The World of Darkness (on indefinite hold)

[Dakkon]

I find World of Darkness to be one of the most interesting settings for stories, especially because it is set in the modern world, which gives players and storytellers some grounding. Since the release of Demon and Mummy, I’ve gotten into it a lot more and stared to form a comprehensive timeline and cosmology for my own vision of the world. This is a meta-story that I would both like to share and explore, so I am hoping to take a slightly different tack than normal to approach it.

What I would like to do is run a series of interlocked stories following people in the World of Darkness all around the world. These stories may be the stories of lone individuals or groups of allies. At times they will overlap, and different characters may even travel from city to city and meet one another. In such a vision, all of the official New World of Darkness products will be available for use. The fan-lines Leviathan: The Tempest, Genius: The Transgression, and Hunchback: The Lurching may also be used to create characters. Anyone would be open to apply, and you can play anything from a bog-standard human, to a fetch, to a wolf-blood, to a sin eater, to a mummy, to a demon.



Theme: International intrigue.  Although the stories may appear to be independent from one another, they aren’t. Plots are being hatched worldwide and what happens in one city will eventually effect the others. In this atmosphere of interconnectedness, conspiracies are launched to try and grab the strings of power, but eventually they collide with one another. Everyone has a rival, and even the most powerful of them have someone that can match them for might and resources.




Mood: A dark cosmopolitan urban fantasy. This is a different world than the standard World of Darkness. The assumption in the World of Darkness books is that the lines can overlap, but typically don’t. In this World of Darkness, they do. Every supernatural race is aware that the other exists and some of them interact regularly. Entire supernatural societies exist with the shadows of cities, hidden from the sight of regular folk. Walk down the right street and you’ll meet creatures out claiming to be out of fantasies and fables from all over the world.



Game Version: New World of Darkness - God-Machine Chronicles ruleset.
Game Lines: Any of the official game lines, plus the three fan-lines listed above.
Board: Exotic NC. Please note that non-con remains the storytellers prerogative as part of the plot. I’m rather uncomfortable seeing players engage in it. Consensual non-consent is okay.
Experiences: 0 (ie; standard new characters)
Age: All characters must appear 21 years or older and have those mental capacities. This includes all of a Demon’s covers.
Extra Stuff: I need some plothooks from each person so that I know what type of story you want to participate in. If you don't have ideas for a plot hook, I'll provide some at the end of the post.
Limit to the number of Playera: None! (unless this is ridiculously popular and becomes unwieldy)

Co-GMs: This could potentially be a big undertaking. If anyone is interested in co-GMing, please contact me by PM and we will see if we can work things out.



FAQ
How do I join?
Post a character sheet! If there is enough information to run a story with your character, we’ll get started. If not, I’ll try and give some guidance one what is still needed. Please make sure you give me some plothooks, identify the city you’d be starting in, and let me know the scale (local, regional, national, international, etc.) of the story you want to partake in.

Can my character join in on other people’s story lines already in progress?
For sure, as long as they are okay with it.

Why this weird group/solo hybrid approach?
Flexibility. This lets stories happen in multiple cities simultaneously. It also means that everyon can play at their own pace and I don’t have to be on top of people for infrequent posting, while still having a shared story experience. 

What does the semi-system in the thread title mean?
It means I want to try and be minimalist when asking for die rolls and rely on roll playing as much as possible.

How will the game threads be organized?
There will be one game thread for each city, as well as one for character sheets and one for everyone’s OCC.

What are some of the works that influence this game?
This one’s influenced by the Urban Fantasy Genre in general, if that’s were you want to look for ideas. Hellboy and Sandman are probably two my biggest mainstream influencers. The webcomic Shifters is also a big influence and was one of the stories that originally got me into World of Darkness, even though it wasn’t inspired by it. Finder’s Keepers is another urban fantasy that has influence my development of this world, although it is now sadly defunct. I know they are big influence on other people, but I only started reading the Dresden Files a few days ago, although I suspect they will end up influencing storytelling too. Ditto goes for the Iron Druid Chronicles.

What genre will this game be?
It can be whatever genre people are interested in playing. In fact, when I was brainstorming themes for this game, one of the themes I came up with was “genre-busting.” So if you want to play a game that is a dark reflection of Harry Potter? Cool beans. A throng of Prometheans on a pulp adventure as they journey to find El Dorado and understand the human need to explore and for wealth? Awesome! A hard-boiled mortal detective trying to uncover a mothman conspiracy? Done and done.

Potential Cities

This list does not include every city that could be used in the game, since we could use any city. Rather, it lists cities that I know I am interesting in setting stories in. If you've got another one that you would like to use, tell me what it is!

Africa
Cairo
Casablanca
Mombassa
Marrakech
Tangier

Asia
Jakarta
New Delhi

Europe
Athens
Istanbul
London
Paris
Rome
Venice

Middle East
Abu Dhabi
Amman
Beruit
Dubai
Gorme


North America
Calgary
Chicago
Denver
Halifax
Montreal
Miami
Seattle
Washington DC

Oceania
Honolulu
Sydney

South America
Rio

Who is interested?

active threads

Character Sheets
https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=210352

OCC
https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=210353.0

Chicago
https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=210354.0

[Dakkon]

If you don't have an idea for a story, here are some potential story ideas. I will periodically update this post as ideas are taken and I come up with new ones.

- A pair of detectives and a pair of DAs are hunting down a serial killer who skirts the edge of the supernatural. The thing is, one of them is a Genius and is desperately trying to catch the killer without their friends becoming aware of the magic that's really lurking in the shadows.

