Usurers Guild

"Nothing in the underworld is free."

Pathos is the currency of the realm. The Oblai may be the coin of Stygia, but it is largely reserved for larger purchases. The currency of the people is the energy they all possess, and need to exist. Legionnaires get paid in pathos, guild workers perform their arts for pathos, and in general, whenever you need something done, a few points of energy or emotion are all it takes to grease a few palms.

For every pathos transaction, there is a Usurer, what one might call the moneychangers of the underworld. Usury is the study and manipulation of the flow of energy within and between wraiths and indeed all things. A Usurer can transfer pathos instantly from one wraith to another making this form of compensation and exchange viable and indeed commonplace. The users themselves generally take a small percentage of each transaction and as such have become quite wealthy and influential as a guild.

An experienced Usurer can not only facilitate the exchange of pathos, but indeed all energy forms. With a touch a usurer can replenish your power pool, heal the most grievous of wounds and strengthen you against your enemies. Yet with that same touch they can drain away your life essence to its last drop and liquidate your entire corpus and pathos pool into their own stores, leaving you naught but an empty husk that can do nothing but fall to oblivion. A Usurer can also perform Absorption and devour the soul in its entirety. It is because of this great power and fear that the guild goes out of its way to emphasize it’s fairness, precision and strict adherence to any agreements made.

Usury contains the powers of Exchange Pathos, Exchange Health, and Exchange Energy. This Arconai is arguably one of the more powerful. Being able to drain and replenish your pathos pool can be exceptionally useful to keep you in the fight longer at the expense of your fellows. Exchange energy also makes a rather devastating end to a defeated enemy when you drain away their last pool point and watch them crumble to dust. Currently only Users can perform Absorption. While this is a quick means to grow your pathos pool and learn new Arconai, the steady rise in angst can get difficult to manage both personal RP wise and socially IG.

Since everyone knows you’re a usurer, there will be many who both want to use you and won't trust you. Many wraith who were Vampires in life tend toward having this art. They make very solid Usurers, but some wraiths can't forget what they once were.

With a Usurer, you never know if they are going to top you off, or devour you whole, and the uncertainty makes them hard to trust until they can prove themselves. Vampires, with their familiarity at draining health into power will often take Usury at their transition into a Wraith.