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
    • [X] Plan Opening Salvo

    Okay, we're going to Dogfight and use your Forced Evade move to scatter them.

    So roll 2d10 + 2.
     
    You can spend 10 speed and put yourself at 11 and just above stall, with the G-penalty going forward, to get a partial and still pull off operation breakup.

    [ ] Spend speed.
    [ ] Take the hit.
     
    Holy fuck we're gonna need to dive after this, but yeah, getting a good initial setup is a big deal.

    [X] Spend speed.
     
    Two things.

    Firstly, just realized you were outside your ideal speed range, so its gonna be a failure. Sorry! Still getting my head around my own rules lol.

    Secondly, I've replaced Contemplation with two moves, and both of the new moves could fit Isa very well, so I'll let you choose.

    [ ] Let Us Pray: When you lead a group in communion the Deep, each participant asks a question. All participating must answer each question truthfully. The GM, representing the Deep Ones, gets to ask a question.
    [ ] Written in Ink: When you get a tattoo to mark an major milestone, describe the tattoo and where it's inked, and spend 5 XP. At the end of each mission, gain 1 XP per tattoo.
     
    Tats! Yes!

    [X] Written in Ink: When you get a tattoo to mark an major milestone, describe the tattoo and where it's inked, and spend 5 XP. At the end of each mission, gain 1 XP per tattoo.
     
    open_sketchbook said:
    Two things.

    Firstly, just realized you were outside your ideal speed range, so its gonna be a failure. Sorry! Still getting my head around my own rules lol.

    Secondly, I've replaced Contemplation with two moves, and both of the new moves could fit Isa very well, so I'll let you choose.

    [ ] Let Us Pray: When you lead a group in communion the Deep, each participant asks a question. All participating must answer each question truthfully. The GM, representing the Deep Ones, gets to ask a question.
    [ ] Written in Ink: When you get a tattoo to mark an major milestone, describe the tattoo and where it's inked, and spend 5 XP. At the end of each mission, gain 1 XP per tattoo.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    What's the use case for the first one? It seems like it would only actually be useful when dealing with people who trust you who you plan to betray or something. Otherwise, either you can just ask them normally and trust their answer, or you probably shouldn't trust them with being able to force an honest answer out of you. I mean, maybe it's useful for an interrogation if you can manipulate someone into it and have a bunvh of friends willing to help, but that seems to miss the point a little. What's it good for that you can't do just as easilly without it that isn't also a kind of shitty thing to do?
     
    Written in Ink is cool, and rewards players giving thought to things they ought to be giving thought to anyways about their character, but it's not super engaging on an ongoing basis. Still, it is a long-term buff to character growth.

    Let Us Pray is entirely interactive. It doesn't do anything at all to explicitly benefit you. Instead, it's all about revealing character history, and portraying them relating to each other in the present. I like it more, subjectively. Also, "leading a group in communion with the Deep" feels like a thing that we should be doing, and that should be important to us, given we decided to quest in search of spiritual truths...I'm explaining myself badly, I think.

    Sadly, Let Us Pray doesn't have an actual use beyond general "get to know your fellow faithful better". Unless you really want to pry into things your comrades would rather you didn't and probably piss them off. And it should maybe specify whether "all participating must answer each question truthfully" means they're supernaturally and/or hypnotically compelled to do so as part of the communion ritual, or if failing to do so pisses off the Deep and <insert X Stress gain and Y story consequence here>.

    Anyway, I'm voting Let Us Pray because that's the one I most want to read Sketch's depiction of in action (Deep communion in a group? Isa taking a more active priestly role? The Deep asking questions of their own? Sign me up!), but I freely acknowledge it's not powergamer-optimal.

    [X] Let Us Pray: When you lead a group in communion the Deep, each participant asks a question. All participating must answer each question truthfully. The GM, representing the Deep Ones, gets to ask a question.
     
