Overbrook Academy -- A Monsterhearts Romance Game (closed)

Started by meikle, March 24, 2014, 05:29:27 PM

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Yukina

Quote from: Queluna on March 27, 2014, 03:43:04 PM
Easter West
Lithe Build
Deep Eyes
Pagan Origin

-1 Hot
+1 Cold
-1 Volatile
+1 Dark

Sympathetic Tokens
You gain power from sympathetic tokens - items of
personal significance that you take from others. Each
sympathetic token counts as a String.

Hex-Casting
You can cast Hexes. Choose two that you know. To cast
them, either expend a sympathetic token during a secret
ritual, or meet the target’s gaze and chant at them in
tongues. Then roll with dark. On a 10 up, the Hex works,
and can easily be reversed. On a 7-9, it works but choose
one:
}} the casting does you 1 harm;
}} the Hex has unexpected side
}} trigger your Darkest Self.

Transgressive Magic
When your ritual transgresses the community’s moral
and sexual standards, add 1 to your hex-casting roll.

Sanctuary
You have a secret place for practising witchcraft. Add 1 to
all rolls you make within this space.

Ring of Lies
Whenever the person attempts to lie, they hear a piercing
ringing noise. Big lies will often make their knees buckle
and disorient them. Severe lies can cause harm or even
brain damage.

Watching
You enter a deep sleep, and begin to see the world through
the eyes of the hexed. You can feel their reactions to and


Easter is a shy and solitary girl.  Her family were not alumni of the Overbrook Academy, nor are they wealthy or famous.  They simply wanted the best for their beloved young daughter, but perhaps they didn't realize the trouble she would face with peers that considered her poor and worth less than the rest of the students, making her more introverted and reserved.

She did have a girlfriend for a year.  Another strange girl that all the other students teased and made fun of, but she seemed to care far less about their insults, both thick-skinned and quick-witted, easily able to shirk off their attacks and dish them out even colder.  Her strength of personality and will led a lot of the girls to just ignore her instead, figuring she wasn't worth the effort.

Now, though, her girlfriend has moved out of town.  In addition to being a fragile creature, she is now also saddened by the fact that she finds herself alone again without any friends.  She did learn a trick or two from her ex-girlfriend, though, the sorts of tricks that have never exactly been welcomed in the history of New England.

It'd be interesting for my mortal to pursue your character as a lover. :)


Crash

Meikle - Are the players mostly going to be interacting with other players or are they going to be interacting and taking strings from and to NPC's as well?  I wasn't sure what your plan for the game will be. 

Not that as a Ghoul my girl would have a ton of ways to gather strings on her own, but if she is accepted it would be good to have an idea of what you are thinking.

"Sorry, you must survive at least 3 games with me before we can chat like this."
Congratulations, you've unlocked Flirtatious Crash! - Envious

Crash

Oooo, just thought if origin story for my girl. May hve to change her pic though.

"Sorry, you must survive at least 3 games with me before we can chat like this."
Congratulations, you've unlocked Flirtatious Crash! - Envious

meikle

Here's my post-editing post from the bottom of the last page, moved here so people can see it:

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide
Hooray!  A new keyboard.

QuoteI have some ideas for an origin story, but it looks likes that will have to wait until Meikle chooses characters.  I do want to use the resurrected origin route though.
When I say backgrounds come after player selection, mostly I'm talking about the Background part of the mechanics -- assigning strings doesn't work if you don't know who else is around to assign them to!  If you have ideas in mind for that kind of thing, you should feel free to knock them around.  The form her Hunger takes might be fun to play with too; I don't think the "Playing the..." part is in the skins summary pdf, but the Hunger is meant to be a really constant and imposing limit (like, if your Hunger is for Flesh, that might be like, people flesh, or like you have to eat pounds and pounds of  meat every day, or whatever -- "scary and messy" is how the book puts it.

QuoteLet me know if there's anything missing.
Feel free to take a look at the OP for what I'm looking for in interest submissions/character outlines!  I'm more interested in the background stuff than the mechanics here -- attitude, friends, clubs, whatever.  Enough to have an idea of the kind of person they are!  For a Serpentine it'll be important to have an idea of how her family impacts her life, especially since it's a boarding school.  Does she have siblings there?  Family among the faculty?  Maybe not if they're nomads.  The boarding school setting gives a little bit of a sense of isolation from familiar comfort, so I guess a character in the Serpentine skin will be dealing to some degree with themes of being unable to escape them even if they're nowhere to be seen.

