Group Cohesion
This game is intended to be a Group game. The PCs as a whole are all necessary for The Prophecy (perhaps just in terms of numbers, perhaps individually) and various threats - such as the Hands of Bremen who a) hunt down gifted and b) are immune TO gifts - necessitate working together. There may also be Politics. Playing your PC as a loner/prima donna is not advisable and will lead to PC death.
Dice Rolling, Combat, and Crunchy Bits
While the use of Inappropriate Cliche is, technically, not allowed, it does count as surprising your opponent, and works in that regard. Surprise != stupid in this regard. Having someone grossly underestimate you doesn't count, unless your PC is, say, acting and such. There is a quasi healthy system, based on "okay, you lost, he hit you. A few hits, and you go down," modified to situation and such. The ideal method is for you, the player, to have some idea how much damage your PC could take and RP the results without being msged with: "You are scratched. Wounded. Incapacitated. Inebriated. Dead." etc.
Keep in mind that the game is anime-style, at least in the Gm's head. While there are no healing magics, Gifts are strong and the gifted tend to take a bit more punishment than the average person and heal quicker. (This is mostly because Rping lying in a bed is boring; in general, if a PC gets the snot kicked out of them, expect them up and about in 1-2 days unless it's really bad.
Money
I'm not going to worry about this. I will add a section on currency to the World part of the site eventually. but in general people use gold coins (often called stones, but seldom in Estavia) and bits, which are broken pieces of coins. 4 bits make one coin, one bit = 1 meal, one coin = 1-2 nights of lodgings. Actual rubies, gems etc. count as larger coins, and silver and iron as currencies also exist, though are often only half the worth of gold. Larger coins exist for larger transactions (generally work 5, 10, and 20 coins each), and for anything larger credit sticks bought from bankers and the like apply.
Most of the PCs are fairly wealthy, so I don't think the lack of funds will be a problem. (The kids can either sponge off of the others or procure money through other means.) In general, PCs can afford their living expenses + bribes etc. without any trouble. If they want to buy a home or expensive services like an alchemist they'll need to pool resources.
Hands
The Hands are, essentially, the nightmares of the gifted. While wizards have their own fears based on power and the forces they often are obliged to bargain with, the gifted have more obvious ones. The Hands have been around for a good 700 years, though stories of them exist from further back, mostly as tales of some forgotten time. The kingdom of Bremen either found out how to make them again or learned on its own.
In appearance, they tend to be thin and wasted looking but inhumanly strong with sharp fingers and teeth, scuttling about quickly more like spiders than humans. Sometimes they are armed, sometimes now. A full Hand is, of course, five of them, though they can be found in as small a group as two from time to time. No gifts work on them, at all.
Using a gift to harm them, vis a vis using earth to open up the earth under them in a pit, almost always fails: they seem to have a sixth sense about such things and are astonishingly resistant to any harm caused by gifts. Powerful enough gifts CAN kill one, but the remaining members of the Hand get strong as each part dies.
No one is certain as to Bremen's goals in making them; they've been sent after expatriates with the command Gift as well, after all. However, 50 years ago the Nakai Empire independently developed Hands of it's own. The major difference between them is that the Nakai ones don't function as well as cohesive unit though there are a lot more of them.
Hands also display some resistance to other magia and can sense the use of powerful gifts, honing in on them. There is seldom more than 1 hand within a 3 day range, however, and most families tend to learn other skills besides gifts, since swords kill the Hands as easily as other men.
Monday, December 04, 2006
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Question for Urdu Players...
More, a series. Please answer, via file or msg, before the end of the weekend preferably.
1) Is your PC from Estavia? If not, do you know anyone there? Would anyone have followed you from home (for good or ill)?
2) Many Gifted families are wealthy; that doesn't mean your branch of the family is. How does your character support themself?
3) What is your characters REAL reason for being here? What is your character running from - or to?
4) How easily does your PC harm others? Kill them? Does it bother you one way or another?
5) Does your PC think they are better than other people?
6) Everyone has a price. What's your characters?
7) Would your character rather be the change they want to see in the world or the trouble they want to see in it?
8) What would your character die for? And, conversely, what do they live for?
9) If you had to choose between betraying your country* and your friend, which would you pick, an why?
*country can be substituted with: Family, Ideals, Honour etc. as suits the PC.
Be as brief or wordy as you like :) Keep in mind that none of this is carved in stone; if you RP the character differently, well, people change and such. It'sm ostly to give me (and hopefully you) some insight into what makes your character tick - or tock.
1) Is your PC from Estavia? If not, do you know anyone there? Would anyone have followed you from home (for good or ill)?
2) Many Gifted families are wealthy; that doesn't mean your branch of the family is. How does your character support themself?
3) What is your characters REAL reason for being here? What is your character running from - or to?
4) How easily does your PC harm others? Kill them? Does it bother you one way or another?
5) Does your PC think they are better than other people?
6) Everyone has a price. What's your characters?
7) Would your character rather be the change they want to see in the world or the trouble they want to see in it?
8) What would your character die for? And, conversely, what do they live for?
9) If you had to choose between betraying your country* and your friend, which would you pick, an why?
*country can be substituted with: Family, Ideals, Honour etc. as suits the PC.
Be as brief or wordy as you like :) Keep in mind that none of this is carved in stone; if you RP the character differently, well, people change and such. It'sm ostly to give me (and hopefully you) some insight into what makes your character tick - or tock.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Are you ready for the Reckoning?
Wednesday nights, ~10pm EST.
Site: Oh, here is good. (NO, it's not finished yet.)
Game begins Wed, Nov. 29th. Finished PCs only (yes, this includes backgrounds).
Currently there are 3 prospective players (and 2 finished characters!). Five will be the maximum, first come first serve basis. See previous post and site link for more information. If a player can't make it, we can establish a waiting list thingy.
This has been a public service announcement. Regular floggings will resume shortly.
Site: Oh, here is good. (NO, it's not finished yet.)
Game begins Wed, Nov. 29th. Finished PCs only (yes, this includes backgrounds).
Currently there are 3 prospective players (and 2 finished characters!). Five will be the maximum, first come first serve basis. See previous post and site link for more information. If a player can't make it, we can establish a waiting list thingy.
This has been a public service announcement. Regular floggings will resume shortly.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
RECKONINGS: an RPG campaign
The world of Urdu is old, the oldest thing in this incarnation of the universe, the point from which all else came into being. For billions of years people have lived and fought and died on it. Mighty empires have rose, fallen, rebuilt themselves, been ground into ashes by those who came after them Over all of this the gods have watched, sometimes playing games, sometimes now, feared and worshipped, they were pieces of the universe given form, powers beyond human ken who built their cities in the heavens from which to watch all that passed below them.
Until the Cataclysm. Until the terrible event over 300 winters ago when the heavens themselves fell down, destroying the entire southern continent, obliterating tracts of land and reshaping the world in a fury of fire and the death screams of the gods. Those who could Channel their power did so, in one last moment as the gods tried to halt their demise and failed. The ancient wizards, whose bargains with Mors and Arth'Ba'Toch failed as Death and Time died, passed on, and most magic in the world was lost or shattered by the loss of the gods.
The world has never recovered, though nothing has risen to replace them, no terrible Power come to claim the world as its own. There is only the loss, and the building of the new world from those terrible moments and the ashes of all that had come before.
Into these times come your characters, drawn to the city of Estavia (one of the few to have grown in strength when all the empires were shattered), a haven of modern alchemy trying to find new ways to do for people what the gods always did. You are, each, the relics of an old age, one of the families of those Gifted with magic who remain in the present age and have not been destroyed by the Hands from Bremen or died out due to inbreeding. Almost the last of those gifted, a three hundred year program to make Gifts strong enough to face down the remaining Wizards, but no one living knows why the Gifted families went this far, nor what was intended....
most believe it is the salvation of the world and the restoration of the gods.
Player info:
I plan to run this game very much in anime style. There should be lots of interpersonal conflicts, there'll be lost of conflict of other types, and PCs should get to do Cool Things.
Risus system, 12 dice. Each PC can have 4 dice (max.) in any cliche. Cliches can be increased from d6 to d8 or d10 via an extra die (said extra die does NOT count towards total dice in cliche). There must be at least 2 dice in a cliche to do this), so a PC could have Singing Gift (3d6), swordsmanship (3d8), Acrobatics (3d6) and Gambling (2d6) as cliches as an example.
A Gift is, basically, a single kind of magic. Fire, Water, Swordsmanship. That sort of thing. The Gifted families (one family, one gift) have been around for a long time, though no one knows how they came about. When a family dies out, their Gift is gone forever. A Gift is kept within a family, so inbreeding among cousins and siblings is the norm, since breeding with outsiders only leads to children with weak (or no) gifts.
Once the gods died, and terrible things like plagues and birth defects came into the world, the gifted have been fighting a long, losing battle. Few of any generation are whole in body and mind; fewer still have powerful gifts. Of your generation, you are one of at best five of your Family with a powerful gift, and have been sent to the city of Estavia and the Inn of the Lost Rainbow because of an agreement so old no one remembers it.
If one player takes a gift, no one else can. All PCs come from different Families. if you wish to play something other than a Gifted (or a Gifted Channeller/Wizard/Alchemist), talk to me. The following Gifts are not available for PCs: Shadow, Death, and Fire.
Other notes: magic can't be used to change people, save for alchemy (and even then, it is very limited in usefulness). There are no transformation gifts, no healing gifts and such. No Wizard spells for such either.
CRUNCHY BITS:
- You CAN adds hooks (2 max; 2 free dice maxiumum). (In fact, the GM encourages it.) A Hook, in this instance, counts as a character flaw (sworn vow, crippling thing etc.) (you get 1 die for every hook you have, 2 if it's a really severe hook.) You CAN get tails, via the risus rules, but only by supplying pic/drawing PC and more background than usual. (Normally, I'd except 1 pqage including bacckground, family the PC left, PCs family life -- did the famiytl breeding for gifts put engenics to shame? etc. -- and anything on PC personality. More would be, well, history of parents, some family lore/secrets or whatever.)
- PCs are human; there's no elves, sentient dogs etc. on this world.
- Think Cliche. That's how Risus works. More dice in a cliche is skill; increasing dicepool size is power. (This is a general rule, not specific)
- Keep in mind that there are items of magic etc. out there to increase power and the like available. PCs tend to be exceptions to rules. (For example, somerone with 2 gifts could be possible.) Invent cool Tricks for the pc.
Until the Cataclysm. Until the terrible event over 300 winters ago when the heavens themselves fell down, destroying the entire southern continent, obliterating tracts of land and reshaping the world in a fury of fire and the death screams of the gods. Those who could Channel their power did so, in one last moment as the gods tried to halt their demise and failed. The ancient wizards, whose bargains with Mors and Arth'Ba'Toch failed as Death and Time died, passed on, and most magic in the world was lost or shattered by the loss of the gods.
The world has never recovered, though nothing has risen to replace them, no terrible Power come to claim the world as its own. There is only the loss, and the building of the new world from those terrible moments and the ashes of all that had come before.
Into these times come your characters, drawn to the city of Estavia (one of the few to have grown in strength when all the empires were shattered), a haven of modern alchemy trying to find new ways to do for people what the gods always did. You are, each, the relics of an old age, one of the families of those Gifted with magic who remain in the present age and have not been destroyed by the Hands from Bremen or died out due to inbreeding. Almost the last of those gifted, a three hundred year program to make Gifts strong enough to face down the remaining Wizards, but no one living knows why the Gifted families went this far, nor what was intended....
most believe it is the salvation of the world and the restoration of the gods.
Player info:
I plan to run this game very much in anime style. There should be lots of interpersonal conflicts, there'll be lost of conflict of other types, and PCs should get to do Cool Things.
Risus system, 12 dice. Each PC can have 4 dice (max.) in any cliche. Cliches can be increased from d6 to d8 or d10 via an extra die (said extra die does NOT count towards total dice in cliche). There must be at least 2 dice in a cliche to do this), so a PC could have Singing Gift (3d6), swordsmanship (3d8), Acrobatics (3d6) and Gambling (2d6) as cliches as an example.
A Gift is, basically, a single kind of magic. Fire, Water, Swordsmanship. That sort of thing. The Gifted families (one family, one gift) have been around for a long time, though no one knows how they came about. When a family dies out, their Gift is gone forever. A Gift is kept within a family, so inbreeding among cousins and siblings is the norm, since breeding with outsiders only leads to children with weak (or no) gifts.
Once the gods died, and terrible things like plagues and birth defects came into the world, the gifted have been fighting a long, losing battle. Few of any generation are whole in body and mind; fewer still have powerful gifts. Of your generation, you are one of at best five of your Family with a powerful gift, and have been sent to the city of Estavia and the Inn of the Lost Rainbow because of an agreement so old no one remembers it.
If one player takes a gift, no one else can. All PCs come from different Families. if you wish to play something other than a Gifted (or a Gifted Channeller/Wizard/Alchemist), talk to me. The following Gifts are not available for PCs: Shadow, Death, and Fire.
Other notes: magic can't be used to change people, save for alchemy (and even then, it is very limited in usefulness). There are no transformation gifts, no healing gifts and such. No Wizard spells for such either.
CRUNCHY BITS:
- You CAN adds hooks (2 max; 2 free dice maxiumum). (In fact, the GM encourages it.) A Hook, in this instance, counts as a character flaw (sworn vow, crippling thing etc.) (you get 1 die for every hook you have, 2 if it's a really severe hook.) You CAN get tails, via the risus rules, but only by supplying pic/drawing PC and more background than usual. (Normally, I'd except 1 pqage including bacckground, family the PC left, PCs family life -- did the famiytl breeding for gifts put engenics to shame? etc. -- and anything on PC personality. More would be, well, history of parents, some family lore/secrets or whatever.)
- PCs are human; there's no elves, sentient dogs etc. on this world.
- Think Cliche. That's how Risus works. More dice in a cliche is skill; increasing dicepool size is power. (This is a general rule, not specific)
- Keep in mind that there are items of magic etc. out there to increase power and the like available. PCs tend to be exceptions to rules. (For example, somerone with 2 gifts could be possible.) Invent cool Tricks for the pc.
Monday, November 13, 2006
New Game, Near Future, Nearly Soon
I have expressed interest in running a game of Lacuna. If you're interested in knowing about this, and want to know more about it I have the pdf of the small game book and will be happy to share it with you.
The basic premise behind it is, you're a "Mystery Agent" who goes into the dreamworld, hereafter referred to as the Blue City, where people go when they're sleeping. You are the disinfectent of society and erase the bad thoughts and urges that serial killers and rapists have when they're awake and killing/hurting people.
There are dangers to your job, such as an unwanted meeting with the Spidermen. Tall lumbering humanoid spider creatures that wear a Blok-style garment (think Russian army WWII era). Or going insane or even dying due to a heart attack.
For more, and how to create a character, contact me! You know the channel, I'll be the time!
The basic premise behind it is, you're a "Mystery Agent" who goes into the dreamworld, hereafter referred to as the Blue City, where people go when they're sleeping. You are the disinfectent of society and erase the bad thoughts and urges that serial killers and rapists have when they're awake and killing/hurting people.
There are dangers to your job, such as an unwanted meeting with the Spidermen. Tall lumbering humanoid spider creatures that wear a Blok-style garment (think Russian army WWII era). Or going insane or even dying due to a heart attack.
For more, and how to create a character, contact me! You know the channel, I'll be the time!
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
The Day of Discordant Discombobulations Wherein We See Ourselves For The First Time And Steal A Boat From Some Old Man By The Sea
[A short story, written especially for Kentari]
She crested slowly, rhythmic sensuous curves undulating in the azure world, pale as sky me the verdant, broad and sprawling ocean and as the earth nestled with the heavens, suspended between substrates as water funnelled from fish and we froze, Japanese tourists with camera faces staring, the world turned to paparazzi flashes.
Then we came down, like a zipper creasing into folds, stick and moving, the spears of our destiny stabbing into flesh and blubber and the whale died, reminding each of us in one poignant yet somehow meaninglessly shallow empty moment of our in-laws and gaping maws and poetry disguised as prose but why, for what -- no one knew. Knows.
We killed her quickly, her children watching, frozen, blood curses in whale song a sound that still haunts my dreams, sounding like child molesters, in the shower, singing as they are shivved; the tourists never stopped clicking, prisoner to their terrible plan, sucking away our souls by pieces -- but we had paid them away long ago.
Under other stars and distant suns seen once and never again under eyelids we sold ourselves, our souls, our lives, for just the pursuit of happiness and never its possession -- and so, waving, we carried the whale home soulless, feeding our families in bleak homes for another year, another turning of seasons and the relentless pitter-patter of time
falling down the stairs.
"Honey," he said, his voice breaking the silence like cheap dinner plate therapy on a basement wall, "why do I call you that?" in a quizzical, confused tone that implied in an implicitly explicit manner akin to the exoteric esoteric way of spouses something his darling wife entirely failed to notice.
"Call me what?" she asked languorously in a voice like rough sandpaper scraping over an open wound, her eyes the colour of limpid swamp water with a body that had not tasted solid food in a week of desperate dieting to fit into a reunion dress for someone six inches shorter that lay, moth eaten, in an upstairs wooden trunk filled with her lost hopes and a small, lonely tic tac.
"Honey," he said imperatively with the slight, hesitant whine like the drone of a biplane, the voice of all men ho are right but not in the eyes of their wives (a voice Hitler used, asking about the Jews, saying they might not be good people but at least they kept to themselves to a wife who was tired of hearing how they threw the best bar parties for children), and he beheld at her and froze, not unlike a bowling ball floating in the water.
"Yes?" she snapped snappishly, her voice skeletonizing his ego like a piranha, a whiplash of failed memories and corroded vows skittering over his flesh like hungry ghosts.
"The word. Honey. It - doesn't suit you," he noted miserably, his voice fluttering between notes, a song in need of a singer to free it from the entrails of time and the broad expanse of the gulf that nestled between them like the deep ends of the couch.
"How now? How not?" she exclaimed, correcting herself with a moment of mental whiplash, her eyes, steely-eyed like ball bearings, dared him to comment from their dead, cold, desiccated and mysterious depths that he had yet to grasp the courage to plummet and swan dive - or, perhaps, belly flop - into the abyssal abyssness of night and - oh! - her abs, that glistened with years of work like oil-stained rags.
"You aren't a bear," he smiled, the expression a fractional upturning of lips falling into the Shrodinger laugh that was not funny or morbid yet until a reply is made from the box of anothers being; neither living nor dead, trapped between reply and answer as unto a butterfly hovering above a jar of ether.
"You begin to bore me," she flounced, her voice slate-pale-grey-green as she turned and appraised him, hands on hips like the wife of some mighty Ice Giant of halcyon days of yore waiting for an explanation for the party that kept him up, not buying Ragnarok as an excuse again.
"I am sorry," he whipped in whispered words warbling whitely.
"Good."
She crested slowly, rhythmic sensuous curves undulating in the azure world, pale as sky me the verdant, broad and sprawling ocean and as the earth nestled with the heavens, suspended between substrates as water funnelled from fish and we froze, Japanese tourists with camera faces staring, the world turned to paparazzi flashes.
Then we came down, like a zipper creasing into folds, stick and moving, the spears of our destiny stabbing into flesh and blubber and the whale died, reminding each of us in one poignant yet somehow meaninglessly shallow empty moment of our in-laws and gaping maws and poetry disguised as prose but why, for what -- no one knew. Knows.
