Nodes, Glorious Nodes, Even More Glorious (Night's Black Agents)

The last time I touched on this topic I said:

a Node should be treated no differently from a Villain, for the purposes of campaign design. A Node should have power to affect the plot. A Node has things it wants, things it's in charge of, things it's prepared to kill for. A Node has personality, and it's up to the Director what that personality ought to be.

When discussing Facilities I went on to say:

They:

• Manufacture,
• Collect,
• Distribute, or
• Analyze.

A manufacturing facility makes something, a collection facility stores it, a distribution hub delivers it, and an analyzing facility investigates.

What do all these facilities have in common? They need:

•  Security, and,
•  Monitoring.

Someone has to keep the facility maintained and safe from prying eyes. This may mean a simple padlock on an important door, or a full-fledged electronic surveillance system. Also, someone has to monitor what's going on, whether the facility is doing as it should.

How do these concepts work together? 

In Night's Black Agents a Node is an enemy power center. It can work on the local level, affecting only a small area. It can control a city, a country, a continent.

It can control more than one facility, or only one. As a general rule it's a good idea if all facilities controlled by one Node have the same Security and Monitoring statistics, so you as Director don't have to keep track of too many numbers. It also makes sense from a worldbuilding POV. The Node will want to maintain a standard. 

It may even have the same security firm for each Facility, providing you a chance to drop some handy clues. 'Cerebrus Security? Again? You know what that means ...' Or 'the cybersecurity protocols here are exactly the same as those we encountered at that corporate headquarters, and you remember who was in charge of that ...' As for Monitoring, 'didn't we see that middle manager before? Don't tell me ...'

However, it's reasonable to suppose that one Node might have several different facility types. It might have Manufacture and Distribution facilities working together, or Collect and Analyze. 

Let's go a step further and ask four questions:

1. What is this Node supposed to do?
2. What does it actually do?
3. What are its resources?
4. What are its methods?

I want to talk a little bit about 1 and 2, which seem contradictory. However, if you think about it, just because the bosses up top said 'do this' doesn't mean the Node is only doing this. It has personality, goals and the means to achieve them. If the bosses aren't paying close attention to the Node it might drift from its stated goals.

Think of this as a long-term project. If ever you've worked with a team you know from personal experience that, just because Bob is assigned to X within the overall project structure, does not mean that Bob is actually doing X. Bob might be ambitious and is plotting for his own advancement. Bob might be lazy. Bob might have misunderstood his role in the team, or be quiet quitting, or be doing any number of things that are not X.

Or Bob might actually be doing X but you, as project lead or fellow team member, misunderstood the true nature of X. Oops. Maybe Bob should have your job.

OK, so how does all this work in practice?

Let's take an example from Dracula Dossier: Billington & Sons, Solicitors, Whitby.

A small law firm, mostly handling wills and other property deals for local clients. The firm’s musty offices occupies the bottom two floors of a house on Flowergate Street in the heart of Whitby; their archives, dating back to old Samuel F.’s era in the 1890s, are crammed into the attic on the top floor. Dracula employed them as his local agents to receive and convey his fifty boxes of earth to Carfax.

I'm assuming for the sake of this example that Billington is a Level One node, with assets local to Whitby. It doesn't matter what kind of Conspiracy this is. 

Its function is to Collect. Dracula picks up all kinds of odd things, documents, grimoires, title deeds - you name it, Dracula keeps it. However, often what happens is, Dracula picks up, say, an occult tome and has no need of it right away, so he shoves it at Billington for safe keeping until such time as he remembers to take it back. 

The Collection process is handled by outside forces, couriers (a different, Distribution Node), who deliver the items to Billington. The job of the firm is to make sure they're securely held.

However, old Tom Billington, the traditionalist head of the firm, is the only one who believes in the mission. His sons John and Michael are taking it on themselves to Analyze what they have. The sons have noticed that nobody ever comes to get any of the many, many documents in their keeping. Nobody would ever know if they studied some. Not take - they're too cautious. But if they follow the rituals or chase up on some of the clues, they could get themselves some real power. 