QuoteSo someone posted a Monsterhearts game idea quite a while back, and I expressed interest but it never even got off the ground. So I would love to be a part of this. ^^
Tell us a little bit about what you'd like to play!

QuoteMeikle - Are the players mostly going to be interacting with other players or are they going to be interacting and taking strings from and to NPC's as well?  I wasn't sure what your plan for the game will be. 
While the PCs are the stars of the story, there will be plenty of NPC presence, in the form of friends and enemies, antagonists and flavor and etc.  PC-NPC-PC triangles are like a foundational concept in Apocalypse World and I think they carry over pretty well into Monsterhearts, where clashing over NPCs as a major source of conflict between the PCs.  NPCs aren't valid for the Backstory strings, though.

You can gain and spend strings on NPCs as well as PCs but they do slightly different things (because NPCs don't use moves like PCs mostly).

The basic moves play around with strings enough that people who don't have skin abilities tied to generating them shouldn't feel too left behind.
Kiss your lover with that filthy mouth, you fuckin' monster.

O and O and Discord
A and A

Crash

Yeah it was a choice between Fae which gather and give them like water and Ghoul which is kind of the opposite.  Thanks for the info.  I will try to get some more background tonight or tomorrow up.  I may have to PM you with my idea though.

"Sorry, you must survive at least 3 games with me before we can chat like this."
Congratulations, you've unlocked Flirtatious Crash! - Envious

Crash

Okay I have some origin story.  It is rough but it give an idea of what I am thinking.  I will get more into Dani's personality and interests when I am not so tired.  Oh and I switched her faceclaim too.

The Spencer family can trace their family all the way back to Bedfordshire in England and are one of Virginia's founding families.  They have the distinct honor of being the family who secured the land grant on which the Washington family would build their Mount Vernon home.  It matters little that the land was home to one of the local Algonquin tribes who were forcefully removed by the Spencer’s and given assurances of good land elsewhere.  This was of course a lie.  The displaced tribe was forced into the Appalachian Mountains during a particularly harsh winter.  Some of the tribe, starving and freezing resorted to cannibalism in desperation and were possessed by Wendigo.  Only two of the tribe survived the terrible winter and the cannibalistic spirits, a shaman and his daughter.  The two returned to the Spencer Plantation and were taken in by the Spencer’s slaves.  The shaman’s young daughter grew up in the Spencer house with the Spencer family and eventually fell in love with the Spencer’s youngest son Michael and he with her. 

The old shaman was furious and cursed his daughter and her new family.  He disappeared into a freakishly storm one winter’s evening after the two young lovers were married.  A year passed with no ill omens or luck and the young couple had a beautiful baby girl.  After she was born the shaman’s daughter began having strange terrifying dreams of being chased through a winter forest, hounded by the spirits that had consumed her tribe until one night they finally caught her and consumed her too.

The next day the slaves awoke to find the entire family gruesomely murdered and partially eaten, only the young child was untouched.  The child’s mother was missing and it was assumed that she had been carried away by whatever wild animal had savaged the rest of the family.  Other Spencer’s would arrive soon enough and raised the little girl as their own until she was old enough to inherit the estate.  But she was never really alone.  Her mother watched over her and when she had children her mother watched over them too until the curse struck again and a new caretaker was born.  As the years go on the curse becomes a legend, then little more than a story told around a campfire to scare young Spencer’s.  Until a daughter is born, one that looks remarkably like the old Shaman’s daughter and the cycle starts again.

"Sorry, you must survive at least 3 games with me before we can chat like this."
Congratulations, you've unlocked Flirtatious Crash! - Envious

The Jackal

Quote from: meikle on March 27, 2014, 03:44:02 PM

Feel free to take a look at the OP for what I'm looking for in interest submissions/character outlines!  I'm more interested in the background stuff than the mechanics here -- attitude, friends, clubs, whatever.  Enough to have an idea of the kind of person they are!  For a Serpentine it'll be important to have an idea of how her family impacts her life, especially since it's a boarding school.  Does she have siblings there?  Family among the faculty?  Maybe not if they're nomads.  The boarding school setting gives a little bit of a sense of isolation from familiar comfort, so I guess a character in the Serpentine skin will be dealing to some degree with themes of being unable to escape them even if they're nowhere to be seen.


