Even Death May Die - Cute Cthulhu Cultist! (Flying Circus Quest)

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Character Sheet
  • Informational
    • Character Sheet
    Isabelle Morgenthau
    A Fisher

    Isa (left) and her boyfriend Arren (right)

    Hard Keen Calm Daring Wild
    +4 -1 +4 +1 -1
    Moves
    Creepy: When a comrade sees you perform a ritual, overhears your prayers, or sees signs of your alienness, they lose Trust in you. Once they learn one of your Moves, they are no longer affected, but they gain Creepy as well.
    Deep Ones:When you call out to your patrons, they give +1 forward on your next roll.
    Blessing: When you dab fresh blood on an item roll +Calm. On a 16+, take both. On an 11-15, choose 1. Effects last 1 Routine.
    • Take +1 Ongoing with this item this Routine. (+5 Handling for a plane)
    • The item cannot break or be lost this Routine. (Armour 3/8+ for a plane)
    On a miss, make a bigger sacrifice or the machine is damaged.
    Ideomotor Response: Your plane effectively has a programmable autopilot. It does not have to be switched on and off; it "knows" when you are behind the controls.
    Soul-Bound: When you paint a rune in blood on an aircraft, you are linked. While in flight, you can take incoming Structure damage as Stress, 1-1. You can take a hit that would strike a Component as Injury, or give incoming Injury to your Engine.
    Written in Ink: When you get a tattoo to mark an major milestone, take 3 Stress , describe the tattoo and where it's inked, and link it to a Fisher move. Whenever you use that Move, lose 1 Stress (max 1 time per Routine per Move).
    Bond: (Witch move learned from Wulf) When you hold an object of significance and make an emotional connection to it, take 1 Stress. The object becomes a magical Focus, and you learn it's Nature (Earth, Air, Water, Fire, Iron, or Blood).
    Whispered Answers: You get visions.
    Gifts from the Abyss: Your connection to the Deep Ones is physically changing you. Name the physically obvious mutation you have received and describe how it frightens or disgusts the unfaithful. It can be hidden, but not perfectly, and just seeing it will trigger Creepy. All XP advances now cost 1 less XP (minimum 1).
    Strategist: When you lay out a plan of action, anyone following the plan (including you) can opt to use your stats on the roll if they are better, and roll Seize the Initiative with their best stat. This lasts until a comrade is wounded or events go drastically off script.

    Mastery
    The Bushwack
    Ambush Predator: When you strike an enemy who is unaware of your presence, roll with Advantage.
    Forced Evade: When you fire to scare an opponent off, spend 1 ammo and roll +Hard. On a hit, instead of dealing damage, choose one: Target dives 1, target climbs 1, target loses speed in a forced turn. On a 16+, roll attack dice on them anyway.
    Momentum: When you dive onto a target, add +1 AP.
    Scissors Snip: When you disengage, give an ally +3 towards dealing with your target.

    Familiar Vices
    - Drinking
    - Prayer
    - Dancing
    - Cannabis

    Intimacy Move
    When you are intimate with another, choose one of you to get a hold. They can spend that hold to give the other a command: if followed, then forward to their next +Stat move, they will always score at least a partial hit, regardless of what the dice say.

    If you use this move in the air, there are two holds, and they can be distributed however you agree.

