This is a closed campaign with the exception of a few close friends.
Character
Player
Zachary Pruitt
Newtons-Third
Nadia D’Aramitz
pinwiz
Jessica Johnson
SwordOverEden
Larry Oswald
The Coot
Personal Loot of Lord Zachary:
Spoiler
Sharp wits and a sharper tongue. Also a fountain pen.
Personal Loot of Lady Nadia:
Spoiler
A coin of Wax, and a paint brush.
Personal Loot of Lady Jessica:
Spoiler
Train ticket.
Personal Loot of Lord Oswald:
Spoiler
A Broken Golden Machete with matching Pocket Watch.
Personal Loot of Undeclared:
Spoiler
1,000,000gp
Please post your Character Sheet just below this first post, and please post nothing else until everyone else has posted.
Character Sheet Format:
Spoiler
All players are insomniacs of some kind or other. The mechanics are more text than numbers, and the sheet is to help us explore the mind and life of the person it creates.
My Name Is: Character Name
And I Am: Explain yourself in a phrase
What's Been Keeping You Awake: What is the source of your insomnia? Troubled? Pressures, wordly or unworldly? Are you running from something? Nightmares? Substance abuse? Grief of the lost? This connects the players to one another through their insomnia.
What Just Happened To You: This is a short explaination of your first scene in the game (that's right, YOU decide!). Should be a moment of high stress for the character, may or may not be connected to what's been keeping you awake in the first place. May be mundane or supernatural. Just lose your job? Did a monster just jump out of your closet? Did you walk in on your wife and another man? Did you just fall off a building and land without a scratch?
What's On The Surface: This is the first impression your character gives off and tells their obvious side. May be in opposition to how they actually are. How is he seen? Physically and personality-wise.
What Lies Beneath: This is the part of you that doesn't come out if you can help it. What's your REAL deal? What's a surprising twist to counterpoint what's been said thus far? How do you see yourself? How much of how you see yourself is a lie?
What's Your Path: What are your goals? Where does your story end? Where are you headed? What do you want or need? When you're not dodging monsters this is what you should be striving for.
Talents:
Exhaustion Talent: This is a talent that allows the character to be thoroughly or supernaturally exceptional at a particular thing they can already do. Climb seemingly impossible surfaces. run farther and faster than anyone else. Perform calculations nearly instantaneously. or even just being a really really really good shot.
Madness Talent: This allows you to do something you normally cannot do, something outside the realm of human possibility. Flying or reading minds. compelling others to tell the truth, or even telekenesis.
Scars: A realistic way of showing character development and growth. These are descriptions of important experiences in play. May be a real scar or mental. Or even lessons learned, obstacles overcome, or pre-existing injuries as yet unhealed.
And I Am: A poet, a wordsmith, a creator of tales of woe and joy.
What's Been Keeping You Awake: I have spent many a sleepless night painstakingly crafting what is sure to be my greatest work, my magnum opus. Forsaking all company of friends and loved ones, pausing seldom even to sustain myself with vittles for this frail mortal form; I finally come to the end of this great journey of authorship tonight, as I put the finishing touches to my manuscript.
What Just Happened To You: Oh god, it just flew out the window.
What's On The Surface: Most people see me as a quiet young man with a penchant for writing. I listen to obscure music, and like visiting old bookstores. I can come across as a bit arrogant, but friendly.
What Lies Beneath: I'm in my room all day because I don't have friends. I don't have friends because I alienated them. No, because they couldn't handle that I'm better than them. I'm going to be someone, and they'll all just be stuck in their droll little lives. I have to finish my opus though. It will be done soon. It will be... perfect.
What's Your Path: I need to get that manuscript back. I can't rest until I do.
Talents:
Exhaustion Talent: The Muse
Zachary has the uncanny ability to always know the right thing to say. His words can persuade even the most stubborn individual, given the time to make his case. Unfortunately, the Muse steps in more as Zachary loses sleep, so having a social life while rested has proven difficult. At least the Mad City doesn't offer much in the way of sleep.
Madness Talent: Perfectionist
Zachary is a perfectionist. Not a run of the mill poseur perfectionist, Zachary is the real deal. When things aren't going his way, he tends to get very irritated. And then, as though the universe could feel his ire, everything starts working in his favor again. It might be as simple as trying the handle of a door to find it open, even though everyone was sure they just checked that a moment ago and it was locked. Or it could be as grand as strolling in to an extremely secure bank vault without any questions asked, simply because Zachary wanted to, and was certain he could do it. For that's the downfall of Zachary's madness. He snaps out of it as soon as he loses his confidence. Which can turn a bad situation much, much worse.