- Two players take the roles of a changeling and a fetch who are only vaguely aware of one another but are starting to collide. How they will deal with each other when the fetch has had the changeling's family, high-ranking job, and community support for years is anyone's question.

- A lone hunter or a small group believes that there is a massive supernatural conspiracy aimed to wipe out or subjugate the entire human population of the city. In reality, there's not one but four, backed by the competing cults of demons, leviathans, mummies, and vampires.

- A Cold War between the God-Machine, the Gentry, and an agency of Demons has recently gone hot, and both the human and a freehold of changelings are caught in the crossfire.   

- A Demon has managed to preserve one of its covers and raise its Offspring, but the child has now discovered a journal detailing all of the horrors inflicted upon the family by the God-Machine, including the murder of their other parent. 

- A Latent and a Fractal have two children together. One of the children ends up a Fractal, while the other is Latent. Here’s the catch though, the Latent parent was also wolf-blooded, and now the Latent child’s demonic heritage is about to trigger the First Change unexpectedly. How will the siblings deal with each other now that they have two very different sets of powers?

[Rajah]

All location-specific details are open to change, including name, appearance, whatever.

RAHIM IBN AL-AMIR | "INANNA"



Concept: Firestarter Evangelist
Virtue: Brutal
Vice: Inspiring
Incarnation: Destroyer
Agenda: Saboteur

Originally, Inanna was tasked to use Rahim - conceived as an American tourist in Dubai seeking to reconnect with his heritage despite also being a diehard Wiccan feminist - to inculcate emotionally-vulnerable young Muslim women dissatisfied with the status quo with shocking new ideas. He was designed to be nonthreatening but adept at moving through social circles, a master of whispered seductions and compromises, who would slowly build up his targets into a cultish fervor, giving them passion and strength of purpose...and then, with a few acts of extreme violence and a scattering of haphazard occult symbology, direct the wrath of the prevailing culture down on the new-minted witches to unite the community in a hideous celebration of their brutalization, disfigurement, and eventual deaths.

She hadn't known about that last part. She thought she was going to lead the revolution. And when it came time to betray her charges..she'd been too long in the field, too long taking care of them. She'd worked too hard. She was made for glorious crusades, for righteous warfare, she was made to inspire and slay and win...she balked. It was too much. Too deep a betrayal of everything she thought she was meant to be. Through Rahim, she arranged the lot of her burgeoning cult safe passage out of the country and killed her way through everyone posing a challenge to that flight, and in the process, she Fell. Now she and he are one, Rahim to the world and Inanna to the shadows that infest it, a unified assault platform dedicated to showing the God-Machine that there is no cause it can force him to lose or abandon...that if he decides to burn down Heaven, Heaven will fucking burn.

This is a sketch background that I'm not terribly happy with. I am probably going to adjust and rewrite it later, and the Five Questions also need answering, so consider it a placeholder.



ASPIRATIONS

Cripple major religious Infrastructure supporting the God-Machine. (long-term)
Gain a foothold within the local social elite. (short-term)
Rekindle his sense of purpose. (short-term)



ATTRIBUTES

Mental: Intelligence 2, Wits 4, Resolve 2
Physical: Strength 2, Dexterity 3, Stamina 2
Social: Presence 1, Manipulation 3, Composure 2



SKILLS

Mental: Investigation 3 (Infrastructure*), Occult 1
Physical: Athletics 2, Weaponry 4 (Light Weapons, Sneak Attacks), Stealth 2
Social: Persuasion 3 (Making Deals, Religion), Subterfuge 3, Intimidation 3 (Implied Violence), Socialize 2

*Threatens Cover



MERITS

Terrible Form 4
Professional Training (Terrorist) 4

• Asset Skills: Stealth, Intimidation, Weaponry
• Contacts: Security Contractors, Journalists
• Skill Bonuses: Intimidation (Implied Violence), Weaponry (Sneak Attacks), +1 Stealth

Light Weapons 2



EMBEDS

Authorized
Homogenous Memory
Social Engineering (FIRST KEY)
Identity Theft

DEMONIC FORM

Inanna's true form is a nightmare avatar of gleaming chrome clockwork, jet black carbon fiber, and thick, pulsing veins of vivid scarlet flesh beneath heavy layers of mirror-bright obsidian crystal plating. Her face is a smooth, featureless black mask which has been painted with a number of crude, abstract glyphs that serve her as eyes, shifting in color and configuration according to her focus. A twisted crown of electrum horns rises from her head. Her four arms move in well-oiled silence, though when their massive pistons begin firing in earnest, exhaust pipes along their sides begin venting a mist with a faint scent of blood and crushed flowers. Sometimes visible beneath the shifting armor on her torso is her core, a nuclear engine glowing with Cherenkov radiation whose maniac pulses power her surges of demonic alacrity as well as her favored weapons, an assortment of hard light quantum knives in several shades of azure and cerulean.

Modifications: Armored Plates, Claws and Fangs, Inhuman Reflexes, Inhuman Strength
Technologies: Clairvoyant Sight, Mind Reading, Mirrored Skin
Propulsions: Plasma Drive, Teleportation
Processes: Extra Mechanical Limbs, Aegis Protocol

[Dakkon]

There's one character. Once we have a second, I'll start up the threads. That does remind me of one thing though. Since we are doing things via PbP, the games will be much slower. Therefore, I'd like everyone to pick four aspirations... Three short-term and one long term.

[Rajah]

If anyone has any questions or special interests regarding making a character of any type, I'm also always willing to help out. The transition to GMC line-by-line is going pretty smoothly, but if there's any troublesome nuances or questions on existing systems, here's a great opportunity!

