Manic Typist Posted March 8, 2010 Report Share Posted March 8, 2010 Re: Urban Fantasy Setting: Here There Be Monsters So, Hugo doesn't know that the banshee effect will work through TV? You make it sound as if the only thing he was unaware of was the death of a celebrity which will increase the number of viewers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
5lippers Posted March 9, 2010 Report Share Posted March 9, 2010 Re: Urban Fantasy Setting: Here There Be Monsters Hi Manic Typist, There’s a draft banshee package here but we haven’t finessed it yet. The banshee’s song is an uncontrolled power that manifests only when a ‘great’ or significant personality dies and thus Ailis has no control over it (she is a tragic antagonist, rather than a villainess). Regarding whether the song will work over TV or not, Hugo’s motivator is to interrupt normal TV with a live broadcast of him and Ailis telling the world about their plight. Hugo’s a bit odd, but he isn’t evil and Ailis’ erupting into banshee song whilst they are on air is definitely not part of their plan. I'll go back and see if i can tweak the earlier post to make this clear. 5. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manic Typist Posted March 9, 2010 Report Share Posted March 9, 2010 Re: Urban Fantasy Setting: Here There Be Monsters Ah, there we go. He doesn't know her banshee ability will be activated. It would have been EXTREMELY reckless, otherwise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted March 9, 2010 Author Report Share Posted March 9, 2010 Re: Urban Fantasy Setting: Here There Be Monsters Act I is edited and up. One side note, please try to remember to use the term "Hunter" or "Hunters" rather than "Player" or "Players" to avoid breaking the 4th wall as much as possible. I'm editing them out, but it's easy for me to forget / miss some. There's some plot holes I'm seeing in Act I (they might be addressed in Acts II and III and I'm just not there yet): How did Ailis get involved in all this? How did Hugo and Ailis get hooked up? When did Bansheeism enter the picture? Who killed Hank Reed, and why? Other than Steve Parker and the background element of Hugo's embarassing YouTube episode regarding Jane, how does the Ailis and Hank thread and the Hank and Jane thread intertwine? I'm not seeing any clues that would lead the Hunters to know / realize Hugo is hiding out at Steve Parker's abandoned house. That's really in-obvious, and while that would make it a great hiding place in real life, its the sort of hidden sandbar many a game session has run aground upon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
5lippers Posted March 9, 2010 Report Share Posted March 9, 2010 Re: Urban Fantasy Setting: Here There Be Monsters Hi Shrike, Yep, the Hank one has been bugging me but I’ve had a couple of ideas. I spotted another couple of plot holes this morning, but I can’t for the life of me remember what they were! Sure they’ll come back though... My thoughts on Hugo and Ailis hooking up are that they met whilst performing at a club on the same evening: Hugo was doing his medium show and Ailis was performing some of her folk songs. They ended up in a longer term relationship, doing all the usual relationship-y things and dreaming of their future together when Ailis started to manifest banshee powers. Neither knew what was happening but soon learnt how dangerous Ailis’ new powers were (this is based on my draft write-up of a banshee as someone who manifests certain powers for some unknown reason) and went into hiding whilst trying to find out how to cure Ailis. Regarding the link to Jane and Hank, perhaps Hugo ignored Steve’s warning and later found out that, if he had listened, he could have prevented Jane’s death. He now finds himself wracked with guilt and wants to reunite Jane and Steve as a form of repentance. Hugo could have homed in on Jane’s spirit, tracking to her house in an attempt to find out who killed her. Instead he encounters Hank (who murdered Jane), who tries to cover his tracks by getting rid of Hugo. Hugo survives (just) but only by killing Hank [slight plot revision – Hugo is guilty of Hank’s murder]? Still working on the clues that will point to Hugo’s hiding spot... ...it might just be a case of revising the location of Hugo's hideout and leaving some kind of paper trail but it would be cool if it was Steve's house... Aah! Just remembered one of the other plot holes: how has Hugo survived Ailis’ song so far? 5. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted March 9, 2010 Author Report Share Posted March 9, 2010 Re: Urban Fantasy Setting: Here There Be Monsters As far as Hugo surviving, I'll modify his resistant MD to be Supernatural Resistance sufficient to bounce her effect. I'd rather not have Hugo responsible for Hank's death. The plot really only works if he is guilty only of love-blinded poor judgment and bad luck, remaining a sympathetic loser. If he is guilty of murder the moral ambiguity is severely weakened. In the interests of plot conservation, kill many birds w/ one stone. After reading about Jane's death in the papers / seeing it on the news, Hugo decides to get to the bottom of it to assuage his guilt. He follows the trail of Jane's Spirit from the crime scene to Hank Reeds house, knowing that if Jane's Spirit remains he will be able to replay her memory of her death to find out who did it. Ailis is with him at the time. Hugo saw Jane's Spirit and discovered that Hank killed her. Hank saw Hugo snooping around his property and there was a confrontation. Hank yelled at Hugo, telling him to get off his property and stop snooping around, Hugo accused Hank of Jane's murder and described details of the murder (he saw a replay of it and knows how it went down as if he were there). Hank panicked and pulled a gun, Ailis panicked and started screaming, Hank dropped dead, oh hey turns out Ailis is a Banshee. Hugo and Ailis go into hiding. Nice and tidy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
