For all your discussing and planning needs...
For the first story, we have:
Amelia Oliver - Exile
Jerry Harris - Wronged
Dot Brenner - Chosen
Charlotte "Charly" Davidson - The Changeling
Zeke Bjarnessen - Hard-Case
Feel free to reintroduce your characters and plan your connections in more details here. I would appreciate a general appearance including a rough actual age bracket (and perceived if different) and maybe consider a few reasons why your character might be travelling to/through Carrollburg during this time of "good news."
Heyo folks.
Amelia is probably late twenties/early thirties. She's got short hair in no particular style and wears dark leather boots, woolen pants, a fancy looking breastplate and a long coat over the top. Her sword and shield are folded and tucked away inside.
I'll do a proper appearence later, honest.
She was probably in the area looking for missing teens and monsters to kill, and now that the teens have freed themselves is trying to work out why they went missing in the first place. She's got a small bet on 'they're all werewolf infiltrators leading the pack's dominion of humanity from within'.
Dot Brenner is in her early thirties. She is probably in Carrollburg for thoroughly mundane reasons, meeting with a client, with only the all-too-familiar nervous feeling that she’s not going to make it to bedtime without things getting weird.
Alrighty. I still haven't formed any hard and fast connections with anyone, so I'd like to get that done before I post.
A couple of questions about Mutton County:
- Where is it in the US? Southeast? Midwest? Great Lakes? Eastern Seaboard? New England? Northwest?
- What time of year is it? Fall? Winter? Spring? Summer?
And as requested a brief reintroduction and appearance. I've changed her name and a couple of other details due to not having a bit of luck finding an avatar that I liked that didn't have Asian features, so to add a little bit to the family drama, her father is descended from Japanese immigrants while her mother is mostly Scotch-Irish. Her great-grandfather on her mother's side of the family was a WWII bomber pilot and didn't really get along with Charly's father before his death.
Well, that was a little longer than I'd planned. On to the important stuff!
Charly is a young woman in her early twenties (22 to be exact.) She's slight of build with dark hair and has delicate features common to many of Japanese descent. Her glamoured form looks much as she did in life, dark hair, grey eyes, and fair skin. Beneath the veil, she's definitely not human. Her skin is deathly pale, her eyes are blood red and glint like rubies. She also has fangs, though those are not very long most of the time.
She favors comfortable clothes like t-shirts and jeans. She prefers a sturdy pair of boots over sneakers, though. When the weather turns cold enough, she is always wearing her great-grandfather's leather bomber jacket, which has seen some repairs and a full restoration since the 40s. Lately, she's been dressing in warmer clothes, even when things are very warm.
Charly graduated from the state university with degrees in Forensic Science and Law Enforcement. She had always loved puzzles and wanted to help people like her father had as a police officer. While Toyoharu Takahashi is a beat cop, Charly joined the force as an investigator. She graduated less than six months ago and started working for the Boisville Police Department almost before she'd received her diploma. Her first night on the job she received a call about a heinous murder and was attacked by a vampire that had taken down the two other investigators she'd been tailing to learn the realities of the job. The vampire awoke something in the young woman and was vaporized by a ball of lightning that knocked out the cameras.
Since then, Charly's been working for the innocuously named Finnegan's Investigative Agency (which may or may not be tied to the shadowy Hand of Nine.) The pay is good, ridiculously so, but the agency does work all over Mutton County, and Charly's one of the more specialized investigators. A committee of concerned citizens in Carollburg calling themselves the Committee of Concerned Citizens and Parents, or CCCP for short, has hired the agency to investigate the disappearance of the high schoolers. Charly had just arrived when she heard the news over the radio of her old, well cared for truck.
To expand: Dorothy Brenner is in her early thirties, is slightly below medium height, has a medium skin tone and dark, curly hair. She dresses professionally, preferring slacks to skirts.
She's been involved with the supernatural for nearly twenty years, or to be more precise, she's been attempting to avoid the supernatural for nearly twenty years. It's been unsuccessful, since destiny has plans for her. Dot makes a game attempt to keep up a normal life. She's generally going to jump at the call for any supernatural adventures, not because she particularly enjoys them, but because she's resigned to the fact that she'll be dragged in anyway, and figures she might as well get a head start on dealing with it.
