The Creditor Framework

AX.GHW.14.03 - Running Contract Bloodlines

This document is GM-facing guidance for running campaigns with Marked PCs. It covers the five involvement levels, what moves the needle between them, how each contract type expresses attention, the Threshold alignment question for covenants with the Illuminated, and three modes of using the contract source as campaign architecture.

The Marked lineage is complete without this framework — the mechanics function, the perks work, the traditions are playable. What this provides is the material behind the engine: what happens when the Strained state isn't the end of the story, and what the GM needs to decide before the first session with a Marked player.

Part One: The Involvement Spectrum

Not every Hollow entity or Illuminated source is equally present in the Marked's life. Some contracts are quiet investments that surface only when the accounting demands it. Others are active relationships. The spectrum has five positions.

Level 1, Dormant

The contract is real. The other party knows the bloodline exists. No active attention is being paid.

When this applies: Prior to the Marked formalizing their tradition, or in the early sessions of a campaign where tradition development hasn't yet been significant. Also applies to Marked characters who are actively suppressing their lineage — not using the tradition, not engaging with the contract's logic.

What the Marked experiences: The lineage perks function normally. No sense of being observed. The contract is background noise at most — a quality that the Marked who knows what they are might describe as a closed door in a room they live in.

What the GM tracks: Nothing yet. This is the baseline.

Level 2, Aware

The contract source's attention is on this transaction. Not acting, not communicating — aware.

What moves the needle from Dormant to Aware: The Strained state. Every time the Marked uses their tradition in a scene and goes Strained, the contract source's attention is mechanically present. This is what the Strained state means: not just mechanical friction, but the awareness on the other end of the line that the practitioner is drawing on it heavily.

What the Marked experiences: The texture of the Strained state. Shadow-Bound practitioners feel observed and assessed — the cold at the edge of awareness that suggests something patient is taking stock. Light-Bound practitioners feel watched and evaluated — the warmth that implies a presence attending to what they do with the power and why. The mechanical effect (Disadvantage) is the same. The quality of the attention is not.

What the GM tracks: How often is this Marked going Strained? How far into the campaign are they? Repeated Strained use across multiple sessions without other triggers is still just Aware; it takes intentional action or significant tradition development to move it further.

Level 3, Interested

The contract source has formed opinions. Minor obligations surface. The accounting is no longer abstract.

What moves the needle from Aware to Interested:

For Hollow entities (Shadow-Bound compacts): - Using Invoke for the first time (any expression) — this is the direct draw; the entity notices because it cost them something - Using Binding/Compact Compulsion — the entity facilitated a binding; they were informed and they have a record - Reaching 3D or higher in the Hollow Pact — the investment is developing into something the entity can use; they are starting to think about returns - Stage 1 advancement (10 XP) — the Marked is growing; the entity has been patient and is beginning to have expectations

For Illuminated sources (Light-Bound covenants): - Any use of the tradition in a way that clearly aligns with the covenant's evident purpose — the Illuminated responds to right action, not just heavy use - Using Consecration to protect a space the covenant has standing interest in - Using Accord's Command against an entity the covenant specifically opposes - Stage 1 advancement — same as Hollow compacts, but the Illuminated's expectation is directional, not transactional

What the Marked experiences: Minor obligations surface. These don't arrive as formal demands; they arrive as something that feels like instinct — a strong pull toward a specific person or place, a dream with unusual clarity about a specific action, a coincidence that's a little too pointed to be entirely coincidental. The Marked may or may not recognize these as contract source communication. The ones who do tend to be better at managing what comes next.

What the GM tracks: One or two minor obligations in motion. These don't need timelines yet. They're the contract source's way of testing whether the Marked is still paying attention to the agreement they carry. Think of them as open accounts — the source isn't calling them in yet, but they're on the ledger.

Level 4, Engaged

The contract source is actively in the practitioner's life. Communication exists. Obligations have timelines.

