The Maine Krewe:
Lindsey Wyatt, aspiring Musician (Mr Bubbles)
[url]http://sheetgen.dalines.net/sheet/4421[/url]
Geist: The Crowd Surge
Stan "The Body Man" Carver, Necromancer (MoosehatIV)
[url]http://sheetgen.dalines.net/sheet/4440[/url]
Geist: The Good Doctor
Tommy Gallo, former boxer (tzeentchling)
[url]http://sheetgen.dalines.net/sheet/4475[/url]
Geist: Bloody Mary
Grady Daniels, P.I. (MundaneSoul)
[url]http://sheetgen.dalines.net/sheet/4512[/url]
Geist: Little Angel
Daphne DeVille, schizophrenic (Ringo)
[url]http://sheetgen.dalines.net/sheet/4537[/url]
Geist: The Last Word
Justin Lockhart, bullied revenger (Sevorak)
[url]http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B0f9JIkMzGYIZTdjNjVmOWMtOWFmYS00NDU2LTk1ZjQtOTU5MTY1ZWUwODIy&hl=en[/url]
Geist: The Howling Man
Even if it was not at the forefront of your thoughts, the notion has occasionally crossed your mind.
The sensation of impending morality, the finality of demise.
Then it happened. An illness, a disaster, a tragedy, a simple incident of bad fortune.
Everything went black, and it was all over, before it could even begin.
Only it didn't end there.
Something intervened, and the blackness faded, life returning in its wake.
Except you had a taste of the other side, and now things are different.
You can see things others can't. You know what's out there, beyond the threshold.
The one who gave you a second chance knows you're there too, and it won't let you forget.
Geist is a storytelling game of life after death, second chances, an opportunity to make things right that the first go-round didn't allow.
Except in addition to worldly troubles, you now have to contend with those from the afterlife as well.
This is an interest check for starting a
Play By Post chronicle, to be run here over the forums.
Tentative setting would be in the northeastern United States; Eastport, Maine.
It's a peaceful city, unfazed by the outside world, but they have their own troubles.
Someone is committing horrible acts, leaving a trail of dead in their wake. The police are clueless, the locals are frightened, and the dead are restless.
Prospective PCs will be part of a newly formed Krewe to investigate the situation in Eastport, tasked with solving the murders and putting the dead(and the living)'s worries to rest.
Before creating a character concept or deciding on interest, I ask that you consider the following:
Character first, stats second.
Who will you be playing?
What brought them to the afterlife, and what could have inspired them to return?
How do they interact with others?
I prefer a focus on
role-playing over
roll playing. There will be the need for stats, investigative, and maybe even combative dice usage at some point, but it will not be the focus of this Chronicle.
Characters and their interactions will be key.
New to Geist? You'll be making a
World of Darkness character first and foremost, so consider that.
I recommend you use this for a character sheet generator.
http://sheetgen.dalines.net/wiki/WikiStartIf you are familiar with WoD and Geist, skip the spoiler. If you aren't, read on.The basics for starting stats follow. This is the stuff you want access to the
World of Darkness Sourcebook for.
Attributes
Five Primary, Four Secondary, Three Tertiary
Skills
Eleven Primary, Seven Secondary, Four Tertiary
A specialization costs three points.
Merits
Seven points.
Buying the fifth dot in an Attribute, Skill, or Merit will cost two points.
And now for creating a Sin-Eater; this is what you would need the Geist book for.
A Sin-Eater experienced death through a
Threshold, one of the following forms of death:
* The Torn- Victims of murder or violence at the hands of others. As a result, they tend to be angry and violent, and mementos of this threshold have a resonance of malice. The associated keys are Passion and Stigmata.
* The Silent- People who die of deprivation or neglect. As the name suggests, they are quiet and serious by nature. The mementos of this threshold tend to go unnoticed. The keys of this threshold are Stillness and Cold Wind.
* The Prey- Killed by nature, either through exposure to the elements or deadly animals. They see the world as primal, and search for patterns in nature. The mementos are just as primal. The keys of this threshold are Primeval and Grave-dirt.
* The Stricken- Died of disease, illness, or poison. They become very hardy in nature, seeking out challenges to beat. The mementos of this threshold feel unclean or disease ridden. The associated keys are Phantasmal and Tear-stained.
* The Forgotten- Victims of random chance. They see the world as random and tend to gamble more because of that. The mementos feel as if they could kill by accident at any given moment. The keys are Industrial and Pyre Flame.
Also,
Archetypes:
A sin-eater's archetype refers to their personal views on what has happened to them and how they are going to deal with it.
