Monotony Money [Unknown Armies]

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Monotony Money [Unknown Armies]

It’s sometimes referred to as ‘Meta-Money’ by those members of the occult underground who know something about roleplaying games (a surprising number of them don’t).  It typically takes the form of a piece of fake $20 currency from a certain board game, suitably inscribed with an increasing number of sigils and mystic runes; the only rule for the writing seems to be that it also has to involve the number 20 somehow.  Nobody knows who started the first one; but you just know when a proffered piece of Monotony Money is the real deal.

To use it, take a pen and inscribe your own sigil or squiggle or whatever on the Money.  Then openly hand it to somebody else and say “Here. Take my twenty.”  If you are a Player Character (PC) or a powerful Gamemaster Character (GMC) then your next roll is automatically a simple success: use ‘20’ as the roll when comparing simple successes.  That particular piece of Monotony Money is now permanently lost to you. It’s perfectly fine to hand the Money around to the rest of your party, but eventually it has to be handed off to somebody who may not be able to use it.

But if you realize that you can’t use Monotony Money, though… well.  That’s a Self (3) stress check, right there, as the realization sinks in that the universe itself thinks that you don’t really matter.  This is going to be academic for PCs, by definition; but most GMCs will react very badly to the news.  And if they fail the stress test, they’re going to lash out at the PC that rubbed their nose in it.