Exposition Session

We have a modern setting with group of survivors. You all have been a group for a while now, so your characters know eachother and have for some time.

Let's start this thread with some thought inducing words. After it happened, you were never the same again. Sleepless nights, working overtime, and indulging in all kinds of distractions didn’t work for any of you. Flashbacks still haunt you of that day, blur-ry memories. You couldn’t leave it behind. You wanted to know, to understand, to find a solution or a way out, so you decided to get to the bottom of it. Soon enough you discovered that you’re not the only one. There are others like you, others who have been there too, and they too are looking for answers. Together, you have a better chance at finding out what the hell happened there and put an end to this. Permanently.
Series focus: a traumatic or life-altering event shared by everyone on the crew
Characters: a mixed group of people from all walks of life
Possible cases: locating other people who were involved, overcoming Rifts who set out to hide the evidence or rogue Rifts related to the event, dis-covering the Rift or mythical operation behind the event and fighting to bring them down

So what kind of event was it? What happened? Did you lose anyone? Are you all neighbors or was it a some occasion you all shared or were dragged to(play, concert, movie, fair)?

Hmm, so first of all, can we reveal our possible Mythos here ? I had one I was quite a fan of and that could really work with that Disaster setting, but I would prefer to be sure that we should know from each other first. Plus it could possibly justify some "unusual" characters in the group, if I shall say so x).

Spitball #1:

The news media may have described it as a terrorist attack, or simply explained it away as an explosion of an aged gas main underneath the city's main social and entertainment hub (something like Times Square). It was New Year's Eve, and all the characters were there with friends and/or family when all hell broke loose - literally. Yes, there were explosions, but some of the survivors saw a lot more than just that. To them it looked like a massive gang war, but not between normal gangs, but [insert tropes here, like angels and demons from the pits, gods and creatures from one or more mythic pantheons, a ragtag bunch of people? with strange abilities fighting things that 'man was never meant to see.'] Some of us may have lost people, certainly many lives were lost in the carnage and collateral damage. The survivors may be looking for answers, wracked by survivors guilt, hellbent on retribution, or simply gobsmacked by what they know they saw and why no one else seems to have seen it or remember it the way they do. They may have met at a support group or through a forum for survivors where they realized that they were not alone.

Nice start. @Rattila yes you share the Legend you want your character to have inside. It may lead to a few ideas for others as well as some case ideas for myself to think up. I think however, the main point for now should be focusing on what the event was and how you were all involved. Sort of the trailer for the series.
After that we'll get into more focused character crreation amd how you are connected or how you came to be a group. Your collective purpose, the reason you are working with one another.

New Year's eve gets attacked by Legendary creatures. Regular people don't remeber anything but an explosion(cause the media is portraying to be determined).
Anyone got something different or want to build off this?

I like the base that KaeJae has proposed and wouldn't mind building on that idea at all. I especially like the idea that, after the event, only a select few people even seem to remember it. Maybe they've even all been (separately) treated for various mental conditions as a result and just stumble upon the fact that others remember the event too by accident. I could see a couple of characters having met during a short stint in a psych ward or something and realizing that they both remember the same thing, then looking for others once they are both released.

That's a good addition. Psych ward gives me room to play with others you may have met in there.

I really like these suggestions from both KJ and Moonbeam, it does seem like it has a lot of potential for psychological and dramatic roleplay.

OK, let's try this on for size. We all were attending a convention. It could have been any of several different conventions since the city was popular for conventioneers. This would allow for a wide variety of skills. What happened was first thought to simply be a power outage, not too hard tp believe or even deal with. But soon everyone found out that it was all over the city effecting everyone. Within an hour or two the scientists at the Astrophysics convention figured out that it was an EMP discharge but they could not yet determine its source. Was it a natural phenomenon. Maybe from a solar flare? Or was it man made? There were some who, when they heard EMP, immediately thought it was aliens. Was it? Or was it something or someone else or perhaps even from the depths of everyone's own minds? What happened next was explosive, literally.

At this point we can merge some ideas. Was there a lot of death or did most people just pass out and later, wake up, without any memory of what had happened. But what really just did happen? We can go in almost any direction.

Aldrusian, you're proposing this as an alternative idea, correct? Separate from what I was proposing?

Sounds like a before situation. So an EMPesk event happened then explosions.