If Tom found out, he'd be devastated. The kids have managed to keep him out of the loop - so far.

I'm assigning Low Security and Medium Monitoring, which applies to all Facilities held by this Node. So, what Facilities does it have?

Billington & Sons, of course, which is where the critical documents are kept. What else?

• A lock-up garage (for immediate storage or low-priority items).
• A couple of bribed cops whose job is to provide extra security.
• A ritual chamber under the Star Inn. It used to be a smuggler's haven; now it hosts darker rituals.
• A safe in the storage area of the Whitby Museum, and a curator who's been persuaded to keep an eye on it. (this is for the valuable stuff).
• A special grave in the Church of Saint Mary, for visiting dignitaries.
• Robin Hood's Bay Books & Curiosities. This one's for John and Michael. This is where they conduct their studies. They don't want to be caught by dear old dad looking at the company books. The owner, Sam Carmichael, has a private arrangement with the Billingtons; they pay a high rent and get the back room, undisturbed. The Billingtons don't realize Sam is also studying the papers they bring here.

That should be enough. You could make it more complicated, of course. This is a level one, and I chose it specifically because level ones aren't usually that complex. A National level Node will probably have dozens of Facilities. 

Point being that a Node, like a Villain, has power to affect the plot, personality, goals. Its Facilities will reflect those aspects of the Node. This is a low-level Collection Node; it's not going to have elaborate safes or many assets. It's going to have a few Network Contacts (eg. the local council members, members of Tom's Masonic Lodge, criminals that owe Tom a favor) but none of them are going to be Special Forces or talented necromancers. 

Of course, if you as Director discover that the agents are making a bee-line for the Museum, no problem. You already know that it's Low (difficulty 3) security and Medum (difficulty 4) monitoring. The agents should be able to break in without too much effort but will have to keep an eye out for that meddling curator. The meddling curator in turn can call up those cops on the Billington payroll if things get complicated. Or as a conspiramid reaction Tom Billington can call in a Network favor from some of his low-level criminal clients. 

As for Resources and Methods, Billington probably doesn't have too many Resources and its Methods aren't going to be gung-ho, release the hounds sort of thing. They can't afford hit men. They can afford to have someone Intimidated or rough someone up.

This is the sort of place Dracula would never visit, except out of a sense of nostalgia. However, the auditors - or what passes for Conspiracy auditors - may drop in at any time to look at the Node's policies and practices. Which could cause all kinds of complications ...

Why go through all this trouble?

Because you want to scatter clues. Any Node has to be a clue-rich environment, to give the agents a direction to follow. Remember, all clues lead to Rome and you want them to get to Rome at some point. The vampire temporarily staying in that grave at Saint Mary, the documents in Books & Curiosities, the contents of the safe at the Whitby Museum, they all contain clues and those clues lead further into the narrative. That way if the agents miss out on the actual clue that you intended they find at (wherever it may be) there's no reason to panic; they can find it again at (wherever they actually go).

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

Dead Nodes (NBA)

Julian Assange made the papers again this week, when the Ecuadorian government cut off his internet access. Assange made a written commitment not to use the Embassy's internet connection to say or do anything that might harm Ecuador's relationship with other countries. As a moderately intelligent three-year-old might have guessed, Assange couldn't keep his online mouth shut. This has happened before, when Assange's posts during the American 2016 election prompted a shutdown. His internet access was restored December that same year.

I have some sympathy for the Ecuadorians. It can't be easy playing host to WikiLeaks' founder, but you do have to wonder what on earth the Ecuadorian Government thought would happen when it restored Assange's internet access.

Question: what does NBA's Conspiracy do with dead nodes?

