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BENGHAZI 2 posted:Morlocks I don't know, I feel pretty secure in the knowledge of what that man's fetishes are, because boy howdy did he invent like a thousand excuses to get them into the story.
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Oct 5, 2019 17:34
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Oxford By Night, session 2: fixing Andy's haunting At least I think this was session 2, I might have missed one. This episode was suuuuuuuper busy, so forgive me if it comes off a little incoherent, or I've missed anything. It was also around 2 months ago. I'm pretty sure that for this one Sledge wasn't therer, lining up schedules has been a challenge in this game. Oh yeah did I mention Andy's house is haunted? Turns out that's a thing. Having been out Kitty rang Struthers' 70-year-old secretary and brough her car around so he didn't have to go outside (because Nos, Kitty is kind), Struthers collected Esther, and they all made their way over, desperately trying to work out how to fix this, suggestions included Kitty bringing one of her fans, Kitty popping out to a local supermarket and doing her damsel-in-distress act, and... by the time those ideas had been bandied around, we'd arrived. Kitty had Sense the Unseen up at the time, and we arrived to see a head poked through Andy's (closed) door. She indicated she'd seen something, and the head disappeared. We made our way in, and Esther and Struthers went upstairs to check on Andy, whilst Kitty went to see if she coudl calm down the very angry dog which was disturbing the neighbours (and the very angry neighbours). Along the way, she found the ghost was staring at her very closely, at which point she made eye contact with her (the ghost was a 16th century woman by the name of Mary) and asked if she could help. When it became obvious that the ghost couldn't communicate, Kitty sent her off to find a way to do that (more on that story later), and went up to check in on Andy who was not... doing well... Struthers and Esther tried to get in the door using the key Andy had stuck under the door when he locked himself in, which Mary promtly stole and tried to run away with, forgetting that keys were not insubstantial as she went through the closed door. Fortunately(?) Esther is very good at breaking into stuff (that scavenger feeding style) and picked the lock. Whilst they were checking in on Andy Kitty brought the dog upstairs to keep it out of the way, which caused the very hungry Andy to go... a bit frenzied. Kitty threw the dog into a bedroom, before going into the bathroom and using Awe to subdue Andy, who she wrapped up in towels and stuck in the bath. Struthers retreived the key and they locked Andy in as they left, to try to work out what to do, at which point a voice was heard from outside: "I've found a vessel, we can talk now!" Turns out, Andy's ex-fiancee Sophia had spotted him earlier, and was on her way over to curse him out, when Mary possessed her to use as a ghost phone (more on THAT story later too...). As we were hustling her through to try to talk in the back garden, the scent of a human in the house caused Andy to go into full Frenzy again, and tear off the bathroom door before charging down the stairs. Struthers is old and creaky and really very tired of the whole thing, and has been dealing with these very young Childer for too long already (he started at Humanity 5), and din't make any effort to stop him. Kitty used Awe to stop him feeding directly on her, but unfortunately, the next person in line was the possessed ex-fiancee. Through a supreme effort of will, he was able to avoid killing her, which was extremely fortunate. His hunger sated, we set down to the emotional-discussion portion of the evening and (although there were difficulties with the Masquerade and the ex-fiancee's memory was clouded three or four times) he was able to persuade her that they couldn't see each other any more, that he wasn't safe to be around, and that he was scared of hurting the elderly dog they'd bought together a decade ago. During this time there were many escapades as Struthers demonstrated a distinct lack of understanding of modern technology by trying to make tea. With a plastic kettle. On the stove. Through many escapades tea and instant noodles were made to help the ex-fiancee recover from the feeding, and the Nerd Squad waited anxiously outside whilst Andy essentially sent one of his touchstones out of the city for her own safety. We also took the opportunity to have some in depth discussions with Mary, who turned out to be a Malkavian who had been burned at the stake as a witch by the Prince, Lo Ren, and was out for revenge, during which time she showed Andy that she was able to keep his beast from fully taking over his mind (a liberal interpretation of Quell the Beast, inspired more by the video game than the rulebook) which would allow him to operate more or less normally unless he triggered his clan compulsion in the usual game mechanical ways, and confirmed that she could interact with some small scale physical objects, which between Andy's radio, karaoke machine, and landline telephone, Esther's tech knowhow, and Struthers' background in earlier electrical tech like radios and early telephone, enabled us to rough together a ghost phone through which we could communicate with her, and Esther was able to fashion a (very big, mains-powered) ghost detector, too. The session concluded with Andy sending his ex-fiancee and Orwell off to move out of the city in an honestly crushingly emotional moment, followed by the Nerd Squad closing ranks to support him, and drawing on their connections and some liberal 'For The Masquerade' bullshit to the Camarilla head honchos, to arrange both a job and a substantial relocation allowance to send her somewhere up North. It was an amazing episode, again rangign from high comedy to high emotion, and several Serious Game For Serious People reminders. I love this group so much it's been one of the best RPG experiences I've had thus far. Next up: Elysium. I think. thespaceinvader fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Oct 5, 2019 |
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Oct 5, 2019 20:33