What moves the needle from Interested to Engaged:

For Hollow entities: - Using Invoke repeatedly, or using Invoke at Threshold 4–5+; this is the heavy draw; the accounting has moved past casual - A Severe backlash from any Hollow Pact expression — the entity manifested and delivered a direct instruction; the relationship is now overt - Multiple uncompleted minor obligations accumulating — the entity's patience is finite; at some point they want the books balanced - Stage 2 advancement (25 XP) — the bloodline is now genuinely valuable; the entity has been waiting for this

For Illuminated sources: - Refusing a covenant expectation (as in Sacred Fire's Severe Accord's Command backlash) — the Illuminated registered the refusal; they are now paying close attention to whether it was a momentary failure or a pattern - Repeatedly using the tradition in ways misaligned with the covenant — the friction has accumulated into something the Illuminated cannot ignore - A significant act that either embodies or violates the covenant's core purpose - Stage 2 advancement — the covenant's investment has reached a point where the Illuminated expects it to be doing meaningful work

What the Marked experiences: Communication is real, not ambient. For Shadow-Bound practitioners: the Hollow entity makes demands — specific, concrete, bounded. Not "serve me forever" but "locate this person," "be present at this event," "deliver this message to this entity." The demands are always plausibly within reach; the entity has invested in this bloodline and wants returns, not failure. For Light-Bound practitioners: the Illuminated's expectations become explicit. The aligned/misaligned quality of the tradition becomes meaningful — Sacred Fire burns cleanly when the Marked is doing what the covenant requires, and develops friction when they aren't.

What the GM tracks: Active obligation queue. Keep a short list of what the contract source currently wants from the Marked. Each item should be specific, achievable, and meaningful — not a side quest, but something that connects to what the character is already doing or cares about. The best obligations are ones that complicate an existing situation rather than creating an entirely new one.

Level 5, Claiming

The contract source is exercising the compact's or covenant's primary terms. The original purpose of the agreement is being collected on.

When this applies: Campaign-scale. The Marked has reached Stage 3 (50 XP) or the campaign has arrived at a point where the contract's foundational terms are relevant. This is not a level the GM should reach by accident or in early play.

What the Marked experiences: The contract is no longer ambient. The source's involvement is the campaign. For Shadow-Bound practitioners: what was invested is being called in — not with apology or delay, but with the patience of something that planned this. For Light-Bound practitioners: the covenant's purpose is coming due — what the original agreement was made for is now happening, and the Marked is required to be what the covenant made them.

What the GM tracks: What were the original terms? This is where Session Zero preparation pays off. Before the campaign begins, GMs should have at least a rough answer to: what does this specific contract source actually want from this bloodline? The answer doesn't need to be detailed, but it needs to exist. The Claiming level is where that answer becomes the story.

Part Two: The Hollow Entity

Character and Logic

The Hollow entity operates on investment logic. They made a deliberate transfer — cold, purposeful — into a bloodline. Not a gift. Not a grant. A seeding of something that was meant to grow and return value. Their patience is real but bounded: they can wait for the right moment, but the accounting is always running.

This means the Hollow entity's attention is triggered by output more than alignment. They don't primarily care what the Marked does with the power. They care that it's developing, that it's being used, and that the bloodline is surviving and becoming more capable. A Shadow-Bound Marked who uses the Hollow Pact to do things the entity finds strategically contrary but is clearly developing their capacity is more interesting to a Hollow entity than a Marked who is morally upstanding but not spending the credit.

What the Hollow wants is to consume — but not prematurely. The entity that drains a bloodline dry loses its investment. The Hollow is patient because patience serves the consumption. This is not cruelty. It is the logic of something that feeds on scale and time.

What the Hollow Entity Wants

GMs must define what returns the entity is expecting. This menu provides options — most Hollow entities want one primary thing and one secondary thing:

Primary return types: - Information: Knowledge about a specific entity, space, event, or supernatural situation that the Hollow entity doesn't have access to directly. The Marked can go places and be in situations the entity cannot. - Influence: The Marked's developing social and professional position makes them useful for shaping outcomes in specific communities or organizations. The entity wants leverage they can use later. - Service: A specific task, or category of tasks. Could be opposition to a rival power, could be facilitation of something the entity is building toward over a long horizon. - Continuation: The compact runs forward through blood. The entity's primary interest is in the bloodline's survival and propagation. This is the most patient version — and the most unsettling — because it means the entity's tolerance for almost anything else is near-infinite, and their one non-negotiable is something the Marked can't be easily persuaded to provide. - The original terms: Something specific was promised in the founding compact, and that specific thing is what the entity wants. It may be completely opaque to the current Marked until they research the compact's history.

Threshold Adjustments: Hollow Compacts

Hollow entities do not adjust Threshold based on alignment. The entity wants returns on investment, not ideological compliance. Using the Hollow Pact to do something the entity finds strategically contrary gets no mechanical penalty from the entity; it may create narrative complications (the entity becomes interested in why the bloodline is developing in a direction that doesn't serve their interests), but the power functions the same.

