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cureforsuffering) wrote2025-03-21 05:20 pm
cureforsuffering) wrote2025-03-21 05:20 pm
Entry tags:
CHARACTER SHEET: Soldier
The shrine shifts around you again, and you're crouched with your back to the smooth surface of collapsed stone, a semi-automatic rifle clutched in your hands and a combat knife tucked in your belt. 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 either combat fatigues or something more resembling the practical outerwear and scarf of a guerilla—and your mind is running through calculations: how much ammo you have left, and of what kind; the distance between you and the traps and mines you rigged; just how long it would take for the sources of those screams and howls to reach your location. And, in conclusion, you might be pretty fucked… just not for lack of your trying. It's just that not everything in this hellhole can be stabbed, shot, or blown up—and that is gonna be a problem.
You're still yourself, it's just that now you know all that other stuff too.
Also by your side is a handheld communicator, customized with an engraving of a lion's head 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 be able to trust to get you out of this before your (and their) slipshod defenses all collapse. A scholar, a priest, and that wandering traveler you all met back before the sky started falling…
Your clothes have changed—now they are either combat fatigues or something more resembling the practical outerwear and scarf of a guerilla—and your mind is running through calculations: how much ammo you have left, and of what kind; the distance between you and the traps and mines you rigged; just how long it would take for the sources of those screams and howls to reach your location. And, in conclusion, you might be pretty fucked… just not for lack of your trying. It's just that not everything in this hellhole can be stabbed, shot, or blown up—and that is gonna be a problem.
You're still yourself, it's just that now you know all that other stuff too.
Also by your side is a handheld communicator, customized with an engraving of a lion's head 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 be able to trust to get you out of this before your (and their) slipshod defenses all collapse. A scholar, a priest, and that wandering traveler 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~.
Drained of Life and Energy
You can feel a slowness setting into your limbs, a malaise making every action take more effort, a weariness at the struggle of remaining in the world. Soon, it will overtake you, too—if you don't do something to stop it.
Requires help from: the Priest
Skin Disease Body Horror
The first sores have started to form on your skin—small and unobtrusive, but nonetheless painful and oozing. They're growing, and watching the progression of the disease in those around you gives you a strong idea of what will happen to you: the whole body as an open wound.
Requires help from: the Wanderer
Impaled By Briars
They grow right in front of your eyes, pushing through the ground with little warning but a rumble, and they're circling closer and closer around your little shelter. No one can get out, and you're pretty sure these things could even break through the concrete and rebar that's still intact under you. If they get that far, the best you can hope for is a quick death of a thorn through your chest rather than being bled by many or just trapped within the bramble until you starve.
Requires help from: the Scholar
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).
Breakdown.
You've seen some shit, because you don't get to being who and where you are, now, without having seen the kind of shit that forces a person to break down that barrier in themselves that keeps them from pulling the trigger. From sinking in the blade. And now, with the world going to shit around you, you kind of have to ask: all that pain… what was it for? Just hurrying people towards the inevitable? Or maybe it means that you're less like a person and more like one of those pieces of flaming rubble that fell out of the sky—just so much pointless destruction. It weighs on you; cloaks you like a miasma. More and more, that self-loathing is going to build in you. It's starting to make you choke.
Trigger: Eventually, someone's going to call you out on it. Maybe it's because they're starting to feel it too. They'll say:
[Your name], you know exactly what I mean, don't you? As soon as you hear those words, CONFESS.
Confess. (click for more)
What's the worst thing you've ever done? It still haunts you, doesn't it. It does. You can't hide it anymore, and you won't:
Tell anyone and everyone listening about your character's worst sin. Spare no detail of how many people were hurt, or what kind of terrible, selfish feelings made them do it.
This is the ultimate proof of what kind of monster you are, after all, and you need to make them understand.
…OPTIONALLY, IF YOUR CHARACTER WOULD NOT HAVE A FITTING MEMORY TO SHARE, they can instead have the following memory implanted, as if it were their own:
So now they all know. They know what you did, and what you deserve.
Doesn't that make what's happening to you now kind of just? You're desperate, now, to find some kind of atonement—even if that means everyone else here has to be the ones doing the punishing.