Remove ads

Not Quite Lovecraft

Voting is open
Reader mode
_brightwing said:
It would be really great if the cloak was possible as described, but it feels like we have to pay a steeper price to earn back true humanity. Sacrifice other things as well. The scales grew that way to help Oliver survive the bullets too if you recall. The way things work in this thing, we can't not have a drawback - no matter with which way we go. I suspect Oliver would take a hit on his magical connection, if he were to tear away the occult parts of himself.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
We don't know unless we try! What is a benefit, and what is a drawback can depend on framing. We are hardly tearing away everything, just one specific recent thing.

Our self portrait helps here too. You can think of it like lifting off the latest layer of paint and putting it on something else. With the self portrait we should be able to make sure we don't lose more then that, and can fix anything that gets messed up. Perhaps it will set back our growth slightly, but that would be acceptable.

Maybe eventually we will have a collection of masks. Alternate selves which we can adopt when it suits us.

Ah ha! Masks! Masks can be painted much more easily then cloaks, and would resonate perfectly with what I am trying to do. Let me edit my plan:
JayTar said:
[X] Plan The Me Who Could Have Been
-[X] First contact Robert, via phone preferably, or letter. Reassure him you are alright, and are recovering. Inquire to his status, the waitress's, and the general situation. (If he is not available, leave a message for him to call you back) Take steps in anonymity if the authorities are looking for you
-[X] Then work to re-establish your full human self, not just a superficial appearance.
-[X] Do this by painting a mask. The self who could have been. Sacrifice into it your supernatural connection to the ocean and new features, leaving only your prior self behind. Monitor and adjust using your Self Portrait to make sure your integrity of self is preserved.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
FYI @Ternasta. Not a big change, just swapping from making a cloak to a mask.

Blacksheep said:
Oh, I should probably reveal:

The cultist absolutely cursed Oliver with bad luck while fighting. It's gone now, but that did influence what happened.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I assume that was the cause of the difficulty increase on the Dexterity Roll? Or did it actually alter our dice results?
 
Remove ads
Hound of Tindalos
  • Sidestory
    • The hound was hungry. She was always hungry. She knew soon she would meet the one she would eat/be eaten by that would create the young she carried within her. She had to be ready, or her young would feast on her when they tore out through the angles into other dimensions.

    Time is tricky prey. It runs quickly and loops on itself neatly to leave her confused on the trail. But she has hunted/will hunt enough time that she knows how to force her prey into corners. She runs along probabilities, warps space, and ruptures mandelas. Time is caught, pinned in a dimension like a mouse in a hole.

    Digging into the dimension isn't easy. Time is slippery and doesn't wish to be bitten and torn apart for her to feed her young. But the hound has her prey now and it will not run loose until she has bitten through it all. Parts of her catch glimpses of the smaller beings living in the dimension time is holed in. Most are not right, not layered properly to have substance. But some she can taste the layers on, and knows time is caught on them.

    She rips and bites and tears into time. It knots itself frightfully, and she swallows it down. Parts of the small beings in the dimension fragment and break away. She sees time smooth out in them and run free. Other parts she gulps down to satisfy her hunger, teasing apart what was and savoring each layer.

    One of the smaller beings is strange. It is as flat and empty as the rest of the beings of this dimension, yet it responds to her. It attacks/it runs/it hides/it reaches out. She doesn't understand these strange actions. It shouldn't be able to do this, not when she is greater than it. Not when it hardly exists. It steals one of the fragments of the smaller beings from her. It tries to talk but does not even have a proper mouth/s to talk with.

    The hound is curious. She wants to know more about this small being. But she cannot fit into the tiny hole she has dug. She has eaten time, and there are no whiffs left for her. She does her best to shove herself back in, breaks off a fraction of herself to do so. It looks dead, so small and splintered. The hound is forced to resign herself to the failure. She turns and resumes her hunt. Her young hang heavy inside her.

    She cannot see inside the dimension the fraction force itself into almost a shape. She wouldn't understand if she did. The thing failed to be her, or even a portion. It is new, limited in dimensions, closer to a clip of fur left behind than the truth of what she is.

    But that is not the dimension we watch, and the hound does not know.
     
  • Sidestory
    • Blacksheep said:
    The hound was hungry. She was always h
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...


    I love this so much. I didn't expect we'd get the chance to see so much more of her like so! The fact she is about to give birth makes her more humanizing than the terrific wraith we were worrying over. Which she still is. It feels to me she is experiencing all her instances at the same time?


    If the rest of you are game we can try some time shenanigans with the gem to see if we can draw her forth again. She looks like she needs help to survive childbirth.


    (I also really like the idea of the mask. That is such a great aesthetic - a painted mask. Still worried about the cost though)
     
    Last edited:
    Interlude was interesting. Maybe at some point we will get "the proper mouths to talk with".

