Below The Surface: A Ghost's Story.

Intrusion

In an unornamented, ten foot by ten foot stone tomb there unlives a spirit. That's you. The ghost of one who in life... well, you don't recall. Your remains have rotted away, there's not a hint of the past, just you, and your comfy little tomb.

You've been dead for a long, long time. As far back as you can remember, you've unlived in the tomb, a contented spirit never doing more than pacing the space around your sarcophagus. Sometimes you simply sit, or float. Never have you been disturbed.

Until today. Were you still alive, you might find it exciting, a break from centuries of boring, monotonous existence, but as you are now, you find it... unpleasant.

As the intruder stumbles into your chamber, making a rude racket loud enough to wake the dead (and you'd know!), you...

[] Attack! Kill!

[] Seize! Consume!

[] Scream! Rebuke!

[] Watch! Observe!

[] Haunt! Curse!


(QM Notes: Making this up as I go. Intentionally trying to keep things simple to start and see where it takes me, half as writing exercise, half as distraction. Let's see where the muse and votes takes things.)

[X] Scream! Rebuke!

Anger

You respond to the unpleasantness with anger. A furious warcry, a frenzied rebuke.

You scream. The intruder screams. A beast screams in triumph. Someone screams the scream of the dying.

Fury +2, Awareness +1.

You pause, ceasing your screaming, and gather your senses. The intruder- a goblin, you recognize it dimly even as you recall nothing of yourself, a small, nimble humanoid found commonly throughout the Under- cowers, and the sound of crunching bone reaches you.

You would say it reaches your ears, but presently you don't have those. You think.

And you pause and think. You can't really make out the intruder very well. The green of a goblin, unaccountable red, huddled and shivering in a corner of your tomb. You lie between it and the entrance. You've never really paid attention to what is beyond the entrance.

What is beyond the entrance right now includes the crunching of bone. You hesitate.

You...

[] Try to remember. You're not a goblin, you know it. You dislike goblins, the pests. But... what are you? Fog hangs heavy on your thoughts... But surely you can recall something? (Test ???, success: remember. Failure: ???)

[] Strike! Kill! Fury rises, what lies beyond the tomb is not your concern! Destroy the intruder! (Test Fury, success: Kill intruder. Failure: Gain Fury. Intruder escapes.)

[] Investigate! What makes that terrible crunching of bone? Did it drive the goblin into your tomb? Or is it unrelated? You cannot know without seeing. (Test Awareness, success: Learn of outside, gain Awareness. Failure: ???)

[] Scream louder! Louder! (Test Fury, success: drive away living, gain Fury. Failure: Nameless Spirit becomes Angry Spirit, consequences ???)

[] Halt! Focus! (Trade Soul for Awareness. Test Awareness: Success: Learn about intruder. Failure: Gain Awareness.)

[] Calm! Speak! You don't speak any sort of goblin languages but they might know Under Trade? (Test ???: Success: Communicate with goblin, lose Fury. Failure: Gain Fury, lose Soul.)


(QM Notes: I'm also making up the mechanics as I go. I will explicitly note if I change the rules on y'all. For the moment, until and unless I say otherwise these test options are/will be 'roll a d10, roll equal or less than stat for success'.

If things are under-explained or don't make sense, well, some of that is intentional but do feel free to ask. While some of the obfuscation is intentional off in character basis, that doesn't mean I haven't made something accidentally unclear or what not. Not everyone thinks as I do and I'm not infallible.

On a third, unrelated note I'm actually trying to figure out the new voting functionality a bit and have actually opened voting this time. I might have to fix something if I've messed up on that somehow, I haven't run a quest in a bit and am not fully familiar with things.)