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technoparadigm-blog · 6 years ago

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Verses.

{ On The Side Of Good [ Good! Jack v. 1 ] }

A Good!Jack verse. He is not a Xiaolin warrior in this verse, but uses his skill in robotics to occasionally help the warriors. He is excellent in fighting with a metal staff, that has a variety of functions, such as being used as a taser, and so on and so forth. He is still a businessman in this verse, but he is completely ethical, and does not run his business like a monopoly. He is a powerful figure, but he doesn’t let that get to his head.

{ You Are Challenged By Team Plasma Admin Jack Spicer! [ Pokemon Verse I ] }

Pokemon AU in which Jack was a member of Team Plasma, right up until Colress dissolved it. He obviously started out as a grunt, but rose through the ranks to become Colress’ assistant, helping him with his technology to control Pokemon. Jack chose to secretly follow Colress rather than Ghetsis before Colress took over Team Plasma, and was more than delighted when Colress became leader. Colress appointed him Admin.

After Team Plasma’s dissolvation, Jack chose to stay in Unova, and is still in contact with Colress. Often, they’ll travel together, and sometimes have Pokemon battles together.

[Jack’s Team (Based off of B2/W2 Pokedex): Shiny Magmemite, Excadrill, Umbreon, Gothitelle, Klinklang, Metagross.]

{ You Are Challenged By Team Skull Representative Jack Spicer! [ Pokemon Verse II ] }

In this verse, Jack is the Representative of Team Skull, but only appears unless he has to. Rarely anyone knows he exists as Team Plasma’s Rep. He is a fearless trainer, and sometimes mentors the other grunts. He deeply looks up to Guzma, and dislikes Lusamine greatly for using him. Typically, Jack doesn’t like to cause too much trouble unless he’s feeling pissed or unless ordered by Guzma.

[Jack’s Alolan team: Toxapex (Wuya/F), Mimikyu (M/No nickname by request of Mimikyu), Palossand (M/Rai), Weavile (F/Kimi), Salazzle (F/Shadow), Marowak (M/Salva)]

Mermaid Prince

Meet Prince Sayo– He’s the most childish, egotistical and lovable Prince of a kingdom of mermaids deep under the ocean just a couple of miles off the coast of Japan. He doesn’t care for business, or anything particularly seriously.

And yet, everyone loves him.

It’s his childishness that makes the other Mer laugh when they’re sad, and his kindness knows no bounds when it comes to helping his fellow people out. He’ll continue to be this way, especially when his parents are so strict,forbidding Sayo to do many things, including going on land, but Sayo alwaysdisobeys.

Sayo has saved many from ridiculous and harsh punishments via his parents because he doesn’t feel it’s right to hurt anyone over small matters that can be addressed.

He hopes one day to become king.

Sayo has many different powers, one such including the power to change his tail to legs because of his necklace. The texture of his tail resembles that of Salmon scales.

Sayo can control the waters around him so long as that water has come into contact with his skin. Since Sayo can control his transformation, that is not a problem for him unless someone documents him as a Mer. It would be terrible for a person to anger Sayo when he is in a large body of water.

Sayo can also do several ‘trick’ abilities, such as invisibility, levitation,and telekinesis.

Assassin Verse:

Since the age of 12, young Jack trained to be a weapon under the complete knowledge of his own parents. he knows nothing about the idea of having a childhood and is completely cold-hearted, mindless and blank in expression. he is hired by commission only, sometimes having hits like top-rank officials or even one’s spouse for money. Jack cares nothing about the motive but the money it brings to him.

He is expert in sword skills and with the use of guns as well and his tracks are never left behind. His preferred choice of weapon is a knife. He constantly has to change appearance and names to cover his tracks but it means nothing to him as he will always reap the reward.

His parents do no longer exist after Jack reaches the age of 20– he orchestrates their own demise, leaving all of their riches to him.

Reborn, the Wings of Courage

Jack is a phoenix in this verse, but can appear as human while also materializing his wings as human. He has existed for over 1000 years, born into the world as a symbol of protection, courage and strength. While Jack has lived for so long, he must do as all phoenixes do and die for the next 500 years, only to be reborn after that time frame.

His appearance changes with each cycle, but he can remember his true appearance: scarlet red hair, ruby red eyes, and an affinity for wearing the color black despite the phoenix’s true colors.

In the current cycle, Jack’s appearance is now snow white hair reaching the shoulders, blue eyes, and he has the affinity for wearing the color silver, and all kinds of diamonds.

On cue he can summon divine fire, color changing either to red or white, and his eyes glow of the same color when he fights. His purpose in the world is to protect, and provide courage to those who need it. One can call on Jack if they need him, but for a price. He wants no money, no materialistic things but for that person to always keep their heart true, and he provides a pact for that. Should they break the pact, they will experience true misfortune.

Vampiric Resonance

Jack is a vampire in this verse, a Royal one at that, who has his own court and so on and so forth. Junko, Kasumi, Sora, Raimondo, Shinobu and Takumi all exist as his elite set of vampiric guards to protect him as well as keep his followers in check.

He rules in his own dimension, in which the atmosphere is always dark but never gloomy. It resembles a futuristic cyberpunk era. For the most part, everyone is loyal to him & Jack is never truly angered unless those that try to revolt against him surface, so there is no need for bloodshed and grimace.

However with being a vampire and having his own kingdom, Jack needs his fill and will often cross dimensions and reach Earth for a short period of time to satisfy said fill, which is always the blood of three humans. Nothing more, nothing less.

Child of the Machine

Jack was a sickly boy from a young age. His sickness was so severe that his parents thought he wouldn’t make it. Despite it, Jack grew to the age of 17 having a extensive knowledge on technology. His parents thought he was obsessed with technology because he was trying to find a cure to his ailment, but it was for a much different reason.

