Another Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine Interlude By Rip Van Mason
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…
More Posts from Mrprim and Others
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.
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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.
Here's the pencil sketch of that Fortitude Rat from before.
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
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.
Terrible doodle. Just... Awful.
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 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...
She Who Lives in Her Name, the Principle of Heirarchy
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.
Looking through some old stuff, I found this pile of adorable Yozis I doodled years ago.
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