If I may, I have an idea that piggybacks off Aldrusian's.
EMP during an event at the convention center. All electronics go out; phones, lights, street signals, cars, construction equipment, etc. As everyone is figuring out what happened a riot breaks out along with theft and violence. It quickly spreads to the city streets like a wave of evil igniting the most violent tendencies of people. Well most people. Your group seems unaffected by this events influence.
What do the regular people think happened? Those that killed others, what do they remeber of hiw it happended?

So the idea is that we all knew each other before the event? Or are at least in the same place, able to interact, when the event happens?

You all were present for the said event. Wither or not you knew eachother before is to be decided, but you all know eachother and have worked together on the over arching question for the series at least since the event. How long it took to find eachother is up to you all. The focus of this game(series) will be what the hell happened around this life-altering/traumatic event?

That could work, but I think its going to be harder to get a disparate bunch of people to come together and working towards a common goal if the event is citywide or even widespread. A single discrete event, especially if it targets a popular location where all sorts of people go, rather than a convention or a laboratory or research facility that would only appeal to a select group, would be easier to justify.

If you really like the EMP thing, it could happen on a university campus, and then the characters could be students, faculty, staff or even visitors. That would allow for a variety of backgrounds and still be focused enough that they might meet in the aftermath.

That makes sense. I also really like the psychiatric hospital take. Your loved ones, friends, or even yourself made you get help because you're positive you saw a dog with 3 heads, a small flying person, or an armoured knight.

I'm not sure we have to go quite so far as a psychiatric hospital, unless you have strong motives for trying to centralize that institution in the story. Stories about mental health care are a pretty delicate thing to toy with.

A mutual support group for survivors of a large-scale event - some kind of thing that was passed off as a terrorist attack or some kind of architectural catastrophe - a collapsing convention center, a bombing, a gas explosion - is definitely a possible medium. As memory of the event was scoured by the mist, people who were involved in that support group gradually peeled away, until only the small group of Rifts remained.

It doesn't have to be to as dramatic a scale, but think about the fallout of 9/11. Survivors of the event had to get medical care, lost records, lost jobs, and all had to navigate a legal, bureaucratic system and psychological trauma all at once. Those people relied on each other to figure out how to get financial benefits, to figure out how to get health care, to figure out how to cope emotionally and, depending on how disruptive it was, start new lives.

Now imagine a supernatural force trying to tamp down and normalize the impact of said event, and only a few people, a handful of outliers still really feel the emotional scars, and really remember it as more than a passing news story that happened a few months ago. Everyone else left the facebook group, stopped asking questions, didn't go to the three-month checkup at the restaurant they'd all arranged.

And then imagine that they all remember seeing something - a crack to hell opening up, a rampaging dragon, a storm god - that they hadn't felt comfortable admitting in the larger group, something that had nagged at them until something - booze, desperation, or both - made them just blurt it out.

Psychological aspect is not my focus, just throwing ideas into the pile at this point. I will have nothing in stone until you all agree on event and characters. I will build around your group and what kinda game you all want to play.

ZevinOfNine has joined up but I still have no word from cdwjava. Do we want to try 7 players, keep the 6 and I'll tell Zevin sorry or break up into 2 group at this point?

Ziven was one of the original people who expressed interest, so I'd prefer to break into two groups rather than deny them a chance to play.

Agreed. I would have found another way to MC for them. Another group perhaps.
Alright, now we need to split the group. I think Aldrusian and Rattila should be in one, their interests aligned well.

I'm good with that !

Who would like to join Rattila and Aldrusian(I think)?

Are we looking to create two different groups here with the same basic premise? Or are we looking for two different openers. I glommed pretty hard onto Kae's setup.

My mind keeps going back to a... pretty bad character idea, ha ha.

2 group here. I'll open 2 subforums and we can leave them public or make them private however the group feels. KaeJae, GreyGriffin group 1, Ratilla, Aldrusian group 2(or group A if they prefer. Also Super Group, Group King, Kid Dynamite, Chocolate Thun-da or Ben).

Moonbeam, ctme and Zevin should decide which group to join. Group 1 look is modern, survivors or an event.
Group 2 is TBD.
My opinion is Zevin and/or ctme head to group Ben. I think ctme expressed a somewhat similar interest to Ratilla and Aldrusian but I don't want to assume.

I will join KaeJae's group.

