Sunday, March 1, 2020

What Are The Wizard Police Dealing With Today?

The Old Prison is the headquarters for the Anti-Magic Weapons and Tactics Police in Wizard City Hexcrawl, which continuously deal with problems within the city that may perhaps affect the holdings of the property-owning class.

It's a brutal and thankless job, but someone needs to protect the interests of the bourgeoisie! If not the police, then who, WHO?? Who will think of the Dread Oligarchs?! Who will think of the Retro-Patenters?! Who will think of the Obliviate Landlords?! Who will think of the Spell Sharks and the Scourge Capitalists?! Who will think of the Soul Mortgagees and the Organ Harvesters and the Renters-Of-Tongues?!


On the up side, at least it comes with the perk of a License For Brutality, provided you aren't using it on someone with powerful connections. On the down side, you gotta deal with this shit:


WHAT SHIT DO THE ANTI-WIZARD POLICE NEED TO CLEAN UP TODAY?



d20
It’s A(n)...
And It’s...
And Just to Make Matters Worse...
But At Least We Have...
1
Mimetic Plague
99% Contained
Now It’s Raining Halberds. Literally.
Ammo in Extreme Surplus
2
Budding Revolution
Mostly Contained
It’s Completely Resistant to Magic
Esprit de Corps. Great.
3
Mass Panic
Kinda Contained
We’re Out of Coffee
A Hostage
4
Riot
Sorta Contained
We’re Out of Pastry
Economic Leverage
5
Attempt at Unionization
Probably Not Contained
We’re Out of Funding for the Department
Hazard Pay
6
Minority Which Needs Some Lessons in ‘Civility’
Definitely Not Contained
An Administrator is Overseeing the Operation Personally
A Highly Trained Killer-Stoat
7
Assassination Attempt on a Public Figure
Dangerously Not Contained
There’s Time Magic Involved
A License for Unlimited Collateral Damage
8
Important Person With a Trivial Problem
Oh, We’re Fucked.
It has a Clone
A Platoon of Trainees We Can Throw At The Problem
9
Connected Person’s Child’s Birthday Party
MORE POWERFUL THAN YOU CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE!
It’s Evolving Faster Than We Can Adapt
The Last Platoon of Trainees We Threw At A Problem, Fresh From That Problem
10
Unexpected Turn in the Stock Market
Made Completely Out of Knives
The Other Branches of Secret Police Are Getting Involved
Everyone From The Last Problem, Risen As Zombies
11
Rogue Wizard
Already Replicating Exponentially
It’s Monday.
State-sponsored Life Insurance Subsidies
12
Rogue Wizard with a Silly Hat
Smarter Than We Are
There’s a Dungeon Swan Nearby
Our Department Mascot: Berry the Peryton
13
Rogue Wizard with a Silly Voice
Spreading Like Wizard-Herpes
It’s a Steeve
One Minor Healing Potion Each
14
Rogue Wizard with a Sexy Sidekick
FROM THE FUTURE!!!
It’s Popular with The Masses
Our Cyanide Capsules
15
Rogue Wizard Who Isn’t Actually a Rogue Wizard, But Someone Important Wants Them Dealt With
Sorta... Kinda... Technically Indestructible.
We Haven’t Replaced the Broken Wizard-Beaters Yet
The Illusion of Popular Support
16
Monster Gone Rogue
Carving a Horrible Path of Destruction from The Docks to the Student Ghetto
Anything That Looks At It Dies Instantly
Our Dubious Pensions
17
Monster With Some Incorrect Property Claims
Continuously Exploding
Dealing With It Is Going to Upset some Very Powerful People
The Best Cannon Fodder Money Can Buy
18
Monster With a Silly Hat
Got Support from Foreign Agents
Apparently It’s Spawning a Religion
The Cooperation of Organized Crime
19
Monster With Some Heretical Ideas on the Rights of the Working Class
Making Some Pretty Fair Points, Actually...
Everyone Involved in the Operation is Going to Be Killed At The End to ‘Tie Up Loose Ends’
Clean Underwear
20
Hydra. Again.
Made of Smaller Hydras
It’s Giving Birth to More Bloody Hydras
A Hydra! Wait, No… That’s a Bad Thing.


The Old Prison itself is where the Old Judicial System used to keep The Old Prisoners, back when they still had jury trials and 'Common Law'. Now it's effectively an office building, training facility, and fortress for the AMWAT police, with only about twice as much hopelessness and half the inmates.

Source
Wizards undergoing 'administrative punishment' are typically taken there to enact their sentences given arbitrarily on the spot by the various police forces. As such, there is a modest bureaucratic force there to undertake such measures, such as spell-fee collection or the dispellment of punitive Curses.

A front assault upon the institution is not advised. Neither is a multi-pronged assault. In fact, it's just better if you never assault the place. It's chocked full of full-time wizard killers - they're wise to every permutation of magical shit that one can be thrown at (see above table) and they rarely take prisoners, despite the fact that they work in a prison.

8 comments:

  1. This is an amazing table; somehow it manages to convey a sense of both black humour and slight bewilderment on an continuing existence of the world. I envision a billboard "We went [x] hours without a loss of life" being overwritten constantly.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I feel like that dog from the "This is fine" meme would be their mascot.

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    2. Fire doggo - it is on fire. It cannot feel pain. This is fine. Just another Tuesday in Wizard City...

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    3. With a thousand-yard stare while drinking coffee?

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  2. Of note: with a 1 in 20 chance in each category of a hydra-related problem, this puts the approximate chance of HYDRA on any particular day to be near 1 in 5.

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  3. "Renters-of-tongues"? Is that a Laundry Files reference?

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    Replies
    1. I have no idea what that is, so probably not.

      Delete