The Lovely Dark

  An interlude. Here are some setting questions  ( from the mad queen's court ) by DireImpulse   1) What class knows the most martial arts? Are they real martial arts like kung fu, or made up ones like krav maga? You'd want to be an Aristocrat from the Enduring Empire. Nobility are trained in traditional, ceremonial combat arts, and encouraged to use them in low-stakes ceremonial wars. Their martial arts are extremely made up, because they're based on exaggerated Spanish accounts of the martial schools of the triple-alliance, where noble warriors would do backflips and catch arrows out of the air. In the Enduring Empire you're catching bullets with your withering glare and waltzing somberly with your rivals but the same principles apply. 2) Can I start out having already made a deal with the devil or do I have to do that in game? The Devil isn't real (but she loves you all the same). Orpheans start aligned with one of the Houses of the Moon, which is like having a m...

FIGHTER Death's Head , by craww You can feel it. Something is stirring in the night over the earth. Something out of the place beyond persona. There are omens if you know how to look for them. Secret signs in the wings of birds, nightmares of pursuit. This hateful world cannot last much longer. The clouds will part and her armies will come down to scour it clean again. The carrion birds will turn in open sky until the fields are empty. The world has forgotten you. It hates you, like it hates everyone. The Queen of Air and Darkness will make it better. Starting Equipment:  An extremely visible scar that’s somewhere between dashing and disfiguring. Too much makeup, which isn’t helping. An outfit that looks like a costume. Any four weapons. Skills:   1) Disgraced Nurse 2) Mercenary Deserter 3) Birdwatcher 4) Occult Dabbler 5) Avant-Garde Artist  6) Discarded Courtesan Templates: A) The Full Dark World, The Killing Moon B) Butcher Bird C) Death Song of the Eumenides D) Sociét...

Alignment, Part One: Spiders (You can play this for a better reading experience) So if you, the citizens, maintain a healthy sense of dread, respect, you will secure a bulwark to protect the land and constitution, the like of which no other nation has, not the barbarous Scythians, nor in the heart of Pelops' land. For justice is the child of fear among all mortal men.          ~Antigone First, you have a dream.  A dream of empty air, s till and opaque.  A pressure that makes your ears ring, a n electricity that hums in your teeth.  A dream of being closed up, the air and the world and you, into a little box, which is tied with a little silk ribbon, and placed in a little cubby in a big room of haze and warm light. All the walls in this room are lined with little cubbies like the warrens of rabbits, and all the cubbies are filled with colorful things- sealed envelopes and glass bottles and little boxes tied with silk ribbons just like yours.  ...

Nobody Knows What A Monster Is — Because it's not about monsters. It's about monstrosity . Monstrosity is a mutual relationship between the audience and a presented object, and the monster is whatever is on the other side of that relationship. It could be a household pet, or a book of matches. It doesn't matter, only the presentation of it to the audience and the relationship they develop with it matters. A thing is not a monster unless the emotional narrative structure of monstrosity is constructed for it. Here are three storytelling tips. 1. The audience should be scared of the monster. This is the most fundamental element. Lots of things are frightening- being hunted by a clever pack of hungry wolves, being in proximity to someone with a grotesque and contagious disease, being lost in the dark. All of these experiences are also interwoven with different emotions- excitement, pity, guilt, disgust, confusion, so the relationship between the audience and the monster will be...

  PALADIN The Pleasure Principle , by René Magritte You're right . You'll prove it. You were born under the Moon of the Mare. The Summer Court has many children, and favoritism is rampant and arbitrary. But you're more than a favorite. You're special. Her fire lives in your heart, and her glory shines from your eyes. When you dream, her court attends you, with their blacksmith's hands and neon teeth and hi-gloss skin. Their hearts beat with hate and hunger. They want to kill you and fuck you and eat you. You don't owe them anything. Starting Equipment: A pair of showy custom made handguns. Not custom made for you. Ammunition for the same. An extremely expensive, ostentatious costume you'd never pick for yourself. A hip flask full of gasoline. A book of matches. Skills:  1) Demagogue 2) Sophist 3) Party Animal 4) Media Junkie 5) Street Racer 6) Prophet from Face/Off Templates: A) Summer Teeth, Season of Revolutions B) Hold Me! Touch Me! C) Divinity of Broken...

Trolls (Part Two of Two) To roten erthe, ryght thus sayde I, "Thow art my fader of whom I cam," And unto wormes sekurly, "Thow art my moder, thy son I am; My sustren all ye bene, forwhy None other then ye, forsoth, I am." I shall call hem sustres, lo, forthy For I shall roote amonge ham. Of the lowest erthe God made Adam, Of whyche my kynde I had, as he. Now, Lorde, that art lykened to a lambe, So Parce michi, Domine! -Pety Job  The Butcher's Heresy If you know something about the art of the trolls, you know that it is strangely derivative. If there is a poet in your town, and the trolls know of her, they have their own, who shares her name (or the nearest equivalent: Leon to Lavi most famously) and keeps up avidly with her career, mirroring her poetry with subtle alternations in theme and language- eliminating references to the intangible, reinterpreting all her relationships into a desire for unification or predation or submission in suitable melange. This is ...