CHARACTER SHEET: Soldier

[cureforsuffering]

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…

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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~.

Drained of Life and Energy

[cureforsuffering]

Your plants and crops drain of color, droop, and turn to dust, but after them follows everything that stands upon the earth, you included. People are wasting away into nothingness in front of your eyes, their will to live lost.

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

[cureforsuffering]

Disease runs rampant, and the people around you are afflicted by sores; water only causes them to become sick. Their skin begins to slough off.

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

[cureforsuffering]

Where native foliage has died back or become blighted, massive thorns and briars have taken over and are encroaching, impaling anyone who finds themselves trapped.

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