Amber related, life related, you name it, we've got it. Welcome to the Lost and Found.

 
I have an idea percolating. It's a world. A friend was pestering me last night to run a FtF game (or is it AN FtF game? Hmm.). Well, okay, we'll see.

The world is a city - no name for it yet, if it will ever have one. It's been in my mind for a while - it's part of something I began to write my senior year of high school (four years ago). Among the things I can recall reading at the time, I remember Zelazny and Raymond E. Feist, Mercedes Lackey and David Eddings, the Thieves' World books and the one Dragonlance book I read, some of which had influence and some of which didn't. The four biggest influences are probably the Vampire 2nd edition book, Zelazny's A Dark Travelling, The Jaguar Princess by Clare Bell, and a novel called The Werewolf's Tale by Richard Jaccoma. Yes, lots of shapeshifters.

The city - the city is a wreck of what it once was. There was a war - no, it's not post-apocalyptic - a war between humans and supernaturals, one that ended in truce and not victory. Broken skyscrapers have become ancient oaks amidst ash-groves of rubble. Shops are abandoned and falling slowly into decay. It is a city that is slipping slowly into the night.

There are five kin of man in the city still: the men, the cats, the wolves, the undead, and the fae. There are no mages, no witches, no warlocks. Shamans are a thing of the past, and clerics have no Power. The numbers of the children of Man shrink as the days pass and the supernaturals take control, but the governing of the city still rests in fully human hands. The shopkeepers and nightclub owners, the police, the city-workers - all are human, and all have limited power over the supernatural kind, now that the war is over.

The were-cats, the children of Bast, walk day and night in the echoing corridors and long dim ways of the city. They divide the city into four Flanks: North, South, East, and West, with Regents to rule each. Lilith runs the South, One-Eye the West; to the North and East are Carlotta and Mario. Theirs is a growth by breeding and a special circumstance; two cats must breed to make a new were-cat, but every twenty years, the Were Moon (called by some the Changer's Moon) grants the conversion of selected half-breeds into full-bloods. The cat tribes are named after felines in literature: Jellicles and Plutos, Cheshires and Jupiterians, to name a few major ones. (That last is a little obscure; it's from a reworking/retelling(?) of Poe's "The Black Cat", from one of the Mystery Cats anthologies.) There are any number of tribes; each of the major ones has a stereotypical member, and the lesser tribes often describe themselves in terms of these cliches. The cats have two forms: cat and human, with no intermediate. Their powers vary widely - some can hide in plain sight, some can affect probability, and some can heal, to name a few - but the powers are generally related to the patron of their tribe.

The werewolves, children of Fenrir, are a fractured kin: some live in the city, but most live in the woods that surround the city on two sides. The city wolves are quieter, caretakers where their forest-running kin are hunters. The wolves are made, not born - made in the dark of the moon, with ritual and howling and blood - but those with wolf blood gravitate towards the conversion to werewolf. They commonly live singly or in pairs; a pack of werewolves is greatly - and rightly - feared, by humans and supernaturals alike, but almost unheard of in the city since the end of the war. The city-werewolves have loose packs formed by neighborhood; these meet once a month or so and are primarily social gatherings. Forest-werewolves form larger packs and have divided the forest into territories; their packs meet almost daily and serve as governing bodies. Every few years, a grand meeting is held of all the werewolves in the city; it generally occurs on the dark of the moon in a deep glade of the woods. The wolves are tri-formed beings - wolf, man, and a halfling form that stands upright, with fur and a muzzle and a long plumed tail. The wolves have little in the way of powers; they rely on prowess instead.

