Character Sheets


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.
Stress XP
3 7
Cash Expenses
41 10.5
 
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"We did not get any of theirs, though we put some bullets through all their planes.
This may be a continuity error, unless Minna just didn't notice Abagail's plane going down

Sounds like things could have gone better, but they could have gone a hell of a lot worse. "Inconclusive" battle or not, I figure we still won at the end of the day because we completed our mission, everyone made it out alive and all of our planes can be repaired without excessive difficulty.

I liked this update. You did a really good job of humanizing Abigail and reminding us that there are real people with stories and reasons for what they do in the planes we are shooting at, even when they are bandits. Also, Minna's dialog is just so incredibly... Minna. It's amazing. I'm glad that it sounds like she may be ready to patch things up with Wulf, and I'm hopeful to see her and Abagail resolve things when they are both feeling better, though that's probably contingent on the difficult conversation about Minna going well.

I think I like Abagail. If Minna doesn't have too much of a problem with the whole "stabbed her" thing, I would not mind trying to recruit her. It seems like she might be interested in getting out from under the Red Talon's reputation, so that could be a thing. There is of course the complicating factor of what exactly she gets to fly, but we do technically have an extra combat aircraft (even though I can't see Wulf liking either option there), we know where to find another one, and we are about to have a non-combat aircraft in need of a pilot that she could fly until we acquire something else for her. This may be a little premature, but it's something to think about.

The comments about her masculine presentation have me a little curious about whether she's just kind of butch or not entirely cis or what. Hopefully we haven't been misgendering her this whole time. Of course, for all I know, there could be cultural differences at play such that it isn't actually unusual where she is from.

On what to do next:

Went back and checked; this town's thing these days is steel foundries, but it also had (presumably has) copper production. Which is cool and all, but I don't think either of those are directly useful for upgrades we'd want on either plane. A "foundry" is a factory that produces metal castings. If this was being used more broadly to mean production from ore, than they have to have access to a bunch of coal or charcoal, even with the electricity, because the carbon has to come from somewhere. Once again, a thing we don't need because our planes don't run on steam engines. They would also need limestone or similar, which we have even less use for. Copper ore could be interesting, in that some of the oxide copper ores are really neat looking to the point of being considered semi-precious stones, and that copper ores sometimes contain enough gold and silver to be worth extracting and refining separately. On the whole, though, there isn't much from this town that we probably want right now, and it's mostly either small and frivolous or things we could sell back in Piav to make a sub-Thallar profit. I suppose we could try and get Wulf something nice?

Other than local specialties, the thing to look for in a place like this is things anyone would have, or expensive long shots which will be cheaper locally because the place is economically depressed. The first is mostly going to be things that cost scrip, since we've had enough money to just buy anything important like that is we happen to need it so far. Good candidates for the second are things like a replacement parachute, gun sights, miniaturized radios, a better engine for Wulf's new plane, that sort of thing.

Entertainment locally may be pretty limited, especially since we don't really do drinking, and these are steel workers and this is a pseudo-German setting. Fortunately we can do prayer anywhere, and we can probably manage to find something to dance to is we are feeling physically up for it. Minna's vices are also pretty portable, which is nice.

It has been established that there is a telegraph line to Piav, so we should use that to send a message back so everyone knows we are alright, and to coordinate our next steps. At least that first part should happen first thing, if Arren didn't do it already.

We probably want to head to Piav instead of having everyone else head here. The main reason we might not is if we have more to transport back than we can stash under someone's seat, such as if we find something big we want to buy or if we recruit Abagail. Or bring her back for some kind of leverage, or to do her the favor of leaving her in a less shit town. That would work too. If we did recruit her, we could also look at booking passage back for her, since there is clearly already regular trade between the two towns on the scale that implies zeppelins, river barges or the like. Even in this setting, moving bulk steel and copper on WWI era fixed wing aircraft probably makes little economic sense. This may or may not be cheaper than the operating costs involved in having someone come pick her up.

Not really sure how to handle things with Minna. I'll leave that to someone else.

