Mason Beck Fiction

In my Magnus Archives TTRPG campaign, The End of the Institute, all staff have disappeared, leaving behind a fractured organization struggling to rebuild. A new departmental structure has emerged, and each department now offers junior roles that players can choose for a small mechanical bonus.

Below you’ll find the departments, their junior positions, and the custom Position Perk Abilities created for each player. In a few cases, two players selected the same position, but their perks were written to be distinct, ensuring every character brings something uniquely their own to the Institute’s uncertain revival.

The Archives
Stores, catalogs, and investigates supernatural statements.
Junior Role: Assistant Archivist
Position Perks:
Tie the Cord: You gain an asset to History, Research, or Investigation rolls pertaining to associating your current situation to a historical event or to a recorded statement you have read. Enabler.
Compel the Statement: (Not available immediately in Session One until the Archives are back in operation) Cost: 1 Intellect point per Level of the target
You’ve learned from the best and know the techniques to get answers out of those that do not wish to reveal anything. You ask a pointed question or make an unexpected comment and cause the target to answer a question asked or implied of your choosing. The answer may not be what you are wanting, it may not be direct, but it will be true. You can only use this ability on the same target once per day. Action.

Junior Role: Assistant Archivist
Position Perks:
Approximate Knowledge: You don’t always have the right answer, but you usually know something related to the answer. Once per day, you may make a roll relating to a research or investigation task and on a success, you discover or remember a related piece of information to what you are investigating. It may be helpful or it could just be interesting.

Order from Chaos: A pile of old newspapers or a hoard of scattered documents may be daunting to others, but you only see opportunity. You are a pro at categorization, indexing, and creating clever taxonomies to make an organized, archive ready, catalogue out of what seems to be random data. If you spend at least one hour per box of files or GB of data, and make a successful research roll, all tasks using this specifically catalogued data by you or your team are eased by one step.

Research & Investigation
Handles fieldwork, interviewing statement-givers, and hunting down corroborating evidence.
Junior Role: Investigator-in-Training
Position Perks:
Find the Stash: Everybody has something to hide and you know where they like to hide it. You gain an asset to rolls involving searching for objects, people, or rooms hidden by mundane means.

Pin the Tail: They always run. But that doesn’t bother you. Once you have gotten on their trail, you’re hard to shake. You gain an asset to rolls involving keeping up with, track of, and hidden from a target that you are following.

Library & Artefact Storage
Catalogues books, letters, and cursed artefacts; maintains restricted collections.
Junior Role: Artefact Handler
Position Perks:
Containment Kit: The Institute is no stranger to potentially dangerous objects and would not send you out unprepared. You have the tools and equipment to handle all but the largest artifacts. Within your kit you have a roll of thick plastic wrap, several protective gloves of different materials, padded envelopes, zippered rubber bags, a can of spray foam, a box of baking soda, and a small fire extinguisher. You also have a concealable gps tagger for items too big, unwieldy, or that have a tendency to elude your containment. You gain one asset to handle artefacts safely but do not receive an asset for using them.

Encyclopedic Recall: You have been studying artifacts, their history, myths and legends, and their effects for years. When faced with an artifact, the effects of an artifact, or some other evidence pointing towards the presence or use of an artifact, once per day you may make a history, research, or religion roll with a difficulty of the level of the artifact. If successful you find or recall one piece of information for every 2 levels of the artifact to help identify or find the artifact.

Conservation & Preservation
Maintains fragile statements, recordings, and artefacts; prevents degradation.
Junior Roles: Conservation Assistant • Archivist’s Technician • Audio/Visual Support

Security
Formed in response to the disappearance and break-in. Charged with defending the Institute from both mundane and supernatural threats.
Junior Roles: Security Trainee • Watchman • Facilities Assistant

Administration
Manages finances, staff records, scheduling, and external communications.
Junior Role: Junior Administrator
Position Perks:
Technicality: Policies and rules are your bread and butter. Tasks involving navigating bureaucracy, legal matters, or regulation are eased by one step. Once per day you may make a knowledge roll in one of these matters and, on a success, immediately find the loophole you are looking for to ease your next task relating to navigating them.

Name Drop: Some study ancestry, you study org charts. Once per day you may make a history roll and on a success, you remember the name and basic details of a person of authority in the organization you are remembering. By using this name and their details, your social tasks with a member of that organization are eased for the remainder of the current interaction.

Junior Role: Junior Administrator
Position Perks:
Reconciliation: You are on the front lines of Human Relations. You’re a people person and you are no stranger to interpersonal conflict. You gain an additional asset on social checks to calm emotions, resolve a conflict, or diffuse a tense situation.

Take Charge: When things aren’t going to plan and the situation looks dire, someone needs to step up and take control. That person is you. Once per day, you may take an action to give a battle plan or other instructions to your allies. Until the start of your next turn, all of your allies within short distance have an asset on all tasks and may act as if one step higher on the damage track, rallied by your call to action.

Medical & Welfare
Provides care to staff and manages fallout from encounters with the supernatural.
Junior Role: First Aid Attendant
Position Perks:
Equipment: Combat Medic Bag – Grants an asset to reducing the stress of another character or to moving that character up the damage track. 

You have enough supplies at your disposal to be able to quickly patch up a comrade to allow them to function as though they are one level higher on the damage track for one hour. You may only do this once until you restock back at the institute’s facilities.

Only available out of combat. 

May only grant the asset to oneself with the assistance of another character.

Facilities: Available after cleanup and the space has been renovated. Acknowledging the evidence of what has transpired, the Trustees will retrofit a room at the back entrance into a private, fully stocked operating room. You have all of the benefits of the Combat Medic Bag within the facility. You halve the time required to reduce stress, move up the damage track, or recover pool points of the character you are treating.