Whispers from the Deep - Biplanes & Bisexuality

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Character Sheets
  • Informational


    • 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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  • Informational
    • 0-5: Leaving the Nest
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] A girl
    [X] A guy

    The night you left, you packed a small bag of vital items. There wasn't much; you knew there was little weight allowance, no room for sentiment in the cockpit of a fighter plane. You took a small amount of food and water, your spray goggles, and some warm rainboots. You dressed for the weather; a rain poncho, crimson like all the women in your village wore, and a short scarf of black silk. You left a note for your father and crept next door.

    "Arren?" You whispered through a cracked-open window. A face appeared a moment later, a boy your age with beautiful soft eyes, curtained by dark hair.

    "I'm ready." He whispered back, sliding up the window and kissing you quickly before shuffling out. Arren was dressed in a hooded poncho like your own, black as the males wore. On his back was a small haversack of supplies, and a leather case for his art supplies.

    Arren had been a friend since childhood, and you'd fallen for him so slowly and naturally you hadn't noticed, until one day you'd simply leaned over and kissed him. He was kind and talented and always willing to listen, and he sympathized deeply with you. He was apprenticed to the town's tattoo artist, and though he excelled he much preferred working in pencil and charcoal, spending his meager savings on scraps of paper from nearby traders. More than once, he'd drawn your ritual circles, asking no questions when you deviated from the proscribed methods.

    For a long time, you agonized over having to leave him, but a week ago you'd lost your mind and blurted out that you were going, sobbed into his arms that you didn't want to leave him. He held you and, without hesitation, pledged to come with you.

    "Isa." He had said, running his fingers through your hair. "You know I'd follow you anywhere."

    The two of you started towards the jetty where the seaplanes were tied down, but you stopped in the shadow of the temple, staring up at the lighthouse and the flame burning within.

    "Go on, Arren, load up the plane. I'll be there in a moment."

    You crept through the back entrance with the key the High Priest had given you, and you made your way up towards the High Priest's room. You knew the man very well; he slept heavily, dreamless, in his feather bed, windows shuttered against the wind. You had looked up to him so much as a child, but you'd grown to hate him for his blindness, his hypocrisy, his cruelty. His door ajar, you glanced into his room and saw him nestled in his silk sheets. You recognized the girl who lay beside him, Katrin; she was about your age. Quietly, you slunk into the room, avoiding the creaky floorboards and moving below the bed. There, a small lockbox. You slipped the key you had stolen the night before from your pocket and opened it.

    Within lay five glittering thaler coins, each the diameter of a drinking stein and thick, as well as scrawled notes, a few pieces of jewelry, and an ancient photograph of a woman you assumed was his late wife. The High Priest had said that trade was slow, the fish didn't fetch as much as they used to, which is why there was so little grain, so little fuel for the generators, but nothing had steeled your resolve as much as learning he was lying. Each of those coins could feed a family for a year; you figured you and your boyfriend could live on them for quite a while. You took the coins and left the box open, not risking the sound of the latch again, and you started on your way out.

    As you passed the alter, you slowed and stared. There was the basin, into which you had bled. Lying next to it was the knife which had cut your cheek, and below, the Book of Teachings which the priests read blindly, not understanding a word. After a moments hesitation, you took both, pricking your finger and leaving a drop in the basin as a final offering.

    When you made it to the jetty, Arren had already picked out your plane. The seaplane's nose was taken up with an enormous in-line engine, atop which were a pair of rusty old machine-guns. It floated on two narrow pontoons, and its wings were held with a complex set of steel tubes. It was a trainer, donated by whichever empire this town had once served, with controls in both the front and back seat. Normally, the trainer would sit in the back, and the trainee up front, but you needed that front seat to aim the guns, should it come to that. Arren had stowed his gear and was filling the fuel tank from a jerry can. He beckoned you over and helped you up into the cockpit, where you found a bag waiting for you on the seat.

    "I took the parachute from the flightmaster's office. You should take it." He whispered. You stifled your mind's protest that he should take it instead, and began clipping it on, glancing up at the lighthouse nervously. As Arren finished fueling, your heart sank as you saw lamplight in a window.