[] How is this town organized? Who's in charge, and how is it run both politically and economically?
[] Isa gives Arren some emergency piloting tips, and finds out exactly what happened after she left the plane. Did he trust the ghost, or just do his best? Go straight to town, or try to stay in the fight? He handled himself well, but that landing could have been better.
 
The Verloren are actually "lost" villages, places that for whatever reason have slipped through the cracks and never got assimilated into the dominant cultures. They are usually a little weird.

Heh, I got confused thinking it was a reference to the "Verdronken land", a series of villages and areas that were lost to the sea in past centuries.

This may be a continuity error, unless Minna just didn't notice Abagail's plane going down



Clearly Abigail is a spooky infiltrating monster.
 
[ ] How is this town organized? Who's in charge, and how is it run both politically and economically?
[ ] Isa gives Arren some emergency piloting tips, and finds out exactly what happened after she left the plane. Did he trust the ghost, or just do his best? Go straight to town, or try to stay in the fight? He handled himself well, but that landing could have been better.


No real idea what to do regarding the other things.
 
Huh, Abigail is surprisingly empathetic. Okay. Plan time.

First, we need to do a vice other than alcohol. First thoughts: the town medics clearly have painkillers. If people are comfortable, Isa could end up taking a large dose (possibly accidentally). Also, Arren is in town, and I'm sure Isa would like to spend time with him. With her injury, Isa probably isn't up for dancing, sexy-times, or anything physically demanding. That leaves prayer and... uh, maybe getting a tattoo (if getting a big, elaborate, probably painful, tattoo counts as a vice)?

Second, how to deal with Abigail? We could try to recruit her, but I don't want to stress Minna when she's just starting to work things out with Wulf. Also, I'm not even sure Abigail wants to stay in a combat role. I think we should get all the intel we can out of her (while asking nicely), and then try to get her a job? I doubt Messingwerks or Piav want her, but that zeppelin crew might appreciate someone who knows the area. Maybe she'd be up for flying the cargo plane. Regardless, we should probably get her out of town somehow.

Third, reuniting the team. I'd like the rest of the circus to come here. I want them reunited ASAP, and I'm not sure Isa and Minna will be in flying shape soon. Maybe the others could bring the cargo plane?

Fourth, purchases, brmj came up with a good list: "replacement parachute, gun sights, miniaturized radios, a better engine for Wulf's new plane". Also, Isa could use a smaller and lighter handgun.

Fifth, Minna. We should at least check how much she knows (and agrees with) her hometown's shittier activities.


[X] Plan: First Thoughts
-[X] Indulge in prayer as a vice (with Arren, if he's willing).
--[X] Do something else with him (tattoos?) if he'd prefer
-[X] Confirm if Messingwerks wants to punish Abigail, and then get her out of town (especially if they want her dead)
--[X] Talk to Abigail about her plans. Try to convince her to leave the Talons and combat work altogether
--[X] Ask Minna if she would accept Abigail as a cargo pilot. If so, put that issue to a vote among the circus.
--[X] If Minna or the circus doesn't want her, try to get Abigail a job on the zeppelin. Point out that they could use someone who knows the area.
-[X] Go shopping for a lighter handgun, or "[a] replacement parachute, gun sights, miniaturized radios, or a better engine for Wulf's plane"
--[X] Keep an eye out for embroidery stuff or anything Minna could do while lying on her front.
--[X] Look for artist supplies for Arren, if he needs any (and use it as an excuse to talk with him, if necessary)
-[X] Ask Minna if she knows what Greinfenburg did to towns like Abigail's.
--[X] Try to ease Minna into the idea that her hometown does bad stuff.

Also, snippets.
[] The plane-ghost did good work today. Could Isa check in with him? See if he's happy?
 
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Huh, Abigail is surprisingly empathetic. Okay. Plan time.

