Editing Genius The Transgression/Chapter Two: Character Creation (section)

===Beholden (● to ●●●●●; special)===
A beholden, sometimes called an "Igor" or just an assistant, is more than a loyal servant. There is a howling storm inside every genius that Mania fills, but inside a beholden there is only stillness. Beholden may be brilliant, funny, or capable, but they possess a personality that falls naturally into the worldview of another. 

They latch onto Inspired, basking in the glow of reflected Mania.

When a person becomes beholden, she loses the ability to recover Willpower when indulging her Virtue or Vice. Instead she recovers one point of Willpower per day so long as she is assisting her master. If she helps her master complete a wonder (that is not an orphan) or succeeds in dirty work (see Dirty Work, Page 280), she can gain up to one additional point of Willpower that day. A genius can transfer Mania into beholden. This works just like transferring Mania into a capacitor. He can also draw it out, and beholden can transfer Mania they hold or draw Mania from a capacitor. Storing Mania in a beholden lets them use wonders. Beholden can hold a maximum number of Mania points equal to their Intelligence + Resolve.

The advantage of a beholden is that they can assist with the creation of wonders without causing Havoc. (Hence one rumored origin of the term: "Gentlemen...Behold!") They are also often gifted in their own right, but they cannot become truly great on their own: they are touched by the genius' Inspiration, almost feeding upon it, and lack the drive and capacity for independent thought that characterizes a scientist, mad or sane.

The beholden Merit is broken down into three conditions: Number, Ability, and Prowess. At least one dot must be spent on Number.

====Number:====
Number determines how many loyal minions a genius has. The exact number might fluctuate due to 
casualties, abandonment, or new recruits, but the general benefits remain the same except under egregious circumstances.

Having many beholden reduces the time taken to build a wonder. See below. This cannot reduce the time taken for a non-kitbashed Wonder to less than one day.

Having more beholden allows more attempts at dirty work. See Prowess, below, for more information on that mechanic.

Coupled with the Assembly Line Merit, having many beholden allows you to produce many identical wonders at the same time. The genius still benefits from the time reduction, meaning that many beholden can build wonders from an Assembly Line so fast only the most powerful geniuses have spare Mania to bind to all of them. A genius with three dots in beholden Number and at least three dots in the Assembly Line Merit, for example, could build up to eight identical wonders at once, with the same roll, and building all eight wonders would take half the time it would take a similar genius without those Merits to build a single such wonder.

{| class="wikitable"
|Rating||Number ||Time Reduction ||Dirty Work ||With Assembly Line
|-
|● ||One beholden ||One step ||One attempt per chapter||Make two wonders at once with Assembly Line ●+
|-
|●●||Two to five beholden ||Two steps||Two attempts per chapter||Make four wonders at once with Assembly Line ●●+
|-
|●●●||Up to a dozen beholden ||Three steps ||Three attempts per chapter||Make eight wonders at once with Assembly Line ●●●+
|-
|●●●●||Up to thirty beholden ||Four steps ||Four attempts per chapter||Make sixteen wonders at once with Assembly Line ●●●●+
|-
|●●●●●||More than thirty beholden, perhaps more than a hundred||Five steps ||Five attempts per chapter||Make 32 wonders at once with Assembly Line ●●●●●
|}

====Ability:====
While a genius can find a use for mop-pushing slobs, highly trained specialists in relevant scientific fields make the ideal beholden, since they grant so many useful benefits. The Ability rating of a beholden or group of beholden determines the bonus they grant to wonder-working due to their own familiarity with scientific and technical fields.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
|Rating || Description || Wonder-working Bonus
|-
|0 || Barely fit to clean the test tubes || None
|-
|● ||Familiar with laboratory work ||+1
|-
|●● || Experienced lab assistant or researcher || +2
|-
|●●● || Professional scientist || +3
|-
|●●●● || Renowned scholar || +4
|-
|●●●●● || World-famous talent || +5
|}

====Prowess:====
Without dots in this rating, a genius' beholden are scholars, researchers, scientists, and laboratory specialists, but they're not trained to work outside the lab. Prowess, however, turns some or all of a genius' beholden from meek technicians into an elite force capable of acting independently from the genius. The Prowess of a group of beholden determines their usefulness for dirty work. (See Dirty Work, Page 280.)

{| class="wikitable"
|-
|Rating ||Description ||Similar To ||Dirty Work Dice Pool
|-
|0 ||Regular people ||Untrained civilians ||Cannot use Dirty Work
|-
|●||Goons with basic self-defense training ||Neighborhood watch ||1 die
|-
|●● ||Thugs who know how to fight ||Police officers ||2 dice
|-
|●●●||Capable and deadly minions ||Army recruits ||3 dice
|-
|●●●●||Lethal henchpersons with extensive training||SWAT team ||4 dice
|-
|●●●●●||Elite super-scientific task force ||Elite special forces ||5 dice
|}

====Sharing Beholden:====
Beholden can be shared among members of a collaborative. To share beholden, two or more characters simply have to be willing to pool their dots for greater capability. A shared rating in the beholden Merit cannot rise higher than five dots in Number, Ability, or Prowess.

Note that shared beholden cannot be used at the same time: if one genius needs two Igors for a research experiment, they cannot simultaneously be sent by another genius to explore the bottom of the ocean. Some type of time-sharing program may need to be arranged.

If a character leaves the collaborative for any reason, whether it be death, banishment, or a grudge that cannot be resolved, the dots he contributed are removed from the pool. The character who leaves does not get all the dots back for his own purposes. He gets one fewer dot than he originally contributed. If all members who have combined to share beholden points agree to part ways, they all lose one dot from what they originally contributed. The loss of beholden points can represent several things, as determined by the Storyteller. Maybe the best and most capable beholden leave for more stable masters. Maybe the infighting reduces their loyalty. Maybe some just walk away, looking for better opportunities.

Note that a genius who belongs to a collaborative need not share his beholden dots. Further, he can choose to split his beholden dots, maintaining a personal stable of assistants while also contributing to the beholden pool.

To record shared beholden on your character sheet, put an asterisk next to the name of the Beholden Merit and fill in the total dots that your character has access to thanks to his partnership. In order to record his original contribution, write it in parentheses along with the Merit's name.