Well, let's talk about group 2 then. The EMP that I mentioned had 3 possible origins. It really depends on what type of scenario the GM wants to run. The explosions that I spoke of would probably have been from airplanes crashing into buildings nearby or large gas tanks. I only mentioned conventions because it would allow us to have many disparate characters with widely varying skills. In many large cities centers where people congregate for work they usually have similar skills. For instance Wall Street in New York City has primarily financial people working there. Where I live there are a lot of flight engineers and others who build aircraft. (The Skunkworks is only a couple miles from me.) In Las Vegas you could have 6 or 7 different conventions happening at the same time. Thus a lot of different specialties in several nearby hotels on the strip. You can imagine no lights in LV. Or can you? I invite whoever is interested in joining group 2 riff on this.

I'm actually going to back out. The more I try to read the rules the less they make sense to me as a player. Have fun!

Wow, OK. That has happened to me only one other time. Had a player want to play, I make room and start thinking of way to tie their story in and they bounce. It's fine. We wamt to keep runing with 2 or go back to one. I'm good with either(I vote one myself).
Let's roll with plane crash. You are all in Vegas-lite city(Vegas-esk city would be a very on point city for the Mist to hide strange things in, as well as keep those inside from leaving) you are each there for one reason or another; gambling, convention, shows, vacation, etc. As the sun has set and the last remaining streams of its light kiss the sky above, darkness begins to take the night. Darkness? Here? The denizens and tourists begin a light commotion as blocks of the city stay dark. Soon after the sun reach falls from the skys grasp the city erupts into noise, explosions, fire, theft, screams, fear and epicaricacy.
The media claimed a plane crashed into a power station cutting power from blocks of the city, but that doesn't explain all the weird and violent stuff that went on.

That may need a couple tweeks but Ithink that hits a lot of the points mentioned so far. Anyone got more to add, maybe alter some? My word is not final at this point in the road.

What's the context of the game? Are we standing in the rubble dealing with the immediate consequence or are we some time later?

Some time later. The event has happened and you all have found eachother and started a group to investigate the event.

We are establishing a backstory of what happened, where how you all were involved then how you came to meet?

I'm good with a single storyline. I'm a little confused by one of your sentences above. "Soon after the sun reach falls from the skys grasp the city erupts into noise, explosions, fire, theft, screams, fear and epicaricacy." I suspect the word "reach" doesn't belong. The beginning sounds more poetic without it. And that last word is completely foreign to me. Googling the word helps and makes some sense but it's far from poetic, especially in a gambling center. I thought it was a misspelling of something.

I'm fine with only one group too !

Supposed to be "sun's reach". I wanted to paint the image of the sun struggling to stay up because the night is going to bring terror. An ominous sense.
The last word, I was looking for something more elegant than 'the joyful laughter of those evil acts fill the air.'

Another way of putting it and the one I like better is "rejoicing at the misfortune of others". But let's not let that detract from the game itself. I think we're beginning to get the flavor of it.

I guess the where for me would be at my favorite coffee house in the rundown section of the city. When the lights suddenly go off, it doesn't really bother me until I leave the shop, coffee in my hand, and notice that everything has gone dark. Blackouts in this part of town are unusual, but not unheard of. But when the downtown skyline goes dark, that's disconcerting. As I start wondering what the hack must have I happened, I hear the sirens wailing and follow the sounds to where an orange red glow, the only light except for the stars (stars, in the city? when was the last time I saw those...), burns in the distance.

Also, just wanted to say that with quite a lot of work and an exam nearby, I probably wont be able to work on my sheet/make decent posts before Wednesday. I hope it's fine for you ?

Well, that gives the rest of us a few days to think about our characters. I've been tossing around the idea of an Astronomer who has a mission of finding the first earth-like exoplanet. So that's 2 Logos. Where I go from there is anybody's guess. One Mythos idea might be extremely powerful eyesight but I don't know if that fits with the game concept. Perhaps looking through a telescope might reveal aspects of the target that might never been known otherwise. But, again, would that have any bearing on the game. If we're going with a more force-centric game perhaps his eyes can squirt poison or flames. Have no idea yet where to take that. And I'm not even sure that I want two Mythos or only one.

