Being a good Thaumaturge requires developing a good Spirit Yellow Pages.
You probably still need some way to fuel the spirit/appease it at hand anyways. Bribing it with suitable Essence source always helps.
The Lost Files (C:TL/Dresden Files) (CK2-ish)
- Thread starter The Laurent
- Start date
Being a good Thaumaturge requires developing a good Spirit Yellow Pages.
You probably still need some way to fuel the spirit/appease it at hand anyways. Bribing it with suitable Essence source always helps.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
One difficulty that still hasn't been looked into is what the fuck happens now. I mean, new World and all.
- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] No, but absent yourself. Spend some time with your son, Jason, and others close to you.
[X] Possibility of Sorcery having changed.
[X] Discuss the Red and White Courts of vampires.
We need to talk with our family, I think.
[X] Possibility of Sorcery having changed.
[X] Discuss the Red and White Courts of vampires.
We need to talk with our family, I think.
[X] No.
[X] Share information (as a way of gaining favors) about some of the new supernatural secrets of this world.
[X] Set up contacts for the future.
[X] Share information (as a way of gaining favors) about some of the new supernatural secrets of this world.
[X] Set up contacts for the future.
[X] No.
[X] Share information (as a way of gaining favors) about some of the new supernatural secrets of this world.
[X] Set up contacts for the future.
I agree with this vote. Attending the ball is important as our duty as reigning Monarch and we've just had a great victory in killing the Fiddler. For the other options while I'd love to do the politics one, I feel setting up contacts so we can have future relations and sharing some of our own information (and hopefully they have some we don't know) are more important.
[X] Share information (as a way of gaining favors) about some of the new supernatural secrets of this world.
[X] Set up contacts for the future.
I agree with this vote. Attending the ball is important as our duty as reigning Monarch and we've just had a great victory in killing the Fiddler. For the other options while I'd love to do the politics one, I feel setting up contacts so we can have future relations and sharing some of our own information (and hopefully they have some we don't know) are more important.
[X] No.
[X] Share information (as a way of gaining favors) about some of the new supernatural secrets of this world.
[X] Set up contacts for the future.
[X] Share information (as a way of gaining favors) about some of the new supernatural secrets of this world.
[X] Set up contacts for the future.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Vote closes tomorrow night.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Remember, you only have 10-11 hours to rock the vote.
pantherasapiens
you were always my best friend
- Location
- somewhere over your shoulder
[X] No.
[X] Share information (as a way of gaining favors) about some of the new supernatural secrets of this world.
[X] Set up contacts for the future.
[X] Share information (as a way of gaining favors) about some of the new supernatural secrets of this world.
[X] Set up contacts for the future.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Tally, please?
- Location
- Daybreak
Winner:
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Update Friday.
Turn 5--October's End
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Turn 5--October's End
The location of the ballroom that they'd converted, or that they'd rented it, was classified. Look on the permit, track down the payments, and all of it would end in nothing at all. In fact, more time had been spent on that than on making sure that certain other things were secret. The loved ones of the agents left behind had been carefully sworn to secrecy, and all the Freehold knew was that a being called 'The Fiddler' had defied the Freehold and been destroyed for it.
No mention of the fiddle, which she felt could have done far more harm if the situation had gone just wrong. No mention of Eva, and whatever had guided her to the right place, the power that she had apparently felt tugging her strings...another thing to investigate, perhaps.
No word on the well of missing spirits, or on the last words of the Fiddler, or even how he died.
If one does not show a wound, then others cannot guess it exists. The Fiddler's death had been well warranted, Cora thought, adjusting the mask she was wearing, but it brought with it many problems, and the difficulties it engendered?
She was dressed as a skeleton, having esckewed the classic witch out of the quite justified fear that they would be common this year. There were hundreds of Changelings here, and as many mortals, and costumes ranged from the quite inventive--John Wayne and someone dressed like Sherlock Holmes were arguing some point in a corner--to, in fact, entirely secondary.
It was amusing, sometimes, to see the Mantles and the Mien clash with the costume. For if a man looked like a hunchbacked goblin, or a woman had gills and blue skin, then adding a costume felt like an after-touch.
The whole thing was a show, but it was a show that was with a purpose. The contests would begin soon, the games and the tricks, and she'd have to organize and oversee all of it. It exhausted her, this feeling that made her want to retreat into her dreams.
Even her nightmares were less stressful than the worries that dogged her. In the first month alone, so much had happened. And more than that, she knew that with the war between the Freeholds and the Red Courts of South America heating up...she was going to be dragged into it.
In a corner, Mayor Booster stood, dressed up as a wizard, and perhaps that was fitting. It seemed almost magic what he'd done, bringing all of those Freeholds together. She understood the logistics of the agreement, and more than that, she had written some of the language he'd put forward, for the pledges, the slow binding together, but she still thought it was a fools' errand.
Yet, the attacks had been working, the enemy had been drawn out, and even now Booster was preparing a strike against them. The pirates had fallen into a trap so obvious that Cora Graves began to wonder if there was a counter-trap, some reason why they were not reacting with more care.
Yet at the same time…
Cora Graves frowned as she made her way for the punch bowl.
"Why are you sad?" Jeanne asked, "Or worried, or whatever that feeling is. You feel it a lot, but it's sorta all mixed up."
She turned, and Jacques said, "The ghosts."
Cora gave a microscopic shrug, glancing at the punch bowl for a moment. It was slightly chilly at the moment, and that meant that someone with a Winter mantle had been here, and they--
"It's also about your son isn't it? Johnny boy?" Jeanne asked, and then innocently she said, "He's all home alone with Jason, I could go and watch them and--"
"No," Cora said. She already knew what they were doing. Or she suspected and was very carefully not thinking about it. She was going to be gone all night, and--
She shook her head. "Please, just mingle with the guests. You can look around if you want. Jacques, we will talk about the Fiddler."
"Will we?" Jacques asked, his voice dark. He wanted a reward, no doubt, he wanted more knowledge and power, like always. And he'd killed the Fiddler and even preserved that Fiddle for further study. And so now he wanted her to work with him on practicing more of his abilities.
She just might take him up on that, but at the moment, as the party continued on, she had a far more 'important' task than determining the fate of the Freehold or considering the mystic significance of the last month and how it might affect or be related to the Gates.
Shaking hands and talking to people about inane nonsense.
*****
By the time the eleven o'clock meeting had come around, she was quite ready for something of importance. It was being held in a Hollow in the Hedge, and the room at least was a little less expensive, since she knew the owner. He'd asked only for a supply of some of the Hedge fruits she'd discovered and notes on them, and since she had done that work years ago, it was no large favor. The cavernous Hollow had been set up as a lecture hall, and indeed it was something like that, in a way.
Here, at times, he had given lectures on the nature of magic. Well attended lectures. Now eighty three Sorcerers of varying prominence met and talked, walking up and down, moving from their seats to those of others, and each of them, in every shape, race, and gender, was a potential source of knowledge.
