Page 210 - Chronicles of Darkness

Interchangeable Parts Blueprints

The characters might be a publicity stunt. The three He calls himself the Key, because he believes he has un-
departments decide to create a well-publicized task force locked part of God and has full access to that aspect. He can
consisting of detectives from all three precincts working hear the workings of the God-Machine. Everywhere he goes,
together and sharing resources. Throw in an overseeing FBI he hears the ratcheting pulse of the God-Machine’s plans and
agent in case someone decides to take the case federal, and whirring beats of its machinations. The Key believes that he
maybe an Internal Affairs mole (this looks a lot like cops are understands those plans, it’s all clear to him. If he weren’t
behind the whole mess), and you have the setup for a tense a perfect part of a perfect system, how could he possibly do
procedural drama. what he does?
Or, to take it in a different direction, the chronicle could Granted, he doesn’t exactly understand what it is he
follow some news hounds as they look into the matter as does, or how he can shift in time and space the way he does.
civilians. Maybe the cops are tied up in the God-Machine It doesn’t matter. What matters is that everyone knows he’s
on a less metaphoric level, and the only way to stop the Key doing it. He knows he’ll be caught, eventually. He doesn’t
and his killings is for these reporters to investigate on their plan to make it easy, but he does plan for it, and his capture
own. Maybe the Key has picked them as his chroniclers and should be one for all of history to remember. He will keep
a part of his delusion, and so they have to find and stop him upping the ante, keep pushing the boundaries of what he’s
before he gets to them. capable of doing until he’s caught or dead. Because he thinks
A third possibility is that the characters have already the God-Machine wants it that way.
run across the God-Machine, and the Key is targeting them Cote is right, of course; the God-Machine does want it
directly. This works best if one player is willing to sacrifice this way. The God-Machine created the Key using a kind of
her character (perhaps in accordance with that character’s closed loop — Grief delivered the message to Cote (age 30),
Fate) to start things off. which drove him to the edge of sanity, which pushed him to
In any case, let the players choose which three cities are kill, which enabled Grief to teach him to shift in time, which
involved. This Tale is regional in scope, meaning that, as allowed Cote to go back in time and train Cote (age 16) to
written, the cities should be in the same general part of the stalk and kill, which made him unstable and thus able to hear
world, but if you want to take it global and have the cities all Grief’s message at age 30… The sad tale of Wesley Cote is
be on different continents, that’s just as effective. truly a chicken-and-egg scenario, and it’s enough to cause a
breaking point (see p. 73) to any character that figures it out.

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The Key