He slowly constructed himself into something he loved– a robot. He retained his human emotions and organs, but he is entirely technological and cannot die under any circumstance. His movement and sense of humanity is still present, but he is no longer human.

To this day, his parents cannot tell the difference. All they know is that Jack is cured under ‘mysterious circumstances’.

Modern Verse

Sayo was brought up by his birth parents, Aiko and Shou Saito, who raised their child with extreme care while also making sure their son was able to enjoy the things he liked. Since Sayo was their only child, and they had extreme wealth, they took a variety of measures to make sure he was safe, such as making sure he was with bodyguards at all times: at school and with leisure activities. [These would be Junko, Kasumi, Shinobu, Takumi, Sora and Raimondo, respectively, though Junko and Kasumi are the ones who are with Sayo most.]

Sayo’s parents allowed him to live on his own only when he was sure of it and at the age of 21, he chose to move into his own mansion and keep into contact with them. He also chose to go into his own field of robotics, creating his own inventions and having his name be recognized. He chose only to receive the least amount of help from them in order to earn his recognition. By the time he is 27, he has become a great innovator, and a person all CEO-hopefuls want to be.

However, with his recognition does Sayo become much more bold and daring. He does his work ethically, yet there are moments where he is tempted by ideas of corruption but never acts on it. There are many that fear him, because of his boldness, and because of his sharp tongue, so he is not one to be trifled with.

Other notes:

- He carries a hand fan with him, decorated in gold and black designs. It has a dangling charm that comes with it, the charm being a gold coin.

- Since Sayo’s birth parents never gave him up in this verse, I’ll go by ‘Ayumu/Sayo’ for him here. (Sometimes I’ll forget and refer to him as Jack to make it easier.)

- He is not afraid to speak his mind, and will challenge anyone who challenges him.

- He isn’t afraid to lean towards unethical things in terms of those who try to challenge him. This meaning that Sayo would not do unethical things in terms of his own business (like trying to ‘take over’ potential competition like he does in main verse) but rather to sabotage other businesses if he feels the CEO/Owner of that business is ill-mannered and unfit to be in a position of power, or if that person has tried to sabotage him.

Teen Verse ---> Modern Verse

Part of the Modern Verse. Jack before he moved out from his parents’ home at the age of 21. His parents wanted him to enjoy the things he liked, and therefore, he was allowed to have any sort of classes he liked, such as calligraphy classes, art, and so on. However, he chooses to train in martial arts and sword use. It does a great deal on his body as he forces himself to be stronger and overcome his osteopenia.

He is often reserved, not willing to speak and others but has a sharp and cold tongue. Though it hurts his body, he is perfectly capable of fighting and will force himself to endure whatever pain he has in order to survive. At this point in time, he isn’t thinking about his future profession as a roboticist/inventor. He just wants to live.

Notes:

- He’ll have one of his bodyguards with him at all times *mentioned above for modern verse.

- It takes a great deal to become friends with him.

- Dresses elegantly, carrying the same hand fan mentioned in modern verse. A parting gift from his mother so that he could always remember to see her and his father as well.

- Likes to turn a bad situation in his favor.

Witch of Justice (Magick Verse)

Jack comes from a lineage of witches. His parents expeced him to follow the tradition, and Jack chose to do so, but in his own way. Since he knew his ancestry to have cast malicious spells, and his parents to do similar, he chose to use his power to provide liberation for others. Jack isn’t tied to a specific element when he does his spells, but he’s been known to use primarily storm, wind, and fire magicks.

His parents are disapproving. They believe he should be asking for a price for his services, and using magick that would “make one fear him.” Jack, however, doesn’t wish to use his power for that, and knows he would have an overbearing opposition from his parents, so he leaves them and opens his own shop, continuing the lineage how he sees fit.

#☣ // verses.#☣ // let's try again; the path of wickedness is not the one {good verse}.#☣ // cruel assistant {you are challenged by team plasma admin jack spicer!}#☣ // dorkish rep {you are challenged by team skull representative jack spicer!}.#☣ // jewel of the sea {mermaid prince}.#☣ // blood oath {assassin}.#☣ // the wings of courage {phoenix}#☣ // lips stained red {vampiric resonance}.#☣ // sayo.exe has been reborn {child of the machine}.#☣ // sharp tongue; heart of gall {modern}.#☣ // cold gaze; heart of gall {teen verse to modern verse}.#☣ // the witch of justice {magick verse}.

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theonyxpath · 7 years ago

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Changeling: The Lost, Second Edition has gone to manuscript approval at White Wolf Entertainment. This is WWE’s chance to look at our near-final text and specify any changes they’d like to see. After this, the book goes to editing and art direction, then post-editing development, then layout.

To celebrate, here’s a preview of the True Fae, by Meghan Fitzgerald and Travis Stout!

The True Fae

Half a hundred aliases describe them: Gentry, Good Cousins, Kindly Ones, Fair Folk, and more. These are lies frightened women and men tell, hoping to appease the vanity of capricious gods. Such false names obscure true ones that no one dares speak, lest careless and impertinent utterance draw Their attention from across the Thorns. The Lost use the word “fae” to describe anything that comes from the Hedge or beyond it — hobgoblins, tokens, even themselves. But the True Fae are those noble, mercurial, unknowable beings that stride, larger than life, across Arcadia and rule its lands with the divine right of conquerors.

Most changelings see “Keeper” as synonymous with “Gentry,” but in truth, Faerie is home to countless Others who have no interest in humanity. They wage glorious wars over heart-bound trophies, pitting goblin hordes against one another until blood stains the sky. They plumb the ragged edges and dusty corners of their realm, seeking new voids to fill with their boundless selves. Fae explorers prowling the cold, empty wasteland beyond the borders of their Arcadia were the first to discover the Huntsmen in their barrows there, but grew bored with these new playthings until their brethren found a way to put them to better use. A changeling desperate enough to escape her Keeper could reach out to its rival who keeps no human prisoners for a hint to its weakness, though she may decide the price isn’t worth paying after all.

