Monsterhearts: Devil Falls, AK Episode 1

Because I still don't have a viable and agreeable setting for FATE Core, we decided jointly to finally give Monsterhearts a shot with my regular gaming group. Maybe playing Monsterhearts a week ago also had something to do with it.

Our game is set in the fictional town of Devil Falls, Alaska. It is located inland at the also completely fictional Lake Crescent. The eponymous waterfall flows into the lake at the northeastern end. The town is located to the south of the lake on a plain. At the western end of the lake lies the Hotel Crescent, a spa and wellness hotel. A small airport lies on the westside of town. Devil Falls High School is located in the northeastern corner of the city containing a hockey arena, a football field and a greenhouse.

Our cast so far consists of:

• Annalee, a gifted witch
• Baron, an infernal lackey of Kal'Thorag the Butcher
• Cassidy, a werewolf born as a wolf and the only girl on the hockey team
• Max, a homunculus hollow and another member of the hockey team

We meet them for the first time as their Tuesday homeroom class is about to start. Their elderly but strict teacher is Ms Chamberlain. On their way to class, Cassidy runs up to Mary-Jane, the star pupil, and asks her, if she could copy her homework. Mary-Jane agrees, but only if Cassidy gets back the lunch money that Veronica bullied from her the day before. Cassidy agrees and waits outside of class for Veronica. Veronica is quite a piece of work. She and Baron got expelled from their last school for suspected arson.

While Cassidy waits for Veronica, Paul tries to sell green pills to Annalee and Max. Max has latched on to Annalee quite firmly and takes his social clues from her to the point of twinning (at least that's how Cassidy sees it). Max just takes the drugs from Paul and then shuts him down. Annalee is a bit conflicted about the drug business and hasn't made up her mind yet how to feel about the pills.

When Baron and Veronica arrive, Cassidy tries to slug Veronica with a puck as she doesn't want to give the lunch money back. Veronica sidesteps Cassidy and slams her head into the railing on the gangway to the classroom. Cassidy is hurt. Baron tries to drag Veronica with him to the classroom, because they are already late. Cassidy observes the two and suddenly realizes that quiet, pyromanic, violent Veronica is very much into bad kid Baron. As Ms Chamberlain approaches and gives afterschool detention to all three, Cassidy tells Veronica that she will make sure Baron and Veronica get some time alone during detention, if Veronica hands back the lunch money.

In class, Ms Chamberlain announces that Erica, a popular girl and last year's homecoming queen, has been found dead near Lake Crescent. Apparently her body was mauled by a wild animal - probably a wolf. During the third hour a short memorial will be held in the auditorium. Baron uses this as an opportunity to mouth off to the teacher and even threatening her. After class, Ms Chamberlain walks Baron to the principal. There he threatens Principal Kate O'Rourke. She decides that she's had enough and calls the police to have Baron arrested as a potential homicidal maniac.

During the memorial for Erica, Cassidy tries to turn the planned party down at the lake into a memorial party instead of the year's welcoming party. Zack, a friend of Baron's, hears that, climbs on a chair and announces that Cassidy is inviting the whole school to a party at Lake Crescent. Max is furious at this display of inappropriate behavior and tackles Zack. Zack goes down and Principal O'Rourke notices the commotion. She orders detention for Cassidy, Max and Annalee (who is more or less innocent in all this). Cassidy tells her that she already has detention today and get O'Rourke to postpone the detention to Wednesday.

Meanwhile, at the police station, Baron has been placed in a cell. There he tries to gaze into the abyss and fails miserably. Instead, Kal'Thorag the Butcher appears to him and asks him to poison the beer keg at the party in the evening with the drug that comes as green pills. Baron agrees and Kal'thorag opens the cell door. Baron walks out of the police station without being noticed.

Back at school, lunch break has started. Max and Cassidy sit at the hockey team/cheerleader table, where Melissa announces that she will become homecoming queen this year as Erica is unable to compete. Max shuts her down in disgust. Annalee is also at the table flirting with Boyd, the arrogant goaltender that she secretly detests. Suddenly he kisses her squarely on the mouth (gives her want he thinks she wants). Breaking out in tears, she runs away.

Baron has arrived at school again and seeks out Paul in a dark corner to get the green pills from him. Paul spills that he hasn't them anymore, because Max took them from him. In the end, he tells Baron that he can have the pills, if he can take them from Max.