We killed her quickly, her children watching, frozen, blood curses in whale song a sound that still haunts my dreams, sounding like child molesters, in the shower, singing as they are shivved; the tourists never stopped clicking, prisoner to their terrible plan, sucking away our souls by pieces -- but we had paid them away long ago.
Under other stars and distant suns seen once and never again under eyelids we sold ourselves, our souls, our lives, for just the pursuit of happiness and never its possession -- and so, waving, we carried the whale home soulless, feeding our families in bleak homes for another year, another turning of seasons and the relentless pitter-patter of time
falling down the stairs.
"Honey," he said, his voice breaking the silence like cheap dinner plate therapy on a basement wall, "why do I call you that?" in a quizzical, confused tone that implied in an implicitly explicit manner akin to the exoteric esoteric way of spouses something his darling wife entirely failed to notice.
"Call me what?" she asked languorously in a voice like rough sandpaper scraping over an open wound, her eyes the colour of limpid swamp water with a body that had not tasted solid food in a week of desperate dieting to fit into a reunion dress for someone six inches shorter that lay, moth eaten, in an upstairs wooden trunk filled with her lost hopes and a small, lonely tic tac.
"Honey," he said imperatively with the slight, hesitant whine like the drone of a biplane, the voice of all men ho are right but not in the eyes of their wives (a voice Hitler used, asking about the Jews, saying they might not be good people but at least they kept to themselves to a wife who was tired of hearing how they threw the best bar parties for children), and he beheld at her and froze, not unlike a bowling ball floating in the water.
"Yes?" she snapped snappishly, her voice skeletonizing his ego like a piranha, a whiplash of failed memories and corroded vows skittering over his flesh like hungry ghosts.
"The word. Honey. It - doesn't suit you," he noted miserably, his voice fluttering between notes, a song in need of a singer to free it from the entrails of time and the broad expanse of the gulf that nestled between them like the deep ends of the couch.
"How now? How not?" she exclaimed, correcting herself with a moment of mental whiplash, her eyes, steely-eyed like ball bearings, dared him to comment from their dead, cold, desiccated and mysterious depths that he had yet to grasp the courage to plummet and swan dive - or, perhaps, belly flop - into the abyssal abyssness of night and - oh! - her abs, that glistened with years of work like oil-stained rags.
"You aren't a bear," he smiled, the expression a fractional upturning of lips falling into the Shrodinger laugh that was not funny or morbid yet until a reply is made from the box of anothers being; neither living nor dead, trapped between reply and answer as unto a butterfly hovering above a jar of ether.
"You begin to bore me," she flounced, her voice slate-pale-grey-green as she turned and appraised him, hands on hips like the wife of some mighty Ice Giant of halcyon days of yore waiting for an explanation for the party that kept him up, not buying Ragnarok as an excuse again.
"I am sorry," he whipped in whispered words warbling whitely.
"Good."
Friday, October 13, 2006
November Note
I won't be online much at all during the first week, and likely not during the second either (the first is guests, the second is NaNoWriMo :)). After that, should be on and will likely begin Low Life towards the end of month/beginning of December.
Low Life is going to run Day X (undetermined, as yet) Time Y (ditto) once a week. For this game, there shall be NO side sessions. For a change, basically :)
The game will likely run 3 months or so, and LOLAD 2 run after it. After THAT, I may run Haunted and/or UA, players willing. No plans for whatever follows.
Low Life is going to run Day X (undetermined, as yet) Time Y (ditto) once a week. For this game, there shall be NO side sessions. For a change, basically :)
The game will likely run 3 months or so, and LOLAD 2 run after it. After THAT, I may run Haunted and/or UA, players willing. No plans for whatever follows.
Saturday, September 30, 2006
After Low Life...
Low Life will begin in December (or later November, depending) and end ~April, since the game is designed to answer the question of: "So, what DO you do with these gifts?" and, once players have decided and begun down their paths, to end.
After that? Well, I'd like to run UA again. Partially for a break from BESM, mostly because it's Unknown Armies. I don't have a plot in my head as yet, but the basic idea is to allow, well, any idea. It's modern earth, it's unknown armies. The system is flexible, the Gm is uber-flexible, and we want high weirdness. Ignore the "magical/adept" stuff, and focus on the Really Weird, maybe with some magical trick...
Like?
A nun with reverse stigmata.
A cyborg.
Princess Diana.
A mafia hit man on the run for killing his boss.
A computer programmer who hacked the wrong files.
A child convinced they're from another world.
A woman who is convinced she is the mother of Buddha.
Conjoined twins whose other half exists in an otherspace and change positions every day.
A tourist who is really, really confused.
The star of an old silent movie somehow brought to life.
etc. Go for somethng off the wall. Go for weird. Strange. Bizarre! Throws ideas about! I shall make a forum. It shall be built. Ideas shall come!
After that? Well, I'd like to run UA again. Partially for a break from BESM, mostly because it's Unknown Armies. I don't have a plot in my head as yet, but the basic idea is to allow, well, any idea. It's modern earth, it's unknown armies. The system is flexible, the Gm is uber-flexible, and we want high weirdness. Ignore the "magical/adept" stuff, and focus on the Really Weird, maybe with some magical trick...
Like?
A nun with reverse stigmata.
A cyborg.
Princess Diana.
A mafia hit man on the run for killing his boss.
A computer programmer who hacked the wrong files.
A child convinced they're from another world.
A woman who is convinced she is the mother of Buddha.
Conjoined twins whose other half exists in an otherspace and change positions every day.
A tourist who is really, really confused.
The star of an old silent movie somehow brought to life.
etc. Go for somethng off the wall. Go for weird. Strange. Bizarre! Throws ideas about! I shall make a forum. It shall be built. Ideas shall come!
Monday, August 21, 2006
LoLaD....
I think there is a problem.
The plot, she is winding down.
But I find I don't care.
No desire to finish, or begin,
Or complete. No burn out, this,
But a kind of boredom -- surprising
But still true for all of that.
Thoughts on this are welcomed.
I find it amusing, darkly, &
LOLAD1 ended much the same way
Fading away and - poof! - gone.
Some things do not wish to fade.
But even so. Even so. And even moreso.
It seems to be dying slowly,
Inside and out, a slow decay.
Reasons? Post them. Solutions?
Them to. And having written, I go.
The plot, she is winding down.
But I find I don't care.
No desire to finish, or begin,
Or complete. No burn out, this,
But a kind of boredom -- surprising
But still true for all of that.
Thoughts on this are welcomed.
I find it amusing, darkly, &
LOLAD1 ended much the same way
Fading away and - poof! - gone.
Some things do not wish to fade.
But even so. Even so. And even moreso.
It seems to be dying slowly,
Inside and out, a slow decay.
Reasons? Post them. Solutions?
Them to. And having written, I go.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Room 333
Room 333
[a thingy done for the UA campaign Faces in the Dark]
There is a reason the 3rd floor of the school was closed down. One beyond the mundane issues of cost and space and heating. This is that reason, a door to a place that should never have existed.
There is a city made of glass and butterfly wings. There are wonders in it, of the kind of terror and awe true wonder holds, the dream made real, words made solid, form and ideal bleeding together into an unreal geometry that hurts the eyes but tugs at the heart, making you wish you'd dreamt it, seen it, even once.
The walls are covered in graffiti in languages that were old before the world existed, languages not even known to the dead. They give the city shadows, though it has no sun. The sky is grey, and pale, with a deep purple rent that lets down the light, the kind of cut one would imagine if the sky bled.
The streets are raw, pale and cracked like flesh, hard and soft at the same time. There is no sound here, just silence, stillness, a waiting so deep that nothing has ever stirred. Dust glitters brightly in the air like unfallen rain, and then you hear it, buzzing, at the very edge of hearing, a rattling through the bones, more felt that heard, aching, as if they are growing, or breaking apart.
The voices. The voices, angelic, pure, harsh and wild. They are singing, and it sounds like heaven come down to earth, and you never, ever want to hear them again. They get louder, but somehow softer at the same time, like pillow talk by a leprous lover, gurgling fish-speak as pure as sunshine, as cold as ice, and you can't help but hear. And listen. And wonder.
"The children, the children,
The children are coming.
More than kith, less than kin,
They slouch ever downward slumming.
They're dying, they're living
They are here and becoming,
Listen to their song, their song, their song
Listen to them humming
To the bees buzzing to the light giving
To the harp of damned souls
The strings strumming
They're coming round the ways of the world,
They're reaching from the depths, plumbing
Listen to the beating of the drums
Listen to broken feet drumming
The floor, choking, dumb,
Dum, da dum, da dum.
Listen to them, giggling, laughing.
The children are coming
Listen to the singing
Becoming, unbecoming,
Cutting and culling
Listen to the sounds they make
Listen to the silence break
The children are coming
The children, the children,
The children are coming."
The song loops through you beyond madness, past reason or hope or fear. It ends with footsteps and laugher like fingers scraping chalkboards. Breathing like gum popping, the hiss of a sucking chest wound. And then a chorus, high and low, blended into a sexless monotone song than twiches, casting itself high and low along the music scale recklessly, searching seeking, pleading ... being .... heard. This, you hear:
"Here we are, all gathered together
Finding the sinners 'cuz we never
Did nothing wrong, we tell it true,
Nothing wrong, we beg of you,
O teacher, can you listen?
Look at our bright eyes glisten
We are crying for you to hear us
We are crying for you to love us
Teacher, we love you, we just can't
Understand you, the pain in your voice
No, we weren't making joking about your ranting,
O teacher we love you, we just need a choice.
We're singing you a song
We didn't mean to do wrong
O teacher don't hurt us
O teacher don't make us
Do homework
We beg you
We won't smirk, won't jerk
Won't hurt - just don't
Go beserk! We - love - you."
You can't see who - what - may be singing. Perhaps it's your own voice, your throat feels so raw, everything feels raw. Your eyes are burning, and everything blurs, becoming even clearer. Glass. And butterfly wings. Shadows and violet light. And the opressive, numbling, welcoming silence, the calm before a storm .... and, perhaps, distantly, the voices?
=> just what is in the City in the Otherspace. A class of children. The teacher is even scarier.
[a thingy done for the UA campaign Faces in the Dark]
There is a reason the 3rd floor of the school was closed down. One beyond the mundane issues of cost and space and heating. This is that reason, a door to a place that should never have existed.
There is a city made of glass and butterfly wings. There are wonders in it, of the kind of terror and awe true wonder holds, the dream made real, words made solid, form and ideal bleeding together into an unreal geometry that hurts the eyes but tugs at the heart, making you wish you'd dreamt it, seen it, even once.
The walls are covered in graffiti in languages that were old before the world existed, languages not even known to the dead. They give the city shadows, though it has no sun. The sky is grey, and pale, with a deep purple rent that lets down the light, the kind of cut one would imagine if the sky bled.
The streets are raw, pale and cracked like flesh, hard and soft at the same time. There is no sound here, just silence, stillness, a waiting so deep that nothing has ever stirred. Dust glitters brightly in the air like unfallen rain, and then you hear it, buzzing, at the very edge of hearing, a rattling through the bones, more felt that heard, aching, as if they are growing, or breaking apart.
The voices. The voices, angelic, pure, harsh and wild. They are singing, and it sounds like heaven come down to earth, and you never, ever want to hear them again. They get louder, but somehow softer at the same time, like pillow talk by a leprous lover, gurgling fish-speak as pure as sunshine, as cold as ice, and you can't help but hear. And listen. And wonder.
"The children, the children,
The children are coming.
More than kith, less than kin,
They slouch ever downward slumming.
They're dying, they're living
They are here and becoming,
Listen to their song, their song, their song
Listen to them humming
To the bees buzzing to the light giving
To the harp of damned souls
The strings strumming
They're coming round the ways of the world,
They're reaching from the depths, plumbing
Listen to the beating of the drums
Listen to broken feet drumming
The floor, choking, dumb,
Dum, da dum, da dum.
Listen to them, giggling, laughing.
The children are coming
Listen to the singing
Becoming, unbecoming,
Cutting and culling
Listen to the sounds they make
Listen to the silence break
The children are coming
The children, the children,
The children are coming."
The song loops through you beyond madness, past reason or hope or fear. It ends with footsteps and laugher like fingers scraping chalkboards. Breathing like gum popping, the hiss of a sucking chest wound. And then a chorus, high and low, blended into a sexless monotone song than twiches, casting itself high and low along the music scale recklessly, searching seeking, pleading ... being .... heard. This, you hear:
"Here we are, all gathered together
Finding the sinners 'cuz we never
Did nothing wrong, we tell it true,
Nothing wrong, we beg of you,
O teacher, can you listen?
Look at our bright eyes glisten
We are crying for you to hear us
We are crying for you to love us
Teacher, we love you, we just can't
Understand you, the pain in your voice
No, we weren't making joking about your ranting,
O teacher we love you, we just need a choice.
We're singing you a song
We didn't mean to do wrong
O teacher don't hurt us
O teacher don't make us
Do homework
We beg you
We won't smirk, won't jerk
Won't hurt - just don't
Go beserk! We - love - you."
You can't see who - what - may be singing. Perhaps it's your own voice, your throat feels so raw, everything feels raw. Your eyes are burning, and everything blurs, becoming even clearer. Glass. And butterfly wings. Shadows and violet light. And the opressive, numbling, welcoming silence, the calm before a storm .... and, perhaps, distantly, the voices?
=> just what is in the City in the Otherspace. A class of children. The teacher is even scarier.
Monday, July 24, 2006
Supers Lite Post II
Will exist. Has forum here on the forums, and two players. Time and dates are uncertain, at present.
"The fundament of a superhero is the guy in tights saving innocent people from bad things. It's amazing how infrequently that seems to happen in superhero comics these days."
Frank Miller
"The fundament of a superhero is the guy in tights saving innocent people from bad things. It's amazing how infrequently that seems to happen in superhero comics these days."
Frank Miller
Sunday, July 23, 2006
One Player Game: Supers Lite
So, because of some odd thoughts I had about superhero universes, and such things in genera, and my generally pessmistic outlook TO such things, I want to try something different.
A superhero game, in "lite" mode. Not dark, not doom and gloom and 'the real world does this, so everyone fears you' etc. It's never really happened in #game1. So I'd like to try it. The one player limit is, well, I think I could manage it best that way.
(N.B. Two players is possible if 2 ppl want to do a siblings or parent/child duo.)
The goal is a superhero game that's about fun. Helping people, having fun, balancing hero and life, beating Bad Guys and the like.
Oh, yes: So far, Caltak is interested. He just said so.
To continue: The actual universe - and power level of the PC - will be worked out with the player. We can do spiderman level, even Superman (though, well, not THAT powerful please :p) and go from there. The PC will need family, job, who they're "out" to and the like.
How many heroes/nature of the universe'd have to be worked out, too. are there lots of heroes? Villains? Tems? I don't mind stealing piles of stuff from other universes, but I'd also rather not set it specifically in another one; the PC is the star of the story.
The game system would also have to be worked out. Probably Risus, or something, for simplicity. [Not BESM - done it too much lately.] Amber, a la 4ways, is also viable.
Things to keep in mind: This universe will be a collaboration between GM and player. For those who watched La Fin, it's something like that. Only more so. The comic angsty cliches will be used, of course; GF/BF wondering where you are, people wondering why you always go missing etc. How far all of that goes depends on what's made, and the general kind of universe it is, how common heroes are etc.
Players who are NOT in it will be encouraged to make up villains, settings etc. that can be thrown in. I plan to have FUN with it :)
CAVEAT: Okay, so I AM editing it now. To whit:
The PC would need a family. Friends. A weakness or two. Means of travel. Ability to withstand getting hurt. And, for the sake of their sanity, probably at least one person who knows their secret. If it is one.
A superhero game, in "lite" mode. Not dark, not doom and gloom and 'the real world does this, so everyone fears you' etc. It's never really happened in #game1. So I'd like to try it. The one player limit is, well, I think I could manage it best that way.
(N.B. Two players is possible if 2 ppl want to do a siblings or parent/child duo.)
The goal is a superhero game that's about fun. Helping people, having fun, balancing hero and life, beating Bad Guys and the like.
Oh, yes: So far, Caltak is interested. He just said so.
To continue: The actual universe - and power level of the PC - will be worked out with the player. We can do spiderman level, even Superman (though, well, not THAT powerful please :p) and go from there. The PC will need family, job, who they're "out" to and the like.
How many heroes/nature of the universe'd have to be worked out, too. are there lots of heroes? Villains? Tems? I don't mind stealing piles of stuff from other universes, but I'd also rather not set it specifically in another one; the PC is the star of the story.
The game system would also have to be worked out. Probably Risus, or something, for simplicity. [Not BESM - done it too much lately.] Amber, a la 4ways, is also viable.
Things to keep in mind: This universe will be a collaboration between GM and player. For those who watched La Fin, it's something like that. Only more so. The comic angsty cliches will be used, of course; GF/BF wondering where you are, people wondering why you always go missing etc. How far all of that goes depends on what's made, and the general kind of universe it is, how common heroes are etc.
Players who are NOT in it will be encouraged to make up villains, settings etc. that can be thrown in. I plan to have FUN with it :)
CAVEAT: Okay, so I AM editing it now. To whit:
The PC would need a family. Friends. A weakness or two. Means of travel. Ability to withstand getting hurt. And, for the sake of their sanity, probably at least one person who knows their secret. If it is one.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
LOLAD2 Ramblings and stuff
LOLAD 2 will run. Not sure when, of course. I think everyone'll need a break from the world, so we'll do something else (what? no idea yet. Could do more of Havoc! :) Or UH ::p)
But, since some players are already thinking up PC ideas:
1) No MC from lolad1. (Secondary Characters - Travor's sister, maybe Mufasta etc.) are possible. Ideally, though, the game won't have much connection to lolad1, PC wise.
Starting point breakdown:
13 CP for stats.
10 CP for abilities.
20 SP for skills.
No more than 5 points total in defects.
Items of Power and the Magic attribute ARE allowed, within reason.
No PC weres or vamps. You're all human (or human+), or some weak kind of alien etc. This is a lower-powered game. Think of the PCs as vigilantes and the LOLAD1 PCs as the Justice League -- very little interaction between them, gross differences in power.
The LOLAD1 game will, of course, be referenced. LOLAD2 wil take place in the modern world, so 5 years or so after LOLAD1. Newcasts etc. will mention those PCs. (Players are encouraged to come up with "what my PC would be doing in 5 years" things for fun once lolad1 ends :))
Of course, how LOLAD2 plays out will depend on how 1 ends, naturally. Given the plot so far, I have some vague ideas, but the whims of Sparkie change many things.
The "between games game" will be intended as a short, fun game. Different genre entirely, ideally. I would like to do the Haunted game, for example, at some point. Or we could do something nice and silly. Really up for anything.
(Keep in mind that this is 3+ months down the road; lolad1 still has a weys to go. But toss out ideas here and we'll see what people are up for. Time will be the same on Monday.)
But, since some players are already thinking up PC ideas:
1) No MC from lolad1. (Secondary Characters - Travor's sister, maybe Mufasta etc.) are possible. Ideally, though, the game won't have much connection to lolad1, PC wise.
Starting point breakdown:
13 CP for stats.
10 CP for abilities.
20 SP for skills.
No more than 5 points total in defects.
Items of Power and the Magic attribute ARE allowed, within reason.
