Hey all,
I’m busilly working on a new campaign for my players, and part of the crux of it works like this:
7th sea is based in a very cinematic swashbucklery world with some minor magical additions (magic is far from commonplace, and very predictable; there’s ‘given’ magical effects people can do.). The Italy nation (Vodacce) has fate magic; their women, if they have the skill, can twist fate and luck to achieve certain ends, or to bless and curse others.
The fate witches are kept as second-class citizens (though lord only knows how. It’s a part of the game I’ve never really understood). They aren’t allowed personal freedom, and are kept in ‘gilded cages’, as it were.
Part of the uber-plot for the campaign is the idea that the major villain, realizing that having total control over the fate witches would be incredibly powerful, also figures out that simply killing the ones he can’t control is problematic, as, well, they control / manipulate fate.
Okay, so my thought is, he finds a way to secretly -unite- all the fate witches under one banner, having them all work towards one goal. The problem with this is that Vodacce is so (purposefully) machiavellian that the idea of getting many, many powerful people to agree with each other, let alone work together towards a goal, is madness.
So, I ask all aspiring arch-villains out there; if you wanted to pull this ‘conspiracy of fate’ together, how would you do it? I’ll try to answer any world / campaign questions as they come up to smooth things along.
Off the top of my head, you’d need to make sure the witches each thought they were on top–it might be best to not make it a conspiracy but rather a massive simultaneous suggestion to the court witches.
Would he really need all, or just a majority?
Are you running it straight-up or are you planning on making use of some of the unexplained random crap that shows up in 7th Sea? I mean, an uber-villain putting together this kind of plot just SCREAMS Syernth mind-control artifact–plus it gives the heroes lots of chances for three-way chases–them after the villain, the local Vodacce forces after the heroes at the suggestion of the fate witch who was “persuaded” to help the villain.
As far as I understand it, Fate witchery isn’t all that powerful in the short term, so “control” is manifested as “you work for me, I don’t kill you. You COULD curse me, but if I find out, you’re dead and I’m just cursed.”
Man, I miss 7th Sea now. I was in a game last year and the year before that was completely wild–we hit upon the idea of some of our Legend of the Five Rings characters showing up in a crossover game, so we had a Phoenix-clan noblewoman sage (my wife) and her silent-but-deadly longbow-wielding Crane clan samurai husband (me) hook up with a Vodacce trader, an Inish diplomats-wizard, a rogue Cressen-raised fate witch, and a Eisen prince with a dracheneisen lance. Yeah, it ended up being slightly insane–nothing like creating one’s own swordsman school and grandmastering it over the course of the campaign, or abusing the mook-killing and panache rules in 7th Sea to do things like “I’m going to fire five arrows into that crowd of mooks. On each of my four panache actions.”
May I begin by saying, that is a magnificent Username/Topic combo? 
I’ve run 7th Sea campaigns myself, and while I made substantial changes to the setting I did keep Vodaccean culture pretty much as it was. It’s been a while though, so forgive me if I forget the details.
First off, weren’t there three broad categories of NPCs in Vodacce: Men, their wives (Fate Witches), and their lovers (courtesans)? I remember spinning a tale in my game about one man’s wife and courtesan who were in cahoots. The courtesan was secretly teaching the Fate Witch to read… Actually, I think illiteracy is a huge factor in the Fate Witches’ subjugation. They’re already isolated by society, and not being able to exchange letters makes things worse.
As well, IIRC Fate Witches aren’t able to twist fate to help themselves. I don’t remember if that was an absolute, or if it just risked great backlash. The witches themselves are therefore expected to work their magic in favor of their house, but technically, that’s not required. They just can’t benefit themselves directly.
In a roundabout way, I guess I’m suggesting that you work in courtesans and remember that while Fate Witches are supposed to serve their husbands, they don’t have to. If you could bypass the men and convince a large enough group of both types of women that there was a higher cause that would benefit all of them indirectly, Bob’s your uncle and the world is yours 