Baron arrives in the cafeteria just as Max hits Boyd for kissing Annalee. Then Max runs off to find her. Baron follows him. While searching Annalee, Baron tries to get the pills from Max. Max ends up hitting Baron on their way to greenhouse where they suspect Annalee is hiding.

Amidst all this commotion, Cassidy feels rather lonely and stares into her coke. There she gains a crystal clear vision while being exhausted from the events. She sees a large, reptilian shadow following Erica while she is jogging around the lake. As the shadowy monster suddenly attacks the blonde runner, a wolf hurls itself at the monster, preventing it from devouring Erica. The monster throws the wolf into the trees and slithers back into the lake. Cassidy realizes that she was the wolf and that she cannot remember any of this.

In the greenhouse, Annalee has her secret and sacred space. She gazes into the abyss and the abyss answers her. She also gets the vision that Cassidy gets and realizes that she needs the help of the wolf in order to fight the green-scaled monsters with the lanky black hair and the claws of iron. She calls her grandmother April, the only other witch in her family and asks for advice. Her granny asks her over for tea after school.

As she leaves the greenhouse, she runs into Baron and Max. Rather distraught she realizes that Baron is trying to get the drugs from Max. She urges Max to destroy the pills rather than give them to Baron. But Max refuses. When she tries to hit him as frustrated as she is, she stumbles and he catches her. Looking down, Annalee realizes in horror that she's stumbled in a large three toed footprint that resembles the claws of the green-scaled monster. Now completely sick, she asks Max to take her to the school nurse James.

Sixth hour has started. Annalee, Baron, Cassidy and Max are supposed to attend the English Literature class. But only Cassidy is in attendance as Coach Delgado starts the class. Mary-Jane is also there, remarking on the looks of Coach Delgado who is wearing a muscle shirt as usual. Cassidy is more interested in the actual lesson about an obscure poem attributed to William Blake that describes a hideous monster with green scales, black lanky hair and iron claws. Blake calls that monster a "merrow". Cassidy has a déja-vu. Max finally arrives, carrying a tardy slip for himself and Annalee. James has excused her from attending English Literature.

After school, Veronica and Cassidy start detention absent Baron who is meeting with Max. Max is attending hockey practice and meets with Baron. Baron finally gets his desperately needed drugs. Now he can set the diabolic plans of his infernal master into motion. Annalee visits her grandmother April and her aunts Mae and June. She drinks tea with them and is treated to a delicious cheesecake, but unfortunately not to any answers.

Later, Annalee makes her way to the party at the shores of Lake Crescent. Suddenly, she hears twigs and branches cracking behind her. She turns around, her eyes widen and she screams in fear. Unfortunately, the music from the party drowns out her scream...

TO BE CONTINUED

Notes:

• Doing the homeroom seating chart was fun. I haven't even used a quarter of the awesome the players put in there.
• The NPC sheet sucks for me. I need lines on that sheet.
• Sketching Devil Falls on the community sheet was also not as rewarding as I thought. Going to redo that in MS Office Word.
• The player most critical of the whole Monsterhearts told me afterwards it was fun and he'd like to play again.
• I did a major goof-up with the scene at granny's house. I would have liked to dump some info regarding the werewolf on Annalee, but didn't realize how to do this. After having read this article on using gaze into the abyss as info dump/hitting the books, things have become much clearer. I should have let Annalee gaze into the abyss again (this time with the +1 forward for acting on the previous gaze into the abyss), this time with help from her grandmother. I am probably going to replay the scene at granny's home at the start of the next session with Annalee and have her roll +dark to find out about who the wolf in the vision is. After that we'll find out about Annalee's fate.
• The story is coming nicely together. Baron will poison the beer keg (and mark XP for that). Annalee needs to find Cassidy. Cassidy knows what they are facing but has no idea what to do about the merrow. Max has become a willing accomplice in drugging an entire party.

WPW Hack: Club Babylon Part 3

This post takes a closer look at the setting. I am still struggling with parts of it. It is suppossed to be a rundown part of the city where beings from fairy tales have appeared. As I discovered this is somewhat similar to the Borderland Series (which I haven't read yet) and decided go in the general direction of that.

