Using street children in ceremonial magic [Magic/Thaumatology]

[Alden Loveshade]

I have used random people, including children, for ceremonial magic--when absolutely necessary. There's too much possibility that one or two or three people there will be thinking, "So, they think they can stop our plans with a magic-generating crowd, huh? We'll just join them and thwart their plans! Bwah ha ha!"

[Alden Loveshade]

Originally Posted by transmetahuman

Might be motivation for a mage, or mages, to sponsor one or more orphanages back in the Victorian/Dickensian days. Probably with an adult to keep them in line (and no doubt exploit the situation and the children somehow).

We do this at St. Bassard's School and Home for Disadvantaged Youth.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Why would you want to mitigate it? Is there any particular reason to make ceremonial magic harder?

The ramifications of being able to easily harvest others' energy for spellcasting being too easy to exploit, I guess?

It seems way easier to just pay off a street child to cast your ceremony than to use "Steal Energy" on the kidnapped street child to recharge your own, for example.

If we make it harder to effectively give them a limited form of "Share Energy" then it makes actual spells designed for that role more distinct.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Yes, but there they have a stake in the success of the ritual. They actually care about its success. Not just showing up to earn a penny.

Mages might use some means to verify genuine contributions.
M101 Aura lets you learn about someone's personality
M47 "Compel Truth" could help so long as partial truths don't mislead you (weird how this is Comm/Empth instead of Mind Control like Compel Lies...) or alternative Mind-Reading (M46) to see what comes to mind as you question them (Mind-SEARCH if you're not)

M136 Loyalty could also be interesting prep. 2 to cast to get 1 energy out of someone doesn't seem like a good deal, but you could get those 2 energy back before the hour is up...

Actually come to think of it, is there anything at all preventing the use of Lend Spell on loyalty so that the person you make loyal maintains the FP costs of loyalty?

That seems like a good idea for getting a day's worth of loyalty (ends when they fall asleep) and would let you prep a lot more street children to be loyal to fueling your ceremony.

Interesting thing about that is whether or not the cost multiplier would apply: cost is double to instill loyalty in children who don't know you, but if you use Lend Spell, since the child effectively becomes the caster who's maintaining the spell, they certainly know themself (Amnesiacs except) so maybe maintenance costs aren't doubled once you lend it?

Another might be to use Persuasion (M45) to get a favorable reaction roll, then you wouldn't need to maintain it to enjoy the effects of a good one (just means you won't get the bonus on any future reaction rolls)

[ravenfish]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Yes, but there they have a stake in the success of the ritual. They actually care about its success. Not just showing up to earn a penny.

So you only pay the street children if the ritual goes off successfully, and get the same effect.

[Donny Brook]

Children who can support themselves at a Status -1 level are not street children.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Children who can support themselves at a Status -1 level are not street children.

True story. I consider myself Status -1 with a small apartment and old vehicle.

[AlexanderHowl]

Yes, but they would be street children before they were recruited. Of course, any child without an apprenticeship would likely qualify for such activities, as would anyone crippled who could not work elsewhere. Crippled adults would probably live on their own though, separate from their work, as they would want some privacy.

[Alden Loveshade]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Children who can support themselves at a Status -1 level are not street children.

It depends on how you define "street children." Definitions vary by country and even within the same nation. Some define a child as anyone under age 18, and many "street children" live with their family.

If you're going by homelessness, by comparison about 25 percent of homeless adults in America work. There are some who live in motels, which are more expensive than apartments, because they can't afford an apartment's first and last month's rent and security deposit requirements.

In modern day America, there's also an issue that many apartment managers insist a potential tenant have a current address. Even when someone is making a fairly decent income, they may still be on the street.

And a sizeable percentage of people on the street are there because of substance abuse issues, which can greatly affect how much money they have for housing.

So back to the post, it's up to the GM how they define "street children."

[Rolando]

church uses children in their ceremonies. They seems to me like the default +1FP per helper (carrying candles, etc.)

I can see a mages guilds giving free training and bed and board to children to be ritual helpers to the guild, maybe even giving them some extra money.

I'ts not an orphanage, it is raw exploitation of homeless and destitute children, maybe even going to poor families houses and see if they want to sell some of their children, or just giving them for free even.

