Magpie

“I send my people into subspace every few months to raid the Magpie clusters I’ve charted. They act scandalized when I tell them it’s profitable, but don’t let their pearl-clutching fool you—every one of them pockets something on the way out. That’s the beauty of a Magpie: you never have to teach anyone how to steal. You just give them a nudge, and they help themselves.”

— Madame Soki Noles, Explaining quarterly ‘inventory recovery’ missions

Description

Magpies are Tertia aligned with Greed, though they represent not calculated greed but the compulsive, acquisitive itch of kleptomania. They appear as a dazzling, disorienting flurry of feathers and collapsing wings—never resolving into a proper body. Their form resembles a kaleidoscope caught mid-flutter, accompanied by a constant susurration of whispering feathers.

They feed not on wealth itself but on the desire to possess. Thieves, looters, and hoarders attract them like sparks attract accelerants. More unusually, Magpies can feed on the “residue of theft” left on stolen objects. A datachip stolen in a corporate heist, an earring snatched from a nightclub floor, a sentimental trinket quietly pocketed—all carry psychic fingerprints of transgression. Magpies hoard such items in “nests” deep in subspace, where they swirl around them like vultures around carrion.

When latched onto a sentient’s shadow, Magpies exacerbate compulsive stealing dramatically. They push the host to want, take, hoard—and paradoxically feel apathetic about what they already possess. This ensures constant turnover: the victim steals more, cares less about their stolen items, and is easy to pilfer from in return. In subspace, Magpies are cowardly hit-and-run scavengers, striking at the weak and vanishing with a jingling psychic laugh.

Prophylactic

Magpies can be avoided or disrupted by:

• Inventory discipline — meticulous record-keeping breaks their feeding cycle
• Honesty rituals — admitting desire reduces their leverage
• Group travel — Magpies prefer lone targets
• Anti-kleptomania psychotropics
• Carrying worthless ‘decoy’ items — Magpies swarm toward low-value, high-residue trinkets

Magpies rarely fight; disrupting their theft-behavior starves them quickly.

Utility

Magpies are extremely useful to both RAIs and kthonikers—for exactly one reason:

Larceny

Magpies can steal anything small enough to fit in a pocket and psychically “own” it long enough to stash it in their nests. Kthonikers exploit this to generate a steady income: stolen jewelry, valuables, Chits, datachips, or small tech simply appear in their pockets… thanks to their feathered friends.

Resonant Feathers

Magpie feathers shimmer with a peculiar psychic resonance:

• They make items seem more valuable
• They enhance bargaining rolls
• They subtly distort the buyer’s sense of worth

This is the foundation of the infamous Wantbox—a wooden case lined with Magpie feather-fiber. Anything placed in it gains a glamour of desirability for psionically vulnerable individuals.

Nest-Raiding

The nests themselves are treasure-troves of minor stolen goods.
Soki Noles has maps of dozens.

Magpie’s Hesitation

Regular; Resisted by Will

A Magpie presses its greed into the target’s subspace shadow. The victim becomes reluctant to expend resources—hoarding instead of acting.

Effect: The target must roll Will to use or expend any limited resource (ammo, medkits, batteries, consumables).

Duration: 30 seconds

Cost: 4

Maintenance: 2

Magpie’s Attraction

Regular; Resisted by Will

The target becomes fixated on a specific object designated by the supplicant. If they fail the Will roll, they must attempt to acquire it—legally or not.

Effect: Obsession with acquiring a chosen object; -3 to resist attempts at larceny or bargaining

Duration: 1 minute

Cost: 5

Maintenance: 2

Prerequisite: Magpie’s Hesitation

Filch

Special; No Resistance if item is unattended

Summons a Magpie to steal an item psychically “owned” by a target. The theft is extradimensional.

Limit: Must be small enough to fit in a pocket

Effect: Item is transported to the Magpie’s subspace nest

Detection: Owner rolls Per-based IQ or Detect Anomaly to notice missing item

Cost: 6

Prerequisite: Magpie’s Attraction

Kthonikers famously use Filch to remove a single round from an opponent’s chamber before a duel.