Fairyland (or whatever you want to call it) is touching our world in that neglected part of town and monsters start crossing over. They take on the guises of the modern world while still retaining their powers and appetites from fairyland. They are disguised by the refusal of people to see the truth of the aggressive biker gang (they are goblins), the creepy janitor (he is an ogre) or the head of the modelling agency (a medusa). But not all monsters are repulsive, some are terribly beautiful and alluring. But all of them are dangerous to the unprepared mortal.

But the people living in this part of the city aren't defenseless. At around the same time the connection to Fairy formed, longtime clubbers at Club Babylon suddenly found that they possessed a special kind of magic that levels the playing field with fairy tale monsters. Some have taken the fight to the street and protect the neighborhood, but others have become enticed by the monsters. Possibly to gain acceptance or lash out at the world around them.

In my mind this part of the city has the following three aspects:

• Abandoned and neglected
• Beauty in the most unlikely of places
• At the border of the Otherworld

The assets are: Great /(+4) Dangerous, Good (+3) Bitchy and Fair (+2) Sensitive.

WPW Hack: Club Babylon Part 2

This post is about creating characters for the Club Babylon setting. You are all longtime regulars at the somewhat seedy, yet also strangely magical Club Babylon. Your life might not be the best, but you come to Club Babylon to forget, to meet old friends and to do your own kind of magic.

Your Aspects

Who are you really (Mikky Ekko)? In White Picket Witches this is your canon aspect; in FATE Core it would be your High Concept. Write down in two to three words what your character is about. Are you a "Single Mom", a "Hard-Working Lawyer", a "Overworked & Underpaid Waiter", a "Closeted City Official", or someone else entirely?

Getting nowhere (Magnetic Man feat. John Legend)? Well, this is really your Trouble aspect or rather Tragic Flaw in White Picket Witches lingo. Your life is stuck. Others have moved on. Why do you keep coming back to Club Babylon? What do you hope to find here? Who or what are escaping from? There is a reason why a thirty-something (or older) person goes clubbing, while his friends lead well-adjusted lives with double-income, 2.1 kids, a cat and a dog. What drives you to come to Club Babylon on so many nights?

Who's That Girl (Eurythmics)? This is your Casting aspect. Either pick an actor in a certain role that you'd like to pattern your character on, or give a short type description. Basically, pick the aspect as you would do in White Picket Witches.

Who loves you (Alannah Miles)? There is a person in your life who loves you. Tell us about him or her. This can be any kind of love. Chaste love, love for their child, love for their parent. Carnal lust for you. Romantic love. Unrequited love. Love grown cold. What is your relation to them?

Sex and Violence (Scissor Sisters)? The darkness of fairytale monsters has come to roost in your city. Why do you fight them? Have they taken something from you? Someone? Do you protect your neighborhood? What motivates you in your fight against monsters that no one will believe in anyway. Or is it just the opposite? Are you attracted to them and their dark powers? What do you want from them? Have they lured you with promises of wealth, power or love? Do you lust after them?

Your Assets

For Club Babylon I am using the following seven assets:

• Bitchy (replaces Treacherous)
• Brilliant
• Butch (replaces Powerful)
• Dangerous 
• Fabulous (replaces Classy)
• Sensitive
• Witty (replaces Savvy)

The replacement assets function pretty much as the ones they replace.

In addition, you get an eighth, magic asset. The magic asset describes the kind of magic spending so much time at Club Babylon has infused you with. Currently there are three kinds of magic that'll be described in a later post in some more detail:

• Butch Wizardry: The magic of inner power and outward strength.
• Gay Glamour: The magic of illusion, make-believe and enchantment.
• Transvestite Sorcery: The magic of change and transformation.

Each character receives one asset at Great (+4), one at Good (+3), one at Fair (+2) and one at Average (+1). One of the four assets chosen must be the magic asset. All other assets begin at Mediocre (zero). The magic asset is used to activate your spells.

Antagonists

Antagonists are build like in White Picket Witches. Possible antagonists include the urban developer who is secretly a well-off goblin, the iconic Troll under the Bridge (of course), rivals from the Club, rival lovers, jealous exses, goblin gangs, an ogre groundskeeper, or an urbane and handsome devil who's deals are just too good to refuse. Maybe a sluagh is whispering secrets into the wrong ears or the sidhe turned out to be beautiful and terrible. 