No PC weres or vamps. You're all human (or human+), or some weak kind of alien etc. This is a lower-powered game. Think of the PCs as vigilantes and the LOLAD1 PCs as the Justice League -- very little interaction between them, gross differences in power.
The LOLAD1 game will, of course, be referenced. LOLAD2 wil take place in the modern world, so 5 years or so after LOLAD1. Newcasts etc. will mention those PCs. (Players are encouraged to come up with "what my PC would be doing in 5 years" things for fun once lolad1 ends :))
Of course, how LOLAD2 plays out will depend on how 1 ends, naturally. Given the plot so far, I have some vague ideas, but the whims of Sparkie change many things.
The "between games game" will be intended as a short, fun game. Different genre entirely, ideally. I would like to do the Haunted game, for example, at some point. Or we could do something nice and silly. Really up for anything.
(Keep in mind that this is 3+ months down the road; lolad1 still has a weys to go. But toss out ideas here and we'll see what people are up for. Time will be the same on Monday.)
Sunday, July 09, 2006
LOLAD 2?
The Major Plot is about to unfold, in game, soon. (Soon in this game, of course, is a while in RL :)) Depending on how things go, it will end - interestingly, for the world.
So a second campaign may be ran, if players are willing and not lolad'd-out. Said campaign would be set in 2006, using lower powered characters: no weres and vamps, for one thing, using BESM. Real world*
* "Or what is left of it." - Sparkie
Proviso: no PCs from the first campaign can be used. NPCs from it can be turned into PCs, with GM permission, but for the most part everyone is expected to make new characters and the game go from there.
Once this campaign draws to a close, we'll do an informal poll and see if players are up to the new game deal, or taking a break from the universe, or whatever.
So a second campaign may be ran, if players are willing and not lolad'd-out. Said campaign would be set in 2006, using lower powered characters: no weres and vamps, for one thing, using BESM. Real world*
* "Or what is left of it." - Sparkie
Proviso: no PCs from the first campaign can be used. NPCs from it can be turned into PCs, with GM permission, but for the most part everyone is expected to make new characters and the game go from there.
Once this campaign draws to a close, we'll do an informal poll and see if players are up to the new game deal, or taking a break from the universe, or whatever.
Sunday, July 02, 2006
New, Improved Quotes!
The quotes have improved, thanks to the efforts of Fennec (and kentari, for how Sparkie does them now). Search is now available ONLY on the site. Improvements will be added as time permit. The regular quotes via 500 per page in the normal quotes section of the site will be updated as usual.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Novel Editing, anyone?
Waking the Dead, a novel I wrote last year, is (finally) at beta-editing stage. From post to sffmuse...
Novel is 242 pages, I think, a little over 90K. .rtf format.
It's urban fantasy - magic, the real world, teen protagonists trying to save it. Etc.
What's in it: A lot of weird things. Talking dogs without heads, ghosts, witches, wizards, magical powers and the like. Viewpoint does shift between characters, though it's done as first person from each character, with two interludes and lots of odd pieces tossed in. Novel is NOT in chapter format, though each day is marked.
What's not in it: Sex or swearing. Moderate violence is in it.
Below is the first 4.5 pages. Contact me in chat if you want a copy of the whole thing to edit and I'll email you one. If you want something in return besides gratitude, ask :)
The goal (hope :)) is to get the edited copies back within 2 months, read over all of them, and edit ruthlessly according to the hive mind.
-------------------------
De mortiis, aut bene aut nihil.
("Of the dead, speak well or not at all")
The long habit of living indisposeth us for dying.
- Sir Thomas Browne
To bring the dead to life
Is no great magic.
Few are wholly dead:
Blow on a dead man's embers
And a live flame will start.
- Robert Graves, from "Bring The Dead To Life"
WEDNESDAY
The corpses were bleeding. In their hollow cages under the ground staining them with embalming fluid leaking from pores, eyes opened, voices screaming without sound. The earth muffled it, contained it, embraced it. Earthworms died, but no one took notice, no one heard. Who comes, if no one hears your call?
Elsewhere, screams are muffled by drugs, replacing tears from eyes too dry to weep. The men in grey enter a room, smiling their bland smiles, holding needles. The needles make it all go away. The mute screaming no one can hear is unheard. Outside the window shines the moon, oblivious. The screaming man speaks to it, but he is a man, and the moon does not hear him. Soon he stops screaming and the world get fuzzy in a pleasant way. He floats away, gently, lost in bliss of forgetting.
It takes them two more minutes to unclench his fists, pale gouges in palms a testimony to terror washed away by cold water. The man in white sleeps, in a room of soft walls, and dreams the ground leaked blood that no one saw because they were too busy eating their eyes and ears.
Jansen
"The urban world is a wilderness, a jungle of a kind," Uncle Alvin was saying as he paced the front of the class room. He's tall and a fair bit on the chubby side, constantly adjusted his glasses (he calls them spectacles) and tends to use his hands a lot while talking. Which he also does a lot, but he has the kind of voice people love to hear, deep and smooth like rough velvet.
"This is generally an accepted analogy of the modern world," he said, waving a hand absently to the window, "but not well understood. The problem with such metaphors is that too often they contain more than they seem, and don't really explain enough of what they contain. Too much water enters the glass, and what overflows - that which cannot fit into the paradigm - is discarded.
"This, of course, does not invalidate the symbol, but should serve to warn that the symbols are not to be trusted, if only because we value them so highly. Can someone tell me why we came down from the trees only to go back up in them with high rises?"
The ringing of the period bell barely covered the sighs of relief from the class. If he noticed, my uncle gave no clue.. "We'll take up tomorrow where we left off. Mythology and symbolism, people. Unless we know the sources for our symbols we are trapped by them. Read chapters six and seven by next Friday as well."
The class filed out, most of the other students shaking their heads and a few making jokes under their breath. I could have told them they were wasting their time, but I didn't bother. It took a lot to get under my uncle's skin for longer than five minutes, though my parents had come close a few times that I remembered and Cass was, well, Cass.
"I thought today's lecture went well," he remarked as I made my way up to the desk. I sat down on a desk and leaned my cane against his, waiting. We hadn't talked much recently, not about anything important. I think he was hurt I hadn't told him about Evan, but I hadn't told anyone, even if people had guessed.
"You're just lucky Liz is sick," I said. "Otherwise she would have asked you about the glass of water as the primordial egg and if you could actually explain symbols without using symbols and, if not, if it was of any use at all."
Alvin chuckled lightly, digging some more papers out of the desk. "Well, at least you didn't Jansen."
"I kind of want supper tonight," I said dryly. "Well, actually a late supper. I need to go downtown."
Alvin shoved some more books into his briefcase and managed to snap it shut. "Oh?"
"Yeah. Mom and dad want to talk."
"Oh." He looked up at me. "It's yes, not yeah. Is this going to be like last week?"
"You mean when Cass caused that fire hydrant to shower the street? Nah. Sorry, no. They don't want her coming, though, to be on the safe side. Besides, she has yearbook club stuff tonight. She's the photographer."
Uncle Alvin frowned. "There's something you're not telling me."
"Lots of things," I said cheerfully. "Now, can we get going? I'm hungry and I can't very well eat until after I do whatever they want. We can beat the traffic and -"
"Jansen," he said warningly.
I sighed. That was the trouble with my uncle. He wasn't weird like me and Cass, just good at knowing when he was being lied to. Even by omission, unfortunately.
1Lying in the ground cold and barren. No one hears their cries, no one sees their tears. The dead; weeping for the living.
In the underworld no one can hear you scream. In the empty places where body parts once lay, hollowed bones release memory, casting nets into the dreams, speaking in words the living cannot understand.
Elsewhere, a door opens; the man in white is unaware, floating, flying in his head where he cannot hear the dead. The grey men whisper things, voices impersonal as scalpels, and he almost makes out words, almost understands. Then they die, and continue walking unaware. Sometimes, effect comes before cause. This comforts him when they strap him in the chair. "You are dead," he tells them but they do not understand.
Somewhere, she is laughing. He can almost here it. He can almost see it, like the alimony checks she got, and child support though they had no children. Hate almost clears his mind, but almost counts for nothing.
"I told you it was nothing important," I said, trying to sound casual.. The car took the corner down Broad Street too fast and Uncle Alvin turned and glared at me as he stopped at the lights.
"Not important? Your sister is taking pictures of everyone male student naked!"
"But it's just for her private collection."
The silence that followed that was calm, except for the vein pulsing in his forehead like an alien worm under his skin. "Private collection?" he said slowly, but the anger was already draining from him, as it almost always did.
"Well, they won't go in the yearbook."
"And you let her do this?"
"It's Cass. I couldn't have stopped her, uncle."
"You could have told me."
"Well, yeah. But she promised me copies."
The silence was really loud as he swerved around another corner.
"That was a red light you just drove through," I said carefully.
"Would it have mattered?" Uncle Alvin snapped.
"Yes, because cars tend to go through intersections. If you have a red light you don't go. I'm pretty sure Driver's Ed covers that sort of thing, but insurance companies might not."
"You would have lived."
"Maybe. But, uncle, I don't know about you. And it's not infallible. You know that." I rubbed my knee, pulling my hand away when I realized what I was doing. "I know that."
The car slowed a fraction, then stopped as he swerved into a free parking space. I checked the meter out of habit, but someone had already paid up for three hours. Uncle Alvin caught my glance and snorted, opening the door. "You know, I'd think that you of all people wouldn't bother checking things like that," he said dryly, an apology of sorts.
"You never know," I said, and it sounded defensive even to me.
The pre-Christmas rush had already begun downtown and the streets were thronged with people and decorations. I closed the door and limped to the sidewalk, trying to hide my relief from my uncle. I'd had the cane for over a year now and still hated it. I was in high school, and needed a cane to get around. People noticed that, and I don't like being noticed, not like Cass does.
Uncle Alvin bought me one, then another when the first one accidentally broke. He'd never said a word when he got the third one and I've had it ever since. Something in his gaze had told me I was pushing my luck, but it had run out that one day anyway, for a moment. Just a run of the mill car accident, but I never knew for sure. We always want it to be more, to have some special secret meaning. We don't like to believe in accidents; we'd rather believe in some meaningful coincidence that gave purpose to our pain.
I've avoided being in cars as much as possible ever since. I know it's silly, but that doesn't mean I don't do it. I spend a few seconds shivering, not just from the cold, but trying to hide it from my uncle. He might not get how much his running the red light scared me.
Cass and I are weird, and mom and dad are even weirder, which was why Uncle Alvin was going to go shop for things while I went and talked to them. He didn't mind the fact the fact that mom and dad were dead; it's why he took us in after they died in the crash. He did have issues with them showing up and talking to us, though. I think it offended his sensibilities.
I waited until he'd gone into the mall, just breathing in the cold air to remind myself I was alive and made my way south to the park. I'd never noticed it last Christmas, but there are benefits to being lame. People get out of my way without thinking about it and don't notice me specifically. Which would be good except that "the young man with the cane" sort of narrows down the list of people in town to, well, me.
The park was deserted except for a few hobos, some of them local and the rest just wandering around the country from place to place. The police, or at least Constable Christensen, patrolled it about once every day to make sure they weren't bothering people and they got to sleep under the trees and out of the public eye, which spends most of its time closed and pretending they don't exist anyway. I gave a few some change, because I didn't want to live in a world where people didn't.
Novel is 242 pages, I think, a little over 90K. .rtf format.
It's urban fantasy - magic, the real world, teen protagonists trying to save it. Etc.
What's in it: A lot of weird things. Talking dogs without heads, ghosts, witches, wizards, magical powers and the like. Viewpoint does shift between characters, though it's done as first person from each character, with two interludes and lots of odd pieces tossed in. Novel is NOT in chapter format, though each day is marked.
What's not in it: Sex or swearing. Moderate violence is in it.
Below is the first 4.5 pages. Contact me in chat if you want a copy of the whole thing to edit and I'll email you one. If you want something in return besides gratitude, ask :)
The goal (hope :)) is to get the edited copies back within 2 months, read over all of them, and edit ruthlessly according to the hive mind.
-------------------------
De mortiis, aut bene aut nihil.
("Of the dead, speak well or not at all")
The long habit of living indisposeth us for dying.
- Sir Thomas Browne
To bring the dead to life
Is no great magic.
Few are wholly dead:
Blow on a dead man's embers
And a live flame will start.
- Robert Graves, from "Bring The Dead To Life"
WEDNESDAY
The corpses were bleeding. In their hollow cages under the ground staining them with embalming fluid leaking from pores, eyes opened, voices screaming without sound. The earth muffled it, contained it, embraced it. Earthworms died, but no one took notice, no one heard. Who comes, if no one hears your call?
Elsewhere, screams are muffled by drugs, replacing tears from eyes too dry to weep. The men in grey enter a room, smiling their bland smiles, holding needles. The needles make it all go away. The mute screaming no one can hear is unheard. Outside the window shines the moon, oblivious. The screaming man speaks to it, but he is a man, and the moon does not hear him. Soon he stops screaming and the world get fuzzy in a pleasant way. He floats away, gently, lost in bliss of forgetting.
It takes them two more minutes to unclench his fists, pale gouges in palms a testimony to terror washed away by cold water. The man in white sleeps, in a room of soft walls, and dreams the ground leaked blood that no one saw because they were too busy eating their eyes and ears.
Jansen
"The urban world is a wilderness, a jungle of a kind," Uncle Alvin was saying as he paced the front of the class room. He's tall and a fair bit on the chubby side, constantly adjusted his glasses (he calls them spectacles) and tends to use his hands a lot while talking. Which he also does a lot, but he has the kind of voice people love to hear, deep and smooth like rough velvet.
"This is generally an accepted analogy of the modern world," he said, waving a hand absently to the window, "but not well understood. The problem with such metaphors is that too often they contain more than they seem, and don't really explain enough of what they contain. Too much water enters the glass, and what overflows - that which cannot fit into the paradigm - is discarded.
"This, of course, does not invalidate the symbol, but should serve to warn that the symbols are not to be trusted, if only because we value them so highly. Can someone tell me why we came down from the trees only to go back up in them with high rises?"
The ringing of the period bell barely covered the sighs of relief from the class. If he noticed, my uncle gave no clue.. "We'll take up tomorrow where we left off. Mythology and symbolism, people. Unless we know the sources for our symbols we are trapped by them. Read chapters six and seven by next Friday as well."
The class filed out, most of the other students shaking their heads and a few making jokes under their breath. I could have told them they were wasting their time, but I didn't bother. It took a lot to get under my uncle's skin for longer than five minutes, though my parents had come close a few times that I remembered and Cass was, well, Cass.
"I thought today's lecture went well," he remarked as I made my way up to the desk. I sat down on a desk and leaned my cane against his, waiting. We hadn't talked much recently, not about anything important. I think he was hurt I hadn't told him about Evan, but I hadn't told anyone, even if people had guessed.
"You're just lucky Liz is sick," I said. "Otherwise she would have asked you about the glass of water as the primordial egg and if you could actually explain symbols without using symbols and, if not, if it was of any use at all."
Alvin chuckled lightly, digging some more papers out of the desk. "Well, at least you didn't Jansen."
"I kind of want supper tonight," I said dryly. "Well, actually a late supper. I need to go downtown."
Alvin shoved some more books into his briefcase and managed to snap it shut. "Oh?"
"Yeah. Mom and dad want to talk."
"Oh." He looked up at me. "It's yes, not yeah. Is this going to be like last week?"
"You mean when Cass caused that fire hydrant to shower the street? Nah. Sorry, no. They don't want her coming, though, to be on the safe side. Besides, she has yearbook club stuff tonight. She's the photographer."
Uncle Alvin frowned. "There's something you're not telling me."
"Lots of things," I said cheerfully. "Now, can we get going? I'm hungry and I can't very well eat until after I do whatever they want. We can beat the traffic and -"
"Jansen," he said warningly.
I sighed. That was the trouble with my uncle. He wasn't weird like me and Cass, just good at knowing when he was being lied to. Even by omission, unfortunately.
1Lying in the ground cold and barren. No one hears their cries, no one sees their tears. The dead; weeping for the living.
In the underworld no one can hear you scream. In the empty places where body parts once lay, hollowed bones release memory, casting nets into the dreams, speaking in words the living cannot understand.
Elsewhere, a door opens; the man in white is unaware, floating, flying in his head where he cannot hear the dead. The grey men whisper things, voices impersonal as scalpels, and he almost makes out words, almost understands. Then they die, and continue walking unaware. Sometimes, effect comes before cause. This comforts him when they strap him in the chair. "You are dead," he tells them but they do not understand.
Somewhere, she is laughing. He can almost here it. He can almost see it, like the alimony checks she got, and child support though they had no children. Hate almost clears his mind, but almost counts for nothing.
"I told you it was nothing important," I said, trying to sound casual.. The car took the corner down Broad Street too fast and Uncle Alvin turned and glared at me as he stopped at the lights.
"Not important? Your sister is taking pictures of everyone male student naked!"
"But it's just for her private collection."
The silence that followed that was calm, except for the vein pulsing in his forehead like an alien worm under his skin. "Private collection?" he said slowly, but the anger was already draining from him, as it almost always did.
"Well, they won't go in the yearbook."
"And you let her do this?"
"It's Cass. I couldn't have stopped her, uncle."
"You could have told me."
"Well, yeah. But she promised me copies."
The silence was really loud as he swerved around another corner.
"That was a red light you just drove through," I said carefully.
"Would it have mattered?" Uncle Alvin snapped.
"Yes, because cars tend to go through intersections. If you have a red light you don't go. I'm pretty sure Driver's Ed covers that sort of thing, but insurance companies might not."
"You would have lived."
"Maybe. But, uncle, I don't know about you. And it's not infallible. You know that." I rubbed my knee, pulling my hand away when I realized what I was doing. "I know that."
The car slowed a fraction, then stopped as he swerved into a free parking space. I checked the meter out of habit, but someone had already paid up for three hours. Uncle Alvin caught my glance and snorted, opening the door. "You know, I'd think that you of all people wouldn't bother checking things like that," he said dryly, an apology of sorts.
"You never know," I said, and it sounded defensive even to me.
The pre-Christmas rush had already begun downtown and the streets were thronged with people and decorations. I closed the door and limped to the sidewalk, trying to hide my relief from my uncle. I'd had the cane for over a year now and still hated it. I was in high school, and needed a cane to get around. People noticed that, and I don't like being noticed, not like Cass does.
Uncle Alvin bought me one, then another when the first one accidentally broke. He'd never said a word when he got the third one and I've had it ever since. Something in his gaze had told me I was pushing my luck, but it had run out that one day anyway, for a moment. Just a run of the mill car accident, but I never knew for sure. We always want it to be more, to have some special secret meaning. We don't like to believe in accidents; we'd rather believe in some meaningful coincidence that gave purpose to our pain.
I've avoided being in cars as much as possible ever since. I know it's silly, but that doesn't mean I don't do it. I spend a few seconds shivering, not just from the cold, but trying to hide it from my uncle. He might not get how much his running the red light scared me.
Cass and I are weird, and mom and dad are even weirder, which was why Uncle Alvin was going to go shop for things while I went and talked to them. He didn't mind the fact the fact that mom and dad were dead; it's why he took us in after they died in the crash. He did have issues with them showing up and talking to us, though. I think it offended his sensibilities.