    "Arren, we have to go, we have to go now." You said, pulling on your gloves and priming the fuel pump. Arren rushed around the front of the plane and swung the propeller, once, twice, as more lamplights came on and voices started echoing over the water. The engine sputtered and choked.

    "Come on, Arren!"

    "Kontakt!" He yelled.

    You flipped the magneto switch. "Es ist heiß!"

    He swung the propeller, the roar of the engine filled your ears just as the first faces came into view, the High Priest in the lead. You could feel the plane sway as Arren clamored aboard, then a hand on your shoulder telling you to go. You opened the throttle and jammed the rudder to point you towards the open sea, the plane roaring and spraying oil, and within seconds the wings had caught the air, sending you up in a spray of mist and exhaust smoke.

    Arren was trying to tell you something, but you couldn't hear anything over the motor. Not even the whispers.

    ---

    Your journey took you six hours; Arren topped up the tank from the can on his lap and then threw it into the slipstream, and you'd both laughed as you watched the little tin can tumble towards the treetops. You'd spent your whole life in that tiny little village, and had never flown out of sight of it. You couldn't help but indulge yourself, skimming your pontoons against the spray as you wandered down the coast, brushing the tops of the evergreens and laughing as the birds scattered behind you. You let Arren keep the plane steady a while from his controls, intervening when the air slipped out, glancing back at his smile in the mirror mounted on the upper deck.

    You didn't quite know exactly where you were going, following half-remembered instructions from the traders whose cargo planes would occasionally touch down in town. Your village had little to trade but fish, which didn't keep very long, so everything was moved by plane instead of airship. Apparently somewhere to the east, along a wide river, was the trading post where those pilots refueled and rested on the way to your village and the dozens of others like it, and it seemed as good a place as any to stop and get your bearings.

    The spot was nestled next to the river, in a rocky alcove that had been reinforced in ancient times with loose walls. A channel had been dug next to the airstrip for seaplanes, and you landed gracefully and brought yourself to a stop. Arren had long drifted off to sleep; you poked him awake and the two of you waltzed into the pilot's inn, smiles on your faces.

    The next morning, you were two thaler lighter. The coins had gone to lodging, fuel, the plane's berth, the mechanic who had pulled two bad sparkplugs and patched a bullet hole you hadn't even noticed mere feet from the cockpit. The two of you sat in silence in the back corner of the bar, eating pickled fish which had probably come from your own damn village and staring at your remaining coins.

    "This... cost a lot more than I expected." You said, breaking the silence. "We'll be able to stay here maybe two weeks, then we're broke. These rates are theft."

    Your current company upkeep is 3. 1, to pay for your own living expenses. 1, to pay for Arren. And 1, to pay for your aircraft's basic maintenance. Every time you fly, you need to pay upkeep.​

    "But we're not staying here, right? This is just a stopover. We'll make for Aldershof to the west, like we planned." Arren said, grasping your hands. You stared at the interlocking patterns of waves and wind inked into both your arms for a moment, deep in thought.

    "What if we have a breakdown before then? What if we have to turn back? And what do we do when we get there? At these rates, we'll be dead broke. I think... I think we need work."

    "What kind of work? I have my tattooing kit, maybe some of the pilots around here-" Arren said, reaching for his inks.

    "Not that kind of work. Pilot work."

    Roll me 2d10 to find work!​
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • Welcome to Flying Circus!
  • Informational
    • Oh boy!

    So, welcome to Flying Circus! I'll walk you through the system as we go here, but let me tell you the basics if you're not familiar.

    Flying Circus is a Powered by the Apocalypse game about being a cool flying ace in a fantasy world. It is also a game about stress and finances in a post-apocalyptic world. Think of it like an intersection of Apocalypse World, Crimson Skies, and Red Markets. You have the potential to be a hero to the downtrodden and rich beyond your wildest dreams... but you can also go broke, go bad, or nosedive into the ground in a burning airplane.