Once she's committed, she'll put on her thick leather jacket, and pull the magic runestaff she's managed to acquire out of her trunk.
Dot has driven out to Carrollburg to meet with a client--possibly parents of one of the missing students. If the timeframe is late winter/early spring, it probably involves a tax return. Otherwise it could be anything from a private audit to estate planning.
Pretty much going to be repeating myself from the original recruitment thread. Here goes anyway.
I think I'm going to play this out and see what happens as far as the links go. Charly's new at this with her introduction to all of the weirdness being something that's happened in the past six months. I think that she won't have had a chance to form all that many bonds since then.
That said, Dot has a link where she saved someone before they got introduced into this zany world of monsters. I was thinking that Dot could have saved Charly from a beastie that was stalking her while she was home from college. She never realized the danger and I thought it could be a funny thing to bring up when they meet for the first time.
Pretty much going to be repeating myself from the original recruitment thread. Here goes anyway.
I think I'm going to play this out and see what happens as far as the links go. Charly's new at this with her introduction to all of the weirdness being something that's happened in the past six months. I think that she won't have had a chance to form all that many bonds since then.
That said, Dot has a link where she saved someone before they got introduced into this zany world of monsters. I was thinking that Dot could have saved Charly from a beastie that was stalking her while she was home from college. She never realized the danger and I thought it could be a funny thing to bring up when they meet for the first time.
That would work. I’m good with it. Alternatively, it could be something while she was at college. Dot has been up against monsters for years but hasn’t been in Mutton County all that long.
Cool. I looked through the other playbooks and didn't see anything else that would work with Charly not having much of a clue what's going on.
The Monster of the Week connections feel like they assume some stuff about how campaigns are set up that aren’t always true.
Yup. Thankfully, you can always come up with your own or just wait to see what happens in play. I think I'm going to like playing the newbie. I can just see something like this:
Charly: Smile wild as she sees what must be a team of hunters she's supposed to meet Hi! Are you–
Everyone else: WAAAGH! Bubbly vampire chick! KILL IT! KILL IT!
happening at some point. in these first few adventures.
Should be fun to read at least. :P
I look forward to reading everyone's theories on what shenanigans are going on.
Charly This story takes place during early summer - most kids are out of school, the community college mentioned recently starting their summer term, weather warm and usually dry enough for camping without too much equipment and long days/short nights. The story at the other table may take place at a different time.
I'm pretty sure Mutton County is in AU US Midwest, at least that I based this on, but Jon and I need to check we're on the same page with that.
Hey all, glad to be here! I'll try and get a full profile and story up for Zeke later today; I have a write-up on paper but I'm also at work and still fighting a bad cold that's been keeping me drained for about a week now. I'll also start floating ideas for connections.
Alrighty. Sounds like we're probably somewhere along the Rockies. My vote would be for Montana or maybe Wyoming.
I'll get a post up tonight if that's alright. I just needed to know what the weather would be like so Charly could be dressed appropriately.
Montana or Wyoming is not considered the American Midwest. That's more like western Pennsylvania through eastern Colorado.
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In the interest of cross-connections between the two games, I was thinking that Jessica could be related to Dot as first cousins. Jessica looked up to her older cousin and wanted to go into law because of her. When they were much younger, a teenaged Dot babysat for Jessica when she was an infant. She was kept from any of the weirdness of Dot's life and she went through her life blissfully unaware of all the strange horrors out there.
Then a year ago, Dot would have received the tragic news that she died in a fire at a women's shelter that claimed the lives of three firefighters and fifteen other women. Jessica had been there delivering donations she had collected as part of her high school senior volunteer project.
It's pretty clearly not the great plains (not too many forests there), so if it's "midwest" it's likely east of the Mississippi.
It turns out I was a little generous in including the Great Plains states.
@Jerry Harris: any chance your Wronged felt so wronged and vengeance-filled that he (accidentally or on purpose) summoned an angel of wrath?
It turns out I was a little generous in including the Great Plains states.
@Jerry Harris: any chance your Wronged felt so wronged and vengeance-filled that he (accidentally or on purpose) summoned an angel of wrath?
