If you like you can look at the (sketchy, incomplete) GM notes as well.

Explorer (Guide or Professional): If you pay the standard 1 point for this Day Job, you are a Guide. Your job is to guide folk around the wilderness of distant places. Aristocratic tourists pay handsomely to eat bugs and walk through exotic steamy forests, but very little of the money gets down to you and you get only a Poor income. The job is time-consuming and dangerous, with the long journeys and the spiders, snakes, daemons and locals. However, on the plus side you get to see exotic places and meet exotic people. You are good at organising small group expeditions; also, if you are a Foreigner and are guiding people around your homeland (or if you have the Well-Travelled quirk), this will give you a big advantage.

If you pay an extra 3 points for this Day Job, you are a Professional Explorer. You are a paid member of the university (Rank 2, in terms of seniority); you could be a naturalist in search of a new species to add to your collection, or a cartographer trying to map a part of the Treacherous Lands, or perhaps a historian in search of one of the great monuments rumoured to have been built during the Mythic Dreamtime. (Please specify what your area of specialisation at the start.) However, unfortunately the university cannot afford to pay well and so your wage is Poor; however, they will often be willing to provide financial support for an expedition if it is for the furtherment of knowledge, but often you will still need to find a financial backer on top of the university's support. On the plus side, you automatically get the quirk Well-Travelled and in addition to the benefits of being a Guide, you're also competent at organising large expeditions (although these will almost certainly require financial backing) and you can also draw maps of the places you go on expeditions to, which will be highly useful on later expeditions.

Government Paper-Pusher: You are a low-level government bureaucrat. Your salary only qualifies as a Poor income - however, you have ample opportunities to earn extra money on the side simply by accepting bribes to meddle with the internal procedures of your ministry; if you're willing to take that risk, your income is Comfortable. Playing a corrupt paper-pusher pushes the cost of this quirk up to 3 points - it's not quite as good as having a proper Comfortable Day Job, since you are playing a somewhat dangerous game, and if you're caught fiddling with the paperwork you'll be fired.

Whether or not you are corrupt, you will also have some hints as to the hidden agendas and conspiracies that lurk within your department, although not as much as an insider.

Pick a ministry to work in: below is a list of the ministries and the sort of thing you can expect to achieve with the right form in the right place. The lists are not exhaustive; if you want to achieve a particular thing, talk to a GM. You may be able to achieve more should you gain a promotion within your department.

• Loyal Order of Hounds: Pick an especially sympathetic or hardline judge to hear a particular case, get someone assigned to a nicer (or a nastier) cell in the Doghouse, provide enhanced (or diminished) Watchdog patrols for a particular area, renew your dog owner's licence.
  
• The Goodly Chamber: Arrange appointments with nobles, find out their travel arrangements, have motions slipped into the agenda.
  
• The Mayoral Legions: Divert supplies from the Quartermasters' Division, find out about military exercises, fake someone's application to join the army.
  
• Ministry of Friendship: Find out where a particular Registered Spy lives, send discreet messages to the embassies of other nations, find out the travel details of important government figures, learn about the arrangements for important diplomatic events.
  
• Ministry of Public Works: Alter the subway timetable. Schedule roadworks for awkward times.
  
• The Treasury: Meddle with people's tax bills. Embezzle like your mother died and only money can comfort you.

Grey Servant: You are a Servant of the Grey Order. You perform a mundane, above-board duty for them. Perhaps you repair their taxis, perhaps you clean their offices, perhaps you make their supper. In exchange you are given a Poor income but provided with a room in communal barracks and regular (if unsatisfying) meals in a mess hall. You have sworn an oath not to reveal the secrets of Grey Magic to outsiders, and in exchange are given clearance to perform one (1) Grey Magic spell. In terms of seniority, you are at rank 1.

Journalist: You are a journalist; you make your income by finding the news, then selling it to the curious citizens of Horizon. In game terms this means that you write articles, and we publish them in the News. Of course, we don't guarantee that another newspaper or source won't contradict what you say, but that's life. You will get a default, low income for this job, but your paper will pay you big fat bonuses if your stories result in it selling many copies (or if you attract extra revenue in other ways). Again in game terms, this means that your character will get hard cash if we the GMs feel that your articles have revealed something important, or (IC) interesting, or had a wide ranging impact (none of this is necessarily the same as you telling the truth). You will also be rewarded if we get a load of IC comments/queries/turnsheet actions obviously inspired by your articles.

To put it another way, your job is to manipulate the news.

When you pick this quirk, you will need to decide what sort of articles you specialise in. You can also pick a newspaper to work for (example are provided below and on the main news page, or you can make one up); if you don't we'll assume you're freelance and publish them wherever we see fit. The kind of journalist you are should be roughly reflected in the tone of your articles. For example, a respectable journalist should probably not be filing "Raunchy Civil Servant in Triple Whore Goat Sex Shock Horror Probe".

Gutter Journalist (Poor income): You write for Horizon's extensive yellow press. Cheap sensationalism and mass voyeurism are your stock-in-trade. Theoretically, your paper aims to inform and entertain, but in practice entertainment shifts more copies. Your articles should be written in the most lurid prose, playing up the bizarre, grotesque, enraging, or sentimental aspects of whatever you are reporting, making up facts where checking them would be too much like hard work, and never failing to play to a stereotype. Also, punctuation is your enemy. As well as allowing you to influence the News, you have the ear of all too many of the common people, and can stir them up or calm them down (although note that this really is a group effect - individuals, even down to the beggars, may be above your crude manipulations). Your default income is Poor. You get to shout "The People Have a Right to Know!" with every sign of sincerity on your greasy, hypocritical face.

Respectable Journalist (Comfortable income): You write for a well-respected paper, and are expected to produce articles full of reasoned analysis and professional reporting on the significant events of the day. In many ways this is like cheap sensationalism and mass voyeurism but with longer words. When you publish an article, the great and the good will read it, and quite possibly be influenced. So: not only do you get to influence the News, in doing so you will also get to influence the most important NPCs in the city. The slight drawback is that the majority of the city's population regard your paper as horribly dry, boring beyond belief, far too expensive for them, or in extreme cases useful for bedding material. Your basic income is Comfortable. You get to take up a 300 word editorial expressing the opinion that, on balance, the people have a right to know.

Underground Journalist (Poor income): the articles you publish seriously annoy someone in authority. Either you are expressing one of the small range of opinions that are more or less illegal in Horizon (eg Imperialism), or your newspaper is so unpopular with one of the Four Nations that there is considerable diplomatic pressure on Colonel Zero to capture and hand you over, and undercover spies of that nation are looking to close down your operation for good. You probably write anonymously, or under a pseudonym. Either way, if it becomes publicly known who you are and/or where your operation is based, you will be in big trouble (it is assumed that neither is widely known at the start of the game). Until that day, your paper continues to be sold on street corners, over the counter of public houses, or resting innocently along with other papers on the table in gentleman's clubs. Decide why you are underground; your articles can take whatever tone you like, but should have some basic connection with your main interest/reason for being underground. Your default income is Poor. You get to shout "The People Have a Right to Know!" and actually mean it.

Sample Papers:
• The Horizon Tribune: Super-respectable periodical; never under-researches its facts, never skimps on in-depth analysis, does not report on frivolous issues. Has all the right opinions on politics; supports Colonel Zero broadly, but far from unconditionally. Held up by the great and good as an example of everything that's right about journalism. Lots of people have it on their coffee tables to impress visitors; many, many fewer actually read it. Old numbers are usually popular with the Beggars, too.

• The Horizon Post: Utter rag. The events reported on the first few pages occasionally bear some resemblance to things that actually happened, though with few facts and more "hilarious", or enraged, commentary. After that, the paper's avowed purpose to "bring you the TRUTH on the hidden world of the supernatural" means that the stories tend to come from bored peasants or drunkards paid to talk about their "experiences" with Shamans, Gods, Treacherous Beasties, Fae, the Emperor, whatever. Very occasionally, one of these stories is actually true, although this is more or less coincidence.

• The Liberator: The mouthpiece of the HPLF, the Liberator is subversive, anti-authoritarian, and fashionably dangerous to read. Burn it or pass it on after you've finished with it, and don't let the Watchdogs find it on you. It is also referred to as the "Lirbatore" by spiteful critics of its editorial eccentricities.

Merchant (Honest): You are a good old-fashioned honest trader. You don't cheat on your taxes. You don't bribe people. You don't smuggle goods past customs. You don't sell contraband and illegal wares under the counter. You are, in short, not cut out for the business world.

You have a little stall in the market and, once you've paid your taxes, a Poor income. If you are able to pull off an especially good trade deal, or an especially risky trade caravan expedition, you'll be able to reap the benefits. Note, however, that you'll be expected to behave in an honest fashion in your business transactions - specifically, your character has a Code of Honour against committing crimes in the course of business. This is probably why your business is failing.

Priest of the Intercessor (Ranks 1 to 3): You are a lovely lovely human being, having sworn to devote your life to charitable works and defending mankind against the horrors the Gods and Powers would inflict upon us. One of the advantages of this is that you are able to practice the simple but effective healing magic bequeathed to the Church by the Intercessor.

Priests of the Intercessor can request a Poor wage from the Church. If they do not wish to tax the Church's funds, they can instead swear a vow of absolute poverty and live on the charity of others - see the Beggar quirk for more details.

Rank is a Casual matter in the Church of the Intercessor - it is rare that higher-ups in the organisation issue absolute commands, freedom from the dictates of authoritarian Gods and their despotic minions being part of what the Church is all about. By default when you buy this Job Quirk, you are a Rank 1 member of the Church. If you pay an extra two points for the quirk, you can begin the game as Rank 2; if you pay a further two points, you can begin as Rank 3. If you buy Priest of the Intercessor as a Comfortable Job, you can begin as a Rank 4 priest. Here is what the various levels of seniority mean:

• Rank 1: You are a rank-and-file priest. By joining the Church, you have sworn an Oath:
  • To abstain from worldly authority and renounce any title or inheritance you may otherwise have been in line for.
    
  • To refrain from physical violence, save in the defence of others.
    
  • To perform charitable works and defend your fellow man from the Gods and Powers and their followers, and to encourage the local authorities to deal with any cultists or shamen that are uncovered.
    
  • To never ask for money in return for using your healing magics.

  Breaking this Oath will lead to you being cast out of the Order; the Oath is not sworn before the dogs as a matter of Church policy (it's the feeling of the Withdrawn Cardinals that there are nuances to it that are slightly too subtle for the dogs to comprehend).

• Rank 2: You are making a name for yourself as a priest. Novice priests are liable to turn to you for guidance and support.

• Rank 3: You are known to the Bishops and Withdrawn Cardinals, and may be asked to advise them from time to time. You may be able to get Trivial purchases made for you by the Church.