I like the Changeling/Demon idea. Changelings and demons both operate on a system of supernaturally-enforced promises, although changeling pledges are much more flexible and easily invoked whereas demon pacts can be very...final. They're both consummate infiltrators with a natural tendency towards stealth and disguise, hunted by things much more powerful than them, and the Courts and Agendas actually line up pretty well - Spring/Tempters (defined by what they WANT), Autumn/Inquisitors (the hunger for knowledge), Winter/Integrators (defined by what they've LOST), and Summer/Saboteurs (hatred and rage). Demons tend towards greater extremism despite being relatively logical beings with some natural insulation from emotion (outside of human form, they don't experience emotion physically at all) and changelings are more reserved and cautious despite their focus on overwhelming emotion and insanity. Good contrasts. And then there's the part where changelings can do all these weird things that seem to break the hard rules of reality the God-Machine enforces, and the part where demons with their soul-stealing by pieces or wholesale might not seem so different from the Others...

Open to any other considerations, including potentially scrapping the character and running with something else if someone has a really cool idea they need other people for. Mostly, I'm just thrilled to see a GMC game going up.

[Chaosfox]

This has caught my interest I would have to lock over GMC first as I  have been out of the loop on this system for a while but will say the Changeling/Demon thing sounds good to me as well.  Only problem is why I do know  someone who has the Changeling book I myself do not have accesses to that person right now (and I would have to bye Demon which wont happen right now) so making a character could be a bit rough. But I do love this idea a lot.

[TheGlyphstone]

I'll have to familiarize myself with with GMC update booklet again, but I'm interested in playing one of the Purified, from WoD: Immortals.

[Rajah]

The Purified are in great shape for GMC, since it fully updates the rules for things like Twilight and Numina, so it's more or less as simple as drag and drop.

[Dakkon]

If anyone has any questions or special interests regarding making a character of any type, I'm also always willing to help out. The transition to GMC line-by-line is going pretty smoothly, but if there's any troublesome nuances or questions on existing systems, here's a great opportunity!

I like the Changeling/Demon idea. Changelings and demons both operate on a system of supernaturally-enforced promises, although changeling pledges are much more flexible and easily invoked whereas demon pacts can be very...final. They're both consummate infiltrators with a natural tendency towards stealth and disguise, hunted by things much more powerful than them, and the Courts and Agendas actually line up pretty well - Spring/Tempters (defined by what they WANT), Autumn/Inquisitors (the hunger for knowledge), Winter/Integrators (defined by what they've LOST), and Summer/Saboteurs (hatred and rage). Demons tend towards greater extremism despite being relatively logical beings with some natural insulation from emotion (outside of human form, they don't experience emotion physically at all) and changelings are more reserved and cautious despite their focus on overwhelming emotion and insanity. Good contrasts. And then there's the part where changelings can do all these weird things that seem to break the hard rules of reality the God-Machine enforces, and the part where demons with their soul-stealing by pieces or wholesale might not seem so different from the Others...

I'm glad other people are picking up on that hook too! I like that one a lot for a bunch of different reasons, so I'd be happy to run it!

Open to any other considerations, including potentially scrapping the character and running with something else if someone has a really cool idea they need other people for. Mostly, I'm just thrilled to see a GMC game going up.

If you think you can manage and it doesn't overwhelm me, I'd be okay with someone playing more than one character, so long as they don't start to take over the game with their own small army.

This has caught my interest I would have to lock over GMC first as I  have been out of the loop on this system for a while but will say the Changeling/Demon thing sounds good to me as well.  Only problem is why I do know  someone who has the Changeling book I myself do not have accesses to that person right now (and I would have to bye Demon which wont happen right now) so making a character could be a bit rough. But I do love this idea a lot.

I don't know if it helps you but Changeling and Demon are both available on DriveThruRPG as pdfs for more reasonable prices than the hardcovers. Glad you like the idea. If you need to be patient for a bit until you can access the books, that's okay too. There's no rush since I've not put an upper limit on the number of players.

I'll have to familiarize myself with with GMC update booklet again, but I'm interested in playing one of the Purified, from WoD: Immortals.

I'll have to reread the rules for them in depth, but I quick skimmed them again and think it would be a neat idea.

One other quick update: Heirs to Hell went on sale today, and I picked it up. It looks pretty good and has some interesting ideas and hooks that I'll post at some point tomorrow. If you want to play the child of a demon or just want more demoney goodness evilness, I'd encourage you to pick it up.

[Chaosfox]

I don't know if it helps you but Changeling and Demon are both available on DriveThruRPG as pdfs for more reasonable prices than the hardcovers. Glad you like the idea. If you need to be patient for a bit until you can access the books, that's okay too. There's no rush since I've not put an upper limit on the number of players.

When I say no money I don't even have the money to get those  The earliest I could actually conceivably get the changeling one is the end of next month I think my cousin has it somewhere now ir my brother has it I would have to ask. How Ever it is not the updated one so I t would be of no use anyway.

[Dakkon]

When I say no money I don't even have the money to get those  The earliest I could actually conceivably get the changeling one is the end of next month I think my cousin has it somewhere now ir my brother has it I would have to ask. How Ever it is not the updated one so I t would be of no use anyway.

Sorry, just trying to help. Changeling doesn't have an official GMC update yet. If I start using it here, I'd be working with players and online resources to come up with something we thought was reasonable.

[Chaosfox]

Sorry, just trying to help. Changeling doesn't have an official GMC update yet. If I start using it here, I'd be working with players and online resources to come up with something we thought was reasonable.

Oh you are good. The site you gave is one I am going to have to keep in mind for future use. I may actually have friend who could possibly have the new books in Pdf Id have to get a hold of them first though.