That's totally a thing Jerry would do.
Ah, my bad. I keep forgetting that Midwest US is more in the east.
I'd still say that Western Montana and Wyoming could work. Both states are more rural and I think the western portions are hilly and forested.
Other options would be in the Appalachians. Virginia, West Virginia, the Carolinas, Tennessee. Northeastern Alabama and Northwestern Georgia could also work. It's rural and hilly. It's not too much of a stretch for they're to be mines there since there are a few around Birmingham.
It's near Springfield. Does that help?
I'm not from the US, but my intention was simply to go non-coastal. Unless it becomes important I didn't intend to go too much into the Geography.
Honestly, since I went to undergrad here in this lovely little town, this is what I'm picturing. Hills, creepy cemeteries, an old insane asylum (that we students would go to explore), and lots of legends of hauntings. It's a picture-perfect Monster of the Week setting. Honestly, regardless of where Mutton County is set, this is what I'm going to picture in my head.
Springfield, Illinois might work, but I dunno how urbanized the area and surrounding counties are. Mutton County sounds like it mostly be mining towns with scenic parks and wilderness. That pretty much describes Appalachia US which is more towards the east as I understand it, though we've proven my grasp of geography isn't as firm as I'd like it to be. :)
Neither of us will get that specific on location. It's generic mainly rural county with lax gun laws backdrop so we can all get away with what we're carrying for the most part. While some of mine will be inspired by locations and tales from the US, it's easier even in magic AU Earth to keep things pretty general. Even if we wanted to, Jon doesn't know the US well enough as he said - his knowledge is pretty much based on media, me telling him how the media is wrong, and a one week visit to my family over a decade ago, and some of mine is likely out of date (though google map says the forests this is based are still around, and just a couple hours west of Jessica's link not too far from Springfield).
The Monster of the Week connections feel like they assume some stuff about how campaigns are set up that aren’t always true.
I think they're intended to take some of the control of a PC's history away from the controlling player, giving it to the other players. To enhance the linked histories.
I also think they're making sure that each playbook doesn't stray too far from the stereotype(s) that inspire them, to keep the feel of the game on track.
Sorry, just tend to be a bit particular about some things. Perfectly fine with it being Someplace, USA.
Jerry is also in his early thirties, although due to poor life habits, he has the health of someone in their late thirties. His job(s) as a correctional officer and his obsession with revenge-driven monster killin' has kept his strength and reflexes up, but his beer belly belies his overall lack of exercise and poor dietary decisions.
He wears a thick beige colored work shirt (long sleeve, button down), old jeans held up by a thick brown belt with over-large belt buckle, and scuffed-up work boots. Despite the profile picture I chose, he's grown out an awesome handlebar mustache that was against the employee dress code for the state penal system.
Based on the fact that we're going to all that trouble to establish linked histories, I had assumed that we are already a group before we arrived in town, so I'm confused as to why we're each coming up with individual reasons to be in Carrollburg. If we need an individual reason, however, Jerry's "job" nowadays is as an independent monster hunter (although he's keeping his feelers out for a monster-hunting organization to join to help pay the bills), so he's constantly following news reports and rumors of unnatural activity. I'd say he either got word of the missing teens and showed up just too late to investigate, but maybe he's still interested in solving the mystery to prevent similar disappearances from happening again. Or maybe he already knows/suspects what's behind the disappearances and is in town to shut things down.
In the interest of cross-connections between the two games, I was thinking that Jessica could be related to Dot as first cousins. Jessica looked up to her older cousin and wanted to go into law because of her. When they were much younger, a teenaged Dot babysat for Jessica when she was an infant. She was kept from any of the weirdness of Dot's life and she went through her life blissfully unaware of all the strange horrors out there.Then a year ago, Dot would have received the tragic news that she died in a fire at a women's shelter that claimed the lives of three firefighters and fifteen other women. Jessica had been there delivering donations she had collected as part of her high school senior volunteer project.
Yeah, that could work. Dot tried to keep her away from Aunt Emily (whom she misdiagnosed as the source of the weirdness, rather than just its harbinger).
I think it's a case of we can decide if we arrived as a unit, or as individuals who simply know each other and start working together here. Just how we flavour our intro and our characters level of 'independence' I guess.
Have added some helpful links to the top.
Yeah, like most Powered by the Apocalypse games, Monster of the Week is very player driven. Before we start, you'll all decide why you're there - individually, as a group or in multiple groups - and where in the town you would like to start and we'll roll from there. I have my framework but a lot of the details are up to you guys.
The history connections can be as tight or loose as you want. Knowing each other doesn't mean you're working together at the start, they do give hooks to colour how you may come together and work together. If you want to already by together, that's fine and will make some things easier, if you want to do otherwise, that can usually be worked with.
Amelia probably got a lift because, well, she doesn't know how to car. She predates railways as a real means of transport.
I would suggest we start in town and try to ask one of the abductees stuff. Because they're definitely there to distract us as the monster eats people in the woods.
Most people have responded to the initial question with the assumption that we’re not together yet. That was my assumption due to the way the question was asked. I can go either way. It’s fun to play out getting the group together, but sometimes a strain keeping them together after the initial adventure.
I think it'd work better if some of us were together to some degree. Maybe Jerry and Zeke are working together and either Dot or Charly picked up Amelia as a hitchhiker? That'd get us halfway there especially if Amelia is alone without any support. It'd be in Charly's character to help her get on her feet. Maybe they'll even be roommates, who knows? I don't remember seeing anyone slotted for the Teaching you about the modern world link. Maybe that can be Charly.
That sounds good to me.
That would work. I’m guessing Dot knows Jerry and/or Zeke at least casually, and could get dragged in when they start trying to interview the client she’s working with.
Cool. So, do we go ahead and post in the Gameplay thread?
I do believe we can!
Hotel rooms? It’s the same county, guys.
Yeah, but some counties are huge. Maybe Mutton is one of those that looks like "Oh, that's only a half-hour away," but when you drive there it takes a lot longer.
And it gives the GM the option of ambushing us in our sleep. Maybe the owner of the local motel is in on whatever's going on and it's the perfect opportunity to take care of the investigators or frame them for something to throw them off the trail.
Alright, sorry for being late to the party, everyone, but Zeke's profile is up and running, complete with a description and some of what he's shared about himself with the others, or what they've heard about him. And so long as it's alright, I'll start doing some of my character links--if anybody doesn't like what I'm suggesting I'm happy to alter them or cut them entirely, but I think the idea is that we stick them on other people and work out the details together? Happy to play it by ear.
Zeke knows Jerry back from Jerry's prison guard days. They're friends from a time when Jerry was the guard, Zeke was the prisoner, and they were both the Hunter trying to sniff out a gang of bloodsuckers on the inside. (Exactly why and how we became friends is something to work out between us, but I imagine it came from mutual goals and respect for our tenacity.)
Zeke knows Jessica (or is it Androleteira now? That's a mouthful.) and respects her as a comrade-in-arms. They're the two toughest bastards around, as far as he's concerned. (No offense intended to anyone else.)
Zeke respects Amelia for her brains, in particular. She may not be from around her, exactly, but she seems to know a lot about demons and monsters and other nasty business, and anyone with that many ideas is someone Zeke wants on his side.
That's all I've got for now, but I'd be happy to work on other connections with everybody. For my part, I can still have blood kin, someone I beat the tar out of one time (but we're cool now), someone who saw me go on a rampage, a romantic involvement, or somebody who saved my life one time.
if anybody doesn't like what I'm suggesting I'm happy to alter them or cut them entirely, but I think the idea is that we stick them on other people and work out the details together?
Yes, that's how I see it, also. We each can influence each others' histories.
Zeke knows Jerry back from Jerry's prison guard days. They're friends from a time when Jerry was the guard, Zeke was the prisoner, and they were both the Hunter trying to sniff out a gang of bloodsuckers on the inside. (Exactly why and how we became friends is something to work out between us, but I imagine it came from mutual goals and respect for our tenacity.)
Sounds good. Zeke also knows that Jerry was romantically involved with one of the other inmates in that prison. It was problematic even before the hick vampire and its crew were discovered. But that inmate's death, and Jerry's guilt over not having stopped it, is what drives Jerry.
Sounds solid to me. Jerry in turn would know that Zeke got himself thrown in the prison intentionally to try and root out the vampires. Maybe not worth the charge to get him in there, but it all worked out in the end, and Zeke is a man of action when it comes to plans.
@Zeke: Well, Charly could work for the beat the tar out of someone link. It ties nicely with her this dude jumped me that one time link. I'm thinking that her glamour will glitch out when we eventually run into each other. She certainly looks the part even if she doesn't act like it most of the time.
It also gives them something to banter about which is one part of RPGs that I love to indulge in, and was kind hoping to have a little more interaction with Amelia about how society has changed over the past couple of hundred years.
Zeke, you have chosen a spectacularly terrifying icon. Love it.
@Zeke: Well, Charly could work for the beat the tar out of someone link. It ties nicely with her this dude jumped me that one time link. I'm thinking that her glamour will glitch out when we eventually run into each other. She certainly looks the part even if she doesn't act like it most of the time.
It also gives them something to banter about which is one part of RPGs that I love to indulge in, and was kind hoping to have a little more interaction with Amelia about how society has changed over the past couple of hundred years.
That works for me if it works for you! If it's something in the past, then it sounds like you've already pitched the why--Charly's glamour wore off, Zeke saw her for a monster, and he decided to go in for the kill as usual. Does that sound about right? (I already have a good notion in mind for the "why we're cool now" part of things.) And I agree, the banter and back-and-forth is a lot of fun, and this system seems to encourage it very nicely.
Zeke, you have chosen a spectacularly terrifying icon. Love it.
Thanks! It's a good depiction of Zeke in full-on fight mode. I'd kinda prefer to find a solid one for his usual, more passive self, but this is what we're working with for now.
That works for me if it works for you! If it's something in the past, then it sounds like you've already pitched the why--Charly's glamour wore off, Zeke saw her for a monster, and he decided to go in for the kill as usual. Does that sound about right? (I already have a good notion in mind for the "why we're cool now" part of things.) And I agree, the banter and back-and-forth is a lot of fun, and this system seems to encourage it very nicely.@Zeke: Well, Charly could work for the beat the tar out of someone link. It ties nicely with her this dude jumped me that one time link. I'm thinking that her glamour will glitch out when we eventually run into each other. She certainly looks the part even if she doesn't act like it most of the time.
It also gives them something to banter about which is one part of RPGs that I love to indulge in, and was kind hoping to have a little more interaction with Amelia about how society has changed over the past couple of hundred years.
Oh, I was thinking that this adventure would be the first time they met. Charly was changed about 4 or 5 months back given the timeline for when that happened and the start of this adventure.
And yeah, that's one thing I'm looking forward to is the banter once the strangeness really starts. I'm hoping that I can write Charly to be a fun character to read.
Ah! In that case disregard what I said. We'll just get to see that first meeting play out! For the record, though, Zeke isn't typically the come-out-swinging type when he doesn't know the whole story, so even if there's a glamour drop or some such, he won't immediately attack (although he'll be wary and ask what the hell is going on, to be sure).
Hopefully we all have some fun characters going on. I know that's what I'm aiming for on my end.
To be honest, I think Charly's first instinct when her glamour fails is going to be run and hide. It's a safety blanket for her and it lets her pretend she's normal. When it fails, she loses that and her fight or flight instinct kicks in. If it's just her, she'll run even though she would stand up to anyone or anything trying to kill someone else.
Okay, I've got two more links settled, mostly. The first is that Charly is looking at Amelia as her anchor to her humanity. The second is that one of us saved the other, and we already have established Dot saved Charly before she knew about monsters.
@Amelia: Is Amelia a stable choice as an anchor to humanity? Why or why not?
@Dot: What were the circumstances surrounding you saving Charly? Charly doesn't know about it, but I'm supposed to ask.
Amelia is...pretty human. She does have a few 'quirks' - note the high weird - but is otherwise pretty human.
...although slightly slice happy on monsters that hunt humans.
Oh, this brings up a good question. What's going to happen when Amelia realizes Charly's a vampire?