I waited until he'd gone into the mall, just breathing in the cold air to remind myself I was alive and made my way south to the park. I'd never noticed it last Christmas, but there are benefits to being lame. People get out of my way without thinking about it and don't notice me specifically. Which would be good except that "the young man with the cane" sort of narrows down the list of people in town to, well, me.
The park was deserted except for a few hobos, some of them local and the rest just wandering around the country from place to place. The police, or at least Constable Christensen, patrolled it about once every day to make sure they weren't bothering people and they got to sleep under the trees and out of the public eye, which spends most of its time closed and pretending they don't exist anyway. I gave a few some change, because I didn't want to live in a world where people didn't.
Monday, June 12, 2006
So ... a bit over a week in game time ....
Let's see. Kage is somewhere between pack and cameron (both thinking he's on the other side), Cameron ordered Lynn out of his house, and Lynn took that to mean pack as well - since they're part of her - and Simon followed her out. The remnants of Cameron's bit of the locii got hacked up (and eaten) and the nice line Cameron drew shall have some fun, fun reprecussions ....
All because of a dance in a ballroom a vampire took to be mind control....
So ... however this is fixed is up to the PCs. Faline as mediator between Lynn and Cameron would be nicely amusing, but the GM is dusting his hands off of the whole PC-caused affair and letting the PCs fix the problem however they want to. If you don't fix it, well ... we'll burn them bridges when we come to them, eh?
We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered. - Tom Stoppard
All because of a dance in a ballroom a vampire took to be mind control....
So ... however this is fixed is up to the PCs. Faline as mediator between Lynn and Cameron would be nicely amusing, but the GM is dusting his hands off of the whole PC-caused affair and letting the PCs fix the problem however they want to. If you don't fix it, well ... we'll burn them bridges when we come to them, eh?
We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered. - Tom Stoppard
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
LOLAD: 10 sessions in
or 40ish, by the not official count.
Things are going well. Have enough players; the game's survived several players getting stuck with Real Life without too much plot juggling and a week has passed us by in game.
Since I'll be doing a novel for the next two months, sessions other than the Official One that fairly unlikely, unless I need a break from writing. Normally I figure I'd be able to get some in, but I've never tried writing a novel while holding down a 9 to 5 job before, so shall see how it goes -- and those all nighters just don't work like they used to. Just figured I'd let everyone know how things'll be stand. It'll be fairly different - I don't how *what* will happen with regards to Cecil stuff, since Chaos is late on Mondays; something'll be worked out at least. I hope.
Things are going well. Have enough players; the game's survived several players getting stuck with Real Life without too much plot juggling and a week has passed us by in game.
Since I'll be doing a novel for the next two months, sessions other than the Official One that fairly unlikely, unless I need a break from writing. Normally I figure I'd be able to get some in, but I've never tried writing a novel while holding down a 9 to 5 job before, so shall see how it goes -- and those all nighters just don't work like they used to. Just figured I'd let everyone know how things'll be stand. It'll be fairly different - I don't how *what* will happen with regards to Cecil stuff, since Chaos is late on Mondays; something'll be worked out at least. I hope.
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Winter
This is just winters sheet from Aftermath being posted for someone.
Winter
Time travel is so dangerous it makes H-bombs seem perfectly safe gifts for children and imebeciles. I mean, what's the worse that could happen with a nuclear weapon? A few million people die; trivial. With time travel we can destroy the whole Universe, or so the theory goes.
- John Varley
Name: Winter Windchaser (aka Barry Mugan) (aka Arth'Ba'Toch)
Sumnmary: Possible god despite a very thorough abdication. It's complicated.
Background: The history of Winter begins somewhere over a thousand years in the future, where the god whose mastery is time sends a hand-picked woman (Tanya Ingold) back in time to give birth to him. Tanya is given advanced technology and the blessings of the god, both of which allow her to survive the trip, and something uniquely Tanya that makes her able to withstand the effects of travelling through time and, perhaps, learn something about the nature of her god during the journey. (This could well have been her unconceived son ,making sure she made it back fine.)
Tanya arrived in 2008 and set about learning about earth and searching for Adam Windchaser, the man destined to be the father of his son Winter whether he liked it or not. Her first attempt later that year was an out and out failure, with Adam (how had been busy avoiding Mr. Armstrong earlier) calling up illusions and evading her. He also ended up castrated and missing his tongue for a time due to the price of his powers and Tanya spent the next few months researching him and ended up deciding on seduction instead, hitting him when he was feeling very depressed and drugging him. Adam woke 3 days later early in 2009 wondering just what the hell had happened.
Tanya found somewhere remote in Asia to give birth to Winter, and given his pre-birth ability to alter time it was a very harrowing experience. However, once he was born something changed. Not at a conscious level, but somehow Tanya couldn't see this child growing up to become a god. (Not that Arth'Ba'Toch, The God Who Must Not Be Named, Lord of Time was a bad god, necessarily, it's just that the business of gods is to BE gods, to remain what they are - and all gods believe in expediency and necessary evils - and have biases against change. For 500 of the years Arth has ruled (began 300ish years in into the future from 2020) society has been stagnant.) She raised him, telling him of his powers when he was two or so, and really didn't understand all the big words she was using. She used a lot of Star Trek lingo since she doesn't really understand his powers herself and to hide the fact that the devices she'd brought had detected Barry Mugan, who *also* seemed to be Winter, which she knew was not possible. There were few facts known about her god, but one was that there was only one of him, ever. Other beings split when they're present at a timeline-altering event, one going down one path, one another (or more, if multiple timelines are made); but Winter was always and ever himself. Barry's presence seemed to put a lie to this and left her even more confused.
She taught Winter how to defend himself unconsciously, helped him through periods when even moving synchronicity by accident left him exhausted for days and taught him, very firmly, that it is wrong to live another's life for them and that killing was wrong (the second lesson has stuck more). She had just been getting into not altering the past to erase his own mistakes (would have been a good lesson) when Adam Windchaser finally managed to find them, having found out his son - the creature that would one day become Barry Mugan, ammoral puppet master - existed thanks to a superhuman known as midwife who specialised in helping people give birth to super human children.
Adam tracked them to Russia, using magic and power and pure rage to escape detection and entered there home, obliterating Tanya with the pure core of his power, illusion made real. But his power had developed over the years, allowing him to siphon other super humans energy directly in order to not inflict his curse - as he struck out at Winter, it attempted to siphon energy and things went nuts. Winter fled, his mind blasted by the pure hatred of his father, and Adamn Windchaser was left crumpled, the curse ripping through him for years and years, trapped in that one moment by Winter's unthinking defence and first use of his Edicaran self.
Winter fled into Canada and somehow to Haven, only knowing that he had to find the "star lady" - his only coherent memory of Starchild left in his fragmenting psyche. He found Kate, then Maelstrom and was eventually healed by Jesa.
And then his power took matters into its own hands, manipulating the future and present so that Timmy met Winter and Winter was hit by the futuristic time compass that let him see his future self. Desperate to not become that begin, he took the Rebirth Timmy hit him with and threw it at his future self, resulting in that self going back in time, becoming insane and eventually Barry Mugan. He'd been manipulated. Something in Winter just ...snapped ... at knowing how many deaths he had caused and he reached out and killed Barry, which destroyed his predetermined future, and which his god self must havbe known would happen because Winter makes his own future and can't be constrained by a set one - which means Arth'Ba'Toch knowns something Winter doesn't, something he was willing to hedge all bets and his very existence on ....
Update: as the edicaran told Carl to tell winter - kings can't sacrifice themselvres in chess (which sort of sums up his problems :p)
Personality: Winter is a very quiet, shy and generally scared kid with a core will of pure determination and depths he's never had to plummet. He's never really been really tested and is generally unconsciously fighting his own power in an effort to actually be human as long as he can. And to him, a large part of that is loyalty to friends. He'd do anything to help them - possible even beoming Art'ba'toch.
Description: Winter is a young albino with long white hair tied up in a pony tail with pale blue eyes, about 10 years old.
Obsession: Being Human (power)
Wound Points: 45
Body: 45 (young)
Athletics 35%, Struggle 40%
Speed: 55 (quick)
Dodge 40%, Initiative 40%, Run away 40%
Mind: 60 (home schooling)
Conceal 15%, General Education: 20%, Notice: 30%., Future Knowledge: 60%; Speak Any Language 30%
Soul: 75 (still waters run deep)
Charm 35%, Lie 20%, Synchronicity 75%
Special: Edicardan: 12%, Human: 88%
Future Knowledge: This represents Winter's ability to know what is going to happen and what is most likely to happen. He doesn't like to use it but if something WILL happen - i.e. no matter what timeline, this event will occur - he'll know that intuitively.
Speak Any Language: This is a talent Tanya either gave to him or taught to him. He's unaware of it at present. It includes reading and writing them. This is generally easier with language he's heard (so far, Frechn, English, Russian and the tongue from his mother's time).
Synchronicity: Coincidence does whatever he wants unconsciously. The world arranges itself in ways that are good for him most of the time, and necessary some of the time. As his power isn't under concious control, it can (and will) arrange things to happen that it feels needs to happen to a certain extent. It is what "creates" things at need and the energy it takes to do that is only noticed by Winter if he's drained (the regular use isn't; he could do that while seconds from death).
Special: When the Eidcaran part outstrips the human, Winter may well cease to exist in a lot of ways. Each time he used his full power (or as much of it as he can - he's young and untrained) the human % goes down by one, the edicaran up by one. And he learns a little bit more about that non-human part of him and how to see time.
Powers:
Manipulate Time (Major X5): Winter alters the timestream just by existing. He can change the present, future and past pretty much at will .. time is his toy to do whatever he wants with. In theory. In practise, this does apply to the god self with centuries of experience in time but not to Winter himself. And there are limits. He cann't undo something he has done or will do - it's not within his power. He could alter time so what he did never happened, if really pushed, but it would get Noticed. And require a signifigant expenditure of energy.
* Altering the present can be done prettty much at will, for local things.
* Altering the future requires touching time and his deep self, as per Not All There and he loses 1% of humanity.
* Altering the past is as per the future, but Winter can't do it yet, even though he's tried.
Note: Winter can't be in more than one place at once or duplicate himself. There is just one of him.
Note2: Raising the dead is possible for his power, but he doesn't know enough about the timelines and can't see deeply or far enough to effectivly raise someone and not alter the past drastically as a result. (If the death occured during a time split, it's much easier and could be done ... otherwise it's really mucking around with things and Winter's power alters time, not necessarily memory - yet. What it would do is arrange for a timeline they hadn't died in - but everyone else would remember seeing them die.)
Flaws:
Pre-ordained future: There are some things Winter can't avoid doing. Creating Barry was one of them. He might be able to avoid others, but the resulting damage to time could well be catastrophic in nature. At some level, he knows this. It is quite likely he could cause Arth by trying to avoid causing him.
Power drain: Seeing time as it really looks like is only possible because his non-human nature buffers him. Even so, using his powers at the deeper levels is increnibly exhausting. Any other being would die from it, possibly even Master J or Jesa. but Winter is not human, nor edicaran, but some hyrbid of both. It allows him to recover from exhaustion naturally at an insane rate and, if he is conscious, can heal him of most damage simply by altering his rate of healing. (The obvious danger is his syncronicity creation effect working when he is drained, which feels much like getting the crap beaten out of you.)
Automatic defence: His power will defend itself against any threats or perceived threats unless Winter deliberately stops it.
Not All There: The non human part of him is the real source for doing impressive things with his power and each time he uses it
he loses some of his humanity. In game terms, this currently means anything aside from future knowledge or syncronicity and minor temporal changes caused by his defence ability.
Pillar of Time: Winter *is* time, in a lot of ways. A big cog in the wheel, at the very least. Harm to it is harm to him. This includes harm HE does to it and arguably be hurts it just by existing since he acts as a mountain in a stream of a vortex of sorts in an ocean at all times. (Being continually harmed by your own presence harming time could explain some of Arth's disposition.) Currently, he's not edicaran enough to realise this flaw, but it's coming....
Notes On Time:
In the Hubris/Aftermath universe, there are alternate timelines. But there are far less of them than many suppose. Just deciding to walk left doesn't mean another you walks right - people "split" into other timelines only at the junction of important events - and what is imporant to time and the universe can be very large or very small. As well, some things seem to have to happen - either through one timeline or all of them - and woe to anyone who decides to mess with that, or can.
Importantly, the past is as malleable as the future and present in this setting. (While rping your entire history changing may be hard for some players, it *can* happen.) In more extreme situations, like altering the past so humanity didn’t happen, just boot the alterer to said universe, where they get to try and live in a universe of flying dolphins, and likely not for long. The big problem is tenses, since your original timeline alters when the past changes in the less extreme senses and being stuck remembering things that never happened is seldom fun.
Winter is unique because a) he's an edicaran in human form, as Bloodhound was a Watcher in human form. The difference is that Winter went all the way and they are one being - each use of it's power to increase his own makes him more it and less human personality wise. And b) There is only one him. He doesn't split along timelines as others do, ever. (It also makes it impossible for him to be in two places at once, or duplicate himself for any reason.)
(The latter doesn't apply to barry. There are more than one of him because the trip through time stripped him of the edicaran for the most part and the time travel entirely.)
Winter
Time travel is so dangerous it makes H-bombs seem perfectly safe gifts for children and imebeciles. I mean, what's the worse that could happen with a nuclear weapon? A few million people die; trivial. With time travel we can destroy the whole Universe, or so the theory goes.
- John Varley
Name: Winter Windchaser (aka Barry Mugan) (aka Arth'Ba'Toch)
Sumnmary: Possible god despite a very thorough abdication. It's complicated.
Background: The history of Winter begins somewhere over a thousand years in the future, where the god whose mastery is time sends a hand-picked woman (Tanya Ingold) back in time to give birth to him. Tanya is given advanced technology and the blessings of the god, both of which allow her to survive the trip, and something uniquely Tanya that makes her able to withstand the effects of travelling through time and, perhaps, learn something about the nature of her god during the journey. (This could well have been her unconceived son ,making sure she made it back fine.)
Tanya arrived in 2008 and set about learning about earth and searching for Adam Windchaser, the man destined to be the father of his son Winter whether he liked it or not. Her first attempt later that year was an out and out failure, with Adam (how had been busy avoiding Mr. Armstrong earlier) calling up illusions and evading her. He also ended up castrated and missing his tongue for a time due to the price of his powers and Tanya spent the next few months researching him and ended up deciding on seduction instead, hitting him when he was feeling very depressed and drugging him. Adam woke 3 days later early in 2009 wondering just what the hell had happened.
Tanya found somewhere remote in Asia to give birth to Winter, and given his pre-birth ability to alter time it was a very harrowing experience. However, once he was born something changed. Not at a conscious level, but somehow Tanya couldn't see this child growing up to become a god. (Not that Arth'Ba'Toch, The God Who Must Not Be Named, Lord of Time was a bad god, necessarily, it's just that the business of gods is to BE gods, to remain what they are - and all gods believe in expediency and necessary evils - and have biases against change. For 500 of the years Arth has ruled (began 300ish years in into the future from 2020) society has been stagnant.) She raised him, telling him of his powers when he was two or so, and really didn't understand all the big words she was using. She used a lot of Star Trek lingo since she doesn't really understand his powers herself and to hide the fact that the devices she'd brought had detected Barry Mugan, who *also* seemed to be Winter, which she knew was not possible. There were few facts known about her god, but one was that there was only one of him, ever. Other beings split when they're present at a timeline-altering event, one going down one path, one another (or more, if multiple timelines are made); but Winter was always and ever himself. Barry's presence seemed to put a lie to this and left her even more confused.
She taught Winter how to defend himself unconsciously, helped him through periods when even moving synchronicity by accident left him exhausted for days and taught him, very firmly, that it is wrong to live another's life for them and that killing was wrong (the second lesson has stuck more). She had just been getting into not altering the past to erase his own mistakes (would have been a good lesson) when Adam Windchaser finally managed to find them, having found out his son - the creature that would one day become Barry Mugan, ammoral puppet master - existed thanks to a superhuman known as midwife who specialised in helping people give birth to super human children.
Adam tracked them to Russia, using magic and power and pure rage to escape detection and entered there home, obliterating Tanya with the pure core of his power, illusion made real. But his power had developed over the years, allowing him to siphon other super humans energy directly in order to not inflict his curse - as he struck out at Winter, it attempted to siphon energy and things went nuts. Winter fled, his mind blasted by the pure hatred of his father, and Adamn Windchaser was left crumpled, the curse ripping through him for years and years, trapped in that one moment by Winter's unthinking defence and first use of his Edicaran self.
Winter fled into Canada and somehow to Haven, only knowing that he had to find the "star lady" - his only coherent memory of Starchild left in his fragmenting psyche. He found Kate, then Maelstrom and was eventually healed by Jesa.
And then his power took matters into its own hands, manipulating the future and present so that Timmy met Winter and Winter was hit by the futuristic time compass that let him see his future self. Desperate to not become that begin, he took the Rebirth Timmy hit him with and threw it at his future self, resulting in that self going back in time, becoming insane and eventually Barry Mugan. He'd been manipulated. Something in Winter just ...snapped ... at knowing how many deaths he had caused and he reached out and killed Barry, which destroyed his predetermined future, and which his god self must havbe known would happen because Winter makes his own future and can't be constrained by a set one - which means Arth'Ba'Toch knowns something Winter doesn't, something he was willing to hedge all bets and his very existence on ....
Update: as the edicaran told Carl to tell winter - kings can't sacrifice themselvres in chess (which sort of sums up his problems :p)
Personality: Winter is a very quiet, shy and generally scared kid with a core will of pure determination and depths he's never had to plummet. He's never really been really tested and is generally unconsciously fighting his own power in an effort to actually be human as long as he can. And to him, a large part of that is loyalty to friends. He'd do anything to help them - possible even beoming Art'ba'toch.
Description: Winter is a young albino with long white hair tied up in a pony tail with pale blue eyes, about 10 years old.
Obsession: Being Human (power)
Wound Points: 45
Body: 45 (young)
Athletics 35%, Struggle 40%
Speed: 55 (quick)
Dodge 40%, Initiative 40%, Run away 40%
Mind: 60 (home schooling)
Conceal 15%, General Education: 20%, Notice: 30%., Future Knowledge: 60%; Speak Any Language 30%
Soul: 75 (still waters run deep)
Charm 35%, Lie 20%, Synchronicity 75%
Special: Edicardan: 12%, Human: 88%
Future Knowledge: This represents Winter's ability to know what is going to happen and what is most likely to happen. He doesn't like to use it but if something WILL happen - i.e. no matter what timeline, this event will occur - he'll know that intuitively.
Speak Any Language: This is a talent Tanya either gave to him or taught to him. He's unaware of it at present. It includes reading and writing them. This is generally easier with language he's heard (so far, Frechn, English, Russian and the tongue from his mother's time).
Synchronicity: Coincidence does whatever he wants unconsciously. The world arranges itself in ways that are good for him most of the time, and necessary some of the time. As his power isn't under concious control, it can (and will) arrange things to happen that it feels needs to happen to a certain extent. It is what "creates" things at need and the energy it takes to do that is only noticed by Winter if he's drained (the regular use isn't; he could do that while seconds from death).
Special: When the Eidcaran part outstrips the human, Winter may well cease to exist in a lot of ways. Each time he used his full power (or as much of it as he can - he's young and untrained) the human % goes down by one, the edicaran up by one. And he learns a little bit more about that non-human part of him and how to see time.