Just as a heads up I'm going out of town for the weekend, and I'm not sure whether I'll have internet.  If I do I'll try to get a background  up, but if not...it probably won't be until Sunday or Monday before I can. 

meikle

Quote from: The Jackal on March 28, 2014, 02:06:10 PM
Just as a heads up I'm going out of town for the weekend, and I'm not sure whether I'll have internet.  If I do I'll try to get a background  up, but if not...it probably won't be until Sunday or Monday before I can.

That's fine.  I wouldn't feel cool about ending a casting call thing over the weekend.  I'll probably leave things open through Monda, see if anyone who expressed interest but didn't follow-up with any character concept stuff does that, and aim to make determinations on Tuesday.
Kiss your lover with that filthy mouth, you fuckin' monster.

O and O and Discord
A and A

Dhi

An artist's impression of Holden

My potential ghost


I like the dog, so I'd like it to stay. This makes me think she's grown up in a household with older brothers, and shared some hunting trips with her father and brothers to prove herself in a household that valued male skills. This pastime took a darker turn once she became a ghost, and discovered she could stalk invisibly and soundlessly. If it's appropriate to the tone of the game, maybe she has a mutualism with one of the flesh-eating characters, where she has this method of centering herself that's just killing for pleasure, and someone who needs the meat benefits without having to actually do the deed. But, it seems like we're meant to be pretty unhappy together, so maybe that's not appropriate.

It would make sense for her to also be involved in something that ties into her interest there. Maybe with a career in 4-H left behind her for Overbrook Academy, she works as a camp counselor over the summer.

Name: Eleanore Lovelace
Look: Accusing (or brooding, if I need to choose one from the list)
Origin: Murdered in Hot Passion

Stats:
Hot -1
Cold 1
Volatile -1
Dark 2

is what I'm thinking. I'm interested in learning what Dark really means for a character. The reference sheet mentions gazing into the abyss for visions.

meikle

I guess the Reference Sheet isn't as thorough as the actual book!

Here:

Quote from: MonsterheartsHot means fucking gorgeous, alluring, exciting, smokin', someone you can't stop thinking about, magnetic.

Cold means stone-cold, calculating, collected, unwavering, frigid, able to be cruel and merciless, able to keep their wits about them, obstinate.

Volatile means impulsive, wild, feral, quick-tempered, quick to fight or flight, aggressive, unpredictable, a basket-case, sudden.

Dark means weird, mysterious, sinister, dabbling in the occult, comfortable in darkness, able to liaise with otherworldly forces, powerful.

The Gaze into the Abyss move is pretty loosely structured too; how people use their Dark to find guidance probably varies from person to person.  "Gazing into the abyss could involve entering a trance, or getting high and slipping into a dark consciousness.  It could involve blacking out, or communing with demonic voices out in the woods."  It should be personal; high dark characters might have a fairly routine method of accessing this (like, say, a witch might have a scrying ritual she uses to Gaze into the Abyss) while a low Dark skin might not have a reliable way to do so or might not understand how they trigger it (or might avoid it outright because failing a Gaze into the Abyss roll can be unpleasant.)

edit: that's not something that needs to be pre-determined though (and there aren't mechanical limits to only using specific methods to Gaze into the Abyss.)

QuoteIf it's appropriate to the tone of the game, maybe she has a mutualism with one of the flesh-eating characters, where she has this method of centering herself that's just killing for pleasure, and someone who needs the meat benefits without having to actually do the deed. But, it seems like we're meant to be pretty unhappy together, so maybe that's not appropriate.

It's not strictly a PvP game, so it's not like unreasonable for PCs to work together or have mutually beneficial ties or be friends or anything like that.  More like, the game wants exciting stuff to happen, so sometimes that means that things need to happen that will split people apart and introduce conflict -- "Whenever someone opens their arms to someone else, it's your goal to prove that their acceptance is conditional" is how the game puts it.  "Happiness always comes at someone else's expense," too. 