[Dakkon]

Here are two new plot hooks that are going in the second post, along with some commentary that isn't:

- A Demon has managed to preserve one of its covers and raise its Offspring, but the child has now discovered a journal detailing all of the horrors inflicted upon the family by the God-Machine, including the murder of their other parent.
Comments:

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

This is based off of the fiction in Heirs to Hell at the start of chapter 1. There are a couple of ways to run this one. The player could take the role if either demon or the offspring. In the former case, the child could be of any age, although I tend to think the pathos is greatest if the child is younger, possibly only having just awakened to their first embeds. In the later case, the offspring would already have to be an adult, but they are discovering the world that’s really around them for the first time. They may or may not be resentful to their parent for hiding that world from them.

- A Latent and a Fractal have two children together. One of the children ends up a Fractal, while the other is Latent. Here’s the catch though, the Latent parent was also wolf-blooded, and now the Latent child’s demonic heritage is about to trigger the First Change unexpectedly. How will the siblings deal with each other now that they have two very different sets of powers?

[TheGlyphstone]

Okay, here's what I spent last night brainstorming.

John Taylor

Crunchy Bits

Supernatural Type: Purified
Gender: Male
Age: 34 apparent, 36 chronological
Height: 5'11"
Weight: 233 lbs
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue

Concept: Trust Me, I'm A Doctor
Virtue: Charity
Vice: Arrogance

Attributes:

(Pri)                       (Ter)                 (Sec)
Intelligence 5        Strength 2        Presence 2
Wits 1                   Dexterity 3       Manipulation 2
Resolve 2              Stamina 1        Composure 3

Skills (Men/Soc/Phys):

Academics 2
Investigation 2
Medicine 4 (Surgery)
Occult 5 (Spirits)

Athletics 3
Firearms 2 (3)

Empathy 4 (Emotions)
Socialize 4
Streetwise 2

Merits:

Ritual Crypt 1
Professional Training 2 - Doctor
Locus 1
Totem 3

Chi: 2 (3 merit points invested)
Essence 9/1

Siddhi:
(1)Spirit Projection

(1)Influence Spirit (Man+Emp+Chi)
(2)Influence Beasts and Mortals (Man+Soc+Chi)

Numina:
Heal (Int+Med+Chi)

Background

At the age when most boys dream of being firemen or astronauts or race car drivers, John knew he was set on becoming a doctor. Precocious even for his age group, he threw himself into learning everything he'd need to know early on - other kids thought he was a bit weird for spending break times in the library, but he kept at it. His grades panned out, and he earned a space in a prestigious med school - finding at last a place where obsessive hours pouring over textbooks and journal was the norm, not a bizarre outlier. After graduation, he found work in Chicago, at an overworked inner-city clinic perpetually swamped by underprivileged residents, gang violence, and occasionally stranger things - for the first time in his life, the brilliant young doctor felt overwhelmed. No matter what he did, he couldn't save them all, and he wasn't prepared to accept that. When medical journals gave no answer, he turned to other journals, exploring books of occult and supernatural knowledge; more traditional and rational medical professionals would laugh at such nonsense, but if there was a hope of truth somewhere in the nonsense, John would find it. The notion of a world of spirits, animistic embodiments of the world, resonated best among all the mystic phenomena he researched - they could grant gifts to mortals, and draw power from them. And when he went looking for such creatures, he succeeded.

A spirit of health, of middling power, answered his call, and he was able to bargain terms of mutual benefit. The more he could heal at his clinic, the stronger that spirit would be in sympathy, and so it granted him a fraction of its own power to cure. The change was immediate, and startling - his recovery rates for patients trivial and critical shot through the roof, and it wasn't long before even the other doctors at the clinic started referring to him as having 'the magic touch'. Anyone he put his hands and instruments to, unless on the brink of death already, seemed guaranteed to get better. The tiny, underfunded clinic started getting attention for its turnover numbers, grant applications being accepted and renovations being made. A bright spot of hope in the grunge and grime of the Chicago undercity.

Then it ended, one night, in fire. The sirens woke him at home, and he followed them, but the building was already an inferno when he arrived. A dozen staff and over a hundred patients, many bedridden, had died with it, along with his dreams. It was blatant arson, but the root causes went deeper - on consultation, he learned the arsonist had been a puppet of another spirit, a death-spirit in rivalry to his own patron, who arranged for the clinic's destruction to weaken its opponent's influence in the area. John had thought he was making a difference, but saw he was ultimately just a pawn on a bigger game board, and realized the only way to change that was learn how to become a player of the game instead of a game piece, to stand in the spirit world as an equal.

For six years, he hunted - tracking down books of spirit lore, consulting with weird hermits, joining obscure cults in hope of learning their secrets. He met bizarre creatures, other denizens of the shadow world he sought entry into - sometimes he benefited, but other times he fled for his life. Eventually, he came across a trove of books being sold at auction, the possessions of a shyster psychic and fortuneteller who committed suicide, and scribbled into one of those books, John learned a ritual and elixir that could make him immortal. It took another year to make the preparations, double-check everything, but when the moment came, it worked flawlessly. He died, and returned, cleansed and revived as a being not quite human or spirit but in between. Finally ready to do battle on his own terms, he returned to Chicago, setting up a small private practice not far from his old clinic, and setting to work healing his patients and forging ties of alliance into the spirit world.

Totem

The Mean Streets - City-Spirit, Greater Gaffling
Power 4
Finesse 2
Resistance 3

Influences:
Man 1
Guns 1

Totem Benefit:
Skills (Pack): Firearms +1 - 3 Totem Points

Totem Ban:
Apply a specific symbol with spray paint to an outdoor wall once per month.