* Advocate- Advocates are sin-eaters who dedicate their second lives to helping the dead, either out of a sense of obligation or because it will make their dealings with the dead easier.
* Bonepicker- Bonepickers focus on the material comforts they can gain with their powers, and keep good track of what they're owed by whom.
* Celebrant- Celebrants embrace their second life and everything that it has to give, typically as adrenaline junkies or pleasure seekers.
* Gatekeeper- Gatekeepers believe it is their duty to police the boundaries between life and death, standing against ghosts who meddle with the living and the living who meddle with the dead.
* Mourner- Mourners are obsessed with the fact that they died, and they feed off the emotions of those who are in mourning. Some believe they are still dead.
* Necromancer- Necromancers use ghosts and sometimes trips into the Underworld to gain occult lore and knowledge of the past.
* Pilgrim- Pilgrims focus on the spiritual side of death, and try to help people avoid the Underworld by destroying the connections that could form anchors.
* Reaper- Reapers try to make the world a better place, either by murdering the guilty or haunting them until they change their ways.
Synergy
A Sin-Eater's morality stat, similar to Humanity for Vampires and Wisdom for Mages. Synergy determines how closely a SE works with their Geist.
Synergy starts at 7.
Psyche
The higher a Sin-Eater's Psyche, the closer their ties to the Underworld. While this gives them greater control and ability to interact with the dead, it can make the character appear less alive and more deathly to the outside world.
All Sin-Eaters begin with one free dot in Psyche.
This rating may be increased by spending Merit points, at a cost of three points per dot of Psyche.
Thus, you can raise your character’s Psyche rating to 2 for three Merit points, or to 3 for six Merit points.
Psyche primarily determines how powerful a SE's Manifestations will be.
Manifestations
A Sin-Eater's powers, utilized through their Geist.
There are seven major families of Manifestations, though some Sin-Eaters whisper of other, more esoteric powers.
• The Boneyard allows the Sin-Eater to assert
control over her immediate environment, usually
by triggering “haunting” effects.
• The Caul permits the Sin-Eater to reshape
his own body as needed, often in esoteric and
frightening ways.
• The Curse enables the Sin-Eater to afflict her
enemies with strange curses and ailments, and
to subtly influence their minds.
• The Marionette allows the Sin-Eater to control
physical objects, animals, and even other
people, manipulating their bodies like a twisted
puppeteer.
• The Oracle grants the Sin-Eater heightened
sensory powers, clairvoyance, and even precognitive
abilities.
• The Rage represents the Sin-Eater’s power
to strike at others with pure, unadulterated
power.
• The Shroud governs effects that alter or improve
the Sin-Eater’s own body in some way, most
often as a form of protection.
A Sin-Eater begins with three dots of Manifestations, chosen however you like: one dot in three
separate Manifestations, two dots in one, and one dot in another, or all three in one Manifestation.
Keys are what a Sin-Eater uses to "unlock" a manifestation. The type of key used determines how the manifestation works.
A Sin-Eater’s powers are stained, both by the geist and the Sin-Eater himself, flavored by their emotions
and deathmarks. When a Sin-Eater opens a conduit and manifests one of his powers, he unlocks
that power with a Key.
The Key used causes the Manifestation to express itself in a particular way.
Keys are another way to define your Sin-Eater’s personality, history, and relationship with death.
All of the Silent have either the Stillness or Cold Wind Key, for example, but a Silent hacker who
died of heartbreak might also have the Passion or Industrial Key, while a Sin-Eater who starved in the
wilderness might have the Cold Wind and Primeval Keys instead. Consider your character’s death and
the origin of his geist carefully when choosing his Keys.
There are ten major Keys: the four Elemental Keys, (Grave-Dirt, Cold Wind, Tear-Stained and
Pyre-Flame), Industrial, Passion, Phantasmal, Primeval, Stillness, and Stigmata.
Sin-Eaters begin with two Keys, one of which is one of your Threshold’s two favored Keys.
Plasm is the energy that powers a Sin-Eater's abilities, much like Mana in Mage or Blood in Vampire.
Plasm allows an SE to execute Manifestations, acquire (at least temporarily) skills her geist might have known in life, heal herself, and a number of other feats.
All Sin-Eaters begin with a plasm pool equal to half of their maximum plasm pool as determined by Psyche.