Hmm, might as well give away the idea I have now then: I thought about having "Charon" as my mytho, or a psychopomp/"soul's ferryman" in a more general way. Not sure what tags I would use for it, but it's powers would probably revolve around "guiding" people's souls into other bodies, the Underworld (or whatever could be life after death, he doesn't really need to know himself), and potentially get services from ghosts as an "obol"/payment for the travel.
Which leads to the proposition I wanted to do: Supposing this character discovered his powers/knew of them before, he could have tried to "save" people from the incident by putting their souls back into their bodies, those of other's people, or even of animals. That's mostly a flavor suggestion, so I'll just put the option here if you think that could be interesting for your character.

First Pass at Character Concept: I'm thinking my character would be a young woman from the wrong side of the tracks. Tough, probably went down a few wrong paths before kind of finding herself and getting involved in trying to make her crappy neighborhood a better place. As she started down the activist path, she realized that the reason things are the way are is because the powers that be in the city are literally making a killing off the backs of the poor. That's when her mythos kicked in - I haven't decided yet if it's Robin Hood or Zorro, but the animating principle of sticking it to the powerful to help the less fortunate is pretty much the same.

Would that work?

Great concepts.
@Aldrusian the eyesight is a fine Mythos power but your powers come from someone or something of legend, myth, fairytale and folklore. So what Mythio is inside you trying to tell it's story?
Obes I found with a quick sestch that have to do with vision: Argus, The Fates, creatures from Cthulhu myth.
The power don't need to match perfect just be representative of the myth or legend.

@Rattila that myth works. For tags think of what aspect your character will be embodying. Speak with dead, sense when someone is about to die(the event may have been a lot for your character to handle) in turn feel the life energy of those still living, give and take of life force as payment?
Thise should start you off.
@Everyone think of the power, ability, person, or item you want. Give it a name then see which themebook it best fits and answer thise question.

Let's use Charon as an example. I'll take the sense thise about to die concept. I feel this is Divination as it alters the senses and gives access to unknowable information.
Conpect question:
HOW DOES YOUR MYTHOS LEARN ABOUT THE WORLD AROUND IT? It allows me to tap into new sources of information by sensing the fate of others.

Now you answer the first question of the themebook then pick two others.
[A]WHAT ALLOWS YOU TO UNCANNILY KNOW THINGS YOU WOULDN’T NORMAL-LY KNOW? It gives me a feeling of unnerving dread when a person will die near me.
Tag: Dread feeling

[B]WHAT OTHER TYPE OF KNOWLEDGE CAN YOU ACCESS WITH YOUR POWERS? I can tell what, if any, health problems they have.
Tag: Health check

[I]HOW CAN YOU AFFECT OTHERS WITH YOUR POWER? Give others an immobilizing sense of their impending death.
Tag:Death glimpse.

Wekaness Tag Question
[A]WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOUR DIVINATION OVERWHELMS YOU? I can sense nothing but the death around me.
Tag: Numb senses

I see, good example ! I'll probably try to drive more into the "talking with the deads" aspect than sensing death itself, but I get the idea ^^. "Guiding the death" itself could probably work by talking alone too, so at first Divination will probably do it as a single mythos Tag.

The character will probably be some kind of novice priest or religious man. It'll be funny to confront his beliefs to the reality of an urban fantasy world.

That should be a fun take on the concept. Glad I eas able to convey the idea of how the character creation works. Looking forward to the ideas and tags you create

The vision comes from the blind idiot god, Azathoth, an integral player in the Cthulhu universe. But there is a twist. Even though his vision is better than excellent, he can see into peoples' dreams and alter them, but he, himself, becomes temporarily blinded while he's reading and affecting dreams. Another aspect could be that, when he views the evidence of exoplanets, he sees both their potential as well as the evil spirits that inhabit or control those worlds. What I would do with all that, I'm not certain but it sounds good to me.

Well for dream altering I'm looking at Diviniation or Subversion as the themebooks. Reading the themebook may help you decide.

To those that do not have access to the players guide I will give a link to a copy. Lets hope this works.

My terrible character concept.

Logos - A put-upon wealth manager, who has to endure the vagaries and insensitivities of the hyper-rich, adjacent to but never really a part of a world of unimaginable privilege, but also an abashed enabler of vice.
Mythos: The White Rabbit -The herald of the Queen of Hearts, the White Rabbit is a guide and an interpreter. He steers others towards the Strange, and it speaks through him, trusting him to give its unknowable whims voice and meaning to lesser beings. Time has a different meaning to him, and he can travel between worlds and walk where others of his station are not permitted.