A source of knowledge and power, and yet she also had her own agenda. Perhaps she was not Mayor Booster, but that did not mean she couldn't befriend people, as well as spy on them. In fact, the former made the latter easier, and so she made her way down the aisle to near the front, where she stepped past a rather large ogre woman, her skin red and blistered, who was barely dressed and pontificating to a short man with elvish ears on the nature of a particular Sorcery she'd worked on. Or rather, the importance of making sure you use a person at each edge of the compass…
It was a Sorcery she knew of, actually. The Liar's Needle. Sometimes it was necessary to discern who was lying and who was telling the truth without binding yourself to the truth. The Liar's Needle pointed to a man when he lied, and this could be noted down. But besides requiring people at each edge to be used effectively, and covering only a room, the compass caused pain to the Sorcerer if he lied.
But sometimes, a little pain was worth it to catalogue the lies another person told, hopefully in a way that allowed the viewer who wrote down the liars to remain unseen.
But without the eight points of the box compass, it was too easy to turn back around, and so Cora did not use it often.
But beyond them was a most important man, if only because New Orleans had been on her mind during the past day.
Iggy, Iggy Freelance, an artist and sorcerer who operated outside of the rather strange system of New Orleans.
"Yo, it's the woman of the hour," Iggy said.
"Perhaps of the whole week. I've heard it created quite the stir when he appeared--"
"We thought that we were in trouble, I suppose," Iggy shrugged. He was short, and handsome in the sort of way that had never really interested Cora. Too slim, too much like the sort of college students she'd known far too well when she was far too drunk and high. When she was a person she wasn't now.
Ever since she'd come back, her tastes had been for me who weren't wearing fake sunglasses and clothes that seemed to be taken straight from a Mardi Gras scene, and not necessarily one of the men, either.
It was a bias of hers, perhaps, but it still annoyed her ever so slightly. Then again, what mattered was his Sorcery, which was important and varied, and his own mastery of combining Sorcery and Pledges. It was an area she had some experience in, but that, when taken into the context of the huge bounty of glamour that New Orleans sat on, made him an important man.
One to be cultivated.
"You, in trouble?" Cora asked, carefully. "Not this week." She smiled slightly, hoping it looked natural. She knew that at her worst, when she was trying to terrify her enemies, she could look like...well, the kind of smile that made one think, as one person said in private communications about her that she had of course read 'Like one of the damned souls from hell had possessed the body of a corpse and was contemplating murdering me.'
She'd never killed him, she hadn't really needed to, though at one point she'd had the orders on the desk, but he'd left the Freehold in quite a hurry, and so the situation had never concluded.
This was, hopefully, a far more welcoming smile than that one.
"You know me too well. But this new world, it's a mess," he said, "Plain and simple."
"It might be," she said, "What is it like down there?"
"Well, there's a few vampires of some type, and strange beings that seem to have a pretty good grip on the vice industry, and that's...you know, a problem."
Because the porn shops, the illegal-but-high-end prostitution services? Even, it was rumored, more than a little of the drug trade? That was controlled by certain Changelings, in that vice-ridden city. There were Freeholds that were all but gangs of the worst sort, or worse, but New Orleans wasn't one of them...but that didn't mean they didn't have rather strong ties to any number of shady deals and seamy businesses.
"They're called White Court vampires, in fact. They feed on Lust...and possibly other emotions as well, but lust seems to be the most prevalent one. I'm not sure of their weaknesses yet, however, I do know that they can be dealt with, and that they have leadership at a national level...and thus that acting directly against them might mean something like war."
"What matters is if we can keep up that deal…" Iggy said, and then froze, as if he'd said a little too much, and shook his head, "But how about sorcery? Have you done any interesting work lately?"
"Actually, I have, and it involves the White Court…"
******
There were many people to talk about, and some offered more than others. Madame Levries in New Atlanta, who talked to the dead as she did, and had a huge following of mortals and traded with distant realms for strange tokens could be a very useful contact if she wanted access to magical items, though the price Levries asked was quite extensive. But she was said to be connected to the First Families, and the ruins themselves were a tempting area to explore, if permission was granted.
But the most interesting person was the last one she talked, Kjell Fireaxe. He was one of the people who had come the farthest, and the man, tall and handsome, with flowing red hair that seemed to dance with light and flames, and golden eyes, was the very image of a Summer Court Fairest. He was dressed in furs, and he did indeed have an axe, though against expectations, Cora knew, he used it primarily as a tool for rituals. The axe, after all, had very powerful symbolic properties.
It was when she was telling him of fairies that he said, "Did you know, I think I found a shop run by some of them."
"You what?" Cora asked, very carefully, "A...shop run by fairies?"
"I believe so, though it took some doing. It seems as if some unknown entity owns a shop that stands where another I frequented was. And this shop sells very interested crafted goods...and I happened to poke and prod, and I believe…"
He grinned, "I believe that there is much that could be followed up on, by investigating this, and Mrs. Graves, I believe that you are just the person to help me." He was looking at her expectantly, and she considered it for a moment.
Another lead on supernatural beings, and he no doubt had his own reasons. Because it was easy enough to understand that he would be the one to benefit the most from pursuing this. It was in his area, and his Freehold would sit on it, take it just as others had taken some unique feature and guarded it with their lives.
Just like the psuedo-Fountain of Youth in Florida, Cora thought.
However.
"We shall see," Cora said with a smile.
"Aww, come on, Mrs. Graves...you got my hopes up and then dashed them."
Cora nodded, "It seems that I did."
"Consider it, though?" he asked, carefully.
Cora Graves, looking at this man standing before her, considered his motives. Kjell Fireaxe was a reasonably powerful man, and yet he was far from the strongest Sorcerer here, even if she did not include herself out of some false modesty. He wanted something more, and from what she knew of him, he was neither selfish nor self-sacrificing. Like Roy Taylor, he did the right thing and yet also expected he'd get something for it.
Sometimes unstable, sometimes stable. Rumored to have killed people, but then again, if Cora Graves was judging a man for murder, with whom would she befriend and surround herself with?
Not smiling at that thought, and yet in a slightly lighter mood, she continued her circuit of the room, long into the early morning.
When she got home, Jonathan and Jason were asleep. On the couch.
The cover over them spoke to certain things, certain things that she was worried about, but out of respect for the late hour, or perhaps early hour, she snuck in so quietly that neither of them even heard her as she passed them by.
That boy...he really, really needed to learn to be more perceptive. If she were an assassin…
Another idle thought. Another lie: she'd protected him from that, from having to be that hard, for a good reason. And even if he was going to grow out of the shell, she needed him not to think as she did.
How possible it was to achieve, after all that had happened?
Perhaps not at all, but--
She was Cora Graves. She didn't lack in self-confidence, after all. She'd just have to be more careful in the future.
