Silence in the House of Judgement

Beam Saber: Sovereign Waltz is a homebrew setting for a mecha pilot game. Under this setting, five grand sovereign powers— The Morningstar Calyx, The Kingdom of the Aster Eternal, The Disciples of the Tritonic Church, the Anolyte Union, and the Terrestrial Industries Federated— each have staked out their own portion of space and have a contentious relationship: rivalries over resources, deep philosophical divides, and an abiding skepticism of the other powers' goals. These rifts sometimes erupt into violence.

With the Disciples of the Tritonic Church— any of the sovereign powers, really, but them in particular— it is good to know that actions against them do have some good grounds. Founded when a scientific colony on a deep-sea planet began to fall to a mysterious malediction that none of their research could find the cause of, much less the cure, the child of one of the scientists became the first Prophet by jettisoning their body into the cold abyss and emerging whole, but changed. This tradition continues to this day and is core to the Tritonic Church-- a ritual where at the age of 13 you leave your human life behind, where you are drowned in the cockpit of a Tritonic Church mech filled with void water. The Transcended don't need to breathe air and can survive in the void, be it space or in the depths of the sea. They also remember none of their lives before they Transcended, though they still retain procedural memories and knowledge. They will not remember who their best friend was, but they will remember how to shoot a bow and arrow, for instance.

Those who transcend re-emerge from their cockpits with a title, bestowed upon them by the process itself. They know it innately, and the role it gives them. For Solvent Torr, this meant the task to dissolve things no longer necessary to the colony: to make sure files detailing old operations don't make it out into wider circulation, and are destroyed. He scrubs through information and see to it that it is made gone.

His feelings on it? Solvent finds it a bit unfortunate to have been tasked with the manual making of void. It is all very well to wait and know of the ultimate task, but in the meanwhile there is minute granualar erasals that must be made. It is trying, it is messy, it is unpleasant. It especially unpleasant because it feels so hopeless in the grand scheme of things. He has done so much work, and yet there is so much left to do.

Also because this is a mech game, he also pilots a robot. Though Solvent doesn't remember childhood, growing up on the deep water colony of Torr, children are taught diving so they can leave their raising pods— and so envy roots within them at the adults that can move so freely amongst the depths. Solvent is thus fairly skilled at submersible mech operation.

Red Tape: When you can quote a regulation that would prevent a Consequence, you may roll Resolve to resist instead of any other Pilot or Vehicle Attribute.

The setting for this is homebrew and can be viewed here. There's a lot of sheets I have-- charts for name generation, tragedies, etc. I've run this setting a few times, and it's a lot of fun! But because I'm the GM I never end up making my own characters, so I wanted to. I skipped making a mech for Torr though, because I find that less fun.

Monster of the Week is what it says on the tin, so it functions as Buffy the Vampire Hunter: the Game. Or Supernatural: the Game. Or X-Files: the Game. Between them all, Pearl is definitely more from a Buffy background, than a hunter who grew up in this business. A popular girl, though never the queen bee, she was in with that crowd. After all, her parents are jewelers. She might be a metal shop girlie at heart, but on the surface level she has the money and the access to glitz to buy her access to the good social circles. Her burn scars are under gloves, anyway, so they're basically not even there.

But while other people can ignore what's not on the surface, she's... bad at that. And that's why she got tangled up in this supernatural shit, and now that she is what is she supposed to do? Just ignore the constant threats hanging around her house and the school and ruining her nightlife and also maybe her regular life? She's not chosen, she doesn't have an inherited gift, she's not part ghoulie or beastie. She's just dead if she decides to stop using the little bit of strength she's found a way to give herself.

And because that's in her head, she'll ignore danger to find out more about secret, dangerous, and forbidden magic. If she's dead either way, she might as well take the risk that might show her a way to make things better. Or at least, make things go her way. Things do usually go her way, though not necessarily to the way of people around her. Pearl's magic, when it goes awry, doesn't go for her as long as there's someone else around to hit. Allies, bystanders, and sometimes maybe even an enemy.

