Ritual: Lacuna
Cost: 4 minor charges.
Ritual Action: Make a physical record of a specific event or time you want to forget. It can be written or painted or recorded, whatever suits your preference and abilities. It must be as complete as your recollection, leave out no details no matter how much you might wish to or the ritual fails.
Burn a 6 foot diameter, geometric pattern into oak flooring. Be exact, the dimensions are not forgiving. Take a broken ceramic bowl repaired with silver and some lavender oil. Sitting in the center of the pattern with the bowl, destroy and crumple up the physical record, drench it in oil and set it ablaze. Wreathed in smoke, recite the words. They are different each time the ritual is passed on.
Effect: You lose memory from around the time or event in the record for a number of hours equal to the tens place of your ritual roll. This may include removing 1 hardened or failed notch from a gauge dinged during that period, more substantial stress damage than that from the period remains but you have no memory of the cause. You also can’t remember what you put in the record, although you do remember making it. Your memory of the words recited is altered to match the new ritual.
You also lose recollection of an equal number of hours from the time that you cast the ritual. During this time you are possessed by whatever demon the ritual calls up. That demon takes on your recollection of the lost recorded event/s.
Ritual: Tabula Rasa
Cost: 4 significant charges.
Ritual Action: Destroy all records of your life that you have control over: ID, birth certificate, old school report cards, mail, journals, photos, social media. If someone else retains records on you they don’t matter, although you may not have given those records to them. If you have you need to retrieve and destroy those too. Break off your strongest (highest percentile) relationship in a way that is unequivocal and leaves the other person unwilling to have contact with you, if several are tied for strongest do all of them. If you don't have anyone the ritual cannot be performed.
Drive from the place you live to the nearest spot overlooking the furthest ocean reachable by land without taking any unnecessary breaks. When you get there remove the number plates and the battery from your vehicle and toss them into the sea. Turn right and walk, following the coastline. Keep walking until after dark. At some point after the sun has set you will come to a house, the lights will be off and the door will be unlocked. Go inside and go to sleep in the first chair or bed you see. If you sleep undisturbed until sunrise and the ritual succeeds you may never know it.
Effect: Grab a new character sheet. Assign no hardened notches and no failed notches, do not fill out any of the relationships, passions or obsession (they’ll have to be (re)developed in play). If any of your old identities were physical characteristics or if you had any injuries they carry over to the new sheet in addition to physical appearance. Any magickal effects on you that were not attached to your physical body end. Make a note of the percentiles in lost identities, the GM may allow you to reassign them as you develop new identities. Throw your old character sheet away.
You’re an irretrievable, retrograde amnesiac. You have no memories of prior to conducting the ritual and you never will. You have a basic command of most common abilities provided you had them before but all specialist knowledge and skills are forever lost. Mentally you are effectively a new person whose life starts right now. Make a rank 7 Helplessness check regarding your lack of identity.
As a side effect you lose the ability to conceive children, if you had it. There is no physical change or explanation for this, it just doesn't happen. No one pregnant has ever attempted this ritual.
Tuesday, 16 July 2019
Monday, 15 July 2019
076 - Pareidolic Shamanism
Unnatural Phenomenon: Pareidolic Shamanism
Faces are vital to the way human beings interact with each other. It’s one of the first things infants learn to distinguish between, showing a strong preference for their mother’s and learning to mimic expressions they can’t yet understand. The fusiform face area is a part of the brain specifically dedicated to discerning subtle differences and associations between faces. It’s so sensitive that flipped images of our own, the opposite of what is normally seen in the mirror, provoke vague feelings of wrongness.
Diseases of facial recognition are distinctly disturbing. Capgras delusion arises when brain damage prevents the limbic system from provoking the familiar emotional responses that accompany the faces of your loved ones, the eerie disconnect resulting in the feeling that they have been replaced by a duplicate imposter. Prosopagnosia robs people of their ability to distinguish between faces altogether, forcing victims to rely on piecemeal identification strategies to interact with people.
Even in healthy individuals this creates interesting short circuits. Pareidolia, the tendency to see faces in inanimate objects, is the result of overeager brain function. Two dots and a line are enough to activate facial perception faster than real faces, the primitive recognition system useful for rapidly disseminating information in signage and exams. It makes us see Jesus in burnt toast and faces in Martian mountains.
With the right magickal climate and a little juice this perception becomes a reality.
The bow-mouth handle on a chest of drawers with knobs for eyes twists into a smirk as your creepy, dead great-uncle wonders when he’s going to get nieces and nephews. The misshapen cinnamon roll you’re about to eat begs for its life and promises to grant you wishes, if you’ll just take a moment to listen to its thesis on 1950s Japanese cinema. The smiling grille on your car asks if you’re really going out dressed like that. You haven’t gone crazy (though you might, since it’s probably a rank 3-6 Unnatural check), the part of your mind that interprets faces has been temporarily hijacked as a conduit through which astrally projecting adepts, demons and other intangibles can communicate with you. In places of great resonance even the Invisible Clergy might deign to squeeze themselves down tightly enough to speak in symbolic riddles that warp the mind.
Typically it lasts less than 10 minutes or until the afflicted individual has a freakout and everything snaps back to normal, when the windows on the train station stop heckling and taunting them in the voices of dead children. Normally isolated to one person, major versions of the phenomenon can affect groups in what science would call “an incident of mass hysteria”.
Theoretically an Epideromancer could induce this in someone permanently by carefully probing around inside their skull and dumping a few charges. Supernatural identities based on the change are best represented by the Versatility feature, given the broad spectrum of advice and warnings made possible by any part of your environment suddenly becoming a mouthpiece for any passing demon or revenant. Likely uses are the two Information and Vague Protection (“Look out behind you!”) features, more tangible supernatural effects might be possible depending on the available entity, its powers and willingness to use them.
GMs and players who wish to explore the idea of a character who has to manage their relationships with the entities that inhabit the faces of their perception may wish to crib from the standard relationship rules in the place of regular advancement. Being approached by something for a favour buying a 5% increase in reputation among the intangibles, if you cough up, is fair. Conversely, threatening to cut everyone off unless Ssissirax the Unfair warps probability on the slot machine you just stuck your last $20 into is the equivalent for coercion. If it buys something non-standard or a reroll on normally available effects a 5% cost for strong-arming the spirit world is reasonable. Working with minds that are no longer or never were human can be trying, spare a thought next time for the woman you see arguing with a crude face etched onto a wooden mallet aboard the city bus.