• Rank 4: You are a Bishop of the Church, having worked your way up through the ranks over the years. You discuss Church business with the Withdrawn Cardinals and the Cardinal of Cardinals frequently, and try to enact their will as best you can. You may, if you choose, accept a Comfortable income from the Church, and the Church might make Minor purchases for you if you ask.

Note also that Rank 4 and 5 priests should have a decent excuse for turning up to the Riverview. It's alright for lower-ranking priests: they're encouraged to go out into the world, since they are more likely to find people in need of their healing arts in the Slums and in dubious gangland pubs than in their nice safe churches. Bishops and Cardinals are expected to spend less time hob-nobbing with crooks and more time working on new ways to help the poor and needy.

Quack: You know those people who used to go around saying that smelling posies would protect you from the plague? Yup, that's you! You are the physician of the lower classes. You deal in leeches, trepanning, bloodletting and herbal remedies (which may or may not work). You may know some old herbal folklore but there's more than one or two old wives' tales thrown in for good measure which aren't as reliable when it actually comes to curing someone. However, you're all the poor can usually afford and you get lucky and utilise what you do know often enough to make a Poor income.

Railwayman: You work on t'railway. It gives you a Poor income but you also get membership of the Amalgamated Union of Dockworkers, Railwaymen and Ferrymen, and opportunities to find out when the trains full of gold ingots are going to head out through bandit territory. Not to mention the vast number of trainspotting opportunities, you bloody anorak.

Scholar (Ranks 1 to 3): You spend your days in libraries and discussion groups, attempting to perfect your understanding of... something. Pick a subject; we will assume that you are an expert in it, and can request information on it at any time. You are also assumed to be fairly knowledgable about related areas. If you need guidance, check the faculty list of the University. In Horizon, it is expected that professional scholars will be associated in some way with the Imperial University. However, this is not necessarily the case. If you want, this quirk also grants you rank in the Imperial University, or some other academic institution - by default, you'll be at Rank 1. If you pay two extra quirk points for this job, you'll be at Rank 2, and if you pay another two extra quirk points you'll start the game at Rank 3: tenure will be within your grasp! If you do decide to be part of the Imperial University, you will need to select a faculty (this should probably have some relation to whatever you're studying). Your default income is Poor.

Seniority at the Imperial University
Seniority is Casual. Such as they are, ranks run as follows. To be in the University, you must select a faculty.
• Rank 1 (total quirk cost: 1): You are a student, and subsist on a meagre scholarship or a small amount of money saved up by your parents. You know a little about one subject associated with your chosen faculty. You are also permitted to roam around labs filled with horribly dangerous experiments or libraries full of esoteric texts at will.
  
• Rank 2 (total quirk cost: 3): You are a scholar; learning or research is your life. Your almost invisible means of support might come from a sponsor, private wealth, or one of a really limited number of scholarships; alternatively you might do work for one of the academics and squeeze your private research into your spare time.
  
• Rank 3 (total quirk cost: 5): You are a permanent member of one of the faculties. You get to call yourself doctor (some people might even act like you're respectable). You are an expert in two (related) fields, and know quite a lot about anything related to them. You have two or three helpers (of little actual competence; they're probably students) paid for by the Univeristy: they are rubbish and seem to spend their time either playing foolish games, drinking in student pubs, or worrying about exams.

The higher your rank in the Steam Union, the more steamworkers will hear your voice; while it's not possible to unilaterally call an official strike, the more influential you are the more likely you are to get that motion through.

In addition, if you have Rank 2 and above in the Steam Union you are assumed to be a factory foreman, and are thus skilled at organising and supervising a team of steamworkers. People call you t'gaffer at work, and you spend more time drinking tea than sweating amongst the gears and the pistons and the furnaces and the engines; nonetheless, you command respect, and if you and your boys walk out on a job you can throw the whole workforce into disarray - since the Kellor began making friends with the Steam Union, this sort of unofficial strike action has become more viable, although you're liable to get in trouble with the Watchdogs.

Street Performer: Just when you think it can't get any worse, you find yourself juggling weasels for a living. The people who tip you give you only the merest of profits. You do, however, have a wonderful excuse to stand outside in the streets for ages on end and not be moved on by the Watchdogs. You're not staking Lord Burfoe's apartment. You're making an evocative statement about the alienation inherent in living in a city. Yes, the sword is part of the act.

Struggling Artist: You're one of the many overworked, underappreciated artists of Horizon. You have yet to Make A Name for yourself: your paintings don't sell for anything other than pocket change, you're not a celebrity, and you constantly battle to make ends meet. You will, however be known by other artists or critics with a particular interest in your genre, and you're more keyed-in to the exciting Horizon underground of beatniks and revolutionaries than someone who sells potatoes for a living. And there is always the chance that one day you'll Make It Big...

Note that while this job is technically called "struggling artist" it can represent any creative sort struggling to make a name for him or herself: actors, writers, musicians and poets all qualify.

Taxi Driver (Land): You drive a land taxi. This isn't as fun or exciting as driving a flying taxi - heck, land taxis can't even drive places where there aren't rails for them - and ever since flying taxis became popular all the interesting punters who gave out good gossip and big tips started taking flying taxis instead. The upshot is that once you've paid your monthly cab rental to the government and dues to the government, your fares give you a Poor income.

There are a couple of further problems with being a cab driver:

• You get your taxi licence from the government, who can revoke it and repossess your taxi any time they like.

• The Grey Order are the only people who are allowed to repair taxis - this is a clause in their contract with the government. Whilst in theory you could get a steam engineer or a clockworker to fix things if they go wrong, the interface of steam and clockwork is beyond their ken, and so they may not even know how to fix it, and if the government finds out you might find your taxi licence gets revoked. This means that the Grey Order can charge what they like for repairs, and levy a Significant fee.

• The Steam Union and the Strict Clockworkers dislike Grey technology, and in recent years their dislike has only grown more intense. Sabotage attempts are a constant hazard.

There are a few advantages of being a taxi driver, even if you only drive a land taxi:

• You'll have your own steam-and-clockwork car. Which is nice.

• The Grey Order charge more than your average land taxi driver can afford to conduct repairs. Thus, many land taxi drivers learn how to do their own repairs on the sly. If you wish, you can buy the Grey Engineering quirk for a point less than you usually would.

Vulgar Alchemist: You're the lowest of the low: an alchemist who doesn't do alchemy. That is to say, you're what modern-day people would consider a chemist. You don't distill the purified essence of the Powers and have fun with it. Instead you mix medicine, make ammonia, and do all the other sorts of things that require stirring and stains on your coat. If you're also a proper alchemist, you can expect the disdain of your peers.

It is possible to take Vulgar Alchemist as a Night Job - see the Night Job section for further details. Of course, if you are also a Vulgar Alchemist by day this becomes logistically easier - if you have Vulgar Alchemist as a Day Job, it costs 1 point less to buy it as a Night Job.

Watchdog (Honest, Rank 1 or 2): You're a pig. But not a dirty pig. You are a clean pig. Also, a poor pig. Your income is Poor since you are not of high rank, you don't get bribe money, and for some reason very few of your fellow Watchdogs like you. But you do get to arrest people and search their homes, and that can give you a lovely glowy sense of doing the right thing. No, wait, that warm feeling is your life trickling out of the knifewound in your gut. By default, you will be of Rank 1 (meaning that you will be a lowly beat cop) - if you wish to start out as a Rank 2 Watchdog, you should pay 3 extra points for this quirk. If you are a Rank 2 Watchdog you'll be a sergeant, responsible for a patrol of grunts, or a detective, or a grunt in a unit with some prestige (like the Horse Guard), and in a tight spot you can call on Some mooks for backup.

Note: Whilst you're loyal to a naive extent, you're not stupid, and know enough not to try to base cases on things people have said in the Riverview. You should come up with some rationale as to why you are coming to the Riverview on a regular basis - perhaps you're working undercover (in which case, you'll want to take the Hidden Loyalties quirk).

Note also: The mooks you can call on for backup as a Rank 2 Watchdog are rank-and-file frontline beat cops, and you will not to be able to call on them outside of the course of your duties. They are not necessarily all honest Watchdogs.

Comfortable Day Jobs

This job is also appropriate for anyone who wishes their character to be a successful individual in any creative endeavour - perhaps a fine artist, a popular novelist, a much-praised poet or a virtuoso musician. You still get the Orator quirk for free, although it would be more IC appropriate for you to attempt to sway public opinion through appropriate means other than making speeches. Musicians might make satirical songs, writers could compose bile-filled pamphlets (which will be quoted from incessantly by their fans), that kind of thing.

Clockworker: You are a clockworker, and can produce amazing and intricate devices that are as much works of art as they are inventions of genius. Consult the Engineering rules for further details of how this works in practice; obviously, you get the Clockworking quirk for free with this job.

You will also get with this job a workshop in the craftsman's quarter and membership of the Clockworker's Guild - specifically, the Strict Clockworkers, a clique within the Guild that is allowed to keep its own oath-bound secrets and has access to more advanced clockworking technology, away from the prying eyes of the Grey Order, but whose members have to fund their own work. (If you wish to be part of the Grey Order-controlled Broader Guild, you should buy the Grey Salesman Day Job and either the Clockworking skill or the variant of Grey Engineering which incorporates clockworking skill.) If you are practicing clockworking you may earn a Comfortable income by default, simply through routine repairs of people's watches and clocks, and perhaps selling the occasional oneshot or two when nobody's looking. In times past you could have expected a Classy income from your trade; alas, those days are gone forever, over a long time ago. With steam-powered factories and the Grey Order's contraptions muscling in on the scene, there's less demand for clockwork these days.

Your major opportunity to earn extra money is by making clockwork and devices and selling them to other PCs during the session, or to NPCs in housekeeping. It is a rare clockwork item indeed that sells for less than a Significant price!

Explorer (Adventurer): You are young and dashing, you are well known in high society, your many great journeys and deeds are the talk of the city. (Players, feel free to specify these deeds.) Perhaps a you are a skilled huntsman, or you have recovered many great archaeological treasures, or simply have been any many great and daring adventures. (Feel free to specify what you actually do for a living, perhaps you are a distinguished member of the university or a freelance bounty hunter for rare artefacts.) Whatever it is you do, there will be no shortage of people willing to support your expeditions or to offer you jobs; however, you must work hard to maintain this reputation otherwise the torrent of opportunities may dry up. You also automatically get the quirk Well-Travelled. In addition to the benefits of being a Professional Explorer (check the Poor Day Jobs section above for details), you can also quickly put together rescue missions to help people in distress in the wilderness - you know a few people who are competent at what they do and are willing to drop their work to rush off with you into danger to help people out. (Hat and whip optional.)

Ghoulish Hunter (Ghouls Only): You are one of those trusted by the Circle to organise and lead the hunting squads for murderers and cultists. You are allowed to bear the Horizon arms by default, and other Ghouls are expected to follow your lead when there is a hunt in process. If you have had this status for long, you may have gained notoriety among the humans.