The spiritual world of Chicago is as or more vicious than its mortal counterpart, countless lesser spirits emerging and warring with each other for survival and dominance on a regular basis. The Mean Streets is one that has eked out a temporarily stable position, claiming a few square blocks in the South Side and feeding from the activities of the gangs that live nearby. To broaden its influence, it approached and forged an alliance with John Taylor when he moved into the area, sensing his own power and recognizing a potential ally. His ability to heal and repair mortals without the usual problems of showing up at hospitals with bullet wounds makes him attractive to the gangs and street people TMS draws from; in return, it blesses him with a greater proficiency in guns so that he can better protect himself if things go sour.

[Dakkon]

Cool background Glyph! It looks like there are some good hooks in there. What's probably going to be most useful for me next is if I can get your five questions and four aspiration (3 short, one long) so I can start looking at building a storyline for John.

[TheGlyphstone]

Roger dat.

Answer Me These Questions Five

-Worst Thing He Has Ever Done: John sank pretty deep during his quest for immortality. At one point, he found some old books owned by an elderly man - the man was poor, but the books were an inherited heirloom and he wouldn't sell them. Desperate, John ended up breaking into the house at night and stealing the books.
Breaking Point: Stealing someone's personal property.

-Worst Thing He Might Ever Do: Working at the clinic put John face-to-face with some terrible injuries, and some terrible people who only wanted to get out and get their revenge. Against his better judgement, sometimes John found himself taking sides in his mind, either hoping the patient would get their revenge, or feeling like they had gotten what they deserved in the first place, and frequently prayed that he'd never become trapped in that sort of vengeance loop.
Breaking Point: Severely harming someone who didn't attack him first.

-Worst Thing Someone Else Might Do: Despite being smack in the middle of the ghetto, the clinic was a little island of cooperation - with so little resources, but a shared desire to help, the clinic staff ignored the usual boundaries of race, class or creed. The squishy bits inside a human body are the same regardless of skin color, religion, or sexual preference, and John still can't understand the mindset of people who pass judgement for these things.
Breaking Point: Witnessing a hate crime.

-What Has He Forgotten: The mean streets of Chicago were a breeding ground for violence, often hiding supernatural violence amidst ordinary mortal struggles. Once, early on in his career, a victim was brought in DOA - shot in the head, with a huge part of his skull blown off by the bullet. The corpse went into the morgue - but the next day, the morgue box was empty. It was dismissed as a prank, but John couldn't shake the feeling of seeing that same man walk past him on the street not long afterwards - just his imagination, probably.
Breaking Point: Seeing someone survive a seemingly fatal injury.

-What is The Most Traumatic Thing He Ever Experienced: The fiery destruction of the clinic he worked at was devastating to him. He got their too late to help with evacuation or firefighting, but before the people still trapped inside were dead - the screams echoed in his nightmares, the smell of roasting meat still makes him nauseous, and he's uncomfortable around any source of flame larger than a candle.
Breaking Point: Being injured by flames or fire damage.

Aspirations

Short-Term: Help sick and injured mortals.
Short-Term: Forge positive relations with other supernatural power blocs.
Short-Term: Collect sources of occult and spiritual lore for personal power.

Long-Term: Claim power and authority among spirits in the Shadow Realm.

Howzat?

[Dakkon]

Very helpful, thank you!

[Crimson]

this could be really fun! I played geist last year, and recently got back into WoD in a mortal game setting.

[JohnTheGreat]

I'm interested and bookmarking for future reading when I'm not asleep.

[Dakkon]

this could be really fun! I played geist last year, and recently got back into WoD in a mortal game setting.

I'm interested and bookmarking for future reading when I'm not asleep.

Cool and cool! Let me know what your ideas are when you come up with them and we'll be on our ways!

[Crimson]

Cool and cool! Let me know what your ideas are when you come up with them and we'll be on our ways!

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Name: Zahara Ishtar
Female
Here is a bit of story for her. I plan on going with combat marksmen and sworn officer for her.
Zahara was born in (non-descript Middle Eastern country) during a time of war. She spent more of her early years just surviving the terror that consumed her home. At the age of 8 her younger brother and her parents died in a bombing. She and her older brother were recruited as soldiers to one of the sides of the conflict. She really couldn’t care who was who or why anyone was fighting. After a few years her older brother was able to sneak the two of them out of country and they immigrated to the US. There the two of them lived together. Her brother supported her while she was enrolled in school. She really liked the peace and order here, unlike her home. In high school she joined in rotc and from there enrolled in the police academy. She had a natural knack for law and order. Those skills she learned as a child added up and she was at the top of her class. Her talents did not go unnoticed and she was signed up for the special weapons and tactics unit. She worked well with her team and was second in command. By the age of 24 her squad had an excellent success rate. They thwarted bank robberies, hostage situations, ext.
One night was weird though. She was woken up in the middle of the night by her squad leader. “zahara get your things, we are heading out in 5.” No one knew where they were going or what the mission details where. Something about rescuing some ceo from some conference. At the middle of the night? That’s strange.
They get to the building. There is an abandoned police car out front. No receptionist inside. The 6 of them move inside, fully armed with vests and auto shotguns. They make their way to the vip to find a room of corpses. Limbs are torn apart and flung all over the room. Only one man remained standing.
“hold there! Get on the ground!”
The man seems to ignore the command. He just stares at zahara. In an instant slides across the room and tears off the head of the squad leader. “F~ Fire fire!” they open fire on the man. They bullets seem to have little effect. The blue mist seems to ooze from his wounds. Now in the moon light zahara can see his monstrous face. after ripping through every other member he finally gets to Zahara. With a swing he cuts deep into her chest, right through her vest like butter. With his other arm he punches her in the gut and she is flung into a nearby wall.
Terrified she pulls out her sidearm and unloads it on the attacker. Nothing. Shes snaking bad. Vision fading in and out. She turns her side arm on herself~
ZAP!
A bolt of energy is flung from outside the room. Another strange man comes through the wall and fires bolts of energy. The two of them fight ending in the first man getting tossed out the window. This new man walks over to zahara and kneels down to look over her. “strange… you should be dead…”
His hands and eyes glow as he reaches out to her.
She awakens in hospital a few days later. Her wounds appear as if she got them a year ago.
What happened that night?