    Oh and additional reason I favor my plan. Once we fix our self we should really try catching up with Robert in person. Both to reassure him we are okay, mentor him (and maybe the waitress) in the supernatural, and go on that relaxing wilderness vacation we were promised. (Plus maybe returning the gem, or at least talking to the natives which Robert got them gem from in the first place to get the rest of the story.)

    Vanishing off into the ocean now would cut all that off.
     
    The plan called for the best of humanity and eldritch through the Self portrait. A recalibration. With continued use of the enhanced locket to maintain an anti-occult glamour - but against supernatural beings seen as Oliver's true self when he reveals himself.

    Going to the ocean doesn't necessarily mean Oliver would be automatically locked into an underwater adventure. We would still be in a position just like Deep one family ages ago to go on further, or after slaking our new thirst and answering the call - go back to land. If actual Deep ones can stay integrated with humanity, so can Oliver.

    You know, Oliver's starting to remind me of Howl from Howl's Moving Castle..
     
    Last edited:
    _brightwing said:
    The plan called for the best of humanity and eldritch through the Self portrait. A recalibration. With continued use of the enhanced locket to maintain an anti-occult glamour - but against supernatural beings seen as Oliver's true self when he reveals himself.

    Going to the ocean doesn't necessarily mean Oliver would be automatically locked into an underwater adventure. We would still be in a position just like Deep one family ages ago to go on further, or after slaking our new thirst and answering the call - go back to land. If actual Deep ones can stay integrated with humanity, so can Oliver.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    If you think a separation would be difficult, then a perfect synthesis sounds even harder.
    Even a perfect synthesis would still have what I see as the greatest disadvantage: That it would still put us under the umbrella of an existing supernatural force.
    If we can avoid such I would prefer to, by nearly all means possible. Being independent is a precious thing.

    While we might not be automatically locked into an underwater adventure, we can't assume it will just be a quick out and back either.
    From what we saw deep ones weren't very well integrated with humanity. Always pulled back by the call of the deep. Having issues going too far from the coast. Do we want that chain?
     
    We already partially paid for the price of synthesis by investing on the Self portrait. It was a significant part of our arsenal. We'd be using it for what it's meant for. Embracing all aspects of Oliver, working with what we have - building on it.

    Humanity itself, innocence is precious. And something like that have cost. No one who delves into the occult in Lovecraft verse can come out unscathed. For Oliver to reclaim his humanity feel like something that should be an endgame decision. Or from major outcomes or turns in his storyline. Half measures have always backfired on us in some way - no matter how interesting the idea is. I really did love the idea of changing masks though.

    I'm not disagreeing with you on the underwater adventure, I brought it up because making it like we're writing off the Robert storyline permanently might not necessarily be correct either.
     
    Last edited:
    _brightwing said:
    We already partially paid for the price of synthesis by investing on the Self portrait. It was a significant part of our arsenal. We'd be using it for what it's meant for. Embracing all aspects of Oliver, working with what we have - building on it.

    Humanity itself, innocence is precious. And something like that have cost. No one who delves into the occult in Lovecraft verse can come out unscathed. For Oliver to reclaim his humanity feel like something that should be an endgame decision. Or from major outcomes or turns in his storyline. Half measures have always backfired on us in some way - no matter how interesting the idea is. I really did love the idea of changing masks though.

    I'm not disagreeing with you on the underwater adventure, I brought it up because making it like we're writing off the Robert storyline permanently might not necessarily be correct either.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Innocence and Humanity are not necessarily the same. I want Oliver to remain human, not innocent. The sort of Humanity who beats up eldritch abominations in the back ally and takes their lunch money. Show everyone just how powerful humans can be.

    Oliver needing an end game decision to regain humanity would be a self fulfilling prophecy with your vote. Of course it would be hard, or nearly impossible to regain our humanity if we embrace being fish-person. But we don't have to. The ink is still wet, we can fix things now.
    And well, we might not be necessarily writing off the Robert storyline, but we might be. The risk is there.

    I would say it's not half measures that have hurt us the most, but rather diving face first into something powerful and eldritch.
    I worry we are diving off a cliff with the current leading vote, with no idea what is at the bottom.

    So I would deploy urge anyone I can to vote for my plan "[X] Plan The Me Who Could Have Been". Give a chance of fixing things before we make them irreversible.
     
    JayTar said:
    Innocence and Humanity are not necessarily the same. I want Oliver to remain human, not innocent. The sort of Humanity who beats up eldritch abominations in the back ally and takes their lunch money. Show everyone just how powerful humans can be.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    This is hilarious, one of the best takes I have possibly seen in a while.

    How exactly do you define humanity, or being human?
     
    Blacksheep said:
    This is hilarious, one of the best takes I have possibly seen in a while.