Faces are vital to the way human beings interact with each other. It’s one of the first things infants learn to distinguish between, showing a strong preference for their mother’s and learning to mimic expressions they can’t yet understand. The fusiform face area is a part of the brain specifically dedicated to discerning subtle differences and associations between faces. It’s so sensitive that flipped images of our own, the opposite of what is normally seen in the mirror, provoke vague feelings of wrongness.
Diseases of facial recognition are distinctly disturbing. Capgras delusion arises when brain damage prevents the limbic system from provoking the familiar emotional responses that accompany the faces of your loved ones, the eerie disconnect resulting in the feeling that they have been replaced by a duplicate imposter. Prosopagnosia robs people of their ability to distinguish between faces altogether, forcing victims to rely on piecemeal identification strategies to interact with people.
Even in healthy individuals this creates interesting short circuits. Pareidolia, the tendency to see faces in inanimate objects, is the result of overeager brain function. Two dots and a line are enough to activate facial perception faster than real faces, the primitive recognition system useful for rapidly disseminating information in signage and exams. It makes us see Jesus in burnt toast and faces in Martian mountains.
With the right magickal climate and a little juice this perception becomes a reality.
The bow-mouth handle on a chest of drawers with knobs for eyes twists into a smirk as your creepy, dead great-uncle wonders when he’s going to get nieces and nephews. The misshapen cinnamon roll you’re about to eat begs for its life and promises to grant you wishes, if you’ll just take a moment to listen to its thesis on 1950s Japanese cinema. The smiling grille on your car asks if you’re really going out dressed like that. You haven’t gone crazy (though you might, since it’s probably a rank 3-6 Unnatural check), the part of your mind that interprets faces has been temporarily hijacked as a conduit through which astrally projecting adepts, demons and other intangibles can communicate with you. In places of great resonance even the Invisible Clergy might deign to squeeze themselves down tightly enough to speak in symbolic riddles that warp the mind.
Typically it lasts less than 10 minutes or until the afflicted individual has a freakout and everything snaps back to normal, when the windows on the train station stop heckling and taunting them in the voices of dead children. Normally isolated to one person, major versions of the phenomenon can affect groups in what science would call “an incident of mass hysteria”.
Theoretically an Epideromancer could induce this in someone permanently by carefully probing around inside their skull and dumping a few charges. Supernatural identities based on the change are best represented by the Versatility feature, given the broad spectrum of advice and warnings made possible by any part of your environment suddenly becoming a mouthpiece for any passing demon or revenant. Likely uses are the two Information and Vague Protection (“Look out behind you!”) features, more tangible supernatural effects might be possible depending on the available entity, its powers and willingness to use them.
GMs and players who wish to explore the idea of a character who has to manage their relationships with the entities that inhabit the faces of their perception may wish to crib from the standard relationship rules in the place of regular advancement. Being approached by something for a favour buying a 5% increase in reputation among the intangibles, if you cough up, is fair. Conversely, threatening to cut everyone off unless Ssissirax the Unfair warps probability on the slot machine you just stuck your last $20 into is the equivalent for coercion. If it buys something non-standard or a reroll on normally available effects a 5% cost for strong-arming the spirit world is reasonable. Working with minds that are no longer or never were human can be trying, spare a thought next time for the woman you see arguing with a crude face etched onto a wooden mallet aboard the city bus.
Sunday, 14 July 2019
075 - Augean Soap
Artifact: Augean Soap
Power: Significant.
Description: A small bar of pink-salt crystal studded rattlesnake oil soap. It smells vaguely like a musty barnyard and is surprisingly weighty.
Their source is unknown and sought after. The sole survivor of a number of TNI raids where bars were recovered is now squirrelled away in an institution in a catatonic stupor. They are monitored via bimonthly visits by Inquisition goons masquerading as family. The only other clue to the soap’s origin is that the three bars picked up were wrapped in twine and West German newspapers from the 1970s.
Effect: Wash yourself in a tub of water that is as hot as you can stand, soaping every exposed part of your body except your eyes thoroughly. The soap is only good for one use, so go nuts.
The cleansing effect of the soap can remove up to 2 hardened or 1 failed notch or a single persistent magickal effect, like a gutter magick curse or a significant Viaturgy blast that hasn’t gone off yet. The caveat is that the damage has to have been done within the last 30 days and it doesn’t work if you were acting on someone else’s behalf when you were hit with whatever you’re washing off. If a Mak Attaxer wants to get rid of the Violence or Unnatural damage done when a disgruntled Detritomancer robbed their workplace with a horde of rats then they’d better have been off the clock.
Theoretically you could pass on whatever was washed off you by doing something with the fouled bathwater. That'd be pretty disgusting though.
Power: Significant.
Description: A small bar of pink-salt crystal studded rattlesnake oil soap. It smells vaguely like a musty barnyard and is surprisingly weighty.
Their source is unknown and sought after. The sole survivor of a number of TNI raids where bars were recovered is now squirrelled away in an institution in a catatonic stupor. They are monitored via bimonthly visits by Inquisition goons masquerading as family. The only other clue to the soap’s origin is that the three bars picked up were wrapped in twine and West German newspapers from the 1970s.
Effect: Wash yourself in a tub of water that is as hot as you can stand, soaping every exposed part of your body except your eyes thoroughly. The soap is only good for one use, so go nuts.
The cleansing effect of the soap can remove up to 2 hardened or 1 failed notch or a single persistent magickal effect, like a gutter magick curse or a significant Viaturgy blast that hasn’t gone off yet. The caveat is that the damage has to have been done within the last 30 days and it doesn’t work if you were acting on someone else’s behalf when you were hit with whatever you’re washing off. If a Mak Attaxer wants to get rid of the Violence or Unnatural damage done when a disgruntled Detritomancer robbed their workplace with a horde of rats then they’d better have been off the clock.
Theoretically you could pass on whatever was washed off you by doing something with the fouled bathwater. That'd be pretty disgusting though.
Saturday, 13 July 2019
074 - Jesus McCormick & the Road-Shoggoth
Unnatural Entity: Jesus McCormick & the Road-Shoggoth
Drawn to each other like moths to flame, Viaturges Jesus McCormick and Donnie Ferrara were a match made in hell. The country, the world is a big place and there are roads all over. They could have gone anywhere and never seen each other ever again. But they couldn’t help themselves.
