There is a general stat tracked, in the form of the Alarm stat. If this stat hits 10, Director Piggot will find out about Taylor's powerset, and she will be jailed for using her Master powers on civilians and heroes. This stat can be lowered by performing heroic actions, or by manipulating heroes and the general populace into respecting and adoring her.
Additionally, each recruited character has four stats.
The first stat, Lust, represents how much attraction the character feels towards Taylor. This stat typically starts at 0, but can start out at positive numbers if the character is attracted to Taylor, or at negative numbers if the character dislikes the idea of having sex with Taylor.
Generally, the higher this number goes, the further the character will be willing to go with Taylor and the more they will enjoy putting themselves in sexual situations with her. At low ranks of one to three, the character may be reluctant to enter into full sexual situations with Taylor, and will prefer lesser activities such as kissing or fondling. At medium ranks of four to six, characters may be happy to participate in sexual situations, unless their personal circumstances (e.g. having an existing relationship with someone else) dictate otherwise.
As ranks in Lust increase, characters become more willing to explore their sexuality (specifically with regards to Taylor unless noted otherwise) and are more open to allowing Taylor to play with them as she likes.
The second stat, Loyalty, represents how much personal loyalty a character holds towards Taylor. At low ranks, this manifests as increasingly strong friendly feelings towards Taylor, which may transition into romantic feelings as Lust increases. At higher ranks, this can manifest in surprising ways, with character's loyalties to Taylor overtaking their loyalties to other people such as friends, family and organisations.
Increasing Loyalty decreases the chance that taking actions with a character will increase Alarm. Additionally, at high levels— eight or higher— most characters will be willing to kill in defence of Taylor, and some characters may be willing to kill at Taylor's command.
The third stat is a character's Personal Stat. This stat is unique to each character, and represents a particular path that character may go down. This stat may change depending on Taylor's growing relationship with that girl, but will not decrease unless actions are chosen specifically to decrease it.
The higher this stat is, the more that stat will affect a person's mind. For instance, Madison's personal stat is Submission. The higher her Submission grows, the more she is willing to place herself beneath Taylor's control. At low ranks, this may manifest as Madison showing off for Taylor's gaze, or letting Taylor play with her in situations she is uncomfortable with. At higher ranks, Madison may be willing to allow Taylor increasing levels of control over her life.
This stat will always start at 1 unless otherwise notified.
Lastly, there is a character's Affection stat. Largely a combination of a character's Lust and Loyalty stat, but also separate to the two of them, a character's Affection stat represents that character's romantic feelings towards Taylor.
At low ranks of Affection, the character has a noticeable crush on Taylor. At higher ranks, the character may transition towards falling in love with Taylor. This Affection stat cannot be manipulated by Taylor's power, meaning it is the measure of the character's romantic relationship with Taylor.
This stat is not tracked from the get-go; it is only tracked when the character enters into a romantic relationship with Taylor.
Spoiler: Outdated Version
This version of Heaven and Hell's stats is outdated, written before I had a good view of where the quest would be going. The description of these stats were written under the impression that Taylor would be using her power rather differently. As this may mislead people when they consider what these stats mean, I have rewritten them as above, but I am leaving this version open so people can see the changes made.
The first stat, Lust, tracks how much influence Taylor has over the character, on a scale of 1-10. When their Lust hits 2, they are attracted to Taylor, and when their Lust hits 5, they will willingly enter Taylor's harem. If you increase it beyond that, well. You'll find out. Or not.
A character's Lust can be increased either by entering into sexual situations with a willing character (typically someone with a Lust of 3-4 will be willing, although it may not progress into actual sex until they hit Lust 5), or by using Taylor's Master powers on them.
The second stat is Loyalty. This represents how far the character is willing to go for Taylor. Most characters start at 1, or indifferent; Sophia, Emma and Madison start at 0, or actively working against Taylor. At high levels of Loyalty, the characters will be willing to go increasingly further for Taylor. At Loyalty 6 or higher, some characters may even be willing to kill for her— and at Loyalty 9 or 10, most characters will be willing to do so.