[TheGlyphstone]

Big picture is big! Spoilers please?

Complete character sheet below. Note the addition of the Totem I purchased, a lesser city-spirit whom John has forged a practical alliance of equals with.


John Taylor

Crunchy Bits

Supernatural Type: Purified
Gender: Male
Age: 34 apparent, 36 chronological
Height: 5'11"
Weight: 233 lbs
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue

Concept: Trust Me, I'm A Doctor
Virtue: Charity
Vice: Arrogance

Attributes:

(Pri)                       (Ter)                 (Sec)
Intelligence 5        Strength 2        Presence 2
Wits 1                   Dexterity 3       Manipulation 2
Resolve 2              Stamina 1        Composure 3

Skills (Men/Soc/Phys):

Academics 2
Investigation 2
Medicine 4 (Surgery)
Occult 5 (Spirits)

Athletics 3
Firearms 2 (3)

Empathy 4 (Emotions)
Socialize 4
Streetwise 2

Merits:

Ritual Crypt 1
Professional Training 2 - Doctor
Locus 1
Totem 3

Chi: 2 (3 merit points invested)
Essence 9/1

Siddhi:
(1)Spirit Projection

(1)Influence Spirit (Man+Emp+Chi)
(2)Influence Beasts and Mortals (Man+Soc+Chi)

Numina:
Heal (Int+Med+Chi)

Background

At the age when most boys dream of being firemen or astronauts or race car drivers, John knew he was set on becoming a doctor. Precocious even for his age group, he threw himself into learning everything he'd need to know early on - other kids thought he was a bit weird for spending break times in the library, but he kept at it. His grades panned out, and he earned a space in a prestigious med school - finding at last a place where obsessive hours pouring over textbooks and journal was the norm, not a bizarre outlier. After graduation, he found work in Chicago, at an overworked inner-city clinic perpetually swamped by underprivileged residents, gang violence, and occasionally stranger things - for the first time in his life, the brilliant young doctor felt overwhelmed. No matter what he did, he couldn't save them all, and he wasn't prepared to accept that. When medical journals gave no answer, he turned to other journals, exploring books of occult and supernatural knowledge; more traditional and rational medical professionals would laugh at such nonsense, but if there was a hope of truth somewhere in the nonsense, John would find it. The notion of a world of spirits, animistic embodiments of the world, resonated best among all the mystic phenomena he researched - they could grant gifts to mortals, and draw power from them. And when he went looking for such creatures, he succeeded.

A spirit of health, of middling power, answered his call, and he was able to bargain terms of mutual benefit. The more he could heal at his clinic, the stronger that spirit would be in sympathy, and so it granted him a fraction of its own power to cure. The change was immediate, and startling - his recovery rates for patients trivial and critical shot through the roof, and it wasn't long before even the other doctors at the clinic started referring to him as having 'the magic touch'. Anyone he put his hands and instruments to, unless on the brink of death already, seemed guaranteed to get better. The tiny, underfunded clinic started getting attention for its turnover numbers, grant applications being accepted and renovations being made. A bright spot of hope in the grunge and grime of the Chicago undercity.

Then it ended, one night, in fire. The sirens woke him at home, and he followed them, but the building was already an inferno when he arrived. A dozen staff and over a hundred patients, many bedridden, had died with it, along with his dreams. It was blatant arson, but the root causes went deeper - on consultation, he learned the arsonist had been a puppet of another spirit, a death-spirit in rivalry to his own patron, who arranged for the clinic's destruction to weaken its opponent's influence in the area. John had thought he was making a difference, but saw he was ultimately just a pawn on a bigger game board, and realized the only way to change that was learn how to become a player of the game instead of a game piece, to stand in the spirit world as an equal.

For six years, he hunted - tracking down books of spirit lore, consulting with weird hermits, joining obscure cults in hope of learning their secrets. He met bizarre creatures, other denizens of the shadow world he sought entry into - sometimes he benefited, but other times he fled for his life. Eventually, he came across a trove of books being sold at auction, the possessions of a shyster psychic and fortuneteller who committed suicide, and scribbled into one of those books, John learned a ritual and elixir that could make him immortal. It took another year to make the preparations, double-check everything, but when the moment came, it worked flawlessly. He died, and returned, cleansed and revived as a being not quite human or spirit but in between. Finally ready to do battle on his own terms, he returned to Chicago, setting up a small private practice not far from his old clinic, and setting to work healing his patients and forging ties of alliance into the spirit world.

Totem

The Mean Streets - City-Spirit, Greater Gaffling
Power 4
Finesse 2
Resistance 3

Influences:
Man 1
Guns 1

Totem Benefit:
Skills (Pack): Firearms +1 - 3 Totem Points

Totem Ban:
Apply a specific symbol with spray paint to an outdoor wall once per month.