    How exactly do you define humanity, or being human?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    That is legitimately a really difficult question. Far better philosophers then I have tackled it. There are any number of traits I could list, but someone would inevitably throw in a plucked chicken.
    It would be easier to list things which I don't define as requirements of being human.
    For example, It's not a matter of how much power you have, physical, mystical or otherwise. It's not a matter of what senses you use to perceive the world or higher dimensions. Nor a matter of genetics or physical form.

    One could make a convincing argument that fish-people or whatever also count as "human" by our definition so long as their mind hasn't been warped past some nebulous threshold.
    But that is in part because in real life "human" is practically synonymous with "person". Which doesn't necessarily hold in fiction which can have non-human intelligent species. I'm not that worried that this current choice will endanger Oliver's status as a person. (At least not on it's own)

    So if fish-person-Oliver is still a person, why am I opposed?
    I suppose if I were to amend my prior statement: "I want Oliver to remain human" it could instead be "I want Oliver to remain a novel but logical extrapolation from humanity without giving undue influence to any single external force".
    Because well, it's more just a matter of themes and what seems interesting.

    The idea that we could thread the needle and gain true power without trying our self to some eldritch patron seems a very rare thing to in an eldritch setting. Maybe someday we could open a school and teach people "How to bootstrap magic without losing your sanity". Turn the supernatural from the frighting and unknown, to a science or art like any other.
     
    Last edited:
    I understand your concerns, but we're not exactly making a dark pact to sell Oliver's soul here.. This is the path of the eldritch sorcerer where Oliver wields his eldritch side tempered alongside his humanity.

    I think the way to make the masks more viable would be to actively take steps ourselves so things don't get wrong when we try to sacrifice away the eldritch manifestations. But I don't know.. Something as important as reclaiming his humanity thematically should be something that was offered to us through the story, something pivotal where Oliver makes a decision.

    There are different meanings to the context of innocence and humanity. To stare into the abyss is to have the abyss stare back. The moment Oliver looked meant he could never go back, not after the burden of knowledge of how reality truly works.. That is part of his being now, and he can never close his eyes again - not without cutting away those parts of him.

    We're trying to shy away from consequences. We need to instead accept them and roll with the cards we are dealt with.
     
    Last edited:
    Remove ads
    Vote closed
  • Voting
    • Scheduled vote count started by Blacksheep on Feb 8, 2024 at 10:31 PM, finished with 30 posts and 6 votes.
    • [X] Plan The Me Who Will Be
      -[X] Contact Robert, via phone preferably, or letter. Reassure him you are alright, and are recovering. Inquire to his status, the waitress's, and the general situation. Make sure to take steps in anonymity if the authorities are looking for you.
      -[X] Use the Self portrait to instead embrace the changes, the scars and imperfections. Meld the form over with your ideal self, someone not afraid. The mismatched features turning into something that was always to be - the best of eldritch and humanity. Tether the portrait with the broken locket, to steal away supernatural from mundane eyes. The Occult however sees your true self, when you deign it.
      -[X] The Ocean beckons.
      [X] Plan The Me Who Could Have Been
      -[X] First contact Robert, via phone preferably, or letter. Reassure him you are alright, and are recovering. Inquire to his status, the waitress's, and the general situation. (If he is not available, leave a message for him to call you back) Take steps in anonymity if the authorities are looking for you
      -[X] Then work to re-establish your full human self, not just a superficial appearance.
      -[X] Do this by painting a mask. The self who could have been. Sacrifice into it your supernatural connection to the ocean and new features, leaving only your prior self behind. Monitor and adjust using your Self Portrait to make sure your integrity of self is preserved.
    Click to expand...
     
  • Voting
    • So we are going the cultist route. Because that always ends well, after all.
    Oh well, might be amusing to see how badly this turns out.
     
    Yes because Oliver has finally sacrificed his first baby to his dark patrons. /s

    Eldritch is not necessarily evil in this setting. And when the right time comes in the story for Oliver reclaim his full humanity you'd see me happily join in support for it. Cause it's a great narrative. Something like that needs buildup though for things to reach a crescendo - for our choices to feel impactful.
     
    Last edited:
    _brightwing said:
    Eldritch is not necessarily evil in this setting. And when the right time comes in the story for Oliver reclaim his full humanity you'd see me happily join in support for it. Cause it's a great narrative. Something like that needs buildup though for things to reach a crescendo - for our choices to feel impactful.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    This statement proves you know absolutely nothing about me, but any further comments will just bog down the thread so I will leave it at that.
     
    I apologise. I didn't mean it to come as condescending, but it is a bit frustrating for our choices to be shoehorned into the cultist route - when this is basically a continuation of what Oliver has already been doing all along.

    I meant to say that we haven't morally compromised Oliver to warrant calling him a cultist.