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Mr. Humalong posted:As someone who has never touched this system but is very much enjoying reading through the Horror Recognition Guide, where should I go from here? I think I like the idea of being part of a group of people in over their heads fighting monsters they barely understand, so should I start reading through the Hunter stuff? Gonna reiterate what everyone else has said and say Play Hunter. Crank up the Dropkick Murphys (pre-2005 dkm obviously) and join the Union
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Oct 5, 2019 20:38
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All you Deviant backers, don't sleep on the Rook show (FX). Lot of random ChroD themes and parallels, including the best hive-mind character since Legion.
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Oct 5, 2019 21:06
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Aliens and UFO lore is the big untapped potential of the WoD. Mothman: the Prophecy.
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Oct 5, 2019 21:53
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Soonmot posted:Goku is a mage Goku is a Born Coactive.
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Oct 5, 2019 22:39
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Pope Guilty posted:People only ever see Shadow People in moments of sleep paralysis; perhaps they're eating our dreams? Mer: The Yearning The PCs are fish-people who are all fragments of a now-dead Kraken progenitor -- the aquatic counterpart to Father Wolf and steward of the oceans. Kraken knew they were dying and that the Gauntlet was going to fall, so they retreated into the Astral and dissolved themself into the nascent human unconscious. Mer are technically a single ancient soul divided among thousands of human bodies (you're born Mer, but it's not genetic -- you just need to live near the sea) and as such they instinctively long for connection with others like themselves. When they find each other, they form a Shoal. A Shoal is significantly more powerful (and generally happier) than lone Mer, but there's a danger at either extreme: Mer who completely cut themselves off from their supernatural heritage and the sea wither into a kind of living death (comparable to the Soulless condition in humans, except they also become a danger to others), but Mer who completely immerse themselves in a community of their fellows risk losing their individuality and collectively ascending into a single mini-sea god. Mechanically this would be modeled through a system where Mer players can, under certain circumstances, either borrow each other's powers and skill dots or even literally spend their action for the turn to act as the other character, blurring the lines of who owns any given character sheet. You'd want to manage this, similar to Harmony, so that your Shoal can be flexible and support each other, but without everyone completely losing all sense of themselves. Powers would include both obvious things like being able to manipulate water, change shape, and conceal your fishy tells, but would also tie in to the Mer's connection to the Astral and human dreams and culture -- for example, if you're a squid-person you have powers over ink, but that also implies power over writing and language. And since you're Astral creatures and the Astral is a reflection of human minds, your actions and use of these powers kind of leaks out into any community you inhabit, for better or worse. The idea is to create a shared framework that focuses on loneliness, connection, and community, and how that can be both healthy and rewarding, or stifling and toxic -- to deliberately draw a line from The Shadow Over Innsmouth to The Little Mermaid, or split the difference between The Creature From the Black Lagoon and The Shape of Water. (With a hint of mythology in there as well, e.g. Tamatori-hime or the Odyssey's sirens). Antagonist splats (and sources of conflict, so it's not just fish people being romantic and forlorn 24/7) would include fellow Mer who think the best way to form a community is to psychically dominate each other, humans who want to gain immortality by eating mermaid flesh, and Abyssal Intruders -- similar if not identical to Acamoth as in Mage, with the same MO (parasitically insert themselves into human dreams/souls, then use this position to manifest their own anti-reality) except from the perspective of a splat that looks at the world in the opposite way from most Mages -- literally, as in for a Mer the Abyss is an actual abyss at the bottom of the Astral Sea and the phenomenal world is the surface. More pro-active motivations would include trying to find and help others like yourself (who tend to struggle, what with the supernatural loneliness, inadvertent tendency to project their emotional state onto entire towns, and oh yeah, eating you can make a person immortal), building an ideal community, deciding whether you want to protect humanity from the things that come bubbling up through its own soul or let them hang, and ultimately resurrecting Kraken and/or replacing them with a new way of being that doesn't threaten to erase your personality. (Also, the Leviathan -- the Kerberos of the Ocean of Fragments in Geist -- is totally the echo of Kraken's death and/or their physical remains trapped in the Underworld.) Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 08:01 on Oct 6, 2019 |
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Oct 6, 2019 01:02
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anyways, pros: -- this framework totally explains what motivates Ursula, without making her less evil -- you can run Finding Nemo: the tabletop RPG campaign -- captures the critically under-served demographic of -- it's like Lovecraft, except the racial/cultural outsiders are the good guys -- you can use Ika Musume as your character portrait -- you can be sad like a Promethean without an endgame of "lose your powers" and cons: -- you're sad like a Promethean but with an endgame of "you sacrifice yourself to resurrect Dagon" -- probably still counts as a stealth attempt to fix Beast
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Oct 6, 2019 01:31
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Now, which Goku is this?