The spiritual world of Chicago is as or more vicious than its mortal counterpart, countless lesser spirits emerging and warring with each other for survival and dominance on a regular basis. The Mean Streets is one that has eked out a temporarily stable position, claiming a few square blocks in the South Side and feeding from the activities of the gangs that live nearby. To broaden its influence, it approached and forged an alliance with John Taylor when he moved into the area, sensing his own power and recognizing a potential ally. His ability to heal and repair mortals without the usual problems of showing up at hospitals with bullet wounds makes him attractive to the gangs and street people TMS draws from; in return, it blesses him with a greater proficiency in guns so that he can better protect himself if things go sour.

Answer Me These Questions Five

-Worst Thing He Has Ever Done: John sank pretty deep during his quest for immortality. At one point, he found some old books owned by an elderly man - the man was poor, but the books were an inherited heirloom and he wouldn't sell them. Desperate, John ended up breaking into the house at night and stealing the books.
Breaking Point: Stealing someone's personal property.

-Worst Thing He Might Ever Do: Working at the clinic put John face-to-face with some terrible injuries, and some terrible people who only wanted to get out and get their revenge. Against his better judgement, sometimes John found himself taking sides in his mind, either hoping the patient would get their revenge, or feeling like they had gotten what they deserved in the first place, and frequently prayed that he'd never become trapped in that sort of vengeance loop.
Breaking Point: Severely harming someone who didn't attack him first.

-Worst Thing Someone Else Might Do: Despite being smack in the middle of the ghetto, the clinic was a little island of cooperation - with so little resources, but a shared desire to help, the clinic staff ignored the usual boundaries of race, class or creed. The squishy bits inside a human body are the same regardless of skin color, religion, or sexual preference, and John still can't understand the mindset of people who pass judgement for these things.
Breaking Point: Witnessing a hate crime.

-What Has He Forgotten: The mean streets of Chicago were a breeding ground for violence, often hiding supernatural violence amidst ordinary mortal struggles. Once, early on in his career, a victim was brought in DOA - shot in the head, with a huge part of his skull blown off by the bullet. The corpse went into the morgue - but the next day, the morgue box was empty. It was dismissed as a prank, but John couldn't shake the feeling of seeing that same man walk past him on the street not long afterwards - just his imagination, probably.
Breaking Point: Seeing someone survive a seemingly fatal injury.

-What is The Most Traumatic Thing He Ever Experienced: The fiery destruction of the clinic he worked at was devastating to him. He got their too late to help with evacuation or firefighting, but before the people still trapped inside were dead - the screams echoed in his nightmares, the smell of roasting meat still makes him nauseous, and he's uncomfortable around any source of flame larger than a candle.
Breaking Point: Being injured by flames or fire damage.

Aspirations

Short-Term: Help sick and injured mortals.
Short-Term: Forge positive relations with other supernatural power blocs.
Short-Term: Collect sources of occult and spiritual lore for personal power.

Long-Term: Claim power and authority among spirits in the Shadow Realm.

[Crimson]

Sorry about that >.< first time posting am image on this forum. had no idea it was gonna be so huge =P
Think i have it fixed now.

Big picture is big! Spoilers please?

Complete character sheet below. Note the addition of the Totem I purchased, a lesser city-spirit whom John has forged a practical alliance of equals with.


John Taylor

Crunchy Bits

Supernatural Type: Purified
Gender: Male
Age: 34 apparent, 36 chronological
Height: 5'11"
Weight: 233 lbs
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue

Concept: Trust Me, I'm A Doctor
Virtue: Charity
Vice: Arrogance

Attributes:

(Pri)                       (Ter)                 (Sec)
Intelligence 5        Strength 2        Presence 2
Wits 1                   Dexterity 3       Manipulation 2
Resolve 2              Stamina 1        Composure 3

Skills (Men/Soc/Phys):

Academics 2
Investigation 2
Medicine 4 (Surgery)
Occult 5 (Spirits)

Athletics 3
Firearms 2 (3)

Empathy 4 (Emotions)
Socialize 4
Streetwise 2

Merits:

Ritual Crypt 1
Professional Training 2 - Doctor
Locus 1
Totem 3

Chi: 2 (3 merit points invested)
Essence 9/1

Siddhi:
(1)Spirit Projection

(1)Influence Spirit (Man+Emp+Chi)
(2)Influence Beasts and Mortals (Man+Soc+Chi)

Numina:
Heal (Int+Med+Chi)

Background

At the age when most boys dream of being firemen or astronauts or race car drivers, John knew he was set on becoming a doctor. Precocious even for his age group, he threw himself into learning everything he'd need to know early on - other kids thought he was a bit weird for spending break times in the library, but he kept at it. His grades panned out, and he earned a space in a prestigious med school - finding at last a place where obsessive hours pouring over textbooks and journal was the norm, not a bizarre outlier. After graduation, he found work in Chicago, at an overworked inner-city clinic perpetually swamped by underprivileged residents, gang violence, and occasionally stranger things - for the first time in his life, the brilliant young doctor felt overwhelmed. No matter what he did, he couldn't save them all, and he wasn't prepared to accept that. When medical journals gave no answer, he turned to other journals, exploring books of occult and supernatural knowledge; more traditional and rational medical professionals would laugh at such nonsense, but if there was a hope of truth somewhere in the nonsense, John would find it. The notion of a world of spirits, animistic embodiments of the world, resonated best among all the mystic phenomena he researched - they could grant gifts to mortals, and draw power from them. And when he went looking for such creatures, he succeeded.

