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
    • open_sketchbook said:
    Spells are freeform, and the main restriction is that whatever scale you choose to operate at is the scale I fuck you if you roll a miss. That's a pretty simple way of reigning it in.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    How clever are we supposed to be with this.

    For example, I magic up a tiny spark in a giant ammunition storage facility. Is the fuck up equivalent to 1 spark sized event, or to a ammunition storage explosion event.

    Also

    [X] Make it rain for 40 days and 40 nights
     
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    We get forty days and forty nights of rain following around us personally? Like, a little cloud a few meters overhead?

    Huh. Good thing we've got gills. :p
     
    4-25: An Early Morning
  • Threadmarks
    • You awoke in the early hours of the next morning, pleasantly warm thanks to the smoldering embers in the furnace and Arren's body against yours, still fast asleep. It was still dark outside; your window faced the woods outside the town and the moon was new, so the room was almost completely dark, save for the dim orange glow of the furnace vent and the swirl of purple, blue, and teal in the tattoos on your bodies. Disentangling yourself gently (he muttered a sleepy "nooooo" as you wiggled free) you got dressed and set about your preparations.

    Wulf was staying in the room next to yours, so you headed over and knocked on the door. It took a few long minutes to get Wulf awake; it looked like she was even worse than Arren. Finally, she answered the door, her hair a frizzy, wild mess, her ears flattened, and her one eye squinting against your lantern light. You winced a little at her uncovered blind eye, an empty socket surrounded by a wild mass of criss-crossing scars.

    "It's 4:45." You informed her, deadpan.

    "Already?" She complained, rubbing her eye. "Fuck."

    "Yes. The trade balloon leaves in an hour." You said. "You wanted to get ready in time?"

    "Bleeeeeeh." The door closed, and a few minutes later Wolf came out, wearing what looked like a massively oversized men's shirt, her eyepatch back on. "Sorry for the, uh, eyeful." She said.

    "It's okay." You'd seen grosser, though the way inlander scars were pink instead of a natural blue still freaked you out.

    The two of headed out to the hangers to do final prep, warm up your radiators, and otherwise get ready. You wanted to make double sure the repairs on your plane's control systems were solid. The two of you wheeled your planes out to the edge of the airfield and got to work, keeping up a casual conversation as you did.

    You checked the control lines (everything looked good), double-checked all the controls, replaced the water in the radiator, refilled the oil pan, and fueled her up. As you worked, you realized now was probably a pretty good time to get in any last-minute rituals.

    [ ] Leave it as is.
    [ ] Cut your hand and soul-bond yourself to the plane.
    [ ] Wait for Arren to arrive, and soul-bind him to the plane.
    [ ] Ask for Wulf to provide the blood to to bless your plane.

    You can both soul-bind yourself and/or Arren and get Wulf to bless the plane.​
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • Honestly, whilst it seems like we're taking advantage, soul-bonding Arren rather than ourselves to our plane could actually be a nice sign of love, and commitment? We're showing him that we consider him an inseparable part of our plane, our life, and our future, and that we aren't ever going to let him go. I kind of wouldn't want to do it unless he was down with it, however.

    @open_sketchbook is the blessing mentioned here a new version of the Blessing as the Move from our Playbook, or something else? Because it seems like we should get five locations anyway, looking at the wording for that Move posted earlier in this thread, whereas the wording here indicates we choose one. Plus the thing about Handling.
     
    open_sketchbook said:
    Woops serves me right lemme remake votes.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    I honestly though it could have been a less-potent but safer version harnessing the power in Wulf's blood, or something along those lines.

    Because wow, Blessing is a cool Move, as it stands. Like, not unbalancedly so, I think it works fine, especially in comparison to others, and in the context of the Fisher as a playbook. The only comment I might make is that as things stand I'm not sure when you wouldn't use it on your plane, outside of specialised circumstances. But that's not exactly a problem; after all it's a planes game and most of the rules focus on planes.

    If we are gonna use it, on that note, then it might be useful to have some livestock ready as a backup?
     
    Yeah I want to make some modifications to it to indicate the blessing has to be somebody else's blood, so it doesn't overlap too much with soul-bound.
     
    [X] Cut your hand and soul-bond yourself to the plane.
    [X] Wait for Arren to arrive, and soul-bind him to the plane.
    [X] Ask for Wulf to provide the blood to to bless your plane.
     
    I don't think we have anything on hand, and I don't even have a great sense of what they'd consider adequate. Let's skip it.
     
    [X] Cut your hand and soul-bond yourself to the plane.

    Though the hand probably isn't the greatest place to cut yourself.
     
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    4-26: Induction Rituals
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Cut your hand and soul-bond yourself to the plane.

    You were running the engine as Arren arrived, still sleepy-eyed but awake and equipped. It payed to warm the radiator before takeoff, otherwise the cold engine might not function properly. As you waited and watched the mercury climb up the gauge, you took some time to read a bit from your people's book, running over the etched runes and reminding yourself of the wisdom within.