    The Company
    People
    • Isabelle (Fisher): The PC. Was once an acolyte training at her village's temple, but fled abuse at the hands of the cult leader. Possibly the mortal avatar of the dark gods, and remarkably calm and patient, Isabelle is the world's most mature 19 year old. Which isn't saying much. 1 thaler per Routine.
    • Arren (NPC- Confidant/Observer): Your cute fish boyfriend, Arren is a sweet boy in way over his head, but he loves you more than anything. Artist, deeply empathetic, quietly devoted, everyone finds him hot. 1 thaler per Routine.
    • Wulf (Witch): Your girlfriend and a former bandit leader with a fractally tragic backstory. Basically incapable of impulse control, she puts on a confident mask to hide how much she's hurting. Her dad was a wolf. The world's only transgender pansexual half-fae witch. 1 thaler per Routine.
      • Hard +3, Keen +3, Calm -2, Daring +0, Wild +3 (Avenger)
    • Minna Hammerl (Soldier): Highly trained soldier from a military junta, who exiled her due to her autism. The squadron's second in command, the most beautiful woman in the world, and the only person on this crew of idiots whose life doesn't revolve around getting laid. Does not use contractions. 1 thaler per Routine.
      • Hard +4, Keen +1, Calm +2, Daring -2 (Professional)
    • Heinrich Engel (Student): Political science student working on his thesis-slash-manifesto. Mentor in a queer society back home, he's the one who actually knows things about stuff. Deeply camp. "i think if heinrich tried to not say stupid things he would suffer a toxic buildup and fucking die"
      • Hard -1, Keen -1, Calm +2, Daring +2
    • Anny Meldgaard (NPC - Mechanic): A young half-Fischer, half-Himmilvolk woman from Piav, trained by the mechanics there. Looking for adventure and her origins. Blushes pink?
    • Ronja Devapala (NPC - Non-Combat Pilot): Anny's friend from Piav, descendant of Skyborn but adopted by locals, unsure who she is. Enthusiast of sarcasm and the only person on the crew with her shit mostly together.
    Temporary Members
    • Marcus (Farmer): A Macchi native. He goes where Lyse goes. Flies a specialized seaplane with a precision rifle.
    • Lyse (Scion): A bastard child of a Sopwith noble family. Flies a V-engine triplane conversion.
    • Ann-Lise Holms (Revenant): The ghost of famed Great War ace Stormcloud, the best female fischer ace of the war. Flies a 200hp KW-AN.

    Aircraft
    • Isa & Arren's Plane: A Teicher Möwen seaplane. Steel frame, liquid-cooled engine. Deeply possessed. 1 thaler per Routine.
    • Fang Howl: Wulf's helicopter. An experimental pre-war model. Liquid-cooled radial. Three wolf moon. 1 thaler per Routine.
    • Pup: Wulf's Kreuzer Skorpion prototype retrieved from a sealed hanger. Gets a lot out of an underpowered engine.
    • Minna's Kobra: An inline-engine powered, wood framed fighter. All around an excellent machine. 1 thaler per Routine.
    • Heinrich's Reconstruction: A canard plane with a 30mm cannon in the nose. Awkward and unstable but hits like a train. 1 thaler per Routine.
    • The Pioneer: A huge 3 engine'd cargo plane with capacity for two airplanes and an additional eight people. 3 thaler per Routine.
    ​
    Stress XP Mastery
    7 3 2
    Cash Expenses Value
    22 14 11
    Vice Track: ☐☐☐☐☐
    9 Victories​
    You're welcome
     
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  • Informational
    • Well, shame we didn't ask for like...what, almost double pay, I think?

    (not that we should have, from what we knew at the time, I just find it hilarious how much money we could have gotten if we were feeling gutsy)
     
    1-10: Talking it Over
  • Threadmarks
    • Minor smuttiness at the end of the update. Nothing explicit though.​

    You'd run away from home to fly, though the life of a mercenary pilot wasn't your original intention, and you found the idea that you could dissuade somebody, especially a sixteen year old boy, from doing the same by inflicting something exciting on him somewhat suspect.

    "Well, sir, if we're going to be putting ourselves into danger for this, we should probably get paid regardless of how your grandson reacts. We control planes, not minds. And, well, this is lethal business." you explained.

    "Too right! Just do your best to convince him. I'm at my wits end." he said. "As long as he's not actually in your company after you take him up, you'll get paid.

    "And a bonus if we manage it." Wulf added, always looking for an angle. "For a job well done."

    He nodded. "If I'm convinced you set him right, eight more thalers." he said without hesitation. Damn, this guy must be loaded. 30 thalers for a job like this...

    "Done." You held out a hand and shook. "How we meeting him?"

    "Just head up to the Hilltop Tavern. It's where the pilots tend to congregate, he's always hanging around there these days. Just look interested in hiring, single him out if you have to, I don't know." He showed you a small photograph of a pale boy with dark hair for reference. "And... keep him safe, please. He's all I have."