So I wouldn't say it's inappropriate, I'd just say, expect it to come under strain.

I'm not sure where you put a big dog at a boarding school but I'm sure we can figure something out!  Or maybe Eleanore is one of the school's day students -- there aren't many of them but there are a few.
Kiss your lover with that filthy mouth, you fuckin' monster.

O and O and Discord
A and A

Crash

I am picturing Dani as a former member of the popular crowd.  Maybe even a Queen in the making until her untimely death and resurrection as The Ghoul.  Her social circle began to fall apart her junior year because she couldn’t bring herself to care while dealing with the dulled emotions and ever present hunger of the Wendigo inside of her, not to mention the fact that she is dead.  I figure she used to be into horses and riding, until she turned and woke up amid the entrails of her favorite horse.  Now the animals near her family home are few and far between.  Her former “friends” turned on her the moment she started having her “issues” which surely hurt but just not as much as she would have thought.  She does take a cruel delight in making the lives of her former friends miserable though as her hunger has also come with a healthy dose of vengeance.  Strangely enough this tit-for-tat with the popular girls has garnered Dani new friends, though she finds it hard to call them that sometimes as the warmth she was capable of seems distant.  The exception is one girl who even through her hunger and cold managed to touch a cord with Dani.  She is innocent and decent even though her home life is terrible beyond imagining.  She is everything Dani  was and is not and she manages to keep the Hunger in Dani from becoming all consuming.

I am still debating if one of Dani’s Ghoul relatives is still watching over her family and may leave this up to meikle if she wants to do anything with it.

Dani wants desperately to feel again and find some enjoyment in her life. She has found some relief and satisfaction in her talent for cooking and playing soccer, but she fears being around animals and people for too long.  When she finds the hunger growing to powerful she has a place deep in the woods that she escapes to where she can chain herself up to one of the eldritch oaks until the hunger can fade.  Thankfully no one has found her yet when she disappears and she hasn’t eaten any of the other students.

"Sorry, you must survive at least 3 games with me before we can chat like this."
Congratulations, you've unlocked Flirtatious Crash! - Envious

Dhi

I found Catcher in the Rye on YT this morning and I've been listening to it straight through. It's supposed to be one of the great American novels, next to The Great Gatsby and Huck Finn. I've always been more of a Great Gatsby girl, but Catcher in the Rye has this unimpeachable voice that lends very well to getting into the head of a character.

Crash

Hey all as much as I am really trying I can't get a character to really grab and hold my interest for long, so I think I am going to withdraw my submission.

"Sorry, you must survive at least 3 games with me before we can chat like this."
Congratulations, you've unlocked Flirtatious Crash! - Envious

meikle

Quote from: Crash on March 30, 2014, 11:25:31 AM
Hey all as much as I am really trying I can't get a character to really grab and hold my interest for long, so I think I am going to withdraw my submission.

I'm sorry to hear that!  I hope you'll change your mind, but no pressure.  The Apocalypse World spinoffs for the most parts aren't so much built on the assumption that characters will enter the world with a lot of backstory, for what it's worth, and expects a lot of that to develop in play (guided by the MC and developed by the players.)  That's why a lot of the character creation stuff is pretty uninvolved; you just come in with an outline and figure out where they fit in from there.

Since it's a game where interpersonal relationships are really a driving force, I think it can be hard to come up with a character that is fully realized prior to the Backgrounds phase and the first session period; everyone kind of floats apart right now and it can be hard to get into the head of a character who isn't tied to anything (or it can be for me.)  For what it's worth, I like the sound of Dani; I like the idea of vengeance as a hunger drive.  I think there's a lot of precedent in real people for that kind of thing -- having power & exerting it (in the form of violence or otherwise) in place of more fulfilling emotional connections to people.  It's very Ghoulish; like settled someplace between the Power and Fear hungers but more discriminating.

QuoteI found Catcher in the Rye on YT this morning and I've been listening to it straight through. It's supposed to be one of the great American novels, next to The Great Gatsby and Huck Finn. I've always been more of a Great Gatsby girl, but Catcher in the Rye has this unimpeachable voice that lends very well to getting into the head of a character.