    There was a ritual there you wanted to try. It was originally for the furnaces on old steam balloons, but it might work here, too. You whispered the ritual words to yourself, the words so alien to your tongue that they hurt to say, and you drew your fillet knife vertically across your right palm, the blood welling forth and mixing in your hand. Then, standing on a box to each, you pressed the palm down against the top of the hot radiator. Fuck that hurt. Worth it though; the whispers picked up, offering soothing words. Don't worry child. It won't hurt long.

    Arren wasn't even watching; while he'd never seen that ritual before, he'd seen a dozen like it, and in fact he was currently performing a minor one himself, mixing a drop of his blood with oil before anointing his rifle with it. But Wulf was staring, fascinated and horrified. As you stepped down from your perch, she ran to your side.

    "Isa... doesn't that hurt?" She asked, looking at your hand. The cut was sealed, and the burn little more than a blue patch. Painful, sure, but not debilitating, not as bad as it ought to be. "Oh... but..."

    You smiled a little. "Yeah, but it was worth it. I linked myself to my plane, and guided my patron's attention to it. Basically like explaining to them that this plane is an extension of myself, and if they want to protect me, they should protect it." You explained. "Or something like that."

    "Wow." She said. "Uh... could I do something like that?"

    You thought a moment. "Probably not that, not yet, but maybe something like it." You took her by the hand and guided her over to her helicopter. "Before we do something like that, we should probably, um, let the big guys know you exist."

    You called Arren over, and he produced a small canteen of salt water you'd been carrying with you. Pouring out just a few drops in a spare oil pan, you instructed Wulf to sit in front of it, draw her knife in her dominant hand (she was a righty. Ooh, rare.) and hold out the other over the basin.

    "Okay, so this ritual is going to... it's kind of an induction thing." You explained. "What you're going to do here is basically mark yourself out so that the Gods can find you, and, hopefully, one of them will take you on."

    "Hopefully?" She said.

    "Hopefully. If this works, you'll have something to watch your back." You said.

    Arren piped up, quoting those silly old pre-war medical ads in the papers. "Side effects may include some freaky visions, bad dreams, and talking to yourself in unknowable tongues." He grinned. "Ask your priest if deep ones are right for you."

    "It's not going to make me, uhh...." She kinda waved her arms at you. "All grey and sharky, is it? I mean, not that I think that's bad, it's a look, but like... I don't really think it's me, you know..?"

    "No, don't worry!" You said, not at all offended. Your people had some pretty crazy legends about how this had happened, actually, but it was one of those things you tried to avoid telling outsiders. Saying to somebody "Oh yeah, my lonely great great great grandmother was gifted a perfect man made of seawater and fishbone by a sympathetic alien monster and they had squid-kids" was one of those things that tended to disturb inlanders.

    "So... um... am I going to have to cut myself?" She said nervously, her ears straight back. "Like, my hand?"

    "Not your hand, don't worry." You said. Not today, at least. "Just a little prick on your thumb, to get some attention. One drop into the pan here. We'll take over from there but... there's... there's going to be a word that comes to your mind. You need to just say it, even if it feels wrong, okay?"

    She nodded. "Okay. What's the word?"

    "It's going to be a name." Arren said. "The name of whoever takes notice of you down there. Your first patron."

    She shivered. "Spooky. Welp... here goes?"

    She held her knife (which was really closer to a small sword, to be honest) against her thumb, and, wincing, she ran the blade against the skin. A small drop of bright red blood welled up and ran down into the pan, landing with a *plop!* into the saltwater.

    You let it mix a moment, watching fascinated as the red danced in the water, then you dipped your fingers in and smeared it across her forehead, right to left. It ran down across her face, pooling in her eyebrows and descending her cheek like tears.

    "Bheklir." Wulf whispered, and you smiled.

    "What do you know about them?" You asked.

    "She... she hunts at the surface of the water, with a mile-long wake. She has, um, teeth, like mine, but so many. More than I can count. She um... she doesn't want me to be afraid." She said, entranced, her voice uneven as she swayed on the spot.

    "Are you?" You asked.

    "... yes." She said hesitantly.

    You held her close. "It's okay. It's okay to be afraid."

    She came out of the trance slowly and wrapped her arms around you, breathing hard. You let her calm herself in your arms, Arren watching dispassionately nearby.

    After a long while, Wulf spoke to you.

    "I can still hear her." She said. "In my head. Quiet, but she's there. She's watching me."

    "Is that okay?" You knew the ritual to distract and draw a presence away from somebody, if it came to that, though it wasn't any fun.

    "Yeah. It's... it's okay."

    Then it was her turn to throw up, this time on your shoulder. Welp, this is why you have a waterproof poncho.

    As you warded off her apologies and cleaned the poncho off, Arren ran Wulf through a basic annointing, using the blood and saltwater to mark her helicopter's controls. "I wouldn't, uh, rely on it, but it can be helpful." Arren explained. "We do it to our balloons, so they can guide themselves home if something goes wrong."

    Finally, it was time to go. The Skyborn were dropping their anchor and heading out, their balloon rising from the village and heading south, and you had to follow.

    You got in your plane, and you listened close to the whispers for guidance.

    Roll 2d10. Time to start the next mission!​
     
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