5lippers Posted March 10, 2010 Report Share Posted March 10, 2010 Re: Urban Fantasy Setting: Here There Be Monsters That’s nice and ties up a number of loose ends! The events of the day would leave an evidence trail too as some of the neighbours are bound to have witnessed the confrontation. The descriptions given by some of them could give hints as to what the PCs are facing. A possible piece of evidence here might be a car license plate which could somehow be traced by the Hunters. In Act 2 there’s reference to an Occult Thesis by Hugo that’s a work in progress (called: “Attraction Beyond Death - A Theory of Psychic Attractors and Emotional Nexi”). This might be better suited to Act 1 as a piece of evidence… Hugo’s thesis describes an hypothesis whereby unquiet spirits are drawn to the place of greatest emotion significance which isn’t always the place of their death. In this work he uses Jane and Steve as a test case study: Hugo believes that if he can somehow unlock Jane’s memories of Steve, she might be drawn to Steve and they would be reunited. This document would provide a link between Jane and Steve which would hopefully put the Hunters on the right track. However, if the Hunters found this work, it could lead them straight to hideout with minimal investigation. Therefore, perhaps it needs to be a little more difficult to obtain: perhaps the cops have it but don’t realise what it is; perhaps it’s in code (just the sort of paranoid thing Hugo would do); perhaps it’s incomplete; or some combination of the aforementioned? P.S. I’ll go back and swap Player for Hunter in Acts 1 and 2. These are first drafts as well so there’s bound to be a few holes that’ll need tidying up! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted March 11, 2010 Author Report Share Posted March 11, 2010 Re: Urban Fantasy Setting: Here There Be Monsters I added the plot hole fill ins to Act I. I need to go through the clues and add a few and modify a few, but I've got to go to work and am out of time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted March 12, 2010 Author Report Share Posted March 12, 2010 Re: Urban Fantasy Setting: Here There Be Monsters First pass on Act 2 is up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matrix3 Posted March 12, 2010 Report Share Posted March 12, 2010 Re: Urban Fantasy Setting: Here There Be Monsters Wow, KS (5slippers and panpiper and other contributors I may have missed), this is seriously cool stuff! From the depth and breadth of material, it seems you could make a nice book out of this. Are you looking at self publishing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted March 12, 2010 Author Report Share Posted March 12, 2010 Re: Urban Fantasy Setting: Here There Be Monsters No, I'm not interested in dead tree publishing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matrix3 Posted March 12, 2010 Report Share Posted March 12, 2010 Re: Urban Fantasy Setting: Here There Be Monsters No' date=' I'm not interested in dead tree publishing.[/quote'] Do you think you'll collect all of this into a single PDF for offline reference? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted March 12, 2010 Author Report Share Posted March 12, 2010 Re: Urban Fantasy Setting: Here There Be Monsters Do you think you'll collect all of this into a single PDF for offline reference? I wont; you or someone else is welcome to do so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted March 14, 2010 Author Report Share Posted March 14, 2010 Re: Urban Fantasy Setting: Here There Be Monsters Ailis McKenzie, hapless Banshee, is up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
5lippers Posted March 15, 2010 Report Share Posted March 15, 2010 Re: Urban Fantasy Setting: Here There Be Monsters Wow' date=' KS (5slippers and panpiper and other contributors I may have missed), this is seriously cool stuff! From the depth and breadth of material, it seems you could make a nice book out of this. Are you looking at self publishing?[/quote'] Thanks for the feedback – Shrike’s done most of it, but it’s a collaborative setting so I’m sure he’d welcome any input/ideas you may have. 5. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
5lippers Posted March 15, 2010 Report Share Posted March 15, 2010 Re: Urban Fantasy Setting: Here There Be Monsters Ailis McKenzie' date=' hapless Banshee, is up.[/quote'] Aah! Beat me to it but my fault for being slow! I prefer your writeup of the banshee song power to mine anyway (i'd gone down the drain route) and i like the delayed effect / enraged save as i think that works much better for painting Ailis as someone who doen't want to hurt people and is trying to control something she doesn't understand. The plot is looking much better now that all those holes have been filled in! I'll have a read through and the whole thing again to see what's left and see if I can help out. 5. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted March 15, 2010 Author Report Share Posted March 15, 2010 Re: Urban Fantasy Setting: Here There Be Monsters Thanks! I started laying out Act 3 this weekend, but I'm taking it in a less extreme direction. I'm hoping to have the whole thing wrapped up by Wednesday. Looking forward to the next step, we need a Vampire adventure and a Werewolf adventure. I haven't decided yet if it would be more economical to combine them, but I'm leaning towards doing them separately so as to focus on their individual natures. A psychic based adventure is probably needed as well; Psychics have gotten short shrift thus far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panpiper Posted March 15, 2010 Report Share Posted March 15, 2010 Re: Urban Fantasy Setting: Here There Be Monsters Here is a very loose thought on a vampire scenario, a very minimal seed of an idea... Corpses have been showing up in the city bearing clear evidence of a vampire. The evidence has been sufficiently clear that it has been with some difficulty that the nature of the attacks has been kept under wraps. This vampire represents a threat not merely to the victims they choose, but also to the secrecy of the Accords. Stopping it is a high priority. What is not obvious to the players when they start is that there is not just one vampire, or rather it is one 'rogue' vampire that a cabal of hitherto unknown vampires are also trying to stop, lest he reveal their existence. The rogue vampire has even been turning some choice victims into more rogues, so stopping him is an even higher priority for the cabal. The Cabal in turn is a secret society of vampires that exists to support a feeding network of blood slaves. Vampires that feed normally and leave corpses are too obvious and too easily hunted. They have learned that the easiest way to not be found out and hunted is to do what is necessary to not leave corpses. This does not make them any less evil by nature, it is just a practical matter. The cabal is quite happy to 'eat' a normal human if it can be done without risk of exposure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted March 15, 2010 Author Report Share Posted March 15, 2010 Re: Urban Fantasy Setting: Here There Be Monsters That's a very good seed. "When you understand a thing, you know what it is capable of" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted March 18, 2010 Author Report Share Posted March 18, 2010 Re: Urban Fantasy Setting: Here There Be Monsters The Trouble With Banshees is basically done. I'm going to do a final editorial pass and possibly make some minor tweaks to character write-ups, but this is its final form sans feedback. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted March 20, 2010 Author Report Share Posted March 20, 2010 Re: Urban Fantasy Setting: Here There Be Monsters I prefer your writeup of the banshee song power to mine anyway (i'd gone down the drain route) and i like the delayed effect / enraged save as i think that works much better for painting Ailis as someone who doen't want to hurt people and is trying to control something she doesn't understand. 5. Hmmm...actually, after you mentioned it, I thought about it and decided I like Drain better for the effect as well, so I made that alteration: Ailis Everything else is identical, its just Drain based rather than KA based. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted March 22, 2010 Author Report Share Posted March 22, 2010 Re: Urban Fantasy Setting: Here There Be Monsters Here is a very loose thought on a vampire scenario, a very minimal seed of an idea... Corpses have been showing up in the city bearing clear evidence of a vampire. The evidence has been sufficiently clear that it has been with some difficulty that the nature of the attacks has been kept under wraps. This vampire represents a threat not merely to the victims they choose, but also to the secrecy of the Accords. Stopping it is a high priority. What is not obvious to the players when they start is that there is not just one vampire, or rather it is one 'rogue' vampire that a cabal of hitherto unknown vampires are also trying to stop, lest he reveal their existence. The rogue vampire has even been turning some choice victims into more rogues, so stopping him is an even higher priority for the cabal. The Cabal in turn is a secret society of vampires that exists to support a feeding network of blood slaves. Vampires that feed normally and leave corpses are too obvious and too easily hunted. They have learned that the easiest way to not be found out and hunted is to do what is necessary to not leave corpses. This does not make them any less evil by nature, it is just a practical matter. The cabal is quite happy to 'eat' a normal human if it can be done without risk of exposure. How does Le Éminence Nocturne sound as a title? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted March 22, 2010 Author Report Share Posted March 22, 2010 Re: Urban Fantasy Setting: Here There Be Monsters I've got a couple of base templates for Vampires up, sans distinguishing skills and signature abilities: Joe Vampire Joe Vampire (Experienced) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panpiper Posted March 22, 2010 Report Share Posted March 22, 2010 Re: Urban Fantasy Setting: Here There Be Monsters How does Le Éminence Nocturne sound as a title? Technically that should be L'Éminence Nocturne. The write ups for the vampires are very different from the package deal which I whipped up a while back. Yours is much more dead than mine. ;-) But yours works works very simply and elegantly. I would like a text explanation of what the vampire bite powers are meant to simulate. Makes crunching the power dynamics easier on the intellect. I am still absorbed in other things but check in here often enough to stay abreast. And one never knows when I will again find myself re-inspired. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted March 22, 2010 Author Report Share Posted March 22, 2010 Re: Urban Fantasy Setting: Here There Be Monsters Yeah well, I failed out of High School French because I never showed up or did homework. Very well, L'Éminence Nocturne it is then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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