*****
A/N: And that ends Turn 5. Turn 6 starts on Sunday, probably.
The location of the ballroom that they'd converted, or that they'd rented it, was classified. Look on the permit, track down the payments, and all of it would end in nothing at all. In fact, more time had been spent on that than on making sure that certain other things were secret. The loved ones of the agents left behind had been carefully sworn to secrecy, and all the Freehold knew was that a being called 'The Fiddler' had defied the Freehold and been destroyed for it.
No mention of the fiddle, which she felt could have done far more harm if the situation had gone just wrong. No mention of Eva, and whatever had guided her to the right place, the power that she had apparently felt tugging her strings...another thing to investigate, perhaps.
No word on the well of missing spirits, or on the last words of the Fiddler, or even how he died.
If one does not show a wound, then others cannot guess it exists. The Fiddler's death had been well warranted, Cora thought, adjusting the mask she was wearing, but it brought with it many problems, and the difficulties it engendered?
She was dressed as a skeleton, having esckewed the classic witch out of the quite justified fear that they would be common this year. There were hundreds of Changelings here, and as many mortals, and costumes ranged from the quite inventive--John Wayne and someone dressed like Sherlock Holmes were arguing some point in a corner--to, in fact, entirely secondary.
It was amusing, sometimes, to see the Mantles and the Mien clash with the costume. For if a man looked like a hunchbacked goblin, or a woman had gills and blue skin, then adding a costume felt like an after-touch.
The whole thing was a show, but it was a show that was with a purpose. The contests would begin soon, the games and the tricks, and she'd have to organize and oversee all of it. It exhausted her, this feeling that made her want to retreat into her dreams.
Even her nightmares were less stressful than the worries that dogged her. In the first month alone, so much had happened. And more than that, she knew that with the war between the Freeholds and the Red Courts of South America heating up...she was going to be dragged into it.
In a corner, Mayor Booster stood, dressed up as a wizard, and perhaps that was fitting. It seemed almost magic what he'd done, bringing all of those Freeholds together. She understood the logistics of the agreement, and more than that, she had written some of the language he'd put forward, for the pledges, the slow binding together, but she still thought it was a fools' errand.
Yet, the attacks had been working, the enemy had been drawn out, and even now Booster was preparing a strike against them. The pirates had fallen into a trap so obvious that Cora Graves began to wonder if there was a counter-trap, some reason why they were not reacting with more care.
Yet at the same time…
Cora Graves frowned as she made her way for the punch bowl.
"Why are you sad?" Jeanne asked, "Or worried, or whatever that feeling is. You feel it a lot, but it's sorta all mixed up."
She turned, and Jacques said, "The ghosts."
Cora gave a microscopic shrug, glancing at the punch bowl for a moment. It was slightly chilly at the moment, and that meant that someone with a Winter mantle had been here, and they--
"It's also about your son isn't it? Johnny boy?" Jeanne asked, and then innocently she said, "He's all home alone with Jason, I could go and watch them and--"
"No," Cora said. She already knew what they were doing. Or she suspected and was very carefully not thinking about it. She was going to be gone all night, and--
She shook her head. "Please, just mingle with the guests. You can look around if you want. Jacques, we will talk about the Fiddler."
"Will we?" Jacques asked, his voice dark. He wanted a reward, no doubt, he wanted more knowledge and power, like always. And he'd killed the Fiddler and even preserved that Fiddle for further study. And so now he wanted her to work with him on practicing more of his abilities.
She just might take him up on that, but at the moment, as the party continued on, she had a far more 'important' task than determining the fate of the Freehold or considering the mystic significance of the last month and how it might affect or be related to the Gates.
Shaking hands and talking to people about inane nonsense.
*****
By the time the eleven o'clock meeting had come around, she was quite ready for something of importance. It was being held in a Hollow in the Hedge, and the room at least was a little less expensive, since she knew the owner. He'd asked only for a supply of some of the Hedge fruits she'd discovered and notes on them, and since she had done that work years ago, it was no large favor. The cavernous Hollow had been set up as a lecture hall, and indeed it was something like that, in a way.
Here, at times, he had given lectures on the nature of magic. Well attended lectures. Now eighty three Sorcerers of varying prominence met and talked, walking up and down, moving from their seats to those of others, and each of them, in every shape, race, and gender, was a potential source of knowledge.
A source of knowledge and power, and yet she also had her own agenda. Perhaps she was not Mayor Booster, but that did not mean she couldn't befriend people, as well as spy on them. In fact, the former made the latter easier, and so she made her way down the aisle to near the front, where she stepped past a rather large ogre woman, her skin red and blistered, who was barely dressed and pontificating to a short man with elvish ears on the nature of a particular Sorcery she'd worked on. Or rather, the importance of making sure you use a person at each edge of the compass…
It was a Sorcery she knew of, actually. The Liar's Needle. Sometimes it was necessary to discern who was lying and who was telling the truth without binding yourself to the truth. The Liar's Needle pointed to a man when he lied, and this could be noted down. But besides requiring people at each edge to be used effectively, and covering only a room, the compass caused pain to the Sorcerer if he lied.
But sometimes, a little pain was worth it to catalogue the lies another person told, hopefully in a way that allowed the viewer who wrote down the liars to remain unseen.
But without the eight points of the box compass, it was too easy to turn back around, and so Cora did not use it often.
But beyond them was a most important man, if only because New Orleans had been on her mind during the past day.
Iggy, Iggy Freelance, an artist and sorcerer who operated outside of the rather strange system of New Orleans.
"Yo, it's the woman of the hour," Iggy said.
"Perhaps of the whole week. I've heard it created quite the stir when he appeared--"
"We thought that we were in trouble, I suppose," Iggy shrugged. He was short, and handsome in the sort of way that had never really interested Cora. Too slim, too much like the sort of college students she'd known far too well when she was far too drunk and high. When she was a person she wasn't now.
Ever since she'd come back, her tastes had been for me who weren't wearing fake sunglasses and clothes that seemed to be taken straight from a Mardi Gras scene, and not necessarily one of the men, either.
It was a bias of hers, perhaps, but it still annoyed her ever so slightly. Then again, what mattered was his Sorcery, which was important and varied, and his own mastery of combining Sorcery and Pledges. It was an area she had some experience in, but that, when taken into the context of the huge bounty of glamour that New Orleans sat on, made him an important man.
One to be cultivated.
"You, in trouble?" Cora asked, carefully. "Not this week." She smiled slightly, hoping it looked natural. She knew that at her worst, when she was trying to terrify her enemies, she could look like...well, the kind of smile that made one think, as one person said in private communications about her that she had of course read 'Like one of the damned souls from hell had possessed the body of a corpse and was contemplating murdering me.'
She'd never killed him, she hadn't really needed to, though at one point she'd had the orders on the desk, but he'd left the Freehold in quite a hurry, and so the situation had never concluded.