Childhood friends, their bitter rivalry was born of shared first love. An ancient Pontiac Firebird they rescued from a scrapyard and lovingly restored over three summers as teenagers. Joint ownership of something so special to both their hearts was a recipe for disaster. Hormones and teenage jealousy sparked the beginning of a life-long feud built on the flimsiest pretext. If you asked either of them how it started they’d have given you completely different stories, both lies of misremembered self-deception as much as bitterness. It hardly matters how it started, only that it couldn't seem to end.
Sole ownership of that car became the defining life goal for both young men and the basis on which they both separately fell into Viaturgy, the magick of cars and the open road. It traded back and forth between them for nine years: stolen, won in races, and sold out of heartbroken desperation. Then Jesus went through the House of Renunciation and came out as free of earthly desire as a Bodhisattva. He went to return the Firebird to Donnie and make peace. Given that his last repossession had been particularly savage, Donnie cracked his skull with a tire iron without letting him explain.
Dumped in the desert, Jesus died two days later just in sight of the highway. Circling carrion birds drew the authorities and he was buried as a John Doe. He still outlived Donnie. On his way back to civilization Jesus’s murderer had a momentary lapse. A corner taken too fast and an oncoming truck saw him through a guard rail and into a burning wreck. It could've happened to anyone.
This sad story would amount to little more than a warning against shortsighted anger, greed and grudges (and the wisdom of calling ahead to let your worst enemy know you’re coming in peace), were it not for the fact they’re still both around.
Drawn to each other like moths to flame, Viaturges Jesus McCormick and Donnie Ferrara were a match made in hell. The country, the world is a big place and there are roads all over. They could have gone anywhere and never seen each other ever again. But they couldn’t help themselves.
Childhood friends, their bitter rivalry was born of shared first love. An ancient Pontiac Firebird they rescued from a scrapyard and lovingly restored over three summers as teenagers. Joint ownership of something so special to both their hearts was a recipe for disaster. Hormones and teenage jealousy sparked the beginning of a life-long feud built on the flimsiest pretext. If you asked either of them how it started they’d have given you completely different stories, both lies of misremembered self-deception as much as bitterness. It hardly matters how it started, only that it couldn't seem to end.
Sole ownership of that car became the defining life goal for both young men and the basis on which they both separately fell into Viaturgy, the magick of cars and the open road. It traded back and forth between them for nine years: stolen, won in races, and sold out of heartbroken desperation. Then Jesus went through the House of Renunciation and came out as free of earthly desire as a Bodhisattva. He went to return the Firebird to Donnie and make peace. Given that his last repossession had been particularly savage, Donnie cracked his skull with a tire iron without letting him explain.
Dumped in the desert, Jesus died two days later just in sight of the highway. Circling carrion birds drew the authorities and he was buried as a John Doe. He still outlived Donnie. On his way back to civilization Jesus’s murderer had a momentary lapse. A corner taken too fast and an oncoming truck saw him through a guard rail and into a burning wreck. It could've happened to anyone.
This sad story would amount to little more than a warning against shortsighted anger, greed and grudges (and the wisdom of calling ahead to let your worst enemy know you’re coming in peace), were it not for the fact they’re still both around.
Jesus has become something like a revenant hitchhiker. Possessed by the purpose bestowed upon him by his time in the House he wants to return to his hometown, find Donnie’s grave and make the amends he meant to all those years ago. If he ever succeeds it’ll put them both to rest. Anyone can find him but only once, he appears in the same spot that the last person who picked him up left him if you’re headed in the right direction. If you can take him far enough his soft words will solve your deepest emotional troubles.
Donnie, on the other hand, has become something altogether more sinister and dangerous.
Possessiveness incarnate, the Road-Shoggoth is what is left of him. A tarry, oil slick behemoth that blends perfectly with the highway. Its attacks start out as deniable bad luck, a traffic snarl or bad conditions on precarious road. Something to put you on edge. Then it escalates, a minor accident or a vehicular malfunction (spiking a fuel line or radiator with a black tendril as you drive over it). Then it tries to wreck you, ideally this will happen by your own mistake out of a situation it creates (if it can kill someone this way Jesus goes all the way back to where he died in the desert to start his journey over) but the road suddenly rearing up and trying to fling you into a tree isn’t out of the question. Donnie was never patient. The entire ordeal has been described as a lot like the movie Duel if the truck were mostly invisible.
Jesus knows what Donnie is and can explain what’s going on, but he won’t think to remark on it until someone else brings it up. You can drop him off sooner if you want but the Road-Shoggoth will chase you down until someone else takes Jesus. Or until you abandon your car.
That's one point that may help potential victims survive. The Road-Shoggoth can’t see people, only vehicles. That won’t stop it from crushing you if you happen to be in the way when it lumbers over to smash the wreck of your SUV flat, but it does provide an avenue to escape its wrath. It does mean giving up on Jesus’s once-in-a-lifetime healing, but that might be your only hope.
Jesus McCormick, Hitching into the Sun
Reconcile 99%: Jesus can fix something that’s wrong with you. He’s not very smart or eloquent and most of his metaphors involve cars but there’s something wholesome and true and sublime about the way he speaks. If you can take him a full leg of his journey then his parting words are like a salve. GMs discretion on exactly what it does but after an ordeal like the Road-Shoggoth clearing out the failed notches on a gauge or giving you the insight to boost a damaged relationship by the roll (maxing out at its base value +10%) isn’t out of order. If you don’t manage a full leg then that’s too bad, he only appears to each person once.
Road-Shoggoth, Forty Miles of Bad Road
Wound Threshold: Bucketloads. Say 150, if being plowed into by a car doing 90 miles an hour only did hand-to-hand damage. Any other attacks, short of the kind of explosives used for quarrying, aren’t going to cut it.
Lonely Road 60%: Substitutes for Secrecy, Substitutes for Pursuit. The Road-Shoggoth can be anywhere Jesus is, provided it’s paved in asphalt. The only warning is a sudden shift in road conditions. It might look soaked in bone dry conditions or the inverse, it might ripple ominously like a heat mirage. This identity is used for creating road hazards and other mischief.