Psyche | Attribute/Skill/Manifestation Max | Max Plasm / Per Turn | Anchors | Time in Underworld
1 | 5 | 14/1 | None | None
2 | 5 | 18/2 | None | None
3 | 5 | 22/3 | None | None
4 | 5 | 26/4 | None | None
5 | 5 | 30/5 | None | None
6 | 6 | 40/7 | 1 | 1 day/lunar month
7 | 7 | 50/10 | 1 | 3 days/lunar month
8 | 8 | 60/15 | 2 | 5 days/lunar month
9 | 9 | 75/20 | 2 | 1 week/lunar month
10 | 10 | 100/25 | 3 | 2 weeks/lunar month
Unlike many other traits, plasm is rated only as a pool of points that you can spend. There is no dot rating for plasm that your character always possesses.
Here's the simple breakdown of what a Sin-Eater's character sheet should consist of.
If this is greek to you,
read the spoiler above for thorough details. Regardless, I strongly encourage having access to the World of Darkness Sourcebook and a Geist sourcebook for reference purposes.
• Attributes: 5/4/3
• Skills 11/7/4 (+3 Specialties)
• Record Archetype and Threshold
• Manifestations: 3 dots
• Select one Key from Threshold and one to represent keystone
• Merits 7
• (Buying the fifth dot in Attributes, Skills or Merits
costs two points)
• Health = Stamina + Size
• Willpower = Resolve + Composure
• Size = 5 for adult human-sized
• Defense = Lowest of Dexterity or Wits • Initiative Mod = Dexterity + Composure
• Speed = Strength + Dexterity + 5
• Starting Synergy = 7
• Psyche starts at 1 dot • Plasm starts at 5 points.
Again, I recommend the Dalines creator for sheets, both for easy reference purposes and ease of creation, but you can use whatever format you prefer if you like.
http://sheetgen.dalines.net/sheet/create/gts
The roster will be determined based on the concepts I receive, not on a first come, first serve basis, so please put thought into a concept before committing to the game.
I would prefer a player base of four, five characters tops. There is no deadline.
I am still learning the ropes of Geist, so I will use the interim to become more familiar with the game and the mechanics.
If there's any clarification or requests for more information, feel free to ask in the thread or PM me.
Lastly: be creative and detailed. The more background you have to offer me, the better.
Posts
I can certainly answer any questions you have regarding NWoD or Geist and the mechanics.
Fortunately, NWoD Mechanic wise isn't as crazy as it looks. Almost any situation asks for a combination of two stats. Roll the resulting dice, and count the successes, and I determine whether you succeed or fail(epicly or otherwise).
But as said, I expect players to put more work into interaction and character than stats and dice rolling.
Uber real or more along the lines of say Frighteners?
Also would we voice our Geists or would you? Since I know that is up to the ST.
Characters that immediately come to mind are either:
a suicidal young man who is heir to some local Empire 's throne (this seems more like WB type character)
or a drab detective who actually means well but comes across as a creep/corrupt
You can decide the nature of how you met your Geist, and some details of its appearance, but its actions and usage will be handled by me for the most part.
You say its newbie friendly though?
http://sheetgen.dalines.net/sheet/4421
'Close your eyes, this is going to really hurt...'
Lindsey Wyatt, aspiring musician
Geist, The Crowd Surge
Virtue - Fortitude, Lindsey was never a coward, even faced with an unimpressed crowd or a Geist with a cruel sense of humour
Vice - Envy, however she never was one to take rivalry well, particularly anyone she saw as more skilled or attractive than herself
The hazy air of the bar rippled with the patronizing sound of polite applause. A gentle 'well done' to those who stood before the indifferent and distracted, a nusicance, an interruption to conversation that may as well have been white noise. A pat on the back and a free drink voucher was all their effort had amounted to.
It was Lindseys first open mic night. The first time she had played the songs that seemed to write themselves. The first time her private words, phrases and rhymes that she seemed to pluck out of the very air itself would be heard in public. She pushed her long, black hair from her eyes and squinted into the light of the room.
A man sat near the stage belched heavily. Tough crowd, it seemed.
Lindsey thanked the crowd in her cut-glass English accent and smiled to herself. Her Converse shoes squeaked on the varnished wooden stage as she began to walk from the uncomfortable barstool 'It could have gone a lot worse,' she thought, 'I could have fallen off the stage on the way up here, smashed the guitar, broken something. That would have been embarassing....'
She reached to pull the guitar cable out of the bar PA system, a heavy metal box that would have looked more at home attached to the side of a industrial refergerator. She gave the lead a tug.
The room went black.
The bargin was made. The Crowd Surge, his blinding, colour shifting, empty eyes that blazed with light and arced with flowing blue electricty, started her heart beating once more. Lindseys' eyes snapped open as the agonising pain of the fatal jolt worked its way through her chest. She sat bolt upright from her new position on the floor and took a sharp, deep breath of the stale air of the bar. She turned, slowly to face the patrons, trying not to hyperventilate. The Crowd Surge sat in the front row, grinning.