White Rabbit nice. Maybe Mobility theme and any doorway opens to anywhere within the city. For the second either Divinity, for the information but I'm not sure how you'd express where the info comes from, or Relic of a stopwatch or wristwatch that manipulates time some.

Mobility - Down The Rabbit Hole
It can transport itself and others by means of doorways and winding passages.

What is your Mythos' most useful form of movement?
Passing through one passage to exit from another.

What allows you to move others?
Follow the white rabbit.

What special resource does your mobility give access to?[/u]
An underworld of cramped tunnels and upside-down physics that can lead to fantastical places.

What happens when you go too fast, too far, etc?
Temporal distortion and displacement.

Mystery
How deep does the rabbit hole go?

Bastion - Herald of the Queen
How does your Mythos protect your Agenda?
It allows me to ward off violence and outrage with fae decorum.

What Quality or Ability granted by your mythos most often protects you?
An aura of supernatural propriety.

What means do you have of extending protection to others?
Involving others in unexplainable taboos.

What secondary defensive effect does your defense have?
Uncanny awareness of social psychology.

To what attacks is your defense susceptible?
Mischief and jestery.

Mystery
Who makes the rules?

I found something in mythology of a creature who inhabits dreams. It's called the Bakhtak from Iranian mythology. I'm wondering if that would work as a Mythos.

If you can find a way to express it in tags absolutely. Remeber though, your characters are not these myths, the myths are expressing their story through your character.

@GreyGriffin while I like both themes I have a couple clarifying answers. How is "Follow the white rabbit" expressed. What happens when you invike that power?

Oops, hit post by mistake, anyway, to continue.
With your Bastion power. What does it look like when invoked? What kind of violence does it protect against, phyiscal, mental, magical, a combination?
With regards to protecting others. Can you more specifically explain what "Involving others in unexplainable taboos" refers to? How does an unexpected taboo protect someone?
The weakness tag has me grasping at many meanings. So other who see you use your power of bastion it comes off as some clown act? Does it look like a scene from the Jackass show? How mischievous or foolish(referring to jestery and jesters called fools back in the day) is your defence?

When you all think of answers to the question on a thembook, answer as complete as you can. We can whittle down the answer to a tag in subsequent post.

Apex, with the Robin Hood/Zorro type concept, I'm thinking of some combination of Expression or Relic and Mobility as Mythos themes? Do you think that would work, and which of the first two do you think would make more sense? Thanks!

Sorry if I skipped ahead, I was just working it out in a text file and figured I might as well post it here to work through it.

Follow the white rabbit.

...burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.

This is kind of a double-edged tag - he can walk down a hallway and turn a corner and end up in another hallway, or open a door and walk into a room that isn't on the other side. He's limited to using "passageways" - roadway tunnels, hallways, alleyways, doors, etc. But if someone follows him closely enough and with purpose they can sort of ride his coattails, following in the wake of whatever magic is transporting him.

Herald of the Queen

On this the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and then unrolled the parchment scroll, and read as follows:—

"The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts,
All on a summer day:
The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts,
And took them quite away!"

"Consider your verdict," the King said to the jury.
"Not yet, not yet!" the Rabbit hastily interrupted. "There’s a great deal to come before that!"

I actually bobbled a lot on how to express this as a power, and settled on Bastion because it's mostly defensive. It's sort of... absurdist daoist legalism? He is attuned to a current of mythical "procedure" that allows him to walk unimpeded among the courts of the mighty. If he is acting properly in accordance with these mysterious rules, he is protected from violence, both physical (physical attacks will miss him by miraculous circumstance, or his attacker may find themselves uncertain and uneasy and unable to land a square blow, or he will simply find himself in the right place to maintain his dignified station of not-being-punched.) and social (attempts to cow or frighten him will break over or pass through his sense of rightness and certainty, and attempts to demean or besmirch him in the eyes of others will ring hollow).

He can include others in this protection by subjecting them to a taboo. Say, forcing them to keep one hand in a pocket, or to all wear the same colored shirt, or to wear some kind of performative mask - as long as they adhere to the taboo, then they are protected until they leave the scene the taboo was prepared for. So, he could say something like, "As long as we don't ask any questions, we are protected from the demons of the court until it adjourns for the evening." So as soon as someone asked a question, they would be stripped of protection. The taboos should generally be either performative (some obvious and conspicuous piece of clothing or an inconvenient totem) or inhibiting (keeping your thumbs hooked together, only speaking in lyrics from Pink Floyd albums.)