THWOMP! 50%: Substitutes for Struggle (if a landslide had a Struggle score). The Road-Shoggoth is powerful but imprecise when it comes to direct aggression, oppose this with a Pursuit roll from an aware driver. Success puts them in a car wreck as per pg. 71-72 of Book 1: Play. A driver can use speed to punch their way out of trouble, every full 30 mph over 60 gives a +10% shift to their Pursuit roll (max. +30%), but going faster means you wreck harder.
Donnie, on the other hand, has become something altogether more sinister and dangerous.
Possessiveness incarnate, the Road-Shoggoth is what is left of him. A tarry, oil slick behemoth that blends perfectly with the highway. Its attacks start out as deniable bad luck, a traffic snarl or bad conditions on precarious road. Something to put you on edge. Then it escalates, a minor accident or a vehicular malfunction (spiking a fuel line or radiator with a black tendril as you drive over it). Then it tries to wreck you, ideally this will happen by your own mistake out of a situation it creates (if it can kill someone this way Jesus goes all the way back to where he died in the desert to start his journey over) but the road suddenly rearing up and trying to fling you into a tree isn’t out of the question. Donnie was never patient. The entire ordeal has been described as a lot like the movie Duel if the truck were mostly invisible.
Jesus knows what Donnie is and can explain what’s going on, but he won’t think to remark on it until someone else brings it up. You can drop him off sooner if you want but the Road-Shoggoth will chase you down until someone else takes Jesus. Or until you abandon your car.
That's one point that may help potential victims survive. The Road-Shoggoth can’t see people, only vehicles. That won’t stop it from crushing you if you happen to be in the way when it lumbers over to smash the wreck of your SUV flat, but it does provide an avenue to escape its wrath. It does mean giving up on Jesus’s once-in-a-lifetime healing, but that might be your only hope.
Jesus McCormick, Hitching into the Sun
Reconcile 99%: Jesus can fix something that’s wrong with you. He’s not very smart or eloquent and most of his metaphors involve cars but there’s something wholesome and true and sublime about the way he speaks. If you can take him a full leg of his journey then his parting words are like a salve. GMs discretion on exactly what it does but after an ordeal like the Road-Shoggoth clearing out the failed notches on a gauge or giving you the insight to boost a damaged relationship by the roll (maxing out at its base value +10%) isn’t out of order. If you don’t manage a full leg then that’s too bad, he only appears to each person once.
Road-Shoggoth, Forty Miles of Bad Road
Wound Threshold: Bucketloads. Say 150, if being plowed into by a car doing 90 miles an hour only did hand-to-hand damage. Any other attacks, short of the kind of explosives used for quarrying, aren’t going to cut it.
Lonely Road 60%: Substitutes for Secrecy, Substitutes for Pursuit. The Road-Shoggoth can be anywhere Jesus is, provided it’s paved in asphalt. The only warning is a sudden shift in road conditions. It might look soaked in bone dry conditions or the inverse, it might ripple ominously like a heat mirage. This identity is used for creating road hazards and other mischief.
THWOMP! 50%: Substitutes for Struggle (if a landslide had a Struggle score). The Road-Shoggoth is powerful but imprecise when it comes to direct aggression, oppose this with a Pursuit roll from an aware driver. Success puts them in a car wreck as per pg. 71-72 of Book 1: Play. A driver can use speed to punch their way out of trouble, every full 30 mph over 60 gives a +10% shift to their Pursuit roll (max. +30%), but going faster means you wreck harder.
Friday, 12 July 2019
073 - The Perpetual Kingdom of Roscommon Avenue
Otherspace: The Perpetual Kingdom of Roscommon Avenue
His original will was to shape the Order into something worthy of ruling in his place but he has been disappointed by them. More recently he has taken to secretly testing newcomers, cultivating and trying to find a worthy individual to name as successor. Some of the knights who expect to take his place in the aftermath are becoming suspicious, he fears a coup. He doesn’t have long.
Nothing lasts forever, but this can. He hopes.
The reality-exiled castle of a king who wanted to rule forever, the Perpetual Kingdom is a court with an expiration date. Dennis Glass, the man in charge, counts and apportions time carefully to avoid it. It’s a losing battle, there are only so many ways you can divide the same day over and over. It will always be June 26th, 2008 in the Kingdom, the day looping over itself like an ouroboros every time the clock strikes midnight. This sort of suspension wreaks merry havoc with the otherspace’s stability and well-being. For one thing, it needs constant feeding.
Travel to the Kingdom
Located in a supply closet in a heavily secured hallway in the back of a coworking office space, the Kingdom’s doorway is exactly where it used to be when it was a diner in the real world. It is suspended in the air, half a foot from the ground in the middle of the room atop stairs that no longer exist. Flickering in and out of reality with a grainy filter effect seemingly at random, access is highly policed by Dennis’s real world contingent. Entering or exiting at a particular time of day blocks access to the portal at that time on all subsequent days.
The opaque-glassed, peeling wooden door is secured by password: “Look on my works, ye mighty and despair” while clutching the door handle and mentally picturing the person you respect most (if you picture someone else you still gain entry but appear dressed in a jester’s motley, sometimes this is used as a test of intent or to disarm or disorient). The sign in the doorway momentarily flickers between “CLOSED” and “OPEN” and you appear inside. Accompanying members of Dennis’s court will usher people through in rapid succession to avoid exhausting the doorway’s limited lifespan.
Exit works the same way, without the password. If you ended up in jester’s motley, you’re stuck with it. Sorry about your old clothes.
The Kingdom’s Landscape
At a glance the diner is like any other, linoleum flooring, stools at the counter and booths. There are three bullet holes in one of the walls. Way in the back sits the man who everyone inside pays deference to, Dennis Glass has been the True King of Roscommon Avenue (and surrounding territories) since the early 00s. His touch in creating the otherspace redoubt binds him here and makes him a part of it, when he gets emotional there is a strobing effect that visually replaces the diner’s environment with a spacious throne room (rank 4 unnatural stress check the first time it happens).
The other inhabitants of the Kingdom are all Dennis’s subjects, all of them have a personal story of his benevolence and wisdom. Everyone serves willingly and with zeal, a climate that is reinforced by the otherspace's ambience and his True King avatar connection. At least one would-be interloper has been run through with a sword by the fry cook.