Government Insider (Suit): You are a member of one of the various cliques, committees, subdepartments and quangos who do all the interesting governmental stuff. As well as your Comfortable income, you will have frequent opportunities to supplement this with bonuses for completing missions.

Specifically, you're a Suit. You are known to be a government agent and carry ID that says as much. Whilst many people will not trust you, your ID gives you power: you can use it to commandeer government flying cars or clockwork wings for your own use, rip through the bureaucracy like a white-hot knife through butter that's been out in the sun for too long, and generally kick up a stink; you get the Master of Red Tape quirk for free. Let us know what sort of outfit you'd like your character to be a member of: if we've already dreamed up such a subcommittee, then you will be part of that. If we haven't, then we will invent an appropriate clique for you.

Government Paper-Pusher (Corrupt): See the entry for paper-pushers under Poor Day Jobs.

Grey Salesman: You are the public face of the Grey Order - within its ranks, you qualify as Rank 2. You get access to 4 Grey Magic spells, but you are encouraged not to use them in public.

On a day-to-day basis, your job is to sell Grey technology to people - both in terms of actually shifting product, and in terms of reconciling people to the idea of permeating their lives with a technology with dubious origins, that has an inherent philosophical contradiction between Steam and Clockwork at its heart, and is controlled by a secret society of international reach and obscure goals. As you might expect, this isn't easy. You get the Fast Talk skill for free.

On another level, you are also a de facto spokesperson for the Grey Order - it's rare that individuals of higher rank make themselves known. In general, when people want to speak to the Grey Order, they will do so through you. This puts you in a privileged position - if you exploit it to your benefit, you could go far.

Incognito noble: You are a very bored scion of a noble house who likes to mix with a rough crowd. You aren't super-rich, because you're not the head of your family, but Daddy and Mummy give you a Comfortable amount of pocket money each turn. You have a free Secret Identity which you are advised adopt when you go down to the Low City, lest you be kidnapped by the ruthless thugs you like to have a drink or two with. Like Disgraced Nobles, you begin the game knowing the layout of three noble estates - including your family's - well enough to give a significant amount of help to anyone who decides to trespass there. Unlike Disgraced Nobles, you are still welcome in such places - this makes it easy for you to both stake out additional estates (just get yourself invited around for tea), and can come in very handy indeed if you want to help people break in.

Journalist (Respectable): See the section on Journalists in the Poor Day Jobs list.

Merchant (Dirty): You are the sort of fat, corrupt merchant who's become a staple of fantasy fiction. You maintain a legal facade, and as far as most people are aware you're just a successful Honest Trader. But you have some sort of illegal thing going on on the side - please describe it to us. This gives you a Comfortable income. And a smug grin, as you wipe the pie-crumbs from your pudgy, overfed cheeks.

Of course, if you have your own merchantile concern running as a front company, it makes it really quite easy to launder the money from your illegal concerns - investigators will find it really quite hard to prove that you're earning your money through crime.

Physician: You know all the old wives' tales and herbal folklore, but more than that - you know which ones work and may even have an idea why and when's best to use them. If something new comes along (a nasty Treacherous Lands influenza let's say) you may have a chance to find something that'll fight it. You're not in the habit of using leeches and tend to wash your hands before performing any operation. Those who can afford you definitely come to you over any quack (they're more likely to survive this way), although those in the upper classes tend to have their own physicians. You are also skilled at producing medicines, and have all the skills of a Vulgar Alchemist - if you wish to take Vulgar Alchemist as a Night Job, it will cost 1 quirk point less than usual.

Priest of the Intercessor (Rank 4): See the Priest of the Intercessor section under Poor Day Jobs.

Private Eye: You earn a living looking into people's problems when they can't turn to the Watchdogs for help (and that's often). This means you earn better money than an honest cop and probably do more good deeds for society, but you don't have the same rights of search and arrest as a Watchdog (and they're liable to get shirty if you interfere too much in their investigations). On the plus side, as a private detective you do have your ear to the grapevine: you may have the Unreliable Contacts quirk for free, or buy the Reliable Contacts quirk for half the usual price.

Scholar (Rank 4): You are a professor, world-renowned (or notorious) in your field. You are either quite, quite brilliant or a master of academic politics. Either way, you can wander all over the University with impunity (with a few exceptions), and are a world expert on one particular subject, an expert on two related subjects, and know a lot about most related areas. The Univeristy pays for you to have a little group of minions. Your default income is Comfortable, but with your reputation, you should have no trouble in begging, swindling or earning sizable amounts above and beyond this.

The minions given to Rank 4 scholars may have various uses - precisely what will depend on what you specialise in, so we'll have to discuss this with you. However, they'll almost certainly be able to do an awful lot of that boring research in the library for you, and do menial, repetitive tasks in the labs if you specialise in the sort of subject that has labs. They have been known to have a disturbing habit of trying to discuss their thesis with their supervisors. At Rank 4, this sort of nonsense is beneath you - you should discourage this, or delegate the issue to a subordinate.

If you wish to begin the game as a Rank 5 individual within the University - equivalent to being the head of a department, or the Chancellor himself - please talk to the GM team.

Someone Else's Bodyguard: You earn a Comfortable income looking after the physical well-being of an important person. If you buy this as a Day Job, you are looking out for someone of paramount importance (Rank 4 or above) in a legal organisation where Rank is vital - the government, the unions, merchantile companies, the Embassies, that kind of thing.

One of the major advantages of having this job is that you'll know an awful lot about what your client is up to, because a lot of the time you'll be there while they do it. Of course, should anything bad happen to your client, you are going to take the blame. And the more important your client is, the more flak you'll take for letting them die. Granted, more important clients are more likely to have multiple bodyguards - but that just means you'll have friends standing next to you as you face the firing squad after you neglect to save Colonel Zero from that Imperialist suicide bomber. Naturally, your client has provided you with training - you can buy Fighting skills for one point less than usual.

Steam Designer: You are a skilled designer of blueprints for steam machines - see the Engineering section for more details on how this works. Obviously, you get the Steam Design skill free with this job. You earn your regular income designing new ways to make marginally more efficient shoelace production lines, but the big money is in coming up with your own inventions, or major and novel alterations to existing inventions. The dividends you earn from such major undertakings may be represented as, for example, an extra Significant amount of money per turn for minor discoveries; major successes could lead to a boost in your actual income level - Classy and even Magnificent incomes could be within your reach if you could just come up with a brilliant new invention.

Please note: If you have your heart set on inventing a particular device during the course of the game, please discuss it with the GMs before submitting your character concept. Your invention may work better as a clockwork device or a Grey Order artifact.

Steamworker (Rank 4): See Steamworker description under Poor Day Jobs.

Taxi Driver (Flying): You drive a flying taxi. Once you've paid your monthly cab rental to the government and dues to the government, your fares give you a Comfortable income.

There are advantages of being a taxi driver:

• Whilst technically you only rent your cab from the government, having a steam-clockwork flying car of your very own is very useful.

• "You'll never guess who I 'ad in 'ere last week." You'll be surprised at who you'll end up meeting in a taxi, and what they'll tell you. Each turn you do your job you will learn a juicy piece of gossip, and might even meet someone important.

• "If I 'ad my way..." Because you meet lots of people with important (or at least influential) jobs, your opinions carry more weight than they might otherwise do. You can't single-handedly change government policy, but you can raise an idea that might change a civil servant's thinking. Add any particular ideas you want to talk about with your customers to the Opinions section of your turnsheet.

There are a couple of problems with being a cab driver, though:

• You get your taxi licence from the government, who can revoke it and repossess your taxi any time they like.

• The Grey Order are the only people who are allowed to repair taxis - this is a clause in their contract with the government. Whilst in theory you could get a steam engineer or a clockworker to fix things if they go wrong, the interface of steam and clockwork is beyond their ken, and so they may not even know how to fix it, and if the government finds out you might find your taxi licence gets revoked. This means that the Grey Order can charge what they like for repairs, and levy a Significant fee. There is, however, a growing tendency for taxi drivers to do their own repairs - you may therefore buy the Grey Engineering skill for one point less than the usual price.

You can also buy illegal Treacherous Lands Investments (IE, the Night Job of the same name). If you already have legitimate interests beyond the Wall, such operations become much easier to supervise. The Night Job therefore costs 1 point less if you have this Day Job.

Watchdog (Honest, Rank 3 or 4): You're a pig. A clean pig. A clean pig who, despite the odds, has actually survived to high rank. By default, you will be of Rank 3 if you buy this Comfortable Job (meaning that you might be in charge of one of the smaller Kennels, or be an important captain at the Doghouse, or be an important detective, or part of a specialist unit like the Flying Squad, and that you can call on a Bunch of mooks for backup). If you pay 3 extra points for this quirk, you can begin the game as a Rank 4 Watchdog, meaning you will be a Commissioner outside of the committee, or the head of a specialist unit, and can mobilise Lots of mooks if need be. If you wish to begin the game as a Rank 5 Watchdog - making you a Commissioner on the committee - talk to the GMs.

Note: Whilst you're loyal to a naive extent, you're not stupid, and know enough not to try to base cases on things people have said in the Riverview. You should come up with some rationale as to why you are coming to the Riverview on a regular basis - perhaps you're working undercover (in which case, you'll want to take the Hidden Loyalties quirk).

Note also: The mooks you can call on for backup are rank-and-file frontline beat cops, and you will not to be able to call on them outside of the course of your duties. They are not necessarily all honest Watchdogs.

Night Jobs

Like we said previously, the phrases "Day Job" and "Night Job" don't really have much of a connection with what time of day you actually do your work, and indeed it's entirely possible for you to handle business in your Night Job whilst you're onshift in your Day Job.

Like Day Jobs, Night Jobs are priced according to the income they bring you, like so:

• It costs 2 points to have a Night Job with a Poor level of income.
  
• It costs 5 points to have a Night Job with a Comfortable level of income.
  
• It costs 8 points to have a Night Job with a Classy level of income.
  
• it costs 11 points to have a Night Job with a Magnificent level of income.

The eagle-eyed sorts amongst you will have noticed that it's cheaper to have a Comfortable Night Job than it is to have a Comfortable Day Job, for reasons explained in the Day Job section. You'll also note it's more expensive to have a Poor Night Job than it is to have a Poor Day Job. This is also intentional! When it comes to the crunch, if you're doing things you can get locked up in jail for and you're not getting paid much more you would if you were moving crates about on the Docks, something's very wrong. Either you can't get a Day Job at all for some reason, or you're being blackmailed into doing this Night Job unwillingly, or you're a vicious brute who breaks the law for pleasure as much as for money, or you're just plain not pulling your weight in your mob.