Powers:
Manipulate Time (Major X5): Winter alters the timestream just by existing. He can change the present, future and past pretty much at will .. time is his toy to do whatever he wants with. In theory. In practise, this does apply to the god self with centuries of experience in time but not to Winter himself. And there are limits. He cann't undo something he has done or will do - it's not within his power. He could alter time so what he did never happened, if really pushed, but it would get Noticed. And require a signifigant expenditure of energy.
* Altering the present can be done prettty much at will, for local things.
* Altering the future requires touching time and his deep self, as per Not All There and he loses 1% of humanity.
* Altering the past is as per the future, but Winter can't do it yet, even though he's tried.
Note: Winter can't be in more than one place at once or duplicate himself. There is just one of him.
Note2: Raising the dead is possible for his power, but he doesn't know enough about the timelines and can't see deeply or far enough to effectivly raise someone and not alter the past drastically as a result. (If the death occured during a time split, it's much easier and could be done ... otherwise it's really mucking around with things and Winter's power alters time, not necessarily memory - yet. What it would do is arrange for a timeline they hadn't died in - but everyone else would remember seeing them die.)
Flaws:
Pre-ordained future: There are some things Winter can't avoid doing. Creating Barry was one of them. He might be able to avoid others, but the resulting damage to time could well be catastrophic in nature. At some level, he knows this. It is quite likely he could cause Arth by trying to avoid causing him.
Power drain: Seeing time as it really looks like is only possible because his non-human nature buffers him. Even so, using his powers at the deeper levels is increnibly exhausting. Any other being would die from it, possibly even Master J or Jesa. but Winter is not human, nor edicaran, but some hyrbid of both. It allows him to recover from exhaustion naturally at an insane rate and, if he is conscious, can heal him of most damage simply by altering his rate of healing. (The obvious danger is his syncronicity creation effect working when he is drained, which feels much like getting the crap beaten out of you.)
Automatic defence: His power will defend itself against any threats or perceived threats unless Winter deliberately stops it.
Not All There: The non human part of him is the real source for doing impressive things with his power and each time he uses it
he loses some of his humanity. In game terms, this currently means anything aside from future knowledge or syncronicity and minor temporal changes caused by his defence ability.
Pillar of Time: Winter *is* time, in a lot of ways. A big cog in the wheel, at the very least. Harm to it is harm to him. This includes harm HE does to it and arguably be hurts it just by existing since he acts as a mountain in a stream of a vortex of sorts in an ocean at all times. (Being continually harmed by your own presence harming time could explain some of Arth's disposition.) Currently, he's not edicaran enough to realise this flaw, but it's coming....
Notes On Time:
In the Hubris/Aftermath universe, there are alternate timelines. But there are far less of them than many suppose. Just deciding to walk left doesn't mean another you walks right - people "split" into other timelines only at the junction of important events - and what is imporant to time and the universe can be very large or very small. As well, some things seem to have to happen - either through one timeline or all of them - and woe to anyone who decides to mess with that, or can.
Importantly, the past is as malleable as the future and present in this setting. (While rping your entire history changing may be hard for some players, it *can* happen.) In more extreme situations, like altering the past so humanity didn’t happen, just boot the alterer to said universe, where they get to try and live in a universe of flying dolphins, and likely not for long. The big problem is tenses, since your original timeline alters when the past changes in the less extreme senses and being stuck remembering things that never happened is seldom fun.
Winter is unique because a) he's an edicaran in human form, as Bloodhound was a Watcher in human form. The difference is that Winter went all the way and they are one being - each use of it's power to increase his own makes him more it and less human personality wise. And b) There is only one him. He doesn't split along timelines as others do, ever. (It also makes it impossible for him to be in two places at once, or duplicate himself for any reason.)
(The latter doesn't apply to barry. There are more than one of him because the trip through time stripped him of the edicaran for the most part and the time travel entirely.)
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Thoughts after session #1 ...
1. Player count is at max. No new players will be added, even if one player drops for RL. (If two drop, one could be added.) PCs may die in this game; if so, the player has the option of making a new character or saying "OMG! You all suck!" and someone else joining.
2. If people wish (see 1) I could rub sessions more like movies. Stuff. Stuff. Cut to other group. Stuff. Etc. I'm not sure if this would be better, but it could be vs a bit of a laggy response time.
3. All rules questions should go into #game1-ooc. Not me. I don't have time for it, with 2-3 channels and the same for msg going on sometimes.
4. Yuki should have adapted to Rei's demon bit by the next morning, in game. Sophie is, of coure, another kettle of fish, but he doesn't much like kettles and is only a fan of fish that isn't messy when you eat it ....
5. Now, insanity wise, Kage has stepped up to the bat. Rather handidly. *cheers from the audience*
6. For reasns of time, sessions will be no longer than 6 hours (6pm - midnight PST, 9pm - 3am EST). This is to allow players to not have to leave early and miss out on stuff that they would reasonably have involved themselves in.
If you do have to leave early, make up an in-game reason, and use it. If you're going to be late for the next session, ensure your PC is away from the others at the end of the current sessionn if possible.
8. Let's see if we can leave Trail intact for more than a week, eh?
9. Give thought to what your PC will do for a job. Kage had the interesting idea of the PCs owning a bar*. The circus also needs people, and will be stuck in Trail for a while (and seriously strapped for cash) trying to repair the ferris wheel :P Toss others ideas onto the table.
And try not to get your face ripped off during the dicussion on jobs you are suited for.
*Insert your own obligatory Artimus reference here :)
9.2. This is added because of the law of fives.
2. If people wish (see 1) I could rub sessions more like movies. Stuff. Stuff. Cut to other group. Stuff. Etc. I'm not sure if this would be better, but it could be vs a bit of a laggy response time.
3. All rules questions should go into #game1-ooc. Not me. I don't have time for it, with 2-3 channels and the same for msg going on sometimes.
4. Yuki should have adapted to Rei's demon bit by the next morning, in game. Sophie is, of coure, another kettle of fish, but he doesn't much like kettles and is only a fan of fish that isn't messy when you eat it ....
5. Now, insanity wise, Kage has stepped up to the bat. Rather handidly. *cheers from the audience*
6. For reasns of time, sessions will be no longer than 6 hours (6pm - midnight PST, 9pm - 3am EST). This is to allow players to not have to leave early and miss out on stuff that they would reasonably have involved themselves in.
If you do have to leave early, make up an in-game reason, and use it. If you're going to be late for the next session, ensure your PC is away from the others at the end of the current sessionn if possible.
8. Let's see if we can leave Trail intact for more than a week, eh?
9. Give thought to what your PC will do for a job. Kage had the interesting idea of the PCs owning a bar*. The circus also needs people, and will be stuck in Trail for a while (and seriously strapped for cash) trying to repair the ferris wheel :P Toss others ideas onto the table.
And try not to get your face ripped off during the dicussion on jobs you are suited for.
*Insert your own obligatory Artimus reference here :)
9.2. This is added because of the law of fives.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Haunted Sample PC
Name: Darryl Hannigan
Player: Alcar (Sample NPC)
Summary: Drifter with strange talents he doesn't understand looking for the meaning in his life.
Description: Darryl is a tall, lithe man in his late twenties in excellent shape with African-black skin and black eyes and hair. He is NOT a basketball player, and is wearing jeans, a sweater, a jean jacket, sneakers, and gloves.
Personality: Darryl is a normal, regular person trying to cope with a gift he doesn't understand.
Trigger Event(s): The deaths of a lover and a friend later changed his life in mundane ways. Later, seeing signs and having visions when he touched people.
Obsession: Being the best that he can be (Parkour)
Wound Points: 50
STIMULI
Rage: People who do drugs.
Fear: Being trapped in one place (broken bones)
Noble:
STATS
Body: 60 (lithe)
Speed: 50 (quick)
Mind: 50 (college schooling)
Soul: 70 (observant)
SKILLS
Body:
*Parkour*: 60% [Obsession]
Beat The Shit Out Of Nasty People: 35%
Speed:
Dodge: 25%
Driving: 10% [Only got a license recently]
Initiative: 40%
Knives and their friends: 30%
Mind:
General Education: 20%
Notice: 25%
Conceal: 15%
Map places: 35%
Soul:
Charm: 15%
Lying: 15%
See Signs: 20%
Psychometry: 50%
Map places is a mental aid in Parkour, helping him figure out the quickest way to get from A to B. It also helps ensure he seldom gets lost anywhere, and is useful in getting a "feel" for a place.
See Signs: This ability is passive, working only when the GM feels like having it happen. It basically is "signs" that Darryl sees, often real signs or paper headlines that change. The effect IS visible to others, if they look, but most people seldom do, and the sign isn't for them, anyway. The source of them is unknown, but they act as guides and hunches, directing Darryl places or giving him hints. He doesn't always get them, of course, and sometimes the signs are just a feeling: keep moving, you haven't found what you're looking for yet. (This, of course, would be more useful if he knew WHAT he was looking for.)
Psychometry: Darryl gets visions of things when he touches them. It doesn't always happen with objects, and almost always with people. Generally he only gets one a day from one person, and from things - well, it depends. If his car is low on gas and needs a tune-up, it could give quite a few. He's slowly coming to terms with the idea that cars and the like are as alive as people, but isn't sure what it all means, if anything.
INVENTORY
- A long volkswagon with a big trunk and, when the back seat folds down, enough room for two (or even the) people to sleep in it quite comfortably. Fake wood paneling, all of that. It's from the early 90s :)
- Clothing, duffel bag of more clothing, credit cards.
- A nice nest egg (at least $80K) in the bank. He works odd jobs for people as he goes to pay for gas and basic expenses.
BACKGROUND
Darryl had a very normal, boring childhood as far as such things go. He had loving parents, an adopted sister he got along with rather well, and some friends. Sure, he was chubby, but he didn't let what people say bother him (he seldom has) and life was pretty much normal. Then came high school, and girls who didn't like the geeky kids who played computer games and looked like they avoided sunlight as a plague. He was 15 when he decided he was tired of being himself and decided to become someone else.
The next year was hell, but he survived. His grades nose-dived, but he ran, did track, played in sports, and confused the hell out of his old friends and family. He got a girlfriend, began to do better in school again, and then one night three years later he went to her place to find she'd OD'd. He never did find out on what Karen had took, or why. He knew she had some problems with her family, but he'd been waiting for her to open up about them herself. Instead she'd opened her wrists and then her mind.
The doctors had tried to comfort him at the hospital, saying she'd at least bound her wrists, probably changed her mind, but with the drugs and blood loss hadn't been able to call 911. He listened, he heard: it didn't matter. Sometime during that night, he left his old life behind as well. He waited a week for the funeral, saying all the right things to all the right questions. Graduation was in one week; he left the next day, unable to stay any longer.
He found refuge on the east coast, in New York City, reasoning that if California was Heaven, NYC had to be hell. It was just his bad luck that the mayor had gone on a "clean up the streets spree", but some parts of the city never listened, and he ended up in them, trying to understand why Karen had destroyed herself, why people did that, and what kind of lives they led. he ended up in a gang, and a leader eventually since he never did drugs and rarely drank. He was death on anyone who did drugs, once literally, but even though he was somewhere near the bottom, he knew there was no way he could fall far enough for it to matter, for him to understand.
So he left that, when he was 22, and enrolled in some cheap-ass college courses to become an assistant gym teacher at the less savoury schools in the city. It was there that he met Kelly, who was the other assistant gym teacher. She was big into parkour, and street fighting, and used to be a guy (a fact she told him when, one night while drunk, he asked if she'd like to get to know him better: he'd sobered up really fast). They got along well as friends and she introduced him to the sport. He turned out to be really good at it, a natural even, and won the local city competition the next year.
He and Kelly moved in two years later, just as friends. They scrimped and saved for more courses, to try and become real gym teachers, and though money was tight, life was good. Darryl was even thinking about calling home, since he couldn't stay "trapped in the local parkour scene for long," as Kelly put it. He waited, unsure what to say, until six months ago he was walking down the street on the way home from school and the local movie theatre sign changed into "Don't Call Home Yet". Darryl thought it was just a freak occurrence, until signs continued to "speak" to him, words in the paper moving. Sometimes other people saw them, sometimes not; the message was always for him.
[The day of "the signs" day is the exact day Karen died. This is just a coincidence, of course.]
He thought he must be going mad, but managed to start ignoring them, even though sometimes it was hard. Then one evening he came back from work, went to take a plate from Kelly, and their hands touched. And he saw into Kelly's soul. Images, thoughts, knowledge. He knew the cancer she was dying of, and the terrible fear of dying alone she had. He'd blurted out "You have cancer?" in surprised, and she'd been shocked, confused. He'd tried to explain, failing, and left the room, unable to deal with her fear.
She died two months later, after they'd come to terms with - well, It. He was wearing gloves, and the only person who came. There were no signs, but there was also nothing holding him to the city anymore: the bureaucracy hindered his advancement (he tried not to think it was racial; but it was hard not to: the scorn of white people was an old memory). He sold the apartment and bought a volkswagon, putting the money Kelly had left him in her will into a savings account and leaving the city.
Since then, he's just wandered, never staying for long in one place, pulled hither and thither by hunches and signs, and touching things, understanding them, and doing what he can to make sense of this strange gift and the world as it now is to him. He's wondering if it's time to go home now, but hadn't seen a sign telling him this yet and has no desire to go on his own. He keeps telling himself he's not afraid, and doesn't have answers for questions. He's turning 27 in three days, and wondering what his life will be like now that he's crazy ...
FAMILY
Frank Hannigan (Father, 58) - His father was a doctor, and still is. Just a GP, but it's been enough for the family to do moderately well, and they've not moved from their house, just added a pool and helped fund the local park down the road (firmly refusing to have it put in his the family name, and the donation was anonymous). He wishes he knew where his son was, and often checks obituaries of national papers, but has done nothing towards finding Darryl, figuring his son will come home when he wants to, and holding to that.
Mary Hannigan (Mother, 56) - Mary loves her sons. Darryl's room hadn't been changed since he left it, and a part of her died when he left as he did. Oh, she knows he has his reasons, but even so - it's been almost 10 years, and she's afraid he's died, or something worse has happened, and doesn't understand how things ended up as they did. She loves her other son and husband, and can go for almost a month without wondering where Darryl is sometimes, but she cries more in private than she should. She knows she should move on, that this isn't healthy, but there's a hole in her heart that nothing can fill, except answers. IN her normal life, she works as a secretary for her husband, and helps out at a local soup kitchen.
Chris Hannigan (Brother (adopted), 26) - Chris was always welcomed in the family. His childhood before he was adopted (at age 6) isn't something he ever talks about, and he loves his family, and adored his brother. He tried not to hate Darryl for running away, but part of him still does, knowing that no matter how hard he tries, he can't fill the gap in his parent's lives. He is, currently, finishing a business major at the local university and unsure what to do with his life after that.
FRIENDS
None, at present, besides the car he's named Bessie. He had a few in NYC, other teachers, some students and their parents, a few of the gang members who'd reformed, but no one he was really close to. His childhood best friend (before he got into Sports) was Harry Blackmore, who is likely a computer hacker with the NSA or something. His friends after that were some guys and girls in the track team. Many likely stayed in town, but he never kept in touch with anyone from home. (That being [Some town below Seattle], Washington].)
Player: Alcar (Sample NPC)
Summary: Drifter with strange talents he doesn't understand looking for the meaning in his life.
Description: Darryl is a tall, lithe man in his late twenties in excellent shape with African-black skin and black eyes and hair. He is NOT a basketball player, and is wearing jeans, a sweater, a jean jacket, sneakers, and gloves.
Personality: Darryl is a normal, regular person trying to cope with a gift he doesn't understand.
Trigger Event(s): The deaths of a lover and a friend later changed his life in mundane ways. Later, seeing signs and having visions when he touched people.
Obsession: Being the best that he can be (Parkour)
Wound Points: 50
STIMULI
Rage: People who do drugs.
Fear: Being trapped in one place (broken bones)
Noble:
STATS
Body: 60 (lithe)
Speed: 50 (quick)
Mind: 50 (college schooling)
Soul: 70 (observant)
SKILLS
Body:
*Parkour*: 60% [Obsession]
Beat The Shit Out Of Nasty People: 35%
Speed:
Dodge: 25%
Driving: 10% [Only got a license recently]
Initiative: 40%
Knives and their friends: 30%
Mind:
General Education: 20%
Notice: 25%
Conceal: 15%
Map places: 35%
Soul:
Charm: 15%
Lying: 15%
See Signs: 20%
Psychometry: 50%
Map places is a mental aid in Parkour, helping him figure out the quickest way to get from A to B. It also helps ensure he seldom gets lost anywhere, and is useful in getting a "feel" for a place.
See Signs: This ability is passive, working only when the GM feels like having it happen. It basically is "signs" that Darryl sees, often real signs or paper headlines that change. The effect IS visible to others, if they look, but most people seldom do, and the sign isn't for them, anyway. The source of them is unknown, but they act as guides and hunches, directing Darryl places or giving him hints. He doesn't always get them, of course, and sometimes the signs are just a feeling: keep moving, you haven't found what you're looking for yet. (This, of course, would be more useful if he knew WHAT he was looking for.)
Psychometry: Darryl gets visions of things when he touches them. It doesn't always happen with objects, and almost always with people. Generally he only gets one a day from one person, and from things - well, it depends. If his car is low on gas and needs a tune-up, it could give quite a few. He's slowly coming to terms with the idea that cars and the like are as alive as people, but isn't sure what it all means, if anything.
INVENTORY
- A long volkswagon with a big trunk and, when the back seat folds down, enough room for two (or even the) people to sleep in it quite comfortably. Fake wood paneling, all of that. It's from the early 90s :)
- Clothing, duffel bag of more clothing, credit cards.
- A nice nest egg (at least $80K) in the bank. He works odd jobs for people as he goes to pay for gas and basic expenses.
BACKGROUND
Darryl had a very normal, boring childhood as far as such things go. He had loving parents, an adopted sister he got along with rather well, and some friends. Sure, he was chubby, but he didn't let what people say bother him (he seldom has) and life was pretty much normal. Then came high school, and girls who didn't like the geeky kids who played computer games and looked like they avoided sunlight as a plague. He was 15 when he decided he was tired of being himself and decided to become someone else.
The next year was hell, but he survived. His grades nose-dived, but he ran, did track, played in sports, and confused the hell out of his old friends and family. He got a girlfriend, began to do better in school again, and then one night three years later he went to her place to find she'd OD'd. He never did find out on what Karen had took, or why. He knew she had some problems with her family, but he'd been waiting for her to open up about them herself. Instead she'd opened her wrists and then her mind.
The doctors had tried to comfort him at the hospital, saying she'd at least bound her wrists, probably changed her mind, but with the drugs and blood loss hadn't been able to call 911. He listened, he heard: it didn't matter. Sometime during that night, he left his old life behind as well. He waited a week for the funeral, saying all the right things to all the right questions. Graduation was in one week; he left the next day, unable to stay any longer.
He found refuge on the east coast, in New York City, reasoning that if California was Heaven, NYC had to be hell. It was just his bad luck that the mayor had gone on a "clean up the streets spree", but some parts of the city never listened, and he ended up in them, trying to understand why Karen had destroyed herself, why people did that, and what kind of lives they led. he ended up in a gang, and a leader eventually since he never did drugs and rarely drank. He was death on anyone who did drugs, once literally, but even though he was somewhere near the bottom, he knew there was no way he could fall far enough for it to matter, for him to understand.
