Department Nine

A roleplaying game about Destiny, by Nick Wedig

Game Chef Feedback Group Tau This game makes use of Sacred, Thread and Inconsistency. You work for the Fates, manipulating your destinies to make sureeverything goes according to The Plan. But you broke the cardinal ruleof

FATE

’s employees, and looked into your own future. Worse, youdidn’t like what you saw there. Now, you’re trying to change your owndestiny, with your former colleagues working to stop you. This game works best with a small group of players, some pokerchips and a writing surface where all game information is visible toeveryone playing. In particular, three or four players is ideal, and fiveplayers is straining the system. A group of six or more should split intotwo or more groups.

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This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United StatesLicense. To view a copy of this license, visithttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/ or send a letter to Creative Commons,543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. Please let meknow if you’re doing anything really cool with my game by emailingnickwedig@yahoo.com.

1.1 Welcome to Department Nine and PreliminaryBriefing

Congratulations on being hired to work for

FATE

‘s subdivision,Department Nine. As you by now know, Fate is responsible for themanagement and control of the destinies of every major lifeform onEarth, and has liaisons with [REDACTED]XXXXXXXXX.Many new applicants have substantial questions concerning thenature of

FATE

and why the division exists. These questions will beanswered in the “Questions From New Recruits” section (see pageXX).

1.2 History of

FATE

was founded centuries ago, after a mortal hero slew[REDACTED], god of [REDACTED]. After this unfortunate tragedy, the gods of Olympus and associated anthropomorphic personificationsdeemed it best to operate clandestinely thereafter. Thus the Greekpantheon removed itself from Mount Olympus to an undisclosedlocation.In order to operate covertly, and to deal with the growingnumber of humans with relatively trivial destinies, the three Fatescreated a cult of holy priests, who were granted the secrets of destinyitself. Their role was to oversee mundane lives in the goddess’s steadand to untangle snarls in the web of destiny. This team has sincegrown into

FATE,

which we assure you is now a strictly non-denominational organization. As the agency has grown in size, so toohave the regulations that agents must follow. So please read youragent’s manual very carefully, and remember: these are people’s livesyou are dealing with.

1.3 Divisions of

FATE

The

FATE

agency is divided into three sub units, each of whichis headed by one of the Moirae, the goddesses who control destiny. These divisions are:

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Our own

Department Nine

, managed by Clotho. DepartmentNine is in charge of Beginnings: we put every piece of a person’slife in place so their destiny can play out according to The Plan.A secondary role of the department is managing the past:sometimes past events need to be hidden to hide the activity of the gods

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or the relation between current events and the pastneeds modified. These modifications need to be careful, thoughto avoid “Snarls”, which are Inconsistencies in the C/E Thread.Agents violating C/E is strictly prohibited.

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Department Ten

, controlled by Lachesis, monitors andregulates events as they progress. They observe critical eventsin history or a person’s life to make sure everything is on trackfor the appropriate destiny. Therefore, they are typically the firstdepartment to notice any potential Snarls in the C/E thread,which are then reported to premonitors in the Division of Predetermination (q.v.) for verification. If the Snarl is a verifiedInconsistency, then a task force composed of agents from one ormore departments is assembled to rectify the situation.

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The Division of Predetermination ,

is under Atropos’scommand. Atropos’s section deals with endings, destinies anddeaths. High rankings Fate Assignment Agents in thedepartment determine the eventual end of every person. Thereafter, it is up to the other departments to make thedetermined destiny happen. Premonitors from the Division of Predetermination observe the entire process, watching forInconsistencies that could unravel the Web of Fate. Becausetheir role concerns both monitoring people’s fates and theactivities of agents in the field, the Department of Predetermination also contains the Internal Affairs section of

FATE.

1.4 Guide for New Recruits

Many new recruits, especially the “mundane” recruits

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, havequestions about the

FATE

organization, the world normally hiddenfrom the general public, and the jargon of the association. This guide

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S

uch as planting dinosaur bones to be found to hide the fact that the Earth is only afew thousand years old. But these clandestine activities must be careful to avoidInconsistencies. Therefore, changes to the past require at least Gamma levelclearance, and oversight from a Delta level officer. Please fill out form GB-23“Request for alterations to the C/E Stream (Past Tense)” for authorization.

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Those human recruits who were raised in normal human society without knowledgeof the FATE organization or the “mythological” creatures now in hiding.