[GAME] Let's Build a Conspiracy!

[ajardoor]

Level 4 Response
Attack the Heart
Details: The conspiracy murders a player's loved one, preferably in the most emotionally devastating manner possible. The typical method is for a strong psychic who knows how to control minds to force the target's friend or family or significant other to commit suicide in front of the target in an intimate moment.

Level 2 Node
Hightower Prison
Details: This private prison, aside from a source of wealth for the conspiracy, is used as a hideout, black site, and staging ground for sinister experiments. The prison uses the inmates as human test subjects. The prison's operation is shot through with corruption, including sleazy lobbyists arranging kickbacks for loose regulations and defanged inspections. The warden is just as much as a prisoner as the actual convicted, thanks to a strong hand from his conspiracy overseers.
Connections: Any Level 1 Nodes could deliver kidnapped people or packages of contraband from the streets to the prison for safekeeping. Level 3 Nodes that are in contact with Hightower Prison can include a lone billionaire who invests in front companies for the conspiracy, a state governor, a large ring of regional drug smugglers, a cult or secret society, and a PMC who escorts conspiracy assets around the country or continent.

[ericthered]

Level 1 Node:

The Fishmonger
Details: A ruthless telekinetic and serial killer, the fishmonger likes to think of himself as clever. He delights in amassing wealth for himself and killing people in convoluted and impossibile ways. The title is related to the dead fish he likes to leave near his victims. The Fishmonger is mostly used as a hit man for the conspiracy. Its possible someone even higher in the conspiracy taught him how to operate.
Connections: The Fishmonger will happily kill for hire, but only another psychic can really command his respect (and avoid becoming his next target). He is hired by one or two of the level two nodes with psychic assets. He's likely to have kept some of the other level 1 nodes in line a few times by knocking off an upity leader or leuitenant.

[ajardoor]

Level 4 Node
The Endless Teeth Cult
Details: The Endless Teeth is a secret society that recruits influential members of the upper class, in the style of a mystery cult which lures in the greedy and curious with promises of strange lore and then entraps them with both threats and blackmail once they are committed. The truth behind the cult is only known to the conspiracy's hand-picked leaders, and the rest of the cultists are deceived to believe that the cult's masters are vampires instead of psychics. The "vampire" deception is upheld with conspiracy mentalists, who implant false memories of fanged blood-drinking undead in crypts commanding horrific bloody satanic rituals. The conspiracy uses The Endless Teeth as a boogeyman for the wealthy and powerful - it makes billionaires think there is a threat out there that money and connections cannot save them from, so it must be appeased.
Connections: The Endless Teeth may control any Level 3 lone billionaire or the management of a major NGO. A single country's elite may wholly be members of The Endless Teeth, cowed and broken by the "vampires". The secret masters of the mystery cult are loyal psychics who answer to a Level 5 Node of second-in-command arch-psychics or The Melded Disciples.

[ericthered]

Level 2 Node
The Fortune Teller's Academy
A brazen and disreputable school that serves as a recruiting ground. While the true goal is to identify psionic talents, the steady stream of recruited scammers and chances to make psionics in general look fraudulent are welcomed. The Academy can send a load of nonsense your way, hit you with talented scammers, and vet potential recruits and experiment victims. The local head of law enforcement has been convinced that all the stories coming from there are hyped up nonsense, quackery, and insanity not worth his time. Even the disappearances. The Head of the academy is a shard.
Connections: A lot of the low-level psionics in the conspiracy (level 1's and 2's) were recruited through the academy. The academy mostly just needs connections to the higher ups in the conspiracy, though the headmaster knows he's exposed and tries to maintain his distance from the main group. Nodes with wide reach are best for this, like blackhawk trucking.