GM note: Ectoplasm Tracking is now being delegated to
@ConfusedPotato as is regular XP progression, Tangibility growth, and Statuses. I want to have no mechanical role in this Quest aside from arbitration, writing, and formatting votes.
Also, the necromancer just got himself simultaneously killed and mutated by the Nullplane.
Executive Decision: Talk with the Sterlings
It's been precisely 18 hours since Annie's death, and her family is not taking it well. Her father is slumped over the table, obviously not handling his grief well. Annie's mother is obsessively cleaning everything in the house, apparently trying to take her mind off what happened. In the back yard, Annie's big brothers are half-heartedly tossing a football to each other, clearly deeply saddened.
Even though Annie isn't terribly good at Manifesting herself yet, she's still able to make her presence known, and it was ultimately decided that she should be the one to acquire her family's attention herself in order to increase the odds of them believing that she was really who she was.
Thus, Annie positioned herself on the middle of her brother's football game, illuminating herself as a barely visible vaguely humanoid blur as she used her meager ability to shove around physical matter to disrupt the ball's trajectory. The boys looked justifiably astounded at first, and were quick to follow Annie's barely visible form as she drifted through the house's back door straight into the kitchen.
It took Annie another minute or so to not-so-subtly direct her entire family to the dining room, and as soon as everyone was there, she quickly began forming herself into large glowing letters in the air, slowly spelling out "HELLO MOM, DAD, ALEX, BEN. I'M STILL HERE."
During the several minutes it took to spellthis out, the family's expressions had gradually shifted from barely suppressed depression to a mix of relief, confusion, and disbelief. Eventully, one of the brothers asked "So, Annie, what's the afterlife like?"
This is when Harvey makes his presence known, fading into crisp but translucent visibility as he introduces himself, saying "Hello, I am Professor Harvey Walters, a member of Hawk Ridge's ghost community alongside Annie. As I am currently more skilled at communicating with the living, it was decided that I would be relaying messages for Annie after she re-introduced herself."
The conversation after that proceeds smoothly, with your group agreeing to help teach Annie to communicate with the living, and the Sterling family feeling significantly less depressed than they had that morning. That said, it did raise the awkward question of funeral arrangements; after bit Annie made clear that she wanted her ashes cremated, and that she wanted to put it off until she was fully capable of interacting with people.
Action 1: Chickenstein Research
Successes: 20
Epic Success
None of you are sure what the Chickenstein was running on, but it most definitely
wasn't Ectoplasm. The four of you quickly managed to haul the corpse into a secluded alleyway, and with some effort began poking around inside of it to see how it worked. You are rewarded with more questions than answers, the only clue being an opaque pink crystal in what used to be the beast's brain cavity. You try to remove the crystal, only to find that it eats away at Ectoplasm that isn't currently 'charged' for a Manifestation, necessitating significant Ectoplasm expenditure in order to safely handle it.
Given what the thing does to Ectoplasm, it's universally agreed to keep it in a safe place nowhere near any of the group's Haunts. In addition, given the item's properties, it quickly starts being referred to as a Null Crystal. Needless to say, it will be an interesting subject of research, if one that will require significant care in handling.
(Research Topic Unlocked: Null Phenomena)
(Normal XP for everyone, including NPCs)
Action 2: Tangibility Increases
Autosuccess
This week's round of Ectoplasm infusions went well, with several ghosts making massive gains. Even better, Polly has managed to close their wounds entirely, no longer bleeding Ectoplasm once their bandages come off. That said, a couple ghosts feel like they're coming up on some sort of limit, with Redmont and Harvey feeling closest to hitting the end of their ability to grow in power this way.
(Normal Tangibility growth for everyone except
@AnimalKrazed, who is no longer
Leaking)
Action 3: Crafting Monocles
Successes: 13
Success
Nick Stone meanwhile goes about manufacturing more of his personal pet project in the form of Crafting Monocles, using Refined Ectoplasm to do so. At the end of the week he has half a dozen monocles to show for his efforts, having spent 3 refined Ecto to make them.
(+6 Crafting Monocles)
(Normal XP growth)
Action 4: Monster Hunting
Successes: 12
Success
Meanwhile, Koko and Ragna grab a pair of guns and start patrolling Hawk Ridge, looking for supernatural nasties to grab. They don't find anything until Thursday. The two of them are just passing by the house of a certain necromancer, when suddenly there's a burst of
grayish-pink energy that completely destroys the building, slamming into the barricade of Ectoplasm that had previously kept you from entering the property and shattering it into shards.
The pair of ghosts manage to avoid the worst of the shrapnel, and as they look on the wreckage they see a rippling gash in reality colored in that same
grayish-pink as the explosion. Several moments of awkward silence pass, before slowly, a form starts drifting out of the rift.
At first, you think it's another ghost, but the sense of
wrongness and crackling
grayish-pink lightning surrounding the approaching being quickly put the lie to that idea. Koko and Ragna share a quick glance, pull out their weapons, and immediately open fire on the monstrosity.
Sadly, the bullets of Ectoplasm don't seem to harm the approaching entity, bouncing off its jagged crystalline exterior without causing it much harm. The same cannot be said for Ragna when the entity retaliates with a massive blast of energy, blasting her backwards and through several now-destroyed buildings before she can get her momentum under control.
Not waiting for a similar treatment, Koko quickly withdraws a large chunk of Ectoplasm from her personal reserve and gets ready to perform a Manifestation, rapidly compressing the blob of metaphysical material as she throws it at the monstrosity. As the chunk of Ectoplasm leaves her hand, it lights up into eerie
blueish-green flames, slamming into the monster's face. Said monster very rapidly ceases to be a threat, as it lights up like a firecracker being tossed in a campfire, leaving a small crater as it rapidly combusts.
The only remnant is a small opaque
pinkish-gray crystal, much like the one found in the Chinkenstein's brain cavity. Oh, and the gibbering gash in reality, don't forget that.
Monster added to Bestiary: Null Wraith
Location Added: Null Rift
Both
@LinkOnScepter and
@Strunkriidiisk get double combat XP
@Strunkriidiisk in
Leaking (7)(Bandaged
) and lost 5 Ecto in the fight, meaning they finish the turn at 4.1 Ecto.
Action 5: Manifestation Points
Ectoplasm Spent: 50
Successes: 8
Point Yield: 50
Meanwhile, Harvey and Redmont are continuing to improve their mastery of using Ectoplasm to effect the physical world, learning more about its ins and outs than ever before. Admittedly they had to run far more experiments than they did previously, but the massive amounts of Ectoplasm they had to throw around meant they were able to run those experiments without issue.
(normal XP for both Harvey and Redmont, both of them each gain 50 Manifestation Points)
Action 6: Recruit NPC ghosts
Successes: 10
Success
Meanwhile, Giles has the bright idea to try actively recruiting some of the Ghosts in and around Hawk Ridge to join your little community. He soon locates two new members; a newly-deceased woman who simply wishes to be known as Marina, and a man who died of old age a few years back going by Duke.
Marina was a musician in life, with a particular affinity for the saxophone, or at least she claims such. Given how much she geeked out over the spectral handguns, Ectoplasm Harvester, and the Refinery when she first saw them, you suspect that there's a bit more to her than that.
Meanwhile, Duke is quite thoroughly ex-military, having served as an infantryman in Vietnam, fought the Communists in Thailand, took part in the invasion of Grenada, and several other military operations all the way to the Gulf War, after which he was honorably discharged. Turns out that he still had a bit of a blood knight streak in him, and immediately took up hunting and bought himself a motorcycle. He was still going strong, loud, and guns blazing at a ripe old age of 76 when his heart finally gave out on him in his sleep.
(Normal XP gains)
(Will add profiles for Marina and Duke to OP)
Action 7: Build Workshop
Successes: 10
Success
It's also this week when Jonathan finally gets around to finishing that workshop he's been working on for a while, putting the finishing touches on it Friday morning. It should hopefully prove useful.
(Haunt constructed at Clinic: Workshop)
(Normal XP gain)
Event: Rapid Response
The official response to the
gaping hole in reality that's formed on the periphery of Hawk Ridge is swift. The Washington State National Guard are quickly called in to establish a defensive perimeter around the rift, with several tanks in the hull-down configuration, machine gun emplacements, and other defenses in place to hopefully ruin the day of anything coming through. They finish up by Friday, just in time for another of those Null Brutes to come through, only to eat a 120mm APFSDS round to the face before it could do anything.
That said, everyone's pretty much panicking as they try to figure out what in the world just happened, and you think that your group might have some useful information for them. The question is, do you want to let them know about you?
[] Tell the military about Ghosts
[] Try and stay secret
Actions
Misc (not rolled)
[] Increase Tangibility
-[] How much Ectoplasm are you spending? (caps at 10)
[] Spend Manifestation Points (free action, resolves before votes counted)
-[] What are you spending them on? (Write-In purchases)
[] Consume Ectoplasm
-[] Ambient (counts as action, but doesn't overtap sources)
-[] Concentrated (does not count as action, requires source)
--[] Packaged
[] Direct an NPC
-[] Which NPC?
-[] Which task? (can only participate in actions with at least one player character participating)
Investigation
[] Search for new mysteries!
-[] Mundane wrongdoing
-[] Supernatural weirdness
-[] Either one's good
[] Snoop around at
-[] The condos near the Nugget Factory
-[] Write-In
[] Track a monster
[] Write-In (seriously, I have no idea what to put in this category; as long as it makes sense, I'll let you do it.)
Research
[] Get points to unlock Manifestations
-[] How much Ectoplasm are you chipping in?
[] Design some Equipment
-[] Specify function
-[] How much Ectoplasm are you chipping in?
[] Design a Haunt
-[] Specify function
-[] How much Ectoplasm are you chipping in?
[] Investigate a phenomena
-[] Null Crystal
-[] Nullplane Rift
Teaching
[] Teach/Learn a Manifestation
-[] Select Manifestations
[] Teach/Learn a Skill
-[] Select Skill
[] Teach/Learn a Blueprint
-[] Select Blueprint
Building (uses Research skill)
[] Build a Haunt
-[] Concentrated Ectoplasm Harvester (20 Ectoplasm)
[] Build Equipment (unlike Havoc Squad, equipment can be used on the same turn it is made)
-[] Ectoplasmic Pistol (3 Ecto for 4 guns)
Diplomacy
[] Try talking people out of throwing their lives away via suicide.
-[] Write-in approach
[] Try and make contact with someone living.
-[] The Mayor
-[] The Police
-[] The Librarian
-[] A self-proclaimed psychic
-[] A family member
-[] The factory workers
-[] Write-in
[] Recruit NPC ghosts
-[] Native to Hawk Ridge
-[] Go recruiting elsewhere
[] Write-In
Combat
[] Go monster-hunting
[] Protect someone else
-[] Select other action to guard
[] Violently Explore the Nullplane
[] Training (grants Combat XP at no risk; particularly good rolls may result in higher XP gain)
[] Write-In
-Annie will be learning the second levels of Visual Presence, Auditory Presence, and Kinetic Force this turn. Someone with those Manifestations will need to devote time to teaching her.
Brain fart there.