So he left that, when he was 22, and enrolled in some cheap-ass college courses to become an assistant gym teacher at the less savoury schools in the city. It was there that he met Kelly, who was the other assistant gym teacher. She was big into parkour, and street fighting, and used to be a guy (a fact she told him when, one night while drunk, he asked if she'd like to get to know him better: he'd sobered up really fast). They got along well as friends and she introduced him to the sport. He turned out to be really good at it, a natural even, and won the local city competition the next year.
He and Kelly moved in two years later, just as friends. They scrimped and saved for more courses, to try and become real gym teachers, and though money was tight, life was good. Darryl was even thinking about calling home, since he couldn't stay "trapped in the local parkour scene for long," as Kelly put it. He waited, unsure what to say, until six months ago he was walking down the street on the way home from school and the local movie theatre sign changed into "Don't Call Home Yet". Darryl thought it was just a freak occurrence, until signs continued to "speak" to him, words in the paper moving. Sometimes other people saw them, sometimes not; the message was always for him.
[The day of "the signs" day is the exact day Karen died. This is just a coincidence, of course.]
He thought he must be going mad, but managed to start ignoring them, even though sometimes it was hard. Then one evening he came back from work, went to take a plate from Kelly, and their hands touched. And he saw into Kelly's soul. Images, thoughts, knowledge. He knew the cancer she was dying of, and the terrible fear of dying alone she had. He'd blurted out "You have cancer?" in surprised, and she'd been shocked, confused. He'd tried to explain, failing, and left the room, unable to deal with her fear.
She died two months later, after they'd come to terms with - well, It. He was wearing gloves, and the only person who came. There were no signs, but there was also nothing holding him to the city anymore: the bureaucracy hindered his advancement (he tried not to think it was racial; but it was hard not to: the scorn of white people was an old memory). He sold the apartment and bought a volkswagon, putting the money Kelly had left him in her will into a savings account and leaving the city.
Since then, he's just wandered, never staying for long in one place, pulled hither and thither by hunches and signs, and touching things, understanding them, and doing what he can to make sense of this strange gift and the world as it now is to him. He's wondering if it's time to go home now, but hadn't seen a sign telling him this yet and has no desire to go on his own. He keeps telling himself he's not afraid, and doesn't have answers for questions. He's turning 27 in three days, and wondering what his life will be like now that he's crazy ...
FAMILY
Frank Hannigan (Father, 58) - His father was a doctor, and still is. Just a GP, but it's been enough for the family to do moderately well, and they've not moved from their house, just added a pool and helped fund the local park down the road (firmly refusing to have it put in his the family name, and the donation was anonymous). He wishes he knew where his son was, and often checks obituaries of national papers, but has done nothing towards finding Darryl, figuring his son will come home when he wants to, and holding to that.
Mary Hannigan (Mother, 56) - Mary loves her sons. Darryl's room hadn't been changed since he left it, and a part of her died when he left as he did. Oh, she knows he has his reasons, but even so - it's been almost 10 years, and she's afraid he's died, or something worse has happened, and doesn't understand how things ended up as they did. She loves her other son and husband, and can go for almost a month without wondering where Darryl is sometimes, but she cries more in private than she should. She knows she should move on, that this isn't healthy, but there's a hole in her heart that nothing can fill, except answers. IN her normal life, she works as a secretary for her husband, and helps out at a local soup kitchen.
Chris Hannigan (Brother (adopted), 26) - Chris was always welcomed in the family. His childhood before he was adopted (at age 6) isn't something he ever talks about, and he loves his family, and adored his brother. He tried not to hate Darryl for running away, but part of him still does, knowing that no matter how hard he tries, he can't fill the gap in his parent's lives. He is, currently, finishing a business major at the local university and unsure what to do with his life after that.
FRIENDS
None, at present, besides the car he's named Bessie. He had a few in NYC, other teachers, some students and their parents, a few of the gang members who'd reformed, but no one he was really close to. His childhood best friend (before he got into Sports) was Harry Blackmore, who is likely a computer hacker with the NSA or something. His friends after that were some guys and girls in the track team. Many likely stayed in town, but he never kept in touch with anyone from home. (That being [Some town below Seattle], Washington].)
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Lirk and Orgg chat
Lirk and Orgg chat. Orgg is explaining hisn feelings for Lirk. Lirk is saying he understands if Orgg doesn't want anyone to know he's the king, and Orgg doesn't know he is the king ...
<AlcarDM> Likr just looks at the floor after Lee leaves :)
<AlcarDM> Lirk finally stops blushing and looks up.
* Orgg leans forward and looks at lirk
<Orgg> "I had hoped the girl would agree to become baron, to spare you the trouble. But it seems it comes to you after all."
* Orgg looks regretful
<AlcarDM> Lirk nods, a bit hesitantly. "I - I guess so."
<Orgg> "At least this marriage will take that pressure off of you."
* Orgg pauses, looking awkward.
<AlcarDM> Lirk: "But .. it won't be to Tamil. Asd marriages have to be...."
<Orgg> "Have to be?"
<AlcarDM> Lirk: "Uhm .. " he frowns. "I don't know a polite word for it."
<Orgg> "Oh... oh. I didn't think about that."
* Orgg scowls
<Orgg> "Not a good solution."
<AlcarDM> Lirk: "Oh! Right. not a .... uhm ...but .... " he takes a quick, nervous breath "Does the - the Code cover it?"
* Orgg shakes his head
<AlcarDM> Lirk squirms a bit, looking uncomfortable. "Do you .... know about it? I mean ..... I don't .. not that stuff..." he trails off
<Orgg> "The code is mostly concerned with honour and battle, neither of which come from exploits in the bedroom." Then: "Unless they involve killing somethiing."
* Orgg nods
<Orgg> "Up north we do not conceal things, so much. What is it you wish to know?"
<AlcarDM> Lirk: "I mean ....." he takes a deep breath, refusing to loook at you "I think Lee is going to disguise himself as Tamil. And .. and that would mean marriuage, I guess.."
<Orgg> "Lee will what!? Oh. I see." Orgg looks thoughtful, then a little angry, and a little confused. "I saw you... looking at him. I would think you'd be happy." snappishly.
<AlcarDM> Lirk blinks and looks at you, looking shocked. "I ....I .......I.....I do ......n't.,..." he stops, gulps a breath. "I .. " and looks away. 'I've never .. never lived, until I got healed. al my time was just the present, always. No past, no future. I doin't know. I don't know .. I'm sorry?"
* Orgg stops scowling, a shocked expression on his face.
<Orgg> "No, I am sorry. I spole in haste." a pause. "I was... jealous?" quietly.
<AlcarDM> Lirk makes a startled sound and looks at you ..... "because you're my friend?"
* Orgg stares at the ground for a while before answering
<Orgg> "No." He says, not looking at Lirk.
<Orgg> "I'm sorry. I will go."
<AlcarDM> Lirk touches your arm, hsitantly. "No .. I ...." he kneels on the floor quickly. "I don't want to dishonour you...."
<AlcarDM> (( he thinks you meant because you're his king :P ))
<Orgg> ((lol))
<Orgg> Orgg is just plain taken aback
<Orgg> "Dishonour me? How?"
<AlcarDM> LIrk: "When .. when you made me baron...."
<AlcarDM> Lirk: "I don't want to .. to ... tarnish that?"
* Orgg scowls, looks confused, scowls, looks confused. Then:
<Orgg> "What do you mean?"
<AlcarDM> Lirk blinks and looks up, startled. "Oh, I'm ... sorry." and scrambles to his feet. "I didn't mean to.."
* Orgg waits for Lirk to finish his sentence.
<AlcarDM> Lirk doesn't. "I shouldn't have said that, I guess. Sorry. I guess you don't like people knowing?"
* Orgg starts to nod, then looks confused again
<Orgg> "Knowing something that would tarnish my honour?"
* Orgg starts to look worried, and thinks *really* hard about the ceremony in which Lirk became baron.
<AlcarDM> Lirk: "No! Just ... you made meBaron. I .. I want to live up to that."
<Orgg> "But what does that have to do with...?"
* Orgg trails off, then just looks frustrated
<AlcarDM> Lirk: "With what?" looking confused now
<Orgg> ((lol, this is the most horrible conversation I have ever had =P))
<AlcarDM> (( LOL. ))
<Orgg> "With what we were talking about!"
<AlcarDM> (( Confusing pcs is fun :) ))
<Orgg> ((*laugh* indeed. An npcs, too =P))
<AlcarDM> Lirk: ".... making me baron? But I guess you don't want to"
<AlcarDM> (( oh yeah, of course :P ))
<Orgg> "What are you talking about!?"
<Orgg> Orgg is exasperated now =P
<Orgg> "You're already baron, aren't you?"
<Orgg> and confused, horribly =P
<AlcarDM> Lirk blinks, then nods.
<AlcarDM> he looks as confused as you are :)
* Orgg nods
<Orgg> "Okay. So you are Baron." *trying to get a grasp on things*
<Orgg> "But what does that have to do with dishonour?"
<AlcarDM> Lirk: "I ..I wouldn't want to . .to dishonour you. I want to be worthy of you!" then quickly: 'as a baron"
<Orgg> (lol)
* Orgg nods
<Orgg> "Oh. You follow the code; you have brought me only honour."
<Orgg> still, confused about where this came from =P
<AlcarDM> Lirk: "oh......."
<AlcarDM> He nods.
<Orgg> "Did you worry about dishonouring me somehow?"
<AlcarDM> Lirk nods again
<Orgg> "How?"
* Orgg lightbulbs
<Orgg> ((lol, this is truly awful =P))
<Orgg> ((now he thinks that lirk thinks that he is dishonouring orgg by spurning him =P))
<AlcarDM> (( LOL. Isn't it, though? ROFL! ))
<AlcarDM> Lirk; "By ....by not doing what's right?"
<Orgg> (loL!)
* Orgg pauses, and after an obvious emotional struggle, just says:
<AlcarDM> Lirk is looking ashamhed at having brough up the kingship at all .. obviously you don't to mention it....
<Orgg> "Wherever your heart leads you is the right choice in this. It is no dishonour in this choice."
<AlcarDM> Lirk: "But ... but what if .... if the choice isn't good for the Barony?" nervously
* Orgg mutters under his breath about no contest when a half-breed competes with an elf in these matters, then looks surprised at himself
<AlcarDM> (( ROFL ))
<Orgg> "Whatever you choose, we will make it work for the Barony."
* Orgg is confused by the question, though =p
<AlcarDM> 'lol.
<AlcarDM> Lirk: "Oh."
<AlcarDM> Lirk is silent, then gives one of his beautiful grins and looks happy. "Thanks!"
<AlcarDM> He hugs you
* Orgg hugs him back, somewhat hesitantly, smiles at the grin, then looks confused again, as he has no idea what just happened.
<Orgg> "Uh. Sure."
<AlcarDM> Likr steps back, looking a bit hesitant. "I .. I think I could do the ... marriage, for the barony. It's being loyal to my people."
* Orgg nods, looking a little disheartened. But a barbarian is ever-hopeful =P
<Orgg> "But?"
<AlcarDM> Lirk: "Duty's not the same as ... as love would be."
* Orgg nods
<Orgg> "You could still love... The marriage is just politics." he waves his hand at the word, to show how little he thinks of it =P
<Orgg> <AlcarDM> Lirk grins at that and nods. "I guess so. I just.. wasn't sure you'd approve."
<Orgg> * Orgg laughs
<Orgg> "Of course I approve."
<AlcarDM> Lirk looks a bit startled, and maybe .. hurt? "You .. do?"
<Orgg> "What is wrong?"
* Orgg becomes totally confused, yet again
<AlcarDM> Lirk: "Oh. Nothing."
<AlcarDM> There is motion in the doorwat as Tamil steps in
* Orgg starts and makes a Bad Time face
<Orgg> "Hello."
<AlcarDM> Tamil: "Lee sent me back. He's doing some ritual.'
* Orgg grimaces
<Orgg> "What sort of ritual?"
<AlcarDM> Tamil: "I don't know."
<AlcarDM> Tamil: "he plans to disguise as me so I can leave."
<AlcarDM> and as lee comes back, we end the session :p
<AlcarDM> Likr just looks at the floor after Lee leaves :)
<AlcarDM> Lirk finally stops blushing and looks up.
* Orgg leans forward and looks at lirk
<Orgg> "I had hoped the girl would agree to become baron, to spare you the trouble. But it seems it comes to you after all."
* Orgg looks regretful
<AlcarDM> Lirk nods, a bit hesitantly. "I - I guess so."
<Orgg> "At least this marriage will take that pressure off of you."
* Orgg pauses, looking awkward.
<AlcarDM> Lirk: "But .. it won't be to Tamil. Asd marriages have to be...."
<Orgg> "Have to be?"
<AlcarDM> Lirk: "Uhm .. " he frowns. "I don't know a polite word for it."
<Orgg> "Oh... oh. I didn't think about that."
* Orgg scowls
<Orgg> "Not a good solution."
<AlcarDM> Lirk: "Oh! Right. not a .... uhm ...but .... " he takes a quick, nervous breath "Does the - the Code cover it?"
* Orgg shakes his head
<AlcarDM> Lirk squirms a bit, looking uncomfortable. "Do you .... know about it? I mean ..... I don't .. not that stuff..." he trails off
<Orgg> "The code is mostly concerned with honour and battle, neither of which come from exploits in the bedroom." Then: "Unless they involve killing somethiing."
* Orgg nods
<Orgg> "Up north we do not conceal things, so much. What is it you wish to know?"
<AlcarDM> Lirk: "I mean ....." he takes a deep breath, refusing to loook at you "I think Lee is going to disguise himself as Tamil. And .. and that would mean marriuage, I guess.."
<Orgg> "Lee will what!? Oh. I see." Orgg looks thoughtful, then a little angry, and a little confused. "I saw you... looking at him. I would think you'd be happy." snappishly.
<AlcarDM> Lirk blinks and looks at you, looking shocked. "I ....I .......I.....I do ......n't.,..." he stops, gulps a breath. "I .. " and looks away. 'I've never .. never lived, until I got healed. al my time was just the present, always. No past, no future. I doin't know. I don't know .. I'm sorry?"
* Orgg stops scowling, a shocked expression on his face.
<Orgg> "No, I am sorry. I spole in haste." a pause. "I was... jealous?" quietly.
<AlcarDM> Lirk makes a startled sound and looks at you ..... "because you're my friend?"
* Orgg stares at the ground for a while before answering
<Orgg> "No." He says, not looking at Lirk.
<Orgg> "I'm sorry. I will go."
<AlcarDM> Lirk touches your arm, hsitantly. "No .. I ...." he kneels on the floor quickly. "I don't want to dishonour you...."
<AlcarDM> (( he thinks you meant because you're his king :P ))
<Orgg> ((lol))
<Orgg> Orgg is just plain taken aback
<Orgg> "Dishonour me? How?"
<AlcarDM> LIrk: "When .. when you made me baron...."
<AlcarDM> Lirk: "I don't want to .. to ... tarnish that?"
* Orgg scowls, looks confused, scowls, looks confused. Then:
<Orgg> "What do you mean?"
<AlcarDM> Lirk blinks and looks up, startled. "Oh, I'm ... sorry." and scrambles to his feet. "I didn't mean to.."
* Orgg waits for Lirk to finish his sentence.
<AlcarDM> Lirk doesn't. "I shouldn't have said that, I guess. Sorry. I guess you don't like people knowing?"
* Orgg starts to nod, then looks confused again
<Orgg> "Knowing something that would tarnish my honour?"
* Orgg starts to look worried, and thinks *really* hard about the ceremony in which Lirk became baron.
<AlcarDM> Lirk: "No! Just ... you made meBaron. I .. I want to live up to that."
<Orgg> "But what does that have to do with...?"
* Orgg trails off, then just looks frustrated
<AlcarDM> Lirk: "With what?" looking confused now
<Orgg> ((lol, this is the most horrible conversation I have ever had =P))
<AlcarDM> (( LOL. ))
<Orgg> "With what we were talking about!"
<AlcarDM> (( Confusing pcs is fun :) ))
<Orgg> ((*laugh* indeed. An npcs, too =P))
<AlcarDM> Lirk: ".... making me baron? But I guess you don't want to"
<AlcarDM> (( oh yeah, of course :P ))
<Orgg> "What are you talking about!?"
<Orgg> Orgg is exasperated now =P
<Orgg> "You're already baron, aren't you?"
<Orgg> and confused, horribly =P
<AlcarDM> Lirk blinks, then nods.
<AlcarDM> he looks as confused as you are :)
* Orgg nods
<Orgg> "Okay. So you are Baron." *trying to get a grasp on things*
<Orgg> "But what does that have to do with dishonour?"
<AlcarDM> Lirk: "I ..I wouldn't want to . .to dishonour you. I want to be worthy of you!" then quickly: 'as a baron"
<Orgg> (lol)
* Orgg nods
<Orgg> "Oh. You follow the code; you have brought me only honour."
<Orgg> still, confused about where this came from =P
<AlcarDM> Lirk: "oh......."
<AlcarDM> He nods.
<Orgg> "Did you worry about dishonouring me somehow?"
<AlcarDM> Lirk nods again
<Orgg> "How?"
* Orgg lightbulbs
<Orgg> ((lol, this is truly awful =P))
<Orgg> ((now he thinks that lirk thinks that he is dishonouring orgg by spurning him =P))
<AlcarDM> (( LOL. Isn't it, though? ROFL! ))
<AlcarDM> Lirk; "By ....by not doing what's right?"
<Orgg> (loL!)
* Orgg pauses, and after an obvious emotional struggle, just says:
<AlcarDM> Lirk is looking ashamhed at having brough up the kingship at all .. obviously you don't to mention it....
<Orgg> "Wherever your heart leads you is the right choice in this. It is no dishonour in this choice."
<AlcarDM> Lirk: "But ... but what if .... if the choice isn't good for the Barony?" nervously
* Orgg mutters under his breath about no contest when a half-breed competes with an elf in these matters, then looks surprised at himself
<AlcarDM> (( ROFL ))
<Orgg> "Whatever you choose, we will make it work for the Barony."
* Orgg is confused by the question, though =p
<AlcarDM> 'lol.
<AlcarDM> Lirk: "Oh."
<AlcarDM> Lirk is silent, then gives one of his beautiful grins and looks happy. "Thanks!"
<AlcarDM> He hugs you
* Orgg hugs him back, somewhat hesitantly, smiles at the grin, then looks confused again, as he has no idea what just happened.
<Orgg> "Uh. Sure."
<AlcarDM> Likr steps back, looking a bit hesitant. "I .. I think I could do the ... marriage, for the barony. It's being loyal to my people."
* Orgg nods, looking a little disheartened. But a barbarian is ever-hopeful =P
<Orgg> "But?"
<AlcarDM> Lirk: "Duty's not the same as ... as love would be."
* Orgg nods
<Orgg> "You could still love... The marriage is just politics." he waves his hand at the word, to show how little he thinks of it =P
<Orgg> <AlcarDM> Lirk grins at that and nods. "I guess so. I just.. wasn't sure you'd approve."
<Orgg> * Orgg laughs
<Orgg> "Of course I approve."
<AlcarDM> Lirk looks a bit startled, and maybe .. hurt? "You .. do?"
<Orgg> "What is wrong?"
* Orgg becomes totally confused, yet again
<AlcarDM> Lirk: "Oh. Nothing."