    The old man shuffled along, and you sat back in your chair, the gravity of his words hanging over him.

    "I say we take the kid and run." Wulf immediately opined. "I mean, unless he's a total coward."

    "Seriously? Give up that payday?" you looked over quizzically. Wulf was not one to pass up good money.

    "Yeah, fuck that dude. His grandkid can do whatever he wants, he's an adult." Wulf said.

    "He's sixteen." Heinrich said. "In what universe is that an adult?"

    "We were full cadets at sixteen." Minna said quietly. "That is when we could be deployed, if there was an emergency."

    "That's when it was for Piav." Anny added. "You had to get a job then, if you could."

    "In Kaltbrunn, you're an adult when you get your knife." Arren said. "Guys get there's on their thirteenth birthday, and Isa..."

    "I was twelve." you said. "Bit younger than most. It's when I started working in the temple."

    "Y'all don't even want to know what I was up to at sixteen." Wulf added.

    Heinrich looked at you all, aghast. "How are you all so calm about this? This is not okay! The age of majority prewar was twenty-one, and when they lowered the conscription age to 17 there were riots! This kid's a fucking baby, and I'm drawing a fucking line in the sand over this. How old's our youngest member?"

    "Anny?" you asked.

    "I'm nineteen." she said. Wait, what?

    "Wait, what?"

    "Yeah. Birthday's the sixth of Herbistmānod." she said, as if that was totally normal and fine.

    "How are you six months older than me." you asked, exasperated. You were the youngest. This was a nightmare.

    "Alright, nineteen. That's the cutoff. I'm voting against anyone younger than nineteen on principle." Heinrich said firmly.

    "That works for me. I concur." Minna said added.

    "Probably for the best." Ronja said. You weren't any good at math, but you could tell you were being rapidly being outvoted on this, even with your outsized share of the votes.

    "Well, shit, okay. So no recruiting the kid." you said. "We'll have to come up with something else."

    ---

    The Hilltop Tavern was, mercifully, a much more familiar sort of tavern to you, more like the ones they had down south. So much so, you were starting to suspect that it was deliberately constructed that way to appeal to tourists. A large open wooden hall, lined with old roundels and heraldry, with a huge electric fan on the ceiling made from an old four-bladed propeller to keep it cool in the northern heat, despite the thick-walled construction. You could sit at a big table with all your friends and attractive servers would bring you beer and food, so all was well in the world.

    You sat, ate, and talked about more or less nothing for a few hours while making it as obvious as possible you were pilots (down to wearing your goggles around your neck), until finally the trap was swung. Your target came in, got a drink, and almost immediately walked up to your table, looking incredibly nervous. He was a lot ganglier than he looked in the photo: must have had a growth spurt. He also had terrible acne, which was a thing inlanders got that made your skin crawl just a little. Wulf was incredibly jealous when she learned you didn't experience it, though you thought it was a fair trade for dealing with gill ich.

    "Are you all, uh, pilots?" He asked. As he got closer, you saw he had some wispy facial hair, and that made you feel a little weird too. You were mostly over it, but it'd been some kind of culture shock when you saw your first bearded person.

    "Yeah. What's it to you?" Wulf responded. You all did your best to look serious and grim.

    "Well, uh. Are you hiring?" He stammered.

    "We might be. Sit down." You said, indicating to the conspiculous empty seat you'd set up.

    "So, what's you're outfit?" He asked, looking around.

    "We're the Sky Sharks." Arren said, his smile revealing a row of razor-sharp teeth. "We fly the deadliest missions this side of the world."

    The kids face lit up. "You're a Flying Circus!"

    "Yeah, we are. You looking for a crew?" You asked.

    "Yeah, uh... yeah!" He said. "Hell yeah I am!"

    "We got recruits lining up. Why should we hire you?" Heinrich added. You noticed his affectations were almost totally absent, hunched over his beer, voice an octave lower than usual.

    "I, uh, I know my way around machine guns." He said seriously.

    "I guess we could use another mechanic on the ground." You said dismissively. His eyes went wide.

    "Oh, no! I want to fly! I can be a gunner!" He said. "I want to shoot down planes, and fly! You can teach me!"

