GURPS CABAL: A problem

[Michael Cule]

I've long wanted to run a Horror campaign set in the world of the Cabal. One of the things that's put me off starting is that the 'default' campaign idea seems to be that of the player-characters being part of the Cabal. And that strikes me as not the best way to use the idea of gradually peeling back the out skin of the onion to show the hidden truth inside.

Ideallly, I'd like to start with 150 point characters and gradually expose them to the truth of the world and build them up into enemies of the Cabal who can actually threaten their schemes.

Trouble is I can't see a way to that end that doesn't either end up with them killed very early on or with them corrupted and joining the Cabal. (I like heroism: so sue me.)

Any suggestions? I suppose a Patron of some sort is indicated. But who? And is it inevitable that I'm going to have to reveal that the people fighting the Cabal are but another part of it?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Michael Cule

Any suggestions? I suppose a Patron of some sort is indicated. But who? And is inevitable that I'm going to have to reveal that the people fighting the Cabal are but another part of it?

Infinity or Centrum?

[Michael Cule]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Infinity or Centrum?

Hmm, that's cunning. Not without it's own problems....

But if I rewrite the default background so that the Cabal is initially unaware of the many worlds... Hmm....

OK. Keep the suggestions coming....

[CousinX]

The Cabal book is chock-full of rival organizations ... Exodus 22 are fanatical anti-occultists, the Leonines are holy sorcerers who oppose the forces of darkness (i.e. the Cabal), and the GKMR are psionic secret agents. The Company from Black Ops is another possibility.

But part of the fun of a Conspiracy campaign is that the PCs are never quite sure exactly who they're working for. It may be that they never join the Cabal proper, but start their careers as pawns of one faction or another, being used to act against that faction's rivals... then, as they rise in power and awareness of the Hidden Truth, they can become powerful enough to buck their yoke and start playing Cabalistic factions against one another....

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Michael Cule

But if I rewrite the default background so that the Cabal is initially unaware of the many worlds... Hmm....

The Cabal was probably always aware of many worlds. The Seprioth is pretty central to Kabbalism. However Infiinty wasn't always aware of the Cabal, and the Cabal wasn't always aware of Infinity.

[Phantasm]

Perhaps you're over-thinking it a little.

I haven't read everything there is on the Cabal - very little, in fact - but the gist I got from it is that the Cabal is not a unified organization the way ISWAT is. You have factions among the Cabal working against each other. Some factions could be benevolent, and others could be filled with power-hungry would-be tyrants.

Their "Patron" could be one of the many factions among the Cabal. Or perhaps some organization that is aware of the Cabal thanks to the actions of one of the power-hungry factions, and thinks the entire Cabal is like that.

Hell, for a twist, IOU could be a part of the world of the Cabal.

[Tyneras]

The guy who works for the Smithsonian, the one who gets all the "weird stuff", Dr. Selden Graves (GURPS Cabal, p.17). He has connections all over the place and is not associated with the Cabal (unless you make that a plot twist, but it is left up in the air).

Because he is the go-to guy of the US government, the PCs could encounter/handle something odd without knowing how odd, and Dr. Graves takes notice and hires them/they get assigned to him.

[Diomedes]

Other possibilities could be the organizations on pages 22-23, suitably beefed up. Also, the Cabal doesn't have strict control over the US government, as the McCarthy witch-hunts and Warehouse 23 prove. That's one organization that's big enough to take on the Cabal, and likely to resent its intrusions.

[martinl]

Start the PCs out with advantages or artifacts that allow them to hide from the Cabal.

Ex: The PCs are all Righteous Souls who died at the exact moment that a coalition of especially ambitious Cabalists launched an assault on Heaven. Their souls were at the right place at the right time to interfere, and they did, foiling the Cabalists' dastardly plan. (You can even make this the first session.)

They wake up again in the moral world, in the place they died, mysteriously healed, and with several new advantages that make them resistant to, and impossible to track with, supernatural powers. They can also always tell where the other PCs are, and sense Cabalist supernatural powers in operation.

The Ineffable has made them Its agents. Being ineffable, It knows that they will do what is needed without direct instruction.

[Michael Cule]

Originally Posted by CousinX

The Cabal book is chock-full of rival organizations ... Exodus 22 are fanatical anti-occultists, the Leonines are holy sorcerers who oppose the forces of darkness (i.e. the Cabal), and the GKMR are psionic secret agents. The Company from Black Ops is another possibility.

But part of the fun of a Conspiracy campaign is that the PCs are never quite sure exactly who they're working for. It may be that they never join the Cabal proper, but start their careers as pawns of one faction or another, being used to act against that faction's rivals... then, as they rise in power and awareness of the Hidden Truth, they can become powerful enough to buck their yoke and start playing Cabalistic factions against one another....

Well, yes but...

None of the rivals seem entirely powerful enough to challenge the Cabal.

And none of the routes to power they offer are without a cost in the characters' basic humanity..