Ritual components: Bag of unpolished, raw gems & semiprecious stones. Used for her rote.

Ritual components: Object of power. Ring. "Found" in a gorgon den. Stolen. Used for her rote.

Wizardly weapon: Athame (2-harm hand magic silver)

Wizardly weapon: .38 revolver (2-harm close reload loud)

Bad Luck Charm: Whenever you use magic and miss, the backlash never affects you directly if there’s someone else around to hit. It’ll go for allies, other hunters, and innocent bystanders. Sometimes, every so often, it might even hit an enemy.

Burn Everything: When you use magic to inflict harm, you can choose to inflict 3-harm area magic obvious or 3-harm ignore-armour magic obvious.

This Might Sting: You can use magic to heal 3-harm, but the process is exceptionally painful. On a 7-9 it also leaves a gnarly scar.

Girl's Best Friend:

Requires: An expendable component such as sulfur, sage, or incense, which must be burned, blown, or scattered during the casting. (Stone/glass/gem, shattered) | An object of power (wand, talisman, orb, staff, etc) which must be wielded (ring)

Effect: Something is replaced with the material of her shattering.

10+: It works exactly as she planned. The blanket is now a diamond shield. The door is glass, and can be shattered. The plastic toy sword is now sharp steel. The wolfman's leg is now stone.

7-9: It works, but the area of effect is wrong or there is another complication. Perhaps she only meant to affect the zipper so someone couldn't break into a bag. The whole bag is now stone— what's inside is safe now, but hard to access. Maybe the whole wall is glass, instead of the door, and the cultists inside can see you and are forewarned. Etc. The wolfman has heavy stone claws and fur slowing it down, but it is still coming.

Miss It goes awry. Something unhelpful is effected. The lightbulb turns to jade and shatters on the floor, plunging the room into pitch black. A gun turns to soft gold and firing a bullet deforms it. The wolfman has diamond tipped claws.

Character number 5! Monster of the Week feels like a good follow-up to Monsterhearts 2, since they use very similar systems. I've played Monster of the Week before though, and have another character for it, but I decided to make a new one just for fun! My other character uses the Divine playbook, and is a very shitty angel who is trying his best who makes primarily bad decisions.

So I went into making a new character with the Bad Decisions as her primary trait! Pearl is not a good girl and she really isn't trying to be. I support women's wrongs. Not that her core wants are bad or anything, but her playbook is definitely geared towards like, Willow in peak bad decision season of Buffy. It's been a while, I forget which one that was. Season 6? The core concept of the playbook is like, uses magic regardless of the detriment it causes to others around them, because this girl was thrown into the middle of supernatural bullshit and decided to latch onto magic because they feel they don't have another option.

Her playbook is not one of the starter playbook options, and can be found here.

As an aside, she's also named after Clara Driscoll.

Felix didn't come to the city of madness because he was running— he already had an escape. It was a few too many nights of all-nighters with commission work, with staying up and sniping merch sales off yahoo auctions. One night he loses a bidding war— not even to the guy he was bidding against, a last minute sniper— on a rare figurine. He looks about his prized collection, consoling himself, and puts on a jacket and takes the elevator down to see if he can scrounge up a can of something caffeinated from the all night convenience store to get back to work with, only for the elevator to stop at a floor that doesn't exist.

WHAT'S BEEN KEEPING YOU AWAKE?

Desire. Staying awake to bid at the right time to win specific rare figurines from the obscure object of his obsession. Staying awake to earn the money to bid.

WHAT JUST HAPPENED TO YOU?

Covered in Background. Even his walk of defeat didn't turn out right.

WHAT'S ON THE SURFACE?

Gangly, unwashed, anime t-shirt, motorcycle jacket, skinny jeans, aviator glasses with transition lenses. Visibly distracted by his phone at all times.