This was, hopefully, a far more welcoming smile than that one.
"You know me too well. But this new world, it's a mess," he said, "Plain and simple."
"It might be," she said, "What is it like down there?"
"Well, there's a few vampires of some type, and strange beings that seem to have a pretty good grip on the vice industry, and that's...you know, a problem."
Because the porn shops, the illegal-but-high-end prostitution services? Even, it was rumored, more than a little of the drug trade? That was controlled by certain Changelings, in that vice-ridden city. There were Freeholds that were all but gangs of the worst sort, or worse, but New Orleans wasn't one of them...but that didn't mean they didn't have rather strong ties to any number of shady deals and seamy businesses.
"They're called White Court vampires, in fact. They feed on Lust...and possibly other emotions as well, but lust seems to be the most prevalent one. I'm not sure of their weaknesses yet, however, I do know that they can be dealt with, and that they have leadership at a national level...and thus that acting directly against them might mean something like war."
"What matters is if we can keep up that deal…" Iggy said, and then froze, as if he'd said a little too much, and shook his head, "But how about sorcery? Have you done any interesting work lately?"
"Actually, I have, and it involves the White Court…"
******
There were many people to talk about, and some offered more than others. Madame Levries in New Atlanta, who talked to the dead as she did, and had a huge following of mortals and traded with distant realms for strange tokens could be a very useful contact if she wanted access to magical items, though the price Levries asked was quite extensive. But she was said to be connected to the First Families, and the ruins themselves were a tempting area to explore, if permission was granted.
But the most interesting person was the last one she talked, Kjell Fireaxe. He was one of the people who had come the farthest, and the man, tall and handsome, with flowing red hair that seemed to dance with light and flames, and golden eyes, was the very image of a Summer Court Fairest. He was dressed in furs, and he did indeed have an axe, though against expectations, Cora knew, he used it primarily as a tool for rituals. The axe, after all, had very powerful symbolic properties.
It was when she was telling him of fairies that he said, "Did you know, I think I found a shop run by some of them."
"You what?" Cora asked, very carefully, "A...shop run by fairies?"
"I believe so, though it took some doing. It seems as if some unknown entity owns a shop that stands where another I frequented was. And this shop sells very interested crafted goods...and I happened to poke and prod, and I believe…"
He grinned, "I believe that there is much that could be followed up on, by investigating this, and Mrs. Graves, I believe that you are just the person to help me." He was looking at her expectantly, and she considered it for a moment.
Another lead on supernatural beings, and he no doubt had his own reasons. Because it was easy enough to understand that he would be the one to benefit the most from pursuing this. It was in his area, and his Freehold would sit on it, take it just as others had taken some unique feature and guarded it with their lives.
Just like the psuedo-Fountain of Youth in Florida, Cora thought.
However.
"We shall see," Cora said with a smile.
"Aww, come on, Mrs. Graves...you got my hopes up and then dashed them."
Cora nodded, "It seems that I did."
"Consider it, though?" he asked, carefully.
Cora Graves, looking at this man standing before her, considered his motives. Kjell Fireaxe was a reasonably powerful man, and yet he was far from the strongest Sorcerer here, even if she did not include herself out of some false modesty. He wanted something more, and from what she knew of him, he was neither selfish nor self-sacrificing. Like Roy Taylor, he did the right thing and yet also expected he'd get something for it.
Sometimes unstable, sometimes stable. Rumored to have killed people, but then again, if Cora Graves was judging a man for murder, with whom would she befriend and surround herself with?
Not smiling at that thought, and yet in a slightly lighter mood, she continued her circuit of the room, long into the early morning.
When she got home, Jonathan and Jason were asleep. On the couch.
The cover over them spoke to certain things, certain things that she was worried about, but out of respect for the late hour, or perhaps early hour, she snuck in so quietly that neither of them even heard her as she passed them by.
That boy...he really, really needed to learn to be more perceptive. If she were an assassin…
Another idle thought. Another lie: she'd protected him from that, from having to be that hard, for a good reason. And even if he was going to grow out of the shell, she needed him not to think as she did.
How possible it was to achieve, after all that had happened?
Perhaps not at all, but--
She was Cora Graves. She didn't lack in self-confidence, after all. She'd just have to be more careful in the future.
*****
Socialize-2 (Awkward)+1 (Conversation Starter)=2 sux
Continued Talking: 6 dice=3 sux
Kjell: 2 sux.
Continued Talking: 6 dice=3 sux
Kjell: 2 sux.
A/N: And that ends Turn 5. Turn 6 starts on Sunday, probably.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Also, since I'm in a sharing mood, here's the opening text to a new Quest I'll probably never do but hey, still!
Origins [Original Fantasy Quest]
This world is filled with mystery and wonder. There are beings that are unlike any that those who do not know the secrets of the universe can comprehend. But then, who knows such secrets, truly? The gods only, and perhaps not even them. And these things, that go bump in the night, that crawl in one's dreams and give birth to fantastic nightmares, that can be found in sacred groves where the local priests go to appease them...or in musty books that careful men hide from others who would burn them for it.
It is a world, in fact, where tradition clings like moss. Where the dead can rise as ghosts, and where death is a constant companion, one that all, from peasants to the noble lords who rule in the name of the Great Kings of the lands, know intimately.
In this world, haunted and cursed, stalked and blessed, a child is born. A child who is neither human nor inhuman, a child who, like many throughout history, some of whom have gone on to do great things, and others to do nothing much, and still others to shake the very foundations of the world and bring rebellion to the doorsteps of heaven...was different.
A child between two things. A liminal child.
And one that would turn out to be far more important than one might guess at first.
Options
A/N: So, here it goes. Inspired by many things. EarthScorpion's Infernalism/Demons/Etc, his ghosts to a certain extent, Kaelor's mythology Quest, Lovecraft, nWoD and how they do spirits, and probably many other people who I owe for this idea that might never happen...but also really, really drew my attention. So, yeah, tell me what you think, anyone reading?
I have ideas for the mechanics, but I'd certainly have to work on those. It owes something to Exalted if only because it was a jumping-off point for this, but it will in fact be an original Quest, more or less.
It's set in...well, I'm trying to be vague because it starts out with you as a child, but in something that's neither medieval fantasy Europe, nor entirely divorced from it. Trying to mix and match a little this time.
Origins [Original Fantasy Quest]
This world is filled with mystery and wonder. There are beings that are unlike any that those who do not know the secrets of the universe can comprehend. But then, who knows such secrets, truly? The gods only, and perhaps not even them. And these things, that go bump in the night, that crawl in one's dreams and give birth to fantastic nightmares, that can be found in sacred groves where the local priests go to appease them...or in musty books that careful men hide from others who would burn them for it.
It is a world, in fact, where tradition clings like moss. Where the dead can rise as ghosts, and where death is a constant companion, one that all, from peasants to the noble lords who rule in the name of the Great Kings of the lands, know intimately.