A character's Loyalty can be increased by the usual methods; ensuring a character's loyalty. Simply spending time with someone can slowly increase their Loyalty. Performing actions the character approves of can raise it, too. Finally, performing tasks for a character— such as arresting someone who hurt a member of their family, or helping them secure enough income to ensure their family's stability— will also increase their Loyalty.
The final stat is unique to each character, and represents in part that character's personal feelings about Taylor, and in some cases may represent that character's particular fetish. For example, Sophia's personal stat is Intrigue; the higher her Intrigue is rated, the more she wants to know Taylor and follower her around. In turn, Madison's personal stat is Submission; the higher her Submission, the more submissive she is to Taylor, and the more she will allow Taylor to dominate her.
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Heaven or Hell
Characters
Taylor Hebert
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Powers:
Thought Manipulation [Master Effect]
[Allows the user to manipulate the emotions of those it's used on. Increases admiration, affection and respect when used.]
[Flaw: Has diminished effects when used on more than one person at a time.]
[Bonus Effect: Has increased effect on women. Increases lust, loyalty, and personal stats when used on women.]
[Flaw: If used for more than 90 minutes on a single character, victim's emotional state is reflected in user's emotional state for 24 hours.]
[Bonus Effect: Synergizes with power [Unit Sending]. Provides user with immunity and victims with passive resistance to Master effects involving emotional manipulation, amplification or sensing. Resistance increases with emotional closeness with user.]
[Unit Sending]
[Allows user to track location, status and emotional state of characters loyal to user.]
[Flaw: Can induce crippling headaches if used for longer than thirty minutes within a twenty-four hour period.]
[Bonus Effect: Passively allows user to feel when high levels of emotion are active around user or characters loyal to user.]
[Bonus Effect: Synergizes with power [Thought Manipulation]. Allows power [Thought Manipulation] to be used without active effort.]
Sophia Hess
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Powers:
Shadow Stride
[Allows the user to melt into shadow, causing intangibility when used.]
[Flaw: Has vulnerability to electricity. Causes damage, stun and effect end when targeted with electricity.]
[Bonus Effect: Allows movement when using Shadow Stride.]
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Stats:
Affection: 6
Lust: 6
Loyalty: 5
Intrigue: 6
Emma Barnes
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Stats:
Affection: 2
Lust: 5
Loyalty: 3
Devotion: 5
Madison Clements
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Stats:
Affection: 10 (12)
Lust: 6 (12)
Loyalty: 8 (12)
Submission: 9 (15)
Victoria Dallon
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Powers:
Force Barrier
[Provides passive immunity to damage.]
[Flaw: Effect ends for a period of time equivalent to damage absorbed, up to .5 seconds.]
[Bonus Effect: Passively enhances users' physical speed and strength.]
[Bonus Effect: Allows the character to fly.]
Aura of Glory
[Extends a manipulable aura around the user, allowing them to affect the emotions of people within their aura's radius.]
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Stats:
Affection: 5
Lust: 6
Loyalty: 6
Theatricality: 3
Amy Dallon
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Powers:
Biokinesis
[Allows the user to manipulate the bodies of organic lifeforms.]
[Flaw: Can only be used when touching the lifeform in question.]
[Bonus Effect: Power can be activated without conscious thought.]
[Flaw: Power grants limited intrinsic knowledge. Character is limited by external knowledge of biology.]
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Stats:
Affection: 4
Lust: 3
Loyalty: 3
Personal Stat: 2
Charlotte
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Stats:
Lust: 3
Loyalty: 4
Servitude: 1
Aisha
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Stats:
Lust: 1
Loyalty: 3
Pampering: 1
Spoiler: Miscellania
Current bonuses:
LeonTrollski: 1 20% bonus, Comprehension.
Kinematics: 1 20% bonus, Openness.
Kinematics: 2 20% bonuses, Stars.
Kinematics: 1 10% bonus, Revelation.
Kinematics: 2 10% bonuses, Who Knew.
Kinematics: 1 15% bonus, Theories & Queries.
Kinematics: 1 10% bonus, unnamed Taylor/Madison omake.
aaronexus: 2 10% bonuses, How Lisa Got Had.
Jysan: 2 10% bonuses, Happiness is to Love and Be Loved.
BastetsChosen: 2 10% bonuses, Amy Dallon: PI.
BastetsChosen: 2 20% bonuses, Did You Hear.
