Mami Wata is a local legend, a witch or a mambo to some and a saint and wise woman to others. Some say that that decades ago, she walked out of the sea naked and singing the secrets of the depths. Others say she divorced the devil and sued him for alimony. Most just say she's local color, good for a palm reading when you have an extra fiver, and entirely harmless. But still, the desperate and the broken-hearted will come find her at her seaside home or wandering the beach to ask for her help, and they always seem to walk away happy.
Of course, the local changelings know that Mami Wata is just a shrewd trader with lots of fingers on lots of pulses. For mortal humans, Mami Wata maintains her mystic vibe but when a changeling knocks on her door, she is all business. Even though changelings know Mami Wata drives a hard bargain, they also know that she is good for locating obscure items, arranging coincidences, providing emergency medical care, and buying a bit of luck.
Mami Wata appears to human eyes to be a fat black woman, often in long flowing clothes. She always has a matronly smile on when dealing with humans and treats their problems like a concerned mother, though her hunger and greed sometimes slips through. Her hair hangs loose in dreads, sometimes falling over her green eyes. She wears a necklace with a simple spiral shell and she always carries a large bag.
Beneath her Mask, Mami Wata's skin takes on a paler, greener tone, like a drowning victim. Her ogre seeming becomes more apparent as her fat is less matronly and more intimidatingly solid, like she is used to personally enforcing contracts and taking out oathbreakers. Her dreads are thick clumps of seaweed, clinging to her damp, scaly skin. Her eyes are pale white, irises and pupils barely visible, though she sees perfectly through them. Though humans don't notice this in her human mask, changelings may be unnerved by her utter lack of blinking.
Character Sheet
Mami Wata Concept: Sea Witch Age: 47 Virtue: Hope Vice: Greed Court: Spring Seeming: Ogre (May spend Glamour to improve dice pools involving Strength, Brawl, and Intimidate. No 10 again on dice pools using Composure (except Perception rolls) and a -1 die penalty to Composure when using it as a Defense trait.) Kith: Water-Dweller (Can hold breath for 30 minutes and suffers no sight-based Perception penalties underwater) / Witchtooth (Bonus to dice pools involving Occult or cursing someone like with Fickle Fate)
Contracts Contracts of Fleeting Spring 2 - Cupid's Eye (Learn the desire of a person), Growth of the Ivy (Change the desire of a person) Contracts of the Hearth 1 - Fickle Fate (Curse someone to get -2 to their next attempted action) Contracts of Oath and Punishment 2 - Pursuer's Seven-League Leap (Jump supernaturally far or high), Sense Tainted Vows (Know the broken promises of people)
Equipment Locket of Siren's Pain (2-dot Token) This "locket" looks like an ordinary seashell necklace, pearly white against Mami Wata's dark skin. When a human holds the shell up to their ear, they only hear the sea, while changelings can hear the distant singing of the voice trapped within. When activated, the shell glows fiercely and a golden mist pours out to enter Mami Wata's mouth, visibly sinking into her throat. When activated, the wearer takes on the voice held within the token for the rest of the scene. The wearer also gains the Siren Song merit while using this voice. (The Siren Song merit causes the changeling's voice to have an enchanting quality. Anyone who hears her unmodified voice (e.g., not a recording, not through speakers) takes -2 to all actions as long as they still hear her voice.) This token may only be activated if it is holding the voice of someone other than the user. Voices may be transferred through pledges if the token is held while the pledge is struck. Action: Instant Drawback: After the user's voice reverts, it becomes coarse and ugly. The user gets a -2 to all social rolls where she uses her voice until the next sunrise or sunset. Catch: Locket releases the voice and takes the user's voice until it is release, replaced, or after a year and a day. The user gets the Mute flaw while the voice is lost.
Interactions with Players
Mami Wata is a useful NPC for players who have nowhere else to go. She is ultimately very flexible in how she can help players, but she is most useful as a way to grant helpful boons to players or to arrange necessary situations. Through her pledges, she has a wide net of influence over both mortals and other changelings. But she is ultimately looking out for herself, so players should beware of the deals they make with Mami Wata and it is a poor but perhaps unavoidable decision to agree to an unnamed future favor.