    You can teach me. Entitled little shit.

    "Well, I guess we need a new gunner." You said, frowning. "Every since the last one died..."

    Everyone glanced down, feigning sadness. It'd be funny, but it made you think about Felicia, and how the Hummingbirds were probably having this conversation for real right now.

    "Wha... what happened to him?" The kid asked.

    Wulf laughed. "He was eaten." She said.

    "By pirates." Minna added. "Cannibal pirates. It happened for sure, and we all saw it."

    Okay, you were going to have to have a talk with Minna about her... uh, lying skills.

    "Whoa." The kid looked worried a second, then pressed on. "So, I can be your new gunner?"

    Darn it. No chance scaring him at the recruitment, you'd have to do this the hard way.

    "Sure, I guess. Meet us at the airfield tomorrow morning." You said.

    "Oh, cool! My name's Aayden, by the-"

    "Goddesses, kid, no names yet. Survive a few missions first, okay?" You added. The kid winced and scampered away from the table, but you saw him do a victorious arm pump through the window.

    ---

    "Seriously, what are we going to do?" Wulf said.

    "You're going to put two fingers under the rope to make sure you're not cutting off her circulation, okay?" Arren explained. "You always got to be careful with that."

    "No, I mean about the kid. I'm being careful. Isa, you okay?"

    You smiled. "I'm fine, it's not too tight. You're right though, I don't know how the heck we're going to scare this kid enough to keep him out of the air. Like, of course it's scary, duh. We still go up anyway, why would he be any different."

    Wulf growled in frustration, twisted up a bad knot in her hands. "Urgh, how do you fish have the patience for this?" Arren wrapped his arms around her and showed her the hand movements to do it properly. Gods, it was cute as hell.

    "Good things take time, Wulf." He explained sagely. "Actually, there's an idea. What if instead of trying to scare him, we just bore the hell out of him? Make up some mission and fly a few endurance patrols, keep him scanning the ground for nothing. Make this sound like every day for us."

    "I mean, that works unless somebody actually jumps us or whatever." Wulf said. "And, like, sure, thirty thalers, but is that really worth a mission like that? The kid won't be flying, it'll be way worse for us than him."

    "So we keep him busy on the ground too." You suggested. "Have him move boxes around a bunch. He won't fucking know."

    "Just give him the absolute worst working conditions." Wulf said. "That's pretty funny, but we might just end up convincing him that we're a shit company rather than that it's a shit job."

    "Hmm. Yeah." Arren said, sitting down on the edge of the bed, idly running a finger down your bare leg as he thought. You squirmed a bit, but, given your circumstances, there wasn't much escaping to be done. "Okay, any other ideas?"

    "Go full morbid. You lot are good at that." Wulf said, finishing the knot at your wrists. She leaned in to plant a quick kiss on you before continuing. "Make it just sound like the whole thing is a suicide pact."

    "Yeah, I've noticed inlanders don't tend to deal with that stuff very well." Arren said.

    "I mean, we've lived kind of a blessed life in that regard." You said. "But I guess he doesn't know that."

    "Yeah. Obviously we're the last survivors of a much bigger company." Wulf said. "Make it sound like he has six weeks to live or something like that."

    "Didn't Heinrich say that was true, though?" You asked. You hoped not: your career thus far did not feel like it was of above-average duration yet.

    "Nah, I think that was for pilots in the war." Arren said. "But those guys were going up five times a day and stuff."

    "Yeah. And I think we have much better downtime activities." You said, beaming. "I have a feeling this wasn't a barracks-approved activity."

    "Yeah, probably not." Arren laughed.

    "Alright, forgetting all that, what if we just actually did something crazy dangerous?" Wulf said. "Like, we go find a second job that sounds stupid and we go do it. Collect a double payday, have a fun mission, and if he's still sticking around afterward we... I dunno, fly off in the morning and leave his ass behind. Not our problem."

    "Providing we find a dangerous mission." Arren said.

    "Obviously." Wulf replied. "Anyway, I think that's all done. So, uh... what do we do to her now?"

    "What do you want to do?" You said, trying to sound as seductive as possible.