In this context, Assange is the dead node. He's never going to have the same influence he enjoyed when WikiLeaks was at its height, in 2011 to 2015. He's the equivalent of an ageing rock star convinced that if he only loses a few pounds and cuts down on the booze he can still manage a full international tour. Those days are behind him. Moreover he's lost his freedom. Even if he somehow finagles a way out of the Embassy, wherever he goes now he's a marked man. That doesn't make him inconsequential. He's still a symbolic draw for many people, and WikiLeaks still exists. But the Assange that was is never coming back.

Let's suppose the Conspiracy backs Assange, or someone very like him. That suggests a Node at National level at least, possibly Supranational depending on circumstances. Let's further suppose that, due to a combination of events, this Node becomes much less relevant to the Conspiracy because it has been compromised in some way. In Assange's case, it was the pressures that forced him to take refuge at the Embassy. What next?

First, the obvious choice:

This is not always the optimal choice. The information and skills the dead node possesses could still be of use, and it would be wasteful to break a valuable asset. If the Node is politically or socially visible, as Assange is, then it may be very unwise to terminate it. There's bound to be an official investigation, and in the case of someone like Assange, at least half a dozen unofficial ones. Every espionage agency in the Western world will want to know why Assange choked on his soup. The Heat mechanic doesn't apply to the Conspiracy, but if it did this would be a massive Heat gain.

There is always demotion. In a sense, this is what has happened to Assange. He still has resources and time to work on the things that interest him, but he no longer has the influence he once enjoyed. This can work well, but only if the Node is willing to cooperate. It has to be content to slide into irrelevance. Assange clearly isn't interested in that option. There is always the risk that the Node will break ranks and spill secrets, or do something unfortunate in a desperate bid to regain lost status. This option works best if the Node has some weakness the Conspiracy can use to keep it quiet. A dependence on narcotics, or blood; a beloved family member; a secret. Anything that can keep the Node docile will be useful.

However anything the Conspiracy needs can be used against it. Say the Agents discover that the only thing keeping Assange-lite obedient is his blood dependence. Given his location, it can't be easy smuggling in the special substances he requires. If the Agents were to starve Assange-lite for a few days by intercepting the courier, then he might go off the rails. This could have all kinds of interesting consequences for the Conspiracy. Imagine what might happen if the revealer of secrets started spilling the Conspiracy's hush-hush intel.

The alternative is promotion. A saying has been attributed to various members of the German high command, in the years between the World Wars. It goes like this:

I divide my officers into four classes as follows: the clever, the industrious, the lazy, and the stupid. Each officer always possess two of these qualities.

Those who are clever and industrious I appoint to the General Staff. Use under certain circumstances can be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy qualifies for the highest leadership posts. He has the requisite nerves and the mental clarity for difficult decisions. But whoever is stupid and industrious must be got rid of, for he is too dangerous.

A dead node has proved itself stupid. The question then is whether or not it is industrious. If so, then the Conspiracy will cut it loose. If lazy, then a case could be made for kicking it upstairs. The Conspiracy, like any bureaucracy, is bound to have a number of high echelon positions which boast grand titles but carry no significant authority. Head of Research, say, where all the real work is done by subordinates. Or Vice Chancellor in charge of records. Anything that gets the Node to a point where it has no power to directly affect, and therefore threaten, the day to day running of operations. Since it's lazy, it won't interfere with the smooth workings of whichever department it's promoted to. Everyone goes home happy.

Assange-lite is too industrious to be dealt with this way.

There's one other option: burn it.

This is exactly what happens to player characters. Dumped and discredited by the agency that once supported them, the agents now wander the shadowy world of espionage on their own. The same can happen to Conspiracy assets. This works best on low-level Nodes, which don't have access to any important information. There's no point burning someone who can burn you back, after all.

If desired, a variant of the Black Program Badass archetype could be used for a player character who was once in deep with the Conspiracy. The Director might consider giving the character extra bennies in exchange for a pre-existing psychological disorder - PTSD, say, in exchange for supernatural Network contacts. But be careful not to give away the store, or cripple a new character.

