know, one of the main characters belongs to this cult. XD Felt important to know what their deal was and how they operated! As such, I did a playbook write-up for them and a quick summary of their history, which I would like to share with you now:

-->Playbook Type: Cult – acolytes of the god Mar-Mal

-->Name: The Advocates

-->Reputation: Tier III (decently large and renowned cult), Strong Hold (they have a solid grip on what's theirs in terms of turf and whatnot), seen as Bizarre

-->Lair: The main cult sanctum is in Silkshore – a large building painted black and yellow, full of maze-like corridors, with private quarters (including bedrooms, kitchenettes, and bathrooms) for those who chose to live there; large communal areas with various ways for cult members to entertain themselves (ranging from music rooms to reading rooms to games rooms to – let's say "chill-out" rooms ;) ); a small radiant garden around the back and a couple of mushroom farms in the basement; various labs and workshops for experimenting with ways to spread joy; and a decent-sized main library and museum for holy texts and artifacts. The chapel to Mar-Mal sits in the center, dominated by a strange twisted and looped metal structure meant to represent the god – there is a seat in the middle of it for new Advocates undergoing their “marmalisation” ritual. Most things are painted yellow, black, white, or purple, though other colors are allowed (in fact, a lot of the stairs in the place are rainbow-colored), and many areas are marked with the distinctive swirly-eyed-and-piano-keyed smile that serves as the cult’s “logo.”

-->Deity: Mar-Mal – The Unending Smile, The Joy That Supersedes All Else! Radiant and Alluring, usually manifesting as a strange, spidery mass of twisting machinery and hypnotic lights and spirals, Mar-Mal is a being of pure happiness, and wishes to draw all of the Shattered Isles into their loving embrace, eliminating all bad feelings and bringing everyone together in perfect, blissful harmony. The main problem is, it’s still not sure why its acolytes insist things like “hunger” and “thirst” aren’t “bad feelings…”

-->Sacred Sites & Cult Practices: The Advocates’ preferred operation is Consecration – anointing more and more of Duskwall (places and people) for their deity. Naturally, the bulk of their operations are in Silkshore (given it's the "party district," so to speak), but they have other holdings across the city – an interesting mix of vice dens (Smiler isn't the only one peddling drugs – the cult is kind of known for its chemist Leeches experimenting with new concoctions to increase happiness), brothels (staffed by the most sex-positive members), theaters (they put on all sorts of shows, and have a lot of people who just travel around to other parts of the city performing for anyone who will have them – Smiler's uncle Felix is one of these), restaurants (where half the time the food is given away for free), and bunk houses (where people are encouraged to do whatever makes them happiest and told about the wonders of Mar-Mal and becoming an Advocate). They also own a dedicated shop in Nightmarket where they sell various happiness-increasing items from stationery to clothes to kitchenware to stuffed animals (this is where Matt and Carol work). Cult practices include orgies of pleasure among the congregation (this CAN be the standard sex orgy among the adults, but most of the time just means a big old party with dancing and music and food), “marmalising” new members, and blessing their various sacred sites with special artwork (generally the cult’s logo) and artifacts.

-->Special Abilities:

Chosen – Each member adds +1 to their rating for Attune, Study, or Sway! As Smiler was part of the cult before joining the Three Pillars, this is probably where they got their spare Attune dot! (Which means I could probably ditch the “it cost them two stress boxes” trade-off...but part of me wonders if it would be more interesting to have all of the Advocates have that problem with being able to take less stress...)

Zealotry – Everyone involved in The Advocates believes utterly in its message and will do anything they can to spread the will of Mar-Mal, no matter how potentially dangerous or strange! Mechanically, this means the cult's "cohorts" (NPC groups that can act on their behalf) get +1d when acting against “enemies of the faith”

Conviction – All members have the Worship vice – though, given this is Mar-Mal, it works like they all have the Pleasure vice – and when they indulge this vice by subsuming themselves and/or others in happiness, Mar-Mal takes notice and makes sure their stress is cleared without issue. Additionally, the god will happily assist its worshipers with a single action after such proof of devotion! (...this has to be somehow linked to Mar-Mal being able to safely take over Smiler's body when they have their stress-out and get the Vessel trauma – I'm just not 100% sure how yet.)

