Coercion (sage study)
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Coercion is a sage study in the field of Streetwisdom, strengthening the character's effectiveness at bullying and obtaining benefits through intimidation, extortion and various other persuasive methods. Characters that have studied the use of threats are generally hard-hearted and ruthless, going to whatever lengths are necessary to get the desired response. Usually, since the victim is being leveraged to act against his or her own self-interest, the coercive character never hesistates to inflict bodily harm, if that's what it takes.
As such, studied characters have experience in various forms of debt slavery or bondage, in which both free persons and criminals are trafficked as labourers or slaves for a variety of purposes, including transport overseas, conscripted soldiers and forced prostitution. Of all thieving studies, this is perhaps the cruellest. It must be noted that excessive exploitation of these abilities WILL result in the pursuit and jailing of the individual by authorities.
Sage Abilities
The sage abilities below are those acquired by a character through the study, according to status.
Amateur Status
- Force Prostitution: gives the character knowledge of how to intimidate and force kidnapped individuals into sexual slavery.
- Lean: Reduce an intended victim's wisdom by 1-4 points, forcing a wisdom check; in the event of failure, the victim will surrender all coin he or she has on hand in an attempt to pay off their debt. Leaning takes two to three days and involves locating the victim's family and making threats to them as well as the victim.
- Press: Obtain a contract that gives permit to the character to press ordinary persons into soldiers or sailors, at a finder's fee of 2 g.p. per person. It is legal to hire a gang for the purpose and to openly beat any resistant person in public — though the fee won't be paid for anyone injured or dead; if murder should occur, no legal consequence will result, but the character will not be able to obtain another permit in the province.
Authority Status
- Slaver: Ensures management and the ability to effectively transport enslaved persons for the purpose of labour and otherwise; characters with this skill are extremely unlikely to lose a manacled or bound prisoner for any reason.