Exception: If the Marked has accumulated uncompleted obligations and is drawing heavily on the tradition without honoring the accounting, the GM may represent this as Strained state persisting after Short Rest. Not as a Threshold change, but as a duration extension — the channel stays open because the entity is keeping it open deliberately. Narrate this explicitly; the Marked should know the difference between normal Strained recovery and recovery that isn't happening cleanly.

Running the Hollow Entity's Attention

Below Interested: The entity's attention during Strained use is the texture note in the Hollow Pact — observational, not communicative. The GM plays this as the ambient awareness of something cold and patient taking stock. No scene interruptions.

At Interested: Minor obligations surface. Run these as follows: once per session (or once per 3 sessions at low use), introduce one ambient signal — a chill in a room that shouldn't be cold, a persistent sense of being followed by something that leaves no trace, an NPC who mentions something the Marked recognizes as compact-adjacent. Let the player decide how their character interprets it. The obligation isn't due yet; this is the entity's version of a reminder.

At Engaged: Direct communication becomes possible. The Invoke channel (Invoke/Severe backlash, Invoke/Moderate backlash) represents the clearest version of this. Between formal uses, the GM can introduce entity-adjacent NPCs as intermediaries — other Shadow-Bound from the same compact, Hollow entities acting on the source's behalf, individuals who were involved in the original compact's history. These intermediaries carry specific messages or requests, not general demands. The Sovereign Circle (AX.GHW.07.14) is the natural institutional source for such intermediaries: Circle practitioners who have managed Engaged-level Hollow entities before are the hidden world's most reliable guides to what the accounting actually requires, and the Circle has professional reasons to be involved when a Shadow-Bound Marked's entity moves from ambient awareness to active demands.

At Claiming: The compact's terms are the story. Don't try to run this as a subplot. If you've reached Level 5, it should be the campaign's central thread or a major arc within it.

Part Three: The Illuminated

Character and Logic

The Illuminated operates on expectation logic. The covenant was made because the Illuminated wanted something specific from this bloodline — not just any bloodline, but one shaped toward a particular purpose. Their attention is triggered by what the Marked does more than how much they use the tradition. A Light-Bound Marked who uses Sacred Fire sparingly but in precisely aligned ways is more interesting to the Illuminated than one who burns hot constantly toward neutral ends.

This means the Illuminated's attention is harder to avoid through restraint. A Marked who rarely uses their tradition but acts in ways contrary to the covenant will attract more attention than a Marked who uses it frequently but in alignment. The power and the person are both being evaluated.

The Illuminated is often perceived as benevolent — and this perception is not entirely wrong. The warmth is real. What is also real is that the Illuminated's warmth is an expression of investment, not affection. When the Marked does what the covenant expects, the warmth is genuine. When they don't, what was warmth becomes pressure. The Illuminated does not punish in the way the Hollow might eventually consume. The Illuminated simply expects, with the full weight of something vast and patient pressing against each failure to meet that expectation.

What the Illuminated Expects

GMs must define the covenant's active purpose. Options:

Covenant purpose types: - Opposition: The covenant was established to create bloodlines capable of opposing a specific category of supernatural entity or power. The Illuminated expects the Marked to engage that category when the opportunity exists — not suicidally, but consistently. - Protection: The covenant is oriented toward guarding something — a community, a bloodline, a location, a principle. The Illuminated expects the Marked to demonstrate this orientation in their choices. - Transmission: The covenant wants to persist. The Illuminated expects the Marked to pass the bloodline's capacity forward — whether through literal succession or through teaching and mentorship. - Witness: The Illuminated needs eyes in certain situations. The Marked's role is to be present, observe, and ensure the covenant's accounting of events is accurate. This is the least action-oriented version — the Illuminated wants someone there more than they want outcomes. - Restoration: Something was lost or damaged that the covenant exists to restore. The Marked is one instrument among several in a long project. The specific nature of what's being restored is the contract's underlying purpose, and finding out what it is may be a campaign arc in itself.

Threshold Adjustments: Illuminated Covenants

Unlike Hollow compacts, covenants with the Illuminated do adjust difficulty based on alignment. The fire is what the covenant looks like when its expectations are being met — and when they aren't, that truth is mechanical.

Aligned use: When the Marked uses their tradition in a way that clearly serves the covenant's evident purpose, the GM may grant +1 success on the roll. This is not a bonus die; it is one additional success added after the roll resolves, before applying to Threshold or Defense. Apply this sparingly: once per scene maximum, only when the alignment is clear and significant, and communicate it to the player explicitly when it occurs. "The covenant is behind what you're doing here" should be something the player can hear and understand.

