Companion & Minions Reloaded for SotC
By Tom Miskey
This is an effort to provide a single, unified set of Minion and Companion rules for SotC. It incorporates the new Companion rules introduced in Spirit of the Season, and shows how to utilize them to build all the companion stunts in the SotC rules. The Strength in Numbers, Summonable, and Variable Summons advances were extrapolated from the various companion stunts in the game, and I also added the Shared Aspects rule to the Independent advance.
Upon purchasing the following Companion stunts, you receive a basic ally:
Average quality, 2 stress boxes, requires a Fate point to act alone, and while they are attached they provide +1 group bonus to their leader in the skills they know, and the leader may substitute their skill level in place of his own if it’s higher.
- The Minions stunt also gives 1 free “Strength in Numbers” advance, and 3 other advances.
- The Animal Companion stunt gives you 4 advances of your choice, within the limitations stated under that stunt.
- The Contacts stunt gives the “Independent” advance for free, and 3 other advances.
- Gambling Buddy gives you the “Independent” and “Skilled” advances for free, though Gambling must be one of his skills, and 2 other advances.
- The Spirit Companion has the “Summonable” advance for free and 3 other advances. He does not get the Independent advance for free, it must be chosen.
- The Lieutenant stunt gets the Fair Quality, “Independent”, and “Skilled” advances for free, plus 1 other Advance. You need not take it multiple times, but you may if you want. Each additional time it is taken gives 3 advances, same as Close Contacts.
- A Network of Contacts has the “Summonable” and “Variable Summons” advances for free, plus 2 others.
- A Sucker gets the “Fair Quality” and “Skilled” advances for free, plus 2 others. One of his skills must be Resources.
- A Trusted Employee receives the “Quality” and “Independent” advances for free, and you may choose 3 additional advances as well. This companion gets 1 additional advance because it’s actually converting the employee gained in the previous “Headquarters” stunt into a full Companion.
- Belonging to a Personal Conspiracy allows you call either a minor functionary with the “Summonable” and “Variable Summons” advances plus 1 other advance, or an officer in the conspiracy who gets “Summonable”, “Variable Summons”, “Independent”, and 2 other advances of your choice. However, if you choose to bother an officer with your needs, he will have goals of his own that he might expect you to help him accomplish. For this stunt, the “Independent” behaves is a slightly different way, such that the GM, not the player, selects the 2 Aspects the companion has access to. One will usually be the player’s Aspect that relates to the conspiracy he’s a part of, but the other is created by the GM. For the rest of the scene, both the player and the companion receive this new Aspect, and the player may not refuse to follow Compels based on it, unless he is willing to seriously offend the conspiracy (which may result in anything from being shunned and ignored for a while as punishment, to being marked for death by the other members!)
- The Headquarters stunt gives you an opportunity to select Expert Staff. They effectively are 3 separate companions. Two of them get no advances and the head of the staff gets only the "Fair Quality" advance. You may pay a Fate point to allow them to leave the Headquarters and go on a mission for you. If you wish to promote them to full Companions, take the Trusted Employees stunt.
- Stately Pleasure Dome gives you one set of 3 Average minions with the "Strength in Numbers" advance and no other free advances. It also gives your previous Expert Staff one "Quality" advance each, raising them to Fair, Fair, and Good as listed under that stunt, but they do not get any other advances for free. Take Trusted Employee to promote them to full companions.
Each time you take a stunt again, you may either create a new Companion/set of minions, or you may add 3 Advances to your existing ones (as per the Close Contacts stunt).
Attachment: Only one companion may “attach” to a character at a time, the same as a minion might, taking hits to its stress track in substitute for the character’s own. An attached companion can’t take actions of his or her own, though the companion’s skills are available to the character while attached.
Advances: Companions have the number of advances indicated in the list above. An advance may be spent on one of: Quality, Communication, Independent, Keeping Up, Skilled, Strength in Numbers, Stunt, Summonable and Variable Summons.
Quality: Companions start with a base quality of Average, and its quality may be increased by one step for each advance spent on Quality. The quality of a companion reflects how skilled he, she, or it is, and how resilient the companion is. Companions have a base of one stress plus one box per point of quality. The companion gets a single skill column (instead of a pyramid) with an apex equal to its quality and counting down from there.
Therefore:
- An Average quality companion has 1 Average skill and 2 stress.
- A Fair quality companion has 1 Fair and 1 Average skill and 3 stress.
- A Good quality companion has 1 Good, 1 Fair, and 1 Average skill and 4 stress.
- A Great quality companion has 1 Great, 1 Good, 1 Fair, and 1 Average skill, and 5 stress.
Scope: Companions may no longer have the Scope advance. Instead, this is replaced by Stunt (below).
Communication: One advance may be spent on Communication, as in Spirit of the Century on page 78. Attempts to disrupt the method of communication between companion and character face a difficulty equal to the companion’s quality rating, or the character’s skill that yielded the companion, whichever is higher. Additional advances spent on Communication increase this difficulty by 2.