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Oct 6, 2019 03:12
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probably Zamasu
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Oct 6, 2019 03:19
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Bogart posted:Now, which Goku is this?
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Oct 6, 2019 05:49
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It might be because I'm currently reading China Mieville's The Scar so my brain is already in nautical mode, but I legitimately enjoy the concepts at play in Mer. It got me, hook, line and sinker.  The idea of communal character sheets is something I don't think I've ever really seen before, and the idea of the community as both positive and negative is great. So, what would be the sub sets of Mer, aside from squid?
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Oct 6, 2019 06:25
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pseudosavior posted:So, what would be the sub sets of Mer, aside from squid? I'm still sort of mulling that over, or I'd have put something in there. It's surprisingly tricky coming up with related categories that are neither too general nor too specific, and that resemble each other sufficiently (or can be made to; there are a lot of differences between e.g. Osiris and Frankenstein's monster, but Promethean presents them in a way where it makes sense to treat them as conceptual peers.) Sirens (fish, music) are too fitting to pass up. Squid (cephalopods, writing/language) has no mythical basis that I know of, the association just tickles me too much to pass it up. I also kind of hate that Mind Flayers in D&D are these irredeemably evil creatures who have to murder sapients in order to eat or reproduce, so doing the exact opposite of that appeals. Selkies crossed my mind; I'm not sure I really want to include mammals, since the "shoal of fish" metaphor and the alien-ness are both really important, and transformation is probably going to be more of a universal theme than particular to one splat anyways. Nixies (or one of their many local folklore variations, like Vodyanoi) are appealing because the etymology points to both mer-people and to reptiles or amphibians. The game obviously wouldn't be complete if you couldn't make the Gillman. Also there's a famous poem about one who laments his loneliness and soullessness, and spares a young boy from drowning. So it's on point, but I'm not sure what the cultural touchstone would be. (Faith? That seems more like an ideology splat than a power splat, though.) A sea serpent or dragon splat based on the legend of the tide jewels seems appealing, but I'm not sure what the "subtle" pairing to go with "pearls" and "control of the wind and tides" would be. And finally, I sort of want to fit crustaceans in somehow, but as far as I can tell nobody tells melancholy, tragic stories about crabs or lobsters.
Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 07:34 on Oct 6, 2019 |
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Oct 6, 2019 07:07
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angler
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Oct 6, 2019 07:20
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Tollymain posted:angler this kind of gets into another open question, which is do i want to save some of the really horrifying deep-sea life and associated imagery for the antagonists, or if they should just be something else entirely e: i think if you're a fish you fall within Kraken's demense but i'm definitely going to make a horror based on Cymothoa exigua 
Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 07:29 on Oct 6, 2019 |
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Oct 6, 2019 07:26
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You could have a strain of that thing you linked that gives them general communication power and is... less that thing. Kind of an initiatory factor.
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Oct 6, 2019 07:51
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The Sirens were bird women.
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Oct 6, 2019 11:44
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hi friends, if any of you want some gribblies check out the #MonthOfMonsters hashtag on twitter. if any of you use the Higglety-Pig i want to know about it.Mors Rattus posted:I write for OPP, albeit only on Scion right now. do they ever check their general submission inbox? i haven't heard back in about a year, is it worthwhile to resubmit some of my more recent work?