-->Upgrades:

Training: Resolve – they’re better at training any and all skills related to Attune, Command, Consort, and Sway thanks to the influence of Mar-Mal, who wants them to spread joy as far and wide as possible

Cohort: Gang – The Adepts of the cult, eager to embrace happiness and Smile Always! They are Scale 3 and Quality 3 (say 24 NPCs to fill out the cult), have the edges Loyal and Tenacious (they are devoted to Mar-Mal and will stop at nothing to spread their word and their happiness), and the flaws Unreliable and Wild (a lot of them find pleasure in drugs and alcohol, which can affect their availability, and some just don’t know when to keep their mouths shut)

Quarters – Their lair in Silkshore is intended as living quarters as well as a place of worship, and much of the cult lives within its walls

Workshop – Multiple, in fact – various chemical labs and tinkering workshops, plus a decent-sized library on happiness and whatever passes for psychology in Duskwall

Training: Prowess – Due to having been a faction in Duskwall for a while, all members know the value of knowing how to Finesse things, how to Prowl, how to survive a Skirmish, and how to Wreck things as necessary (I admit, I chose this one simply because my excuse for the Three Pillars having this same upgrade when they start their official career was the Advocates giving them assistance in this regard – I'm picturing it as them having a gym to practice fighting and prowling and giving the trio some spare equipment)

Ritual Sanctum In Lair – An additional arcane “workshop” next to the main chapel, where rituals to summon Mar-Mal’s essence and interpret its will are done

-->Claims: These are extra items, upgrades, and places that the cult has claimed during their time in Duskwall (this didn't come up for the Three Pillars because I hadn't decided what I wanted them to get at the time I did THEIR crew playbook write-up – the greenhouse would probably count as a "claim" though). So far, I have –

Main Lair & Two General Turf (to represent their general "hold" in the city)

Offertory (which gives them +2 coin for all occult operations – though rather than this being tribute from frightened locals, it’s generally donations from people who have actually had their lives improved by the Advocates)

Sanctuary (not the Sanctuary, that's Dr. Kelman's place and he's not part of the Advocates – instead, this represents the bunkhouses where they put people up who are down on their luck. As they're generally run by the most charismatic of the cultists, they get +1 to Command and Sway people as a result – they tempt a lot of people into joining their cause in these shelters!)

Vice Den (as stated previously, they've got multiple of these, with coin generated from people who pay for drugs, alcohol, games, and company)

Sacred Nexus (any spot where the glow orb grows is a place where Mar-Mal's essence is felt more strongly, so the physickers of the Advocates generally take patients to those gardens to help them recover faster – Mar-Mal is only too happy to offer a healing touch to those Advocates who are hurt! Mechanically, this means +1d to all healing rolls)

Ancient Altar (in addition to the big main altar in the center of the lair, the Advocates have also set up a smaller altar in the spot where their founder found the original glow orbs. The show of devotion mechanically gets them +1d engagement to occult plans)

-->Favorite Contact: Cuthbert Beckett, a Tycherosi (from the far-off land of Tycheros, where all the inhabitants have a bit of demon blood – his tells are his iconic red eyes with crescent-shaped pupils and hairy arms and hands with claws) occultist and historian who studies the history of the Shattered Isles and the various religions and cults that have sprung up across it, and will happily do them favors in exchange for information. As it happens, Beckett is in fact a secret vampire (one of the few who actually managed to repossess his own body after his early death back home), who leaves a small crescent mark on his victims after he feeds – the Advocates found him out, but rather than telling the Spirit Wardens, they welcomed him and let him feed on their members. This has earned them a certain degree of trust and respect from someone who is normally the most snarky person you will ever meet.

-->Faction Relationships:

On good terms with the Three Pillars, of course, as one of their own is part of that gang – I'm thinking +1 at least to start

-2 with the Beornen – neither side is yet ready to go to WAR, but Robert Wickerman and his cult hate the Advocates, and the feeling is mutual

-->Notes & History:

The head of the cult is one Dr. Gerstlauer, who in fact used to work with one Dr. Kelman on the problem of "social compliance." They hit upon the idea that happy people will be less prone to disobeying the law...and then promptly had a rift with Dr. Kelman over his rather bizarre ideas on how to make people happy (“showing them decaying animals?!? Seriously, Kellard?”)