Renfields denied access to blood, dhampires and ferals who once had status, hackers and financiers and other lackeys - all can be flung aside. The Conspiracy will probably feed supernatural former assets to the hunters, or straight into a mincing machine, but Renfields and humans can be dealt with subtly. Make sure their criminal history is given to the right people, or stuff their hard drives full of kiddie porn and wrap them up in a big red ribbon for the authorities. Betray gangs to rival gangs, or let the hitman's enemies find out who's been carrying out all these assassinations. If death is the preferred option, make sure the body's found in compromising circumstances. Auto-erotic asphyxiation, say. That way any inconvenient last testament hidden on a hard drive is less credible when it surfaces.

This would be a useful way of dealing with Assange-lite. Make sure there's enough evidence of wrongdoing to taint any evidence he might come up with, then let him go. Possibly dangle the carrot of reinstatement if he somehow redeems himself, but never be so foolish as to actually bring him back into the fold. What's done is done. Never look back.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

A Growth Market (Night's Black Agents, Dracula Dossier)

A short while ago I mentioned Tony Thompson's book Gangs and drew inspiration from that for a scenario seed. Now I'm going to dip into his follow-up, Gang Land, for a look at something that can be stolen by Dracula Dossier Directors.

'I first became aware of the impact of Vietnamese cannabis gangs in 2005,' Thompson writes. 'While attending a murder trial at London's Woolwich Crown Court, I noticed that five cases being heard that day featured defendants with the same name - Nguyen; I thought I'd stumbled across some massive conspiracy but soon learned that each of the cases was separate, that all involved homes which had been converted to cannabis farms and that none of the defendants were related to one another.'

Nguyen is a very common Vietnamese name, and what Thompson had actually stumbled across was a very simple scheme. Send in your representative, a sober-seeming member of the community with impeccable credentials. Get the lease signed. Set up a fully-functioning cannabis farm in an otherwise ordinary house. Move in your chosen 'gardener,' a man or woman whose fear of you far exceeds any fear they may have of the consequences of arrest. Get the gardener to take care of the plants. Harvest. Repeat.

Frequently those involved are children, sent to the UK to work off family debts at home. "Children are an increasingly valuable assets to criminal gangs," says Philip Ishola, former head of the UK’s Counter Human Trafficking Bureau, "Because they are easy to get hold of, easily intimidated and exploited, and easy to keep isolated and unaware of what is really happening around them, which makes it far less likely for them to be able to disclose anything of use to the police."

Since Vietnamese gangs account for something close to 90% of the supply of domestically grown cannabis in the UK, those of you who enjoy a quiet puff on the occasion may want to bear in mind you may be supporting child slavery with your habit.

Leaving that unhappy thought to one side, let's talk about Nodes.

In the Conspyramid (main book p 157) nodes can be 'a gang, a cell within an organization, a facility or institution, a powerful individual, a whole subverted agency, or anything else that might be part of the vampire conspiracy ... each node will have its own penumbra of guards, lackeys, underlings, investigators, or other assets not explicitly indicated on the chart.'

A Node designed with the cannabis farming template doesn't sound like a very powerful or significant one. It's likely to be at the lowest level, defined in the main book as a street-level power. Street level Nodes can be police departments, museum departments, street gangs and so on, so it can have multiple personnel and locations, maybe some heavy hitters, but probably doesn't have enough pull to get the really powerful assets.

Before we go deeply into what this Node might be like, let's take a step back and talk about design.

When I discussed Villains I made reference to a writing exercise that can be used for Nodes just as easily as Villains. I provide a list of questions that need to be answered, and a modified list will do as well for Nodes, as follows:

• What is the Node's Level and primary designation?
• Name three physical attributes that should be emphasized when describing this Node.
• List three primary assets.
• Where is the Node based?
• What is the Node's primary function?
• What is the Node's secondary function, if any?
• What is a problem the Node has to deal with?
• What is the Node's ultimate goal?
• What, if anything, is the Node's secondary goal(s)?
• Which other Nodes interact with this one?