First, we need to do a vice other than alcohol. First thoughts: the town medics clearly have painkillers. If people are comfortable, Isa could end up taking a large dose (possibly accidentally). Also, Arren is in town, and I'm sure Isa would like to spend time with him. With her injury, Isa probably isn't up for dancing, sexy-times, or anything physically demanding. That leaves prayer and... uh, maybe getting a tattoo (if getting a big, elaborate, probably painful, tattoo counts as a vice)?

Second, how to deal with Abigail? We could try to recruit her, but I don't want to stress Minna when she's just starting to work things out with Wulf. Also, I'm not even sure Abigail wants to stay in a combat role. I think we should get all the intel we can out of her (while asking nicely), and then try to get her a job? I doubt Messingwerks or Piav want her, but that zeppelin crew might appreciate someone who knows the area. Maybe she'd be up for flying the cargo plane. Regardless, we should probably get her out of town somehow.

Third, reuniting the team. I'd like the rest of the circus to come here. I want them reunited ASAP, and I'm not sure Isa and Minna will be in flying shape soon. Maybe the others could bring the cargo plane?

Fourth, purchases, brmj came up with a good list: "replacement parachute, gun sights, miniaturized radios, a better engine for Wulf's new plane". Also, Isa could use a smaller and lighter handgun.

Fifth, Minna. We should at least check how much she knows (and agrees with) her hometown's shittier activities.


[X] Plan: First Thoughts
-[X] Indulge in prayer as a vice (with Arren, if he's willing).
--[X] Do something else with him (tattoos?) if he'd prefer
-[X] Confirm if Messingwerks wants to punish Abigail, and then get her out of town (especially if they want her dead)
--[X] Talk to Abigail about her plans. Try to convince her to leave the Talons and combat work altogether
--[X] Ask Minna if she would accept Abigail as a cargo pilot. If so, put that issue to a vote among the circus.
--[X] If Minna or the circus doesn't want her, try to get Abigail a job on the zeppelin. Point out that they could use someone who knows the area.
-[X] Go shopping for a lighter handgun, or "[a] replacement parachute, gun sights, miniaturized radios, or a better engine for Wulf's plane"
--[X] Keep an eye out for embroidery stuff or anything Minna could do while lying on her front.
--[X] Look for artist supplies for Arren, if he needs any (and use it as an excuse to talk with him, if necessary)
-[X] Ask Minna if she knows what Greinfenburg did to towns like Abigail's.
--[X] Try to ease Minna into the idea that her hometown does bad stuff.

Also, snippets.
[] The plane-ghost did good work today. Could Isa check in with him? See if he's happy?

This looks pretty good, though I don't think we need to go messing around with painkillers - in addition to having Prayer as a vice, we can destress via quality time w/ Arren and we have Contemplation (which IMO we should use, to speed our recovery if needed or to dump extra stress if not). Of course the current plan doesn't have the painkillers in anyway, so it has my vote if you add Contemplation & some non-prayer-related time with Arren. I agree with your handling of Abigail & Minna's situations, and I don't have any additional ideas for shopping.
 
I'm personally hesitant to push Abagail towards anything in particular until we have a better idea of the situation: both what she actually want, how she feels about her recent life choices, and how Minna would react. I'm also not entirely satisfied with this plan't handling of talking things over with Minna. Not because I object to any part of it in particular, but because it feels incomplete, like there should be another clause or two on the end of it.
 
god damn it people this is a knife-biting mercenary company not the humane society, stop adopting every stray that walks in. grr

Also, finally caught up on like a month's backlog of Whispers and I liek. Have to leave right now because daylight savings time, grr, but will probably vote when I get back.
 
talkin' stuff about Abigail and themes
This may be a continuity error, unless Minna just didn't notice Abagail's plane going down

The comments about her masculine presentation have me a little curious about whether she's just kind of butch or not entirely cis or what. Hopefully we haven't been misgendering her this whole time. Of course, for all I know, there could be cultural differences at play such that it isn't actually unusual where she is from.
I just wanna touch on this stuff real quick. We can explore this further in updates but I kinda want to like, get it out of the way so we feel comfortable talking about it.