In a society with more "good" it may still be a great way of getting your son to learn to read and write and some higher education. The mages have teachers (some of them ex ritual helpers, some mages, other expert professors) and educate the children, meanwhile the children give some hours of ritual helping (say 2 hours a day, separated in 1 hour sets).

If your child is a mage it start by helping in the rituals while learning the basics.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by ravenfish

So you only pay the street children if the ritual goes off successfully, and get the same effect.

That's going to lead to problems if 9/10 are helping. They won't want to help if one bad egg will spoil their time, unless they think they can ferret out the traitor so they don't spoil future earnings.

That could be feasibly with smaller groups (they trust each other, or there's fewer people to interrogate/manage) but if it's a group of 100 street children they might see ferreting out the 1/100 who makes them come up short as being too much trouble to be worth the attempt.

A mage could be wise to facilitate their ferreting-out of traitors somehow.

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Children who can support themselves at a Status -1 level are not street children.

Looking at B265, to even live at status -2 @ $100/mo is beyond the capability of the Dead Broke (meaning Independent Income is off the table since that's a % of Starting Wealth which is zero), so that's probably covered by a parent as an Ally

B26 "should not allow wealthy PCs to bankroll their poorer associates" doesn't sound like it would exclude NPCs bankrolling the poorer PCs who buy them as Allies/Patrons...

Parents might run the gamut from -50% Unwilling / 0% default / +50% Minion .. "minion" behavior (a child can be disloyal to a parent, the parent still supports them) is probably more prevalent toward young children, as one would be less inclined to abandon a toddler in response to "blatant betrayal" than one would be to abandon a fully grown offspring in response to it.

I'm not sure how to explain the loss of Minion +50% or reduced FoA over time, as it's not likely that the relative Competence of a parent would go down to necessitate dropping an enhancement or lowering the FoA multiplier... if anything the child is likely to increase at a faster rate than the parent.

I guess maybe "Debt" could work? There is often a sense of unspoken debt that children owe parents for resources invested in them, so as time goes by with them not paying that money.

This of course requires not treating kids as Dead Broke (you can't take Debt if DB, what's owed is a % of Starting Wealth) so you should probably treat them as at least "Heir: Poor" [-20] with a Starting Wealth of 1/10 the average for society, so that Debt means owing 1/1000 the Starting Wealth per month.

In TL8 with SW20k that'd be $20/month which is probably enough to cover food for a small child if you're willing to use expired food available on discount.

Food costs probably relate to SM somehow (SM-2 eats less than SM-1 eats less than SM-0) which is how it seems feasible to pay less than the $100/mo an adult would pay for food.

As your SM goes up, suddenly costs go up and you prob take on extra levels of Debt, until at SM0 you have Debt 5 [-5] owing 5% of your $2000 starting wealth ($100) monthly to your parent for food.

100/mo would accrue 5x as quickly as 20/mo

Maybe you earn bonus CP (B26 'trading points for money') that you can spend to buy down that debt, or maybe if you don't, the GM forces you go into point debt at a rate of 1 per $2000 of unpaid debt (-1 character point per 100 months as an SM-2 child, or per 20 months as an SM-0 adult)

The Point Debt might convert into disadvantages: like perhaps more levels of Debt (compound interest!) but you'd have to find other options once that caps out at the maximum -20.

They could come out of a variety of advantages: maybe you eat less or poorly so physical attributes drop, or maybe you lose your Minion enhancement from your Ally (parent) or the parent's FOA drops (less available to help you because they need to work overtime to support you) or parent gains Unwilling limitation (hates you)

This would happen at a much faster rate of course if your Wealth rises (the $ per month you owe to your Debt increases) which you are obligated to do if savings exceed Starting Wealth enough to reach next tier (B517)

That's supposed to stop when you reach wealth that provides income of a job which is a problem since it doesn't mandate the unemployed to buy up their wealth at al no matter how much money they save up, giving it no point representation.

That's why I like the idea of making "savings" a social advantage worth 1pt per 10/50/100% of Starting Wealth, to distinguish between "I'm Poor, unemployed and have $1million in the bank" and "I'm poor, unemployed and have $0 in the bank" (former is better off than altter)