CHARACTER SHEET: Priest

[cureforsuffering]

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…

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[ 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. ]

Comments

PROBLEMS

[cureforsuffering]

You'll start knowing one of these; then, at the 30 minute and 90 minute marks the other two will be revealed at random (i.e. have their respective comments unscreened).

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~.

Devouring Swarm

[cureforsuffering]

Swarms of insects have descended, decimating crops and starting to take chunks of flesh from the living as well.

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

[cureforsuffering]

The earth below your feet shifts and shakes; fire and groaning erupts 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

[cureforsuffering]

People labor and harvest and cook, but food turns to ash in their mouths and rots on the plate. Those who drink are never satisfied and feel it burn their throats.

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