'You've... been... a great audience...'
-Where is your character from? What might have inspired them to take an interest in the investigation?
-How do they work with others, if at all?
-How long ago was their brush with death? How familiar are they with the other side? Do they avoid it, or frequently deal with spirits? Is their main inspiration simply to do good, or to get something in return?
-Do they have any unfinished business that they still hope to complete with their second chance, or have they left their old lives behind?
Just some starter info I'd like to have, but again, the more thorough you can be with your backgrounds, the better.
Hmmmm....
So I take it the krewe is part of the larger sub culture and already aware of the ins and outs ?
Yes, you would be playing a Sin-Eater who is at least somewhat in the know about the subculture. They don't have to be intimately familiar with how things work, but they at least know there's others like them who work together to keep spirits in check, whether or not your character cares to get themselves involved very often.
Stan "The Body Man" Carver
Archetype: Necromancer
Threshold: The Silent
Geist: The Good Doctor
Virtue: Prudence
Vice: Pride
http://sheetgen.dalines.net/sheet/4440
Bio:
However, his good luck could not last forever. During a late night in the Morgue, Stan found himself working alone on the corpse of a young woman that had come in with an apparent overdose, but no signs of any drug use. During his routine examination, four men broke into the lab and held him at gunpoint. They forced him to cut open the girl to retrieve the drugs that had been hidden inside of her. Once they had recovered the unruptured balloons of heroin they shoved him into the morgue freezer and gave him a quick stab with his own scalpel when he tried to make some sort of deal with them. It was there, in the cold dark of the freezer that he realized that they had clipped one of his internal organs and he was bleeding out. The cold air would slow it, but without medical attention, he would die. He pounded on the door, yelled as long as damaged body allowed, and waited for someone to find him, but no one would come. Hours passed as he slowly felt this lifeblood trickle out of him and thicken into an icy sludge on the floor of the room. He should have died in that room, cold alone, and surrounded by bodies. In a sense, he did.
It was there, in the darkness that The Good Doctor came to him and offered him a deal. Not only the opportunity to live, but the ability to bring his connection and knowledge of death to unknown heights. Stan took the deal, and was discovered the next morning by the day shift inches away from death in a pool of his own blood. Now, with The Good Doctor's cold tutelage he can learn more about the dead than he ever thought possible, and even control those that have passed on.
The Good Doctor
"If you unclog your bloody ears and listen for once in your miserable life, you might just learn something...."
The Good Doctor communicates with Stan through several mediums. At the most simple of times, he will leave notes, and occasionally even grades, written in blood that convey his general mood. Secondly, Stan has found that he will write messages carved inside of the corpses Stan is working on late at night. They tend to be in the places Stan must check in his routine inspections and the Doctor, like any good teacher, is making sure Stan never forgets his basic lessons. Finally, when The Good Doctor feels he needs to directly intervene, he can appear directly behind Stan to advise him on his actions. His words are the creaky monotone that only the most ancient of professors can manage with the underlining feel that the words have been rehearsed for so long that they have become boring to even the speaker. The Good Doctor treats everyone around him like students in the way that not only should they enjoy the privilege of even getting to listen to him speak, but that they should be constantly benefiting from his vast knowledge.
Contrary to his murderous visage, The Good Doctor is far from a bloodthirsty psychopath. To him, death is a tool just like any other and, like any good academic, one should use these tools to further their understanding of the world. Killing without purpose is a waste, but killing to further ones studies or to discover some hidden truth about the world (or underworld) is a completely necessary action. The Good Doctor has become the embodiment of science without boundaries or morals. He is the Nazi scientists that killed countless Jews to further their agenda, he is the scientist willing to infect children to find a cure, and he is the one that moves forward no matter what the cost. He pushes Stan to constantly be expanding his knowledge, through any means necessary. While his methods may lack morals, they can be extremely effective.
As for his past, little is known about who The Good Doctor was in life. It can be assumed that he was some sort of doctor that broke the laws of humanity to push his craft forward. It is also quite apparent that he worked in academia as he occasionally talks about his students and the "lesser professors" around him. In a passing conversation, he also mentioned that those that opposed him in life referred to him as "The Butcher". Except for these snippets, The Good Doctor does not seem to remember much and prefers to push forward rather than dwell on "ancient times and broken methods".
Present Day:
I'll likely provide some more setting details over the next day or so, so the Krewe can get an idea of what to expect.
Your Krewe's been pretty much given free reign to deal with the situation as they will, so one of your characters will likely become the de facto leader, unless they prefer to work as a team.