Abigail identifies, more or less, as a woman, and is just very butch. If anyone here had a modern understanding of gender identity (which not even Heinrich does: he's from a socially progressive university, but he's pretty much only one step ahead of invert theory, and he mostly slept through the parts of his human sexuality class that weren't about boys kissing boys) then she might end up identifying some kind of differently. As is though, she thinks of herself as a woman, she just doesn't like how feminine things sit on her and, you know, she binds occasionally, that's not weird, girls do that, stop thinking about it, what the fuck, I'll fucking stab you if you bring it up again.

(She sadly rationalizes this stuff with some internalized misogyny).

As for cultural differences, Abigail is, essentially, a member of Himmilgard's Jewish analog, the way the Skyborn are a Roma analog. Because having a pastoral Germanic fantasy setting that doesn't explicitly have Jewish or Roma people in it is... well, you know, Nazi propaganda, and further failing to recognize the ways that German society was hostile to these elements even without the Nazis in charge being *right-wing revisionist* propaganda...

Anyway, where the Skyborn are distinct visible minority with their own language who are *not from here* and that makes them suspect, the Rishonim (which ought to be Hebrew for "First" but cultural sensitivity readers haven't been through here yet) are the folks that were in Himmilgard first, up in the mountains, before the modern Himmilgard populations arrived from a nebulous elsewhere. They've got the same Goddesses as Wulf and all that a singular Goddess and a very different spiritual relationship to her than most, and over the centuries have essentially ended up assimilating in many ways. They aren't really a visible minority, but a cultural one. There's a historic tragic cycle thing wherein people find them suspicious, they disguise their religious and cultural beliefs more, people find that more suspicious etc. They've got through historical periods of greater or lesser acceptance or persecution, with the time before the last war heading into one of those low points.

A huge thematic element of Flying Circus is the way that the end of things are the beginning of something else and a chance for something kinder, but you have to be willing to fight for it to get better. By default, the way the rules of Flying Circus handle this stuff is to just look at the players and go "no matter who your character is, by the time we start play, you've already had your very special episode about being a fucking racist if you needed one." from there, if a group is down, addressing and pushing back against the elements of society that aren't becoming kinder in those regards can be an element of the story. But because I write Whispers as a controlled narrative, I can be more direct, and... well, a huge element of Whispers *specifically* that isn't necessarily a part of Flying Circus is recovering from trauma, with the Circus as the metaphorical and literal escape from abusive environments.

Lemme real on that a second. It probably hasn't escaped anyone's notice that none of the pilots are people who have come from great situations. We don't know much about Heinrich and his situation is thematically special, but like... Isabelle is an abuse survivor. Her abuse was physical and emotional, and she was being groomed by a sexual predator. Minna has been so emotionally ground down by her home's inability to recognize her differences that she is terrified of looking different to anyone. Wulf... like yeah kidnapped by nazis, shitty parental figures, etc, but also to be frank because I've danced around it, Wulf was essentially coerced into sexually assaulting somebody at gunpoint, resulting in basically a mass of guilt, emotional disengagement, dysphoria, self-hatred, and warped sexual expression barely shambling along because of the love of people willing to help her.

Surviving, making distance, and recovering from trauma and abuse in a community of more understanding people has become like, The Theme of this story. I basically realized the moment there was a pilot on the ground that there was a chance for this person to join the crew, and the nebulous knowledge that this person probably did not have a happy story crystallized. Even if she doesn't, that theme will be maintained.
 
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Personally I'd leave off talking to Minna about her home doing bad stuff right now. It seems like we already have enough complications to throw at her in the immediate future.
 
As for cultural differences, Abigail is, essentially, a member of Himmilgard's Jewish analog, the way the Skyborn are a Roma analog. Because having a pastoral Germanic fantasy setting that doesn't explicitly have Jewish or Roma people in it is... well, you know, Nazi propaganda, and further failing to recognize the ways that German society was hostile to these elements even without the Nazis in charge being *right-wing revisionist* propaganda...