Hangout

A hangout is the favorite place of your character. Where does he spend his time away from Club Babylon? A hangout is created like a Place of Power with a leitmotif and three assets. Here the Face-Offs happen. These are the places intimately connected with the characters. Some of their magic has become part of the place. Here, the magic of a character is at it's full strength. Here she can face the monsters invading her district. The leitmotif can be invoked once for free in each scene a character spends at "his" hangout. But don't forget: like Places of Power, a hangout should be easily accessible to others. It could be a street corner, a favorite coffee shop, the comic store around the corner, a small city park or something else entirely. One additional hangout is shared by all players: Club Babylon.

Club Babylon

Leitmotif: The Invisible Light (Scissor Sisters)

The players get to choose the three assets and their ratings. I'd recommend the place to be at least Fabulous and Witty. But it's your club now. You tell me where your characters spend their late nights.

Next: A closer look at the city, the darkness and the monsters hiding there.

Monsterhearts: Cardiff, Wales, Episode 1

Yesterday, we played Monsterhearts via Google Hangout. We had four characters: Merrill the Witch, Morrigan the Ghoul, Lucian the Serpentine, Mattieu the Selkie. For the player of Lucian it was the very first role-playing game ever (cherish that memory, no game is like the first game).

The strings were distributed among the non-player characters and player characters. The ones between the characters were:

• Lucian watched Morrigan come back to live.
• Mattieu watched Merrill rummaging through Graham's stuff and kept quiet about it.
• Mattieu had seen Lucian swimming.
• Mattieu knew that Morrigan had taken his pelt and stuffed into her locker.

We took most of our time designing the class room together. Our GM had prepared great questions to get us thinking about the home room and the other students. We decided to set our game in Cardiff, School had started two weeks ago and already two girls (Carmen and Erica) from the class had gone missing. Our home room was Geography class taught by Mr Gilles.

Merrill was heading for class with Lucian who was followed by Thomas carrying Lucian's bag. On their way, they witnessed a confrontation between Merill and Felix. Felix had a thing going for Meral, a devout moslem girl from Pakistan. But it wasn't exactly romantic, rather a bit creepy and he was leaning in on her. Merill  decided to step in and teach him a lesson, when she saw him. First she kept steady as Felix told her to go away and bashed her into the locker, then she tried to fight back, but was stopped by Mr Gilles. He thought she was the guilty party and ordered after school detention. She challenged him and implied that he was tolerating girls being victimized. The other students saw her as being pretty furious and Mr Gilles was a bit uncertain that he had done the right thing.

Meanwhile, Lucian was getting a call from his father Mandrake. He practically ordered his son to run for class presidency.

Morrigan had already arrived in the class room and her former BFF Ed tried to talk her into another game of Warhammer Fantasy Role Play. She shut him down immediately and he looked quite afraid of her - not knowing why.

In the corridor, Mattieu was also heading for class together with Amanda, a friendly face who had helped the Selkie find his way around school. They talked about throwing a party at the beach in the evening and Mattieu noticed Thomas standing behind Lucian. He pointedly addressed him first and invited him to come to the party, telling him he could "bring Lucian too" - visibly snobbing the Serpentine to turn on Thomas who everyone was suspecting of being gay. Thomas looked pleased (and Mattieu got a string on him).

Meral was now completely exasperated, stormed into the class room and cursed loudly about men while sitting down. Morrigan, who was sitting behind her, leaned forward and tried to find out what was going on. She noticed that Meral was in reality afraid of Felix.

Merrill came in and sat down at her desk next to Meral. She asked Morrigan, if she wanted to go to the party. Morrigan said yes. Then Ed asked Morrigan, if he could go to, and she shut him down again.

Then Mattieu and Amanda entered. Mattieu jumped barefooted on a table and told the whole class that they were invited to a beach party in the evening. Mr Giles didn't approve of him standing on the table though, and ordered detention as well. He was to help Merrill cleaning tables. Mattieu went to his desk and set down sullenly.

