Non Cliche Supernatural Professions

[DusterBoy]

Re: Non Cliche Supernatural Professions

 

I really like the Dealer in Rare Books/Antiquities idea. However, it needn't be occult/new age/mind-body-spirit books. How about rare first editions or other books that are incredibly hard to find. How he finds this stuff should be worth a few plot hooks, eh?

[Spence]

Re: Non Cliche Supernatural Professions

 

An RPG game designer for an occult based game like CoC that discovers it isn't really fiction.

[Karmakaze]

Re: Non Cliche Supernatural Professions

 

How about a temp? Temps get sent lots of places, and if they're working the shorter contracts, they can have a fair amount of schedule freedom (turn down enough jobs and the agency will stop calling you, but the bar is set pretty low). And temps are often considered to be expendable...

 

Back when I was temping, I noted a few categories of jobs. (I'll leave temp-to-perm and the amazing extending contract out since they're not as relevant here).

• Fill In - someone's out on sick/bereavement/maternity leave and there's a fairly fixed timeframe. (The reason why the someone is out and/or missing can provide a hook);
• Special Project - the employer has some sort of crunch project (usually filing, running reports, moving, a big presentation, etc.) and the contract ends when the project is done. (the special project could easily be nefarious, and who'll miss a temp anyway? They just tell the agency he never showed up.)
• Get Me Out Of Here - (also known as This Job Was Open For A Reason)The internal candidate in this job quit. Nobody else internal will take the transfer. A couple of temps before you have been fired or quit in the course of mere weeks. (Extra credit if one of them quit by not showing up after the first day). Everyone seems pathetically grateful to see you and anxiously asks "You're not going to leave, are you?" These are all danger signs that there is Something Wrong With This Job. (It's usually a bad manager, but it could be anything the plot hook requires.)

[Gawain]

Re: Non Cliche Supernatural Professions

 

An RPG game designer for an occult based game like CoC that discovers it isn't really fiction.

 

In the same vein, a novelist who discovers that what he writes is more real than is healthy. (I've always thought that a character based on Stephen King would be interesting to play.)

[FenrisUlf]

Re: Non Cliche Supernatural Professions

 

In the big city' date=' garbage collector (all kinds of interesting stuff gets thrown out in the trash, up to and including corpses), or sewer/utility tunnel maintenance worker (that's where all the weird beasties hang out or pass through to their lairs).[/quote']

 

Heh -- in an old Vampire:the Masquerade game, I remember how the city's sanitation and sewer departments were being run by the local Nosferatu (insanely ugly vampires). What better way to (a) get power in the local community* and ( make sure you've got all the primo sewer real esate locked up?

 

* -- When the hoity-toity Ventrue and Toreador didn't treat the Nos with enough respect, they just started dumping all the city's garbage in front of their nice big homes. Negotiations went very smoothly indeed after that...

[Shigeru]

Re: Non Cliche Supernatural Professions

 

Heh -- in an old Vampire:the Masquerade game, I remember how the city's sanitation and sewer departments were being run by the local Nosferatu (insanely ugly vampires). What better way to (a) get power in the local community* and ( make sure you've got all the primo sewer real esate locked up?

 

* -- When the hoity-toity Ventrue and Toreador didn't treat the Nos with enough respect, they just started dumping all the city's garbage in front of their nice big homes. Negotiations went very smoothly indeed after that...

 

 

That sounds like it could spawn a funny Sopranos spoof.

[Curufea]

Re: Non Cliche Supernatural Professions

 

In the same vein' date=' a novelist who discovers that what he writes is more real than is healthy. (I've always thought that a character based on Stephen King would be interesting to play.)[/quote']

 

Similar to that - see the movie "In the Mouth of Madness" which is about an insurance investigator looking into the disappearance of the above mentioned author.

[Susano]

Re: Non Cliche Supernatural Professions

 

Not sure if this is what you want, but allow me to present Sora-Hime the miko (Shino priestess): http://surbrook.devermore.net/original/pulp/sorahime.html

[Short Shot]

Re: Non Cliche Supernatural Professions

 

Someone who restores old places.

 

1) tracking down the "original" to put it back in place

2) Looking for original designs and finding hidden passages

3) researching legends associated with places.

4) Excuse for being hired to go to remote locations

5) restoring something have it result in freeing a demon/trap spirit, or even just opening a hidden passage

6) gaining contacts who deal in antiquities and rarities who then get him involved in something else.

[Egyptoid]

Re: Non Cliche Supernatural Professions

 

arcane computer sleuth.

 

he finds out if text files are really magical formulae.

determines if building the server over an indian burial ground will be a bad thing.

watch dogs novices looking for "real magic" via the internet.

has a web site site advertising his rescue services:

In over your head? Call 1-900-INT-SLEUTH

[Alric]

Re: Non Cliche Supernatural Professions

 

Reality TV Paranormal Investigators (think Sci-Fi's "Ghost Hunters")

 

What would happen if one of their investigations turned up a real supernatural threat? And how accurate and effective are their tools really?

 

Good way to get a team together.