The undead kin are primarily vampires; zombies are the only other known undead, and they're very rare. The vampires are flamboyant creatures as a generality, tending towards flame-colored garb paired with black and extravagant tattoos and jewelry. For all their vanity, however, an individual vampire is a dangerous creature. Each has a territory in the city, and the entire city is overseen by a Prelate elected every ten years. The vampiric governing system is highly feudal - with the lowest echelon (equivalent to peasants, slaves, indentured servants, what-have-you) occupied by humans. The vampires have limited and varied powers, depending on personal preference, skill level, and availability of teachers; the one universal power is the ability to transform to a single second shape, which is always either a bat, a wolf, or smoke. Feuds based on mistaken identity sometimes erupt between the werewolves and the wolf-transforming vampires. Vampires are always created, by a process of blood-letting and ritual.

The fae are rarely seen in the city. They alone of all the supernaturals were never human. A fae might appear as a flower-garlanded and barefoot maiden in the darkest woods, or a purple-eyed wolf crossing a six-lane highway, or a cat with irridescent fur strolling unconcernedly down the street, or a million other forms. They are earth-bound in all their forms, but size and weight do not limit their transformations. They are the barrow-builders, who lure humans in for a night and release them a decade or a century or a millennium later. Their organization is spotty - in one place, a king and his court rule for miles around; in another, a single fae rules nothing but himself. The natural form of the fae is unviewable - they are beings of light and sound and color, and a glimpse of this form can result in blindness, deafness, or madness. When the stakes are high in a battle or a quest, fae sometimes appear to offer advice, to hinder, or simply to watch. In the battle between supernaturals and humans, the fae stayed aloof and apart. Fae procreation is a mysterious thing - but all the humans who vanish among the fae are kept within the under-hill halls and return to the world as humans still. The fae are as changeable as the wind, but iron and church bells can still bind them.

Wraiths, ghosts, and poltergeists are unknown in this world.

Buried within the various sections of the city are safehouses for the supernaturals. The first of these were established during the human-supernatural war, and many more appeared during the first few years of uneasy peace when the supernaturals turned on each other; they are run by supernaturals and accept all of the non-human kin who will enter and abide by the rules. The rules are simple: respect your host, leave your hostilities outside, and mind your own business. Violation of the first is minor, resulting in a warning, followed by eviction if necessary; violating the second will result in expulsion and blacklisting, at best; disobeying the third results in a reaction much like the first. The only exception to the hostility rule is when a supernatural brings a human or halfbreed into a safehouse; almost all human guests are not covered by guest laws and are thus at the mercy of the host and other visitors. Forced invasion of a safehouse for reasons other than repeated gross insult or injury offered by the host will result in the offender's death; fae are the only exception, since they rarely respect border rights and cannot effectively use the identification system to gain entry anyway. The safehouses in the city are connected to a single network; all supernaturals register with the network. In rare instances, humans or halfbreeds are registered and allowed access to the safehouses under the auspices of a sponsor; the registered non-supernaturals are usually a permanent partner of the supernatural or extremely important family members. Candidates for werecat and werewolf conversion are always registered before the final ritual; the cats register their candidates as soon as they are selected and thus have halfbreeds registered for any length of time under 20 years. Vampire candidates are registered after their change; fae do not register at all, but all fae respect the rules inside the safehouse (even if they do not always respect the rules for access).

I think that's enough of the setting; there are minute details of the assorted supernaturals that I've not written down here, but this is the broad view.

Now all I need is plot and system. Plot shouldn't be hard, but I'll have to think on the system for a while.
posted by sandrayln at 7:03:00 PM ( )

 

WISH 66: Left Turn at Albuquerque

GMs can spend hours designing an adventure and have their players take off in an entirely unexpected direction. How does a GM handle this—try and steer the players back to the designed plot, or hang back and see where the adventure goes? How does a player handle this? Stay on target or go with the flow?

Okay, story time. A story that will answer the question.