Dennis ostensibly wants two things: to secure and maintain his hold on Roscommon Avenue for all time and to feed his otherspace. Every single day that passes on the outside requires a day leeched from someone for the sub-reality to remain stable (or else it begins to collapse like a temporary otherspace, see pg. 117 of Book 2: Run). Dennis’s third avatar channel allows him to take this time from himself and his subjects if they are willing. Alternatively, if you can provide something that Dennis is interested in he may be willing to give you something in return. Provided you can observe the proper protocol, it isn’t a trade, it’s a gift that might be repaid by the benevolence of the realm’s ruler.
The resource that allows the Kingdom to stay afloat is a limited form of time travel. If you were to give Dennis a letter at an early hour on a future date there is nothing stopping him from returning it to you at a later hour on the present day, the looping runs forward and backwards for objects from the outside. Of course this only occurs if Dennis wills it, the very first and last thing passed through is a ledger detailing past and future trades which he judiciously manages his own knowledge of. Dennis is sensitive to the terrible changes his kingdom’s power might inflict on the outside world, at the very least he has his knights police potential outcomes using his own future given knowledge.
The Order of Roscommon Avenue
That Dennis has chosen to rule in absentia is a technicality, his Order enforces his will and brings him fresh subjects and those who wish to entreaty his aid. His, and the otherspace’s, time is limited so he has appointed this delegation to see to his real world interests. Their original membership was drawn from those who accompanied him when the Kingdom was built. Like a lot of knightly orders operating outside the direct authority of their ruler they’ve become an a power unto themselves that threatens the integrity of the Kingdom of Roscommon Avenue. Think the Knights Templar getting too big for their boots.
They police goings on in the Kingdom, put down insurrection and invasion and manage the affairs that don’t warrant Dennis’s direct attention. There are multiple arms of the Order with varying overlapping responsibilities which he plays off against one another as best he can to keep any of them from amassing too much power. There’s also the tithing. 2 days of every month belongs to the Kingdom, payable on demand (this debt is generally allowed to accrue for long periods to limit travel to and from the otherspace).
In return they enjoy the largess of a magickal kingdom that can win lotteries at will, the treasury is deep and they are well equipped and wealthy. Tithing can be offset by recruitment. New members are expected to bear the burden of their superiors as a method of testing their resolve, even to the point that the recruiter’s debt to the Kingdom is in credit. In one case a community-flavoured MLM scheme was used as a front for this activity.
The Future
Dennis understands that his otherspace's days are numbered. Ironically for an institution that was built to last forever, eventually the time that the door to the real world exists will be exhausted and the otherspace will be cut off and collapse. He carries that burden like the bullet wounds that will never heal.
Travel to the Kingdom
Located in a supply closet in a heavily secured hallway in the back of a coworking office space, the Kingdom’s doorway is exactly where it used to be when it was a diner in the real world. It is suspended in the air, half a foot from the ground in the middle of the room atop stairs that no longer exist. Flickering in and out of reality with a grainy filter effect seemingly at random, access is highly policed by Dennis’s real world contingent. Entering or exiting at a particular time of day blocks access to the portal at that time on all subsequent days.
The opaque-glassed, peeling wooden door is secured by password: “Look on my works, ye mighty and despair” while clutching the door handle and mentally picturing the person you respect most (if you picture someone else you still gain entry but appear dressed in a jester’s motley, sometimes this is used as a test of intent or to disarm or disorient). The sign in the doorway momentarily flickers between “CLOSED” and “OPEN” and you appear inside. Accompanying members of Dennis’s court will usher people through in rapid succession to avoid exhausting the doorway’s limited lifespan.
Exit works the same way, without the password. If you ended up in jester’s motley, you’re stuck with it. Sorry about your old clothes.
The Kingdom’s Landscape
At a glance the diner is like any other, linoleum flooring, stools at the counter and booths. There are three bullet holes in one of the walls. Way in the back sits the man who everyone inside pays deference to, Dennis Glass has been the True King of Roscommon Avenue (and surrounding territories) since the early 00s. His touch in creating the otherspace redoubt binds him here and makes him a part of it, when he gets emotional there is a strobing effect that visually replaces the diner’s environment with a spacious throne room (rank 4 unnatural stress check the first time it happens).
The other inhabitants of the Kingdom are all Dennis’s subjects, all of them have a personal story of his benevolence and wisdom. Everyone serves willingly and with zeal, a climate that is reinforced by the otherspace's ambience and his True King avatar connection. At least one would-be interloper has been run through with a sword by the fry cook.
Dennis ostensibly wants two things: to secure and maintain his hold on Roscommon Avenue for all time and to feed his otherspace. Every single day that passes on the outside requires a day leeched from someone for the sub-reality to remain stable (or else it begins to collapse like a temporary otherspace, see pg. 117 of Book 2: Run). Dennis’s third avatar channel allows him to take this time from himself and his subjects if they are willing. Alternatively, if you can provide something that Dennis is interested in he may be willing to give you something in return. Provided you can observe the proper protocol, it isn’t a trade, it’s a gift that might be repaid by the benevolence of the realm’s ruler.
The resource that allows the Kingdom to stay afloat is a limited form of time travel. If you were to give Dennis a letter at an early hour on a future date there is nothing stopping him from returning it to you at a later hour on the present day, the looping runs forward and backwards for objects from the outside. Of course this only occurs if Dennis wills it, the very first and last thing passed through is a ledger detailing past and future trades which he judiciously manages his own knowledge of. Dennis is sensitive to the terrible changes his kingdom’s power might inflict on the outside world, at the very least he has his knights police potential outcomes using his own future given knowledge.
The Order of Roscommon Avenue
That Dennis has chosen to rule in absentia is a technicality, his Order enforces his will and brings him fresh subjects and those who wish to entreaty his aid. His, and the otherspace’s, time is limited so he has appointed this delegation to see to his real world interests. Their original membership was drawn from those who accompanied him when the Kingdom was built. Like a lot of knightly orders operating outside the direct authority of their ruler they’ve become an a power unto themselves that threatens the integrity of the Kingdom of Roscommon Avenue. Think the Knights Templar getting too big for their boots.
They police goings on in the Kingdom, put down insurrection and invasion and manage the affairs that don’t warrant Dennis’s direct attention. There are multiple arms of the Order with varying overlapping responsibilities which he plays off against one another as best he can to keep any of them from amassing too much power. There’s also the tithing. 2 days of every month belongs to the Kingdom, payable on demand (this debt is generally allowed to accrue for long periods to limit travel to and from the otherspace).