    She looked at you with an exaggerated frown. "I think I'm going to take a nap, actually, this was a lot of work. What about you, Arren?"

    "Yeah, a nap sounds good." He said, laughing.

    "I hate you both."

    ---

    Come up with a plan to dissuade this dumb kid from being a pilot!​
    ​
    ​
    The age stuff is sort of an important contrast. For all that Himmilgard's apocalypse is often kinda cozy, it did place a lot of harsh demands on the populace, and onto young people especially. By contrast, Heinrich grew up in a place with a strong degree of legal continuity with the old world.​
    ​
    Isabelle assuming Anny must have been younger than her because she judges her to be so much more immature is another sort of sign of that. Isa and Arren grew up in abject poverty for most of their lives: Piav seemed impossibly cozy by comparison.​
    ​
    Isa and Arren don't get acne because they don't have the fine hair follicles that would lead to it, because they are fish. Ich is a parasitic disease that affects fish, though, and its really gross!​
    ​
    Finally, obviously this was coming. You think they grew up in a fishing village without learning their way around knots?​
    ​
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • I mean, it'd cut into our payday a lot, but we could probably hire another circus to do a fake run on us, if we want to try to control all the variables
     
    We could always do this a bit like we did with Wulf's group. Fly somewhere out of town on a supposed mission, then level with him on what we were hired for. We give him some basic tips and advice on how to pull off the whole flying murder-hobo thing when he's a couple years older, hang around somewhere nice for a couple days or take a safe and easy but low paying job, and then help him practice his acting skills to better convince his old man that the whole thing worked as intended. If we get the bonus, we split it with the kid as a contribution to the "buy a nice fighter" fund. He could probably use it; for all that his family is rich, there are obviously pretty serious limits on how how much money he can access himself for things of his choosing or he'd have been able to make more progress on his dream himself.

    I'm not necessarily advocating this, but it's an option.
     
    An idea derived from the 'find a job for two pay days one', is do an initiation with a killing.

    Find somebody that needs killing, ensure the kid doesn't understand how much the target actually needs killing, and act like it's some kind of rite of passage. Try to freak him out, then let him back out gracefully.

    Of course, finding a target like that, and arranging it would be all kinds of unsafe...
     
    open_sketchbook said:
    "Obviously." Wulf replied. "Anyway, I think that's all done. So, uh... what do we do to her now?"

    "What do you want to do?" You said, trying to sound as seductive as possible.

    She looked at you with an exaggerated frown. "I think I'm going to take a nap, actually, this was a lot of work. What about you, Arren?"

    "Yeah, a nap sounds good." He said, laughing.

    "I hate you both."
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Oh god, I love doing that. Although in my case I tend to play video games instead of napping.
     
    open_sketchbook said:
    Character Sheet
    Isabelle Morgenthau
    A Fisher

    Isa (right) and her boyfriend Arren (left)

    Hard Keen Calm Daring Wild
    +4 -2 +4 +1 -1
    Moves
    Creepy: When a comrade sees you perform a ritual, overhears your prayers, or sees signs of your alienness, they lose Trust in you. Once they learn one of your Moves, they are no longer affected, but they gain Creepy as well.
    Deep Ones: You can call on your patrons to Help you on a roll. On a 1, you Break after this mission.
    Blessing: When you dab fresh blood on a piece of working equipment, roll +Calm. On a 16+, take both. On an 11-15, choose 1.
    • Take +1 Ongoing with this item this Routine. (+1 Handling for a plane)
    • The item cannot break or be lost this Routine. (+1 Armour on 1 Section of the Plane.)
    On a miss, you need a bigger sacrifice. Don't disappoint.
    Ideomotor Response: Your plane effectively has a programmable autopilot. It does not have to be switched on and off; it "knows" when you are behind the controls.
    Soul-Bound: When you paint a rune in blood on an aircraft, you are linked. While in flight, you can take incoming Structure damage as Stress, 1-1. You can take a hit that would strike a Component as Injury, or give incoming Injury to your Engine.
    Bond: (Witch move learned from Wulf) When you hold an object of significance and make an emotional connection to it, take 1 Stress. The object becomes a magical Focus, and you learn it's Nature (Earth, Air, Water, Fire, Iron, or Blood).
    Contemplation: When you draw a ritual circle and stay within it, roll +Calm. On a 16+, you come out of it about an hour later refreshed; strike 3 Stress or 2 Injury. On an 11-15, it takes the whole night, and you're unreachable in that time.