In this world, haunted and cursed, stalked and blessed, a child is born. A child who is neither human nor inhuman, a child who, like many throughout history, some of whom have gone on to do great things, and others to do nothing much, and still others to shake the very foundations of the world and bring rebellion to the doorsteps of heaven...was different.
A child between two things. A liminal child.
And one that would turn out to be far more important than one might guess at first.
Options
[] A Touch of the Grave
From the first day they drew breath, they were the miracle child. The child brought out of unlikely circumstances, and from the very start they have seen things as others have not. When pets die, they can feel something there, scrabbling its little feet, calling to them, and in their dreams and in their waking hours they catch glimpses of a motherly woman, one who is not their mother. This...would disturb others, and does perturb the child, and yet seeing odd things like that...it is more common than it is for most people.
So they begun to grow...used to it, and as they grew, their powers would only grow.
But who are their parents?
[] Their mother is dead. The wife of a powerful local lord, who had lost three children already, at long last she bore him a single child, but for this, she paid her life. And, all people say, it was a great act to bring a child in the world, whatever the cost.
[] Who is their father? She will not say. The son of a local craftsman, she went to the city to seek her fortune, only to find ruin and return desperate and pregnant. She survived, and now serves as a local healer woman, someone who knows the right potions and how to beg to the gods for relief when the fields are again barren. Yet scandal follows her still...and so too does her only child, born of some unknown and distursted congress.
[] She lived a happy life at the edge of the forest, and even as a widow, she is viewed as kindly, even a gentle soul. Many in the village respect her, even as they marvel at the age at which she grew pregnant with her third child. Her husband had just died in a logging accident, and this child, the only one still in the nest, must have been conceived literally just before that event. A miracle, for what woman in their late forties expects to have another child? Let alone one that would be raised to adulthood.
And what is the child's gender?
[] Male.
[] Female.
Pros: Ghostly Protector, Can See Dead People, Leg Up On Necromancy, Ghostbusters Potential
Cons: ...ghostly protector, can see dead people, half-dead, in a way
Powers: When made the powers would function as a set of Merits, in a Merit-tree. The primary set of powers developed would be, on the one hand, Merits that imitate the powers of ghosts. For instance, the ghosts of people who froze in winter might be studied and, in exchange for getting just a little less...alive, the MC could learn to use their freezing spite as their own. It'd be like a charm tree, a short one, for different types of ghosts. The other path to power would be Necromantic rites that would be bought as Merits or something like that, and range from 'ghostbusters' to 'zombie army' though of course most of them are dangerous, potentially evil, and not quite at 'zombie army' levels.
From the first day they drew breath, they were the miracle child. The child brought out of unlikely circumstances, and from the very start they have seen things as others have not. When pets die, they can feel something there, scrabbling its little feet, calling to them, and in their dreams and in their waking hours they catch glimpses of a motherly woman, one who is not their mother. This...would disturb others, and does perturb the child, and yet seeing odd things like that...it is more common than it is for most people.
So they begun to grow...used to it, and as they grew, their powers would only grow.
But who are their parents?
[] Their mother is dead. The wife of a powerful local lord, who had lost three children already, at long last she bore him a single child, but for this, she paid her life. And, all people say, it was a great act to bring a child in the world, whatever the cost.
[] Who is their father? She will not say. The son of a local craftsman, she went to the city to seek her fortune, only to find ruin and return desperate and pregnant. She survived, and now serves as a local healer woman, someone who knows the right potions and how to beg to the gods for relief when the fields are again barren. Yet scandal follows her still...and so too does her only child, born of some unknown and distursted congress.
[] She lived a happy life at the edge of the forest, and even as a widow, she is viewed as kindly, even a gentle soul. Many in the village respect her, even as they marvel at the age at which she grew pregnant with her third child. Her husband had just died in a logging accident, and this child, the only one still in the nest, must have been conceived literally just before that event. A miracle, for what woman in their late forties expects to have another child? Let alone one that would be raised to adulthood.
And what is the child's gender?
[] Male.
[] Female.
Pros: Ghostly Protector, Can See Dead People, Leg Up On Necromancy, Ghostbusters Potential
Cons: ...ghostly protector, can see dead people, half-dead, in a way
Powers: When made the powers would function as a set of Merits, in a Merit-tree. The primary set of powers developed would be, on the one hand, Merits that imitate the powers of ghosts. For instance, the ghosts of people who froze in winter might be studied and, in exchange for getting just a little less...alive, the MC could learn to use their freezing spite as their own. It'd be like a charm tree, a short one, for different types of ghosts. The other path to power would be Necromantic rites that would be bought as Merits or something like that, and range from 'ghostbusters' to 'zombie army' though of course most of them are dangerous, potentially evil, and not quite at 'zombie army' levels.
[] Elements of Danger
The gods are far away, and the spirits of forest and glen, of ocean and fire and all other things, those are far closer. The priests commune with them, they beg them for favors and interact with them. Some are humanoid, satyrs and minotaurs and spirits of the forest, and some are so strange as to be entirely beyond human understanding.
And sometimes...sometimes there are children. As strange as it might sound. Compared to all other ways for a child to happen, these are the most accepted. The most known about. For better or worse, the rare children that come from too close contact with the world of spirits are a known factor. Sometimes distrusted, sometimes hated, sometimes sacred, as the fortunes and the nature of the child determine.
And from the start, from their very first breath, they breathe in the nature of the spirit they came from, in little ways and big. And yet there is always something inhuman about them. Just a little bit. But there is great potential in their existence.
But what of their human parent?
[] Despite being the beloved daughter of a noble, she was odd. Very odd, in fact, and religious to boot. And one day, when she walked the sacred paths, against the advice of her father, she disappeared. And three months later she reappeared, pregnant. It was quite a scandal, it need not even be said, and yet she clung to the child fiercely even in the womb, and as time went on she grew only more protective. She refused to say who the husband was, and sometimes disappeared for weeks at a time, perhaps to visit him. And she refused to marry. How strange.
[] He was a bard, a wanderer and explorer who wandered into the right place and the wrong time and, nine months later, was served up with a baby. He continued to travel even after that point, but it certainly weighed him down, but he has tried his best in all his years of travel to raise his child well.
[] She was nobody, really. Nobody, and yet she knew the spirits better than others, even residing as she did in a town where the spirits rarely went. When she gave birth, few noticed, and when, as the child reached twelve, she died, fewer noticed, yet every day of the life she worked, with a song in her heart and religion on her lips, and an optimism that was almost infectious.
Gender?
[] Male.
[] Female.