Wyatt has an ease of talking to people and is generally pretty good at dealing with others. Her heavy English accent probably helps. She fell into the Sin Eater subculture pretty quickly, after her death at the open mic night, she was offered a cigarette by someone who turned out to be a fellow Bound, who introduced her to the idea of a Krewe, although she found the idea to be a little bit ‘Scooby-Doo’, she goes along with it, mostly because she likes the idea of being around other Sin Eaters and people who have experienced the same things she has.
Although she is still incredibly naive about the world in general, particularly the darker, supernatural elements
If anyone needs help with concepts or brainstorming, feel free to contact me via PM or even AIM or whatever.
There's two so far for sure. It's possible with three, but at least four would be ideal.
Any more than that I feel would be pushing it.
PS: Someone needs to create a bruiser so I don't get killed. Maybe an ex pro wrestler whose geist is a skeletal luchador.
We aren't mad Mckid, just disappointed.
An unending pack of Lucky Strike from 1923 isn't too much of a stretch is it? No stat benefits... but endless hours of smoking pleasure
That's how they taste
And even though it cannot be used as a weapon, you still get bonuses from your keystone. It acts as a +3 for 2 keys, plus you can use plasm to add dots to a single skill your geist may have possessed.
So all in all, keystones are pretty bitchin no matter what they are.
The only thing I can see is that you need to give yourself the right amount of plasm. You start with 1/2 of your max (which is determined by your psyche) so you should have 7.
Also keep in mind we have been given a generous 17 experience to throw around, so you can pad a few dots here and there. I used some to snag a Charm, and I might use the rest to learn a simple Ceremony. Probly "Finding" cause it looks super cool.
For perusal, I'm thinking of playing Tommy Gallo, a Catholic, Itallian-American former boxer from Chicago.
Once he had healed enough, Tommy paid a visit to the hitmen who shot him. One he killed with a single blow to the head; the other he put the fear of God into. Tommy felt no remorse. Fearing yet more retribution from his former sponsor, yet not willing to strike against his family, Tommy left Chicago, looking for a new start, and driven by his geist to visit righteous vengeance upon the sinners of the world. If someone is demonstrably evil, Tommy has no problem punishing them, but lately his geist has been pushing him to be literally as bloody as she, wanting revenge for sins less and less horrible. This disturbs Tommy, and he's beginning to wonder what kind of being he's entered into a deal with.
Geist - Bloody Mary
Keystone - crucifix necklace
Archetype - Reaver
Threshold - The Torn
Keys - Stigmata, Passion
Manifestations - Rage, Shroud
Virtue - Courageous
Vice - Stubborn
Concept - boxer out for justice
New Sin-Eater Merits include Ceremonies (•+), Haunt (special) and Memento (•+).
Ceremonies:
Haunts are 1 to 5 point merits, and are basically an SE-specific haven. Typically maintained by a group, though not always. Can be especially useful for accessing Plasm and/or the underworld.
Mementos:
And, Experience Point Costs
A couple things:
For your virtue/vice you put down Courageous and Stubborn. Not sure if this was covered in your quickstart guide, but you most likely meant Justice and Pride. Justice to face down danger to protect the innocent even at personal cost, and Pride the belief that your actions are always right and the refusal to back down. Though, for an ex-boxer Wrath could also be a decent choice, as he most likely has a bit of uncontrolled anger.
For merits, most of them are listed in the core rule book for World of Darkness with a couple Geist specific ones in the Geist the Sin-Eaters book.
And for experience spending
Experience Point Costs
Attribute New Dots x 5
Skill New Dots x 3
Skill Specialty 3
New Key 10
Manifestation New Dots x 6
Merit New Dots x 2
Psyche New Dots x 8
Synergy New Dots x 3
Willpower 8
Edit: Goddamn you CJ.
For the buys - new dots x # means, for instance, if I raise a value from 1 to 2, it costs 2 x # (new raised value)? Or is it 1 x # (new points invested)?
It means the amount you're increasing it by times x. Upping a skill by 2, for example, would cost 6 points; 2 x 3.
As for Virtues/Vices:
http://wiki.white-wolf.com/worldofdarkness/index.php?title=Virtue_and_Vice_Matrix
Virtues on the left, Vices on the top.
That Wiki's a good resource in general.
According to the WoD book...
Note that when you spend experience points and want
to go up more than one dot in a trait, you need to pay for all
the intervening levels. That is, if you go from *** to *****
in an Attribute, it costs you 45 experience points (20 to go
from 3 to 4, plus 25 to go from 4 to 5).
But of course, your way is muuuuch cheaper. So, I am down for that if we want :winky: