Stability

Ripped from Night's Black Agents and modified for use with GURPS

Sources of Stability

Symbol

This is a non-human representation of something or someone you value: a religious medal or crucifix, your country’s flag or your father’s dog tag, a picture of your innocent niece or a voice mail from your dead wife. Seeing it or handling it — a few minutes of meditation or reverence — reminds you of why you fight, why you must stay intact. If you do so during an operation, you may immediately refresh 1 pool point of Stability; you may do this only once per session. If you lose your Symbol, you lose 1 rating point of Stability at the end of the operation if it remains lost. Some Symbols cannot be so lost; if you rally at the sight of the Union Jack, you lose no rating points of Stability if someone burns a British flag. If, however, you used a flag patch from your mate’s uniform as your Symbol, you would lose the point if it got stolen. The Symbol should ideally be connected somehow to your Drive, if only in your agent’s own mind. If your Symbol is ever proven valueless — you uncover proof that Jesus was a vampire, your country is behind the undead menace, your dead wife faked her death to go over to the other side — you immediately lose 3 rating points of Stability.

Solace

This is the person you seek out for human contact, to make the pain and stress recede for the time being: your current girlfriend, a friendly bartender, your old handler. A name and identifying phrase are sufficient. You may not use fellow agents on your team; they go through the same stresses you do and remind you of the horrors you confront. It’s permissible, but risky, for multiple agents to lean on the same folks as members of their support network. Relying on others is a source of strength, but also of danger. Once you come to the attention of monstrous conspiracies, they may use your loved ones against you. They may corrupt them, turn them to evil or inhumanity, or take the tried and true route of subjecting them to horrible tortures. If you can spend six hours — of talk, quiet companionship, sex and sleep, athletic training, or other normal human interaction — with your Solace during an operation, you may immediately refresh 2 pool points of Stability; you may do this only once per session. This time must be safe from violent or supernatural interruption. If you spend at least a day of such interaction with your Solace between operations, you may fully refresh your Stability pool. Again, this time must be safe from violent or supernatural interruption. If your Solace ever betrays or rejects you, you immediately lose 2 rating points of Stability. If your Solace is ever turned by a vampire or killed, you immediately lose 3 rating points of Stability.

Safety

This is the person and place you would flee to without thinking: your old trainer’s cabin in the Alps, your mother’s house in Scotland, your best friend’s apartment in Paris, a beachfront condo in Ibiza you’ve bought under another name. Simply knowing that such a refuge exists gives you hope that you can some day escape the shadowy world in which you dwell. At the end of any session in which your place of Safety remains inviolate, you may refresh 1 pool point of Stability. It is very poor tradecraft to actually flee to your place of Safety. Even if the vampires, hostile intelligence and security services, or other conspiracies don’t already have the place wired, your flight there would put your would-be refuge in their crosshairs. If you do get there, it counts as a haven (see p. 92) where you can immediately refresh three General ability pools. Any Preparedness tests you carry out there have a Difficulty that is 2 points lower than normal. In the very unlikely instance that you get there unobserved, you can refresh your whole Stability pool there, as well. If your place of Safety has an owner or caretaker, you can activate them as a free contact (without spending any Network points) with a rating of 6. This rating cannot be rebuilt with Network or experience points. You can only activate this contact once during the entire life of your character. If your place of Safety ever turns you out, or its owner (e.g., your old trainer, your mother, your best friend) betrays you, you immediately lose 3 rating points of Stability. If enemies destroy your place of Safety or its owner, you immediately lose 3 rating points of Stability. Replacing Sources of Stability You can, if you wish, rebuild your Stability rating using experience points (see p. 93) after losing a Source of Stability. Once you spend any experience rebuilding your Stability, you may replace the lost Source with another of the same type: if the opposition killed your girlfriend (your previous Solace), you can meet another girl and find Solace in her arms, or find Solace confessing to a priest instead. The Director should work this new ideal or NPC into the story, probably with a brief scene or two centered on this new relationship. You can never replace a Symbol that has proven valueless or a destroyed place of Safety during the campaign. You can still, however, replace a lost Symbol (a burned photograph of your son) with another (a new photo of him, downloaded off his Facebook page and onto your phone).