I slept through the Great Gatsby in high school (but that's because I've never been good at sleeping at night, I guess.)  But now I feel like I need to give Catcher in the Rye a chance!  I'll see about getting it onto my kindle.
Kiss your lover with that filthy mouth, you fuckin' monster.

O and O and Discord
A and A

Rook Seidhr

If there's room (it looks like there is?) and if additional Skins are permissible, I'd love to jump in with a Hollow.

Inanna Tarrant, the Hollow
"My mother was a test tube, my father was a knife."
Look: haunted, wide eyes
Origin: homunculus
Stats: Hot –1, Cold –1, Volatile 1, Dark 2

  • A Blank Canvas—When you take an action that embodies one of the Conditions that you have, and you allow that Condition to influence your sense of self, cross it off and add 1 to your roll.
  • Better Than Nothing—When you gain a Condition, mark experience.


The AP Chemistry instructor is an alchemist, older than he looks, using the school's resources to pursue the Great Work of immortality and transcendence of the flesh. Inanna was a successful experiment in the creation of artificial life. Of course, the interesting part of the experiment is done now, so he's just forged the paperwork to put her into the 3rd-year student body and checks in on her occasionally to see whether her bones have melted or she's grown a third eye or whatever.

meikle

Hey people!

Tomorrow at 7 pm (central, 24 hours give-or-take from when I post this) I'll name names and put up an OOC to hash out backgrounds!

Riveda, the Hollow should be fine! 

The Jackal, I just saw your expanded background!  Awesome, looks good.

Anyone else on the fence or who expressed interest earlier but didn't have anything concrete, now's the time!
Kiss your lover with that filthy mouth, you fuckin' monster.

O and O and Discord
A and A

assleigh

Is it too late for a newly approved player to throw her hat into the ring? I'm thinking of bringing in a Fae Skin, who comes from a family that long ago promised the most beautiful of their daughters to the Faery King in exchange for their wealth and power. If I get the thumbs up, I'll flesh her out int a full character:)
The queerest of the queer ... I know what's good for you (You can touch me if you want)

My ONs and OFFs

meikle

Quote from: assleigh on March 31, 2014, 10:55:07 PM
Is it too late for a newly approved player to throw her hat into the ring? I'm thinking of bringing in a Fae Skin, who comes from a family that long ago promised the most beautiful of their daughters to the Faery King in exchange for their wealth and power. If I get the thumbs up, I'll flesh her out int a full character:)

Not too late!  Sounds like an interesting start and I look forward to seeing more.
Kiss your lover with that filthy mouth, you fuckin' monster.

O and O and Discord
A and A

assleigh

Yay! Thanks for the encouragement... I should have mentioned it...but I have 0 experience with the monster hearts system but I'm a quick study. Is it ok if I PM you any questions meikle, or should I post them here?
The queerest of the queer ... I know what's good for you (You can touch me if you want)

My ONs and OFFs

meikle

Quote from: assleigh on March 31, 2014, 11:17:16 PM
Yay! Thanks for the encouragement... I should have mentioned it...but I have 0 experience with the monster hearts system but I'm a quick study. Is it ok if I PM you any questions meikle, or should I post them here?

Whatever's easier for you!  I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.  Monsterhearts is pretty simple so it shouldn't be an issue that you're new to it.
Kiss your lover with that filthy mouth, you fuckin' monster.

O and O and Discord
A and A

assleigh

Hope I didn't go too over the top with Regan. I'm open to any edits and any connections to others.