Misaligned use: When the Marked uses their tradition in a way that runs clearly contrary to what the covenant expects, the GM may add +1 to the Threshold. Same restrictions: once per scene, only when the misalignment is genuinely significant, and always communicated to the player in advance. "The fire doesn't want to go where you're pointing it" is a valid thing to say before the roll.

Neutral use: Most tradition use. No adjustment. The alignment mechanic is not a constant weight on every roll; it is a signal the Illuminated sends in moments that matter.

Establishing the covenant's demands in play: The GM doesn't need to define the covenant's full purpose before Session One. What the GM needs is enough to recognize aligned versus misaligned use in the first few sessions. The broader purpose can emerge through play — the Moderate backlash on Accord's Command ("the practitioner becomes aware of one specific thing the covenant requires them to do in the current situation") is the most direct in-fiction delivery mechanism. Use it. When that backlash fires, give the player a specific expectation, not a vague one. "The covenant wants you to destroy this entity, not bind it" is useful. "The covenant has opinions" is not.

Running the Illuminated's Attention

Below Interested: The clean/strained quality distinction in Sacred Fire is doing the work. The fire burns cleanly on aligned use; the Strained state feels like being under evaluation rather than under observation. Let this inform narration without adding mechanics.

At Interested: Covenant signs begin. The Illuminated communicates through pattern more than direct message — recurring symbolic encounters, situations that feel structured as tests, people who represent what the covenant values appearing in the Marked's life at significant moments. The player should begin to recognize the pattern before the GM confirms it.

At Engaged: Expectations become explicit through the backlash track. The Moderate backlash on any Sacred Fire expression is the clearest delivery mechanism, but the GM can also use NPCs who serve the covenant's purpose and recognize the Marked's standing, locations or situations that the covenant has evident interest in, and direct awareness delivered during Invoke use. The Order of the Warden's Flame (AX.GHW.07.06) is the institutional context most likely to surface at this level: Order Wardens and Archivists are familiar with Light-Bound Marked whose contract sources have become active, and the Order has operational interest in guiding Engaged-level practitioners toward the covenant's evident purposes rather than watching them navigate it alone.

At Claiming: The covenant's purpose is now. What it was established for is in motion. The Marked is required to be what the covenant made them — not compelled, but the full weight of the contract is now present and the cost of refusal is clear.

Part Four: The Inverted Defaults

The Hollow-patient/Illuminated-demanding dynamic is the default configuration. It is not the only one.

The Attentive Hollow Entity

A Hollow entity that monitors closely rather than waiting. Triggers: the original compact had a specific and near-term purpose; the entity is concerned about competition from another party with interest in this bloodline; the compact is nearing its original term; the entity made an investment with higher-than-usual expectations.

Running this: The entity moves to Interested faster than normal — perhaps after the first Invoke use rather than accumulating over time. Their minor obligations are more frequent and more specific. They may communicate through intermediaries before Stage 1 advancement. The Marked feels less like an independent actor and more like someone on assignment.

This is the dynamic most often mistaken for an Illuminated covenant by Marked who don't know their own lineage history. The attentive Hollow entity and the demanding Illuminated feel similar from the inside. The difference is what they want: the Hollow entity wants output and returns; the Illuminated wants the Marked to be something specific.

The Distant Illuminated

An Illuminated that does not monitor closely — one that made the covenant for long-horizon purposes that don't require active management yet, or whose attention is on other investments in the same project. Triggers: the covenant's purpose is genuinely long-term (generational, not campaign-scale); the Illuminated trusts the bloodline's development without oversight; something has occurred that has displaced the Illuminated's attention elsewhere.

Running this: Threshold adjustments are rare and significant when they occur — the distant Illuminated communicates through crisis, not ongoing correction. The Marked has more autonomy, which means the covenant's purpose surfaces dramatically rather than gradually. The moment when the distant Illuminated's attention returns is a campaign event.

A distant Illuminated can feel like no Illuminated at all — until it doesn't. The reveal that the source has been watching from further back, tracking outcomes even while not providing guidance, can be a significant moment in a campaign built around a Light-Bound Marked's sense of independence.

Part Five: Both Marked in the Same Party

If your party includes both a Shadow-Bound and a Light-Bound Marked, the political implications in the hidden world are significant from the first session.

