Summerwood (Monsterhearts 2)

Game Master neonblues

I mean, he stood in front of a window for a second; there's no reason for her to realize it had anything to do with moonlight.

And Hayden's actual supernatural experience so far is with fae, ghosts and demons; as far as she would know everything in Twilight and the Wolfman is fictional. Wouldn't "Ashton might be a Fae" or "Ashton might be a demon" be the more logical conclusions given her knowledge base? The first one would tie in with why he's been watching her, specifically, and the second one would explain why he identified Trixie so quickly.

Hayden's hands on experience is with Fae, Ghosts, Witches, and Demons, but she's been told stories and half-truths about a lot, including things actually native to her own world. She's at least open to the possibility of werewolves. On a reread, I was projecting some in character basking into Ashton's moonlit sniff though. (I figure the moon must have at least been directly shining through the window though)

Either way, this primarily affects your character, so I'm happy to downgrade her awareness of his lupine nature to certainty that he's got a supernatural snoot, and strong suspicion that he's not a Fae or a Demon (since he's not acting like what the book said about demons, and he doesn't seem very interested in promises and deals). I'll make sure to drop in some non-lycanthropy theories into Gameplay.

I would say she doesn't actually know Ashton well enough to say "not a demon, not a fae" but as long as her immediate conclusion isn't werewolf I'm fine with it.

Does Deirdre have a roomie? I know she hasn't been brought up, but she also hasn't been specified to be in a single.

(Sort of hoping she does, because if my college roommates had dated someone with Hayden's notions of privacy and personal property I would have HATED IT - and that sounds fun)

Sure, we can say she has a roomie. The GM is free to detail her as he sees fit. :)

I'm just going to name her real quick in-thread, but I'll leave the rest up in the air.

Sounds good.

Oh, I'm assuming the bracelet promise was accepted?

Yes, unspoken though it may have been.

Great, that's what I figured. I'll wait to hear about Coral before I come back in btw.

Should it come up - Deirdre's towel has the monogram of a nice hotel on it.

(While I think Deirdre and I could probably just jam for a while in mall stuff - I don't have anything I'm aiming for until Deirdre or someone else breaks a promise near Hayden.

Except for ruining some new item of Deirdre's clothes, I guess, but I'm envisioning that happening almost as an aside during something else :-p

Yeah, I don't have any specific goals right now. Perhaps the GM will make our lives complicated. ;)

There's a few avenues available for that ;-)

Hope the Fae Darkest Self is coming through - it's a good bit less dramatic than if Ashton loses it!

Yeah, I like it quite a bit. Of course, Deirdre is blissfully ignorant about anything being amiss so far. :)

Hayden, can you please fill me in on some of the details of your backstory? I think I've more or less picked up on the essentials based on context, but some more specifics could be helpful as I work it into the rest of the plot. What, for instance, is the significance of the bracelet you gave Deirdre?

Spoilered in case people would rather avoid the ooc knowledge, but feel free to read

Just a reminder: characters can remove any conditions they accrued over the course of the party (unless you intend to cultivate any existing ones for some reason).

Specifically, I'd like to bind the demon to a large candle. While the candle is lit, the ifrit would be manifest, to do as JJ (or the candle's owner/most-recent possessor) requests. Preferably, a reasonable bargain could be made, I'd rather this not be control by force. When the candle's flame is out, the demon would be immaterial, maybe stored inside the candle itself, though being able to communicate with it during then would be good. And when the candle burns itself out, or is otherwise broken, the ifrit would be sent back to the underworld. If you prefer, GM, go ahead and modify any of this to suit your needs, but let me know what sticks and what changes.

JJ: Sounds good to me. To raise the stakes a little, how about the Ifrit is unable to affect anything physically while someone holds the lit candle, unless a suitable bargain is made for them to do something. If the Ifrit somehow gets ahold of the candle while it’s lit, however, its binding will be broken and it will have free reign until banished or bound again.
(I’m thinking the Ifrit’s abilities include teleportation, fire magic, and possession, if that changes anything.)

Hmm... Not having any devilishly clever ideas for Charlotte... Anyone got any thoughts?