    One of the things I'll be doing here is running entirely by the random generation rules in Flying Circus wherever the crop up. I'll be randomly generating clients, baddies, and jobs as much as possible to run those systems through their paces.

    We're starting out as Freelancers, because its just one plane and one pilot. You can grow the squadron if you like, but your costs will grow as well, so you'll need to strike a balance. As we're using the Freelancer rules, the NPCs around you will be slightly better fleshed out than normal, and sometimes you will be called to roll for them, rather than just leaving their fate up to GM fiat. These are the same rules currently in use in Nova Squadron.

    So, let me roll up that job for you! While I'm doing that, feel free to ask any mechanical or setting questions; I'll answer as best I can.
    open_sketch threw 2 10-faced dice. Reason: Job Type Total: 12
    2 2 10 10
    open_sketch threw 3 10-faced dice. Reason: Complications Total: 11
    6 6 1 1 4 4
    open_sketch threw 1 10-faced dice. Reason: Initial Offer Total: 8
    8 8
     
  • Informational
    • @open_sketchbook Just a few questions. I assume this is like an early 20th century setting, and if it is what year is it currently? And will we be seeing nice weapons such as Lewis guns and Winchester shotguns? Was kinda hoping for that.
     
    If Arren is any good at painting, he might be able to make his own upkeep doing nose art and rondels.
    nixter said:
    What does the Fisher class specialize in?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Fisher does Weird Shit.
    We don't have access to all of it yet, but on the discord, things that have been kicked about include ways to shift damage from the plane to yourself or vice-versa, possessing the guns on the plane rather than training gunners, and doing creepy rituals for good luck.

    Also, we can be creepy as all hell, which can help or hurt in different situations.

    Now, if the prototype document I saw is accurate, we're doing a patrol, in bad weather, over bad terrain, and will need to deal with potentially hostile flyers. We should probably see if we can negotiate a better deal.
     
    If we're going to be a Freelancer, I suggest going for a Big Gun at the earliest opportunity.

    Our plane is kind of a (robust, somewhat slower) dogfighter right now, which is good, except that we're a Freelancer. Most times, a company will have a few planes specialised for different roles, but we have to essentially be able to do any job we get asked to do, to some degree, or we don't get paid. A heavier calibre cannon will allow us to do stuff like hunt dangerous monsters, or do ground attack missions, and can still be very dangerous in the air if we're a good shot. It should make us more of a generalist.

    samdamandias said:
    If Arren is any good at painting, he might be able to make his own upkeep doing nose art and rondels.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Having sick eldritch nose art on our fighter would be the best.
     
    0-6: First Jobs
  • Threadmarks
    • You and Arren went up to the bar, where the bartender was busily ordering labelless bottles on the shelves. She was an older woman, wire-thin, and her right arm was a brassy clockwork mechanism that made a click-click-click as it grasped and released bottles. She worn a vest that looks like, long ago, it was the jacket of a military uniform.

    You tapped the bartop to get her attention. "Do you know where a pilot could find some work around here?" You asked, trying to sound as natural as you could.

    She turned back to her bottles. "You're flying that two-seater out there, right? The guns on that thing work?"

    "They do." You said. They might, you thought.

    "Alright. The boss was looking for somebody to do a job, let me go get him." She shuffled off to the back, and you shared an quick thumbs up with Arren at the back table.

    The boss was a man in his sixties, perhaps, rotund and with a bushy mustache. He worn an old aviator hat, and as he came around the bar to shake your hand you couldn't help but notice the calloused flesh, left over from some terrible burns in some distant conflict.

    "Mike Seydel, good to meet you." He beamed, then looked at you close. "How old are you, kid? Twenty?"

    "I'll be nineteen in four weeks." You said. "Uhh... I'm Isabelle Morgenthau."