In return they enjoy the largess of a magickal kingdom that can win lotteries at will, the treasury is deep and they are well equipped and wealthy. Tithing can be offset by recruitment. New members are expected to bear the burden of their superiors as a method of testing their resolve, even to the point that the recruiter’s debt to the Kingdom is in credit. In one case a community-flavoured MLM scheme was used as a front for this activity.
The Future
Dennis understands that his otherspace's days are numbered. Ironically for an institution that was built to last forever, eventually the time that the door to the real world exists will be exhausted and the otherspace will be cut off and collapse. He carries that burden like the bullet wounds that will never heal.
His original will was to shape the Order into something worthy of ruling in his place but he has been disappointed by them. More recently he has taken to secretly testing newcomers, cultivating and trying to find a worthy individual to name as successor. Some of the knights who expect to take his place in the aftermath are becoming suspicious, he fears a coup. He doesn’t have long.
Nothing lasts forever, but this can. He hopes.
Thursday, 11 July 2019
072 - Yusra Abbasi, Well-Meaning Antagonist
GMC: Yusra Abbasi, Well-Meaning Antagonist
Yusra grew up feeling like the Other. She emigrated from Pakistan to the United States with her parents when she was six and they didn’t settle in the most migrant-friendly town. She has a lot of unpleasant memories of that time. Yusra grew up friendless, even after they moved again the damage had already been done, and instead used movies to fill the social gap. Yusra developed a natural facility with the structure of narrative before she even had the words to properly express it. Comparing it to her observations of the real-world, the real-world's deficiency was obvious.
Things started off small in high-school, little interferences meant to stir complexity into people’s stories. These were unsatisfying squibs. Undaunted, Yusra ramped up her efforts again and again. She was absolutely sure she had it right, she just needed to find the correct formula. This culminated in a campaign of harassment against another girl that lead through a maze of suspects, involved the police and school faculty, the classmate’s kidnapping and rescue and finally the denouement that another student - Yusra’s patsy - had been responsible for all of it, over a years old grudge.
When the boy was led away in handcuffs Yusra felt a rush like she never had before. It was revelation, she had crafted her plot masterfully and given the girl a story that made real sense of her life. The girl went on to campaign and champion for better social and legal protections against stalking and harassment, eventually ending up with a storied career in the state legislature. The major charge Yusra received for her efforts, at the birth of her cinemancy, made that possible.
Over the years Yusra has refined her technique. At any time she has up to a dozen candidates she observes through her daily routine, stalking their social media and their real life movements to judge whether any of them need to be broken free from the mold of too simple a story. Once she sees something she thinks she can work with she zeroes in and comes up with a new narrative for them, storyboarding it on the wall of her apartment. While this is going on she builds her charges, minors by workshopping hypotheticals and plot points with bemused strangers on buses and in parks and sigs by her use of disguises to gather more information. Bag lady is her favourite for being invisible.
When she is ready to strike it is thorough and unpredictable with contingencies for almost any situation and magick for those she hasn’t anticipated. She might insert herself into her target’s life in a constructed persona, she might remain an invisible presence. Her use of proxies to play supporting roles is a recurring tactic. What is consistent is that the target’s life gets very interesting, very quickly and always along the lines of her constructed narrative. It’s not a wholesale hosing. Yusra doesn’t want to destroy anybody so she’ll let up when necessary, but she does want to inspire a particular course. To shape and grow a person by breaking them loose. It just so happens that antagonist is always the best role for her in this arrangement.
If she fails she regretfully retreats, telling herself that her special touch is not for everyone and that some will have to lead unworthy lives. If she succeeds the resulting major charge is her gift to them, spending it she ensures that her victory is something that never leaves them.
STATS
Personality: Inquisitive to the point of being snoopy and calculatingly opinionated. Capable of being both very socially adept and obliviously awkward. Very loose grasp of morality.
Rage: Unwarranted persecution. Yusra is of a mind that some people deserve it but resents the mob mentality that goes off half-cocked.
Noble: Giving to others what she feels she can never have.
Fear: Prison. Yusra does a lot of illegal things but she’s never been arrested, her mental image of incarceration terrifies her (Helplessness).
Obsession: Correct people’s lives by giving them the right story.
Wound Threshold: 50.
Cinemancy 60%* (Adept, Casts Rituals, Use Gutter Magick.)
Voyeuristic Antagonist 60% (Substitutes for Notice, Substitutes for Secrecy, Substitutes for Lie.)
Shock Gauges
Yusra’s lament is that life is more complicated than most people care to realise. They want it simple. They invent this simplicity in the way they explain things to themselves: if you achieve this one thing you’ll finally be fulfilled, this one group is the enemy and are responsible for all you problems, this one way is the path to a good life. These stories are too simple, too one-note, they don’t hit all the right narrative beats and encapsulate the necessary rise and fall for real resolution. They beget crippling mediocrity. She figures she can change that, one story at a time.
Yusra grew up feeling like the Other. She emigrated from Pakistan to the United States with her parents when she was six and they didn’t settle in the most migrant-friendly town. She has a lot of unpleasant memories of that time. Yusra grew up friendless, even after they moved again the damage had already been done, and instead used movies to fill the social gap. Yusra developed a natural facility with the structure of narrative before she even had the words to properly express it. Comparing it to her observations of the real-world, the real-world's deficiency was obvious.
Things started off small in high-school, little interferences meant to stir complexity into people’s stories. These were unsatisfying squibs. Undaunted, Yusra ramped up her efforts again and again. She was absolutely sure she had it right, she just needed to find the correct formula. This culminated in a campaign of harassment against another girl that lead through a maze of suspects, involved the police and school faculty, the classmate’s kidnapping and rescue and finally the denouement that another student - Yusra’s patsy - had been responsible for all of it, over a years old grudge.
When the boy was led away in handcuffs Yusra felt a rush like she never had before. It was revelation, she had crafted her plot masterfully and given the girl a story that made real sense of her life. The girl went on to campaign and champion for better social and legal protections against stalking and harassment, eventually ending up with a storied career in the state legislature. The major charge Yusra received for her efforts, at the birth of her cinemancy, made that possible.