    I feel it would have been a greater mistake trying to escape the consequences of Oliver's fight. And I'll stand by that.
     
    Remove ads
    Fishy Qualities
  • Threadmarks
    • You need to figure out what to do with the changes wrought to your body. They are comfortable enough, if leaving you more thirsty than you are used to. You can't say you're ugly either. There's an appeal to the scales and wider mouth you can't deny. But you know that humans are panicky beings, and it takes time to adjust to the occult. If you simply walk about as you are, you will frighten people.

    It also wouldn't hurt to smooth the changes that have happened to you over, integrate them properly. This was a rough change from drawing too deeply on Nemo. It's a miracle it worked as well as it did. You can take the time to fix it now, and make sure that it settles into you properly. You headed into your studio and took out your self portrait. You had to think hard about how you were going to change how things had settled in your body. Eventually you began to very carefully layer ocean imagery in the background, before adding in the slight widening of your mouth and what, to your mind, was a flattering speckling of scales across your skin. You could feel yourself change as you worked on your image. It was slow, as it took weeks for you to capture this as you wished in the painting and do it properly. The changes hooked in and took place as you requested, even as you rethickened your hair so that it was properly thick and luscious once more.

    Yes, that was a very handsome self in your portrait now. You had to take some time to admire the painting once you were finished, and idly you thought of what else you might add while adjusting.

    [ ]Strengthen your muscles
    [ ]Add signs of intellect
    [ ]Lengthen your fingers
    [ ]Write-in

    The last part took your broken locket. It had been clever, hiding you away. Now you would be reversing it, changing to hide from humans rather than the unusual. Your portrait now would be the disguise you would wear of an ordinary human, with the truth of your nature underneath. It was unfortunate, but you would not be able to hide the truth from others like yourself. It did feel poetic to reverse the nature of the locket, and you could feel that reversal strengthening the charm. It would take much more to shatter the illusion than it had to break it the first time. You could likely reveal yourself right in front of a human and still have it be forgotten now. It felt good to put it on once more.

    You went to show Emily your new self. She smiled broadly and complimented you on your new nature. You had to take a moment to admire her once more, as you could see even more of the ethereal pull of dreams on her and how she looked. You wondered if parts of her were being filled in by people who saw her to make her appear more human. It was in her power to do so after all. Her eyes were utterly enchanting to stare into, all of them.

    Lastly you chose to send a letter to Robert's office. Perhaps you could track him down in person, but for now this seemed like the best way to reach out to him. You apologized for disappearing, and informed him you had been forced to return home via occult means in order to recover from the wounds you had received. You hoped that he would write back and you would be able to talk.

    With the last of that business settled, you headed out to the ocean with Nemo. You didn't feel a pull towards it, like the qui'lo daughter. You did feel more refreshed once you reached the ocean. It helped that Nemo was clearly so enthusiastic about it all. Interestingly, you could now sense Nemo even more clearly than you ever had before. It lead to the realization that Nemo could in fact flip gender as they pleased, though they were currently male. Nemo was thrilled to dive straight into the water from the rocky beach you had come to, and was quick to call you to come join them for a swim.

    [ ]Spend time swimming with Nemo
    [ ]Look for Deep Ones
    [ ]Try to call Deep Ones
    [ ]Try to call an ocean god
    [ ]Try to call an ocean spirit
    [ ]Write-in
     
  • Threadmarks
    • I don't think we will ever be "returning" to pure humanity. Integrating and accepting the changes... I see no "endgame decision" which reverts things. If such a thing existed, I would likely vote against it.
    The fact we don't feel a mental call or compulsion to the ocean is good however. Hopefully that means we are still essentially the same in the ways that matter.

    Now that we have left behind pure humanity, I would actually advocate for the reverse approach. Seek out or create other supernatural influences to take benefits from.
    My over all goal remains the same. To not let any external force have undue influence over our self. Better the deep to be just one note in a symphony.

    Anyway for what benefit to take from our self improvement, hmm. I'm tempted to go for muscles or intellect, which I assume correspond to Strength or Intelligence. Unless someone has any unique ideas for improvements?

    I'm tempted to vote for just spending time swimming with Nemo. We still are on a bit of a sanity deficit since we didn't really have a break. That or maybe go looking for deep ones? Calling out sounds reckless.
     
    [X] Drawing on Nemo's eyes, but beautiful in the way you see them. Mesmerising, dark as the depths of the oceans, pulling you in.. but human as well, so while you smile you still have the crow's feet by your eyes.

    [X] Spend time swimming with best boy Nemo

    Eldritch sight might be the most valuable thing we can get from Nemo. That would the most useful thing to bring onto our regular arsenal. Supernatural charisma would work well too with our playstyle.
     
    Last edited:
    Reader mode
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Voting is open
    Remove ads
    Back
    Top