Independent: All companions are now able to act on their own without needing to spend an advance on it; however, in order to send a companion off on an independent mission, the character must spend a fate point in order to do so. Only one fate point needs to be spent per significant mission (there’s no need to spend fate points when the companion is getting sent off to do something trivial). That said, the Independent advance may still be purchased for a companion, removing this fate point cost.
While the companion is separated, the Independent advance also allows him or her access to the main character’s fate points and up to 2 Aspects of the main character that would also apply as well. “My Faithful Companion Hang Chi!” would apply as it is describing the companion himself, and you might also choose something like “Trained in the secret martial arts of the Far East!” or “Sacred mission to stop Lo Pan from taking over the world!”
Keeping Up: If the companion’s patron has a means of locomotion or stealth that makes it hard for the companion to keep up with him, then the companion with this advance has a similar ability, but it is useful only for keeping up with her patron when attached, and for no other purpose. (No change with respect to SOTC p.78).
Skilled: Each time this advance is taken, an additional “column” of skills is added to the companion’s sheet. But this is at diminishing returns; each column after the first starts one rank lower than the previous. So a Good quality companion with the Skilled advance taken twice would have 2 Good, 3 Fair, and 3 Average skills in total. A third advance would only add 1 Average skill, and a fourth advance would be wasted. A Great quality companion who takes the Skilled advance 4 times would end up with a “blunted” skill pyramid that’s 1 Superb shy of being equal to a PC!
Strength in Numbers: You have more than one ally! The first time this advance is taken, you gain 2 additional allies (for a total of 3) that are all identical (statistically, anyway). Each additional time this advance is taken gives you 3 more allies. However, there is a drawback: These hordes of minions are limited to the Leader’s Quality-2, not -1 as is typical for a single companion. Also, Minions only get a number of Stress boxes equal to their Quality, not their Quality +1.
Stunt: This advance may be taken a maximum of two times. Each time it is taken, the companion gains the use of a single stunt. The stunt may not confer companions or minions of its own.
Summonable: No matter where you are, you can summon your ally to you. This normally takes at least 1 minute or more, but you may usually spend a Fate Point to accomplish it in a single round. A Summoned companion vanishes or leaves if the summoning character is Taken Out, and usually doesn’t last more than 1 scene anyway, though he may be summoned again in a later scene if needed again. This advance may only be taken once, but see Variable Summons below.
Variable Summons (Requires Summonable): Normally, the same or an identical companion is summoned each time, but this advance allows the character to allocate his advances when the companion is first summoned. This may only be done once per adventure, same as a Universal Gadget, unless the summoner spends a Fate point to reallocate the points again (Note: Spending a Fate pt to reallocate the points is a rule I use for Universal Gadgets as well). This advance may only be taken once. Note that while this is most often a mystical ability, it can instead in some cases represent a vast network of friends, allies, or members of a group, such that almost anywhere in the world he can call on someone who just happens to be in the neighborhood.
Updated Stunt Description
Animal Companion [Survival]
Your character has cultivated a close companion from the animal kingdom. This companion is designed using the companion rules (see page XX), with a few changes and limitations.
Animal companions are designed using four advances. This companion must spend at least two of its advances on “Skilled” or “Quality”. Any “Skilled” advances must be taken from a short list: Athletics, Fists, Might, Stealth, and Survival. You may take only one skill outside of that list, within reason, as based on the animal type. A raccoon might have Sleight of Hand, representing its ability to perform fine manipulation; a lion might have Intimidation (this is unsubtle, and not considered a violation of the physical scope). If the animal is of an appropriate size, this creature may be ridden as a mount, at +1 to Survival.
If the companion is a mount, such as a horse, or a more exotic beast that has been persuaded to allow you to ride it, you may use that mount’s Athletics skill (at +1) instead of Survival in order to ride it. Athletics would also be used to pour on the speed when the rider is too busy to “steer” the animal himself.
Contact [Contacting]
At the time your character takes this stunt, you must define a specific contact, with a name, a brief sentence about the contact’s personality, and her relationship to your character. This contact is a companion as described on page XX, willing and capable to accompany you on your adventures, with three advances for you to spend as you wish and the "Independent" advance for free. For maximum effect, you may wish to allocate one of your aspects to this contact as well. This stunt may be taken multiple times, defining a different contact each time.
Network of Contacts [Contacting]
Requires at least one other Contacting stunt.
The character can choose from a large number of companions available to him when he needs them. With this stunt, when the character begins an adventure, his companion doesn’t need to be defined. Instead, at the point where he decides he needs the companion, he may reveal her, giving her a name and a few brief cues to the GM to base a personality on.
This companion starts out at Average quality and may have up to two advances and the “Summonable” and “Variable Summons” advances for free.
Only one “reveal” of this kind may be done per scene. Once revealed, the companion will be involved and reasonably available at least until the end of the adventure.
If, instead, you choose to have the companion available to you for only one scene before the companion is called away to other things, you may build the companion with three advances instead of two. Once the scene ends, the companion is removed from the adventure, one way or another.