    Mastery
    The Bushwack
    Ambush Predator: When you strike an enemy who is unaware of your presence, roll with Advantage.
    Forced Evade: When you fire to scare an opponent off, spend 1 ammo and roll +Hard. On a hit, instead of dealing damage, choose one: Target dives 1, target climbs 1, target loses speed in a forced turn. On a 16+, roll attack dice on them anyway.
    Momentum: When you dive onto a target, add +1 AP.
    Scissors Snip: When you disengage, give an ally +3 towards dealing with your target.

    Familiar Vices
    - Drinking
    - Prayer
    - Dancing

    Vice Progress
    - Breaking Stuff: ☑☐☐
    - Cannabis: ☑☐☐

    Intimacy Move
    When you are intimate with another, choose one of you to get a hold. They can spend that hold to give the other a command: if followed, then forward to their next +Stat move, they will always score at least a partial hit, regardless of what the dice say.

    If you use this move in the air, there are two holds, and they can be distributed however you agree.

    The Company
    People
    • Isabelle (Fisher): The PC. She's out to find her way in the world. 1 thaler per Routine.
    • Arren (NPC- Confidant/Observer): Your cute fish boyfriend. Artist and recently trained observer. 1 thaler per Routine.
    • Wulf (Witch): Former bandit leader. Actually half wolf. Hot as hell. Ex-Goth. 1 thaler per Routine.
      • Hard +3, Keen +3, Calm -2, Daring +0, Wild +3 (Avenger)
    • Minna Hammerl (Soldier): Inexperienced but highly trained soldier and passionate duelist. Speaks all formal-like. The most beautiful woman in the world. 1 thaler per Routine.
      • Hard +4, Keen +1, Calm +2, Daring -2 (Professional)
    • Heinrich Engel (Student): Political science student working on his thesis-slash-manifesto.
    • Anny Meldgaard (NPC - Mechanic): A young half-Fischer, half-Himmilvolk woman from Piav, trained by the mechanics there. Looking for adventure and her origins. Blushes red?
    Aircraft
    • Isa & Arren's Plane: A Teicher Möwen seaplane. Steel frame, liquid-cooled engine. Deeply possessed. 1 thaler per Routine.
    • Fang Howl: Wulf's helicopter. An experimental pre-war model. Liquid-cooled radial. Three wolf moon. 1 thaler per Routine.
    • Pup: Wulf's Kreuzer Skorpion prototype retrieved from a sealed hanger. Gets a lot out of an underpowered engine.
    • Minna's Kobra: An inline-engine powered, wood framed fighter. All around an excellent machine. 1 thaler per Routine.
    • Heinrich's Reconstruction: A canard plane with a 30mm cannon in the nose. Awkward and unstable but hits like a train. 1 thaller per Routine.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Yo, add Ronja to the roster.

    As a practical matter, what seat to we stick him in? I think the only open gunner position we have is on the helicopter, unless Arren wants to give up his seat.

    I'm sort of thinking that any attempt at trying to scare him is going to fail unless we get into the really evil or dangerous territory. I don't know that completely leveling with him is the best tactic, but it seems like talking to him a bit and figuring out his motivations and expectations (so we could subvert them), seems promising.
     
    The age discussion nicely illustrated how their hometowns differed.

    Also, woah. Anny is much older than I thought. I figured she was 15-ish.

    Now, how to handle the kid. I don't want to do anything that could hurt, traumatize, or excite him. There's also a chance he might one day make a good pilot or be better off leaving town.

    I think we should put him through a kind of bootcamp that would either scare him off or tell us what it would take to make him a good pilot. I put together a plan. Hopefully, it's not too elaborate.