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Oct 6, 2019 16:58
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Mors Rattus posted:The Sirens were bird women. True, but depicting them as fish women instead goes back to at least the 13th century.
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Oct 6, 2019 17:00
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:hi friends, if any of you want some gribblies check out the #MonthOfMonsters hashtag on twitter. if any of you use the Higglety-Pig i want to know about it. Submissions get checked pretty irregularly, from what I can tell, and so I think it probably can't hurt to do so.
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Oct 6, 2019 17:08
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Selkies are tough, because they fit your theme perfectly but don't fit your aesthetics at all. I think I'd lean towards including them because I honestly don't know any folkloric creatures whose stories hit the emotional beats you're going for that squarely in the bulls-eye, but it's a really tough call. On a similar topic -- anyone know any good Selkie movies? Neil Jordan's Ondine might be the only one I've seen.
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Oct 6, 2019 17:14
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Digital Osmosis posted:Selkies are tough, because they fit your theme perfectly but don't fit your aesthetics at all. I think I'd lean towards including them because I honestly don't know any folkloric creatures whose stories hit the emotional beats you're going for that squarely in the bulls-eye, but it's a really tough call. I'll have to check that out. e: But yeah, in terms of aesthetic what I'm going for is closer to Spring. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Oct 6, 2019 |
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Oct 6, 2019 17:19
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Digital Osmosis posted:Selkies are tough, because they fit your theme perfectly but don't fit your aesthetics at all. I think I'd lean towards including them because I honestly don't know any folkloric creatures whose stories hit the emotional beats you're going for that squarely in the bulls-eye, but it's a really tough call. The Secret of Roan Inish? edit: Tuxedo Catfish posted:
Wouldn't be the first time a ChronD book has gone to that well- a variant showed up in one of the Vampire Night Horrors books, altered for human hosts. unseenlibrarian fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Oct 6, 2019 |
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Oct 6, 2019 17:27
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Antagonists should def be innsmouth people
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Oct 6, 2019 17:45
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Soonmot posted:Antagonists should def be innsmouth people Well, no, the PCs are the Innsmouth people. The antagonists are, like, I guess Obed Marsh himself, and only because he's a domineering rear end in a top hat rather than because of some racist nonsense about hereditary degeneration or interbreeding.
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Oct 6, 2019 18:34
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Well, no, the PCs are the Innsmouth people. The antagonists are, like, I guess Obed Marsh himself, and only because he's a domineering rear end in a top hat rather than because of some racist nonsense about hereditary degeneration or interbreeding.
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Oct 6, 2019 22:36
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Well, no, the PCs are the Innsmouth people. The antagonists are, like, I guess Obed Marsh himself, and only because he's a domineering rear end in a top hat rather than because of some racist nonsense about hereditary degeneration or interbreeding. SOrry, I was phone posting. But just like the Pure and Bale Hounds are still werewolves, there's a sect of mer that take things to a degree that's monstrous and wrong, especially with the melding of minds into a gestalt entity of sorts that shoals have going for them.
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Oct 6, 2019 22:41
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Nessus posted:Re-litigating Lovecraft stories gets tedious, but the only real bad guy in that story was the aspects of the Deep One cult that, if I recall, were killing hoboes and people who were not on board the fish-man train. Joining the fish-man train was consensual and led to great benefits. At the end, the narrator even gets on the train! You could probably lean into misanthropy here for funsies, that'd boost sales. I want there to be certain justified grounds for resenting humanity, without actually crossing into misanthropy. The Mer are kind of stuck, through no fault or decision of their own, between humanity and a supernatural/cosmic disaster that was caused by human beings (e.g. the collapse of the Star Ladder and the creation of the Abyss). There's an obvious ecological metaphor to be made there, because the threat of course is that something is going to happen to the ocean ( / collective unconscious) that will cause it to rise and destroy humanity as a consequence of human action. And hopefully I can draw on oWoof as a example of how not to handle that idea. Soonmot posted:SOrry, I was phone posting. But just like the Pure and Bale Hounds are still werewolves, there's a sect of mer that take things to a degree that's monstrous and wrong, especially with the melding of minds into a gestalt entity of sorts that shoals have going for them. Oh yeah, absolutely.