Scars:
[] Had my Opus (which is a bird now?) stolen from me by Ladies in Hating. Right after I had just gotten it back. To save some idiot.
Making Pinaplz edit his post in the IC thread for tense consistency. Absolutely important, couldn't possibly leave it as it was.
__________________ The Moderate
Spiritually, Politically, Emotionally,Philosophically
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sir Isaac Newton
To Every Action, There Is An Equal And Opposite Reaction
Last edited by Newtons-third : 10-28-2012 at 08:51 PM.
What’s keeping you awake: Why did I join that society? No, not society, cult. They seemed to think like me and I felt as if I belonged there, but the horrors I saw in that house…. Nothing I could have imagined before compares. I feel they are coming for me, hunting me down for abandoning their cause. Our cause. What have I done!!
What just happened to you: while rendering the last moments of my membership with Them I had a nervous breakdown and was sucked into the painting.
What’s on the Surface: I seem bright and enthusiastic. I am capable in social situations and appear to be friends with everyone, maintaining relationships with multitudes of people. I am not fashionable and am decidedly plain looking.
What lies beneath: I cannot stand deep connections with anyone for fear they discover my fascination with evil deities and dark magic. While I don’t believe they are real, the ideas presented by dark philosophers stimulate my mind and scare me. The fear I feel compels me to investigate new possibilities.
What’s your path: I want to know that there is good in people, that the horrors I have seen are not in the blood of humanity.
Exhaustion Talent: Dark Empathy
My fascination with darkness and evil allows me insight into the heart of villains. I can convince bad people that I empathize with them and persuade them to share their motivations. I always understand the motivations of villainous fiends, which sometimes helps me understand their goals, their hopes, their dreams.
Madness Talent: Otherworldly
I have painted other worlds. Impossible worlds. This allows me to treat normally impenetrable things as doorways. This allows me to walk through walls.
I apologize for what is probably excessive wordiness.
Spoiler
My Name Is: Jessica Johnson
And I Am: Just your regular, everyday girl next door.
What's Been Keeping You Awake: I can do this. I know I can. I just need to work a little bit harder. I just a need little more time. It doesn't matter that the last time didn't go as planned, or the time before that. If I keep trying, I have to find something that I'll get recognition for eventually. There's only so many hours in a day, each one is another I can use. I really don't need to sleep that bad anyway. If I can hold out for just one more hour....
What Just Happened To You: Where am I? I only nodded off for a second. One minute I was riding the subway home after dropping off another batch of resumes, and the next I'm completely alone. It's the same car, right down to the lame drug hotline posters, but none of the stops seem remotely familiar. Every once in a while people - no, things- get on and off the tram, but none of them seem to notice me. I used to try to ask for directions or help, but I stopped after I noticed that the last one had scales. How long have I been on here anyway? I can't tell if it's been hours or da- oh god. One of them is staring at me.
What's On The Surface: You might call me a jack of trades. I've dabbled in all sort of things. Photography, swimming, dance club, you name it I've probably tried it at least once. I come from a fairly large family. I have 6 sisters with me being stuck right in the middle of them all. You can blame my parents' catholic upbringing for that. I suppose I'm not particularly assertive like the rest of my family tends to be and I might not be anything to gawk at, not with this mousy brown hair and eyes at least, but I could do worse for myself. Maybe if I was a bit taller people would notice me more....
What Lies Beneath: Okay. Maybe I'm not as good as my sisters. That's no big deal, right? I'm sure there are tons of other people who went through the same thing and came out fine. I can totally do that too. And it's hard getting hired right after college. The economy is bad, and employers don't really want to take risks, and it really can't be me, can it? I mean, I'm sure never getting call backs is completely normal. Applications get misplaced all the time, right?
I know it isn't my grades. I passed everything, met all the requirements. I mean, I never got A's but I never failed either. I really was in all those clubs too. It just so happens that all of the ones with me in them weren't chosen to go on their poster boards, I swear. Sure, I might have not been the most social of people in the end, but I wanted to stay in and study anyway. Really. But that's not the point. The point is I earned my diploma all on my own and it doesn't matter that my parents ended up going to my sister's ballet recital instead of my graduation, or that they spelt my name wrong....
And you know what? Screw Brad. Did he really expect me to believe that he thought we had broken up weeks ago? I know he was just lying to cover up the fact that he was cheating on me. It's not my fault that he's such an idiot. It's not me. It can't be me.
What's Your Path: I'm not completely worthless, and I'll prove it to everyone once I get back home. I just need to figure out how to do that first.