The first session of Lost and Found was a trip, I have to admit. I'd never GM'ed before, and pretty much the sum of my gaming experience was a pair of one-shots and about 12 sessions of a Changeling chronicle. I spent the latter half of December and most of January working on things for the game - mostly NPCs, but plot things, too. In February, characters were created and we decided where each character was going to start the game. I did a week's additional working out of things and then ran the first session. I had things all neat and planned out as to what happened next - Arwen would get to Amber in an orderly fashion, and Chetwin and Dylana, after attending Vialle's funeral, would get sent off to find Kurt, Kaylana, and Mercury before they were sent to find Martin.

Absolutely nothing of the sort happened. Arwen hared off into Arden when Julian told her that time differential meant she'd missed her mother's funeral, and she was almost eaten by dire wolves before one of her siblings collected her. Not to mention the Stupid Timeline Tricks I had to do to accomodate her player. Chetwin immediately noticed Martin's absence and started trying to track him down, with Dylana super-glued to his heels. At the point we stopped, they had stopped a cross-Shadow trek because the driver of the pickup and horse trailer Chet insisted on bringing had handled the Shadow shifting extremely poorly.

At this point, some fifty-odd sessions later, I've pretty much given up planning for individual sessions - because it's not worth the effort to sit down and plot for paths A, B, C, and D when you know full well that one or more of your players will find paths Q, R, and S, none of which you can figure out even though you know they'll find them.

I know the big points they need to get to... and I know threads I want to weave in (whether they stay in or not is another issue entirely)... and the rest of the time I just dive in headlong and go for the ride. If things stagnate, I'll throw an NPC who's doing something interesting (and generally plot-related) in front of them.

As a player - I go with the flow, whether it's my character that does the derailing or simply the group my char is with that's taken things off-track. After all, that's usually why my character wants to do...

(Incidentally, the GM for our Changeling game claimed I should change the title to "Left Turn at Ohio" - since our group managed to completely curcumvent several interesting NPCs and about three sessions of gaming after our plane crashed in Ohio and we discovered a means of alternate transportation to our destination. That was so not my fault - my character was far more interested in making the situation entertaining than in actually travelling. :) Of course, now I'm wondering what happened to the "I Love Ohio" shirts we acquired while we were there...)
posted by sandrayln at 12:45:00 AM ( )

 
This week's random addition to the restaurants of Amber in L&F: a middle-class restaurant serving Thai-food-like cuisine from a place called Therrapis.

(Otherwise known as attempts to keep a vegetarian, Thai-food-eating player whose character is simply her with a very small number of changes amused...)

(And I think this entry gets the "long, complex sentances" award for the week...)
posted by sandrayln at 9:35:00 PM ( )

 

WISH 65: That's My Job

Does what you do for a living have any impact on your gaming? Have you had occupational details intrude on your descriptions of how something works? Have you ever dared a player to go “Hotwire a car, then, if that’s how you think it’s done?”

Heh. Okay, I have to go at this sideways and backwards, as usual...

First off, I'm a student. Undergrad in college, looking towards grad school, with a double major in Anthropology and Computer Science and a minor in English (and shortly, possibly one in Archaeology, since I have the hours). During the summers, I work a horseback riding camp for my riding instructor, or at least I have been the last few years.

Impact? Yeah, a bit. Take the following example:

Me: "... and I load the horse up light enough that it can still run if there's an emergency."
GM: "Umm... horses can't run with packs."
Me: <insert long pause while I try to process the bullshit I was just handed>

Yeah. I ended up just not bothering to fight that one - I mean, it was D&D and the GM was clueless in many ways, so what's the point, right? And anyway, we had wagons and the crap I was loading on the horse wasn't important anyway.

I know that equestrian information impacts my GMing - little things, like "if you say your character doesn't know how to ride and they don't take the time to have someone teach them, they don't know how to ride." That means falling off, chafing after a long ride, and sometimes disobedient horses; it means someone has to saddle your horse for you until you learn how, and all other kinds of interesting little issues.

(It sounds like I'm way over-emphasizing that in-game, and I'm not. I just have major problems with characters who come in not knowing how to ride and mysteriously figure it out within the first 10 minutes they're on a horse. It just doesn't happen like that.)