So with that in mind let's talk about this particular Node.

Its Level is 1, the lowest in the Pyramid. Its primary designation is Cannabis Farms.

Physical attributes are tags that can be applied to any of the Node's locations or personnel. Think of them as tags added to a blog post, or tags added to an asset in computer game design. In this instance since this is a street level Node and pretty dark, I'm going for: half-starved illegals/children, rats & vermin, quiet neighborhoods.

Primary assets are not necessarily leader types. They are assets that the Node uses on a daily basis to go about its business or protect itself from harm. In this case the primary assets are a series of rented houses where the farms are based, a small network of adult criminals (using the Thug template from the main book) who organize the farms and distribute the product, and a police informant who has access to Holmes 2, so the Node can keep an eye on any official investigation that might take place. This police contact might be the only Renfield in the group, kept docile and obedient by blood addiction. Alternately one or two of the adult criminals may be Renfields.

The Node is based in the greater London metropolitan area, in this example. Cannabis farms are spread all over Europe, so a similar Node could as easily operate anywhere in Europe. In this instance the Node doesn't have one big base; it has half a dozen small outposts, many of which have little or no defenses. The group doesn't care if one or two farms get knocked off. It has plenty more, and can make more quickly. 

The Node's primary function is to earn money for the Conspiracy.

The Node's secondary function is to provide safe housing for other Conspiracy assets. A quiet suburban house is the perfect place for SBA's on the run, and all those illegal kids are handy snacks.

The Node's problem is that other criminal gangs are constantly trying to steal their turf. This is a low-level Node; it can't go running to the higher-ups every time some scrote tries to rip it off. It has to deal with its problems in-house. That means relying on its own Thugs, or any supernatural powers its leadership might possess. Since this is nominally a Vietnamese gang ideally the leadership's powers, if any, should be drawn from Vietnamese folklore, say a Krasue variant. If this were a Romanian gang - perhaps, with Dracula Dossier in mind, run by the Human Trafficker - then the leadership's power would be different.

The Node's ultimate Goal is probably closely aligned with the Conspiracy's ultimate Goal. Say the Conspiracy's function is to ensure Dracula's ascendance to power. Dracula might have any number of ways to do this that the Node doesn't know about, but the Node will help in any way it can. Perhaps it uses the cash it earns to corrupt important politicians. Perhaps it helps the Human Trafficker distribute and control illegal immigrants. Perhaps it produces a corrupted form of cannabis which makes the smoker more susceptible to vampiric Mental attacks (+1 Difficulty). Perhaps the rats that infest each of its houses are breeding some kind of mutant rodent, or just supply rats for ordinary rat swarms which the Conspiracy uses to devour its enemies.

Its secondary Goal, if it has one, is unique to it. Say the leadership is a Ma Lai with the traditional three red dots on her neck and a scarf wrapped tight to conceal its suppurating throat wounds. It may want to wear only the best fashions, or be cursed with eternal hunger that makes it seek out raw meat each night. The Node may change its patterns or activities to cater to that need. The Node may have an ongoing rivalry with another Node, in which case the secondary Goal will be to defeat that Node, and so on.

Finally, which other Nodes interact with this one? Say for the sake of this example that the Human Trafficker supplies immigrants to a number of different criminal Nodes. That suggests the Human Trafficker is a Node unto him (it?) self, which this Node interacts with. Or that the chemicals it uses to mutate the cannabis plants are supplied by a specialist Node. Or that one of the corrupted politicians its money created makes up another separate street or city level Node. The point is that by looking at the Node's Goals and its Primary Function you should be able to work out which other Nodes logically would interact with this one.

For that matter the players are bound to come up with connections of their own that you can run with. Say the players find out about the Renfield police contact, and start looking for other corrupted cops. You might not have decided to have corrupt cops in the game until now, but once the players start looking for them maybe you can establish a completely new Node around that idea. Connections breed Connections, and sometimes the best ones are the ones you haven't thought of yet.