WHAT LIES BENEATH?

High self-esteem (in his graphic design skills, making money and not needing to depend on anyone), low self-esteem (he needs to not depend on anyone because anyone meeting him won't like him. There is nothing good about him except the things he is good at. He will make you a website and you will not see his face nor room even once, nothing outside of emails and portfolio work.) Escapism and collecting objects that help him immerse in fantasy so as to not face the reality of his discontent. In his experience, acting on his discontent does nothing good. Getting kicked out of the house was not good, even if it's the best thing that ever happened to him.

WHAT'S YOUR PATH?

Stated: Independence. Anime figurines. In the immediate, he wants to use his access to the nightmare world that most people can't see to get cool things to keep at home.
Real, but unlikely: human connection. In the long term, he might come to see that he doesn't want to be an automaton of the city, just taking on a role, collecting and storing, possibly selling just because that will keep him safe. The harder path to becoming a real person might become clear.

EXHAUSTION TALENT:

Visual analysis. He can do the party trick of flipping through a book and then tell you what pages the headers were on, despite not having seen it before. Maps seen in passing can be recalled and followed, a quick visual sweep of very messy room will let him find what he's looking for.

MADNESS TALENT:

Can draw things into reality. Draws a cute anime girl with a gun to be a distraction? There is now a cute anime girl with a gun to be a distraction. Need a rope? He can draw a rope.

Character number 3 on the list. Don't Rest Your Head is a really edgelord mid-aughts game, and I wanted to create a character that fit into that time. I waffled a bit on the phone, but honestly I'm sure he had one of those early... not flip phones. Like the slider types, like a Motorola Droid or a Nokia E7. He might even have an early Japanese phone, since he's super an otaku, with the Galápagos syndrome Japanese phones benefited from, they were generally more capable than western phones of the same time.

What else. Oh! Gender is listed that way as a joke that's also not a joke. It's late 2000s so the discourse isn't there yet, but he's not female but also feels like he has failed out of the masculinity milestones and also doesn't even know if he wants to hit them? In modern times he'd probably use he/they pronouns and be somewhere on the genderqueer spectrum, but instead all he has is a discomfited feeling.

This game doesn't have a lot of stats, and instead has five major questions you answer when creating the character.

In Spire: The City Must Fall, drow live under the thumbs of the insane near-immortal high-elves(aelfir) who control the eponymous Spire. Drow, as part of their "payment" for being allowed to live in their spire, are rounded up typically at 16 but sometimes as young as 13 and forced to serve a Durance for four years, where they are auctioned off to serve the high elves. Occasionally, a drow from a wealthy family will be able to buy their way out of a durance, but such things are rare and hidden occurrences.

Which is to say, that's not what happened to Arete. He was sold as a Duelist, putting his life on the line to fight for the "honour" of an aelfir lord during their debauched festivals. In the last six months of his durance, his master and another of the same house became much worse, clearly intending to see how far they could push their drow since, well. After the durance they wouldn't belong to them, and what point was there to them? And so they attempted to break their toys.

Desperate, fearing for his sanity and soul alike (his life had long-since stopped being a primary concern, if he were to lose that it would not be due to any fault of his own but neither was it a horror he would lose sleep over), Arete began to scheme to fake his death. With his perpetual attendance at high society events he was able to get his hands on the occasional rare and high quality drug, jewel, or little fripperies. The punishment that might await him should he be caught was of little concern, with the turn his durance had already taken, and so he was able to finance his scheme.

However, Merrit— his fellow Duelist— was in worse shape than he realised. As he came near to killing Merrit in that last fight, where their masters at last turned them against each other, he used up his fake death insurance. He kicked him off the side of the spire to the Perch where he had a team ready to recover him. So instead of Arete, they got Merrit. Merrit's life was saved but Arete had to finish his durance for real, and Merrit was left unable to return to the upper society where he had connections because he's supposed to be dead, and his condition was bad enough that the team that rescued him was able to restrain him and prevent him from returning up the Spire before the term of his durance was complete.