.
The Fae Courtier

.
Name: Regan Bendith
.
Look: Girlish, Laughing Eyes
.
Origin: "Adopted" - Regan comes from a family who long ago promised the most beautiful of their daughters to the Faery Queen in exchange for their wealth and power. ;)
.
Stats:
Hot: 2
Cold: -1
Volatile: -1
Dark: 1


Fae Moves
Faery Contract: If someone breaks a promise or contract made to you, take a String on them. When spending a String to even out the score and get justice on a broken promise, add these options:

  • they fuck up something simple at a crucial moment
  • add 2 to your roll on an act of vengeance
  • they suffer 1 harm, whether the cause is obvious or not
.
Unashamed: You can give someone a String on you to add 3 to your attempt to turn them on
.
Sex Move: Playing The Fae
When you lie naked with another, you can ask them for a promise. If they refuse, take 2 Strings on them.
.
Darkest Self: Everything you say is a promise. Everything you hear is a promise. If a promise is broken, justice must be wrought in blood. To escape your Darkest Self, you must in some way re-balance the scales of justice


Carry Forward:
.
Harm: 0/4
.
Conditions: 
.
Experience: 0/5
.
.                   Advancement
  • Take another Fae move
  • Take another Fae move
  • Take a move from another Skin
  • Take a move from another Skin
  • You belong to a Jury of Fae.
  • Add 1 to Hot (max 3)
  • Add 1 to Cold (max 3)
  • Add 1 to Volatile (max 3)
  • Add 1 to Dark (max 3)


Strings: 2 on X
(Everyone starts with a String on her)
.
Promises:
.
Backstory: Born to wealth and power, Saraid McGregor had an idyllic childhood. Her father Rory McGregor was an incredibly successful stock broker who made sure his wife Morwena and his daughter lacked for nothing but his presence. The family fiction was that he was an ambitious man whose drive for success bordered on mania, something that was almost true. It was guilt at the true price of his success that had him keep away from them so he would never miss the daughter who wasn't really his once she was gone.
.
Saraid idolized her father from a far and did all she could to be worthy of the love he would never give. When she took dance lessons she poured her heart and soul into it wanting to embody the kind of grace he could not ignore. In her singing lessons she worked to put her passion into every song, wanting to lure him home like a siren does sailors to their deaths. Horseback riding , language studies (French, Italian, Spanish, German, Mandarin Chinese), schoolwork all of it, always the same story. Her diligence and dedication was always motivated by pleasing and winning Him...but to no avail.
.
Then, on her 16th birthday everything changed when the Queen of the Fae summoned Saraid to her side as recompense for the favor she'd shown Rory. Saraid finally knew the affection, adoration, acknowledgement and love she craved her whole life as the Queen took her under her wing, and into her bed, and lavished such attention and joy upon her Saraid was helpless against it all and surrendered all she was to the radiant being who claimed her as her own. On that day, that impossibly eternal and deliriously joyous day, she was reborn Regan Bendith, a Fae of the Queen's court. Having learned what love is and how it satisfies the soul like nothing else, Regan shares all she has generously, expecting the same from others. To her, promises are sacred pacts and friendship a wonderful thing that binds a life to a life. She'd move heaven and earth to secure a lover's happiness and spare nothing in adhering to a promise. Woe onto the one who deals with her falsely or makes light of all she has gifted them with.
.
At school, Regan is a bright, happy presence, always offering a smile and a warm hug to those she meets. She's a member of the Glee club and the Dance team, as well as the writer of an advice column in the school's newspaper and a fixture on the committees that are responsible for various social events (dances, poetry readings, outings etc). The ultimate social butterfly, she's pretty much friends with everybody, except Julia, the ex-Captain of the Field Hockey team. Something happened and the two had a falling out around the time Julie broke her leg right before the Championship and had to give up her shot for glory in her senior year.
The queerest of the queer ... I know what's good for you (You can touch me if you want)

My ONs and OFFs

meikle

So my selection method was kind of arcane but I think this is a good lineup with decent thematic niches and space for interesting stories and conflicts.  There were more than five good choices but I'm already pushing it at 5 players and don't feel suited to handle more than that on my own.  Here's who I picked:

Dhi's Ghost
Queluna's Witch
assleigh's Fae
Riveda's Hollow
and The Jackal's Serpentine

Later tonight, there will be an OOC thread!
Kiss your lover with that filthy mouth, you fuckin' monster.

O and O and Discord
A and A

assleigh

The queerest of the queer ... I know what's good for you (You can touch me if you want)

My ONs and OFFs


meikle

https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=200546.0

Hooray!  There is the OOC thread.  The IC thread will follow after Backgrounds are handled!
Kiss your lover with that filthy mouth, you fuckin' monster.

O and O and Discord
A and A