There's a minor problem with Night Jobs - aside from them being illegal, that is - and that's the Under-Chamber. An innovation of Moebius Columna, the Under-Chamber is described further under the City section of the website, but in brief it is a council consisting of emissaries from the Family, the Dockyard Rats, Inmack's Boys and a dubious outfit called the Hidden Mob. Theories abound as to the true identity of the Hidden Mob - the most credible theory is that the Hidden Mob is actually a collective of foreign mobs with minor business interests in Horizon, the most paranoid theory is that the Hidden Mob is the government of Horizon, and that the Under-Chamber is a huge conspiracy to prevent the criminal underworld from becoming a threat to the status quo. (Well, the most paranoid theory is that the Hidden Mob is a clique of reptilian magi from beyond the Wall out to take over the world, but the government thing is the most paranoid theory which isn't completely stupid.)

From the very start, the Under-Chamber was out to establish a monopoly on criminality in Horizon. Freelance crooks would no longer be tolerated; anyone trying to make a career for themselves in the criminal underworld who was not a member of an Under-Chamber mob (with the exception of corrupt Watchdogs) would be quietly shopped to the Watchdogs, or failing that killed and dumped in the river. In the past twenty years, the Under-Chamber hasn't stamped out freelance criminality entirely - that's never likely to happen - but it has succeeded in making freelancing look like a bad, bad choice.

The upshot of this is that each Night Job comes in two different flavours: Freelance, and Mob-affiliated. Being a freelancer is a dangerous, dangerous game, but for those who simply can't bear to be part of a mob's power structure (even one as fast and loose as Inmack's Boys'), or who absolutely refuse to take sides in mob politics, it can be rewarding. Mob-affiliated criminals, by and large, have an easier time of it: aside from not having to pay protection money (so long as you live in your mob's territory) and being allowed to practice your criminal trade in peace, having access to the resources, contacts, and infrastructure of a major organised crime enterprise can really help you with your job. Folk with Mob-affiliated Night Jobs are liable to earn more money than freelancers, and are liable to gain other benefits as well. Of course, there is another side to this: if you're a member of a mob, you'll be expected to take your mob's side in gangland politics and work to achieve your mob's goals. The higher your rank in the mob, the more able you will be to influence those goals, of course...

Each Night Job, then, will appear in the list of Night Jobs multiple times: as a Freelance job (where appropriate), and as a Mob-affilitated job (at various levels of rank). Not all Night Jobs are suitable for all ranks within a mob - there's no reason, for example, for a Rank 4 mob member to continue to make a living as a prostitute. The exception to this is the Watchdog (Corrupt) Job: technically, this is a Day Job, but it's listed here because corrupt Watchdogs function much like gangsters. In this case, the rank given in the list of Night Jobs below is your character's rank in the Watchdogs. As always, if you wish to be a Rank 5 individual within a mob (or in the Watchdogs), you should talk to the GMs about it.

The Privilege of Rank: It should be pointed out that Rank is important in criminal mobs. Very, very important. Those of higher Rank than you have every right to ask you to do their dirty work for them and refuse to give explanations - the consequences of refusal vary from mob to mob, but you should at least expect to make an enemy of the high-ranking individual in question, and to gain a reputation as someone with ideas above their station.

Of course, if those of high rank make a habit of doing this, they'll only breed discontent in the lower ranks, which could end up making it easier to oust them...

Reputation: One last note: if your character belongs to a mob, you should consider taking a Mob Reputation quirk. These are completely independent of your mob Rank: it's entirely possible to be a low-level punk that everyone is fond of, or a powerful leader who's hated by everyone.

List of Night Jobs

Please Also Note: The "Vulgar Alchemist" and "Treacherous Lands Investments" Jobs also come in Day Job flavours.

Poor	Comfortable	Classy	Magnificent
Fence (Freelance/Rank 1)	Fence (Rank 2)	Fence (Rank 3)	Fence (Rank 4)
Information Broker (Freelance/Rank 1)	Information Broker (Rank 2)	Information Broker (Rank 3)	Information Broker (Rank 4)
Mobster (Rank 1)	Mobster (Rank 2)	Mobster (Rank 3)	Mobster (Rank 4)
Pickpocket (Freelance/Rank 1)	Pickpocket (Rank 2)
Prizefighter (Freelance)	Prizefighter (Rank 1)	Prizefighter (Rank 2)
	Someone Else's Bodyguard (Freelance)	Someone Else's Bodyguard (Rank 3)
Thief (Freelance)	Thief (Rank 1)	Thief (Rank 2)	Thief (Rank 3)
	Treacherous Lands Investments (Freelance/Rank 1)	Treacherous Lands Investments (Rank 2)	Treacherous Lands Investments (Rank 3)
Vulgar Alchemist (Freelance/Rank 1)	Vulgar Alchemist (Rank 2)	Vulgar Alchemist (Rank 3)	Vulgar Alchemist (Rank 4)
Watchdog (Corrupt, Rank 1)	Watchdog (Corrupt, Rank 2)	Watchdog (Corrupt, Rank 3)	Watchdog (Corrupt, Rank 4)
Whore (Freelance)	Whore (Rank 1)	Whore (Rank 2)	Whore (Rank 3)

Suggested Mobs: Some Night Jobs are particularly appropriate for members of particular gangs, although all mobs contain examples of most Night Jobs - the Dockyard Rats forbid pickpockets, the Family shun Vulgar Alchemists, and Inmack's Boys do not admit Whores into their ranks. Full details are given in each Night Job description.

Details of Night Jobs

Note that if you're caught telling the guy who stole the priceless artwork that it's only worth a Significant amount of money, and then go and sell it for a Staggering price, you're liable to get lynched. The usual deal works like this: if you appraise something as (for example) having a Significant price, you would sell it, give a Significant amount of money to the person who gave it to you, and take a Notable cut (your cut not being large enough to decrease the thief's cut to an extent that's worth following).

Freelance Fences can make a Poor income selling on the goods stolen by third-rate minor thieves, but are likely to have opportunities to make much more money if you offer your services to PCs - assuming said PCs don't rat on them to the mobs. Independent Fences do, however, have the advantage that they can pick and choose who they work with - mob-connected Fences are obliged to sell on items acquired by their mob's thieves, and may not be trusted by thieves loyal to rival mobs. On the other hand, Fences who are members of criminal gangs can end up shifting epic amounts of gear, and earn much more money as a result. Furthermore, they tend to be more closely connected to their mob's grapevine, can be given mob goons to smuggle stolen goods around the city, and can even develop contacts with foreign mobs in order to get particularly "hot" items in and out of the city; By default, mob-connected Fences get 3 free quirk points which they can spend on Mob Quirks, Mooks, Reliable or Unreliable Contacts, or Foreign Mob Connections. Furthermore, each turn all Fences have a chance of picking up an interesting rumour or uncovering an unusual item in the course of their business.

Another advantage of being a Fence is that thieves, burglars, robbers and muggers tend to listen to what you have to say. If you drop hints that artistic renditions of the Intercession might be fetching a high price on the market soon you'll find that that's what people are trying to steal. The more important you are as a Fence, the more likely it is that criminals will listen to your suggestions, and the more skilled they will be.

Here is what sort of things Fences of various Ranks do from day to day:

• Freelance/Rank 1: Peddling dull gear stolen by third-rate thieves from poor people.
  
• Rank 2: Moving more interesting items stolen by classier thieves from rich people. You might end up handling the occasional antique at this level.
  
• Rank 3: Shifting valuable, beautiful objects purloined by master thieves. At this point you are probably sending the odd bit of gear overseas - you'll often handle works of art that are particularly famous within Horizon, and so are best sent away where they're not well-known to be sold.
  
• Rank 4: We're into the major international smuggling co-ordinating here. If you happen to idly suggest that a particular work by a world-famous painter would be appreciated by a certain unnamed client, you could well find it on your desk within a week.
  
• Rank 5: At this point (aside from being one of the undisputed rulers of your mob) you're one of the biggest "procurers" in the city. You'll be known throughout the criminal underworld as a guy who can move any stolen item you care to mention, no matter how "hot", and get a profit on it. Thieves will be stabbing each other in dark alleys for the privilege of being one of your clients. You get 6 free quirk points to spend on Mob Quirks, Mooks, Reliable or Unreliable Contacts, or Foreign Mob Connections instead of the usual 3.

Suggested Mobs: All the mobs have uses for Fences and other smuggling sorts. The Dockyard Rats have an entire subfaction devoted to smuggling, Inmack's Boys have more than enough thieves to provide Fences with material to sell off, and are mercenary enough that they're willing to do business with most people who come to them, and the Family has numerous warehouses in the Slums which they can store "hot" items in until the search for them has cooled off (not to mention Moebius Columna's shipboard auction house, which is awfully useful for selling particularly choice items).

Information Broker: Knowledge is power, and power comes with a price. As far as you're concerned, that price is money. You make a living procuring and passing on information. Unlike journalists, who blurt whatever dirty facts they've uncovered out to anyone, and spies, who report only to their employers, you give your knowledge to those who are willing to come up with the cash. Of course, if you end up passing on information which is embarrassingly untrue, your reputation for reliability will suffer.

All Information Brokers receive two valuable pieces of gossip each turn. In addition, mob-affiliated Information Brokers get 3 free quirk points to spend on Mob Quirks, Reliable or Unreliable Contacts, Spies, and Mooks (we recommend Quiet Mooks, for the purpose of tailing people you want followed). If you are a member of a mob, you are of course expected to share your information with your mob free of charge, and not to sell information damaging to your mob to others.

To give you an idea of what sort of thing Information Brokers of various Ranks do most of the time, here's some examples:

• Freelance/Rank 1: You're probably settling queries presented to you by poor, everyday working class types. Questions you might have to find the answers to include "Is Bert watering down the beer in the Dark Tower again?", "Who's the mole in our Union branch who keeps ratting us out to the bosses?", and "Who's sleeping with my wife?"
  
• Rank 2: The sort of characters you're answering questions for are still working class, are kind of unsavoury, but pay better. You might be asked "Where does Joe the bookshop owner keep his spare key?", "Who stabbed Dirty Dave?", and "Who's sleeping with my wife?"
  
• Rank 3: Important criminals and significant individuals from polite society are now seeking your custom. Questions include "What route is the poorly-guarded train with all the gold in it?", "Does Henry the Hermit have a copy of the Lambent Grimoire?" and "Who is sleeping with my wife?"
  
• Rank 4: Now people from the highest strata of society - nobles, politicians, and factory owners - are seeking answers from you. You might be seeking the answers to questions like "When are my rotten employees planning to strike?", "Are the Lasinians breaching their treaty with us?", and "Who is sleeping with my wife?"
  
• Rank 5: By now, aside from being one of the masters of your mob, you're your gang's spymaster, responsible for all intelligence-gathering. You get 6 free quirk points to spend on Mob Quirks, Reliable or Unreliable Contacts, Spies, and Mooks instead of the usual 3. People are offering to let you sleep with their wife in return for the information you gather for them.