A spirit of health, of middling power, answered his call, and he was able to bargain terms of mutual benefit. The more he could heal at his clinic, the stronger that spirit would be in sympathy, and so it granted him a fraction of its own power to cure. The change was immediate, and startling - his recovery rates for patients trivial and critical shot through the roof, and it wasn't long before even the other doctors at the clinic started referring to him as having 'the magic touch'. Anyone he put his hands and instruments to, unless on the brink of death already, seemed guaranteed to get better. The tiny, underfunded clinic started getting attention for its turnover numbers, grant applications being accepted and renovations being made. A bright spot of hope in the grunge and grime of the Chicago undercity.

Then it ended, one night, in fire. The sirens woke him at home, and he followed them, but the building was already an inferno when he arrived. A dozen staff and over a hundred patients, many bedridden, had died with it, along with his dreams. It was blatant arson, but the root causes went deeper - on consultation, he learned the arsonist had been a puppet of another spirit, a death-spirit in rivalry to his own patron, who arranged for the clinic's destruction to weaken its opponent's influence in the area. John had thought he was making a difference, but saw he was ultimately just a pawn on a bigger game board, and realized the only way to change that was learn how to become a player of the game instead of a game piece, to stand in the spirit world as an equal.

For six years, he hunted - tracking down books of spirit lore, consulting with weird hermits, joining obscure cults in hope of learning their secrets. He met bizarre creatures, other denizens of the shadow world he sought entry into - sometimes he benefited, but other times he fled for his life. Eventually, he came across a trove of books being sold at auction, the possessions of a shyster psychic and fortuneteller who committed suicide, and scribbled into one of those books, John learned a ritual and elixir that could make him immortal. It took another year to make the preparations, double-check everything, but when the moment came, it worked flawlessly. He died, and returned, cleansed and revived as a being not quite human or spirit but in between. Finally ready to do battle on his own terms, he returned to Chicago, setting up a small private practice not far from his old clinic, and setting to work healing his patients and forging ties of alliance into the spirit world.

Totem

The Mean Streets - City-Spirit, Greater Gaffling
Power 4
Finesse 2
Resistance 3

Influences:
Man 1
Guns 1

Totem Benefit:
Skills (Pack): Firearms +1 - 3 Totem Points

Totem Ban:
Apply a specific symbol with spray paint to an outdoor wall once per month.

The spiritual world of Chicago is as or more vicious than its mortal counterpart, countless lesser spirits emerging and warring with each other for survival and dominance on a regular basis. The Mean Streets is one that has eked out a temporarily stable position, claiming a few square blocks in the South Side and feeding from the activities of the gangs that live nearby. To broaden its influence, it approached and forged an alliance with John Taylor when he moved into the area, sensing his own power and recognizing a potential ally. His ability to heal and repair mortals without the usual problems of showing up at hospitals with bullet wounds makes him attractive to the gangs and street people TMS draws from; in return, it blesses him with a greater proficiency in guns so that he can better protect himself if things go sour.

Answer Me These Questions Five

-Worst Thing He Has Ever Done: John sank pretty deep during his quest for immortality. At one point, he found some old books owned by an elderly man - the man was poor, but the books were an inherited heirloom and he wouldn't sell them. Desperate, John ended up breaking into the house at night and stealing the books.
Breaking Point: Stealing someone's personal property.

-Worst Thing He Might Ever Do: Working at the clinic put John face-to-face with some terrible injuries, and some terrible people who only wanted to get out and get their revenge. Against his better judgement, sometimes John found himself taking sides in his mind, either hoping the patient would get their revenge, or feeling like they had gotten what they deserved in the first place, and frequently prayed that he'd never become trapped in that sort of vengeance loop.
Breaking Point: Severely harming someone who didn't attack him first.

-Worst Thing Someone Else Might Do: Despite being smack in the middle of the ghetto, the clinic was a little island of cooperation - with so little resources, but a shared desire to help, the clinic staff ignored the usual boundaries of race, class or creed. The squishy bits inside a human body are the same regardless of skin color, religion, or sexual preference, and John still can't understand the mindset of people who pass judgement for these things.
Breaking Point: Witnessing a hate crime.

-What Has He Forgotten: The mean streets of Chicago were a breeding ground for violence, often hiding supernatural violence amidst ordinary mortal struggles. Once, early on in his career, a victim was brought in DOA - shot in the head, with a huge part of his skull blown off by the bullet. The corpse went into the morgue - but the next day, the morgue box was empty. It was dismissed as a prank, but John couldn't shake the feeling of seeing that same man walk past him on the street not long afterwards - just his imagination, probably.
Breaking Point: Seeing someone survive a seemingly fatal injury.

-What is The Most Traumatic Thing He Ever Experienced: The fiery destruction of the clinic he worked at was devastating to him. He got their too late to help with evacuation or firefighting, but before the people still trapped inside were dead - the screams echoed in his nightmares, the smell of roasting meat still makes him nauseous, and he's uncomfortable around any source of flame larger than a candle.
Breaking Point: Being injured by flames or fire damage.

Aspirations

Short-Term: Help sick and injured mortals.
Short-Term: Forge positive relations with other supernatural power blocs.
Short-Term: Collect sources of occult and spiritual lore for personal power.

Long-Term: Claim power and authority among spirits in the Shadow Realm.

[Dakkon]

Crimson, if you replace [img] with [img width=650] it will let you control the size of the image. You can make it bigger by increasing the number, or smaller by decreasing it.

Glyph, looks good as far I can tell. I've set up the first round of threads so that we can being and others can join us as they complete their sheets.

Character Sheets
https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=210352

OCC
https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=210353.0

Chicago
https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=210354.0

[Dakkon]

Okay, Crimson, it looks like there's some potential in that idea. Are you planning on running a Sin-Eater, a mortal, or something else?