<AlcarDM> There is motion in the doorwat as Tamil steps in
* Orgg starts and makes a Bad Time face
<Orgg> "Hello."
<AlcarDM> Tamil: "Lee sent me back. He's doing some ritual.'
* Orgg grimaces
<Orgg> "What sort of ritual?"
<AlcarDM> Tamil: "I don't know."
<AlcarDM> Tamil: "he plans to disguise as me so I can leave."
<AlcarDM> and as lee comes back, we end the session :p
Sunday, March 12, 2006
LOLAD Casting Call
THE CAST
Cecil - St. George the Dragonslayer, turned into a dragon for his crime. One of the last dragons in the world.
Dalv - See Kara.
Danric - Were raven (10 of them), eventually host of Dream and Memory and currently training the W-Men, a group of weres who will with Faline when she returns.
Erwin - The vampiric kitten.
Faline Blackstripe - Weretiger. Christian priest. Mother was eaten by a werewolf, and she was okay with it.
Jane - Environmentalist. Daughter of Cecil.
Kara - See Milenko.
Milenko - A fairy, often confused with a vampire.
Rei - Weretiger, in were form permanently. Possibly temporarily died opening the gate to the Winterland.
Salem - Necromancer who fell in love with the Reaper. Destroyed the Summerland by accident.
Simon - Were golden retriever.
Vaj - Werepanther speed racer, killed by mages.
Yuki Takuri - Werefox
NPCs of note
Baal - Minor weather god, former landowner.
The Changer - Former vampire, time travellers, was once Poisedon.
Edward DeAth - Former master vampire of San Fransisco. Former vampire.
George - Son of Cecil. Probably insane. Wants to confront his father on the Jerry Springer show.
Old Rabbit - Obscenely powerful insane were rabbit. Pack leader around Trail.
The Reaper (aka Tommy) - Death. (Custodian of, at any rate).
... let me know who/what I missed, or what should be changd/updated. Am ignoring some ofthe early characters (the sorcerer, the AI etc.)
Cecil - St. George the Dragonslayer, turned into a dragon for his crime. One of the last dragons in the world.
Dalv - See Kara.
Danric - Were raven (10 of them), eventually host of Dream and Memory and currently training the W-Men, a group of weres who will with Faline when she returns.
Erwin - The vampiric kitten.
Faline Blackstripe - Weretiger. Christian priest. Mother was eaten by a werewolf, and she was okay with it.
Jane - Environmentalist. Daughter of Cecil.
Kara - See Milenko.
Milenko - A fairy, often confused with a vampire.
Rei - Weretiger, in were form permanently. Possibly temporarily died opening the gate to the Winterland.
Salem - Necromancer who fell in love with the Reaper. Destroyed the Summerland by accident.
Simon - Were golden retriever.
Vaj - Werepanther speed racer, killed by mages.
Yuki Takuri - Werefox
NPCs of note
Baal - Minor weather god, former landowner.
The Changer - Former vampire, time travellers, was once Poisedon.
Edward DeAth - Former master vampire of San Fransisco. Former vampire.
George - Son of Cecil. Probably insane. Wants to confront his father on the Jerry Springer show.
Old Rabbit - Obscenely powerful insane were rabbit. Pack leader around Trail.
The Reaper (aka Tommy) - Death. (Custodian of, at any rate).
... let me know who/what I missed, or what should be changd/updated. Am ignoring some ofthe early characters (the sorcerer, the AI etc.)
lolad bit written yesterday...
I wrote it just after I came home from work. Add thoughts in comments :)
Lords of Life and Death:
The Retconning
For many centuries, mankind did not know what walked among them. Shielded by religion and science, by the twin comforts of Faith and Rationality, they forgot the world they'd known, save in myths and legends that seldom did more than offer faint warnings. Then came the year 2001. The real new millennium, in point of fact
What changed? Only people. Only children who didn't want to hide in shadows. People who wanted to be "famous". The children of this age, the age of denial, who neither understood nor were willing to take responsibility for their actions. This was nothing new - the supernatural community polices itself with a brutality that would leave human rights tribunals stunned in silent horror - but none of you are human, are you?
There have emerged several truths in the weeks following the Trail Incident and others like it: that no pebble feels responsible for an avalanche (whether it SHOULD is another matter entirely) and that people only believe what they want to. Yes, the supernatural community was, in theory, outed. But people see better effects on movies, and most copies of the tapes have "vanished", and people developed spontaneous amnesia and - well, you get the picture.
Locally, of course, it's another kettle of fish entirely. People can no long entirely disbelieve the reality around them, and no one is certain what to do. Fear leads to panic, panic leads to irrationality, and irrationality leads to stupid mistakes and potentially a body count that would appal Rambo.
There is safety in the Winterland, but prisons are always safe - and a storm is coming.
Lords of Life and Death:
The Retconning
For many centuries, mankind did not know what walked among them. Shielded by religion and science, by the twin comforts of Faith and Rationality, they forgot the world they'd known, save in myths and legends that seldom did more than offer faint warnings. Then came the year 2001. The real new millennium, in point of fact
What changed? Only people. Only children who didn't want to hide in shadows. People who wanted to be "famous". The children of this age, the age of denial, who neither understood nor were willing to take responsibility for their actions. This was nothing new - the supernatural community polices itself with a brutality that would leave human rights tribunals stunned in silent horror - but none of you are human, are you?
There have emerged several truths in the weeks following the Trail Incident and others like it: that no pebble feels responsible for an avalanche (whether it SHOULD is another matter entirely) and that people only believe what they want to. Yes, the supernatural community was, in theory, outed. But people see better effects on movies, and most copies of the tapes have "vanished", and people developed spontaneous amnesia and - well, you get the picture.
Locally, of course, it's another kettle of fish entirely. People can no long entirely disbelieve the reality around them, and no one is certain what to do. Fear leads to panic, panic leads to irrationality, and irrationality leads to stupid mistakes and potentially a body count that would appal Rambo.
There is safety in the Winterland, but prisons are always safe - and a storm is coming.
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Lolad ..... again?
Based on thoughts in chat:
LOLAD 1, continued roughly where it left off (with edits by all concerned for plot/advancement things). LOLAD 2 and 3 don't happen, though references to LOLAD 2 (and characters from it) could crop up as fun in jokes.
System would be BESM. Because it's anime-oriented, very adaptable, and just plain fun. PC conversion would be done on a case by case basis - what you think PC should have, total cost .. then comparing tghe players totals and coming up with a general point base. Some PCs, like Cecil, would probably have more points, or at least free skills.
Err, and as per chat now ... NO Own Big Mecha. No Mechas. Unless, say, it's a mecha dragon and wants to mate with Cecil. Then it's okay.
Of the old players: Ideally, Caltak, Keith, and Chaos, as those were the 3 core at the end (with Yuki working her way up...). This game will, most likely, run after Haunted ends.
New players are welcomed. PC idea has to be cleared with Alcar, but I'm open to pretty much anything :) A vampire might be nice.... few have played one in LOLAD. Or human magician. Or tentacle monster alien .... whatever works. Integrating new PC into the old plot will be done by a tacit understanding that the onus is on the PLAYER to make their pc fit/adapt/be useful. Plots will be developed that "need" them (i.e. Kuth with La Fin :)) but beyond that it's up to you to make the pc fit.
More later. Probably.
LOLAD 1, continued roughly where it left off (with edits by all concerned for plot/advancement things). LOLAD 2 and 3 don't happen, though references to LOLAD 2 (and characters from it) could crop up as fun in jokes.
System would be BESM. Because it's anime-oriented, very adaptable, and just plain fun. PC conversion would be done on a case by case basis - what you think PC should have, total cost .. then comparing tghe players totals and coming up with a general point base. Some PCs, like Cecil, would probably have more points, or at least free skills.
Err, and as per chat now ... NO Own Big Mecha. No Mechas. Unless, say, it's a mecha dragon and wants to mate with Cecil. Then it's okay.
Of the old players: Ideally, Caltak, Keith, and Chaos, as those were the 3 core at the end (with Yuki working her way up...). This game will, most likely, run after Haunted ends.
New players are welcomed. PC idea has to be cleared with Alcar, but I'm open to pretty much anything :) A vampire might be nice.... few have played one in LOLAD. Or human magician. Or tentacle monster alien .... whatever works. Integrating new PC into the old plot will be done by a tacit understanding that the onus is on the PLAYER to make their pc fit/adapt/be useful. Plots will be developed that "need" them (i.e. Kuth with La Fin :)) but beyond that it's up to you to make the pc fit.
More later. Probably.
Saturday, March 04, 2006
THE NEXT GAME
Haunted Houses, #game1 Style!
This is going to be a character-driven game. The Gm expects GOOD backgrounds (along with family members etc. on them) and they will come into play during the campaign.
Setting:
Earth. The real world. Except, you're a bit different. You can do something other people can't, or see things they can't, or just know things, or odd things happen around you .... it's just you*, and you have left your hometown because of it, or in spite of it.
* And/or family or some stranger who Taught You Things. This page is guideline, not gospel.
For whatever reason(s), you left home and took to wandering. You ended up [here], drawn to the small town by luck, chance, a premonition, or your Talent. (Or, say, getting kidnapped by drunken midgets. Whatever works :p) Depending on pasts and what everyone makes - for example one PC could live here as their home town and not have Run Away From It All - you'll meet up and be drawn to a house in the middle of the suburbs.
A haunted house, with a ghost....
And from there, we'll see :)
Themes:
- The Trouble With Normal (i.e. passing for it)
- Family, and the fact that we all betray our parents within us - both their strengths and weaknesses. It's about the characters coming to terms with who and what they are, and where they came from.
- Finding the magic in the mundane.
- Plus lots of others, I imagine. The goal is for a character drive rather than plot driven campaign. The characters, at some point, come to terns with what they are, what it's done to them and everyone else, and decide what they'll do with the talent they've been given.
System:
I was considering BESM, since I've never ran it, but UA is likely a lot more suited to this game. Potential players, comment here or in channel or wherever about which one you'd like to use.
This is going to be a character-driven game. The Gm expects GOOD backgrounds (along with family members etc. on them) and they will come into play during the campaign.
Setting:
Earth. The real world. Except, you're a bit different. You can do something other people can't, or see things they can't, or just know things, or odd things happen around you .... it's just you*, and you have left your hometown because of it, or in spite of it.
* And/or family or some stranger who Taught You Things. This page is guideline, not gospel.
For whatever reason(s), you left home and took to wandering. You ended up [here], drawn to the small town by luck, chance, a premonition, or your Talent. (Or, say, getting kidnapped by drunken midgets. Whatever works :p) Depending on pasts and what everyone makes - for example one PC could live here as their home town and not have Run Away From It All - you'll meet up and be drawn to a house in the middle of the suburbs.
A haunted house, with a ghost....
And from there, we'll see :)
Themes:
- The Trouble With Normal (i.e. passing for it)
- Family, and the fact that we all betray our parents within us - both their strengths and weaknesses. It's about the characters coming to terms with who and what they are, and where they came from.
- Finding the magic in the mundane.
- Plus lots of others, I imagine. The goal is for a character drive rather than plot driven campaign. The characters, at some point, come to terns with what they are, what it's done to them and everyone else, and decide what they'll do with the talent they've been given.
System:
I was considering BESM, since I've never ran it, but UA is likely a lot more suited to this game. Potential players, comment here or in channel or wherever about which one you'd like to use.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
UFOs from the second Uknown Armies campaign
UFOs
A sugar cane factory somewhere on the edge of town, that was home to a mechanomancer for a good 3 months about 2 years ago. He brought food, a RV with his supplies, and memories. And then he built aliens. Since Frank Rosenberg is dead, no one is sure why he did this, and no one knows he did it. (He believed aliens had taught him mechanomancy, and wanted to create hybrid emissaries with the mothership.) His aliens are automatons who will go around thinking they are aliens, and trying to convince people about the mothership, and mechanomancy, which they've turned into a religion.
They'll make a lot of crop circles, kill a few cows, and see what happens. They are also building the classic flying saucer.
Aliens Take Two
The little pink men. Only they're really the psychic remnants of abused children, given form. Enjoy.
Sometimes, children die in horrible ways, their trust and devotion torn apart along with their lives. Sometimes they come back. It used to be as urban legends. The Eye Biting Man, the Guy With Pecils Stuck In His Eyes, The Hitchhiker. Now, then return as the Aliens, and take humans to an Otherspace where they abuse them horribly.
They're not human anymore, just demons with a very specific magick. Few notice that the alien effects are consistent with unnatural phenomenon, and fewer still have any idea what the aliens are. Sometimes, they do good things, for reasons of their own. Most of the time, they don't.
Aliens Take Three
CE-V encounters with aliens are those where you want an encounter to happen so it does. These are all the result of magekins creating greys. The effort is exhausting, and unless the magekin goes on board the craft (i.e. commits ritual acts with his creations) they don't exist for long. The magekin is often convinced they are marked by the aliens and abducted regularly, when they're the ones doing the abduction and creating their abductors.
Lastly, it's quite possible to make a school of magick around alien abduction. It's likely been done a few times. Only the ways of getting charges (and getting someone to probe your rectum for you - as an act of violation) have never let it catch on.
You see, Neville was a stay-at-home dad. A rare enough thing, even now, but he'd once been so much more, in his mind. When he was young, back in glory days of B.C. (Before Children), he'd been a model. He'd loved himself, and only married once his days on the runway were over and the years of booze and drugs had begun to catch up to his body. His wife, Emily, was a computer programmer and made a small forture. He got a job at a clerk at a gas station. And he got older, and older, and began to hate his once-beautiful body.
One day he cut himself. And something changed, for as the blood flowed his appearance became young again. It lasted until he slept, and woke up normal, and old, and ugly. But he'd touched something bigger than himself.
He might have gone down the path of the fleshworker, if he'd been alone. But a week later Emily got pregnant. She spent most of the year working from home, and gave birth to their first son, Brandon. Emily and Neville talked it over, and it was decided that he would stay home and raise the children since she made more money. It wasn't that common in 1990 but Neville hated his job and was a bit scared of what could happen if he cut himself again.
In 1992 their next child, Owen, was born.Neville raised them both and realized that the stay-at-home option was, in the long run, a lot more work as his wife went into management (i.e. not working, but getting others to work) and had a lot of long business trips and in bed did things he'd never showed her. He got bitter, and angry, and wanted to regain her love, or shove it in down her throat and dance over the corpse (sometimes those urges are hard to tell apart). And so he spend his evenings when the kids were sleeping on the net, remembering his flesh once, and looking into it. He never found much until a chance visit to a website that wasn't there the next day made him wonder if others could do it, if it was really magick.
He got into the local scene, as a minor player with no real magick of his own because he still loved his wife in some fashion. He learned about avatars, and sought about becoming one, then discovered he was one. He, Neville Waldman, was an avatar of the Mother. Something inside him snapped at that, because it shattered all his ideas of masculinity (and memories of his older cousin Ronnie "playing" with him didn't help) and he knew he could only go so far in it, or leave it, but he did love his children.
Then Emily filed for divorce, wanting to live with a young up and coming executive, and Neville snapped when she said that SHE wanted their children. So he decided to become their mother. It took him over five months of insane dedication, and scared both his kids, but they loved dad even when he was cutting himself with a razor blade and glaring into a mirror.
Finally, one day Neville did something, something big. He was going for his eyebrows and poked an eye out. And got real power, terrible power that flooded through him and opened his mind to a larger world. He entered the bedroom of his sons, who were both sound asleep, and did the trick the old homeless vet had said could be done, if one was desperate enough. He whistled up a pack of tenebrae and, when they came to feed, he used his major charge and what remained of his Archetype to try and give birth to his living sons.
Neville was consumed by the pack. Brandon and Owen were as well, but in a different way. No one found their bodies, just Neville's missing eye. It was assumed he killed them. As with many other assumptions, it was only partly right.
Brandon and Owen were fused with the pack, for a time, as the pack went into them, through them, became them. It left them with eyes of darkness, and terrible needs and strangeness and no memory of who or what they had been.
Boy #1 and Boy #2, The Black Eyed Kids
Summary: Freaky kids who eat memories.
Description (boy #1): 14. Boy #1 is slightly taller than his companion, wearing a pull-over, hooded shirt with a sort of gray checked pattern and jeans. His skin's olive-colored and he has curly, medium-length brown hair. He exudes an air of quiet confidence.
Description (boy #2):Boy # 2 has pale skin with a trace of freckles. He is looking around nervously and dressed in a similar manner to his companion, but his pull-over is a light green color. His hair is a sort of pale orange. They don't seem to be related.
Description (both): Then you see their eyes. They are coal black. No pupil. No iris. Just two staring orbs reflecting the street lights, liquid pools of darkness.
Boy # 2 has pale skin with a trace of freckles, somewhere in that indeterminate age between 10 and 14. He's wearing g a pull-over, hooded light green shirt and jeans. His hair is a sort of pale orange and looks in need of combing.
Personality (Boy #1): Boy #1 is older, and clearly in charge. He wants memories to eat, to feel, to feast on, and needs them very badly, to the point where he likes to hurt people, to strip them of memories and let them live in the hope that they can supply him with more. He lives to find someone who can feed him all the time. To him, people are just things he takes from and not real in any true sense. He believes that if he eats enough memories his eyes will become normal and he'll gain a soul. He's also drawn to pain and likes inflicting it. His favourite pastime is ordering Boy #2 to watch while he hurts animals or putting him out in sunlight in the hope that someday he can feed off of his brother.
Personality (Boy #2): Boy #2 is younger, and shy. He never speaks (perhaps he can't) and follows his brother everywhere, even against his own will. Of the two of them, he's the most human and will sometimes help others, as best he can. At some level he wants what all kids want: accceptance, and tries to get that, but no one can understand it and he's alien.
Note: Neither of them breathe, unless they want to. Boy #2 also makes no sound in buildings unless he wants to.
Obsession: Feeding the hunger and becoming real.
Wound Points: Varies, generally 100+ spread between both.
Passions:
Rage (boy #1): People who refuse to open their doors and let him in.
Rage (boy #2): Anyone who harms their pets.
Fear (boy #1): Sunlight. He hates being "killed" in it. He also won't approach anyone who speaks his real name.
Fear (boy #2): Being discovered as unnatural humiliates him.
Noble (boy #1): He likes children, and leaves them alone (They'll grow into adults and have more memories to feed him with.)
Noble (boy #2): Dogs. He had one back in his human life, and though he doesn't remember his black lab Sassy he'll protect dogs from harm if he can.
Stats (boy #1)
Body: 25/35/45 (Child)
Speed: 25/40/70 (freakishly quick)
Mind: 55 (Cruel)
Soul: 40/50 (Twisted inside)
Stats (Boy #2)
Body: 20/30/40 (Child)
Speed: 20/40/60 (Sure-footed)
Mind: 30/40 (Simple)
Soul: 80 (Innocent)
The stats before the slash indicate the stat in dim light/darkness (or sunlight/dim/darkness if there are three listings).