Suggested Mobs: Inmack's Boys are mercenary sorts and are willing to sell information to everyone, and have been in the information brokerage business for longer than anyone (Mrs Hudson's Butcher Street Irregulars are an especially venerable underworld institution). The Family, meanwhile, has a reputation for fair and honest dealings, and so their information peddlers do brisk business. The Dockyard Rats, while they do have a few Information Brokers, aren't so keen on the idea - they prefer to play their cards close to their chest, and the wealthier clients of their brothels tend to get nervous if there are sellers of secrets loitering around the place when they visit.

Mobster: Rather than being a specialist (as is the case of most of these Night Jobs), you're more of a generalist. You're one of the people who keeps your mob co-ordinated and running smoothly. You make sure that the protection money gets collected, the mob's territory gets patrolled, that the mob's policies and plans are acted upon and that, when honour demands it, bad things happen to people who need to learn respect. It's guys like you who the little people go to when they need the protection they're paying you for, who members of other mobs talk to when they want to send your gang a message, and who make sure that everyone in the gang is sending an appropriate cut of their profits up the chain to their superiors. If your gang is going to operate effectively, someone's going to have to organise meet-ups, send messages, co-ordinate activities, and - when it comes to it - plan assassinations, ambushes, and gang fights. That person is you.

As generalists, Mobsters don't get the additional skills of people with more specialised Night Jobs - they do, however, get 4 free quirk points to spend on Mob Quirks, Mooks, Allies, Stooges, Bodyguards and the Seneschal and Under-Chamber Representative quirks.

It goes without saying, of course, that there is no such thing as a freelance Mobster. Here's what the different Ranks of Mobster mean:

• Rank 1: You're a two-bit hood, a mere pawn in a game played by more powerful gangsters. Chances are you're little more than muscle, responsible for shaking down people who are late with their protection payments or tangling with trespassing members of rival gangs.
  
• Rank 2: You're a two-bit hood who's earned a name for himself. You might at this stage be directing the muscle rather than being part of it, but you're still dancing to your superiors' tune.
  
• Rank 3: By this point you're pretty central to your mob's activities. Perhaps you're a "fixer", someone other members of the gang call upon when things have gone to shit in order to make them right again, or perhaps you're the trusted advisor of one of your gang's leaders.
  
• Rank 4: You're a power within your gang. You can count your superiors on the fingers of one hand, and you're just one lucky break, skillful victory, or bloody coup away from reaching Rank 5. While you can still be overruled by Rank 5 members of your gang, you're powerful enough that they'll think twice about whether or not they want to.
  
• Rank 5: You're one of the undisputed masters of your gang, and the full resources of your mob are at your disposal. You get 7 free quirk points to spend on Mob Quirks, Mooks, Allies, Stooges, Bodyguards and the Seneschal and Under-Chamber Representative quirks instead of the usual 4.

Pickpocket: You make money by stealing it from people in the street, you horrid little urchin. This is a high-risk game and pickpockets don't last long unless they're skilled. You must buy the Pickpocket skill to take this job, although as a professional pickpocket you can buy Stealth skills at 1 point less than the listed price, which is helpful. If you are a member of a mob, you get 3 free quirk points to spend on Mob Quirks, the Pickpocket and Stealth skills, as well as Mooks - having a few friends around to distract marks or confuse the Watchdogs can be awfully, awfully helpful.

Freelance and Rank 1 Pickpockets tend to spend their time stealing from poorer clients in the Slums and Trading District, whilst Rank 2 Pickpockets target wealthier marks - say, in the Craftsman's District or in the Imperial Parks. Pickpocketing really isn't the sort of thing Rank 3 to 5 members of mobs do - once you're ready for promotion to Rank 3, chances are you'll be encouraged to become a Thief, or a Fence, or a Mobster.

Suggested Mobs: Inmack's Boys are the only mob who encourage a significant number of Pickpockets (they did start out as a band of pickpockets working for Inmack, after all); the Family cultivate a few in the Slums but the pickings there are too meagre to support many of them, and the Dockyard Rats actively discourage them in the Docks - Shoreleave House's income depends on its establishments being safe places to spend your money, and the Rats tend to assume any Pickpocket they come across is a spy for Inmack's Boys.

Prizefighter: You compete in illegal bouts, fighting people, wild animals, and crazy machines jury-rigged for the purpose, all for the entertainment of others. A dangerous job, and the tougher and better at fighting you are the more likely you are to come out with your skin intact. Fighting skills cost 1 point less than usual for you, and if you are a member of a mob you get 3 free quirk points to spend on your Mob Quirks, Fighting and Brawn skills.

Here is the sort of thing you can expect to get up to at various Ranks:

• Freelance: You fight people in dirty pubs in the Slums and get paid a pittance for it. You've got no mob looking out for your interests and so forth, so this is a dangerous and painful way to make a living. Either you're desperate, or you actually enjoy violence.
  
• Rank 1: Perhaps you're one of the more successful bareknuckle fighters from the Slums and have succeeding in gaining the patronage of the Family; alternately, you're making a name for yourself in the somewhat classier bouts the Dockyard Rats run in certain Shoreleave House establishments. You take a fall when the mob tell you to take a fall, of course...
  
• Rank 2: You're one of the stars of the underground fighting scene in Horizon. People recognise you in the street. Women throw themselves at you. Kids mimic your moves and injure themselves horribly. You are a big fat cash cow for your gang and they're willing to pamper you in return.

Beyond Rank 2, you should really think about graciously retiring from the ring - if you're that important in a mob, there's no earthly reason for you to risk life and limb on a daily basis. Becoming Someone Else's Bodyguard is a popular choice for retiring fighters.

The "Prizefighter" Night Job can also serve as a model for any other Night Job which involves beating the shit out of people.

Suggested Mobs: Both the Family and the Dockyard Rats run large-scale illegal prizefighting operations. Inmack's Boys don't, but they do occasionally send a challenger or two to represent them in the Family's fights.

Someone Else's Bodyguard: Much like the Someone Else's Bodyguard Day Job, except that in this case you are personally responsible for the safety of an important person within an illegal organisation. If you are a mob-affiliated bodyguard, you'll have Rank 3 in the mob of your choice (which would ordinarily be a little high for muscle, but mob leaders need to be protected by someone who has proven their loyalty and can be trusted not to repeat any mob secrets they overhear) and will be protecting a Rank 4 or 5 member of your mob. If you are a Freelance bodyguard, you're going to be protecting the leader (or one of the leaders) of an illegal or covert organisation which is not one of the criminal mobs of Horizon; the HPLF or organisations of Unregistered Spies are good choices for this sort of thing, as are dubious secret societies, terrorist networks, and other such cliques.

Fighting skills cost 1 point less than usual for you, and if you are a member of a mob you get 3 free quirk points to spend on your Mob Quirks, Fighting and Brawn skills and on Mooks and Bodyguards (if you buy a Bodyguard or a Bodyguard Team it's assumed that they'll spend most of their time protecting your client rather than yourself).

Suggested Mobs: Every mob has important people with bodyguards, and so being Someone Else's Bodyguard is appropriate in all mobs.

Thief: You spend your time breaking into people's houses and nicking their stuff, pilfering gold bullion from secure trains, lifting goods from market stalls and generally robbing people blind. You are a thief. Stealth skills cost 1 point less than usual for you, and if you are a member of a mob you get 3 free quirk points to spend on your Mob Quirks, Stealth, Safecracking skills, as well as Mooks (who are awfully useful when you want to stake a place out or arrange a distraction).

Here's the sort of thing you can expect to get up to at various Ranks as a thief:

• Freelance: You rob the people who can least afford it and can barely afford food with your profits - in short, you're scum. You have to be careful about where and when you practice your trade, because people pay Mobs protection money specifically to sort out people like you. With no Mob behind you, there's nobody to come up with an alibi for you if the Watchdogs arrest you, and if gang members catch you they'll kill you and toss you in the river without a second thought.
  
• Rank 1: Once you join a mob, you have to quit stealing from people who pay protection money to your mob. On the other hand, you've got a mob backing you up, so you can get a bit more daring in your burglaries. You spend most of your time stealing from middle-class clerks and tradesmen and earn a Comfortable income doing so, but naturally you're always on the lookout for a chance to make a big heist and make a name for yourself...
  
• Rank 2: ...because once you make a name for yourself, life just gets better and better. At this point other thieves in your mob will respect your skills enough to invite you in on jobs if they need your help, and your mob will refer outside clients seeking wealth retrieval services to you.
  
• Rank 3: You live like a lord because that's the sort of person you're stealing from these days. The palaces and mansions of the Noble District provide you with your main source of income, but there are always greater and more challenging rewards out there for you to pilfer.

Beyond Rank 3 it's really time to quit the thievery business; when you get that important within your mob, you're expected to spend more time sitting in smoke-filled backrooms masterminding daring robberies than actually getting your hands dirty. Many master thieves have gone on to become well-regarded Fences.

The "Thief" Night Job can also serve as a model for any other Night Job which requires a lot of sneaking around.

Suggested Mobs: All mobs have some thieves amongst them, but Inmack's Boys have the most by far, treat their thieves with more respect, and are the mob that robbers and burglars have the most potential to advance in.

Treacherous Lands Investments: As with the Day Job, you've sunk money into the expanding Treacherous Lands colonies, and are now reaping the dividends. As with the Day Job, this means you a get a relatively easy life, and can try to extract more cash from your investments, but have a strong vested interest in affairs Treacherous. Unlike the Day Job, you get away with extracting obscene sums of money from the Colonies by financing the sorts of colonial expansion that will get you arrested, locked up, interrogated and possibly executed if you get caught. As with most forms of crime, the fact you're operating or living in Horizon means that the mobs expect in, but freelancers can get away with more in this area than any other. If you are mob-connected, you get 3 free points to spend on Mob Quirks, Mooks, Reliable or Unreliable Contacts, Spies, (since your income relies on knowing what's going on when you're not there), Stooges, (mightily useful for when you're off in the Treacherous Lands), and Well-Travelled (since you quite likely are, if you're a major Treacherous Lands player).

Here's the sort of interests your likely to have in the Treacherous Lands at different ranks:

• Freelance/Rank One: You have a few people harvesting Vegdar-Dust or other narcotics, or you own a modest brothel in New Horizon, or you sponsor a small gang of robbers in the lawless lands beyond New Horizon.
  
• Rank Two: You own a respectable narcotics plantation across the wall, or sponsor a major (and probably notorious) group of bandits, or run a major trans-Wall smuggling ring.
  
• Rank Three: If only your name was public, you'd be a legend of the frontier. You own whole rolling prairies planted with narcotics, or rule a sizable robber barony out beyond the reach of civilization, or have your finger on the windpipe of one of the unofficial routes across the Wall, or financed the breakaway of the UFS.