These days, publicly, Arete is an Azurite— a trader from the south docks, clad in sacred blue and gold. He leveraged well the connections he made, even if he hadn't used the original funds gathered in the way he meant to. With connections in commerce, high society, and low society, he has very much a reputation. Unfortunately, the reputation is not entirely positive: oh certainly, he knows anyone who is anyone, and he can get you what you want at a price you might be able to pay, if not comfortably. But very few people would consider themselves at ease around him, as he's adopted several aelfir customs.

To start, drow cannot be exposed to sunlight lest they risk burning themselves, and as such are a very covered up race, especially compared with the aelfir from the far from frozen north who tend to wear as little as possible. Arete is rarely seen without, at the very least, his chest exposed. If asked he'll say he is still adjusting from leaving Amaranth, the frozen high courts, and the rest of the Spire leaves him overheated. Reasonable! Though, when he is out, he always keeps his bodyguard by his side, a man who has been forced into wearing a duelist's mask, one that matches that of the person who shared his durance. . . Who it is common knowledge that Arete slayed with his own hands and then kicked his pulped corpse from the spire so his body would never be recovered. This is the kind of shit Aelfir write operas about, and not really the kind of thing drow like watching other drow do.

These days, privately, Arete works for the Ministry, a secret organisation sworn to to destroy and subvert the dominion of aelfir within Spire. Merrit, of course, is the bodyguard behind the mask and he fucking hates Arete's life choices. He hates being a bizarre status symbol, as Arete apes aelfir customs. He hates that with Arete's proper high society connections he has after having survived his durance, he's gone fuck this and gone to work in CRIME, after having him held hostage for the end of his own durance so he now has no choice but to assist in Arete's mad schemes. This puts them in so much danger— the inevitable end of a Minister is death, madness, or worse— when they could have had it GOOD. He also resents him choosing to keep him as a body-guard and renouncing dueling— yes, he's aware that the injuries sustained mean that Arete can never reasonably again take up the sword. He's also aware that Azurite can receive a boon from Azur that allows them to literally buy their way out of being wounded.

And that Arete chose to get mild mind-control boon instead, with the power to induce uncontrollable greed til sunrise.

Arete, for his part, is not helping by clearly enjoying himself with the arrangement.

CUT A DEAL. You know anyone who’s anyone... Once per session, set up a meet with an NPC who can acquire you pretty much anything available in Spire. It won’t be free, though, and odds are they’ll want a favour or a cut too.

HEART’S DESIRE. ...And you know what they want. Once per situation, pick an NPC that you can observe for a while. The GM will tell you what they want most of all right now

HIDDEN STASHES. You have dozens of caches hidden within the city limits. +2 Silver. In addition, once per session, gain a (non-unique, mundane) piece of equipment instantly as you retrieve it from a cache

GLUTTON’S COIN. [Divine] You summon a magical coin that curses the holder with insatiable greed. Mark D3 stress in Silver or Mind. You summon a coin that you imbue with magical power. The first person to touch it other than you will be possessed by a feverish desire to gain as much wealth and items as possible before the next sunrise.

Wardrobe Three sets of beautiful robes and girdles, each in slightly different shades of blue

Jewelry Golden necklaces, nose-rings and bracelets bearing the symbol of Azur

"Weapon" Bodyguard, D6, Tiring. Merrit. Hates singing, shirtlessness.

The first of probably a series of these! I have a bunch of tabletop corebooks on my laptop that never get used, so I might as well at least build characters for them. I randomized Arete's class (Azurite) and then his durance. That said, the durance he originally got ended up giving him the same skill twice, so I swapped him to Duelist. For the Azurite, you get a choice of two different weapons: a serious looking club or a bodyguard, and if you picked the bodyguard you got to pick two things your bodyguard hates. And so, Arete happened!