    [X] Plan: Bootcamp
    -[X] Tell the kid they have to test if he's good enough to even take on as a gunner.
    --[X] The circus notes how much he knows and how willing he is to learn.
    -[X] Minna tests the kid's gunnery skills, acting like the harshest of her hometown's drill sergeants
    --[X] She also physically exhausts him (running laps, push-ups, etc) making a point to outperform him
    -[X] Heinrich tests the kid's technical knowledge of flight, exaggerating every mistake.
    -[X] Wulf makes clear that combat pilots have to kill people, and most of those people aren't too different from him. Even most bandits have loved ones. Maybe that will rob combat of its glory.
    -[X] Isa take's the kid as her gunner on a long and grueling "patrol" of a safe region
    --[X] She fakes mechanical difficulties and/or another member of the circus "ambushes" them (firing blanks), and we see how well he handles a crisis
    --[X] When you get back, refuse to pay him what you promised because of 'training fees'
    -[X] Meanwhile, Anny and Ronja ask around town about the kid. Any rumors that he's abused, bullied, or otherwise mistreated?
    -[X] If the kid still wants to fly after all that, Isa tells him the truth and gives him the group's honest assessment
    --[X] Try to convince him to spend two years training, so he can join a circus as a pilot when he's 18.
     
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    [X] Plan: Bootcamp

    I would like to avoid the faked ambush, to be honest - it seems like there's too much that could go wrong, and it seems like it would be very difficult to fake the ambush convincingly without spending way too much money on this.
     
    [X] Plan: Bootcamp without Stiffing on Pay
    -[X] Tell the kid they have to test if he's good enough to even take on as a gunner.
    --[X] The circus notes how much he knows and how willing he is to learn.
    -[X] Minna tests the kid's gunnery skills, acting like the harshest of her hometown's drill sergeants
    --[X] She also physically exhausts him (running laps, push-ups, etc) making a point to outperform him
    -[X] Heinrich tests the kid's technical knowledge of flight, exaggerating every mistake.
    -[X] Wulf makes clear that combat pilots have to kill people, and most of those people aren't too different from him. Even most bandits have loved ones. Maybe that will rob combat of its glory.
    -[X] Isa take's the kid as her gunner on a long and grueling "patrol" of a safe region
    --[X] She fakes mechanical difficulties and/or another member of the circus "ambushes" them (firing blanks), and we see how well he handles a crisis
    -[X] Meanwhile, Anny and Ronja ask around town about the kid. Any rumors that he's abused, bullied, or otherwise mistreated?
    -[X] If the kid still wants to fly after all that, Isa tells him the truth and gives him the group's honest assessment
    --[X] Try to convince him to spend two years training, so he can join a circus as a pilot when he's 18.
     
    [X] Plan: Bootcamp without Stiffing on Pay

    Yeah, we want to be careful to make sure we convey "Circus life is hard," not "this Circus in particular is a bunch of assholes."
     
    Interlewd: For Trash Eyes Only
  • Sidestory
    • Alright, we have a solid direction here, so let's just get a flat 3d10 pick highest to intimidate the kid. The help system has changed since we last used it: it's only if the contributed dice (we'll use the last dice in the set) rolls a 1 now that a fault happens.

    Also, because I'm Deep Trash and there's nowhere in the flow of the start of the story to write dumb smutty bits, I wrote one set between the books. There's literally no reason for you to read it unless you are also Deep Trash.
     
  • Sidestory
    • The pun is the best part.

    Heinrich and his plane are already up on the profile. Also is it too on the nose that I gave a cute blond gay communist the name Engel? It's a little much, yeah?
     
    open_sketchbook said:
    Also, because I'm Deep Trash and there's nowhere in the flow of the start of the story to write dumb smutty bits,
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    The Lusty Aragonian Fischervolk Maid

    And Isa ships Wulf/Arren, this is... good? The evolution from a semi-stable V to stable and mutually supportive triad? (Dwellers in the deeps: I̲͙̙̱͔͘ ̧̞̭̯̮̝͓s̹ͅh̶͙͓̜̬͙͓̗i͙̖̣̙͠p͍̱ ̯͕̗͉͇̪ị̖͘t҉̪͇̮̳̺̻͓. )
     
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