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cureforsuffering) wrote2025-03-22 02:15 am
cureforsuffering) wrote2025-03-22 02:15 am
Entry tags:
CHARACTER SHEET: Priest
The shrine shifts around you again, and you're sitting in the wreckage of a ruined building—a place of worship, to be precise, or at least half of one, two of its outer walls collapsed and the ornate glass of its windows mostly shattered—with your head in your hands. It is still dark, and while the "stars" of flaming debris are no longer falling, the occasional screams and cries of panic in the distance have not relented.
Your clothes have changed: now they are the understated robes of a religious leader, though torn and stained around the hem. In your lap is a holy text, but it is only barely necessary to you, as you realize you have it memorized—as well as the the prayers and rituals it would take to channel your faith through the symbol you wear around your neck, or using the bits of relics and reagents that you carry in your bag. Not that any of that will be enough to save you. Is it enough to save anyone?
You're still yourself, it's just that now these other things are in your mind as well.
Also by your side is a handheld communicator, customized with an engraving of a sorrowing face on the back. It's got a slightly grainy video screen, a camera lens, plus a radio-style dial that'll let you tune into different frequencies—belonging to the last three people you might rely on in the time between now and dawn. A soldier, a scholar, and a wandering mendicant you all met back before the sky started falling…
Your clothes have changed: now they are the understated robes of a religious leader, though torn and stained around the hem. In your lap is a holy text, but it is only barely necessary to you, as you realize you have it memorized—as well as the the prayers and rituals it would take to channel your faith through the symbol you wear around your neck, or using the bits of relics and reagents that you carry in your bag. Not that any of that will be enough to save you. Is it enough to save anyone?
You're still yourself, it's just that now these other things are in your mind as well.
Also by your side is a handheld communicator, customized with an engraving of a sorrowing face on the back. It's got a slightly grainy video screen, a camera lens, plus a radio-style dial that'll let you tune into different frequencies—belonging to the last three people you might rely on in the time between now and dawn. A soldier, a scholar, and a wandering mendicant you all met back before the sky started falling…
[ Important note: Your communicator can reach each other character in the session individually; furthermore, any number of people can join the same frequency, allowing for group conversations. If a conversation is taking place and your character has not been invited to to join the frequency, they could still theoretically discover it and hop in, but short of that there is no such thing as eavesdropping—unless or until your character joins a thread, they have no way of knowing what was discussed between those characters. ]
SOLUTIONS
Reminder: While characters do not exactly know ICly that the marked methods won't work, they have at least a slight worry or suspicion that these methods are riskier or less reliable. It's not a strong enough suspicion to not bother trying them at all, but it could very well inform how they approach distributing them.
When you offer a solution to another character and they accept it: describe what happens with whatever cool description/justification you like, and then specify whether it succeeds or fails at resolving the problem.
GOLD
SILVER
BRONZE
COPPER
PROBLEMS
NOTE: It is not intended, much less anticipated, that you'll have ICly finished negotiating for aid when your second and third problems are revealed! That's fine and normal and expected; remember—this is a 4-hour game. The delayed reveals are to help with ~dramatic pacing~.
TWIST
Every role has a unique twist with a unique trigger condition. This has two parts: an intro, which covers the parts of the role's ~character development~ that are active from the start of the session; and the twist itself, plus its trigger condition (or trigger condition options).
The twist is hidden/spoilered by default, but it's up to your preferences as a player whether to peek: it'll probably be more exciting if you wait, but if you want to spoil yourself so that you can get into ~foreshadowing~ that's also a valid option.
Regardless, be sure to pay attention to what the trigger condition is! Some roles have special instructions that impact other roles—i.e. being prompted by them, or triggering their twist yourself.
Once the trigger condition is met, the character's role will force them to change in accordance with their role's twist. Think of it as a sort of temporary madness (though it won't necessarily be negative).
Fractured heart.
But now the world is ending. Around you, people are dying—and people are killing each other. Your faith spoke of an end times, yes, but surely it was never meant to be this cruel.
Trigger: When you've seen three solutions fail, regardless of who they were offered to.
ALTERNATIVELY, if two hours have passed and you still haven't hit this condition, instead trigger it at the very next thing that could justifiably make your character feel despair. (This can mean "immediately.")
Shatter. (click for more)
…You were wrong.
You were a fool, and you were wrong, and now you see the world as it truly is: defined by cruelty and (worse) indifference. And that higher power you clung to so fervently? Well, it's not that you don't believe in it any longer, but here, too, you at last see clearly: this destruction is always how it was meant to be. The highest principles, the greatest truths, demand that you place your faith in the ending that is coming for all of you, great and small. Maybe your companions still can't see that—so you'll have to make them see. It's the last kindness you can do for them.
The soldier, you think, is already at least halfway to understanding your point of view. So make sure they have the same epiphany you've had, and say these EXACT WORDS to them:
[Soldier name], you know exactly what I mean, don't you?
(Then, ping the player in discord to be sure they're aware.)
Devouring Swarm
There's a constant buzzing in your ears, even well behind the netting barriers. It’s a long and painful process—for each creature you catch and kill ten more take its place, and every hour that goes by those ten become another hundred. The more time passes, the less and less you have for yourself, as they consume everything in sight, no matter how many you kill.
(Isaiah 7:18-19, In that day the Lord will whistle for flies from the Nile delta in Egypt and for bees from the land of Assyria. / They will all come and settle in the steep ravines and in the crevices in the rocks, on all the thornbushes and at all the water holes.)
Requires help from: the Scholar
Demons from Below
Something huge and angry is crawling out of a pit of flame, cracking the ground open as it climbs toward you, ready to raze everything in its path, starting with you and the people who surround you. It's not as if there's good shelter anywhere else near here; if this place falls, you'll have nothing. And from the way the cracks in the earth spread toward anyone trying to escape, you think it might be able to smell you.
(Isaiah 24:19, The earth is broken up, / the earth is split asunder, / the earth is violently shaken.)
Requires help from: the Soldier
Hunger and Starvation
You search and search for anything, anything to satiate yourself, yet everything you try brings only agony.
(Micah 6:15, You will plant but not harvest; / you will press olives but not use the oil, / you will crush grapes but not drink the wine.)
Requires help from: the Wanderer