Anyway, where the Skyborn are distinct visible minority with their own language who are *not from here* and that makes them suspect, the Rishonim (which ought to be Hebrew for "First" but cultural sensitivity readers haven't been through here yet) are the folks that were in Himmilgard first, up in the mountains, before the modern Himmilgard populations arrived from a nebulous elsewhere. They've got the same Goddesses as Wulf and all that, but a much different spiritual relationship to them, and over the centuries have essentially ended up assimilating in many ways. They aren't really a visible minority, but a cultural one. There's a historic tragic cycle thing wherein people find them suspicious, they disguise their religious and cultural beliefs more, people find that more suspicious etc. They've got through historical periods of greater or lesser acceptance or persecution, with the time before the last war heading into one of those low points.
Hm. That is interestingly different from IRL Jews.

Do the Rishonim (name change pending) have that thing going where their socio-economic role has been heavily compressed and shoved around by the geographic and social cubbyholes others pushed them into?

Because, for instance, European Jews became what they are in large part in reaction to being pressured into taking a lot of jobs as clerks and specific kinds of merchant, because that was what they were allowed. Jews who owned land in their own right tended to be relatively rare or confined to specific areas where they were legally tolerated (e.g. the Pale of Settlement).

... but also to be frank because I've danced around it, Wulf was essentially coerced into sexually assaulting somebody at gunpoint, resulting in basically a mass of guilt, emotional disengagement, dysphoria, self-hatred, and warped sexual expression barely shambling along because of the love of people willing to help her.
You did pretty well convey that, but yeah, I'm not sure you ever spelled this out in so many words if that was a priority for you.

Personally I'd leave off talking to Minna about her home doing bad stuff right now. It seems like we already have enough complications to throw at her in the immediate future.
Yeah.

I think that needs to be combined into a discussion about "just because they made you do things a certain way, doesn't mean that way is right, or that you should feel bad for wanting to do things differently."

I've never known anyone exactly like Minna, but of all the people least unlike Minna that I've known, it was usually a good idea to try to reach them with logos, because that's where it's easiest to have a meeting of the minds. Saving up the "your home city did bad stuff" discussion to fit into the context of a larger "and this is why you don't have to stick to the old rules if they don't feel right to you emotionally" seems like a good way to handle that.
 
I just wanna touch on this stuff real quick. We can explore this further in updates but I kinda want to like, get it out of the way so we feel comfortable talking about it.

Abigail identifies, more or less, as a woman, and is just very butch. If anyone here had a modern understanding of gender identity (which not even Heinrich does: he's from a socially progressive university, but he's pretty much only one step ahead of invert theory, and he mostly slept through the parts of his human sexuality class that weren't about boys kissing boys) then she might end up identifying some kind of differently. As is though, she thinks of herself as a woman, she just doesn't like how feminine things sit on her and, you know, she binds occasionally, that's not weird, girls do that, stop thinking about it, what the fuck, I'll fucking stab you if you bring it up again.

(She sadly rationalizes this stuff with some internalized misogyny).

As for cultural differences, Abigail is, essentially, a member of Himmilgard's Jewish analog, the way the Skyborn are a Roma analog. Because having a pastoral Germanic fantasy setting that doesn't explicitly have Jewish or Roma people in it is... well, you know, Nazi propaganda, and further failing to recognize the ways that German society was hostile to these elements even without the Nazis in charge being *right-wing revisionist* propaganda...

Anyway, where the Skyborn are distinct visible minority with their own language who are *not from here* and that makes them suspect, the Rishonim (which ought to be Hebrew for "First" but cultural sensitivity readers haven't been through here yet) are the folks that were in Himmilgard first, up in the mountains, before the modern Himmilgard populations arrived from a nebulous elsewhere. They've got the same Goddesses as Wulf and all that, but a much different spiritual relationship to them, and over the centuries have essentially ended up assimilating in many ways. They aren't really a visible minority, but a cultural one. There's a historic tragic cycle thing wherein people find them suspicious, they disguise their religious and cultural beliefs more, people find that more suspicious etc. They've got through historical periods of greater or lesser acceptance or persecution, with the time before the last war heading into one of those low points.