Navrin: 4 10% bonuses, PR Performance, Taylor Lessons and For Happiness!.
Gaemnomut: 1 10% bonus, Perspectives.
insignia33: 2 10% bonuses, Communication.
HelplessKitten: 2 10% bonuses, unnamed Taylor/Sophia omake.
ShoulderDevil: 2 15% bonuses, Incomprehension.
Poliamida: 1 15% bonus, Mother Knows Best.
Anonymous: 2 10% bonuses, Sparkly Pink Pen.
Dragolord19d: 2 10% bonuses, A Surprise. More miscellania:
Event chart, maintained by Kinematics.
Shipping chart, drawn and probably not maintained very often by myself.
1.2
> Success chance: 90%
> Necessary roll: 10. Rolled: 26. Success.
It's a lot more difficult than people might expect to manipulate someone into being servile to you, even if you have superpowers to help you along in the process.
It's easy to underestimate the challenges involved. Everyone is always too busy being abhorred at the thought of manipulating someone like this to really think through the logistical challenges involved.
And there are a lot of them.
It's difficult to twist someone who loathes you into feeling attracted to you. You can only affect some emotions people feel, but it's hard to coax them out sometimes. When someone is looking at you and feeling not much besides sadism and boredom, it's hard to try and bring up their buried feelings of lust. You're working against someone's strongest impulses, after all.
That's one of the reasons you choose Madison as your first target. She doesn't feel as sadistic as Emma and Sophia often do when they see you, and there's a lot of suppressed lust in there — although, disappointingly, not very much of it is aimed at you.
She's also not as close to the other two as they are to each other. Emma follows Sophia around like a loyal little puppy, yipping at her heels and never letting her out of her sight for more than a moment. Their schedules synch up oddly well, or maybe not so oddly. It wouldn't surprise you if Emma had slipped the school's admin staff some cash to make sure their schedules aligned as much as possible.
Madison, on the other hand, spends more of her time drifting between the various upper-class circles of the school ("Upper class", you think to yourself with a snort— like there were more than five or six people in the school who could be described as more than lower middle class).
That's good and bad for you. Bad, because that means that Madison isn't always around for you to slowly shape. Good, because it means that she isn't always around Emma and Sophia when they turn up to push you around— and that means you can afford to go a bit further than you can when they're around.
Take right now, for instance. Emma and Sophia have had their fill of you for now, after stealing your pencil and notebook during English class earlier. Ordinarily, you would probably be more upset about this than you are, but the wound is balmed when you notice that when they left together after class, Madison didn't follow them.
Madison typically doesn't bother to pick on you when the other two aren't around, preferring to ignore your existence entirely instead. Once, that used to sting, but now it's just the perfect opportunity. She's too busy focusing on one of the upperclassmen to pay any attention to you or what you're doing.
It's surprisingly easy to pick out her lust from here. Or not so surprising, really— objectively, the man she's talking to does look fairly attractive, for a guy. Maybe that's why she's wearing such a low-cut shirt, despite it being the middle of winter. Madison's good at showing just enough to keep you interested.
One of the best things about being both a Thinker and a Master is that you don't need to concentrate on your power once you've managed to get inside your target's head. A part of your consciousness remains focused on controlling it, but by and large, your power handles the bulk of the work for you.
Which is good, because if you had to remain focused on it, you wouldn't be able to not-so-covertly watch Madison as she shifts restlessly beside the guy, a faint flush beginning to spread across her cheeks.
She's growing increasingly bored as the guy rambles on about— something. Football, maybe— tries are a football term, aren't they? Whatever, it's something much duller than the upcoming show anyway. Madison clearly agrees, as her attention wanders away from him, glancing casually over the quad until her attention falls on you. Her lips curve into a small smile as she catches you looking at her. Good. It's already taking root in her mind, then.
You don't look away. For a few moments, you force your view to remain steady on her face as you slowly pull on her loyalty. The effect isn't strong, and it normally wouldn't hold for long, but you don't need it to do much— you're not looking to buy her eternal loyalty just yet.You just want her to feel enough to stop her from remembering that she actually dislikes you for a few minutes, and allow her to enjoy the pleasant warmth you're sending coursing through her.