In my Amber, Sand is the premiere horsewoman. She can make any horse do anything she wants it to. She gives lessons to family members who want to better their riding skills. She doesn't come off her horse unless she's unconscious, dead, or wants to get off. She has the respect of her brothers for this.

In my Amber, I know how big Morgenstern is, why Benedict's red-and-black Glemdennig had his mane roached short when Benedict chased Corwin until he stood at bay at the edge of the Black Road, how many stalls are in the stables, and where the horses are exercised when the royals don't ride them.

In my Amber game, I offered PCs a chance at one of the horses from the breed Sand created - horses that are, I now realize, far, far too powerful, even despite the insanely quirky personalities I've given them. (From the session before last: Dustin's character's horse is waiting where he left him - and shows no signs of having been anywhere else. Dustin: "He must be ill..." Darcie: "Yeah. I mean, we've been playing to 3 years... thereabouts... and he's never made a non-mischievous entrance.") They often do profoundly non-horse-like things... but I know their limits as well, because while they may have non-equine minds, they're still horse shaped.

I've never dared anyone to prove something - in part because I don't do well in arguments, and in part because it's usually not worth the effort to me, especially when the way it should be done will take longer or be more difficult than the incorrect, shorthand way. This doesn't stop me from wincing sometimes, but hey, that's my decision, right?

Just remember: horses aren't motorcycles.

The anthropology, the computer science, the archaeology, and the english? Well, not much effect from the first three - especially since the areas of anthropology and archaeology I'm most interested involve bones, and really, when it comes down to it, I'm not all that good a programmer. But english has always been my strong suit, and I'd like to think it shows. (And I'm not going to get into the pain that bad grammar and spelling brings me in online gaming, because that's a three- or four-page rant right there...) I may not always be that fast at replying to posts, and I may sometimes get confused in mid-post as to which response I was actually going to write, but I'd like to think that, in general, I'm on the ball when it comes to writing.

Well, at least until it comes to trying to write coherently in response to one of these questions. Huh.
posted by sandrayln at 5:28:00 PM ( )

 
I got pretty bored the last couple of weeks (yes, despite the fact that I'm in school and having to read crap like crazy right now), so I came up with playlists for Oriana and Sophia. Some of the songs I understand why, and some of them I'm at a loss about.

Keep in mind that this is coming out of my rather meagre music collection (or at least *I* think it's lacking...). I linked up lyrics to the Jimmy Buffett songs, since I don't know how many people out there even know who Jimmy Buffett is...

Oriana's Songs

1. "When I'm Gone", from Away from the Sun by Three Doors Down
2. "Last Beat of Your Heart", by Mission UK, from the album Music From the Succubus Club
3. "Sarah Yellin'", from Away from the Sun by Three Doors Down
4. "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet", which I can't remember an artist for and am too lazy to look up
5. "Ticket to Heaven", from Away from the Sun by Three Doors Down
6. "Landfall", from Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes by Jimmy Buffett. Amusingly, it's the only water-related song that made it on a playlist for a daughter of Caine and a lady smuggler...
7. "Running Out of Days", from Away from the Sun by Three Doors Down
8. "Life in the Fast Lane", from Hell Freezes Over by the Eagles
9. "Here Without You", from Away from the Sun by Three Doors Down
10. "Lady I Can't Explain", from Volcano by Jimmy Buffett
11. "I Feel You", from Away from the Sun by Three Doors Down
12. "I'd Lie For You (And That's the Truth)", from Welcome to the Neighborhood by Meat Loaf
13. "Dangerous Game", from Away from the Sun by Three Doors Down
14. "Ramble On", from Led Zeppelin II by Led Zeppelin
15. "Changes", from Away from the Sun by Three Doors Down
16. "Wherever I May Roam", from Metallica (the black album) by Metallica
17. "Going Down in Flames", from Away from the Sun by Three Doors Down
18. "The Call of Ktulu", from Ride the Lightning by Metallica

So that's Oriana's list. Almost all the songs are active things, but not bright and cheerful, because she's just not a bubbly girl. Several of the songs make me think of her views of Caine; #13 makes me think of her rivalry with Dane. And #18 creeps me the hell out and makes me think of the whole factory situation.