A huge thematic element of Flying Circus is the way that the end of things are the beginning of something else and a chance for something kinder, but you have to be willing to fight for it to get better. By default, the way the rules of Flying Circus handle this stuff is to just look at the players and go "no matter who your character is, by the time we start play, you've already had your very special episode about being a fucking racist if you needed one." from there, if a group is down, addressing and pushing back against the elements of society that aren't becoming kinder in those regards can be an element of the story. But because I write Whispers as a controlled narrative, I can be more direct, and... well, a huge element of Whispers *specifically* that isn't necessarily a part of Flying Circus is recovering from trauma, with the Circus as the metaphorical and literal escape from abusive environments.

Lemme real on that a second. It probably hasn't escaped anyone's notice that none of the pilots are people who have come from great situations. We don't know much about Heinrich and his situation is thematically special, but like... Isabelle is an abuse survivor. Her abuse was physical and emotional, and she was being groomed by a sexual predator. Minna has been so emotionally ground down by her home's inability to recognize her differences that she is terrified of looking different to anyone. Wulf... like yeah kidnapped by nazis, shitty parental figures, etc, but also to be frank because I've danced around it, Wulf was essentially coerced into sexually assaulting somebody at gunpoint, resulting in basically a mass of guilt, emotional disengagement, dysphoria, self-hatred, and warped sexual expression barely shambling along because of the love of people willing to help her.

Surviving, making distance, and recovering from trauma and abuse in a community of more understanding people has become like, The Theme of this story. I basically realized the moment there was a pilot on the ground that there was a chance for this person to join the crew, and the nebulous knowledge that this person probably did not have a happy story crystallized. Even if she doesn't, that theme will be maintained.
Thanks for sharing all that.

Your explanation of Abagail's situation makes a ton of sense. If we do end up recruiting her, we'll have to see how that comes out in character, if it does at all. In any case, I like what we've seen of her personality and characterization thus far, as well as the very important alternate perspective on Minna's home she is giving us. I would comment on how you put a lot into developing what could have easily been a throw-away NPC, but:
I basically realized the moment there was a pilot on the ground that there was a chance for this person to join the crew,
You've totally got our number. "Okay, so, she's a bandit. Who stabbed one of our squadron-mates. Who we just shot down. And then shot while she was trying to surrender. And then she told us she would have shot us if we hadn't. Let's recruit her!" In our defense, we have turned down one stray so far, but this is becoming a bit of a theme. Not that there is necessarily a huge problem with that yet: there's clearly some number of pilots after which a flying circus becomes harder to manage and characterization starts to necessarily suffer, but I don't think we are there yet.

I'd picked up some of your thoughts on the game's themes and the tightrope you have to walk with a pseudo-German setting elsewhere, most prominently in the beginning of the draft of the rule book, but it's good to have it all here like this. I hadn't quite picked up on that core theme of this quest, but it is unmistakable now that you point it out.

As SJ said, I think you made that part of Wulf's past plenty clear, and suitably horrific to read. I think you did the exact right level of dancing around on that. Making it any more explicit wouldn't have added anything, and it was already every bit as hard to read as it should be.

Finally, a thought I had as I was reading about the central themes of this quest really stuck with me: For every person escaping from a horrible situation or recovering from a traumatic past who ends up joining a flying circus, how many more are there in the same situation who didn't have the right skills or an expensive fighter to fly away in? It's a sobering thought.
 
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i found myself wanting to spell some of these things out because of a few moments of what i thought were obvious foreshadowing or subtext going over (some) readers heads
 
I'm actually really interested in this Jewish analog. Their culture, their beliefs, their history. How where they persecuted, for what reasons, and how did it change them? These Rishonim look like a very promising faction or group to explore in this world and I look forward to seeing more!
 
Personally I'd leave off talking to Minna about her home doing bad stuff right now. It seems like we already have enough complications to throw at her in the immediate future.

I think we should do something right now, and that is gathering some info on what Minna actually knows about the subject, before any attempt at confronting is made. Is she unaware of the issue, does she buy into the propaganda, or is it an open but repressed secret?