After splitting with Kelman and going his own way, Dr. Gerstlauer stumbled across a curious fruit growing near the lightning barrier on the edge of the Spark Grounds (an open field where many circuses set up and feats of acrobatic prowess are displayed on the edge of Silkshore) – glowing yellow orbs dangling from black stems that twisted into spirals. Curiosity took him and he tried one of the fruit – and was promptly utterly subsumed in joy and contacted by the god Mar-Mal, asking him to help spread its influence over the city. Gerstlauer immediately agreed, found some people to try the fruit and teach about the god, and the cult was born!

Originally the cult was called the Ministry of Joy, with the “top brass” being the Ministers – however, one politely-worded letter from the Lord Governor saying “hey, people think you’re an actual government agency, knock it off” later, they rebranded as the “Advocates.” They still call the building the Ministry of Joy, though they often shorten it to just MOJ. Leaders are now called Smile Ministers, or SMs for short.

Spiders are holy creatures to the cult because the standard manifestation of Mar-Mal kind of looks like one (very kind of; the main body has five radial legs, and is surrounded by a mass of twisted, curling mechanical tentacles – though it’s hard to look at it too long as it makes your vision fuzz up)

A new inductee to the cult must undergo the process of “marmalisation” to become a full member (usually after they’ve been part of the cult for about half a year). Originally, this simply involved having the inductee sit within the representation of Mar-Mal that serves as the cult’s altar and having them drink glow orb juice to open their mind to the god’s influence. The process has been refined over the years, however, and now a typical “marmalisation” involves sitting within the altar, receiving an injection of Smiler’s Joy Serum, then being tickled by mechanical brushes while a flashing light disrupts the inductee’s thoughts, before a spiral array is put before them to guide them into a deep trance to help them feel Mar-Mal’s influence even more. This not only allows inductees to feel the god's will more potently, it also has a shorter recovery time (as drinking glow orb juice straight tends to completely knock people out for a while). Smiler's working on a new addition to the whole thing, Giggler Gas, which they hope also to turn into another drug to sell. A common side effect of the process is Advocates gaining permanently upturned lips (Smiler) or smiles that stretch farther across their face than should actually be possible (Matt, Carol to a lesser extent).

Despite being a very young cult (they got their start during Smiler's lifetime, to the point where Dr. Gerstlauer recognizes them when Matt and Carol first bring them in), they've grown in power and influence pretty quickly – mostly because, well, they preach a message of happiness to all who come to them, and that is in short supply in Duskwall if you ain't rich! Opinions on them from non-members range from "a little weird, but they're trying to make people happy" to "those idiots who claim to worship pure happiness" to "one of the manifestations of all that is wrong in Duskwall today" (that last one is Bob and his Beornen).

As for Smiler's personal history with the cult – as previously stated in other posts, after growing up in Dr. Kelman's Sanctuary horror-show, they ran away at age 12 with whatever money they could scrape up to sustain them. They ended up in Silkshore, where they managed to keep themselves going for a while, sleeping in alleyways and buying food from street vendors...but when the money ran out, they were utterly lost as to what they could do. Fortunately, that's when Matt and Carol Alton stumbled across them, and – upon learning they had no home – invited them to come back to the MOJ. There they were warmly accepted by the other members, including Matt's brother Felix, who – upon learning that the poor kid's name was Marmaduke – told them that they could choose whatever name they liked that best represented themselves, like he had as Felix E. Lated. The kid, already feeling happier and more at home than they ever had at the Sanctuary, chose the name Smiler, and asked to stay at the MOJ. This request was cheerfully granted, and Smiler was "officially" adopted by Matt and Carol at 13 (not that they filled out any paperwork or anything, but that's when Smiler started calling them "Dad" and "Mum") and made a proper member of the cult at 15. The very next year, they successfully invented Joy Serum, and a delighted Mar-Mal bestowed upon them a blessing, re-marmalising them in a dream and turning their formerly-green eyes a bright glowing yellow. Smiler's thus seen as the "golden child" of the cult (especially since Mar-Mal managed to bless them without turning off their ability to feel hunger and thirst and whatnot), and even when they technically leave to go live with Victor and Alice as the Three Pillars, they maintain close ties with the Advocates, who are only too happy to lend a hand to their new friends. (And THEN Smiler proves able to host Mar-Mal's essence, which really gets the attention of the other cult members...)