However big your Treacherous Lands operation is, you're not going to rise beyond Rank 3 in a Horizon mob. There are two reasons for this. Horizon moblords still tend to regard the Treacherous Lands as a dirty and dangerous backwater, so they don't give you as much respect as they might; and most of your power is concentrated beyond the Wall, so you have some difficulty convincing them otherwise. If you want to rise further in the Underworld, you can always trade up and leverage your skills to become a Mobster. Or maybe it will be you that finally makes the Horizon underworld really wake up to the Transwall Colonies...

Suggested Mobs: Thanks to their arrangement with the Crocodiles, the Dockyard Rats have far and away the greatest amount of influence in the Treacherous Lands, and the largest number of members with Treacherous Lands Investments; while other mobs may distrust members whose main business interests are well beyond the gang's sphere of influence, the Rats have proven more willing to trust enterprising individuals who spend significant amounts of time on the frontier; after all, thanks to Jude's Concern's extensive international contacts, the Rats are confident of being able to catch up with anyone who cuts and runs.

Vulgar Alchemist: As described in the Vulgar Alchemist Day Job, you spend your time fiddling with various herbs, preparations, powders, potions and substances. Your job has little to do with the practice of pure alchemy and the refinement of Essences - if truth be told, as far as that's concerned you wouldn't know where to begin (unless you've bought Alchemist quirks separately). If you practice Vulgar Alchemy for a Night Job, you're spending most of your time testing Vegdar-dust for purity, distilling moonshine, and forging notes with acid. Occasionally, you make poison for stealthy black-clad men to put on their blades or in people's drink.

By default, mob-connected Vulgar Alchemists get 3 free quirk points which they can spend on Mob Quirks, Mooks (to go out and deal the narcotics the Vulgar Alchemist produces), Reliable or Unreliable Contacts (in the form of talkative clients), or Stashes or Secret Hideouts for the concealment of wares and/or labs.

Here's the specifics about what sort of thing you can expect to get up to as a Vulgar Alchemist at various Ranks:

• Freelance/Rank 1: Your "lab" is probably a stinking, filthy shed, your clientele the dregs of society. The greatest indignity is that you probably sell at least some of your narcotics yourself rather than passing them on to a network of dealers, which means that you spend a significant amount of time hanging around drug addicts. You cannot afford to turn away customers, and so you end up selling narcotics to blathering cockroach-heads and poisons to giggling sociopaths on a daily basis.
  
• Rank 2: A little better. At this point your mob passes most of your narcotics on to various Rank 1 dealers, leaving you to concentrate on producing the things. You enjoy a better quality of clientele, but only slightly better - the drug addicts you talk to are less miserable, the poisoners less indiscriminate.
  
• Rank 3: A purveyor of narcotics and poisons to the middle classes: that is you. You needn't talk to addicts now unless you want to. You're amongst the people your gang turns to when they want a poison brewed for their own use.
  
• Rank 4: You're selling dope to dukes and earls, and selling poison to their disgruntled wives. Drug addicts speak of your wares in the same sort of tone that wine-lovers speak of the finest vintages. The folk you sell poisons to are amongst the most frightening people alive.
  
• Rank 5: You are one of the movers and shakers in your mob, and at the very least have absolute control of your faction's narcotics branch. You buy and sell drugs on an international basis, but you don't handle it all personally these days - let the lesser Vulgar Alchemists in your gang deal with that. When you do go into your lab it's to refine the very finest narcotics, or to brew the most lethal of poisons, because only individuals who can afford those can afford your services. You get 6 free quirk points to spend on Mob Quirks, Mooks, Reliable or Unreliable Contacts, or Stashes or Secret Hideouts instead of the usual 3.

Suggested Mobs: The major employer of Vulgar Alchemists are the Dockyard Rats (and specifically Jude's Concern) thanks to their dominance of the narcotics trade. The Family has absolutely no truck with Vulgar Alchemists, since it considers the narcotics trade to be morally repugnant.

Watchdog, Corrupt: You're a pig. But the the kind of pig who's popular in the Riverview. Because you're a dirty, dirty pig. You're basically like a gangster who has the legal right to arrest people and search their houses without warning. (Of course, unlike mobsters doing this leaves a paper trail of your activities...) Corrupt Watchdogs with a low income operate much like low-income gangsters, and/or take bribes from taxi drivers to make inconvenient parking tickets go away. Corrupt Watchdogs with a high income operate much like high-income gangsters, and/or take bribes from government ministers to make inconvenient butchered prostitutes go away.

As a Corrupt Watchdog, you get 3 free quirk points to spend on Mob Quirks, Mooks (who will consist of both your technical subordinates and other corrupt Watchdogs who work for you on an extracurricular basis), Reliable or Unreliable Contacts (consisting of both your fellow Watchdogs and your chums in the criminal underworld), and Master of Red Tape (damn useful for covering your tracks).

For easy reference, here's what each Rank means within the Watchdogs:

• Rank 1: You are a beat cop. A grunt. A front line pig.
  
• Rank 2: Either you are a sergeant, responsible for a patrol of grunts, or you are a detective, or you are grunt in a unit with some prestige (like the Horse Guard). In terms of backup, you can call on Some mooks quite easily.
  
• Rank 3: You might be in charge of one of the smaller Kennels, or be an important captain at the Doghouse. Or you could be a ranking detective, or part of a seriously specialist unit, like the Flying Squad. You can call on a Bunch of mooks for backup.
  
• Rank 4: You are a commissioner outside the Committee, or the head of a specialist unit. You can call up Lots of mooks, no problem.
  
• Rank 5: You are a commissioner on the Committee. You can deploy a Private Army of mooks if necessary, but you'll have a lot of explaining to do if it's not a dire emergency. You get 6 free quirk points to spend on Mob Quirks, Mooks, Reliable or Unreliable Contacts, and Master of Red Tape instead of the usual 3.

Note: The mooks you can call on for backup are rank-and-file frontline beat cops, and you will not to be able to call on them outside of the course of your duties. They are not necessarily all corrupt Watchdogs - in fact, they will probably be mainly honest sorts (corrupt Watchdogs tend to get promoted away from frontline duty rapidly), and so you will need to be rather clever if you want to use them for anything dodgy.

Note also: Corrupt Watchdogs need to maintain an honest facade. As described in the Day Jobs section, you'll need to give some thought as to how your character excuses his or her frequenting of the Riverview Tavern - this will generally be easier for lower-ranking Watchdogs.

Whore: You tell your mother you're a seamstress or stableboy, but that's a lie. You're a filthy whore.

This is, let's face it, a pretty nasty job. The factories are producing decent condoms these days, but clients are sometimes reluctant to use them, often rude, and very occasionally try to kill you and dance in the moonlight clad in your skin.

On the other hand, prostitutes get all the best gossip. Each turn we'll give you an interesting secret. These could be things you notice about one of your clients, or something your clients tell you in the middle of the night as they clutch you and weep with shame at the sheer depths of loneliness they have reached. If you are a member of a mob, you will also get 3 free quirk points to spend on Mob Quirks, Reliable or Unreliable Contacts, Bodyguards, or Stealth (for those "oh shit, that's my wife, hide in the closet" moments). It's also just plain sensible to be a member of a mob: it means that the mob will protect you and try to make sure you don't get Jack the Ripper'd.

Here are some guidelines as to what prostitution entails at various Ranks:

• Freelance: You're working on the streets, either by yourself or with a third-rate pimp or madam who's not mob-connected (and therefore will get their legs broken if they're too successful). This is disgusting, horrible, dangerous work. You see a lot of poor people in their pants.
  
• Rank 1: You work in a mob-controlled, somewhat down-market brothel - probably somewhere in the Slums. This is a hell of a lot safer than working on the streets, and the nice bouncers turn away unclean or impolite clients. You see a lot of middle-class folk in their pants.
  
• Rank 2: You work in an upmarket brothel - perhaps one of Shoreleave House's establishments in the Docks. You're up to date on what sort of pants are fashionable amongst the upper classes.
  
• Rank 3: You're the sort of whore a noble parent would gladly hire to teach their son or daughter the fine art of lovemaking - at this level of income you start hearing the really good pillowtalk, the sort that brings down government ministers and captains of industry if you repeat them. At this point most jobs don't actually involve having sex with clients, just accompanying them to parties so that their rivals can be consumed with jealousy. You know what sort of pants Colonel Zero (or, if you're a rentboy, his wife) wears.

Beyond Rank 3, you are expected to give up prostitution (perhaps becoming a Mobster responsible for your mob's brothels) - no matter how classy a hooker gets, at the end of the day it's not dignified to have the leaders of a mob sleeping with people for cash.

Suggested Mobs: Inmack's Boys do not support prostitution; whilst they are mercenary sorts, their stance is that they sell clients their skills, not their bodies. The Dockyard Rats and the Family have no such scruples. The Family tend to provide prostitutes for the lower strata of society - back in the day, Crace Columna's girls used to be hired out to the nobility, but with the demise of the Columna as a crime family that particular market has fallen to the Dockyard Rats. The Rats - specifically, Shoreleave House - provide the classiest variety of prostitutes, strippers, escorts, and "cabin boys" to be found in the city, and their establishments are patronised by the middle and upper classes of Horizon, Embassy staff from the Four Nations, and (of course) sailors, merchants and pirates on shore leave.

Undercover Jobs

• It costs 3 points to have an Undercover Job with a Comfortable level of income.
  
• It costs 6 points to have an Undercover Job with a Classy level of income.

You'll note that Undercover Jobs are significantly cheaper than Night Jobs that pay an equivalent amount of money. There's a very good reason for this: while the financial benefits are great, to be a spy is to play a risky game: if you are publicly exposed, there will be severe consequences (just how severe depends on who you're working for - the full description of each Undercover Job details the Price of Failure). This means that you will have to take care; if anyone discovers your hidden line of work, they could blackmail you or destroy you. Disguise quirks can help with this, but the disguise quirks are, of course, imperfect.

List of Undercover Jobs

Details of Undercover Jobs

Price of Failure: You can expect no aid from the Merchant's Arm if you are exposed: it says as much in your employment contract. You can expect reprisals - almost certainly of a fatal nature - to come from the Family, the Steam Union, the HPLF, and any other bitter enemies of the Merchant's Arm that come out of the woodwork to have a pop at you (if you infiltrated the Steam Union, they have a legal right to kill you). If you go out walking alone in the Lower City - especially in the Slums or the Steam - you're liable to be knifed by some wannabe hero of the working class. And while the Watchdogs aren't averse to a little strikebreaking, the rank and file officers aren't going to want to help you - after all, you've been paid a princely sum for doing work which undercover Watchdogs do for paltry wages.