    "Well, Fraulein Morgenthau, I do have a job for you, if you're up for it. South of here there's a marshy stretch. An old regular of mine lives out there, somewhere. I dunno how he managed it, but he used to come in every few weeks to trade furs and skins. About a year ago, stopped coming in, and I assumed the old bastard had just up and died, but about a month ago a cargo crew said they got shot at by what sounds like his old plane. He's hit a few flights since; not knocked anything down yet, but its only a matter of time, and these runners have small enough margins as it is without getting holes in them as well. Either we need to scare him out of the sky, or put him down."

    He laid four coins on the table. "So here's the job. Fly a patrol out over that swamp for a few hours. If you don't find anything, fair does; maybe it'll get him to stay grounded for a bit and that's good enough. I'll pay you 4 thaler for that. But, if you can spot him or his shack and ground him..." He dropped four more heavy coins on the table. "There's a bonus. You don't gotta kill him, but it might come to it. Always thought it would, really."

    Negotiation
    So the way negotiation works is, if you want, you can propose a higher price for a job than the one offered, up to twice what was originally offered. Every +5 added onto the price is a -1 on the negotiate check you gotta make, which is a +Keen roll. Proposing a bonus or similar in certain situations also adds -1, and the bonus is picked by the client. Your Keen is -3 though; you're a smart kid, but you don't think on your feet well enough for this.

    If you pass the negotiation check on a 16+, the client meets your offer. 11-15, there's a compromise. 10 or less, you do the job at whatever price the client offers at that point, which will probably be a slightly cut rate.

    Of course, you can just take the job at the offered rate too, so...

     - [ ] Take the job, as offered.
    - [ ] Negotiate for ______ more. (Write In)​
     
  • Threadmarks
    • [x] Take the job, as offered.
    25% chance to get a compromise, 10% to actually raise, even without maluses from pushing it. Probably lose a thaler on the 65% chance of failure. No thanks.
     
    0-7: Accepting the Offer
  • Threadmarks
    • [x] Take the job, as offered.

    "That sounds fair. I'll get it done."

    You shook on the contract and went back to Arren with fresh beer.

    "Well, that was easy." You said, sliding the stein over. "They want me to fly out over the marshes and scare off some old bandit. Sounds like an easy-" you glanced up. What little colour was in Arren's face had drained out. "What's wrong, babe?"

    "I overheard some of your negotiations. This sounds like they want you to go kill a madman! Isn't there something less... risky?"

    You shook your head. "Our plane is a fighter, not a cargo plane. This is the kind of jobs we're going to get. Don't worry, I'll be safe."

    "Maybe it'd be better if I came with you." Arren said softly. "Another set of eyes, and if something goes wrong I can steer the plane..."

    - [ ] "That sounds like a good idea."
    - [ ] "Arren, you're not cut out for this."

    Confidants can fill seats, acting as gunners, copilots, in-air mechanics, and observers, but they're not as good as professionals, taking a -3 penalty. As an observer, Arren would give you a +2 bonus to your Keen when you Eyeball, which is the move you use to find things (like other planes). Note, it's also really bad if they get hurt or killed; you take 5 Stress if they're injured and 10 if they die, basically enough to guarantee a Break. With some cash, a confidant with no skills can be trained to take on a more useful profession, but right now Arren's job title in your company is "professional boyfriend".​
     
  • Threadmarks
    • [QUOTE="Genesys, post: 9842921, member: 16894]25% chance to get a compromise, 10% to actually raise, even without maluses from pushing it. Probably lose a thaler on the 65% chance of failure. No thanks.[/QUOTE]
    If we ask for anything, that's an additional -1, so we're rolling at -4

    I make it as 20% (15-19 on the dice) of getting a compromise, 1% (20 on the dice) as getting our way, and 79% we screw up. Good thing we opted to take the job.


    [x] "That sounds like a good idea."

    Look, we need that bonus to Eyeball, and if it goes badly we get to stress-test the stress mechanics.

    Edit: Hey Sketch, can we get a sheet with our name and stats at the very least? An instrument panel would be quite useful, yes.
     
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    [X] "Arren, you're not cut out for this."

    Seems like a bad idea to me. I don't think the risk is worth the reward, especially if he's not even good as an observer.
     
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