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    brmj said:
    What's the use case for the first one? It seems like it would only actually be useful when dealing with people who trust you who you plan to betray or something. Otherwise, either you can just ask them normally and trust their answer, or you probably shouldn't trust them with being able to force an honest answer out of you. I mean, maybe it's useful for an interrogation if you can manipulate someone into it and have a bunvh of friends willing to help, but that seems to miss the point a little. What's it good for that you can't do just as easilly without it that isn't also a kind of shitty thing to do?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Well, two things. Firstly, you know the answers are honest, which is a certainty you don't always have. Secondly, the use case is basically "things are slow, I want some delicious drama" which isn't great for all tabletop groups, but does gangbusters in the right one. Especially with the GM able to ask questions.
     
    open_sketchbook said:
    Well, two things. Firstly, you know the answers are honest, which is a certainty you don't always have. Secondly, the use case is basically "things are slow, I want some delicious drama" which isn't great for all tabletop groups, but does gangbusters in the right one. Especially with the GM able to ask questions.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Thanks for the explaination. I hadn't even really considered the drama button angle. Still doesn't make sense to me, but I guess some people like that sort of thing? Still, it seems like there ought to be plenty of ways to pick a fight without needing a special move for it, and it's not really clear to me why someone would want to be involved in this if they weren't. In a situation with the level of mutual trust that this move really calls for, it doesn't actually gain you much if that trust is deserved, and potentially does a lot of harm if it isn't.

    [X] Written in Ink
     
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    [X] Written in Ink
    Because I think the tattoos are cool. That's it, really.
     
    I'm not sure we're really going to have enough major events to keep the tats from being a net XP loss, so

    EDIT: and yes, that's even with acknowledging that we probably don't have to take the tat each time. I'm not going back to count, but I remember probably less than a dozen major events last quest

    [X] Let Us Pray: When you lead a group in communion the Deep, each participant asks a question. All participating must answer each question truthfully. The GM, representing the Deep Ones, gets to ask a question.
     
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    [X] Written in Ink

    Depending on what counts as major milestone, this could either be a cool in character thing with some bonusses, or utterly broken.
    Like, at 5 tattoos you are gaining enough XP per misson for a new tattoo, and it just snowballs from there.
    Just how nany milestones would our last quest have had. I'd argue atleast 3, possible 5 or more.
    Leaving home
    First kill
    Joining up with Wulf
    Dragon egg
    Forming the charter
    Returning home
     
    Valmond said:
    [X] Written in Ink

    Depending on what counts as major milestone, this could either be a cool in character thing with some bonusses, or utterly broken.
    Like, at 5 tattoos you are gaining enough XP per misson for a new tattoo, and it just snowballs from there.
    Just how nany milestones would our last quest have had. I'd argue atleast 3, possible 5 or more.
    Leaving home
    First kill
    Joining up with Wulf
    Dragon egg
    Forming the charter
    Returning home
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    The way I'm reading it, we only get the option to make a single tattoo per milestone. So to get those 5, we'd be 25 in the hole, and going by that accounting (personally I think there's actually double that), we'd just barely be paying off the first one.
     
    Spoit said:
    The way I'm reading it, we only get the option to make a single tattoo per milestone. So to get those 5, we'd be 25 in the hole, and going by that accounting (personally I think there's actually double that), we'd just barely be paying off the first one.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Sure, but it pays for itself and then starts growing pretty quickly in the long run. Really, it ends up being a tradeoff about campaign length. It makes a lot of sense in a game that lasts long enough, and very little in one that doesn't.
     
    brmj said:
    Sure, but it pays for itself and then starts growing pretty quickly in the long run. Really, it ends up being a tradeoff about campaign length. It makes a lot of sense in a game that lasts long enough, and very little in one that doesn't.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I'm just not convinced that, if the pacing is similar to the last thread, we'll even hit the break even point by the end of this thread. How big of an investment is 25xp anyway? Isa has 7 right now.
     
    The math if very easy though. It's 1 extra XP per mission. In the entire last thread we did 9 missions.
     
    Let's do some quik maffs.

    So (assuming I'm reading it right), it costs 5xp per tattoo, and gives one back at the end of the mission after you get it. Assuming you get a tattoo after each mission it takes five missions for you to start gaining xp, at which point you're at a total of -15xp from the advance. Ten to get the overall xp expenditure back to even, and then it starts 'making' you xp at a pretty steady rate.

    So given that last thread we did nine missions, this advance would effectively cost us -5xp in total, assuming roughly the same number of missions. If we did more, it might end up turning a profit towards the end.

    [X] Let Us Pray
     
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