Over the years Yusra has refined her technique. At any time she has up to a dozen candidates she observes through her daily routine, stalking their social media and their real life movements to judge whether any of them need to be broken free from the mold of too simple a story. Once she sees something she thinks she can work with she zeroes in and comes up with a new narrative for them, storyboarding it on the wall of her apartment. While this is going on she builds her charges, minors by workshopping hypotheticals and plot points with bemused strangers on buses and in parks and sigs by her use of disguises to gather more information. Bag lady is her favourite for being invisible.
When she is ready to strike it is thorough and unpredictable with contingencies for almost any situation and magick for those she hasn’t anticipated. She might insert herself into her target’s life in a constructed persona, she might remain an invisible presence. Her use of proxies to play supporting roles is a recurring tactic. What is consistent is that the target’s life gets very interesting, very quickly and always along the lines of her constructed narrative. It’s not a wholesale hosing. Yusra doesn’t want to destroy anybody so she’ll let up when necessary, but she does want to inspire a particular course. To shape and grow a person by breaking them loose. It just so happens that antagonist is always the best role for her in this arrangement.
If she fails she regretfully retreats, telling herself that her special touch is not for everyone and that some will have to lead unworthy lives. If she succeeds the resulting major charge is her gift to them, spending it she ensures that her victory is something that never leaves them.
STATS
Personality: Inquisitive to the point of being snoopy and calculatingly opinionated. Capable of being both very socially adept and obliviously awkward. Very loose grasp of morality.
Rage: Unwarranted persecution. Yusra is of a mind that some people deserve it but resents the mob mentality that goes off half-cocked.
Noble: Giving to others what she feels she can never have.
Fear: Prison. Yusra does a lot of illegal things but she’s never been arrested, her mental image of incarceration terrifies her (Helplessness).
Obsession: Correct people’s lives by giving them the right story.
Wound Threshold: 50.
Cinemancy 60%* (Adept, Casts Rituals, Use Gutter Magick.)
Voyeuristic Antagonist 60% (Substitutes for Notice, Substitutes for Secrecy, Substitutes for Lie.)
Shock Gauges
Notches
|
Violence
|
Unnatural
|
Helplessness
|
Isolation
|
Self
|
Hardened
|
2
|
4
|
2
|
4
|
3
|
Failed
|
0
|
0
|
2
|
1
|
1
|
Wednesday, 10 July 2019
071 - Autochimera
Supernatural Identity: Autochimera
Nature is a state of constant conflict and change. Organisms must always adapt and evolve to survive, pitted against one another in an endless arms race. Human beings tried to leave this behind with technology. Our wheel, our fire, our antibiotics. We separated ourselves from the animals and forgot the eternal war with nature. All the while our crude approximations of other animals acted as crutches.
But we cannot really fly or plumb the depths of the ocean, the same technology that has made us powerful has made us weak in our dependency. Antibiotic superbugs and climate change are the cost of this hubris. There is a way out. We can turn our technology back to the war, we can change ourselves. Autochimeras are extreme primitivist biohackers applying science and medicine in a constant, unending transition towards imagined evolutionary supremacy.
Related to the schools of epideromancy and khrusomancy, the practice of autochimerism is too symbolically tiny to warrant the full fledged paradox of true adept magick. Focused on constant unnatural change and adaptation but only within the boundaries dictated by evolution found in nature. They use the very tools they malign in an attempt to shortcut millennia of missed natural selection. These dual, mutually exclusive tensions serve to power the framework of what would otherwise be tragically misguided and ineffectual self-experimentation.
In practice this manifests as a variety of ever shifting surrogate identities based on the flux of their current modification. A practitioner can choose to hold on to a particular form for an extended period, but increases the ever present risk of morphological breakdown by doing so (you can skip a roll to reset identities, but all subsequent rolls have a cumulative -10% shift per skip and automatic failure after a month). The need for constant change is their equivalent of taboo.
For every 10 percentiles beyond the first define a new identity based on self-experimentation and the adoption of animal traits, assigning it to a 10 point band covered by your Autochimera identity. Once a week (sooner if you want to dedicate a few days to adapting a new form ...or much faster at a substantial penalty) make a roll, gaining the identity within the resulting band at a level equal to the ones die of that roll multiplied by 10 (up to the value of your Autochimera identity) based on your constant self-experimentation. If you roll between 01-10% then lucky you, you get to roll twice, rerolling redundant entries except failures.
Failure causes problems beyond just nixing your powers for a while. Self-surgery, xenotransplantation and biohacking would make just about any medical professional blush in isolation, together they’re a recipe for disaster. Survivors can put themselves back together, but it takes enough time and work to make a new roll and repair your body.
Here’s a set of example results for an Autochimera with an identity at 70%, including the penalties for failure. New entries can be created to replace old ones on a monthly basis with a successful roll (or weekly, if you dedicate all your time to working on it):
01-10%: Roll twice. Apply both results, if duplicate identities are rolled choose one result to reroll. If this result comes up apply it again. If multiple failures are rolled apply all of them.
11-20%: Tapetum Lucidum (Substitutes for Notice, Coerces Unnatural, Unique - No penalties to Notice rolls for poor lighting). A reflective layer of tissue behind the retina that increases the light received by receptors in the eye. This causes them to shine in low light. -20% shift to Notice rolls in bright light from overexposure. Wear sunglasses.
21-30%: Canine Olfaction (Specific Information: Smell, Substitutes for Notice, Provides Initiative). An increased density of sensitive smell-receptors, modifications to the bone structure of the nose and the respiratory system, raising your sense of smell to 40 times that of the average human. Specific information works as the Yeti Ancestry identity (on pg. 47 of Book 4: Expose). You look a bit puggish and are highly sensitive to strong smells.
31-40%: Hemocyanin Blood (Substitutes for Fitness, Provides Wound Threshold, Unique - No negative shifts on Fitness rolls to resist bacterial infection and illness). A blue, copper heavy form of blood found in Horseshoe crabs containing ambocytes which react far more quickly and responsively to bacterial infection than mammalian white blood cells.
41-50%: Cephalopod Limb Neurons (Substitutes for Dodge, Provides Initiative, Unique - Can perform two, non-mental, actions simultaneously at half value). High proportions of cephalopod’s nervous systems are found in their limbs, making those limbs capable of semi-independent action. Matched failures or fumbles provoke behaviour like alien hand syndrome, Self checks and potentially autocannibalism responses.