The Marks are mutually visible. Each Marked's contract signature is perceptible to the other and to every supernatural entity with appropriate awareness. They are not strangers to each other in the way two ordinary PCs might be; they are immediately legible to each other as what they are. Whether that creates affinity, wariness, or professional tension is a player choice — but the information is present.

The sources have opinions. A Hollow entity's investment working alongside a covenant with the Illuminated is not a neutral fact in the hidden world's accounting. The Hollow entity will notice. The Illuminated will notice. What those opinions are depends on the specific sources — they are not automatically hostile to each other, but they are not indifferent. Build something specific into each source's profile about how they regard the other type of contract.

Convergent interests exist. The conditions under which a Hollow entity and an Illuminated want the same outcome are unusual but possible: a threat that destabilizes the supernatural infrastructure both depend on, a situation where the hidden world's balance serves both parties' investments, a specific entity that both sources want addressed for their own separate reasons. When these convergences occur, the Marked pair becomes unusually capable — the sources are not providing support to a single operation, but their separate interests have created aligned conditions. Use these moments deliberately.

Divergent interests create inter-party pressure. When the sources' interests diverge — which is more common — the party faces decisions that have external weight. The Shadow-Bound Marked's obligation to their compact's source and the Light-Bound Marked's covenant expectations may point in different directions on the same situation. This is not a party conflict problem; it is a dramatic resource. Let both players engage with it from their characters' perspectives rather than papering over the tension.

Part Six: The Contract Source as Campaign Architecture

Three modes, in order of involvement:

Mode 1, Background Element

The contract source exists. The mechanics function. The source never appears in the fiction in any active way. The contract is flavor.

Use this when: The campaign already has enough threads. The player wants the lineage's mechanical identity without the relationship complexity. The game's tone doesn't support an active cosmic relationship as a character thread.

How to run it: The Strained state's texture is as far as source presence goes. Minor obligations surface in background flavor (the Shadow-Bound Marked's dreams have a quality of cold attention; the Light-Bound Marked has instincts in certain situations that feel like more than their own) but don't generate mechanical events or required actions. The source is as present as gravity — real, functioning, not a character.

Mode 2, Recurring Pressure

The contract source surfaces periodically. Obligations come due. The Marked's tradition use occasionally generates visible responses.

Use this when: The Marked player wants their lineage to have ongoing narrative weight without the source dominating their story. The game benefits from the Marked having a relationship they didn't ask for that makes demands at inopportune moments.

How to run it: Treat the source like a recurring presence with its own agenda and its own calendar. Every 3–5 sessions, one obligation surfaces: an intermediary appears, a coincidence arrives with timing that can't be ignored, a backlash effect delivers direct communication. The obligation is always achievable, often inconvenient, and frequently connected to what the party is already doing. The source doesn't interrupt the campaign; it inflects it.

The Marked player should feel like they have a second set of demands that they are constantly balancing against the party's priorities. Not overwhelmingly, but consistently. It should occasionally create a decision where what the source wants and what the party needs are not fully compatible.

Mode 3, Active Participant

The contract source is a faction. They have agendas, issue demands, send representatives, respond to the Marked's choices. Their involvement escalates and recedes based on what's happening in the campaign.

Use this when: The Marked player wants the contract to be a core character thread. The campaign's arc has room for the source as a player in its political landscape. You are running a Conspiracy Arc or Apocalypse Now and want the Marked's lineage to be load-bearing to the arc's structure.

How to run it: Treat the source the same way you treat a major NPC faction with standing in the hidden world. They have limited information, real objectives, resources they can deploy, and constraints on what they can and cannot do. They are not omnipotent. They are not always watching. They respond to what happens, not just to what the Marked does directly.

The source as Active Participant plugs into the Conspiracy Arc structure as the origin of a significant piece of information the characters are trying to find, or as the party that has been concealing something with real reasons for concealment, or as an unexpected ally whose interests align with uncovering the arc's underlying truth. In an Apocalypse Now arc, the source's involvement in the crisis — whether they caused it, know more about it than anyone else, or are among the things the crisis threatens — gives the Marked a personal stake the other characters don't share.

Source endgame: For Mode 3 campaigns, decide before Session One what the source's endgame is. Not the full terms — those can emerge through play — but what the source ultimately wants from this bloodline in this campaign. It can be simple: returns on a specific investment, fulfillment of the original compact's purpose, the covenant's purpose finally arriving. It should be specific enough that when the campaign reaches its final arc, the source's endgame is something the characters can confront, negotiate with, or redirect — not just a vast abstraction to be escaped.