Sophia's Songs

1. "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)", from Nimrod by Green Day
2. "Iris", by the Goo Goo Dolls, from the City of Angels soundtrack
3. "New York Minute", from Actual Miles: Henley's Greatest Hits by Don Henley
4. "Away from the Sun", from Away from the Sun by Three Doors Down
5. "Frenchman for the Night", from Fruitcakes by Jimmy Buffett
6. "Lone Palm", from Fruitcakes by Jimmy Buffett
7. "Desperado", from Hell Freezes Over by the Eagles
8. "Nothing Else Matters", from Metallica (the black album) by Metallica
9. "Pacing the Cage", from Beach House on the Moon by Jimmy Buffett
10. "Learn to Be Still", from Hell Freezes Over by the Eagles. This is just Sophia's song. I don't know why, I can't begin to make sense of why, it just is.
11. "Landslide", from The Dance by Fleetwood Mac
12. "Calling You", from History for Sale by Blue October
13. "Treat Her Like a Lady", from Volcano by Jimmy Buffett
14. "Rhiannon", from The Dance by Fleetwood Mac
15. "Semi-True Story", from Beach House on the Moon by Jimmy Buffett
16. hidden track from Away from the Sun by Three Doors Down

Sophia's got all the depressing songs, quite frankly. Numbers 5, 7, and 9 all make me think of Corwin, and the fact that she seems to have the last name Corey meant those were at least somewhat appropriate to put on the list; besides which, they all have the right sound. Sophia has more water songs than Ori - numbers 6 and 13 primarily - and it took me a while to remember why I assocate her with water (she compulsively assigned the other three females in her group to elements... and assigned Water to herself).

I'm not sure why I decided to type this all up - but commentary is welcome.
posted by sandrayln at 10:13:00 PM ( )

 

WISH 63: Contributions and Other Value Adds

What kinds of game-related things do you do when you’re not gaming? Do you write journals or fiction, create web-pages, make character images, or indulge in other outside game-related business? If you game regularly face-to-face, do you play by email or chat outside the game? Does your GM give you experience or character rewards for your efforts? And if you don’t do any of these things, what are your reasons for not doing them (disinterest, insufficient time, etc.)?

The short answer here is, "Yes."

The slightly longer answer... let me just list things I do:

1. Draw my characters by hand. Usually multiple times, because I'm picky.
2. Write backstory - one for Oriana, but none for Sophia or Faline, the former for obvious reasons and the latter because she was my first long-term character and SHE takes control and has declined to tell me anything about her past...
3. Some picture editing. I've got a few for Faline that aren't going to see the light of day because they're... well... bad, and I'm working obsessively on one for Sophia right now.
4. Journals! Oriana's are current up to the morning of the day she's in game-time, and I'm thinking that Sophia's going to end up with one, if only so that both she and her player can get facts aligned...
5. And, of course, if you look to the left of this browser window, you'll see web pages. *grin*

Other business? Not really, other than daydreaming scenarios and thinking things over, especially when I'm bored.

As for playing by email or chat outside a ftf game - well, we didn't when we played the Changeling game, and that's pretty much gone into dead roach mode (you know, feet up in the air and looking quite, quite ill) on us now, and we didn't when we played the D&D game, which is so deceased even the daisies are dead.

And in the experience department - I got some for committing to the journal for Oriana, and I've received some for the first hand-drawn picture of Sophia... That's all at the moment, though.

posted by sandrayln at 2:51:00 PM ( )