51-60%: Echinoderm Regeneration (Substitutes for Fitness, Medical, Provides Wound Threshold). The medical feature automatically applies golden hour treatment (pg. 74 of Book 1: Play) to you assuming adequate nutrition and lack of sustained duress, but cannot be used for anything else. Miraculous, but doesn’t reach the level of regrowing limbs like a starfish and regrowth tends to be stiff and calcified for a few months.
61-70%: Patagium (Substitutes for Pursuit, Coerces Unnatural, Unique - Upgrades rolls to reduce falling damage by one level). A fleshy membrane used to glide and fly, like a flying squirrel or a bat. Human beings are too heavy to properly fly with them even with modification but it still makes a difference. The patagium collapses flat along the limbs and torso when not in use, you need to be naked to use this identity (or have clothes specially tailored for the purpose).
Fail, Matched Failure or Fumble: The autochimera is ...indisposed. Ramp up the body horror. From failed experimentation to implant rejection to biochemical cascade failures, something foul has come to a head. Witnesses should make stress checks.
The GM should apply one of the following: a Violence, Unnatural or Self stress check, damage equal to the sum of the failed roll, a standing -20% shift to an ability, chronic grievous illness that causes a wound every day you don't pass a Fitness roll until fixed. These conditions persist until fixed with a new successful Autochimera roll. In the event of a matched failure pick two, for a fumble pick three and permanently reduce the Autochimera’s wound threshold by 1d10.
But we cannot really fly or plumb the depths of the ocean, the same technology that has made us powerful has made us weak in our dependency. Antibiotic superbugs and climate change are the cost of this hubris. There is a way out. We can turn our technology back to the war, we can change ourselves. Autochimeras are extreme primitivist biohackers applying science and medicine in a constant, unending transition towards imagined evolutionary supremacy.
Related to the schools of epideromancy and khrusomancy, the practice of autochimerism is too symbolically tiny to warrant the full fledged paradox of true adept magick. Focused on constant unnatural change and adaptation but only within the boundaries dictated by evolution found in nature. They use the very tools they malign in an attempt to shortcut millennia of missed natural selection. These dual, mutually exclusive tensions serve to power the framework of what would otherwise be tragically misguided and ineffectual self-experimentation.
In practice this manifests as a variety of ever shifting surrogate identities based on the flux of their current modification. A practitioner can choose to hold on to a particular form for an extended period, but increases the ever present risk of morphological breakdown by doing so (you can skip a roll to reset identities, but all subsequent rolls have a cumulative -10% shift per skip and automatic failure after a month). The need for constant change is their equivalent of taboo.
For every 10 percentiles beyond the first define a new identity based on self-experimentation and the adoption of animal traits, assigning it to a 10 point band covered by your Autochimera identity. Once a week (sooner if you want to dedicate a few days to adapting a new form ...or much faster at a substantial penalty) make a roll, gaining the identity within the resulting band at a level equal to the ones die of that roll multiplied by 10 (up to the value of your Autochimera identity) based on your constant self-experimentation. If you roll between 01-10% then lucky you, you get to roll twice, rerolling redundant entries except failures.
Failure causes problems beyond just nixing your powers for a while. Self-surgery, xenotransplantation and biohacking would make just about any medical professional blush in isolation, together they’re a recipe for disaster. Survivors can put themselves back together, but it takes enough time and work to make a new roll and repair your body.
Here’s a set of example results for an Autochimera with an identity at 70%, including the penalties for failure. New entries can be created to replace old ones on a monthly basis with a successful roll (or weekly, if you dedicate all your time to working on it):
01-10%: Roll twice. Apply both results, if duplicate identities are rolled choose one result to reroll. If this result comes up apply it again. If multiple failures are rolled apply all of them.
11-20%: Tapetum Lucidum (Substitutes for Notice, Coerces Unnatural, Unique - No penalties to Notice rolls for poor lighting). A reflective layer of tissue behind the retina that increases the light received by receptors in the eye. This causes them to shine in low light. -20% shift to Notice rolls in bright light from overexposure. Wear sunglasses.
21-30%: Canine Olfaction (Specific Information: Smell, Substitutes for Notice, Provides Initiative). An increased density of sensitive smell-receptors, modifications to the bone structure of the nose and the respiratory system, raising your sense of smell to 40 times that of the average human. Specific information works as the Yeti Ancestry identity (on pg. 47 of Book 4: Expose). You look a bit puggish and are highly sensitive to strong smells.
31-40%: Hemocyanin Blood (Substitutes for Fitness, Provides Wound Threshold, Unique - No negative shifts on Fitness rolls to resist bacterial infection and illness). A blue, copper heavy form of blood found in Horseshoe crabs containing ambocytes which react far more quickly and responsively to bacterial infection than mammalian white blood cells.
41-50%: Cephalopod Limb Neurons (Substitutes for Dodge, Provides Initiative, Unique - Can perform two, non-mental, actions simultaneously at half value). High proportions of cephalopod’s nervous systems are found in their limbs, making those limbs capable of semi-independent action. Matched failures or fumbles provoke behaviour like alien hand syndrome, Self checks and potentially autocannibalism responses.
51-60%: Echinoderm Regeneration (Substitutes for Fitness, Medical, Provides Wound Threshold). The medical feature automatically applies golden hour treatment (pg. 74 of Book 1: Play) to you assuming adequate nutrition and lack of sustained duress, but cannot be used for anything else. Miraculous, but doesn’t reach the level of regrowing limbs like a starfish and regrowth tends to be stiff and calcified for a few months.
61-70%: Patagium (Substitutes for Pursuit, Coerces Unnatural, Unique - Upgrades rolls to reduce falling damage by one level). A fleshy membrane used to glide and fly, like a flying squirrel or a bat. Human beings are too heavy to properly fly with them even with modification but it still makes a difference. The patagium collapses flat along the limbs and torso when not in use, you need to be naked to use this identity (or have clothes specially tailored for the purpose).
Fail, Matched Failure or Fumble: The autochimera is ...indisposed. Ramp up the body horror. From failed experimentation to implant rejection to biochemical cascade failures, something foul has come to a head. Witnesses should make stress checks.
The GM should apply one of the following: a Violence, Unnatural or Self stress check, damage equal to the sum of the failed roll, a standing -20% shift to an ability, chronic grievous illness that causes a wound every day you don't pass a Fitness roll until fixed. These conditions persist until fixed with a new successful Autochimera roll. In the event of a matched failure pick two, for a fumble pick three and permanently reduce the Autochimera’s wound threshold by 1d10.
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