A True Fae is not a person, but a Name wrapped in a tapestry of vows and deals. Deep in the mists of forgotten time, the Fae bargained with Arcadia itself, declaring that they would exist — that they would own the land entire and claim it as a vessel for their Wyrd, dreams, and facets, in exchange for a web of arcane rules so complex no one of them could ever know them all. At their core, the Fae are ravenous beings that must possess. They want, and in their all-consuming wanting they strike bargains to sate their desires, whether for slaves, kingdoms, secrets, or spoils. Changelings who live and labor among them usually see only the tip of the Gentry iceberg, but those brave and foolish enough to delve more fully into Faerie’s mysteries catch a glimpse of the truth: a True Fae’s Name is its heart and its undoing, and all the vast kingdoms and beauteous treasures with which it surrounds itself are made of promises. And promises can be broken.

Names and Titles

A True Fae’s Name is its core, and rarely manifests in a comprehensible way unless its Titles have all been stripped away or lost. A Title is one of many roles a single Fae agrees to play, one face of many that it wears, granting it limited omnipotence within the confines of that role. The Princess of Red Crowns is able to nail her hats to the heads of her victims, to conjure up her great and terrible Crimson Keep, because she holds that title. She possesses near-infinite power when it comes to nailing hats to people’s heads, dragging off wicked children to her Keep, and so on, but unless she is also the Tlatoani of Crashing Serpents, she has no especial control over dragons or violent thunderstorms. No matter what form a Title takes, its nature always bleeds through: every manifestation of the Princess, on Earth or in Arcadia, features elements of torture, blood, and nails, for example, whether she appears as a blood-drenched madwoman with a hammer or a children’s rhyme about the perils of going out of doors while hatless.

The True Fae are the lords and ladies in their palaces of crystal and moonlight, but they are also the palace and the masked servants and the forest in which the castle sits. What the Courts call the “Keeper” is just one Title’s manifestation, and even if a changeling kills it, the oaths it made would simply cast a new piece of itself in that role eventually and pick up the Wild Hunt where it left off. Only breaking the deals that created a Title in the first place can permanently unravel it, although another Fae may devour it and claim it for itself.

A given Title might become a Keeper for any number of reasons, and might not be one forever. A changeling’s captor might abandon her for ten years not to inflict the torture of loneliness but just because its Keeper Title got distracted with something else for a while and forgot it was a Keeper. Some Fae take people for the exquisite flavor of their emotions, or the prizes they can extract from human dreams. With their ability to weave dream-symbols into real objects, they pluck the most valuable jewels of dreamstuff from the minds of slumbering mortals and steal them away to adorn their crowns. A beloved memory, a childhood fear, or even the certainty itself that one is only dreaming and can wake at any time — a True Fae may covet these, and only the dreams of humanity can provide. Other Gentry might love humans for their ability to present a spirited challenge or entertain them, or might simply prefer human servants to goblin ones for the smell. One Fae might plot to take more human prisoners than another, for no reason other than to compete. Some Titles may even need to capture humans as a term of their deals to exist, which means a changeling might escape by finding loopholes in those deals.

Sign on the Dotted Line

The Others have built a kingdom that conforms to their every whim, but without their age-old pledges they would be nothing. More importantly, they can’t take power away from rebellious changelings without taking power away from themselves — an inconceivable notion. Their tangled webs of pacts and obligations are what empower the Lost to oppose and evade them.

All the world-shaping power and casual immortality a True Fae possesses comes from pacts it signed when it came into being. The Contracts it wields are like a changeling’s writ large, inscribed into not only itself but its domain too — even the crystal gardens that sing enchanting songs and the treacherous bogs that devour trespassers are Contracts. The signature that seals the deal is the oath a Fae swears, and the terms of this oath are complex secrets woven into its realm and the role it plays among the other Gentry. Pacts it swears upon its Name are existentially binding, and bestow the grandest and most fundamental parts of a Fae’s nature that persist across all of its Titles. Breaking these pacts condemns it to true destruction. Lesser pacts it swears upon a Title bestow smaller-scale powers only that Title can use; breaking these pacts won’t kill a Fae, but it might destroy the Title or render one of its powers useless.

A True Fae makes deals with entire Regalia, gaining nigh-limitless power over their themes within the bounds of the Title that uses them. In exchange, it must keep a physical representation of each Regalia it masters, though not always a literal one. A Sword could very well be a weapon, but it might also be a hunting hawk, a thunderstorm, or a bulldozer. It could even be a jagged cliff that juts out into the sea — anything that expresses force and forthrightness within the purview of the Title that commands it. Some changelings think the Fae have access to more than six Regalia, deriving ever more esoteric powers from treasures rare and peculiar.

An Arcadian realm is like a theatre: the scenery and costumes and faces change, but the framework remains apparent, if an actor just changes her perspective. Anyone wishing to oppose one of the Fair Folk can do so on its terms, dueling with pistols or plotting with its goblin courtiers, and in many cases that’s the only apparent way to do it. But these are uphill battles, fought with great sacrifice to little permanent effect. A changeling who learns the true nature of Titles and their oaths can quest and scheme to discover the terms or physical key to such an oath. Clever manipulation of the Title’s manifestation, destroying the Regalia outright, or appropriating it and overriding the oath by swearing a more powerful one on someone else’s true name can force the Fae to break its pact and take power away from it.

The Fae war among themselves for countless inscrutable reasons, constantly enmeshed in rivalries, enmities, and shifting alliances. One impetus lies in the Gentry’s ability to consume each other’s Titles and add them to their own complement of roles. If a True Fae loses all its Titles and its Name is obliterated, it ceases to be; but if even one of its Titles persists as part of another Fae, it could reconstitute itself someday, regaining a Name through some convoluted set of pledge clauses and happy accidents.

True Fae Traits

A True Fae never appears in a game as anything but the manifestation of one of its Titles, or its Name if it has no Titles left. Characters can’t interact with the full breadth of one of the Fair Ones any other way. A manifestation could be a character, or it could be a sky citadel, or an enormous clockwork machine, or a flock of platinum birds. Regardless of its form, a Title has most of the same traits that a changeling does, although all of its Attributes and Skills may not be applicable in certain forms. The Storyteller doesn’t need to create traits for every Title that belongs to a True Fae; only ones the characters will meaningfully interact with.

Build a Fae antagonist with the rules for creating Changeling characters (see Chapter Three), with the following considerations and exceptions:

Character Concept and Titles: A True Fae has three Aspirations just like changelings do. Whenever it fulfills an Aspiration, it gains a Willpower point instead of a Beat, which goes away at the end of the scene if not spent unless it was earned pursuing a craving or a changeling.

Aspirations for the Gentry range everywhere from the humanly impossible to the unthinkably cruel. If the Title is a Keeper, one of its Aspirations should reflect its desire to capture — or recapture — a changeling. One Aspiration should always reflect a craving of some kind, something the Title wants to possess more than anything, such as “the love of a human” or “one million loyal subjects;” this Aspiration stays no matter how many times it’s fulfilled. Highly abstract Aspirations like “become a star” are valid for the Gentry, but the Storyteller should make sure a route to such an Aspiration exists and has something to do with characters the Fae can interact with; for instance, to become a star, the Title might first need to transform seven humans into eternal blue fires and then consume them on Midsummer’s Eve. The star then becomes just another manifestation of the Title.

A True Fae has between zero and five Titles. The Storyteller should decide up front how many total Titles the Fae has, even if he’s only creating traits for one of them; this determines how powerful each Title is. A Fae with zero Titles is like a cornered rat, consisting only of a Name, and is desperate to make deals and pick off weak Titles from other Gentry to survive. A Fae with five Titles is a god even among faeries, with power over every Regalia and a massive Arcadian domain.

Gentry have many kinds of Names, from a simple “Ayesha” or “John” to the sound of waves breaking against an ice shelf, or a picture of the wadjet. Strange sounds and images don’t especially protect True Fae’s Names. Once heard (or otherwise experienced) a substitute is as good as the Name itself, provided the speaker witnessed the faerie’s real Name and uses the substitute with an honest, true intent.

Titles are abstract (and even enigmatic) concepts, but they always refer to an emotion, sensual experience, or object. One may be the Prince of Weeping Rats, while another is the Acolyte of Screams on the Mountain. Every manifestation incorporates the Title in some distinct way. This shape or theme is called the Title’s tell. The Prince of Weeping Rats appears as a rat-headed crying man holding a scepter, or becomes an endless, filthy high-rise, whose human-looking tenants weep whenever the ruling rats eat their food or steal unattended children.

Wyrd: Determine Wyrd before the rest of a True Fae’s traits, as many traits derive from its Wyrd rating.

Even the weakest of the Gentry is powerful compared to most changelings. Each of a True Fae’s Titles has a Wyrd rating of 5, plus one dot for each Title the Fae possesses (including this one), to a maximum of 10.

A True Fae begins any scene with a full Glamour pool in Arcadia, and otherwise recovers Glamour in the same ways that changelings do. All True Fae suffer from Glamour addiction outside Arcadia or the Hedge; if they fail to regain at least their Wyrd rating in Glamour each day in the real world, they suffer the Deprived Condition. If they fall to Glamour 0, they lose Willpower and then Health at a rate of one per day until they regain at least their Wyrd rating in Glamour.

True Fae suffer from frailties just as changelings do. They also suffer the bane of iron, as detailed on p. XX.

Attributes and Skills: Rather than prioritizing categories, a Fae Title receives a number of dots equal to five times its Wyrd to distribute across Attributes, and the same number to distribute across Skills. A Title has no Skill Specialties.

Faerie Template: True Fae don’t have kiths, Courts, or Anchors. They don’t truly have seemings either, but each Title can use one seeming’s blessing and bears something of that seeming’s trappings regardless of the form it takes.

In Arcadia and the Hedge, a Title has free rein to treat reality as though it were shaping dreams (p. XX) or the Hedge (p. XX), performing any oneiromantic or Hedgespinning act that fits within the legend of its identity and treating other characters as though they were important eidolons. It automatically succeeds at these actions unless the target of its shaping magic spends a Willpower point for the chance to resist.

A Title also has access to every Contract in (Wyrd ? 4) Regalia (see Chapter Three). One of these must match its associated seeming. In the real world, it can use its Regalia and can itself take any form, but can’t otherwise shape reality.

Merits: Fae Titles can have any Merits available to changelings, where they make sense. A Fae’s Social Merits must specify whether they apply in Arcadia and the Hedge, or in the human world. A Title has Merit dots equal to twice its Wyrd rating.

Advantages: Calculate these as changelings do, but True Fae don’t have Clarity.

Mask and Mien: The Mask hides a True Fae in the real world, but imperfectly; the Title’s tell always shows through in some fashion.

Names and Pledges

Names have power. A Fae that knows someone’s true name can weave that name into a nightmare tailor-made to drive them into its waiting arms. Anyone a True Fae successfully targets with a Contract while speaking or otherwise utilizing her true name gains the Persistent Obsession Condition pertaining to that Fae, with a context chosen by the target’s player.

A changeling who learns a Fae’s true Name can speak it aloud to empower herself when she acts against any of its Titles, achieving exceptional success with any successful use of a Contract that targets that Fae.

The Gentry can make pledges just like changelings can (p. XX), but they must invest more than just Glamour. A True Fae can seal any statement, even those of changelings and other fae creatures, but to do so it must swear the sealing upon something it considers one of its possessions. This could be a captive changeling, a hobgoblin servant, a dream-trinket or token, a Huntsman who wears its livery — anything that isn’t just a manifestation of one of its Titles is fair game, as long as the Fae considers it property. If the subject of the sealing follows through on her promise, the Fae must give her the possession upon which it swore.

A True Fae’s Title or Name can swear a personal or hostile oath to any fae creature, including a changeling, but to do so it must swear upon itself. If it breaks the oath, it doesn’t gain the Oathbreaker Condition. Instead, it permanently loses access to one of its Regalia and becomes vulnerable to lethal attacks during the scene in which it broke its word. If a Title loses its last Regalia this way, the other party may choose to kill the Title permanently; demand any three tasks or wishes from it and then allow it to regain its last Regalia; or force it to inhabit the Regalia’s physical key, allowing the other party to wield it as a token. Such items retain their power even in the real world, but changelings are cautious with them, since dormant Fae Titles have been known to wake under unpredictable circumstances. Changelings who break Fae oaths gain the Oathbreaker Condition (p. XX) as normal, but the Wyrd may demand disproportionate restitution for the betrayal.

Any Title can make a bargain by swearing upon the Fae’s true Name. Fae bargains work differently than changeling bargains do. Both parties must agree to perform a task, give up a possession, abide by a rule, or something equally concrete and clearly communicated. For the True Fae, the consequences for failing to uphold its end is permanent destruction. A non-Gentry party must swear upon something crucially important to her — her own name (and thus her life), perhaps, or that of a loved one; a favorite memory; her Hollow or home; or something else. If she fails to uphold her end of the bargain, whatever she swore upon is forfeit to the Fae to do with as it pleases, and the Wyrd backs up the claim.

Since Gentry pledges have such dire consequences when broken, the Fae don’t make them often or lightly. Convincing one of the Good Cousins to make a pledge is difficult at best and usually requires a changeling to set up an untenable situation for it first. A Fae in mortal danger always has the chance to try to make a pledge and save its life before it’s consigned to oblivion, but it can’t force the other party to agree. Of course, the True Fae aren’t above extracting binding promises from others without actually pledging anything in return, if they can pull it off.

Vulnerability and Death

A True Fae never takes bashing damage from anything other than its banes (including iron), and takes lethal damage only from banes unless an attacker speaks its true Name or it breaks an oath, as above. Only cold iron weapons can deal aggravated damage to the Gentry.

The intricate web of promises and deals that govern a True Fae makes it vulnerable in other ways, too. If a changeling finds a Regalia’s physical representation and learns one of the rules that binds its Title to the Fae, she may be able to manipulate the situation such that the Title breaks its oath, as detailed above. Changelings can purchase these rules from goblins in the know, deduce them from patterns they observe after spending a long time with a Title, trick it into telling them through clever pledges, etc.

As an example, the Storm King of the Bloody Throne wears an ersatz crown and rules its domain with an iron fist. It has sworn an oath to do so forever. But the Contract that binds it to its Name says that it is a usurper, and will rule only as long as the land has no true monarch. Only one who can remove its Sword from the stone in which it’s embedded can be the true monarch, so the Storm King hides stone and Sword both deep in the belly of a dark forest, guarded by goblin beasts. When a changeling braves the forest, defeats the beast, finds the stone, and pulls out the Sword, she becomes the true queen of the land. Since the Storm King has now broken its oath to rule forever, its fate is in the new queen’s hands.

1,001 Stories

The following examples of the Gentry can serve as inspiration for players looking to create their characters’ Keepers or for Storytellers looking for principal antagonists.

Grandmother, Grandmother

Deep in the Wood, past Bone Hill and over Rickety Bridge, sits a cozy little cabin in the middle of a broad clearing. It has a little garden in the back full of dream-a-drupes and stabapples, and a pen for the piglins and milkbeast, and a stout stone tower rises from one corner. It’s here that Grandmother, Grandmother raises “her” children. She takes them from the mortals, you know; the ones who are neglected or abused, or just plain running wild and in need of a firm hand. Grandmother has specific ideas about what a family looks like, and she molds her changelings into the roles she sees fit: the Eldest Who Can Do No Wrong, the Gifted Child, the Black Sheep, the Forgotten Middle Child, and so on. Grandmother’s vision rarely matches the personality of the youths she takes, but then, that’s where the conflict comes from.

Grandmother, Grandmother’s domain encompasses the clearing, the cottage, and a vast tract of dark, spooky woodlands surrounding it. The woods are strictly forbidden to all of Grandmother’s “children,” and are fully stocked with dangerous beasts, ghosts, and any number of fairy tale appropriate dangers. They also contain the only paths from Grandmother’s domain to the Hedge and thence, back to Earth.

Grandmother herself is the manifestation of this Gentry’s third Title: a sweet, smiling old woman who always resembles the archetypal grandmother figure in whatever culture she’s preying on. When she’s angered, though, the façade slips: at first it’s just a flash of sharp teeth or burning reptilian eyes, but when she reveals herself in her full fury, Grandmother, Grandmother is a true terror. Spindly, twiglike limbs belie an unholy strength; papery, wrinkled skin deflects blows like armor; and cruel needle teeth and razor claws dish out horrifying corporal punishment.

Grandmother is choosy about the mortals she abducts: always children, never older than 16 or 17, and all from home life situations that could charitably be described as “troubled.” Street kids and those stuck in the foster-care system, children from abusive households, even latchkey kids Grandmother sees as “neglected” are all likely targets. Once she’s lured or taken them back to her cottage, Grandmother introduces them to their new “siblings” and puts them in a twisted, fairy-tale version of a family drama. Over the years, “her” kids are shaped, willingly or not, into changelings reflecting these roles: the Bossy Oldest Child becomes a Fairest while the Forgotten Middle Child becomes a Darkling, and the Wild Child who spends all her time getting punished might end up an Ogre or a Wizened.

At any given time, Grandmother, Grandmother likely has anywhere from three to five children in the cottage. Inevitably, some of them escape (though almost never all at once — it seems like every time new children arrive, at least one big brother or sister is already there to show them the ropes). Others die. Still others turn 18. Exactly what that means is something the kids debate in hushed after-bedtime whispers. Some say Grandmother lets you go, since you’re an adult and all. Others say she takes you into the forest and sacrifices you to something even more horrible than she. Still others say that, if you’re still there on your 18th birthday, you’re trapped forever, a True Fae in your own right.

Grandmother, Grandmother adheres to a decidedly old-school style of parenting: Good children get smiles and sweet treats (goblin fruits that encourage docility and pliability), while bad children provoke her wrath. Bad children are sent to bed without supper, given extra chores, or, as a final resort, sent into the Wood to cut their own switch. Since this is the only time Grandmother allows any of her children to go past the eaves of the forest, it’s often the best chance they have to escape. The Darkling might abandon her brothers and sisters to run while she can, while the Fairest refuses to leave them behind. The Ogre takes that switch right back to Grandmother and dares her to do her worst.

The Year of Plague

Under a sullen red sun, the cracked and blistered earth gives up foul vapors and poisoned waters. The dead lay uncounted in their heaps, and the dying are too ravaged by disease to seek shelter or dig graves. Changelings scurry about, seeking succor or escape or a way to stop the plague. The sun rises and sets, the seasons turn, and a year later the board resets. All is as it was, forever and ever, plague without end.

The Year of Plague is an unusual Fae Title, in that its domain isn’t a region of Arcadia so much as it is a span of time: specifically, a year of terrible epidemics and plague outbreaks. Every 365 days, the Year “resets,” returning to a zero state shortly after the outbreak. The exact plague and its environs change every year: sometimes it’s London in the midst of the Black Death, or a Ghanan village during the 1918 influenza pandemic. Other times it resembles no earthly place or disease at all.

The Year of Plague seldom manifests a character to speak with, preferring to observe its changelings at a remove. On the rare occasions that it does, it’s a tattered, empty thing of red rags and a medieval plague-doctor’s mask, from which noxious vapors spill endlessly. When it needs to act directly, whether to fetch new changelings or rein in a study subject grown unruly, it prefers to act through goblins or a Huntsman, which naturally follow the same plague doctor motif as they don his livery.

The Year of Plague casts a wide net for its changelings. Anyone who survived a brush with a deadly disease is a potential candidate, as is anyone living in the outbreak zone of an epidemic. The Year often takes doctors and humanitarian aid workers, opportunists and scavengers, and throws them all into a nightmare scenario to see how they adapt and react. Its changelings become Wizened when they try over and over to cure the incurable, or Ogres when they decide the best thing to do is put everyone out of their misery. They may unite survivors and spread hope to become Fairest, or eschew the company of others altogether to protect themselves and become scavenger Beasts.

Naturally, most of the “plague victims” in the Year of Plague are puppets, mere extensions of the Year itself and thus of no use to its studies. Every cycle, though, the Year claims a number of mortals. Sometimes it takes a small cadre and places them together to examine their group dynamics; other times it takes a larger number and scatters them across its domain so it can see how they try to survive on their own. Anyone who has not escaped before the year is up is lost in the resetting: perhaps unmade entirely, or perhaps reduced to one of the automata set dressing the next incarnation of the Year. Escape might come when a character realizes that civilization is but a thin veneer over chaos and ceases playing along, embraces the disease as his way out, or leads the survivors to work together and find a loophole. Actually curing the disease would likely end the Year entirely, ejecting any changelings still within back to the mortal realm.

The Man with the Ergot Smile

From dream to dream he walks, all dapper suits and bright red umbrella. His back is always to the dreamer, always looking toward the huge, thorny gates that loom on the horizon. It doesn’t matter if he sees you, though — once you’ve seen him, he infests your dreams, hollows them out until all you can dream of is him, the gates, and the other poor souls he’s put his mark on. The more of those he gathers, the more those gates creak open, and every night you wake up screaming.

The Man with the Ergot Smile is an exiled True Fae, cut off from his Titles and dominions by dint of some unfathomable Gentry conflict. The terms of his exile are a Contract, as are all things in Arcadia: When one hundred madmen dream as one, the Man may return to Arcadia, and not before. The Contract never said this had to occur naturally, and so the Man With the Ergot Smile slips from dream to dream, planting the seeds of his nightmare and nurturing them as patiently as any gardener. When his poisonous dreams finally bloom, he will go home.

All too aware that being fully embodied is a vulnerability, the Man with the Ergot Smile avoids the physical realm and its attendant dangers. Instead he lives in the world of dreams, skipping from mind to mind along hidden paths and Dreaming Roads, never staying too long in one dream realm. He resembles a man, slim and average height, dressed in a slightly old-fashioned black suit with a black bowler hat. The only color about him is a crimson umbrella he carries like a walking stick. Dreamers only ever see him from behind as he looks expectantly toward the gates of Arcadia, but lucid dreamers or changelings hunting him report that his face is startlingly ordinary — until he smiles, and the world cracks around you and Clarity runs like melted wax.

Though he no longer rules a realm within Arcadia and thus cannot take new changelings, the Man with the Ergot Smile once held dominion over a vast and twisty sanitarium, wherein he broke down captive mortals utterly, just to see what they would build themselves back up as. His patients ended up with any seeming, depending on what kinds of tortures he devised and how they managed to endure them.

Signs and portents follow the Man with the Ergot Smile, signs that echo the realm he once ruled. When the Man is active in the area, admittance at the local mental hospitals spike sharply. Incidences of dancing plague, sudden dissociative states, and St. Anthony’s Fire trail in his wake, and a trained occultist can use those signs to follow him and pinpoint his likely next victim.

The Three Androgenes

Once upon a time, we told stories of wicked fairies in the woods, because the woods were dangerous and it was folly to go there. Now, we do not fear the forest anymore, for we have gone to stranger places by far: the seas, the skies, and very nearly the stars. What stories do we tell to warn our young and innocent away from them? We tell stories of silvery ships and strange, gray beings, child-sized but wise beyond knowing. When you’re someplace you shouldn’t be, someplace that transgresses, they appear in a beam of blinding light, carry you off through a hole in the sky, and peel back your layers amid a galaxy of thorny stars.

Whether the Three Androgenes have always been as they are now, adapted themselves with the rise of UFO folklore, or indeed are a new Gentry altogether, born of stories of flying saucers and alien experiments, no one can say. Their realm is an endless starship, all sleek chrome and art deco fins, containing a multitude of sterile laboratories, operating theaters, and prison cells — or perhaps “zoo enclosures” is more apt. Most of the alien beasts held within are part and parcel of the realm itself, but the Androgenes pride themselves on their extensive collection of humanity. They curate it carefully, always seeking the broadest spectrum of humankind they can acquire.

The Three Androgenes themselves (and even within the nebulous concept of Gentry identity, they’re recognized as a single being) are the archetypal “grays” made popular by everything from science fiction TV shows to late night radio programs: about three feet high, slender, with bulbous heads housing enormous, solid-black eyes made all the more striking by their tiny, almost rudimentary noses and mouths. They sometimes sport silvery, one-piece “uniforms” and sometimes appear nude (though all three lack any indication of sex or gender). They’re always together, whether they’re flying their craft from the control deck or slicing an experimental subject into cross sections and rearranging the internal organs just to see what happens.

Mortals the Three Androgenes take have one purpose: to be guinea pigs and test subjects for bizarre anatomical experimentation. Some become Beasts or Ogres when their Keepers splice their genes with those of other creatures. Others become Elementals or Darklings, partially replaced with advanced mechanical prostheses or reconfigured into nothing human at all, with vast cosmic knowledge forced into their minds. Still others are rebuilt to be flawless, hailed as Fairest success stories and paraded about on display. A few are forced to participate in experimentation on other subjects in a perverse kind of medical school; these changelings become Wizened.

For all that it seems to fly about the cosmos at great speed many light-years from earth, it’s no harder (or easier) to escape the Androgenes’ realm than any other Arcadian domain. Some changelings simply fling themselves out an airlock and force themselves to endure the agony of vacuum until they “land.” Others manage to slip the containment fields on their cells, steal a small shuttlecraft, and reverse-engineer the alien control surfaces so they might escape via “wormhole” back to earth; or take control of the ship itself and crash it unceremoniously into the Hedge.

#Onyx Path Publishing #White Wolf Publishing #Changeling: The Lost #Changeling The Lost #Chronicles of Darkness

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mountphoenixrp · 7 years ago

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We have a new citizen in Mount Phoenix:

Hundun, the God of Chaos and Creation, whose origins stem from Ancient China. He is now a bartender at Dr.Feelgoods.

FC NAME/GROUP: Kris Wu - Soloist GOD NAME: Hundun PANTHEON: Chinese OCCUPATION: Bartender at Dr. Feelgoods HEIGHT: 6’8 - 203 cm WEIGHT: 236 lb - 107 kg DEFINING FEATURES: Hundun is covered in scars from the fights he has been in, primarily around his chest and back area. He does have piercings, specifically conch, helix, and daith piercings. Surprisingly, he does not have many tattoos, but is looking to get some more. Currently he has one tattoo on his right arm (x) and one on his left wrist (x). Aside from the basic features, one that sets him apart as a definite divine being is his eyes and teeth. His eyes are a mixture of orange and gold, somewhat like a fiery amber, and his teeth are very elongated and sharp.

PERSONALITY: Hundun is a troublemaker above everything. His entire existence, after all, is to create chaos and strife. Still, he only uses such trickery and malice in certain moments, and might consider himself less “immature” than other gods such as Loki or Set.

However, even despite his behavior he is not one to be trifled with. He is equally cunning and intelligent, and years of watching the human population has allowed for him to adapt to their waysand learn their weaknesses.

Hundun is not without his faults, however. While he is strong physically and mentally, he has a problem dealing with new threats. He has a tendency that, if he is unable to properly size someone or something up, he will become irrational and tense. This causes him to close up completely, and if he hates you enough, to lash out. He also is not very keen at making friends out of the blue, so you would need to prove yourself “significant” enough to get to know him. When you do, however, you will find he cares for people in a very ‘special’ way so to speak, rather that the longer the relation between you two is, the kinder he will become.

HISTORY:

I. WARMONGER

The last thing Hundun would have wanted in all of eternity was to end up on some island surrounded by fog that was filled with the sons and daughters of every deity imaginable, including his own.

And other gods. He hated the other gods.

Time had been unkind to the patron of chaos and creation. He once had power, tons of it, and ruled the abyss without worry. He watched empires crumble, kings rise and fall, warriors wet the grass with their blood all in the name of everlasting glory. But they were not everlasting. Nothing was.

Still, Hundun took great pride in the battles fought over the ages. The trickery and malice caused by him was a trophy in a treasure room- a symbol of his power. He enticed mortals, created pacts which he never upheld, and gave leaders their power in return for blood. War became his symbol, and the chaos that followed was his weapon.

He was proud, he was powerful. But most of all, he was feared.

II. DIVINE

He first became worried when warriors, previously accepting of each other, began to quarrel between each other. Diplomatic disagreements had become history, and soon disputes were solved with blades and arrows. Still, his worry was more a pang of uncertainty that simmered down in his belly. They did not prove to be too meddlesome in his affairs, rather quite the opposite. These warriors brought battles and war, something Hundun was quite fond of, and in one of the few times in his existence, he simply sat back and watched. It was interesting, to say the least.

China had changed overtime, modernizing and expanding. However, time told that these warriors were not fighting to solve national problems, despite what they told the population, but for the throne. This corruption, enticed by Hundun, ravaged the population, knocking off more people besides the fighters than he could count. Overtime, and despite Hundun’s efforts, the fighting began to grow out of hand as distrust and malice plagued the minds of everyone, keeping from a single ruler to be found. Despite Hundun being a sort of overseer, it was not his exact domain to rule in, and the other gods had already been working frantically in an effort to keep a hold on the civilization that was quickly unraveling before them. The divine beings were losing their grip, and quickly at that, and to add to the mess the idea of a supposed “single supreme god” had been promoted to the chinese population, causing the gods’ power to diminish greatly.

Quite frankly, Hundun understood why most of them chose to lose faith in the gods, and for once in a very long time he was scared.

In fact, Hundun, the great god of chaos and creation, was terrified.

III. EVANESCE

It was 1902 when Hundun officially left China, and renounced his title as one of the gods overseeing it. The Chinese population, significantly lessened due to war and disease, had given up by now with keeping ties with the old religion save for the small loyal stragglers. The gods had dispersed, not telling anyone of their plans and Hundun was no different. Whether some stayed and tried to reclaim the people’s faith or not, Hundun was gone. New religion had wiped him away, and instead of praying to Hundun to end violence and his malicious intent, the people prayed to an everlasting god high above.

Hundun was small, and he hated the feeling.

Hypothetically “packing up and moving away”, Hundun began to wander the earth for a new home. Other gods, present in their respected territories, would not have the god of chaos. No one wanted him, and so he instead went to places that he could practice his magic and control temperament on his own terms. These places were different to what he was used to- Hundun had grown accustomed to cherry blossoms and lush forests, but he found himself in grasslands and looming hills. He became very territorial over his newfound home, especially since, unfortunately, there were very few of them. This caused a rift with other nearby gods, especially those that controlled certain aspects of the territory Hundun was in, and small scuffles began to break out. Humans would note the skies darkening at random intervals of the day, the smell of rotting wood plaguing the air, and terrible storms appearing nad wiping away people and buildings. Overtime, the conflict between Hundun and the other gods began to completely change the environment, making it go from lush, green, and full of vegetation, to barren, rocky, and without a single tree in sight.

Even Hundun, not one of the most “caring” individuals on the planet, knew he had to leave.

IV. ASCEND

He was like an infection when not in his natural domain, and this infection would keep spreading into other areas unless Hundun did something about it. If anything, he didn’t want to piss off an entire legion of divines who were more than happy to defend their realm and join together in utterly obliterating the god of chaos.

So, he chose to find a solution.

Hundun started inquiring to many beyond, taking on the shape of different vessels as he searched within the human population. More often than not, these people would know nothing about places empty of other gods and cultures, and so Hundun was left with no answers. However, overtime he managed to catch snippets of information regarding a mysterious place home to deities and their children alike, where any being with ancient power housed in their blood could find a home. Hundun, although slightly adamant against sharing the same land as others, took this as a blessing and immediately set off to find this island, called “Mount Phoenix”. When he did, he was greeted with open arms, something the god of chaos was very wary of and not used to at all. However, with time, Hundun has come to adore his new home and (despite his nature) tries to be as welcome to newcomers as he can (although personality-wise, he’s still trying).

POWERS: Hundun grows stronger and more powerful in chaotic situations, whether it be great or small, and is able to use this to his advantage, not to mention he is also able to cause distrust and suspicions in people, causing them to turn on each other or worse, on everyone else. Hundun is also gifted in animating inanimate objects whenever he pleases and for whatever cause he wishes, although only for a limited time.

STRENGTHS:

Hundun has no limit to his power when in a chaotic environment, and his strength grows with each passing second

When Hundun instills distrust and suspicion in others, he is rendered somewhat invisible to them. Meaning, if he is in an environment with others who he causes to distrust each other, he will be left out of the post-conflict entirely

Hundun can instill varying levels of distrust in others, ranging from the smallest suspicions to outright chaos

When Hundun animates inanimate things, those object will obey him completely until they are dismissed.

When Hundun animates inanimate things, those things can take on a different purpose from their original design (such as a blender turned killing-machine type of thing).

WEAKNESSES:

Although Hundun can grow stronger/more powerful in chaotic situations, he cannot diminish said strength, meaning he can lose control in the situation and/or possibly cause even more damage than intended

When Hundun cause distrust in others it renders him somewhat ignored in their eyes, however if someone outside of the conflict brings him into it and/or something happens that causes him to be dragged directly into the chaos, then there can be trouble and the suspicions may be turned on him.

When Hundun instills distrust in more than one person it involves varying levels of focus. Instilling destruct in one person is easy- almost like breathing to him. However, with groups of 5-10 he must be very focused and have all his attention on those people.

When Hundun animates things, a time limit is set. For smaller objects, such as keys or knives, the time limit increases to up to an hour. However, for larger objects such as cars or even beds, the time limit is diminished to 30-45 minutes.

#kpop rp #cpop rp #cpop #kris wu #wu yifan #mp; welcome

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