You could always find another way to learn more about Charlotte, or you could switch focus to finding another way to punish Cal and/or make sure he fulfills his promise.

Either way, I'm thinking we should probably jump to the next in-game day soon; I want to get you all back on the same timeline.

I'm ready when you are.

I'm okay for a jump. Hayden getting abruptly sidetracked can be enough of a mall thing.

Since she Darkest Self promised to get a gift Charlotte'd really like, Hayden's going to keep working on that. I think the next step is track down some other friends of friends

Guess I should have held off on Ashton having a night time adventure

If anyone has anything specific they want to do before the night ends we could resolve that first. Eva, was there anything else you wanted to talk with Beacon about?

I'm afraid we may have lost Fahed (though it may just be holiday craziness, I know it's been a bit nuts for me lately).

Whatever you think is best is fine with me

Lemme give it til this weekend to let everyone recover from the end of the year. I'll post a new update Saturday.

Just Holidays, should be back to semiregular posting soon.

Ok cool! Not a problem :)

So I think I am going to drop from this game sadly :(

Sorry to hear, Fahed! You're welcome back at any time. :)

Sorry for the absence everyone,... I've been dealing with some stuff in remote Tasmania which has involved doing my best to avoid being caught up in the fall-out from some massive bushfires. Should be all sorted now (although the fires continue to rage)... I'll try to catch up on what's been going on and make a contribution.

Oh jeez! Glad you're okay, please do whatever you gotta do to stay safe!

At no risk,... the fires are some distance from where I was working but made things a little tricky.

Do any of us have any connections with Gavin?

He and Eva are friendly/acquaintances. She was actually invited to his party after all :-p

Just to be clear, is Hayden going to Bonnie’s alone or is anyone coming with? And if not, where’s everyone else headed?

Currently I think alone? I'm totally up for others coming with though, just hasn't been the vibe I got.

Deirdre will let Hayden do her thing. Not sure what she will do herself yet, will post later.

It didn't seem like Ashton would have anything to add to that exchange, since Hayden was the one who knew her and she has a crush on Hayden specifically.

Excuses are my Armor was just a fantastic pick lol.

JJ will stick around with Deirdre, see if he can wrangle acquiring that bracelet..

For my level up, I will take the Infernal move "Can't Save Myself." Seems appropriate for the situation...

Incidentally, let me know once one of you has accrued 5 "level up" upgrades; that unlocks some additional options for all of you to choose from.

Hayden, I sent you a question via PM.

Okay, we've clearly got a situation that we understand differently.
Hayden was talking to Lucinda at a relatively intimate distance, Ashton came up to also talk to Lucinda. No one backed off that I noticed.

Basically, my take was that Hayden really was right there. Did I miss something?

I actually missed that Ashton’s “shotgun” line to Lucinda was a whisper, that’s my bad; but we could chalk this up to Hayden having especially good hearing (I imagine she was standing relatively close to Lucinda anyway) or maybe that she and Lucinda share a certain amount of knowledge/perception with one another by virtue of being fae. Just wanna make sure this is a strictly in-character dispute and not something we should resolve OOC.

I just assumed it was a whisper for menacing effect, and that he was still like arm's reach away from Lucinda (and thus still pretty close to Hayden), and not that he was actually leaning in inches away from her ears or something. Apologies if I misunderstood that.

We can retcon a bit if this was something Ashton intended to keep private between him and Lucinda. Hayden’s Monster bonus could still apply if she just referred to his general menacing demeanor instead. We could even pick up from the top of the argument if this changes anything.

I've looked over both neonblue's and Hayden's post and I don't feel like there was anything indicating how far apart Hayden and Lucinda were. Maybe there was and I missed it. It wasn't supposed a literal whisper in your ear but it was absolutely close enough that I can say this incriminating thing without anyone hearing. I went along with Hayden hearing it in the spirt of 'yes, and' that PbtA runs on, but on the understanding that I could 'yes, and' something back. If Hayden doesn't want to go along with that, it's fine, but then I think she shouldn't've heard what Ashton said at all.