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
    • brmj said:
    Yeah, I've noticed that. I have a hard time imagining an in-person game not getting incredibly awkward. Maybe that's just an Ace thing, but it seems like it would be uncomfortable at best.
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    Thus far I've found it to be great fun. What helps is that the rules for trust and relationships are really simple and straightforward and the rules actively encourage things being patched up quickly. Drama tends to be fleeting and no fight is world-ending. You bicker and squabble and then make up and go fight clockmen in your cool airplanes. The relatively low stakes of the relationship end keeps everything smooth, and the safety systems the game encourages you to use (like the safety roundel or x-card) keep things from crossing boundaries.

    And the rules also generally don't presume sex needs to happen to make things work (i even renamed the general PbtA construct of "sex moves" to "intimacy moves" for that reason.) It's both more flexible that way, and more ace-inclusive.
     
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    [X] Deal

    [X] Deal
    -[X] "One slight change." Lunge and start a furious make out session right then and there.

    brmj said:
    Yeah, I've noticed that. I have a hard time imagining an in-person game not getting incredibly awkward. Maybe that's just an Ace thing, but it seems like it would be uncomfortable at best.
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    Depends on the kind of players you have. If you have the "have fun get drunk" kind of nerds, works great. If you have the "shy bookish" kind of nerds, maybe not?
     
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    Powered by the Apocalypse games are incredible at getting people to have fun outside their comfort zones. Pretty much any group that gets on-board with Monsterhearts is gonna get deep, deep into it, even though it is basically nothing but non-stop, CW-quality relationship drama.
     
    [X] Deal
    Because while I am concerned about the implications for our existing relationship, this one seems good too and the discussion indicates that it is unlikely for this to end exceptionally poorly.

    [X] Deal
    -[X] "One slight change." Lunge and start a furious make out session right then and there.
    Same as above, but I'm also OK with this because it seems fun.
     
    @open_sketchbook Eh. I'd have to see how it plays out in practice I guess. I'll try and withhold judgement for the moment. That said...

    I've re-written this a couple times and I'm still not entirely happy with it, but I figure I might as well just go ahead and get it out there.

    I'm admittedly kind of a weird case, but this whole aspect that seems to be pretty core to a lot of PbtA games is (and I use this turn of phrase with a full grasp of the irony) kind of a turn-off for me. I acknowledge and agree that it's a good and healthy and positive development in the RPG world, especially contrasted with some of the shallow, unhealthy and deeply reactionary portrayals of sexual and relationship issues that can sometimes end up in games by default or design. The issue is, I just can't imagine actually enjoying it. It seems guaranteed to be uncomfortably awkward and mostly boring, even if there's no lasting drama and the group handles it well, and at the end of the day, it's not what I'm there for.

    I really like what you are building here, I like the plane design, the setting and the major aspects of gameplay and could probably grow to really like the core PbtA system, but I have a hard time imagining actually wanting to play something like this as a sustained, in person game for exactly this reason. It seems like much of the other stuff that is a core part of the game could easily be something I would find actively un-fun. And yes, I can see that it need not end up that way, especially with the right group, but just... seems like enough of a risk that in practice I'm unlikely to try. Especially not when the best plausible outcome looks like a significant chunk of the game that is merely not all that uncomfortable and features occasional moments of humor, character development, cuteness or nifty world-building as the only draw, beyond the need to just get through it to get back to the good stuff.

    This probably says a lot more about my psychology than anything else, so please don't take this to heart too much. It may just not be my thing. And yes, I don't think this is just an ace thing. SJ may have the right idea on another major component of it.
     
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    That's totally fair. It's not for everyone.

    I think you could probably still play a pretty decent game of Flying Circus preluded with "no relationship stuff, please." but there would still be interpersonal drama even without romance. There's also a few expansions which will change stuff; the historical expansions are much more military simulator with less emphasis on character interaction and, being set in WW1 and WW2 respectively, probably a whole lot less intrasquadron romance.

    EDIT: I may also be slightly over representing it because I personally am, as I frequently refer to myself, a horny dummy, and moreover a terrible romantic. Since I started transitioning, romance and sex has come to take up a considerable portion of my life, and I spend a lot of time pondering the ways attraction, queerness, polyamory, and kink have intersected in my life. It's going to be a part of my work.

    And, finally, y'all voted to be fishers, the background that is pretty much just a dumping ground for my gothy kinks. Like, almost all the backgrounds are in some way representation of difficulties I've had in my life. The Survivor, for example, is very much a metaphor for being trans, hiding yourself from a toxic environment. The Believer encapsulates my experiences as somebody who has held a variety of radical political views that at times were ruining my life. The Witch explores a lot of my anxieties and teenage envy of feminine mystique. The Soldier is where I poured a lot of the fears I developed around my own sense of inadequacy and weakness, fears that had me walk into a recruiting office at 19 and chicken out at the last minute. The Sheltered my upbringing and struggles with my own privilege, the Student my struggles in education despite my love of learning, the Worker my struggles with trauma. Only the Skyborn is really, truly something written about somebody else.

    The fishers started as an ode to Alas for the Awful Sea and then I kinda spilled the queer obsession with the monstrous on them. Being basically "what if lovecraft cultists were okay folks" their motifs of fish hooks, rigging, and tenticles is supposed to have the same sort of fetishy psychosexual imagery that lovecraft peppered his works with, but in a positive light instead of a something to fear. So basically I really like the fishers and wanna smooch them. Sorry about that.
     
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    [X] I like all that other stuff but seriously, my boyfriend...

    Okay yeah no she's cute & all but I'm not super into (by which I mean super not into) going anywhere near this without talking it over with Arren first. Clear & honest communication is key to healthy relationships.

    (note that this assumes that Isa and Arren have not already had any discussions about boundaries for this sort of thing; if they have then I'd instead default to whatever has been agreed upon between the two of them as acceptable)
     
    open_sketchbook said:
    Powered by the Apocalypse games are incredible at getting people to have fun outside their comfort zones.
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    If you can get enough buy-in. Non-stop relationship drama which is fueled by the PCs being in a web of abusive relationships isn't something I'm interested in, especially when it's the primary driver of the game.

    And yet Apocalypse World, Fellowship, StarDrive*, Monster of the Week, Nahual, and Flying Circus have something else to build stories off of. AW, you're involved with a settlement in the wasteland, maybe even running it. Fellowship you're all there to fight the dark lord. StarDrive, you're a crew in space, maybe merc, maybe Free Traders, maybe survey. Monster of the Week, you're some flavor of monster hunters hunting monsters. Nahual is sorta similar, only you're selling the ground bones of angels out of the back of your taco truck and hoping nobody notices. Flying Circus is pulp dogfights, and going full pulp and plane nerd.

    *Or whatever it's called, it's basically PbtA but Firefly.
    brmj said:
    The issue is, I just can't imagine actually enjoying it. It seems guaranteed to be uncomfortably awkward and mostly boring, even if there's no lasting drama and the group handles it well, and at the end of the day, it's not what I'm there for.
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    In two campaigns of Apocalypse World, I used that move all of once. (And strictly speaking, it wasn't even sex, but I don't want to derail Sketch's thread further with what happened.)

    The sex moves in AW, or intimacy moves in Flying Circus are there to provide options. They are optional. Heck, I think Fellowship and MotW don't have sex/intimacy moves at all.

    [X] I like all that other stuff but seriously, my boyfriend...

    I mean, look, we already had one fight with Arren already, I'd prefer to avoid another one on our return. (Although if I remember the scene in the hiring hall right, Arren was down for threesomes.)
     
    [X] I like all that other stuff but seriously, my boyfriend...
    -[X] Maybe if its a threesome, but not without me
     
    [X] Deal
    -[X] "One slight change." Lunge and start a furious make out session right then and there.

    If we are going down this road for diplomatic reasons, this is probably our best bet.
     
    Heads up. Update incoming but it will be very... I got a little carried away. It's not not safe for work, but I also might describe it as not particularly safe for work. It's extremely gay.

    Listen y'all sent me down the path of writing makeouts between two monstergirls this is your own dang fault.

    There will be a paragraph break midway through the post, so if you are squicked or just not interested skip to there and actual story will resume. But before that I'm going to write some hot goddamn lesbian makeouts and nobody can stop me.
     
    4-17 - Indulgent Makeouts
  • Threadmarks
    • "Deal." You stuck out a hand to shake, and Wulf extended her own.

    Thinking yourself clever, you grabbed her hand and pulled her in for a kiss. Unfortunately, you completely misjudged the distance involved, and succeeded in pulling her chin into your recently punched nose.

    "Ow fuck!" You fell back into your chair, gripping your face as blue ran between your fingers, and Wulf looked kinda dazed. "I'm so sorry! I was trying to-"

    "Goddesses, are you okay? Your face!" Wulf said, getting up and shifting around the table to check on you. "Your nose!"

    "It's okay." You said, your voice nasal as you held it to stop the bleeding. "I'm really sorry, I was trying to be cool..."

    "Nono, it would've been really great. Oh Rhona." She reached out to help and her fingers came away purple, and she stared fascinated as it faded to a dark red as she watched. "Is that supposed to happen?"

    "Yeah, it's fine. Is there like, a napkin around here?" Wulf produces a handkerchief from her belt pouch and you held it against your nose. "Thank you."

    You held an awkward silence for a little bit while you waited for the bleeding to stop. You kept trying to apologize and she kept saying it was okay, like a broken record skipping over the same part. Eventually, the bleeding stopped, and you sheepishly handed back a now wine red handkerchief with another apology.

    "Maybe... let's go back to your room and do this slowly." Wulf said, and you nodded in agreement. No more spontaneity for you tonight, miss!

    After finding out from the barman which room was actually yours (the doc had arranged it... he was a miracle worker!) you stumbled in to a small, cozy little room. A furnace in one corner kept it warm in the spring damp, there was a nice bed with a quilt atop, a a rack for pilots to hand their stuff. You shed your poncho and, after a moment's hesitation, your belt with your knife and book, while Wulf unclipped her huge belt (you counted a knife, a pistol, some flares, ammunition, and a giant pouch of... something) and shed her wolfskin... shawl? Jacket? Outer clothing thing, exposing...

    "Oh my god you have a tail." You said, the words tumbling out of your mouth. "That's so cool. It's so fluffy!"

    "Huh? Oh, yeah. I usually kinda keep it hidden a bit cuz it tends to freak people out. More than the ears even." Said ears twitched a bit. "The cloak helps hide it, cuz it blends in."

    "Cool." It was a cloak. "Was it, uh... somebody you knew? The cloak, I mean?" You asked, feeling increasingly stupid with every word.

    "What? Oh, ahahah, no! I bought it at some trading post. I thought it fit the theme, right?" She twirled around to show off her wolf-ness. "I was like, how can I be even more wolfie?"

    "Wolfier." You offered.

    "Wolfified."

    "Wolfian."

    "I like that one." She said, flashing those teeth again as she came to sit next to you on the bed. "Now then, where were we?"

    Oh right the makeouts. Your leg twitching with nervous energy, you counted a few seconds in your head before going in for the smooch... and backing away at the last second.

    "Aaaah!"

    "Oh no! What's wrong?" Wulf was once again leaning close to check on you. You know, for a bandit, she was really considerate.

    "Sorry sorry! I just... I've never done this before I'm really nervous." You confessed, the chill of blush once again spreading over your face.

    "You've never made out with somebody? Poor Arren." Wulf said.

    "Nonono. Gods, I... I've never kissed a girl before." You confessed.

    "Oh. Well, it's easy. It's like kissing a boy, but softer." She explained sagely. "Less stubble."

    You thought about Arren's anxiety about his lack of facial hair. "Okay. Yeah, okay."

    You tried again, but once again the nervous energy was just too much and you broke it off.

    "You sure you into girls?" Wulf asked.

    "You don't even know my name!" You almost shouted. She shrugged.

    "Wouldn't be the first time. You're really new to the piloting life, aren't you?"

    You mentally counted up the days. Fleeing home, Mike's Outpost and your first flight, the three days it took to install the supercharger, flying to Aldershof, two nights there, flying to Zinkstadt and... oh my god, was that earlier today? Or yesterday, maybe. It was really late out.

    Nine days. It felt like a year.

    You nodded, not really knowing what else to do.

    "Okay, well, if it makes you feel better, you can tell me who you are." Wulf said. You bobbed your head in furious agreement.

    "I'm Isabelle Morgenthau. I'm from Kaltbrunn. My parents were fishers. I serve the dark gods below the waves." You said, as formally as possible. "How do you do?"

    "Pretty good. I'm Wulf. I'm half-wolf. We introduced now?"

    You tried nodding in agreement but your head kinda just vibrated.

    "Alright, look. I think I have a solution. Close your eyes."

    You did, without really thinking about it. A few seconds later, you felt warm, soft lips meet your own.

    You opened your eyes as Wulf backed away, an eyebrow cocked. "See, easy." She said.

    "Yeah." You said. Oh gods she was warm. It radiated off her in a way it didn't even off Arren. You wanted more. "Easy."

    You leaned back over and your lips met again, and this time you held it, and gripped her arm to pull her a little closer. She pushed back against you, leaning close, her hand finding yours and pressing it back. You broke slower that time, savoring it.

    "Oh my gods this is great." You whispered conspiratorially. "Do it again!"

    "One second." Wulf leaned down and started pulling off her jackboots. "I'm a bandit, not a savage. Don't wear your shoes on a bed." She explained.

    "Oh, right!" You quickly shed your rainboots yourself, exposing grey toes poked out of worn black socks. You should probably get some new ones soon. "Okay, what now?"

    Wulf answers by striding over to you, placing her hands on your shoulders, and leaning in. As your lips brushed, she pushed you backward onto the bed, then leaned back over you, her lips locking to yours, and then wandering down your cheek...

    "Ow." You said. "Not that side. Still tender."

    "-orry." She muttered, switching sides.

    ... wandering down your cheek, teeth scraping gentling along your jawline. You could feel the tip of her canines tracing along your chin... Oh, that felt amazing. Wulf needed to teach Arren how to do that, you thought, and then that sent you down a rabbit hole that left you shivering.

    Maybe that was the lips brushing against your gills though. You weren't sure.

    "Is that okay?" Wulf whispered. "They looked sensitive." You gave a sort of mmhm affirmative noise and wrapped your arms around her, pulling her back in, and then you worked one of your hands up to scratch her ears again. That had the desired effect almost immediately, and gave you the upper hand enough to roll her over a little and return the favour, running kisses down her neck to her exposed collarbone, nipping very gently...

    "Ow." Wulf's turn. "It's good babe, but less teeth. Those things are really... sharp..." She trailed off as you adjusted. Note to self: inlanders had really thin skin. You were very, very careful this time, and it worked wonders.

    The two of you kept interlocked for a while longer, alternating, running hands over one another, before you realized that, oops, you had her shirt mostly off. You pulled back, maybe a bit reluctantly.

    "I don't wanna go any further, without..."

    "Right right, the boyfriend." She said, smiling. "That's okay. You're pretty good at this, for somebody whose never done it before."

    You made a sort of exaggerated grumpy face. "You know that's not true. I just hadn't with, you know..."

    "A wolf?" She offered.

    "Sure." You settled back against the bed, and she curled up close beside you, leaning her head on your shoulder, her lips against your ear, and you just stayed like that a while.

    Soon, though, the exhaustion which had vanished before suddenly returning with a vengeance. "Hey, I'm just going to lie here a bit if that's okay... I'm really tired."

    Wulf whispered "Sure thing." into your ear, running some fingers through your hair (eeeeeeeee!). Slowly, she got up and started to retrieve her boots.

    "You should get some sleep. You look like you need it. I'll see you in the morning to work out the mission. Sweet dreams, my little fish."

    You really liked the sound of that for some reason. Mein kleiner fisch... It was cute.

    ----

    The next morning, you were feeling a lot closer to human. The inn had a shower, which you took full advantage of (declining the offer for hot water, of course, which left the attendant a little confused.) Engine oil and dirt ran off you in waves, and your hair finally had that healthy wet sheen you'd been missing.

    You took the opportunity to inspect your wound in the bathroom mirror. It looked nasty, a big ugly purple scab on your back and a much smaller one on your front, but it looked clean. You knew that, given a good apothecary, a gunshot which missed anything vital was usually just a short-term inconvenience, but it still hurt quite a bit. You bandaged it back up to the doctor's instructions, grinding some of the herb he'd given you into the bandage before wrapping it in place, then you put some in your mouth and chewed. It tasted very bitter, but the effect was immediately soothing, the pain dropping away almost instantly and only returning when you stretched out your left arm or flexed too fast.

    You met Wulf downstairs, eating a breakfast that seemed to consist of about a dozen eggs and a plate of barely-cooked meat, and you got something yourself from the bar. You sat and talked about nothing for a bit, dancing around anything of importance, then headed out to meet the burgermeisterin and secure some payment.

    Gonna treat this as a find work roll, even though we know what the work will be. Roll 2d10+1!

    Also, thank you all for this amazing chance to write monstergirl makeouts. Honestly I thought putting Wulf in the bar would lead to a fight or a daring escape or a clumsy assassination attempt this is so much better.     ​
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • open_sketchbook said:
    Gonna treat this as a find work roll, even though we know what the work will be. Roll 2d10+1!

    Also, thank you all for this amazing chance to write monstergirl makeouts. Honestly I thought putting Wulf in the bar would lead to a fight or a daring escape or a clumsy assassination attempt this is so much better.     ​
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    Hm. Does the world of Flying Circus have an equivalent to saying "Let others wage war; thou, happy Austria, marry?" In real life it's a reference to how much mileage Austria got out of well-placed dynastic marriages that turned the Habsburgs into a world power for a few hundred years.

    "Let others wage war; thou, happy Isabelle, wage smoochies."
     
    Let me check my job chart...

    Okay so the landscape is going to very, very, very bad, and it's going to be hostile-held territory, and they're going to be waiting for you.

    Hehehehehehhahahaha!!!

    Update incoming.
     
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