One last thing before I sign off. I also use this idea in a short story written for my Patreon page. Go check it out, and let me know what you think!

That's enough for now. See you next week!

Nodes, Glorious Nodes pt 2: Unusual Suspects (Night's Black Agents)

When designing a Node, one of the questions the Director has to ask is what role this Node has in the ongoing conspiracy. Another question, well worth asking, is how can the Director make this Node unusual? Jaded players will soon become weary with the Too Big To Fail Evil Bank scenario, or the Subverted Paramilitary Force. Some Node types will seem so obvious that they might as well have We Are Extremely Naughty tattooed on their employees' foreheads. Also, they'll have too many Capital Letters, but that's a different problem altogether. The question is, how to come out of left field and surprise the players with something new and interesting?

With that in mind, let's discuss some Node concepts that might just catch your players off-guard.

• The Biker Gang. While this is a close cousin of the paramilitary force, it does have some characteristics of its own well worth addressing. Take Putin's furry friends the Night Wolves, for example. These cheerful Cossacks take it as an article of faith that wherever they go, they take Russia with them. They're big fans of Stalin, have ridden with Putin himself, and have fought in the Crimea. In short, it's as much a political organization as it is a biker movement, and with 5,000 members in the fold, it has a fair amount of clout. Or consider that well-known glee club, the Hell's Angels. It's got chapters all over the world, and its membership has been accused of involvement in narcotics smuggling, as well as violent crimes too numerous to mention. In short, a Conspiracy-led biker gang has all kinds of potential benefits. It can be used as muscle, to smuggle goods across borders, as political activists, or just as good old-fashioned first with the most cavalry. 
• Food suppliers. There's a lot of money in milk, as Parmalat proved. This Italian dairy products supplier managed to burn through eight billion Euro in a complex financial fraud and money laundering scheme, before its castle in the sky crumbled. At one point it claimed it had an account with four billion tucked away in the Caymans, a fiction that soon unraveled. In the Conspiracy, a front like this could be used to cover up all kinds of financial tricks. Or you could hit the headlines the old fashioned way, by selling tainted product. In 2013 it was revealed that many meat suppliers in Europe had been selling horse meat and calling it beef. One of the companies, a French supplier named Spanghero, had been getting its 'beef' direct from Romania, which opens up all kinds of intriguing possibilities. Leaving aside whether or not you happen to like horsemeat, the bigger issue was that horses, particularly race horses, can be given medication like Phenylbutazone which can lead to fatal liver degeneration in humans, when combined with other medication. Why should vampires taint the human food chain? For all sorts of reasons, not least of which might be improving the taste, but this plot point might work better with Mutant or Alien vampire types. 
• Cleaners. Nobody cleans their own property any more; they outsource. Whether it's a high-end corporation buying itself some peace of mind, or a domestic service that handles individual tenancies, there's a lot of people out there who'd rather pay someone else to dust than lift a finger. But in so doing they invite strangers into their homes or place of work, strangers with no loyalty to them, just to the paycheck. How better to insert spies into someone's organization? Or to disguise a forensic clean-up operation, tasked with making potential crime scenes go away? Probably best left as a low-level Node, but an extremely useful one in a pinch. Concepts allied with the Cleaners include car and limo rental services, as well as more formal outfits like domestic service trainers. 
• Construction companies. If you think there's money in milk, you should see the bottom line of companies like McAlpine's. Not only are there fortunes to be made, those fortunes can be made all over the world. Need a hospital here, a road network there? Not a problem. Plus, since a typical international construction chain will work for just about anyone, the company's well used to dealing diplomatically with all sorts of people. This is another Node that can make large amounts of money seem legitimate, or just bury it in paper losses incurred abroad. However its main use is in building things. Want a hidden vault, an underground bunker under your decaying mansion, or just to make an inconvenient archaeological site disappear? Get the builders in, and you'll soon see your problems vanish under a ton of concrete.

That's it for the moment. I hope you found this useful! Enjoy.