Gambling Buddy [Gambling]
Requires Players’ Club [+1]
Once per session, you may introduce a companion character into a scene, on the fly, as suits the convenience of the moment. This companion character has the
“Independent” and “Skilled” advances for free, though Gambling must be one of his skills, and 2 other advances, which you may define at the moment of the reveal, or after the fact as you travel around with your buddy.
Spirit Companion [Mysteries]
You have a companion with three advances (as described on page XX). This companion is vulnerable to the flux of the spiritual aether, however, and must be summoned into your presence – either pay a fate point to get his immediate manifestation or take roughly a minute to roll Mysteries against a target equal to the companion’s quality as a more gentle summoning (equals free Summonable advance)
This companion can never act in physical conflict, but may be visible to others; this may limit what skills he can use with the Skilled advance. He automatically gains the Independent advance as well. The companion will need to take Skilled (Stealth) if he wishes to be undetectable on occasion; otherwise, visible or not, his presence in a location is an immediate call for people to roll Mysteries to notice something amiss.
If you take this stunt a second time (the maximum) you may provide another three advances to your companion. If you have not yet increased the companion’s quality to at least Fair, you must spend one of your advances to do so.
Sucker [Deceit]
Requires Con Man.
You’ve got this guy completely suckered – or at least, if he’s on to you, he’s rich enough that he doesn’t care. Design a companion (page XX) with the “Fair Quality” and “Skilled” advances for free, plus 2 others. One of his skills must be Resources.
The downside is that he’s a sucker – you hooked him in, but he is a Poor difficulty target for anyone else looking to sucker him too (although if you when that happens).
Heck, you may even have some fondness for the guy – you certainly won’t leave him hanging out to dry, and that’s not just because he pays for everything – but, still, the relationship’s not entirely honest.
Personal Conspiracy [Leadership]
Taking this stunt is an explicit indication that you are a member of some manner of global conspiracy; it’s probably worth making sure you have an aspect indicating as much. This stunt functions identically to the Network of Contacts stunt for Contacting (see page XX), but in a fashion that is both more and less powerful than that stunt.
Belonging to a Personal Conspiracy allows you call either a minor functionary with the “Summonable” and “Variable Summons” advances plus 1 other advance, or an officer in the conspiracy who gets “Summonable”, “Variable Summons”, “Independent”, and 2 other advances of your choice. However, if you choose to bother an officer with your needs, he will have goals of his own that he might expect you to help him accomplish. For this stunt, the “Independent” behaves is a slightly different way, such that the GM, not the player, selects the 2 Aspects the companion has access to. One will usually be the player’s Aspect that relates to the conspiracy he’s a part of, but the other is created by the GM. For the rest of the scene, both the player and the companion receive this new Aspect, and the player may not refuse to follow Compels based on it, unless he is willing to seriously offend the conspiracy (which may result in anything from being shunned and ignored for a while as punishment, to being marked for death by the other members!)
Lieutenant [Leadership]
You have a single, exceptional companion, well equipped to handle leadership duties in your stead. He is Fair quality, and has the Independent and Skilled advances for free, plus 1 other Advance.You need not take this stunt multiple times, but you may if you want. Each additional time it is taken gives 3 advances, same as Close Contacts.
Minions [Leadership]
You have minions – lots of them. As a default, in a scene, you may have the bare minimum of minions easily on hand. T
The Minions gets 1 free “Strength in Numbers” advance, and 3 other advances, spent at the point you bring them into the scene.
You must spend all of your upgrades at the start of the scene when you bring in your minions, but you needn’t bring them all in right away.
Trusted Employee [Resources]
Requires a Headquarters with the Expert Staff element.
Choose one member of your staff – usually the person who qualifies as head of the facility. This person may now accompany you as a full-on companion (see page XX), including retaining her companion status outside your headquarters. A Trusted Employee receives the “Quality” (indicated by your headquarters stunts) and “Independent” advances for free, and you may choose 3 additional advances as well. This companion gets 1 additional advance because it’s actually converting the employee gained in the previous “Headquarters” stunt into a full Companion.
Headquarters [Resources]
Expert Staff.
The Headquarters stunt gives you an opportunity to select Expert Staff. They effectively are 3 separate companions. Two of them get no advances and the head of the staff gets only the "Fair Quality" advance. You may pay a Fate point to allow them to leave the Headquarters and go on a mission for you. If you wish to promote them to full Companions, take the Trusted Employees stunt.
Stately Pleasure Dome [Resources]
Requires Lair [+1]
The character’s lair is very much a wonder of the world. Not only does it have all of the possible elements listed above, but one of them may be traded out for something unique and distinctive, such as:
* A larger and highly competent staff (giving you one set of 3 Average minions with the "Strength in Numbers" advance and no other free advances. It also gives your previous Expert Staff one "Quality" advance each, raising them to Fair, Fair, and Good as listed under that stunt, but they do not get any other advances for free.)
