Community Worldbuilding Project [Ishka: Urban and Urbane]

[BRC]

If you make a prestige class for MI then I think it should incorperate the different levels from Agent-Detective-Inspector, etc that BRC layed out. There are 8 different levels so the first level would be Agent and the capstone would be Chief Inspector in a 10 level PRC with 2 levels where you don't gain a new title but get something else instead.

No. Not really. Once you get to Detective-Sergent you're off the street and sitting in an office handling paperwork for the most part. Rank does not equal skill. In fact, some of the most skilled investigators are Detectives. The people who get promoted are those with a good head for management, or are not fit for street level investigations for some reason (Injury, Age, ect).
In fact, the most skilled investigators are LEAST likely to get promoted. If you have a brilliant investigator, the last thing you are going to do is put him in an office.
Good Detectives will get recognized in other ways, they'll receive pay raises, it will be easier for them to get approval for things, they'll have more Investigators under their control (and may be allowed to hand-pick some). If you're approaching retirement, you'll likely get promoted off the street, or sent to the Academy to train cadets.
Also, Agent's arn't properly MI members, they don't investigate crimes. However, they have independent command structures.

No, the PRC should focus on solving crimes, moving through the city, putting clues together, and taking down Dirtbags.

Also, Graveyard Shift.

Spoiler

Show

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Renald DeLargenda was not having a good day. He was still trying to handle the aftereffects of the robbery, and the short investigator was back, with a new Human, one with dark glasses and a serious face. O dear, Renald hated this.
“I told you, the safe contained nothing but Cash. Well, Cash and that box of documents.”
The tall one spoke, his voice came out like he had a grudge against the words.
“What. Box. Of. Documents. WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL US ABOUT THAT EARLIER”.
Renald really had no time for this, he had dinner with the wife, then an evening with his mistress. And policemen made him nervous, he was of the opinion that crime was something like a disease, and that one should avoid contact with the infected at all costs. He also noticed that a surprisingly large number of known criminals had been investigated by one police force or another, and he refused to believe that was a coincidence.
“I assumed you knew, the box belonged to you after all.”
“What?”
“A week ago, a pair of Investigators showed up with a magically sealed lockbox and told us to put it in our best vault. When I asked about payment, they mumbled something about the council covering it, and with all this mess, I simply don’t have time to extract money from the council.”
“MI documents were taken, and you didn’t think this important!”
“I am a banker, I think in terms of money, a large amount of money was taken, and the people it belonged to are very cross with me, so please, I ask you to LEAVE. If one of your boxes went missing, it sounds like an internal matter, I recommend you take it up with your own people and leave me to do my job”.

Jenine Harlew was not having a good day. For starters, she was a ghost, but this was nothing new, and while it once bothered her greatly, was not merely a fact of life. It didn’t exactly make her life easier. What would have made her life easier would be to have physical hands, hands that could clench around the throat of that blubbering pet rookie of Midersen’s.
“You, You UNSPEAKABLE LITTLE WRETCH”.
He was cowering as much as possible without actually folding into oneself.
“DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT SORT OF TROUBLE YOU HAVE CAUSED!”
“A-A-all I did was put the blueprint back…”
“WITHOUT consulting a member of the archive staff. The automatic sorters are idiot constructs, they may take the presence of the blueprints in a section explicitly devoted to the blueprints of homes as a sign that banks are now considered residences, and start re-arranging things accordingly, so me and my staff have to spend hours going through”
He didn’t deserve this. Really, he didn’t. It was an honest mistake. He had only been to the archives a few time, also, the archive signs in the blueprints section were written in Dwarven Ishkan for some reason, he barely understood half the characters. She was really going on now, from the way she described it, you’d think that the city only survived because her Archives were in order.
Through the transparent body of the spook, Renking saw Detective Tordley walk through the doorway and his heart rose. Tordley was an experience MI, he would know what to do in this situation.
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________
Gordon Tordley entered the archives, Oliver had run off to find Jenine in her office while he looked for that rookie. He did not expected to find both Jenine and the rookie. He especially did not expect to find her chewing out the rookie like a Dragon eating a cow.
Fortunately, Gordon had seen this before, he was an experienced municipal investigator, he knew what to do in this situation.
Gordon, very quietly, slipped out of the room, she should be over it in a minute.
__________________________________________________ ______
… “And the next thing you know, we’ll find people living in banks because they think that’s the way things are supposed to be! They’ll assume it’s the latest fashion, I’ve seen it before. These Archives may look like musty old stacks to you, but this city runs on Information. And we keep that here! All of it! And when we need to use something, we can find it BECAUSE THINGS ARE ORGANIZED! If everybody took your caviler attitude towards this, the city would be in chaos! “
“Indeed it would Jenine. I think he’s learned his lesson”
She turned around to see Detective Tordely.
“I recall having a rather similar discussion with YOU not too long ago”
“And have I strayed since?”
“No, you have rookies do it for you, why are you hear”.
“To ask you a question, the Gilded Bank manager claims he had a box of documents from MI in his priority vault, why would they be there.”
“Yes, our secure vault is being replaced. Some gate raiders ported into the old one. While it’s being replaced, we sent our documents to a variety of banks around town.”
“I Thought the Archives, especially the secure vaults, were proofed against random gates?”
Jeanie's words could have frozen the steamworks.
“They. Should. Have. Been.”
“Well, anyway, what documents were sent to the Gilded Bank?”
Jenine thought for a moment. When some people return as undead they have forgotten about their life, or how to do something they once found routine. Jeanine had forgotten how to forget. Given less than a minute, she could remember almost anything, even a minor order she’d skimmed and then signed off on several years ago. It was spooky enough to make you forget you were talking to the shade of a librarian who had died in a fire over a century ago.
“Ah yes, Box 57I, reports concerning MI assets within the Cutthroat Alliance. Top Classification, containing suppressed and cleared evidence from Division 4 Investigations, E-H”.

Renkin's Father had been a streetbuilder, and had once described a word they had called Imflat. Imflat was what Streetbuilder's felt when they knocked out the wrong pillar, and unstable structures began crumbling towards them. The name stood for Imminent Flattening.
Renkin did not know if Detective Tordley knew what Imflat was, but from the look on his face, he was experiencing it right now.

Edit: Referring to the list, here are the ranks of the characters.
Jenine is technically an Agent, however, she's part of the Archives department, where she holds the rank of Senior Archivist (the second highest rank before Head Archivist, so in a way she outranks all the other characters).
Renkin is a Cadet-Investigator. They are usually attached to Investigators, but Midersen pisses somebody off. He feels very privileged to work under a detective.
Gordon is a Detective. He's technically leading the investigation here.
Oliver is also a Detective. He's classified as an "Occult Investigator", meaning he's a trained forensic spell caster. The title is an archaic term, originally "Occey's" were in charge of investigating magic related crimes, but since magic is related to so many crimes, they got swept up into regular duties.