mrprim

Latest Posts by mrprim

Sharktober 2024 - 17: Electric Shark

Struggled with #15 so decided to skip it for now. This idea appeared in my mind fully formed and took three minutes to draw.

Hello! I like your character concepts for Chuubo. I check the #cmwge tag often, but only discovered your work through third parties. Have you not been tagging them, or is Tumblr's tag system being wonky again?

I put #cmwge on all of these, I'm pretty sure(too tired to check), and definitely on this first several, so I don't know what to say.

The Servant Prince

Academics Skill: Average Sports Skill: Average Favorite Foods: Gems, Diamonds, Wizard Blood Type: O+ Animal: Dragon Age: 14 An Interesting Fact About You: You are the disgraced heir of a line of Draconic Nobility. Character Description ❀ You used to be important. As the son of the Fifth Lord of the Polar Palace, you were destined to live a charmed life of duty and glory. You were to oversee a fief in your father’s domain and watch over the world from on high. But then, you made a mistake. You brought shame on yourself and your family. In his inimitable wisdom, your father stripped you of your titles and lands and banished you from his domain. You’re still a member of the spirit courts, but you are marked and disgraced and few will still take your calls. Now you live in a modest cottage in the Walking Fields, with only your most loyal servants to keep you company. It all seems sort of rough for a kid, but… that’s just how it is, you guess. ❀ You aren’t really a human. Most of the time you look like one, but, in fact, you are a coatl, a shapeshifting sky dragon. You can change your shape into any animal and even transform into an enormous feathered serpent with scales like rainbows. It’s a pretty cool thing to be! ❀ You’re going on this trip because you’ve been ordered to. Your brother, the Tlatoani of the Eastern Palace, has tasked you with aiding in this quest. If you find the Treasure, he says that it will go a long way to proving that you are ready to return to the Courts Innumerable. You’re much more concerned with what completing the quest will mean for you than the actual fulfillment of the quest, at least at first. Sidebar: Shake it Up! For an atypical Servant Prince experience, pick 0-3 of the following: ❀ Instead of Julian, you're Yurian, the Servant Princess. ❀ Instead of a quest to regain your honor, you’re on a quest to repay a debt. ❀ Instead of a shapeshifting dragon prince, you are… ✶ … an illusion-casting fairy prince. ✶ … a metafictional storybook prince. ✶ … an angelic warden. ✶ … a musical sea lord.

The Granite Knight

Academics Skill: Wise Sports Skill: Tough and Strong as Anybody Favorite Foods: Tea, Rice, Noodle Soup Blood Type: O+ Animal: Ox Age: 18 An Interesting Fact About You: You have a secret love of romance novels. No one can ever know. Character Description ❀ You are a cursed knight who lives alone in a hut. You’re kind of young to be living by yourself, but you have such a look to you of extreme competence that no one dares to say anything. You’ve got the mien of someone much older than you are. That’s sort of your thing. You are competent and dependable and stoic. When Old Mrs. McGurt, with her weak eyes and bad hip, needs help getting to the doctor’s office, you’re there. When Farmer Tanaka needs an extra hand tilling the fields, you’re there. You don’t complain. Maybe you should? Maybe it would be good for you not to keep everything locked inside your stony exterior? ❀ That wasn’t a metaphor. Your skin is literally made of stone. Somewhere in your dramatic and sad backstory as the squire of an itinerant knight, you were struck by a terrible Outside curse. Your skin is thick and grey and hard, your face is marked like the side of a mountain. You’re self-conscious about it and that makes you mad. It’s hard being a teenager, and nobody understands. ❀ You’re going to tag along on your friends’ adventure because someone needs to protect them - from the dangers of the Outside and from themselves. They don’t know what it’s like out there. It’s your job to make sure they don’t find out. Sidebar: Shake it Up! For an atypical Granite Knight experience, pick 0-3 of the following: ❀ Instead of the young woman Oboliu Waite, you can be Dace Lillimut, a young man ❀ Instead of the squire to an itinerant knight, you used to be a superhero’s kid sidekick. ❀ Maybe you’re not 18, you’re actually thousands of years old. Wow. ❀ Your Curse isn’t stone-skin, it’s.... ✶ … a burning flame in your head that never goes out. ✶ … a transformative disease parasite that lets you grow tentacles. ✶ … lycanthropy. ✶ … a genius IQ that separates you from mortals.

Sidebar: Playing Dace Lillimut You’re a bit less stoic than Oboliu. Smiling comes easier to you and you’ve even been known, every once in a while, to laugh. Also, you are, most likely, a werewolf.

The Vice Magus

Academics Skill: Average but people think more than that Sports Skill: Exactly as Incompetent as Expected Favorite Foods: Pierogies, Gyros, Outside Dust Blood Type: B- Animal: Pig Age: 16 An Interesting Fact About You: You’re probably the richest kid in the Walking Fields. Character Description ❀ You’re a Titov. In Town that usually says all anyone needs to know about the sort of unsavory fellow you probably are. And, honestly, that first impression isn’t really wrong. You like to imagine yourself as a Byronic hero, romantic and brave and wrestling with deep dark emotions. But, really, you’re mostly just a jerk. You think of yourself and your own needs more than you think of other people. When you’re feeling especially self-reflective, you blame your upbringing for how you are. And it is true that the Titov family magic and its associated curse tends to breed a sort of listless, amoral hedonism. But… When it comes down to it… yeah… you’re mostly just a jerk. ❀ You live in a vast gothic mansion down the road from the Light Seeker. Your family had it moved, brick by brick, from Horizon when they chose to leave the hustle-and-bustle of Town for the idyllic countryside. It’s a strange place. Outside dust tends to collect in the carpets and drapes, lending a psychedelic, phantasmagoric feeling to everything. You spend your days skulking around your domain, lounging on chaise longues, eating individual grapes sensually, practicing your magic to get anything that you want. ❀ You’re probably going to go on this quest for selfish reasons. You’re friends with the Light Seeker, but the habit of self-interest is a hard one to break. In your dreams, you’ve been hearing a whispering voice promising you power and magics. In the Outside there is a treasure... a True Thing, the voice says, and all you have to do is find it and claim it. Becoming a God sounds good to you, doesn’t it? Sidebar: Shake it Up! For an atypical Vice Magus experience, pick 0-2 of the following: ❀ Instead of Roderick Titov, you can be Zoey Titova, a girl ❀ Instead of Roderick Titov, maybe you’re... ✶ … Roderick Susanov, a rogue seer who was tempted by what he saw with his magic. ✶ … Roderick Yatskaya, a channeler guided by vast dark powers. ✶ … Leonardo deMontreal, a nightmare-scientist questing to complete his Incomparable Nightmare Engine. ✶ … Colbrand, the False Light, one of the Mysteries of the Rats who wants to become the new sun.

Sidebar: Playing as Colbrand, the False Light

Roderick is verging on inhumanity, you take it much further. You are Colbrand, the False Light, who is called Monstrous, one of the Mysteries of the Rats. Once, you were the thing that made all of the world worthwhile, the thing which even the swans agreed made reality true and good. And then you were lost… and, as it turned out, the world didn’t really need you after all. You do not want to be small and unimportant, you do not want to be unneeded. You look to the sky, to the void left by the sun, and you see the chance you’ve been waiting for for so, so long.

The Peerless Spirit

Academics Skill: Not Dumb but Extremely Unfocused Sports Skill: Without Equal Favorite Foods: Banana Cream Pie, Steak Tartare, Pineapple Blood Type: A+ Animal: Monkey Age: 5015 An Interesting Fact About You: You were grown from a seed! Character Description ❀ You are a spirit without peer, if that wasn’t clear enough. You live alone in the woods in a (treasure-filled) cave, doing whatever you like, whenever you like it. Your neighbors see you at best as a charming nuisance and at worst as a dangerous menace. You’re not an evil person, per se, but you are rude, arrogant, and selfish. Despite all of that, of course, you are often lonely. You’ve never been good at making real friends, not in your entire long life, And it has been a ridiculously long life, because… ❀ You are not human. Five thousand years ago, the Heron Queen planted a seed on a hillside under the noonday sun and you grew from that seed like a tree. Vines twine in your hair and flowers bloom at your temples when you’re embarrassed. You share a kinship with birds and can speak the language of squirrels and hedgehogs and moles. That’s just the sort of thing nature spirits can do. ❀ You’re probably going to go on this adventure just… because. You’re going to hear that the Light Seeker has a mission and they’re probably going to go out into the Near Outside and die, and you think that sounds like an awesome place for an awesome person like you. And you’re worried about him probably, too. Sidebar: Shake it Up! For an atypical Peerless Spirit experience, pick 0-2 of the following: ❀ Instead of Sonya, you can be Sonny Hou, a boy spirit ❀ Instead of a forest spirit, maybe you’re... ✶ … a fox-faced spirit ✶ … an ogre ✶ … a highly-advanced cyborg designated SWK-2456

Sidebar: Playing SWK-2456 You’re not a spirit at all! You’re an advanced combat cyborg! Don’t try to trick me! You were crafted ages ago by a team of scientists working to build a perfect organism. You were locked away in a cryosleep chamber for centuries, waiting for the right time to be revealed to an unsuspecting world. You’re a bit less full of bravado than Sonya is, but you are no less confident, your self-regard bolstered by inhuman calculation rather than pure pride. You’re definitely not as good at telling jokes as Sonya is.

The Light Seeker

Academics Skill: Scholarly Sports Skill: Clumsy Favorite Foods: Rice Balls, Sugar Cereal Blood Type: O Animal: Rabbit Age: 15 An Interesting Fact About You: You’ve never been further from home than School. Not even to Fortitude! Character Description ❀ You're just a simple kid, living in the Walking Fields. You like going to school, playing football with your friends that live down the lane, reading books, and listening to radio dramas on the wireless. Your parents farm strawberries for a living, shipping them to Fortitude where they are made into jam. You've never been very good at farming,but your dad doesn't mind, he has another son and two daughters to help him with the fields. You're a bit hapless and clumsy, the kid who tends to lose things, including himself, at the drop of a hat… which you lost. People say that you're unlucky, but you always seem to make it out okay. ❀ In your heart, you dream of being a great hero, traveling out of Town on a ship to explore the far shores of Big Lake or setting out to the edges of the Walking Fields and beyond. But those are just daydreams. In real life, you've never been further from home than School. You've never even gone on a trip to Fortitude! You have visited Arcadia (awesome!) and Old Molder (spooky!) but never for long. You tell yourself that one day you'll have your adventure. It turns out, your lucky day is coming up! ❀ Your next door neighbor is Ms. Kseniya, a sad-looking jotun lady who likes to sit alone on her porch and watch the storms come in. She always waves when she sees you, but she doesn't smile much. On summer nights you and your friends visit her and she tells giant stories from the time before people came to Town. You can tell she enjoys the company, she tries to teach you some of the Old Words that the Jotun know,though you usually don't have much luck. Once she taught you a charm to keep away hydras; it has always proven effective! Sidebar: Shake it Up! For an atypical Light Seeker experience, pick 0-3 of the following: ❀ Instead of Tripp, you can be Susan Numidia, a Rider girl. ❀ Instead of being strawberry farmers, your parents could be… ✶ … woodcutters. ✶ … cattle ranchers. ✶ … retired pirates. ✶ … ex-soldiers. ✶ … dead.

❀ Instead of living next door to Kseniya, your mentor is… ✶ … Ms. Numidia, your aunt, who teaches you the art of hiding who you are. ✶ … Mr. Calazas, a former masked wrestler, who teaches you his patented leg holds. ✶ … Mr. Carneleon, the mailman, who teaches you about origami and the value of a hand-delivered letter. ✶ … The Headmaster of the Bleak Academy, who, against your will, teaches you things you should not ever have to know.

Sidebar: Playing Susan Numidia You’re not just an ordinary boy living on your parents’ farm… you’re an ordinary Rider girl living on your parents’ farm. Besides having eyes of night and falling stars and… well… you know… you’re different from Tripp in a few ways. You’re a bit grumpier than Tripp. You’re bored with the Walking Fields and with your parents’ peaceful rural life. You have a feeling in your heart that you have a destiny out in the Outside. It’s where you’re from, even if you’ve never even seen the Outside. You’re still going to find yourself falling into trouble, but you’re going to be pretty annoyed by it. Your mentor is probably your aunt Bogud, a Rider witch who tells you stories of the Not and the Old War and teaches you the Outsider secrets of hiding who and what you are. ❀ Susan usually has the Magical Skill Changeling instead of the Jotun Cantrips skill. That’s not necessarily true, it depends on your mentor, but usually Tripp is all about weird ancient magics he only sort of controls and Susan is more focused on strange Bleak subterfuges.

Journey to the Outside - Characters

Prepare to go on a great quest to the ends of Creation and well, well beyond. Before you know what to pack for such a quest, though, you need to figure out just who you are! So, are you...

❀ The Light Seeker, Tripp Tanaka, if you want

✶ to be the sort of person who tends to fall headfirst into trouble

✶ to make friends out of enemies

✶ to be sort of naive and embarrassing

✶ to have a mission to find a great treasure

(or are you the Rider girl variant, Susan Numidia, instead?)

❀ The Peerless Spirit, Sonya Hou, if you want

✶ to be an impossibly skilled nature god

✶ to be a reluctant hero and a bit of a jerk

✶ to climb a ladder to heaven and face what doth dwell therein

(or are you the cyborg variant, SWk-2456, instead?)

❀ The Vice Magus, Roderick Titov, if you want

✶ to be something of a comic relief

✶ to use weird and scary magic to get what you want

✶ to decide the fate of whole worlds despite being wildly unqualified

(or are you the girl variant, Zoey Titova, instead? Or maybe you're Colbrand, the False Light?)

❀ The Granite Knight, Oboliu Waite, if you want

✶ to be steadfast even in the face of terrible things

✶ to labor under a terrible enchantment

✶ to get things done when your companions are always faffing about

✶ to be asked to sacrifice your life to remove a great darkness from the world

(or are you the boy variant, Dace Lillimut, instead?)

❀ The Servant Prince, Julian Lungren, if you want

✶ to change into a bunch of shapes but especially an enormous dragon!

✶ to quest to regain your honor and impress your family

✶ to put someone else's needs before your own

✶ I did mention becoming a dragon, right?

(or are you the girl variant, Yurian Lopez, instead?)

Or come and be . . .

❀ The HG, or "Hollyhock God," if you want

✶ to focus on describing the world rather than being attached to any particular character

✶ to play the game, and nobody else is being the HG, so you had better!

✶ to be able to just say that things happen and they do, and

✶ to help pull together a story from the things characters do,

Journey to the Outside

And the angel of the sun did fall. She fell, down, down, from the sky, and into the emptiness beyond the world, beyond the things that were good and real, out where only false and nonexistent things might live.

And then they knew what it was to know darkness, to know meaninglessness, to lose all hope. The world, the whole and breadth of it, knew what it was like to be without a sun.

But at the same time...

...and, perhaps, this was most surprising of all...

At the same time and for the first time, the emptiness beyond knew what it was to have a sun.

And the whole of it changed.

--- Journey to the Outside, a fan campaign for Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine

So, I've been working, off-and-on, for a while on an idea I've had to do a Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine Epic Adventure campaign in the style of Journey to the West. I'm almost ready to get started running it, so I thought I'd share the stuff I've got so far. Instead of actually creating the mechanics for the characters, I'm giving descriptions and allowing the players to choose their Arcs on their own. I'll probably write up, at least, the starting Quests for each character, eventually, but I haven't gotten there yet. So far it's mostly just a list of characters and a bit of description for each one, and their variants.

Introduction

Jade Irinka is dead. The sun has fallen into the Outside and the world is reeling under a strange and alien sky. Each day a ball of blazing gas rises and sets, casting shadows and helping the plants to grow. But it is not the sun - and in their bones, the people of Town know it.

It is a mournful thing to live in a fallen world.

But there is hope. Or, rather, there is a chance for hope. Hope exists, but someone has to venture out into the Outside and get it. Someone has to go on a journey to save the world. And not just anybody: gods and monsters and villains… and also just some guy.

It sounds like it will be an Epic Adventure, doesn’t it?

Sidebar: Conventions

This campaign is an Epic Fantasy game featuring THREE Conventions, manifesting as level 2 Afflictions:

The stage may be small but audience is great

You are well known wherever you go

And

There’s always a place to stay when the weather gets bad

I guess this is the first nonsense I’ve ever reblogged.

I want to know how big the Tumblr Chuubo’s and Nobilis fandom is!

If you like Nobilis or Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine, like this post. If you generate content for them, reblog this post.

(Re what counts as “generate content”: posting an occasional character sheet every so often is plenty. There isn’t a “you must post this frequently to count” bar.)

Quick doodle of a Fortitude Rat wizard I'm considering finishing up for wizardbattles. Maybe. Or not. I think I'm out of practice drawing wizards.

Another cosplay rat doodle.

Terrible doodle. Just... Awful.

The most intriguing part? We ALREADY have a Best Friend! Who IS this guy?

Over on RPG.net, I’m in a PbP game of the Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine (an RPG by jennamoran) campaign Glass Maker’s Dragon (I play Natalie Coutourier, the Vampire Prodigy) [You’ll need to have an RPG.net account to click that link].

The game is being HGed by the...

Another Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine Interlude by Rip van Mason

And here's the second and only other one so far!

Interlude II of IX – Horizon – From the personal journal of Glass Spider, playwrite

To HAYDEN SORROWS, she is always the vampire. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her parasitic species. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Natalie Coutourier. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect guardian and tutor that Coterie Coutourier could envision, but as a care-taker he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the wishing heart, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable tools for writing fiction about such three dimensional characters as the cast of the Harry Potter books, or for drawing humans into inequity or inspiring mad scientists to defy the laws of God and Man. But for the predators, the Old Ones, to admit such intrusions into their own admittedly delicate and finely adjusted temperaments was to introduce a distracting factor that would render them mortal. And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Natalie Coutourier, an outsider of a dubious and questionable lineage.  I had seen little of my good friend, Hayden, in the past few years. With my apotheosis into a higher order of being approaching ever closer, an ever more incredible amount of minutia was made attendant upon me- assuring my mortal fortune, deleting records of my birth, placating the Seven Saints of Eternity, selecting stagehands and backdrop painters, hosting School talent shows, destroying the impious agents of Lee Scathing, teaching the choir new blasphemous chants and motivating my own human cultists to have the ritual completed on time- while Sorrows, who loathed all forms of religion and ceremony, buried himself in his duties, occupying his incredible faculties and exceptional powers of observation by offering his services as a youkai of private inquiry. From time to time, I heard some vague account of his doings: of his summons to the Disciplinary Committee for the inquiry into the history teacher that instigated the French Revolution, of his clearing up of the singular tragedy of the death of young Baldur and most recently mere rumours of the mission which he had accomplished so delicately and successfully for the Titov Shrine Family. Beyond these signs of his activity, which I merely shared with the rest of Horizon, I knew little of my former friend and master. One night, I was returning from a hunting trip into the sewer system, where I had found undue difficulty in killing the Mystery known as Unicorn, when my journey lead me through Fortitude and past the Blakely House. Remembering the once-commonly used ritual to bring myself to my companion’s door, I was suddenly seized by a need to present myself before Sorrows, and perhaps assure myself he was in no way working against my ascension. I chanted the ancient words, marked the borders of the lead gate with the petals of a tulip, rosemary for remembrance and a dash of ashes, bowed to the Guardian of the Threshold and bypassed the trapdoor into the Mausoleum of Shades, that nightmare realm of the dead, the mad and Those Who Burrow Below. As always, I found the small rooms within the rambling mansion unchanged. Sorrows’ Draco Malfoy posters were neatly hung in frames, his alchemical equipment in partial disarray, his typewriter mid-sentence on his latest attempt to master writing YA fanfic, his black valet’s outfit hung impeccably beside his crumpled bed clothes. Sorrows himself was unchanged, the tall, spare figure pacing his rooms in deep contemplation. Sorrow’s manner was not effusive but he was, on the whole, I think, pleased to renew my acquaintance. Ceasing his movements around the carpet, he gestured to a chair and a box of cigars. “It seems being an object of dark worship suits you, my dear Glass Spider,” he remarked, “I think your aura is distinctly more tinged with blasphemy.” “Sorrows! It’s not a matter I speak about.” “I fancy your plan for apotheosis is at hand, then? That would explain your frustrating dealings with those credulous nincompoops of the Cult of the World Tree. How did you get those pompous twerps onside, anyway?” “Old friend, I do say…” “Ah, they defy your naming magicks, but you seek to coerce them with the unicorn blood you were hunting for!” “Hayden, this is too much! If I was not completely certain I was immune to scrying, I should think you had been using potent divinations upon my person!” “Bah! Scrying,” his voice carried infinite disdain, “Who needs to see from afar when the evidence is right here? I see it, I deduce it. The matter is simplicity herself. Given your manner of dress is rather megalomaniacal, even for a member of the School Council, and you openly wear that shard of Hayashi glass in your forehead, it seems unlikely you are trying to hide your plans from the Headmaster, so you must have a cult backing you, in defiance of common practice of our pre-Christian kind.” He rubbed his long, nervous hands together. “You have a string of holy titles jotted down on your cuffs, a mortal habituation you have acquired despite your infallible memory for names. One of the names is clearly Yggdrasil - hence my observation you are consorting with the holy men of the Tree. And when a man comes in smelling of virgins’ blood with mud from the sewers on his heel, the distinct bulge on a sanctified dagger in the top pocket of his robe, proclaim me an idiot if I don’t declare him the conductor of a unicorn hunt.” I could not help but laugh at the ease with which he explained his process of deduction. “When I hear you give your reasons,” I remarked, “the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each successive instance of your reasoning I am baffled until you explain your process. And yet I believe that my spider eyes are far superior to yours.” “Quite so,” he answered, lighting a cigarette, and throwing himself down into the ghost of an armchair, kicking up a small cloud of dust. “You see perfectly, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear. My dear Glass Spider, if gods and demons wold put in that sort of effort, it would not now be this fallen human age!” I could not resist a smirk, “Not a human age for much longer, of course.” Hayden waved his hands airily, dismissively. ‘That is between the Seven and the Thirteen, I suppose. You know I have no time for politics. By-the-way, since you are interested in these little problems, and since you are good enough to chronicle one or two of my trifling experiences, you may wish to chronicle this.” There was something very strange in all this. Sorrows had never once asked for me to chronicle his adventures, and valued his privacy and the privacy of Blakely House above all other affairs. “You have probably never heard of Antiente Skulle?” said he. “Never.” “Aye, there’s the genius and the wonder of the thing!” he cried. “The liche pervades Horizon, and not even the School Council has heard of him. I tell you, Spider, in all seriousness, that I could continue to live in the quiet fashion which is most congenial to me, and to concentrate my attention upon training Mistress Natalie and writing Harry Potter fan-fiction if it were not for Antient Skulle!” Something about his pale, worn face told me that his nerves were at their highest tension. He saw the question in my eyes, and, putting his finger-tips together and his elbows upon his knees, he explained the situation…

A Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine Interlude by Rip van Mason

Over on RPG.net, I'm in a PbP game of the Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine (an RPG by jennamoran) campaign Glass Maker's Dragon (I play Natalie Coutourier, the Vampire Prodigy) [You'll need to have an RPG.net account to click that link].

The game is being HGed by the incredible Rip van Mason.  And, in between doing some damn good HGing, he's been peppering little "Interlude" fictions into the game and they are amazing.  Like the best bits of micro-fiction I've ever seen in an RPG.  And, with his permission, I'm reprinting them here (mostly so jennamoran can see them because they're great and I think she'll get a kick out of them!)

Interlude I of IX – Childe Rider to the Farthest Tree Came

My fairly terrible Mignola-copying cover for a fictional Natalie Coutourier-starring Chuubo's comic called "Winter: Flowers in the Ice". I'm not done, but I don't know that I ever will be done so...

Looking through some old stuff, I found this pile of adorable Yozis I doodled years ago.

Luke Skywalker in Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine

Today I was posting on a thread in RPG.net about using Canon Characters and Franchise Settings when, quite unexpectedly, I wrote this lengthy explanation of how Luke Skywalker would work as a Chuubo Main Character if Star Wars were a GMD-style campaign rather than a movie series.

I'm actually pretty happy with it, so I'm gonna put it here so I don't lose it.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Let's imagine Star Wars wasn't a movie but a game like Chuubo.  You'd get a character playbook that says:

"Your name is Luke Skywalker, you're an orphan farm boy with a grand destiny to become a Jedi Knight!  OR you could be:

Lulu Skywalker, an orphan farm GIRL with a grand destiny to become a Jedi Knight!

Lu'twach Skeewakka, an orphan wookie with a grand destiny to become a Jedi Knight!

Luke Amida, an orphan farm boy with a grand destiny to become an Ace Rebel Pilot!

Luke Skrontmeer, an orphan farm boy with a grand destiny that he's not sure of!

You'd get a list of generic but customizable starting Quests -- A Basic Quest that relates to being a farm boy out of your element; a Side Quest about befriending some droids, a Storyline Quest about being drawn off the farm and discovering a Wise Mentor.

You'd also get a generic Quest Set for someone on your Knightly path.  A very VERY quick Knight Arc Luke Quest set would be...

The Legendary Deeds of Luke Skywalker...

Knight 1:  Greater Things (Where you find a Mentor and are exposed to a new problem)

Knight 2:  The Dark Side (Where you discover your flaw and stumble because of it)

Knight 3:  Losing Things (Where you lose a mentor/lose faith/lose a hand)

And then the two optional:

Knight 4:  Get Back on the Horse (Where you get back into the path of Destiny)

Knight 5:  Balance (Where you face an Unbalanced Rival (a Walker in Darkness; like you but failing in their Vice) and defeat/befriend/mitigate them by your own control of your Vice)

Finally, you'd get some glimpses as to how this Quest Set can be arranged into Arcs that can be built into a campaign:

The Balance Arcs

Arc 1:  Luke Skywalker, A New Hope (Where the Jedi Knight finds that he is the only hope to keep the Rebellion from collapsing to the Evil Empire)

Arc 2:  Luke Skywalker, Among the Clouds (Where the Jedi Knight is Betrayed and Learns a Secret About His Past)

Arc 3:  Luke Skywalker, A Very Personal War (Where the Jedi Knight Must Find a Way to Bring a Star-Spanning War to a Close)

Arc 4+5:  Luke Skywalker, the Extended Universe (Where Other Things Happen - because I don't know the EU and can't really figure another whole Luke-centric Knight Arc out of the original trilogy)

So, if you lived in a world where Star Wars didn't exist but the Chuubo Star Wars game did, you could (By combining the Jedi Knight with the Smuggler, the Machine Conscience, the Rebel Noble, and (heck, maybe) the Treacherous Prince) approximate the entire plot of Star Wars just by going through those Arcs...  but you could also end up somewhere else entirely!  You'd have a general road map to a type of story without ever actually revealing more than a few landmarks of the story underneath.

"An Unreliable Narrative" - A Prototype Welcome to Night Vale Quest Set for Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine (Part 3)

Storyteller 2:

Making Yourself Heard

15 or 25 XP Quest

It’s time to say something.  You can’t just dispassionately watch and report, you have to say something.  You have to become involved.

You’ve still got a job to do, but part of that job is now about reacting to events as they unfold.  You’ve just been observing, but even observing is affecting, and its time to consider whether you’re willing to just sit on the sidelines any longer.

After all.  People are counting on you.

✿ Making Yourself Heard (25 XP)

Major Goals

The HG can award you 5 XP towards this quest when:

You speak truth to power, revealing something that those above you would rather you not reveal.

You publicly call out a foe or rival

You overcome something that keeps you from speaking aloud

You can earn each bonus once, for a total of up to 15 XP.

Quest Flavor

1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest when you:

✿ receive a compliment for a job well done

✿ align yourself with something weird, dangerous, or wicked

✿ warn of an impending doom

✿✿ relate your own past or situation to present events

✿✿ engage in a debate or argument

✿✿ say or do something you know will get you in trouble

✿ Making Yourself Heard (Simplified) (15 XP)

Major Goals

The HG can award you 5 XP towards this quest when:

You speak truth to power, revealing something that those above you would rather you not reveal.

You overcome something that keeps you from speaking aloud

You can earn one of these bonuses, for a total of up to 5 XP.

Quest Flavor

1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest when you:

✿✿ show support for something weird, dangerous, or wicked

✿ experience a flashback about current events

✿ experience a presentiment of doom

✿✿ stick your nose where it doesn’t belong

✿✿ clash directly with an authority figure

✿ take action even though you know it’s probably a bad idea

Storyteller 3:

A Part of the Story

20 or 30 XP Quest

Now you’ve done it.  You went too far.  You’re no longer on the outside looking in.

Now you’re in the middle of it.  And backing away with your hands up isn’t going to get you out of this jam.  You’re going to have to actually do something here, you’re going to have to step from behind the microphone, even if its just for a few minutes.

✿ A Part of the Story (30 XP)

Major Goals

The HG can award you 5 XP towards this quest when:

You get last minute help from a friend or enemy

You are attacked in somewhere that you previously felt safe

You travel through a portal, dream gateway, or other liminal path away from the regular world

You can earn each bonus once, for a total of up to 15 XP.

Quest Flavor

1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest when you:

✿ admit that you’ve been hasty

✿ propose a theory about the hidden truths begin events

✿✿ suggest a course of action to solve whatever issues are occurring

✿ are injured (or at least disheveled)

✿✿ give advice to a friend that gets them into trouble

✿ attempt to hide from events

✿ A Part of the Story (Simplified) (20 XP)

Major Goals

The HG can award you 5 XP towards this quest when:

You lose a friend because of advice that you gave them which turned out to be bad

You are attacked in somewhere that you previously felt safe

You can earn each bonus once, for a total of up to 10 XP.

Quest Flavor

1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest when you:

✿ are injured (or at least dishevelled)

✿✿ suggest a course of action to solve whatever issues are occurring

✿✿ try to form an alliance with someone you’ve previously counted as an enemy

✿ attempt to hide from events

✿ refuse to admit that you’ve been hasty

And that’s it!  Arc complete!  You’ve stood behind your microphone, hidden behind your microphone, and then come out from behind your microphone!

What’s that?  The story’s not over yet?  There’s still a big emotional finale?  Alright.. well, we’ll, once more, finish that later.

"An Unreliable Narrative" - A Prototype Welcome to Night Vale Quest Set for Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine (Part 2)

Alright, so.  I should talk about what this Quest Set is “About” before I start making it, I think.

Since it’s the Cecil Quest Set, it’s going to be, primarily, about Strange Happenings and Emotional Reactions.  It’ll be about mildly dealing with the strange and terrible, being filled with apprehension or worry or passion, about facing off against the dark monsters around you, and about finding a new boyfriend, or finding out about your own weird past or finding that maybe, just maybe, you were wrong about someone… who was still a total jerk.  

Who else, other than Cecil might be on “An Unreliable Narrative” Arc?  Fox Mulder is probably on either the Bindings or Otherworldly version of this Arc.  Of the other characters of Night Vale, only Old Woman Josie seems to be on the the Cecil Arc*… probably a Shepherd or Mystic version of it.  I’m not sure who else off the top of my head.  

Anyways, quest by quest for the Cecil version of the set.

Storyteller 1:

This Quest is about simply dealing with strange happenstance.  Weird stuff is going on, but that doesn’t mean you need to get all bent out of shape about it!  Do what you’re doing.  Talk about the weird stuff.  You’ve got a job to do and you can’t let strange stuff get in the way.  Sounds like a Work-and-Study Quest to me.  Perhaps something like…

Stoic Witness

20 or 25 XP Quest

You’ve got a job to do.

The news won’t report itself.  The bagels won’t bake themselves.  There are strange things going on and you take note.  You watch them.  You talk about them.  But you don’t let them side track you.

After all.  People are counting on you.

✿ Stoic Witness (25 XP)

Major Goals

The HG can award you 5 XP towards this quest when:

You maintain your composure even as something world-changing and terrifying is happening just off screen.

You give up an opportunity for wealth, power, or happiness, because you have other duties to attend to.

You can earn each bonus once, for a total of up to 10 XP.

Quest Flavor

1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest when you:

✿ go about your work day as usual

✿ take pride in a job well done

✿ spend time admiring something simple (a flower, a cup of coffee, a stray cat)

✿ describe something strange you witnessed to another person

✿✿ give a monologue of seemingly nonsensical gibberish, ostensibly about the nature of reality, but with deep metaphorical relations to current events

✿✿ give a monologue of seemingly nonsensical gibberish, ostensibly about the nature of reality, but apropos of nothing

✿ pretend that what you’re doing is more important than it is

Or, the shorter version....

✿ Stoic Witness(Simplified) (20 XP)

Major Goals

The HG can award you 5 XP towards this quest when:

You maintain your composure even as something world-changing and terrifying is happening just off screen.

You narrate the events of a phantasmagoric dream state as they occur.

You can earn each bonus once, for a total of up to 10 XP.

Quest Flavor

1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest when you:

✿ talk about what’s going on around you

✿✿ talk about what’s going on with your everyday life

✿ spend time admiring something simple (a flower, a cup of coffee, a stray cat)

✿ describe something strange you witnessed to another person

✿ find yourself surrounded by water, snow, or strange mute children

✿✿ talk about things you cannot possibly know

✿ worry that you might be missing out on something because of work

Annoyingly, I didn't realize Tumblr wouldn't keep my coloring.  Anyway....

One Quest down.  I’m going to take another break…  this was the first thing I did when I woke up!

* I thought, with its themes, some of the other Night Vale characters might fit… but really, Carlos is on a Scientific Adventure.  The Apache Tracker was on a Heartwarming, Heart-rending Coming-of-Age Story Arc.  Tamika Flynn is on a Secret History, and The Man in the Tan Jacket and The Faceless Old Woman Who Lives in Your House seem to be on Numinous Gardens Arcs.  Intern Dana is probably on a Heartwarming, Heart-rending Coming-of-Age Story, too.  

"An Unreliable Narrative" - A Prototype Welcome to Night Vale Quest Set for Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine (Part 1)

Okay, so I've been thinking about Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine, and I've been thinking about Welcome to Night vale, and I've been thinking about how to combine Chuubo and Night Vale together. More specifically, I've been trying to think about Chuubo Quest Sets and just how tricky they are to make.

If you don't follow Welcome to Night Vale, it's one of the most popular podcasts ever, about(and I'll use the cliche description everyone uses from the first episode) "A friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep": http://commonplacebooks.com/welcome-to-night-vale/

If you don't follow Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine, it's an unreleased Tabletop RPG written by Jenna Moran, designed, primarily, for playing Miyazaki-inspired games, but its same sense of normalcy among the strange definitely can fit:  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1710667762/the-chuubos-marvelous-wish-granting-engine-rpg

As a fun exercise that no one will ever get any use out of, I thought I'd mess around a bit with making a Cecil Quest Set, which I am going to tentatively call the Unreliable Narrative Quest Set.

Alright, so let's break down a Cecil Arc. In my mind, the Cecil Arcs of Welcome to Night Vale typically traverse a certain path:

Reporting: Cecil dispassionately observes and reports even momentous events, as if they are completely external to him.

Editorializing: Some crisis or issue strikes Cecil/Night Vale causing him express fear or concern OR state opinions that clash with official opinions

Becoming the Story: Cecil is, personally, drawn into events, whether it be physically, emotionally, or merely by association.

Human Interest: Cecil has some sort of personal revelation, emotional catharsis, or transformative event

A Return to Normalcy: Cecil settles back in, the revelations of the past ignored or integrated.

Now, for various reasons, I'm pegging Cecil as being on a Storyteller Arc, generally. The most obvious is the nominal relationship, but the authorship abilities of the Storyteller Arc, and the slow burn character development of its Quest set both fit the character, in my mind. As, Ms Moran said, he's almost a background character-type, not a lot of actual growth along his path for most of the story, except, perhaps, in short bursts.

Basically, the Storyteller Arc is as follows...

Doing your thing, being cool

Continuing to do your thing even as things start getting messy

Facing things outside of your expertise

Go for the gold, the biggest prize

Fall back to earth, rebuffed by your earlier overreach

It's not exactly a map, but it's not too far off. The overall shape of the Arc feels similar.

I think I should go to bed now... But I'll come back to this, i think. Maybe. 

Well, maybe not.

A very quick sketch of Entropy II, Magister, King of the Evil World and the Principal of Horizon’s School, by the Grace of Heaven and the Light, in his casual wear.

These are a couple of pictures I drew several (holy crap years ago.  Sticking them on Tumblr to share them with an associate.

I was in an Exalted phase at the time so I did a bit of Homestuck/Exalted fanart.  That's John Egbert as the Unconquered Sun and Dave Strider as Ligier, the Green Sun, Fetich Soul of Malfeas.  I tried to do a Jade(As the Maidens) and a Rose (As one of the Deathlords) but couldn't quite get things working...  

I think the John is my favorite.  Lil' Cal Malfeas is a bit hard to decipher.

A quick doodle of... okay, it's Meenah from Homestuck, but it's, in this case, the image I'll be using for my character in an RPG who is also a fish-chick with a trident.  It's... complicated...  whatever.

A quick doodle of Princess Hereford, of the Bear Fairies.  Don't ask,

Angel of Fortitude again

The Angel of Fortitude and Chibi-Sa'a Lingurth.

….And Rinley too! I should wait until this is all done… But I have no idea when I’m going to just give up, so I’m going to just spam these until I don’t anymore.