Pros: Known Quantity, Religious Power, Flexible Possible Powerset, People Won't Burn You
Cons: Known Quantity, Bargaining For Power, Least Powerful Option
Powers: There are two sources of power. First, whatever spirit origin they have (chosen next one). This will create a short, but longer than, say, an individual ghost-type's tree, chain of Merits/powers. I mean, pretty obvious: fire elemental gets more fire powers, minotaur gets strong and etc, etc, pretty straightforward. And then from there, like others who aren't even of the blood, bargains can be made with spirits for power. But, as one of them, this option would have a huge leg up. The powers gained would not be overwhelming, by their very nature, but it's a pretty wide grab bag, but it does mean that the ideal ending of all of this dealing is to wind up bound to a lot of different things. So that's fun!
The gods are far away, and the spirits of forest and glen, of ocean and fire and all other things, those are far closer. The priests commune with them, they beg them for favors and interact with them. Some are humanoid, satyrs and minotaurs and spirits of the forest, and some are so strange as to be entirely beyond human understanding.
And sometimes...sometimes there are children. As strange as it might sound. Compared to all other ways for a child to happen, these are the most accepted. The most known about. For better or worse, the rare children that come from too close contact with the world of spirits are a known factor. Sometimes distrusted, sometimes hated, sometimes sacred, as the fortunes and the nature of the child determine.
And from the start, from their very first breath, they breathe in the nature of the spirit they came from, in little ways and big. And yet there is always something inhuman about them. Just a little bit. But there is great potential in their existence.
But what of their human parent?
[] Despite being the beloved daughter of a noble, she was odd. Very odd, in fact, and religious to boot. And one day, when she walked the sacred paths, against the advice of her father, she disappeared. And three months later she reappeared, pregnant. It was quite a scandal, it need not even be said, and yet she clung to the child fiercely even in the womb, and as time went on she grew only more protective. She refused to say who the husband was, and sometimes disappeared for weeks at a time, perhaps to visit him. And she refused to marry. How strange.
[] He was a bard, a wanderer and explorer who wandered into the right place and the wrong time and, nine months later, was served up with a baby. He continued to travel even after that point, but it certainly weighed him down, but he has tried his best in all his years of travel to raise his child well.
[] She was nobody, really. Nobody, and yet she knew the spirits better than others, even residing as she did in a town where the spirits rarely went. When she gave birth, few noticed, and when, as the child reached twelve, she died, fewer noticed, yet every day of the life she worked, with a song in her heart and religion on her lips, and an optimism that was almost infectious.
Gender?
[] Male.
[] Female.
Pros: Known Quantity, Religious Power, Flexible Possible Powerset, People Won't Burn You
Cons: Known Quantity, Bargaining For Power, Least Powerful Option
Powers: There are two sources of power. First, whatever spirit origin they have (chosen next one). This will create a short, but longer than, say, an individual ghost-type's tree, chain of Merits/powers. I mean, pretty obvious: fire elemental gets more fire powers, minotaur gets strong and etc, etc, pretty straightforward. And then from there, like others who aren't even of the blood, bargains can be made with spirits for power. But, as one of them, this option would have a huge leg up. The powers gained would not be overwhelming, by their very nature, but it's a pretty wide grab bag, but it does mean that the ideal ending of all of this dealing is to wind up bound to a lot of different things. So that's fun!
[] That Infernal Noise
There is a world beyond that of the spirits. Or rather, parallel to it, as earth is parallel to the world of the spirits. In it, beings reside that…
Well, spirits can be hostile and horrible or nice. And so can these beings, but as spirits trend towards being in harmony with the world[1], and their existence does not inherently and slowly damage the world in small ways.
And this child is a party to this...in a way. In many ways. It manifests slowly in childhood, but it is still there. And more than that, there is a legacy, and that legacy cannot be denied...and will one day be repaid.
Parents?
[] He would never answer who their mother was. Never. Rich by trade, and retired as a gentleman who had bought his degree of nobility and taken the tests to serve as an occasional scholar for local interests, he raised his child with the greatest of care, and a jaundiced, even judgemental eye, towards every failure.
[] One of them was their mother. Maybe? It only made sense. Born in a big city brothel in the Jade district, they were treated kindly by all of the women, who raised them with love. They helped out around the place, in ways appropriate for children. Going to the apothecaries for various potions and solutions to deal with feminine problems, sweeping the floors, counting the coins, and otherwise making a decent help of themselves. There was always something slightly odd about them, but in this loving if strange care they could ignore it.
[] Their mother was always on the run. Always moving, from one town to the next. She never stayed for more than a month, and while she was decent at feeding and clothing the child, and had moments of intense and almost smothering love, she was also often distant, disappearing for days at a time, though she left supplies to allow the child to make it through to the next time she appeared again. Running, running, all through childhood.
Gender
[] Male.
[] Female.
Pros: High Power Potential, Summon Your Own Friends, Horns are in this Season, Powers aren't a Known Quantity
Cons: Burn the Witch, Dark and Evil Powers, Your Friends are Fucking Demons if you summon them…, Have To Keep a Secret
Powers: Now, for this, I'm thinking that there's a medium length tree based on the type of demon that spawned them (you'll get a choice later), and then some generic trees of Merits for basic Demon-stuff. These are all locked by some sort of score that represents your power (the others are to some extent, but this is hard locking) and so the more Demonic you become, the more powers you get access to...at a price. You can also summon demons, as the dark and dangerous, though also more powerful, parallel to the spirit-summoning in the option above.
[1] For better or worse. A spirit of the hunt that hunts and kills men is quite in harmony with the world, but...you wished it wouldn't be, really.
There is a world beyond that of the spirits. Or rather, parallel to it, as earth is parallel to the world of the spirits. In it, beings reside that…
Well, spirits can be hostile and horrible or nice. And so can these beings, but as spirits trend towards being in harmony with the world[1], and their existence does not inherently and slowly damage the world in small ways.
And this child is a party to this...in a way. In many ways. It manifests slowly in childhood, but it is still there. And more than that, there is a legacy, and that legacy cannot be denied...and will one day be repaid.
Parents?
[] He would never answer who their mother was. Never. Rich by trade, and retired as a gentleman who had bought his degree of nobility and taken the tests to serve as an occasional scholar for local interests, he raised his child with the greatest of care, and a jaundiced, even judgemental eye, towards every failure.
[] One of them was their mother. Maybe? It only made sense. Born in a big city brothel in the Jade district, they were treated kindly by all of the women, who raised them with love. They helped out around the place, in ways appropriate for children. Going to the apothecaries for various potions and solutions to deal with feminine problems, sweeping the floors, counting the coins, and otherwise making a decent help of themselves. There was always something slightly odd about them, but in this loving if strange care they could ignore it.
[] Their mother was always on the run. Always moving, from one town to the next. She never stayed for more than a month, and while she was decent at feeding and clothing the child, and had moments of intense and almost smothering love, she was also often distant, disappearing for days at a time, though she left supplies to allow the child to make it through to the next time she appeared again. Running, running, all through childhood.
Gender
[] Male.
[] Female.