Talents:
Exhaustion Talent: Mediocre Mimicry
With so much of her life being trying to live up to someone else's potential, Jessica has become quite adept at imitating others. But that's all it is, just adept. She may have spent 5 years learning piano like her sister Mindy, but she never had that spark that makes a decent performance into a work of art like Mindy. Something always seems to be missing. All those years observing and imitating haven't gone to waste however. Those failed attempts at finding her niche seemed to have made her passable at most things, even those things she might have only seen a few times. With some effort, she could probably learn to passably fix something after seeing it done once. She'll never be a technician, but at least it won't blow up. With enough luck, it might even run decently.
Madness Talent: The Forgotten
Jessica may not think she stands out in crowd, but she doesn't know how right she is. She will consistently slip by others' notice. She can wander through a crowd getting jostled from all directions and still be undetectable to pretty much everyone around her. It's like she doesn't even exist to everyone else. Oh sure, if she forces someone to interact with her they'll do it, even if their attention wanders a bit. However, afterwards they can never quite recall what they talked about, or what she looks like. Within minutes they wonder what it was that made them think it was a she anyway. Soon the entire incident is getting fuzzy, not that it matters. It probably wasn't important anyway.
Last edited by SwordOverEden : 10-29-2012 at 03:47 AM.
What's Been Keeping You Awake: I don't want to lie down; I want to make sure my room is impenetrable. What if someone wants to take my things? Or take revenge? I haven't harmed that many people, but I can't stop thinking about the ones I have. If they want my blood I've got to defend myself.
What Just Happened To You: I was polishing my golden machete when suddenly drug lords burst through the window to the gas station I own and began to open fire. Luckily, I miraculously managed to eviscerate every last one of them.
What's On The Surface: People see me as greasy, a little messed up, and an almost certainly dangerous character. They're right. I'm not afraid to take what I want, and people always seem to recoil when they see me near my machete. Rumor has it that I'm also a bit of an addict. But they're wrong. "Addict" is relative... they don't know me.
What Lies Beneath: I use the stuff sometimes. Sometimes I need it, and when people don't want to give it to me, I take it. Everyone who deals is a demon, and they deserve the worst. I'm not a murderer though. Killing an animal isn't murder. If they knew what it meant to me and everyone else who uses the stuff, they'd help us out. But all they're interested in is cash. I hate to spill blood unnecessarily, but it felt damn good to get rid of those wastes of space. They always have friends or family or connections though. But I don't feel bad. No. I'm just a little afraid of what might happen to me. I've already been assaulted.
What's Your Path: I've got to find safety, whether it be in a location, through strength, or through social means. I can't handle the paranoia.
Talents:
Exhaustion Talent: Eviscerator.
When someone is either awful or gets between me and the stuff, I can become angry. I kill them, and I kill them quickly. There's hardly a trace of what they used to look like. When they push me over the edge I do not hesitate.
Madness Talent: Spidey Senses.
Whenever I do that, though, I create enemies. I can sense it. I can tell when they're coming, or when there's bloodshed--sometimes even when they just want to spill blood... I can almost taste it...
Ok, the party is now set and we can post other things in here. I just wanna ask everyone, how is it going so far? Any noticeable improvements I can make? I occasionally slip out of third person on accident but thankfully we have Newtons for that.
Welcome to the Out of Character thread. Banter and strategize as you will.
Ok, so two people now have conflicts up, I'm pretty sure I did them right, so as for rolling we are going to have to do RollV, which will show all die rolls in the pool. Please just label them, like Discipline(3d6)[4][2][5](11)
The overall total is meaningless, but all 1s 2s and 3s are counted as successes, and 4s 5s and 6s are the strength roll. Whichever side has the most successes wins the conflict, but whichever pool has best strength score dominates the situation. Strengths are still not totaled and a 5 and a 6 is not worth 11, it just beats a 5 and a 5, or a 6 and a 4.
Would like to assist Jessica by adding Zachary's Discipline to her conflict. SOE, you can just add 3 more Discipline dice when you roll for your conflict, assuming that's all right with Pinaplz.
__________________ The Moderate
Spiritually, Politically, Emotionally,Philosophically
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sir Isaac Newton
To Every Action, There Is An Equal And Opposite Reaction
Don't worry, if I met Zachary, I'd probably punch him too. Although that's mostly because I can't have my slightly more pompous and irritating doppleganger running around...
__________________ The Moderate
Spiritually, Politically, Emotionally,Philosophically
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sir Isaac Newton
To Every Action, There Is An Equal And Opposite Reaction
RSS Feeds: 
Book of Madness - DRYH OOC