(Oops, I wrote the wrong Weakness question - corrected above. I was originally toying with the idea of being part of "the system" and being compelled to behave or act some way, but couldn't really turn it over. It really resonated with the themes of the character - being a cog in an inscrutable machine that may be doing things he doesn't like - but it also seemed to kind of pass the buck upstairs to make the weakness really count or matter.)
The power's protection crumbles in the face of attacks directly at its root - dignity and mutual respect. It wouldn't protect him from getting kicked in the nuts or beaned with a cream pie, or from the shame and laughter of a dirty limerick impugning his sexual proclivities, or other situations where the social order itself is being attacked directly. If he impugns his own dignity by kicking someone in the nuts, he also forfeits his own protection, unless nut-kicking is the local and accepted custom.

I originally toyed with something more along the lines of Wonderland Courtier, an Adaptation power that kind of worked more like generalized spellcasting tied closer to the idea of taboos and behavior, but that seemed like it could get real annoying real fast.

@KaeJae Expression can work, I like Submersion better, can better define steal from the rich. Mobility is obviously a good choice. You have to decide to lean more toward action or thievery.

@GreyGriffin don't be sorry. That is the point of this session. We seemed to hit a stall with the event decription so working a bit on characters may spark something. I'll read your post tonight but wont comment until later today, it's late over, or early depending on how you look at it(2:30am)

@GreyGriffin I read your edit. I think I understand Herald of the Queen now. I think if your character ever met Robin Williams Genie or Jim Carey's Ace Ventura they'd be screwed. I like both Mythos, now your Logos and character details. I can see your character being a lawyer, but that sounds a bit on the nose.

Anyone else have ideas to throw out?

Thats fine. I figured we're coming up to a time were people's time will be limited.

Just saying, but wouldn't it be better to have a dedicated thread where to put our sheets ? It would be simpler to find them when needed, I think.

Good idea.

Alright, I got one up. I'll edit the template if we want more added to it. Also, feel free to use any other character sheets means.

I''m waffling between Routine (Wealth management firm), Training (Fixer/finance), and Personality (Accomodating/neurotic) for my logos tags atm.

Let's see, here's my try at it:


Soul's Ferryman

Power:

How does your Mythos learn about the World around it ?
It allows me to see the spirit of deceased living beings and communicate with them.

A-What allows you to uncannily know things you wouldn't normally know ?
A discussion with the deads.

H-What creative ways of using your divination have you developed ?
Asking ghosts a favor.

I-How can you affect others with your power ?
Guiding their souls; to another body, or to the Afterlife.


Weakness:

B-What can hinder or block your Divination ?
Not all spirits are cooperative.

Personality: Neurotic
"I don't think I'd ever forgive myself if I were late for our appointment."

? - What are you like?
I want others to respect me, personally and professionally.

A - What lies at the core of your personality?
Fastidiousness
Without natural grace, charm, or charisma, staying in the loop takes hard and tedious work and conscious effort.

D - When you want, you can also come across as...
Authoritative
Does not seem to be one to act assertive without some firm ground to stand on.

H - What useful habit or routine have you cultivated thanks to your personality?
Remember all the details - all of them.
Accounts? Account numbers? Account balances? Appointments? Birthdays? Nieces' birthdays? That thing you said you wanted for Christmas one time in August? What screedy podcast you turn off when your wife walks into the room? Noted.

D - What happens when you are pushed into a corner?
Whimpering capitulation.
If he pushes, and you push back, he absolutely won't push back harder.

---

Training: Wealth Management
"Managing money is just math. Managing the people with the money is the real trick."

What do you do or know best?
Finance
The full spectrum of the field of finance, from simple personal banking to investment and wealth diversification, and a pinch of tax avoidance. It's not fraud if it's right there in the books.

C - What other tangent field have you ventured into indirectly?
Mediation.
Untangling knots of competing interests, revealing unpleasant truths, and finding out the real stakes of a given account for all its holders is part ant parcel. And then there's the divorce counseling...

J - What unusual new application of your training are you exploring?
Detective work.
Reading between the lines, finding out what assets are off the books, and digging up the dirty laundry is an unfortunate part of his professional life.