Pros: High Power Potential, Summon Your Own Friends, Horns are in this Season, Powers aren't a Known Quantity
Cons: Burn the Witch, Dark and Evil Powers, Your Friends are Fucking Demons if you summon them…, Have To Keep a Secret
Powers: Now, for this, I'm thinking that there's a medium length tree based on the type of demon that spawned them (you'll get a choice later), and then some generic trees of Merits for basic Demon-stuff. These are all locked by some sort of score that represents your power (the others are to some extent, but this is hard locking) and so the more Demonic you become, the more powers you get access to...at a price. You can also summon demons, as the dark and dangerous, though also more powerful, parallel to the spirit-summoning in the option above.
[1] For better or worse. A spirit of the hunt that hunts and kills men is quite in harmony with the world, but...you wished it wouldn't be, really.
[] Something Strange This Way Comes
There are things darker and stranger in this world. Or not in this world, for the good of the world. Doors that lead to nowhere and eyes that spring from nothing, a laugh that leads a man, leads a city, to self-destruction. Things beyond the ability of men or perhaps even gods to understand, and things that only very, very, very rarely take an interest in human affairs. And almost always, this brief interest is very dangerous.
The child, from the moment they were born, were different. They thought different, they felt different, they loved and yet even that was different, and they dreamed different.
They were odd, and more than odd, they were without parents.
But who raised them?
[] The monks and priests of the temple. They were a charity project, but over time they grew to have strong faith in the gods and interests in the theology that was preached, and in turn, the monks...despite being well aware that this is not a normal child, grew to love them. In their own way, at least.
[] Did you know that it's hard to get into the close spaces required for some jobs? Cleaning parts of mine-carts, or crawling down tunnels, or scrubbing the floors of an old mansion soon to be occupied by new people. He specialized in providing just the right tiny pair of hands for such jobs. The child, well, he was just such an acquisition, and the childhood had was one of labor and danger, of beatings when he failed, and of lessons in hard work.
[] Every lord needs a fool, and when the young child of the Great Lord, second only to the Great King of the region, saw a beggar child in the middle of a fit of madness and took pity on them. From that day onward they were the Jester/Fool and whipping boy of the court. If the child did badly or needed to be punished, they were whipped, and this straightened the child out for fear of hurting their friend. And in exchange this beggar got to live and learn as a Lord might, as long as their understood their place and remained amusing.
Gender
[] Male.
[] Female.
[] Indeterminate/highly confused.
Pros: Highest Power Potential, Dreams, Incredibly Flexible Powers, Lovecraftian Nightmare Made Flesh.
Cons: Literally All Your Powers Hurt People In Some Way, Power Born of Madness, Loose Sanity and Loose Grip on Humanity, Start Out Basically Powerless.
Powers: There will be some refinement based on options chosen and a vote in the second part, but this is a big, wide open tree of abilities that range from the small to the 'cities are gone and the Great King orders a massive army to put it down.' But even more than any of the other options, to grow more powerful is to grow less human, and to wound existence by your very presence. The powers are all internal, or at least based on your nature, and so other than a bonus on the tree related to the next choice, it's pretty wide open. But you start with only a few very small powers.
There are things darker and stranger in this world. Or not in this world, for the good of the world. Doors that lead to nowhere and eyes that spring from nothing, a laugh that leads a man, leads a city, to self-destruction. Things beyond the ability of men or perhaps even gods to understand, and things that only very, very, very rarely take an interest in human affairs. And almost always, this brief interest is very dangerous.
The child, from the moment they were born, were different. They thought different, they felt different, they loved and yet even that was different, and they dreamed different.
They were odd, and more than odd, they were without parents.
But who raised them?
[] The monks and priests of the temple. They were a charity project, but over time they grew to have strong faith in the gods and interests in the theology that was preached, and in turn, the monks...despite being well aware that this is not a normal child, grew to love them. In their own way, at least.
[] Did you know that it's hard to get into the close spaces required for some jobs? Cleaning parts of mine-carts, or crawling down tunnels, or scrubbing the floors of an old mansion soon to be occupied by new people. He specialized in providing just the right tiny pair of hands for such jobs. The child, well, he was just such an acquisition, and the childhood had was one of labor and danger, of beatings when he failed, and of lessons in hard work.
[] Every lord needs a fool, and when the young child of the Great Lord, second only to the Great King of the region, saw a beggar child in the middle of a fit of madness and took pity on them. From that day onward they were the Jester/Fool and whipping boy of the court. If the child did badly or needed to be punished, they were whipped, and this straightened the child out for fear of hurting their friend. And in exchange this beggar got to live and learn as a Lord might, as long as their understood their place and remained amusing.
Gender
[] Male.
[] Female.
[] Indeterminate/highly confused.
Pros: Highest Power Potential, Dreams, Incredibly Flexible Powers, Lovecraftian Nightmare Made Flesh.
Cons: Literally All Your Powers Hurt People In Some Way, Power Born of Madness, Loose Sanity and Loose Grip on Humanity, Start Out Basically Powerless.
Powers: There will be some refinement based on options chosen and a vote in the second part, but this is a big, wide open tree of abilities that range from the small to the 'cities are gone and the Great King orders a massive army to put it down.' But even more than any of the other options, to grow more powerful is to grow less human, and to wound existence by your very presence. The powers are all internal, or at least based on your nature, and so other than a bonus on the tree related to the next choice, it's pretty wide open. But you start with only a few very small powers.
A/N: So, here it goes. Inspired by many things. EarthScorpion's Infernalism/Demons/Etc, his ghosts to a certain extent, Kaelor's mythology Quest, Lovecraft, nWoD and how they do spirits, and probably many other people who I owe for this idea that might never happen...but also really, really drew my attention. So, yeah, tell me what you think, anyone reading?
I have ideas for the mechanics, but I'd certainly have to work on those. It owes something to Exalted if only because it was a jumping-off point for this, but it will in fact be an original Quest, more or less.
It's set in...well, I'm trying to be vague because it starts out with you as a child, but in something that's neither medieval fantasy Europe, nor entirely divorced from it. Trying to mix and match a little this time.
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- Pronouns
- They/Them
Feel free to make your opinion known. That's what I'm doing posting it. Fishing for opinions/thoughts/questions.
Edit: Also, apologies for accidentally hyperlinking ES. Forgot to remove it when I was showing it around. I'd only intended to do so once, as a credit thing, but then...copy-paste and there we go.
Edit: Also, apologies for accidentally hyperlinking ES. Forgot to remove it when I was showing it around. I'd only intended to do so once, as a credit thing, but then...copy-paste and there we go.
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DeepWaters
No one will be the wiser.
- Location
- Land of Spiders and Shipping Charts
I enjoy odder concepts like this. It's hard to tell exactly what the themes of the story would be right off the bat, though-- which makes it difficult for me to gauge how interested I'd be if it actually came about. I'd probably vote for either the religious Lovecraftian horror (so much drama potential there, I love it) or the noble spirit-child (seems the least likely to fuck everything up), if that tells you anything.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Well, hrm. The way it goes, is if you want to ask me a question, I'll answer it. The first idea that came to me was the ghost child, actually. It's what started this tangent.