Mr Gilles started class. At first there was the business of electing a class president. Graham, the straight-A student, volunteered (as each year since 5th grade). But this time he was challenged. Mattieu had asked Amanda about class presidency which described in most boring terms, only to suggest to Mattieu that he should run as a candidate. Mattieu, being the clueless Selkie that he is, volunteers for the office. Lucian tries to get Thomas to nominate him, but Thomas just gives Mattieu a quick glance and does nothing. Meanwhile Morrigan denigrates the office, prompting Mattieu to nominate her. Meral nominates her then as well. Lucian is forced to volunteer himself for the office. Mr Gilles postpones the election to give everyone a chance to evaluate the candidates. Mattieu mentions that he's going to throw a party. Mr Gilles asks him, if he seriously expects to get votes that way.

Then a rather tedious and boring geography lesson starts. During the short break a lot of things happened. Lydia, the mayor's daughter, and her boyfriend Matt, the coolest kid in school, approach Lucian to offer their votes, if Lucian does them a favor. He doesn't really comply with that, leaving two votes up in the air.

Mattieu tries to talk John, a big and not very bright football player, into getting him some beer for the party. He succeeds, but John asks him to lay in a good word for him with Amanda. The Selkie doesn't really know what texting is, but promises to see what he can do. Actually, he recommends that John should Amanda and him on the beach next morning for surfing. But John doesn't care about the morning, he wants tonight. Whatever Mattieu needs to promise to get the beer.

Merrill urges Graham to fight for the class presidency. But Graham suddenly throws a fit and a note pad, shouting that he had enough of this. He doesn't want to run. The note pad is thrown with a such force that it hits Marcel's coffee cup and spills coffee over him. Marcel suddenly breaks down crying. It is all a bit too much for him. Well, up to the summer holidays, Marcel used to be Marcy. Now he calls himself Marcel and wears boy's clothes.

Morrigan senses fear in the boy and goes over to him. Mattieu is watching her intently. Morrigan just shouts: "It's only some stupid office. Stop making such a fuss about this!" (unfortunately Morrigan can't call people on their shit, because she doesn't have that adult move). Then she kneels down beside Marcel and tries to calm him down by offering her affection. She is as surprised as the rest of the class when Marcel kisses her.

Notes: This was planned as a one-shot, but we barely got started exploring the setting we had created. Creation was a lot of fun and I for one would love to see the story unfold further. Oh, in case you are wondering: I was playing Mattieu the Selkie.

Note the Second: If you are waiting for the second part of Club Babylon, I am sorry to keep you waiting. But Club Babylon is hitting pretty close to home and I find it very difficult to write and do the setting justice. Character Creation needs a serious rewrite before publication on the blog. But it will come, probably on the weekend.

WPW Hack: Club Babylon Part 1

Painted whores, sexual gladiators, fiercely old party children,

All wake from their slumber to debut the bacchanal.

Come to the light! Into the light! The invisible light.

Scissor Sisters, The Invisible Light

Somewhere in a big city, sometime in 21st century, in a dark and deserted back alley lies the entrance to Club Babylon. Down a short flight of stairs into the basement, a ten dollar bill pressed into the hand of short-statured, aging drag queen Regina and off you go into a seedy establishment that had it's heyday probably in the late 80ies, early 90ies. The regulars surely look like they've been here since then. They've aged with the club and yet, they still come here. 

You are one of the regulars at Club Babylon. Maybe you are not going each and every night, but you come here at least once a week. Here you are among your oldest friends. Aged partygoers, some in jeans and t-shirts, some in leather, others in full drag; gay, lesbians, transgender and their friends. You are here to capture the old magic of your youth again.

After midnight, Regina turns up the music, the strobed lights and the dancefloor becomes a stage for the dancers, each one of them fabulous and unique in their own way. A sense of community pervades Club Babylon and the atmosphere of lost glamor works its own charm on the guests. Regulars like you command a strange and wonderful magic of your own: the sparkling magic of Glamour, Butch wizardry and sweet Transvestite sorcery. That which makes you different, makes you strong.

Club Babylon is a peculiar haven of light in a run-down part of the city. The shadows and darkness of neglect are falling and with them come the creatures of the night, the scavengers of human society, dangerous monsters from myth and legend that remain hidden from the human eye. Only your magic penetrates the guises of the goblins, ogres and trolls that feed (sometimes literally) on the humans in the shabby parts of the city. Despair and lost hope are their meals, and sometimes they add meat and bone to the stew.

But you are fighting back. You protect the part of town that is yours from night's predators!

Next up: Character Creation.