B - How did your training adversely affect your psyche or body?
Emotionally hollowed out.
Everybody is hiding something, and they're all out for themselves. As soon as money's on the line, anyone, anyone can turn into a viper. It's hard to make friends or find love when you know what would happen if they had a million dollars.

I'm especially curious how this character might interact with the embodiment of Robin Hood.

Agreed. I like both those Logos Grey. I see you mixed the two you were waffling between, nice work.

@Ratilla I like Soul's Ferryman but while I can envoke that Weakness tag it seems like a difficult tag to overcome. As you gain power you can eventually remove a weakness tag. How can you overcome a souls uncooperativeness?
Feel free to answer that.
An alternative may be your personality that some don't like, if you want to keep it in that vien.
Too many people around might block it.
Maybe you get headache when using your power too much and that keeps you from using it until the headache is gone.

I thought that he could overcome most uncooperative people by speaking and "negotiating" with them, possibly for a longer time. So it could possibly be only the most tricky that wouldn't help him after a while. And I see it as fair game considering how broad the possible help from a ghost is (intel, knowing a murderer, following or haunting someone, etc).

I'll take that. One Mythos down

And I'll probably go with a Touched, so after that it'll be all Logos. The way I see it, he ignored his power or saw it as a sign of God for most of his life, so he wouldn't know it very well, and still do not necessarily want to.

Here is a link to an editable character sheet.

Oh, that is nice, thanks !

You could also assert that overcoming uncooperative souls could just be a matter of developing the "craft," either just being so used to recalcitrant souls that them being recalcitrant doesn't actually inhibit you enough to make a statistical difference, or even just a development of supernatural authority.

Also a way to take it. I only wanted to make sure no one was left painting themselves into a corner so-to-speak.

I quite like the first idea too, yeah ! I guess it could be a combination of learned charisma, easiness to find a soul and experience with how they work, yeah.

I hope all are thinking of great concepts for charaters and maybe some ways that you can be connected to one another(before or after the event). It looks like the event will be the power outage with riots, gas main explotions, sink holes. At least that's what the main populace remebers. You all remember something much more mystical.

With this week being Christmas I think we can put this on hold for any big posts untill next week.
Feel free to post and I'll check in when I can but don't except anything big untill next week.
Merry Christmas everyone. Have a safe holiday week.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Indeed, enjoy the vacations !

Alright I'm back. How was everyone's New Year?

Welcome Back! So far so good! :)

Happy New Year (a bit late, I guess) !
And good enough to me, how was yours ?

Nothing crazy. Had the nephew's over and played games until midnight.

Anyone come back with any baller ideas?

Most of my brain energy right now is turned toward my exams, to be honest x). Speaking of which, would it annoy anyone if we start after the 15th, since I'll be way more available after that ?

I still haven't done anything with my character and having some difficulty with the requirements. The thing I liked about the earlier versions of rpg's is that character motivation wasn't really required. What are my personal motivations? I have none. I live day to day, just hoping to live through that day. At my age that's all you can ask for. As for identity, the only thing I do is look in a mirror. If I see a face I recognize, I have identified myself. Anything beyond that is way over my head. As for themes and character evolution, I have to go back to my personal life. I evolve using my eyes and my brain. I see the world around me and read the printed page and learn from that. If there is more to evolution than that, I don't know what it is. So with all that said is it still beneficial to have me in this group since I have no idea how to create the necessary character.

The real question is if you feel its too much work to play. This is supposed to be fun not work. I think we can help you come up with something and maybe ease the trouble.

Lets start with the legend you liked, the god of dreams. (I do have a question as to why you switched from Azathoth? I love Cthulhu myth.) We can work from the legend out to the person it is expressing itself through.
What kind of power or abilities will this mythos give your character?

Azathoth, being a blind idiot god, in an attempt to outwit the Elder gods, finds that he can only see by invading people's dreams. It's but a quick step from seeing people's dreams to entering them and altering them into nightmares. Azathoth has had plenty of time to worm his way out of the chaos at the center of the universe and find a world that he can devastate. His next step is to try to not only control the nightmare but also control each being's waking life and thereby the entire world. His only difficulty is what he will encounter in the power of the human mind.

Now, the power that this mythos would transmit to my character will take some thought and discussion. I would have to go back and analyze the goals of the characters of this game and find out what the others are doing with there character's powers. I would think that my character's power would have something to do with people's minds. Mind control is probably way too powerful at least at the beginning. Mind reading is a possibility but there are a large number of variables to be had there. Perhaps if the thought is within a certain range and it's a powerful enough thought and it's directed toward him or someone close to him. Then, if that's too strong we can talk about reading simple emotions. Like I said, I don't know what the others are doing and what you would accept.

I personally find the modern design trend of RPGs to point character building back to motivation to be refreshing and important. Even in Ye Olde RPGs, you had Alignment (moral and ethical motivations), and simple motivations built into adventure design. Most adventurers wanted to get hold of treasure, slay evil monsters, or just feel alive with the thrill of combat, action, and exploration.

Motivations don't have to be complex to be compelling. At his root, my character wants to maintain his comfortable status quo, but also to exert more personal agency in his life. All of the context is built outward from that, and I've taken some care to build conflicts into the sheet thematically, but that's all icing on top of that simple motivational core.

Heck, being able to live a normal, boring life and return to mundanity is a compelling motivation in a setting like this. Look at Cypher in The Matrix. Or Oz's Dorothy Gale, a character that can almost be read as reactionary to Alice's sort of feckless wanderer, who has a clear but mundane motivation to just get home safely.

(See also the entire subgenre-made-genre of Trapped In VR Animes for more examples.)

Good, clear motiviations also are really important guideposts for GMs, giving them good clues about the themes the players want to explore, and what dominoes to set up in a scene or session to create emotional challenges, resonance, and arcs, beyond the mere physical facts of a given situation. Character creation that compels you to express those motivations and get them written down lets you express them to the GM through the process of character creation, rather than having to pry it out.

A character who wants to live a normal life will react much differently to things that disrupt their lives and threaten their connections to loved ones than quixotic adventurers who want to shed their humanity and become larger than life. Threatening the job of the assistant manager at the local Pick n' Save who wants to be a dragon and one who doesn't will play out totally differently for either character because of their motivations, even if they have all the same powers and statistics.

@GreyGriffin fantastic words, they have given my feul to help with story building.

@Aldrusian mind control is not too powerful an ability. It would be the theme book and you'd answer the question for the theme that best fits it. After that we would figure out the power tags and how they work.
It's your job as a player to think of the most interesting and fun character you would want to play; it is my job to build a story around that idea to keep you interested.

Just checking in on you all. Not sure about the rest of you but I've had a lot of distractions at the moment. I am still here and will try keep a twice a week posting schedule.

Now, where is everyone with their characters? Aldrusian was contemplating a mond controller with the legend of an ancient god.
GreyGriffin has the legend of the white rabbit.
There was a terrible event during a convention(I'm drawing a blank on what the public thinks happened.)
What are the rest of you thinking of going for?

Should be able to complete my sheet this weekend, personally. I have a very precise idea of what I want to go for.

I should have the sheet done by early next week

I'm having trouble finding the appropriate themebook for my character. Every place I go on the internet gives me another long list of sites to choose from. I select one of them and get another long list. It's never ending.

KaeJae and I got together last night and knocked out a significant portion of our character sheets. This evening, I slammed my head into the wall (literally and unintentionally), so I may wait till tomorrow to finish...

Putting the finishing touches on the last Logos theme. But my brain hurts >.< Tomorrow, it will be done. Sorry it's taking so long!

Personally, I'm finally done with my Themes, so all that's left is to finish the backstory/origin, I guess. And maybe the Crew Tags, too ?

I know I found a theme book once. I don't know why I can't find it again. I can't even remember the subject matter now. Ah, now I remember. It was Subversion. Still can't find the specific book. I did see something about an offer to sell theme books for about $9 each.

Here'smy post from a few pages ago. The themebooks srart at around page 90.

@Apex: Did you get a chance to look over my character?

I got access to a theme book for subversion or at least a few pages of one. Now all I gotta do is absorb the information there and try to translate it into something I can understand. I'm very old school so today's jargon is sometimes difficult for me to follow.

Has anyone heard from the GM since January? In two days it will be two weeks since the last post.

Didn't either to be honest, apparently, he's been inactive on the Discord for way longer than here.

I've hit my two week/no contact threshold. It would have been a lot of fun to try this out, but it looks like another GP ghosting. Hope to see you all in another game that actually gets off the ground!

Well, same for you !

Yes, I'm withdrawing, as well. Best wishes to all!

Well, since I've never really gotten into this game guess I'll withdraw as well.