Skills (Boy #1)
Body Skills:Atheltics: 25%, Struggle: 25%, Beautiful: (25%-40%)
Speed Skills: Dodge 30%, Initiative: (25/40/60%), Cut you up: 35%
Mind Skills: Education: 20%; Study Personality 20%; Conceal: 20%. Notice: 15%
Soul Skills: Charm: 20%; Lie: 40%; *Suck Up Memories*: 40%, Command: 50%
Skills (Boy #2)
Body Skills:Atheltics: 20%, Struggle: 20%, Beautiful: 30%
Speed Skills: Dodge: 40%; Initiative: 30%; Pick pockets, locks etc. 30%
Mind Skills: Education: 15%; Conceal: 15%; Notice: 30%; Break & Enter: 20%
Soul Skills: Charm: 30%; Lie: 10%; *Suck Up Memories*: 70%; Ward: 30%; Soothe Pain 30%; Paint 20%
Suck Up Memories: This is how boy #1 and boy #2 feed. They need to be let or invited in to do this properly. Boy #1 gets one memory for each point of soul the target has; Boy #2 does the same for memories accrued by homes, and gets a lot more as a result (the walls *do* talk, to him at least). The points gained from this are shared among both of them as Wound Points. Due to being older, and in control of his sibling, boy #1 generally has at least 60% of those points.
The downside to each is that boy #1 kills his targets. He takes all the emotion out of memories and feeds on it and leaves them with memories that seem as real as those of a stranger. They tend to die quickly, and sometims go insane and try to kill him (To deal with this, he can whistle up a pack of tenebrae.)
Boy #2 tends to destroy buildings. He takes from them, and they just fade away and cease to exist. (It's why the two of them are always on the move.) He has learned to read the memories of the walls without taking from them, but it takes a lot of effort.
Command: Boy #1 can order people to let him inside. Soimetimes they do so. By far his largest and continued use of it is making boy #2 do whatever he wants. Currently, boy #2 can't speak to anone else since no one else can hear his thoughts (others with telepathy or black-eyes are a possibility, tho), and follows his brothers lead all the time, even against his own wishes. If he doesn't, his brother leaves him out in the sunlight.
Ward: Boy #2 can create a magickal protection around places that gets people ot leave it alone. (It's good for where they are sleeping, or when boy #1 wants to feed on an entire family and not be disturbed).
Soothe Pain: Boy #2 can feed on misery as a tenebrae would, but instead of eating it he weakens it (removes a failed notch), and can make people feel better just by touching them.
Paint: Boy #2 can paint images he sees around people, events that have shaped their lives. It's a very specific kind of aura sight that only works while drawing.
Notes:
Sunlight harms them deeply and causes them to burn and feel like knives are being driven into them. If left in sunlight more than an hour, they vanish as tenebrae do and re-appear that evening with barely any wound points. Neither of them like going wherever they go during that, and even boy #1 will not leave #2 out in sunlight that long - most of the time. Their eyes are also very sensetive to bright light.
Dim light weakens their stats, but doesn't harm them otherwise.
Boy #1 cannot feed off of avatars with a skill of 50% or higher. Trying to causes him to go into painful convulsions that leave him weak and needing more wound points from his brother. (He can't sense if they are avatars ahead of time.)
Boy #2 can't feed off of places that have ritual warding of some kind up on them without suffering a lot of pain. His skin begins to blister and peel and he bleeds a pale blue liquid that isn't blood. In extreme cases, he's unable to leave at all and melts into the building until he "dies" or wins. The extreme ones only happen if boy #1 tells him to remain.
Special Note:
Boy #2 can give power. He absorbs a LOT from buildings (most of it going to keeping his hunger for more "food" at bay). Boy #1 is terrifyingly power when given power, but it's also very addictive. Eventually, you want more, and more, and need more and more... and boy #2 can't give *that* much .... baiscally, boy #1 is addicted to boy #2 for power, and some of his "evil" is a result of this. (Not THAT much, but enough to not mae him the 100% villain of the piece.
A sugar cane factory somewhere on the edge of town, that was home to a mechanomancer for a good 3 months about 2 years ago. He brought food, a RV with his supplies, and memories. And then he built aliens. Since Frank Rosenberg is dead, no one is sure why he did this, and no one knows he did it. (He believed aliens had taught him mechanomancy, and wanted to create hybrid emissaries with the mothership.) His aliens are automatons who will go around thinking they are aliens, and trying to convince people about the mothership, and mechanomancy, which they've turned into a religion.
They'll make a lot of crop circles, kill a few cows, and see what happens. They are also building the classic flying saucer.
Aliens Take Two
The little pink men. Only they're really the psychic remnants of abused children, given form. Enjoy.
Sometimes, children die in horrible ways, their trust and devotion torn apart along with their lives. Sometimes they come back. It used to be as urban legends. The Eye Biting Man, the Guy With Pecils Stuck In His Eyes, The Hitchhiker. Now, then return as the Aliens, and take humans to an Otherspace where they abuse them horribly.
They're not human anymore, just demons with a very specific magick. Few notice that the alien effects are consistent with unnatural phenomenon, and fewer still have any idea what the aliens are. Sometimes, they do good things, for reasons of their own. Most of the time, they don't.
Aliens Take Three
CE-V encounters with aliens are those where you want an encounter to happen so it does. These are all the result of magekins creating greys. The effort is exhausting, and unless the magekin goes on board the craft (i.e. commits ritual acts with his creations) they don't exist for long. The magekin is often convinced they are marked by the aliens and abducted regularly, when they're the ones doing the abduction and creating their abductors.
Lastly, it's quite possible to make a school of magick around alien abduction. It's likely been done a few times. Only the ways of getting charges (and getting someone to probe your rectum for you - as an act of violation) have never let it catch on.
The Black Eyed Kids
'What do you call it when one takes another's bread?"It's said they come to your door at night, two young children who don't act like children and want you to let them inside. It's the eyes that make you realize they're not children: matte black from rim to rim, like pools of liquid darkness and filled with some dark need. Those who let them in may die, but some of them tend to die later, by their own hand. No one knows. It would be another urban legend, if not for Neville Waldman.
"Hunger."
- David Gerold and Larry Niven, "The Flying Sorcerers"
You see, Neville was a stay-at-home dad. A rare enough thing, even now, but he'd once been so much more, in his mind. When he was young, back in glory days of B.C. (Before Children), he'd been a model. He'd loved himself, and only married once his days on the runway were over and the years of booze and drugs had begun to catch up to his body. His wife, Emily, was a computer programmer and made a small forture. He got a job at a clerk at a gas station. And he got older, and older, and began to hate his once-beautiful body.
One day he cut himself. And something changed, for as the blood flowed his appearance became young again. It lasted until he slept, and woke up normal, and old, and ugly. But he'd touched something bigger than himself.
He might have gone down the path of the fleshworker, if he'd been alone. But a week later Emily got pregnant. She spent most of the year working from home, and gave birth to their first son, Brandon. Emily and Neville talked it over, and it was decided that he would stay home and raise the children since she made more money. It wasn't that common in 1990 but Neville hated his job and was a bit scared of what could happen if he cut himself again.
In 1992 their next child, Owen, was born.Neville raised them both and realized that the stay-at-home option was, in the long run, a lot more work as his wife went into management (i.e. not working, but getting others to work) and had a lot of long business trips and in bed did things he'd never showed her. He got bitter, and angry, and wanted to regain her love, or shove it in down her throat and dance over the corpse (sometimes those urges are hard to tell apart). And so he spend his evenings when the kids were sleeping on the net, remembering his flesh once, and looking into it. He never found much until a chance visit to a website that wasn't there the next day made him wonder if others could do it, if it was really magick.
He got into the local scene, as a minor player with no real magick of his own because he still loved his wife in some fashion. He learned about avatars, and sought about becoming one, then discovered he was one. He, Neville Waldman, was an avatar of the Mother. Something inside him snapped at that, because it shattered all his ideas of masculinity (and memories of his older cousin Ronnie "playing" with him didn't help) and he knew he could only go so far in it, or leave it, but he did love his children.
Then Emily filed for divorce, wanting to live with a young up and coming executive, and Neville snapped when she said that SHE wanted their children. So he decided to become their mother. It took him over five months of insane dedication, and scared both his kids, but they loved dad even when he was cutting himself with a razor blade and glaring into a mirror.
Finally, one day Neville did something, something big. He was going for his eyebrows and poked an eye out. And got real power, terrible power that flooded through him and opened his mind to a larger world. He entered the bedroom of his sons, who were both sound asleep, and did the trick the old homeless vet had said could be done, if one was desperate enough. He whistled up a pack of tenebrae and, when they came to feed, he used his major charge and what remained of his Archetype to try and give birth to his living sons.
Neville was consumed by the pack. Brandon and Owen were as well, but in a different way. No one found their bodies, just Neville's missing eye. It was assumed he killed them. As with many other assumptions, it was only partly right.
Brandon and Owen were fused with the pack, for a time, as the pack went into them, through them, became them. It left them with eyes of darkness, and terrible needs and strangeness and no memory of who or what they had been.
Boy #1 and Boy #2, The Black Eyed Kids
Summary: Freaky kids who eat memories.
Description (boy #1): 14. Boy #1 is slightly taller than his companion, wearing a pull-over, hooded shirt with a sort of gray checked pattern and jeans. His skin's olive-colored and he has curly, medium-length brown hair. He exudes an air of quiet confidence.
Description (boy #2):Boy # 2 has pale skin with a trace of freckles. He is looking around nervously and dressed in a similar manner to his companion, but his pull-over is a light green color. His hair is a sort of pale orange. They don't seem to be related.
Description (both): Then you see their eyes. They are coal black. No pupil. No iris. Just two staring orbs reflecting the street lights, liquid pools of darkness.
Boy # 2 has pale skin with a trace of freckles, somewhere in that indeterminate age between 10 and 14. He's wearing g a pull-over, hooded light green shirt and jeans. His hair is a sort of pale orange and looks in need of combing.
Personality (Boy #1): Boy #1 is older, and clearly in charge. He wants memories to eat, to feel, to feast on, and needs them very badly, to the point where he likes to hurt people, to strip them of memories and let them live in the hope that they can supply him with more. He lives to find someone who can feed him all the time. To him, people are just things he takes from and not real in any true sense. He believes that if he eats enough memories his eyes will become normal and he'll gain a soul. He's also drawn to pain and likes inflicting it. His favourite pastime is ordering Boy #2 to watch while he hurts animals or putting him out in sunlight in the hope that someday he can feed off of his brother.
Personality (Boy #2): Boy #2 is younger, and shy. He never speaks (perhaps he can't) and follows his brother everywhere, even against his own will. Of the two of them, he's the most human and will sometimes help others, as best he can. At some level he wants what all kids want: accceptance, and tries to get that, but no one can understand it and he's alien.
Note: Neither of them breathe, unless they want to. Boy #2 also makes no sound in buildings unless he wants to.
Obsession: Feeding the hunger and becoming real.
Wound Points: Varies, generally 100+ spread between both.
Passions:
Rage (boy #1): People who refuse to open their doors and let him in.
Rage (boy #2): Anyone who harms their pets.
Fear (boy #1): Sunlight. He hates being "killed" in it. He also won't approach anyone who speaks his real name.
Fear (boy #2): Being discovered as unnatural humiliates him.
Noble (boy #1): He likes children, and leaves them alone (They'll grow into adults and have more memories to feed him with.)
Noble (boy #2): Dogs. He had one back in his human life, and though he doesn't remember his black lab Sassy he'll protect dogs from harm if he can.
Stats (boy #1)
Body: 25/35/45 (Child)
Speed: 25/40/70 (freakishly quick)
Mind: 55 (Cruel)
Soul: 40/50 (Twisted inside)
Stats (Boy #2)
Body: 20/30/40 (Child)
Speed: 20/40/60 (Sure-footed)
Mind: 30/40 (Simple)
Soul: 80 (Innocent)
The stats before the slash indicate the stat in dim light/darkness (or sunlight/dim/darkness if there are three listings).
Skills (Boy #1)
Body Skills:Atheltics: 25%, Struggle: 25%, Beautiful: (25%-40%)
Speed Skills: Dodge 30%, Initiative: (25/40/60%), Cut you up: 35%
Mind Skills: Education: 20%; Study Personality 20%; Conceal: 20%. Notice: 15%
Soul Skills: Charm: 20%; Lie: 40%; *Suck Up Memories*: 40%, Command: 50%
Skills (Boy #2)
Body Skills:Atheltics: 20%, Struggle: 20%, Beautiful: 30%
Speed Skills: Dodge: 40%; Initiative: 30%; Pick pockets, locks etc. 30%
Mind Skills: Education: 15%; Conceal: 15%; Notice: 30%; Break & Enter: 20%
Soul Skills: Charm: 30%; Lie: 10%; *Suck Up Memories*: 70%; Ward: 30%; Soothe Pain 30%; Paint 20%
Suck Up Memories: This is how boy #1 and boy #2 feed. They need to be let or invited in to do this properly. Boy #1 gets one memory for each point of soul the target has; Boy #2 does the same for memories accrued by homes, and gets a lot more as a result (the walls *do* talk, to him at least). The points gained from this are shared among both of them as Wound Points. Due to being older, and in control of his sibling, boy #1 generally has at least 60% of those points.
The downside to each is that boy #1 kills his targets. He takes all the emotion out of memories and feeds on it and leaves them with memories that seem as real as those of a stranger. They tend to die quickly, and sometims go insane and try to kill him (To deal with this, he can whistle up a pack of tenebrae.)
Boy #2 tends to destroy buildings. He takes from them, and they just fade away and cease to exist. (It's why the two of them are always on the move.) He has learned to read the memories of the walls without taking from them, but it takes a lot of effort.
Command: Boy #1 can order people to let him inside. Soimetimes they do so. By far his largest and continued use of it is making boy #2 do whatever he wants. Currently, boy #2 can't speak to anone else since no one else can hear his thoughts (others with telepathy or black-eyes are a possibility, tho), and follows his brothers lead all the time, even against his own wishes. If he doesn't, his brother leaves him out in the sunlight.
Ward: Boy #2 can create a magickal protection around places that gets people ot leave it alone. (It's good for where they are sleeping, or when boy #1 wants to feed on an entire family and not be disturbed).
Soothe Pain: Boy #2 can feed on misery as a tenebrae would, but instead of eating it he weakens it (removes a failed notch), and can make people feel better just by touching them.
Paint: Boy #2 can paint images he sees around people, events that have shaped their lives. It's a very specific kind of aura sight that only works while drawing.
Notes:
Sunlight harms them deeply and causes them to burn and feel like knives are being driven into them. If left in sunlight more than an hour, they vanish as tenebrae do and re-appear that evening with barely any wound points. Neither of them like going wherever they go during that, and even boy #1 will not leave #2 out in sunlight that long - most of the time. Their eyes are also very sensetive to bright light.
Dim light weakens their stats, but doesn't harm them otherwise.
Boy #1 cannot feed off of avatars with a skill of 50% or higher. Trying to causes him to go into painful convulsions that leave him weak and needing more wound points from his brother. (He can't sense if they are avatars ahead of time.)
Boy #2 can't feed off of places that have ritual warding of some kind up on them without suffering a lot of pain. His skin begins to blister and peel and he bleeds a pale blue liquid that isn't blood. In extreme cases, he's unable to leave at all and melts into the building until he "dies" or wins. The extreme ones only happen if boy #1 tells him to remain.
Special Note:
Boy #2 can give power. He absorbs a LOT from buildings (most of it going to keeping his hunger for more "food" at bay). Boy #1 is terrifyingly power when given power, but it's also very addictive. Eventually, you want more, and more, and need more and more... and boy #2 can't give *that* much .... baiscally, boy #1 is addicted to boy #2 for power, and some of his "evil" is a result of this. (Not THAT much, but enough to not mae him the 100% villain of the piece.
Saturday, February 18, 2006
The Surge Games
Games made using !uasurge.
They work as follows:
Every character has 2 stats.
Who You Are
Everything Else
You have five points to put among those stats. Who You Are is a sumary, like Police Officer. Nice Guy. Dude. Cool Dude. Etc. It should not exceed three words.
You have two derived stats:
Sanity, and Health.
Sanity is Who You Are X2.
Health is Everythig Else X2.
Because of the Law of Fives, there is no fifth stat.
All the PCs will be related. This can be brothers, parent and child, grandparent etc, but it will be closely related. Step-children is possible. Cousin etc. is too far removed. Invisible playmate is possible, if players are willing.
Genre is up to the players. Ditto with settting.
You then use !uasurge 10 times – in channel (!uasurge 10), and pick from 2 – 5 of those to apply to your character. They can, of course, be wiggled around to make some kind of sense. Then we run a session. Simple, yes?
Why, so simple anyone could run it!
This is a Hint.
EDIT:The determinator for Sanity and Health can be reversed if it fits a character better. (Sanity = Else, health = Who.)
They work as follows:
Every character has 2 stats.
Who You Are
Everything Else
You have five points to put among those stats. Who You Are is a sumary, like Police Officer. Nice Guy. Dude. Cool Dude. Etc. It should not exceed three words.
You have two derived stats:
Sanity, and Health.
Sanity is Who You Are X2.
Health is Everythig Else X2.
Because of the Law of Fives, there is no fifth stat.
All the PCs will be related. This can be brothers, parent and child, grandparent etc, but it will be closely related. Step-children is possible. Cousin etc. is too far removed. Invisible playmate is possible, if players are willing.
Genre is up to the players. Ditto with settting.
You then use !uasurge 10 times – in channel (!uasurge 10), and pick from 2 – 5 of those to apply to your character. They can, of course, be wiggled around to make some kind of sense. Then we run a session. Simple, yes?
Why, so simple anyone could run it!
This is a Hint.
EDIT:The determinator for Sanity and Health can be reversed if it fits a character better. (Sanity = Else, health = Who.)
Monday, February 13, 2006
This is not a drill
Saturday, January 07, 2006
Operation: Classified
Premise: The characters in this game are agents of various government organizations under the nominal leadership of the FBI who have been sent by their superior officer, a neurotic FBI agent known as Agent Binkley, to investigate a small town for rumours of alien sightings, find aliens, and learn their plans for humanity, vis a vis alien invasion, eating our men, oggling our women, trying to convert us to their religion, etc.
The characters have been assigned rooms in a rooming house in Springfield, Maine, run by Mrs. Rudolph, an old German lady with 20 cats, on ??? street.
Game Time: Undetermined, as of yet. I can run from ~6:30 - 11 PM (PST) Tuesday or Thursday nights. Wednesday or Friday nights would run from 7:30 - 11:30 if we had to use one of those nights. The game will run 1-2 nights a week, ideally.
Character Creation: Risus! Each character has 10 dice to put into traits, plus one free die in Government Operative. No more than 3 dice can be put into any one trait unless you plead with the GM. Creative trait naming is mandatory, Agent!
Name: Player name.
Character: PC Name. Include nicknames.
Traits: List 'em.
Background Traits: This is an additional 3 dice in "useless" traits. Say, being a Chess Champion (2) back in high school. They're for hobbies, and things you did before becoming an agent and the like. Flavour, basically.
Agency: Who you work for.
Real Agency: For players who want to be double, trouble, quintuple agents and the like. (Possibly without even knowing.)
Secret(s): Everyone's got at least one.
Description: What does your agent look like?
Background: What made you become an agent? Why did you take this assignment? What did you used to do? Could your family be important to the game? If so, list them. Backgrounds can read like dossiers, if you want.
Equipment: What you have with you. This includes contacts, vehicles, weapons and the like.
Allowed Optional Risus Rules: Hooks, Tails (for valour above and beyond the basic Call of Duty in making a background). Pumping Cliché's is allowed as well, but Double Pumps are not, save for supernatural critters and the like.
Refer to The Risus Page for information about any of this.
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