Mami Wata is also useful as a healer, with skill in both practical and magical medicine. She is familiar with hedge fruits (magical fruit that grow in the Hedge, the dangerous maze-like space between our world and the world of the Others) and she precisely has a Goblin Vow with starfish for their regenerative powers.
Mami Wata is not politically oriented despite her social leanings and nominal membership of the Spring Court and is good as a neutral party here.
If the players manage to break through Mami Wata's business shell and become genuinely friendly with her, Mami Wata becomes motherly. She has a hard heart but it's because she lived a hard life even before she was kidnapped by the Others and turned into a changeling. Her trust is hard-earned and easily lost.
Adventure Hooks
Mami Wata is low on her store of hedge fruits and asks the players to go into the Hedge to gather more.
Strange things are happening in town and young men are dying in bizarre and gruesome ways. Suspicion turns to Mami Wata, for she has in the past helped women who turn to her take horrible vengeance on abusers and cheaters, but never to this extent and in these numbers.
Mortals and changelings who have taken out contracts with Mami Wata are dropping like flies around town and the mute stranger just arrived in town is looking suspicious.
Mami Wata asks the players to protect a changeling for the next twenty-four hours. From what, she doesn't say, only that this changeling bought protection from her.
In her younger days, Mami Wata seduced a young but wealthy sailor. She promised to hold onto his money and property while he was at sea and upon his return, they will marry. She then conspired to cause his ship to sink. But now, decades later, the ship is back and moving slowly towards shore. Once the sailor steps on land, she will be bound to marry him, in whatever condition he is in. The players are asked to prevent this in any way possible.
Mami Wata's Keeper (the fae Other who originally kidnapped her when she was mortal) has been appearing to her in visions. In a panic, she is calling in every favor, every promise, no matter how old, to protect her from the Keeper who she is convinced is closing in. But could this be a ruse? If so, whose?
For those unfamiliar with Changeling the Lost
Changeling the Lost fully embraces the idea of contract magic. This is embodied in the powers changelings can have, called Contracts, and in the pledges they strike with one another.
Changelings have access to powers called Contracts. Each contract is made with an element or concept. For example, the Contracts of Fleeting Spring is a standard contract struck with desire, the emotion of spring. Each contract is made up of five clauses, specific and increasingly powerful ways in which the concept of desire has agreed to allow changelings to manipulate or use its powers. With Contracts of Fleeting Spring 2, a changeling has access to Cupid's Eye and Growth of the Ivy, allowing her to gain insight into another's desire and possibly change it as she wills.
A pledge is a magically enforced contract that can convey magical boons while exacting terrible punishments. For example, the standard pledge for a motley (the group of players) has them swearing into an alliance. As long as each swearer maintains this promise, they all get a bonus dot to one Skill and two bonus dots in Merits, like +1 to Stealth and +2 Resources meaning the magic enforcing the contract helps hide them when sneaking around and helps money flow into their bank accounts. But if one of the swearer breaks the promise such as by betraying the group, that changeling not only loses the boons granted by the pledge, but the Wyrd will work to expose and bankrupt the changeling (called Poisoning of Boons). Any type of being can enter a pledge with a changeling, including mortal humans who may or may not know the full extent of what they are getting into. Mami Wata is built to strike and use these pledges to her profit.
Pledges are also the basis of the Goblin Vow merit. This merit allows the changeling to strike spontaneous one-time pledges with elements or concepts, similar to the Contracts that fuel their magic. The nature of these pledges mean that the boon to the changeling must be minor or short-lived while possibly exacting a terrible price, but they are useful for emergencies. For example, Mami Wata has Goblin Vow (Starfish), which means that she can strike a deal in the presence of starfish (which is why she always carries one around in her bag) for a relevant power or benefit. When a player changeling under Mami Wata's protection comes stumbling into her door late at night, with a bullet wound in his side, Mami Wata can call upon the power of the starfish to heal the wound and regenerate the flesh. In return, Mami Wata promises that she will walk the beach at low tide every evening for the next week and pick up every starfish she sees and return it to the sea. If she neglects her promise, a powerful curse will fall upon her.
Last edited by DS on Wed Aug 20, 2014 2:01 am, edited 5 times in total.
figuring out which abilities go good with the idea and how many levels and spreading the skill points...I may just copy the NPC i made for this contest when i did it over at WotC
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