We do need to gather that info though, because the risk exists that Minna and the prisoner end up in one room, and both pilot and prisoner work better with the regulatory amount of holes in them.
 
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Hm. That is interestingly different from IRL Jews.

Do the Rishonim (name change pending) have that thing going where their socio-economic role has been heavily compressed and shoved around by the geographic and social cubbyholes others pushed them into?

Because, for instance, European Jews became what they are in large part in reaction to being pressured into taking a lot of jobs as clerks and specific kinds of merchant, because that was what they were allowed. Jews who owned land in their own right tended to be relatively rare or confined to specific areas where they were legally tolerated (e.g. the Pale of Settlement).
I'm actually really interested in this Jewish analog. Their culture, their beliefs, their history. How where they persecuted, for what reasons, and how did it change them? These Rishonim look like a very promising faction or group to explore in this world and I look forward to seeing more!
This is one of those "this is incredibly delicate and i am put in the position of having to figure it out but having absolutely no capacity to do so".

Yeah I really need to like... find some people I trust that I can sit down with and run stuff by, ask questions to, etc, but its so fucking stressful to think about I keep putting it off.
 
This is one of those "this is incredibly delicate and i am put in the position of having to figure it out but having absolutely no capacity to do so".

Yeah I really need to like... find some people I trust that I can sit down with and run stuff by, ask questions to, etc, but its so fucking stressful to think about I keep putting it off.

Yeah, being careful with writing something this sensitive is probably a good idea. Also researching the Jewish experience and maybe talking with a jew to better understand their perspective of their community and history. You also shouldn't be pressured to write something that stresses you out and makes you uncomfortable. If you feel this topic would cause more problems than its worth than maybe a step back would be more constructive to your writing.
 
Yeah, being careful with writing something this sensitive is probably a good idea. Also researching the Jewish experience and maybe talking with a jew to better understand their perspective of their community and history. You also shouldn't be pressured to write something that stresses you out and makes you uncomfortable. If you feel this topic would cause more problems than its worth than maybe a step back would be more constructive to your writing.
research is fundamentally insufficient for something like this. but in any case, it's something i do have to address sooner rather than later (a portion of why i do whispers is it forces me to do worldbuilding) i just don't know where to start
 
Okay guys we literally have exactly 1 vote for Plan: First Thoughts and no other votes so will people do that so I can please write?
 
[X] Plan: First Thoughts
-[X] Indulge in prayer as a vice (with Arren, if he's willing).
--[X] Do something else with him (tattoos?) if he'd prefer
-[X] Confirm if Messingwerks wants to punish Abigail, and then get her out of town (especially if they want her dead)
--[X] Talk to Abigail about her plans. Try to convince her to leave the Talons and combat work altogether
--[X] Ask Minna if she would accept Abigail as a cargo pilot. If so, put that issue to a vote among the circus.
--[X] If Minna or the circus doesn't want her, try to get Abigail a job on the zeppelin. Point out that they could use someone who knows the area.
-[X] Go shopping for a lighter handgun, or "[a] replacement parachute, gun sights, miniaturized radios, or a better engine for Wulf's plane"
--[X] Keep an eye out for embroidery stuff or anything Minna could do while lying on her front.
--[X] Look for artist supplies for Arren, if he needs any (and use it as an excuse to talk with him, if necessary)
-[X] Ask Minna if she knows what Greinfenburg did to towns like Abigail's.
--[X] Try to ease Minna into the idea that her hometown does bad stuff.
-[X] The plane-ghost did good work today. Could Isa check in with him? See if he's happy?
 
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I'm not 100% satisfied with that plan, so I'm going to have to try to put something together. I had really hoped someone else would, or we'd at least have a little more discussion in that direction.
 
A thought I'll just throw out there is that Isa and Arren both are probably like, in the mood for installing an automatic starter in their plane after that incident. Options include starting by pull string, pneumatics, starter engine, electric starter, and shotgun shell.
 
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