Think about the secret parts of yourself. The hidden thoughts and ideas you don't have the tools or the wherewithal or the circumstances to express, the idealized version of yourself that isn't really you that you cling to nonetheless. It's an illusion, seen by no one else. They see different yous, fractured and individuated versions of their own perceptions. You are a different person to all of them. No one knows you, not even yourself. What if you could make your you real? What would you be willing to give up for that?
Jon struggled in life. He grew up in a bad home and was treated poorly by people who mostly didn't care. He had some good moments but at the time they only seemed to lay the seeds for greater disappointment and humiliation. Labelled as trouble early on he buried those parts of himself and became what everyone expected of him. He dropped out of polite society, did a lot of bad things and had a lot of bad things done to him. He'd once secretly dreamed of being a doctor. Instead he did the best he could at being the worst lowlife he could be.
Some people in that position turn it around eventually. They might come to rely on a higher power or reach a state of exhaustion where continuing seems more unthinkable than staying the same. Sometimes they won't or fail when they try. Jon didn't do either, instead after his second stint for possession he ended up holding something for a friend. When said friend disappeared and their car turned up in the reservoir he freaked out a little but knew well enough to sit tight. Months passed and no one came looking for the little bag of pink pills that would apparently "totally change your perspective, man, we're gonna be rich!" He thought about throwing it away. Instead Jon got curious, he tried one.
Alt-Jon is everything Jon is not. He's not perfect, in many ways he's weak and unprepared for the world, but he's who Jon dreamt of being. He can do things Jon can't and given the opportunity he started to turn things around, he got a steady job, a new place and started looking at what it would take to get his GED. He bought some mice and experimented on them with the pills. People were alienated by the sudden personality change and, worse, it drew attention. Jon owed people and had enemies that Alt-Jon didn't understand how to deal with. He tried and a pair of guys blacked both his eyes and cracked his ribs. He panicked and, only kind of knowing what would happen, wrote a note to himself and took another pill.
The last thing Jon remembered was taking the first pill. He woke up in a nicer apartment that he apparently had a lease on with a note explaining what he'd been up to the past four months, his new problems and the effects of the pill. Recovering, he put one of those guys in the hospital and squared up some of his debts. He enjoyed the life Alt-Jon had built for him, it was nice. But he slipped into old patterns, lost the job and was about to lose the lease. He needed a solution. So he sat down, wrote a note himself and took another pill.
Jon is effectively two people now. He's stuck shifting back and forth between these alter-egos who correspond through notes and have come to an arrangement. Jon keeps his old life from crashing in and Alt-Jon keeps them in clover and is working his way through pre-med at community college. Some of Jon's old associates have become aware of this last part and Alt-Jon's dismayed at the expectation he'll play mob doctor for them. Jon thinks that's hilarious and encourages it. Alt-Jon would bail if it weren't for Jon's sister, the only family member either of them think is worth a damn. She'd take the punishment if he walks out on Jon's obligations and that's not something they can conscience.
STATS
Personality: In his normal state Jon is smart but angry and limited by the baggage of his past. There are things he can’t get past either because there’s no resolution for them or the facility to do so is out of his hands. He wants the benefits of his improved life but doesn't like that it's really someone else living it. Alt-Jon doesn't have this baggage because at a fundamental level he isn't really Jon. He wants to express the buried positive aspects of Jon's outlook in spite of his circumstances. What bothers him is that he's smothering the real Jon to do it.
Rage: “Karma”. Try suggesting there’s an ultimate fairness to the world within earshot of Jon and watch him spit blood./Alt-Jon can't stand people getting taken advantage of.
Noble: Becoming good enough to justify himself./Second chances. Alt-Jon wants other people to have what he does.
Fear: That he’ll stop being useful and Alt-Jon will get rid of him forever (Isolation)./That he’ll go back to the way he was (Helplessness).
Obsession: Find a way to set his life as it should be.
Wound Threshold: 50.
Sketchy Thug 65/20% (Substitutes for Struggle, Substitutes for Lie, Coerces Violence.)
Gregarious Pre-Med 20/65% (Substitutes for Connect, Substitutes for Knowledge, Medical.)
Personality Switching 35%* (Unique - Switch Personalities, Casts Rituals, Use Gutter Magick. See below for more details.)
Shock Gauges
Notches
|
Violence
|
Unnatural
|
Helplessness
|
Isolation
|
Self
|
Hardened
|
4/1
|
2/2
|
4/2
|
3/2
|
3/3
|
Failed
|
1/2
|
1/1
|
3/1
|
3/2
|
2/2
|
Supernatural Identity: Personality Switching
Like Jekyll and Hyde, Alt-Jon is effectively a second character occupying the same body as Jon. Only one is present and in control at a time. They don't share memories (Alt-Jon has some from before the split, but they feel like they happened to someone else), passions, shock gauges or relationships (that last one can get a little tricky). Between them they've figured out a system of leaving notes and letters to each other. They do share an obsession and to a certain extent their identities. The entries and values before the slash are for Jon and those after the slash are for Alt-Jon.
Sounds like a pretty sweet deal right? Extra identity points and the ability to swap out your gauges when the heat dials up? What a munchkin! It comes with a couple of catches:
- Jon can only change once per day, the transition isn't pleasant (-10% shift for a scene) and is jarring for the woken personality if it succeeds. It causes stress checks depending on unexpected changes, bad situations they're dropped into or just the passage of time ("I've been out for six months!? What the hell!"). If it fails he has to wait another day to try again.
- The change is dependent on taking a pill. He's only got a limited supply and once they're gone he's stuck unless he can get some more. Either Jon would be distressed to learn the active ingredient is human pineal glands.
- Neither of them wants to "die" by being permanently retired by the other. Both of them have hidden a couple of pills away for leverage and try to make sure the other still needs them for something. Other tricks aren't out of the question if things get dicey.
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