Government Insider (Undercover Agent): You are a member of one of the various cliques, committees, subdepartments and quangos who do all the interesting governmental stuff. This gives you a Comfortable income, although you will have frequent opportunities to supplement this with bonuses for completing missions. Let us know what sort of outfit you'd like your character to be a member of: if we've already dreamed up such a subcommittee, then you will be part of that. If we haven't, then we will invent an appropriate clique for you.

As a spy for the government, you will know more than most people about the workings of Horizon's government. Your contact in the government will probably be a Suit (see "Government Insider (Suit)" in the Comfortable Day Jobs section), who will be able to use his or her connections in the bureacracy to give you information and help you complete your missions for the government.

Another advantage of this arrangement is that the Price of Failure is possibly the mildest of any of the Undercover Jobs: if you are exposed as a government spy the government of Horizon will set you and your loved ones up in a safe house and give you a high-powered job behind a desk - in other words, you'll become a full-time Suit. Of course, this assumes that whoever discovers your government connections doesn't cut your throat like the pig you are.

Grey Agent: You are an Agent of the Grey Order. You have been assigned an Adept who tells you the Grey Order's current plans and schemes, and who can issue you direct orders, which you must obey. You have sworn an oath not to betray the order and not to reveal the secret of Grey Magic to outsiders, and in exchange are given clearance to perform four (4) Grey Magic spells. In terms of seniority, you are at Rank 2 and you have a Comfortable income.

Price of Failure: You will become a hate figure to many people, including the Steam Union, the Strict Clockworkers, and any organisation you happened to infiltrate. (If you were masquerading as a Strict Clockworker they will be especially furious, and are legally entitled to kill you.) In general, NPCs will react badly to you unless they sympathise with the Grey Order. How the Order itself responds will depend on the circumstances of your exposure, how well you have served the Order, and how damaging it would be to the Order if you were kidnapped and interrogated. If you have served the Order well, the exposure was through no fault of yours, and you don't know any big secrets they want kept quiet, they will continue to employ you and give you a position as a Grey Salesman. If you have served the Order poorly, or if you have been exposed due to an obvious blunder on your part, the Order will wash its hands of you and invalidate your rune-signature, rendering you incapable of using Grey magic. If you possess knowledge the Order does not wish to fall into the wrong hands, the Order will either evacuate you to one of the Citadels of Steam (if they think you are still useful) or liquidate you (if they feel that you are a liability).

Grey Adept: You are an Adept of the Grey Order. You know the Grey Order's wider strategies and have sworn a great deal of elaborate oaths of loyalty. You are in control of a cell of four Grey Agents, who answer to you and who you can issue direct orders. You are given clearance to perform all Grey Magic spells. In terms of seniority, you are at Rank 3 and have a Comfortable income.

Price of Failure: If you are exposed, you are important enough that the Order will take action; you will be evacuated by the Order to one of the Citadels of Steam, where you will be found productive work. This will mean you will have to retire your Grey Adept and take on a new player character.

Unregistered Spy: You're dashing. You're daring. You are one of the naughty, illegal, dangerous Unregistered Spies that the Four Embassies deny all knowledge of. Your Embassy receives all the interesting details of what you do in your Day or Night Job (for this reason, many unregistered Spies have Day Jobs in government bureaucracies) and in addition sends you on exciting missions to slit throats, stake out houses, steal documents and all sorts of other fun things.

You have a couple of advantages. First of all, you know what your Nation's up to, and your reports back can sway its policy. Second of all, all Stealth skills cost 1 point less than usual for you. Third, you're not just a pawn of your Embassy: they trust your judgement enough to allow you to go on your own investigations without contacting them in advance. If these produce particularly interesting results, the Embassy will pay you a nice, juicy bonus for them.

You also have one big, very big disadvantage: the Price of Failure is punishing. If you're exposed, you're deported from Horizon, your Embassy denies all knowledge and possibly sends people to ensure you stay silent, and chances are it's time to write up a new character.

If you would like to be a Registered Spy and go though the whole rigamarole of wearing those stupid, stupid ribbons, carrying that stupid, stupid card and not being able to do anything even remotely discreetly, speak to the GMs at the start and we will consider things. Top of page.

Top of page.

You may take this quirk if you have Don't Kill Me Daddy, but there's little point and chances are you'll be wasting a point; Don't Kill Me Daddy covers both IC and OOC cowardice, and we'll already be assuming that you'll be playing it safe.

Foolhardy (-1)
You thumb your nose at danger and bare your buttocks to Grim Uncle Death. You are the stuff that heroes are made of, or perhaps you're just endearingly stupid.

In turnsheeting, whenever your character has to choose between two courses of action, we will assume that you always take the riskier option (this may lead to you being beaten up more, but sometimes these risks pay dividends). We will also regard you with warmth and admiration, and frequent amusement.

You may not take this quirk if you have Don't Kill Me Daddy. You promised us you'd stay out of trouble, remember?

Squanderbug (-1)
Money and you just don't get on: you've never really gotten the hand of this "saving" lark. You never earn saving points: if you don't spend all your money in a turn during turnsheeting, we'll assume you've frittered it away on frivolous fripperies. When making purchases, your character may not Tighten Their Belt - they lack the fiscal discipline necessary to do so.

Secret Identity (1)
You have an alternate identity. Perhaps with a ludicrous pseudonym! Perhaps by day you disguise yourself as a harmless old lady so the local mob won't realise that you are Big Bad Frank, killer-for-hire who sells himself to whichever gang will pay the most. Or maybe by day you toil away in your thankless government job, eagerly awaiting the night when you don your mask, take up your rapier and swish your cloak in order to FIGHT CRIME!

Note that people with the Master of Disguise or Doctor of Disguise quirks will be able to see through your disguise.

Addict (-2)
You are addicted to a narcotic - a fairly common narcotic, the sort that Inmack's Boys might be able to get you if you don't fancy dealing with the Dockyard Rats. Feel free to describe what sort of drug your character smokes, injects, snorts, or otherwise ingests.

This sort of habit is expensive: it costs a Notable amount of money each turn to get a regular supply of decent-quality gear. If you happen to be short of cash one turn, you can just pay a Minor amount of money to get a sample of your poison of choice that's of slightly more dubious provenance. There may well be adverse effects to doing this.

Of course, you could always go cold turkey, but this is a debilitating and potentially dangerous process; you will lose two turnsheet actions in the turn you decide to go cold turkey, and there may well be permanent effects on your physical or mental well-being. (People who buy this flaw for the quirk points and then immediately go cold turkey in the first turn or so will find that the permanent physical side-effects will be staggeringly surprising!)

Alternately, you can move on to a different form of addiction, finding some new drug to fill the gap. If you in-character begin taking a different drug - either because it is offered to you, or because your income has dropped to the extent that you can only afford crap drugs (or risen to the point where you can get into the exotic stuff), you will become addicted to that instead. In general, an addiction to an exotic will override an addiction to a normal drug, and an addiction to a crap drug will override an addiction to an exotic drug.

Exotic Addict (-3)
You're a connoisseur of narcotics, a discerning junkie whose poison of choice is rare and special. (Describe this thing to us.) Your drug of choice gives you an intense and hard-to-obtain high, though it may have somewhat powerful side-effects.

However, your drug is expensive and rare. Only the Dockyard Rats have enough contacts to get you a regular supply, and they charge heavily for it - it's a Significant investment each turn. Alternately, you can pay a Notable amount of money for a somewhat poor-quality sample, but this is even riskier than buying a bad sample of a normal drug: you really don't want to mix something this potent with a lesser drug.

Going cold turkey has the same effects as going cold turkey from a normal drug. In addition, normal drugs have lost their appeal to you, and if you take them while addicted to exotic drugs you are unlikely to become addicted to them as well. From here, it's only other exotic drugs - or crap drugs if you can't keep up the payments.

Crap Addict (-5)
You're at the bottom of the junkie heap; your lifestyle is as squalid as the Exotic Addict's is glamourous. The drugs you take are vile and have terrible side-effects; they bring you little pleasure, but you need them to keep functioning - normal or exotic drugs just won't help anymore. (Tell us more about them, if you like.)

Crap drugs are a Minor purchase each turn. If you're desperate for money, you can buy bad samples for a Trivial amount, but this will almost certainly mess you up. Actually, crap drugs will tend to mess you up over time - you're liable to begin the game with some permanent side-effect from taking these things, and you're liable to get more acute and debilitating effects as the game continues.

Going cold turkey from these things is really quite hard. You will lose three turnsheet actions in the turn you decide to go cold turkey, and you will definitely be left permanently scarred, physically and mentally.

Whilst you are addicted to crap drugs, normal and exotic drugs will do nothing for you; only the miserable shit you put in yourself can help you function.

Avenger (-1)
You can't bear to see a wrong go unrighted. You can't stand to injustice go unbattled. You see a wile, you thwart. You're a vigilante out to make everything right, whether people want it or not. Grannies get helped, screaming and protesting, across roads. Shady characters feel your MIGHTY FISTS OF JUSTICE! In the city of Horizon, you have roughly the life expectancy of a glass hammer.

Code of Honour (-2)
You have morals. In particular, you have a set of rules which you will not break. Describe them. They should be fairly restrictive ("Don't eat cake on Fridays" doesn't cut the mustard. "Don't hurt children" or "Don't kill anybody in cold blood" is much more like it.)

Oath (-2)
You have sworn an oath of some sort before a dog. Describe the oath and why you swore it. It should be something that will actually have an effect and make your life more difficult. "I swear that I will never again work with Jude's Concern!" is the sort of ball-park we're in here.

We strongly suggest checking out the dogs page before taking this quirk; there are restrictions on what types of Oaths dogs can witness, and there are severe consequences for Oathbreaking.

Stash (varies)
You have a place where you can put stuff for safekeeping. It's that simple!

For 1 point you can have a small cubbyhole in your home which you can hide anything up to the size of a corpse in.

For 3 points you can have a lockup in the Trading District of the sort that merchants keep their wares in (about the size of a garage in real life). Alternately, you can have a safety deposit box in a bank - only large enough to keep a large set of encyclopedias in, but veeeeeery secure unless someone a) raids the bank and b) knows which box to look in.

For 5 points you can have a whole warehouse you could keep or do just about anything in, or your own private vault in the bank (the size of the above-mentioned lockup). (If your income is low we'll be very interest to hear how you've managed to obtain this resource.)

Secret Hideout (varies)
You have a little place of your own where you can stay and the bad men won't find you.

Owners of large Stashes may say, "well, why don't I just hide in my garage or warehouse?" While this might work for brief emergencies (for example, you could slip into your warehouse to elude pursuing Watchdogs), it's not viable in the long term - signs of human habitation will end up giving you away.

For 2 points your hideout is small, insecure (only Moderately Secure by default), but obscure. Perhaps you've got an attic somewhere in the Imperial Ruins you can hide in, and you've covered up the windows so the light of your candle won't alert observers to your presence. Or you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack, out in the woods where the mobs are unlikely to find you.