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Oct 6, 2019 23:14
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From what I recall, the fact that it was consensual was at the very heart of the horror, as Lovecraft (bless his broken horrible little brain) saw it, that these good upright (white) men and women were willingly debasing themselves by laying with these
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Oct 6, 2019 23:15
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also: Mer or Merrow? The latter is more natural to say, is already a word, and the etymology is uncertain (there are cognates that mean both "mermaid", "sea singer," and "sea monster"), which covers the range of identities I want to describe pretty well. The former has the advantage of just meaning "sea" (which fits nicely into the idea of collective rather than individual identity), being completely gender neutral, and difficult to confuse with any particular culture's myths and legends.
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Oct 6, 2019 23:18
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So I got bored today and made a little prep material for my players, kinda give them a visual feel for what our game world looks like. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RRXjVvgDdUT8xzNuwriy0TtiEqqmS1IR/view?usp=drivesdk
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Oct 7, 2019 00:09
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joylessdivision posted:So I got bored today and made a little prep material for my players, kinda give them a visual feel for what our game world looks like. You've spelled Baron "Barron" in a couple of places, unless that's a deliberate affectation that I don't get. Looks really cool otherwise, though! e: What's the significance of the little circular seals? The spider, winged eye, fire/flower, etc.
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Oct 7, 2019 00:13
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:You've spelled Baron "Barron" in a couple of places, unless that's a deliberate affectation that I don't get. I'm going to blame all misspelled words on it being written by a Malk. And not because I'm an idiot who forgot to spell check Oh those are from Changeling 1e. I wanted to give a very subtle hint that there are Changelings in the world. I would have used Lost logos but I don't think there are many available on storyteller vault (or I missed them)
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Oct 7, 2019 00:36
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joylessdivision posted:Oh those are from Changeling 1e. I wanted to give a very subtle hint that there are Changelings in the world. I would have used Lost logos but I don't think there are many available on storyteller vault (or I missed them) They're not at all subtle, I would say. Just posting a bunch of symbols seemingly at random on top of illustrations catches attention immediately and makes the reader wonder what the heck they mean. If you want to be subtle about it I wouldn't go visual,* I'd sprinkle vague hints or odd details in the prose sections. *Visual would work fine if you had an artist to work them in cohesively, but it looks like you're limited to reusing artwork. That's no criticism, I certainly can't draw for beans myself.
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Oct 7, 2019 12:04
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I Am Just a Box posted:They're not at all subtle, I would say. Just posting a bunch of symbols seemingly at random on top of illustrations catches attention immediately and makes the reader wonder what the heck they mean. If you want to be subtle about it I wouldn't go visual,* I'd sprinkle vague hints or odd details in the prose sections. Well, to be fair I also have a not very subtle interview between the author of the zine and someone who noticed their brother is a fetch prior. I wanted to roll the icons and symbols in as a way for the players to have a reference because I'm going to be working them in as graffiti in various scenes, and knowing my players I know they'll bite on those as plot hooks. I appreciate the feedback, and I've definitely been thinking about putting together another one of these with a bit more focus for our first game session, but I'm going to wait until we do session 0 so I can properly set out some story hooks beyond the Werewolves in Golden Gate Park and the Camarilla coup for SF*. *Which I'm not sure what I'm going to do with yet because we're playing an Anarchs game but a former Cam Prince defecting could be interesting.
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Oct 7, 2019 14:30
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Soonmot posted:SOrry, I was phone posting. But just like the Pure and Bale Hounds are still werewolves, there's a sect of mer that take things to a degree that's monstrous and wrong, especially with the melding of minds into a gestalt entity of sorts that shoals have going for them. Just using Father Dagon himself seems far too on the nose. Perhaps Charybdis? A great maw that takes and takes and takes and never gives back. Like a metaphysical energy vampire, slowly asking more and more of its servitors until they're in too deep, and their only thought is to serve.
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Oct 7, 2019 15:34
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Make something up that is like Dagon but different
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Oct 7, 2019 16:14
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Father Nogad. It's totally not just Dagon backwards or anything. Nope. Totally new guy.
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Oct 7, 2019 16:16
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King Kai. I just came up with that. Is that something already?
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Oct 7, 2019 16:24
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pseudosavior posted:Father Nogad. Father Nogad hangs out with a Mr. Alucard on the weekends.
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Oct 7, 2019 16:36
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