I'd say that the biggest theme that is shared between all four is growing up and, well, liminality.
Liminality - Wikipedia
In every case, the main character is between human and something else, and needs to try to struggle to find the balance. To use the powers he has gained and not deny himself, and yet not also find himself losing his humanity.
By being in-between, it gives them a different perspective, and I'd be trying to portray someone whose mindset is sometimes inhuman in all cases, albeit to different degrees and in different ways.
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DeepWaters
No one will be the wiser.
- Location
- Land of Spiders and Shipping Charts
Well, hrm. The way it goes, is if you want to ask me a question, I'll answer it. The first idea that came to me was the ghost child, actually. It's what started this tangent.
Are the origins set in particular regions? A lot of them sort of imply something European, but then you have the brothel demon origin that mentions a Jade district, which sounds more pseudo-Asian than the others. Also, how sandbox-y will it be? This is less a "how much will you railroad us" question and more like a "how much of a main plot or narrative structure will there be" question.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I want this to be protagonist centered. That means that in some senses the plot will depend on what sort of person the protagonist is. Like, I want there to be a wider possibility of characters, so that it's not like "Oops, you chose the social demon as your father, who seduced your mother when she engaged in diabolism...but now you have to fight an army of zombies. Too bad, game over."
And the origins are all set in the same large region/think continent-sized, that is primarily European-ish, but does have other elements, especially a few Mediterranean elements with port cities, and value placed on certain materials that aren't normally found in European fantasy.
But as for your question, they're located in varying countries and regions. Also, to also note: all elements mentioned exist in all choices. So if you choose Spirit-child, there are still diabolists, and even some Demon-children, running around.
There are ghost-bloods or whatever you want to call them doing their thing, and of course exorcists and necromancers besides.
In the first three options, you'll also be reasonably likely to eventually meet another of your kind.
...not so much with the fourth.
The Spirit-children are rare in an absolute sense, but relatively are the most common, which has disadvantages...but also means you don't need to always reinvent the wheel.
Ghost-children are more rare, but sometimes accepted.
...demon-children, well, better keep that a secret, but they are out there.
Last option? You might well be the first in a century, who knows? Certainly not you, since you don't even know what you are.
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DeepWaters
No one will be the wiser.
- Location
- Land of Spiders and Shipping Charts
A protagonist-centered narrative? You don't say! But I understand what you mean. Sort of like what you have going on in Kansas City Shuffle, right? That sounds interesting. I got the coming-of-age and liminality as themes already, but those are fairly common themes in nWoD. The latter is especially so, and they seem to be putting even more emphasis on it in 2e. Vampire, Werewolf, Changeling, Geist... I think Mage is the only splat that isn't strongly defined by being stuck between two different worlds-- that's more of an incidental thing for them. (Side note: if you haven't already done so, you could consider representing that alien perspective in the mechanics, like they do.) Are there any themes specific to the different options, or are they only going to become apparent once the character has been created and the plot can start emerging?
Any other questions I can think of are better suited to actual character creation, unfortunately.
But I understand what you mean. Sort of like what you have going on in Kansas City Shuffle, right? That sounds interesting. I got the coming-of-age and liminality as themes already, but those are fairly common themes in nWoD. The latter is especially so, and they seem to be putting even more emphasis on it in 2e. Vampire, Werewolf, Changeling, Geist... I think Mage is the only splat that isn't strongly defined by being stuck between two different worlds-- that's more of an incidental thing for them. (Side note: if you haven't already done so, you could consider representing that alien perspective in the mechanics, like they do.) Are there any themes specific to the different options, or are they only going to become apparent once the character has been created and the plot can start emerging?Any other questions I can think of are better suited to actual character creation, unfortunately.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
A protagonist-centered narrative? You don't say!
Any other questions I can think of are better suited to actual character creation, unfortunately.
Yes, actually. I mentioned it in the 'Stranger' thing, with the Madness part. That's an actual mechanic where if you push stuff too far you just go completely bonkers until it runs down.
And, let's see.
All of them have themes of family, but 'A Touch of the Grave' not to spoil too much...your mother or father made a deal with the ghost of a woman who died in childbirth to have you. And so she's haunting your character, watching them. Protecting them...or perhaps threatening them. Possessive and sure that she's the only one who deserves you. You can, of course, get some measure of control, bend her to your will or destroy her, but she'll be an important figure, especially early-game when you're weaker.
For the ghost thing...the second option is a good chance to also potentially get in with the spirits/be a friendly exorcist. Plots might involve suspicion thrown on your mother.
The Lord thing gives access to crypts and the like.
And the third option...well. Um, your mother isn't a good person. At all. So, you have two questionable 'mothers.' Good luck choosing.
*****
The noble option will be slightly edged towards politico-religious thrillers. Or at least, politics and religion mixing in complicated ways.
The bard option lets you travel the world with your father, and potentially take up his mantle. Adventurer stuff, likely, whether violent or otherwise!
The song-in-heart option might be a bit more powerful, and it is sort of a 'hidden legacy' option, in the sense that it'd begin with someone discovering your nature.
*****
For demons, the first option is a strict and controlling Dad who is likely an evil man who summons demons to do his bidding, but lives you...in a strict and controlling way. Will you go along with his plans, or not?
The second option puts you in the city, which opens up a ton of vistas, and I kinda just love the premises it can work with, though it's also the gateway, if you're iffy about this sort of thing, to certain sorts of demons as parents, though this isn't going to be a QQ Quest, but it's still an interesting set of themes. It also doesn't have to be played sexually, and it's not just sex demons or something, if that's what you were wondering. But there are options that give access to powers that involve seduction: but defined in the homebrewed Exalted way, that is to say, where you can seduce someone with money or friendship or philosophy, just as much as you can induce them with carnal promises.
Option three? Pretty obvious: on the run means someone is chasing, and what happens when they catch up.
*****
Stranger: Monk and Priests is religious horror.
Slave child is revenge horror.
Jester/Whipping Boy is hidden horror in a deadly and decadent court sort of thing. Like, horror where the horror is set amid refined circles.
...note, these are all, like, general directions, not commandments.
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Sworl
Sparky
To what degree is the current conflict between the Changelings and Red Court in South America a war?
I mean the typically reclusive Changelings have only been here a month (if Cora is to be believed) and are not as entrenched, numerous (producing Mook level Red Court forces is fairly easy), united (be it their Freeholds or on an individual level) or consistently war like (all Reds are violent even if only in the base, ravenous predatory sense) as the Red Court.
If things really have heated up that quickly and to that level, then I'd expect that the Red Court would be putting considerable effort into hitting back and finding ways by which to hit back (magic, deals with True Fae, buying the services of traitorous/ruthless Changelings, etc).