For 4 points your hideout is larger - perhaps a small house in a sleepy farming village about a mile away from the city, or an abandoned railwayworker's den in the subway you have converted for your own use. It's also liable to be more secure - the little house will have secure locks and loud guard-dogs, the railwayworker's den may have a big steel door or boobytraps of your own invention (in system terms, it will be Well-Secured by default).

For 6 points, you can have the Batcave. As well as being large and secure (a Fortress, even!), your hideout has pretty much everything you need to manage your affairs whilst leaving the place as little as possible.

Beautiful (1)
Smile nicely and people will buy you drinks. Dress badly and the local whores will start worrying about the competition. You are pretty! This fact will be pointed out at the beginning of each session.

Ugly (-1)
You have drunk from the river Ming, which springs from the peak of Mt. Fugly. When you put personal ads in the newspaper, you talk a lot about your "great personality". You are one ugly mother... People will be warned about you at the beginning of session.

Master of Red Tape (2)
Maybe it's hidden Star heritage, or maybe you just appreciate the benefits of being organised. Either way, bureaucracy just works for you. You always find the right thing to say to surly clerks, you always spot catch-out clauses in small print, and if there's a problem, you happen to have an acquaintance of a friend who's in a position to untangle things. In any situation involving your character dealing with paperwork and bureaucracies, we will assume that everything goes as well as possible, or maybe slightly better. All other things being equal, of course.

Slave of Red Tape (-2)
Just the opposite. You simply can't cope with bureaucracy of any kind. You fill in your forms wrong, misunderstand departmental guidelines, miss deadlines; and on the rare occasions you get everything right, some hungover clerk loses your papers. Any time your character has to deal with bureaucracy, we will assume that everything goes as badly as possible, or worse. Again, all other things being equal.

M.Dis. (5)
Or, to give it its full title, Master of Disguise. This is like the Secret Identity quirk, only vastly better. You may don the guise of as many different people as you desire, but cannot impersonate a real person; your alternate personas must be entirely made-up. You begin the game with 5 disguises of your choice; for each additional persona you wish to adopt, you must pay for or otherwise obtain the appropriate clothing.

Your skill at disguise extends to being able to see through others' ruses. You will be able to see through people's Secret Identities, and have a 50/50 chance of seeing through a given disguise adopted by a Master of Disguise.

D.Dis. (8)
Doctor of Disguise. You are so good at the costume-and-makeup game you could - with enough preparation - dress up as Colonel Zero and sleep with his favourite prostitute and she'd never notice the difference. As with M.Dis., you can also assume entirely fictional personas, and begin with 5 different costumes of your choice. For each new identity you wish to assume you must pay for the appropriate clothing. If you're planning to impersonate somebody else, you must also spend a turnsheet action spying upon them, or spend a significant amount of time in their company (and by "significant" we're talking "the better part of a month" here) in order to observe their habits, mannerisms, modes of speech and whatnot.

As with M.Dis, you can see through other people's disguises. You will be able to see through people's Secret Identities, and Masters of Disguise cannot fool you. You even have a 50/50 chance of seeing through a given disguise adopted by a Doctor of Disguise..

Pickpocket (4)
You are skilled at the art of pickpocketing - this skill requires a degree of stealth, and so cannot be bought by people who do not have at least a Quiet level of Stealth.

Practicing this skill in-session will not usually be viable - pickpocketing is the sort of skill which works best in large crowds, where you can swipe someone's purse and disappear before they see your face, rather when you are standing around talking to your victim in a room. On the flipside, sometimes you may spot an ideal opportunity to strike (say, if someone is lying on the floor injured and you're helping to bind their wounds, or if everybody's attention is directed towards a duel in the courtyard) - talk to the barman in such a situation.

Lockpicking (5)
You are a master at the art of lockpicking. You are a good chum to bring along on a thieving expedition.

Safecracking (8)
You are so skilled at the art of manipulating locks of all sorts that you can even open safes and vaults, given time! This skill also gives you all the advantages of the Lockpicking skill.

Fast Talk (3)
You have the gift of the gab, and can talk your way out of many situations - or indeed convince the gullible to act against their own interests.

People who've spent some time around you and know your reputation aren't likely to be easy marks - as an upshot, you cannot use the Fast Talk skill on player characters, and after you have used the skill on an NPC they won't be fooled again unless they are IMBECILES!

Orator (3)
You are skilled at giving speeches in large crowds. You can attract their attention, ensure they concentrate on what you're saying, and deliver your message in an exciting way (or at least in a way which won't send them to sleep.) Beware, however; there are some things audiences don't want to hear. You don't want to make a big public speech openly supporting the Imperialist cause; that'll just begin a riot and end with you hanging upside-down from a lamppost Mussolini-style.

This never works on player characters. PCs are, after all, generally clued-in enough to make up their own minds and not get caught up in the mood of the crowd, and if you've met an orator in the flesh and had a drink with them (as most PCs would, you do after all frequent the Riverview) they seem a lot more human than if you've only seen them screaming abuse from a podium.

Stealth (varies)
Especially useful for thieves, spies, and private eyes (as well as the obligatory ninja assassins who plague the society game), stealthliness is sufficiently important to a game about criminals that there are several different quirks relating to it. "Infiltrator" and "Master Thief" also assume a suitable level of acrobatics and wall-climbing.

Obvious (-2): You tend to draw attention to yourself. Perhaps you wear a distinctive uniform. Maybe you have a loud, booming voice. Possibly you're just a clumsy great oaf. Regardless; it's going to be difficult for you to hide from anyone, or not be noticed when you enter a room.
Average (0): All characters are assumed to have this level of stealth unless they buy one of the other stealth quirks. You are capable of evading pursuers by losing yourself in a crowd, and if you get enough warning that someone's coming you can dive into the nearest wardrobe and can stay quiet long enough not to be discovered until the mysterious singer's criminal lover has raped her and left.
Quiet (1): You're good enough to evade detection if nobody's paying too much attention - you can't sneak past a watchful guard who's on duty, but you can sneak past an inattentive guard who's having a nap, or stake out someone's tenement from a dark alleyway across the street without being noticed, or eavesdrop on a conversation if the people involved aren't on the lookout for prying ears.
Infiltrator (3): Now we're cooking with gas. If you lurk in the shadows and stay still nobody will realise you are there, and you are athletic enough to climb up walls and through small windows.
Master Thief (5): Or "ninja", if you don't like the criminal connotations of "master thief". You can sneak around in the darkness without arousing suspicion, and you've got the whole feline acrobatic creature-of-the-night hopping and skipping from rooftop to rooftop like a wild gazelle of the city thing going on.

Please refer to the "Burglary" section for details of how the stealth skills help you breach the security of mansions, banks, and other such places.

Fighting (varies)
Another skill which comes in several varieties. In general, you'll be able to defeat anybody with less fighting skill than you in a fair fight. On the flip side, only an idiot goes for a fair fight. See the "Fighting" section for more details.

Crap (-3): You really aren't very good at fighting. Just about anyone can beat you - even the most incompetant IMBECILE!, and you'd need to have a truly overwhelming advantage to defeat anyone else. Better invest in a bodyguard, or stay out of the dodgier areas of town.
Average (0): Unless you buy any of the other fighting quirks, you are assumed to be more-or-less capable of handling yourself in a fight. You're good enough that you know when to fight and when to run, but a Handful of mooks could punch your clock.
Tough (2): You're a tough guy. Simple as that. Perhaps you've had practice, perhaps you're just well-built. Two-bit hood sends a Handful of mooks after you? No sweat.
Impessive (4): People will notice that you're really quite good at this fighting lark if they watch you at it. You've definitely had some professional training by now. A fight with Some mooks is nothing for you to worry about.
Fearsome (6): People who've seen you fight get out of your way when they see you coming and call you "sir". You can take down a Bunch of mooks just fine.

Brawn (varies)
The brawn quirk is a measure of how solidly your character is built; brawnier characters will tend to be stronger, will be able to perform physically demanding tasks for an extended period of time before they become fatigued, and recover more quickly from illness, injury, or fatigue.

If you are planning to go on lots of expeditions to far-off lands, you should certainly consider taking this quirk: you don't want to slow your party down because you're out of breath, after all.

Weak (-1): The big kids picked on you when you were small. Come to think of it, they may well still be picking on you. You are the man in the "before" picture in the Charles Atlas adverts - you know, the guy who gets sand kicked in his face by beach bullies. You are either weedy or just plain out of shape.
Average (0): All characters are assumed to have this level of Brawn unless they specify otherwise. You are perfectly normal.
Well-Built (2): You're in shape, but you're no bodybuilder. Perhaps you've been working on the docks for a while; certainly, you are strong enough and have enough endurance to spend your day moving heavy packing crates around.
Does This Guy Ever Stop? (4): You are the "after" picture in the Charles Atlas adverts, only you don't take as many steroids. You are really quite strong, although if you are not a skilled fighter this won't necessarily help you in a scrap. What's really impressive is your endurance: you are like the Energiser bunny of strenuous physical labour. When you go on expeditions, people may end up using you as a pack mule.

Top of page.

Hidden Loyalties (1)
Publicly, you are a member of one mob (at least Rank 1); in actual fact, you are a member of another. At the start of the games no-one knows this but you and us. You can also use this to be an incognito agent of any organisation in any other organisation.

Awkward Situation (-1)
You are a member of one mob (at least Rank 1) but actually live in the primary district of influence of another mob hostile to your own. What's more, everybody knows. The balance of power and need for stability means that you're not in immediate danger, but you will be looked on with suspicion by many of your neighbours and all of the gang members on policing duties. If open warfare breaks out between the two gangs, or an existing conflict starts to escalate you will be first up against the Wall, unless you move fast.

Seneschal (4)
You must have at least Rank 1 in a mob to take this quirk. You speak for one of the most important members of your mob; you effectively have their rank as far as your status within the mob is concerned (they will be Rank 4 if you have Rank 1 or 2, Rank 5 if you have Rank 3 or 4). However, you will be expected to relay your boss's words faithfully and accurately; if you exceed your authority and your boss finds out, then it's the concrete shoes and the river for you.

Under-Chamber Representative (2)
To buy this quirk you must either be a Rank 4 or 5 member of a mob, or have the Seneschal quirk. You speak for and vote for your mob on the Under-Chamber, the hidden parliament of the criminal underworld. You will be expected to vote in a manner which advances your mob's interests; if a Rank 5 member of a mob votes in a manner which is regarded as contrary to the interests of said mob, rebellion is likely, and if a Rank 4 member or a Seneschal makes that blunder their superiors will have their heads; nonetheless, it is an excellent thing to be privy to the Under-Chamber's discussions.

If multiple players within a mob take this quirk, we will decide who the Under-Chamber representative of that mob is thusly: