"An Unreliable Narrative" - A Prototype Welcome To Night Vale Quest Set For Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting

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...

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.

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

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.

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

Terrible doodle. Just... Awful.

Another cosplay rat doodle.

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.

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.