jack // sisterSwitch (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sisterswitch) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
eyemindooc2021-04-26 09:07 pm
sisterswitch) wrote in eyemindooc2021-04-26 09:07 pm
player plot: sleep with one eye open
HEY PARTY PEOPLE HEY I come bearing a fun optional little player plot! As some of you may know, Jack here was originally created for a tabletop game called Beast: The Primordial. She is one of the Begotten, which is someone who was born human and at some point had their soul Devoured by something called a Horror. Horrors are monsters created in the Primordial Dream, the nightmare part of humankind’s collective unconscious. This fun transformation results in that person becoming an actual monster. That’s right, ya grrrl here is a literal monster with no soul!
Without going too far down the rabbit hole of tabletop mechanics, the gist of what Begotten do is create Nightmares for humans, and if the Nightmares align with their specific Hunger, it feeds their Horror and keeps it in check instead of busting through to the physical world and causing all kinds of mayhem. These ain’t your usual nightmares - these are supernatural nightmares that feel extremely real and are very scary. Think high octane night terrors, multiplied by a factor of ten. In some cases, the dreamer can even experience physical injury (or death) that carries over into the physical world.
As for Jack specifically: her Horror is a smoke-form boogey monster, which is how she appears in Nightmares and the Primordial Dream, and her specific Hunger is for Punishment. Nightmares that she creates that focus on punishment feed her Horror better than any other Nightmare, though she is perfectly capable of creating other genres of Nightmares.
So what does this have to do with you? Glad you asked! I’ve been handwaving Jack feeding her Horror by causing Nightmares for random NPCs on the various past planet stops, but now I am opening up the option for a little extra terrorization to all of you. I will have a Jack post up either tonight or tomorrow in which she will make an offer. That weird transmission that went out yesterday came from the self-aware homicidal AI that was running the city where she lived before she was brought here, so she recognizes it and is now on high alert. Because she is not an altogether terrible person, she’s willing to provide a measure of defense for you, her shipmates - a sigil tattoo that renders the person invisible to surveillance. This is 100% effective! Cameras - and more importantly, Mindseye - will not be able to “see” anyone who opts to get this tattoo.
And all Jack wants in return is a story. She wants to know a bad thing you did and got away with, that’s all!
But no, that’s not really all. The reason she wants these stories is because she will create Nightmares from them so her Horror can feed. She will, of course, neglect to mention this in advance ICly.
TL;DR - Tell Jack about a bad thing you did and were never punished for, get a sigil tattoo that makes you invisible to the big scary AI that has decided it’s your soulmate, plus a bonus worst nightmare of your entire life.
Of course, someone is bound to put pieces together and realize that there was more to the bargain than they were told, and I’m totally fine playing out whatever negative IC consequences may come for Jack later on. I definitely don’t expect her to get away with this without facing some sort of reprisal for it, but the figuring out shouldn’t happen immediately and (mod hat on) I’ll need to see how whoever reaches this conclusion does so. In other words, you can’t just decide Billy Bob magically knows Jack gave him a bad dream, there needs to be some kind of thought development/discussion and comparing of notes among affected characters before the pitchforks come out (mod hat off). Logging the actual nightmares will be spaced out, because a) I can’t balance running a bunch of intense threads all at once, 2) there’s other mayhem a-happening as well, and d) if the Horror feeds too much all at once, it gets really sleepy and that’s not good for anyone. So I’ll arrange to log the nightmares with individual players one on one at a later time.
Again, this is completely optional, but if you would like to terrorize your character a little more than they already are, I am offering a (hopefully?) fun way to make it happen.
Questions, concerns? Comment below or DM me on Discord. Wanna volunteer as tribute? Sign up below!
Without going too far down the rabbit hole of tabletop mechanics, the gist of what Begotten do is create Nightmares for humans, and if the Nightmares align with their specific Hunger, it feeds their Horror and keeps it in check instead of busting through to the physical world and causing all kinds of mayhem. These ain’t your usual nightmares - these are supernatural nightmares that feel extremely real and are very scary. Think high octane night terrors, multiplied by a factor of ten. In some cases, the dreamer can even experience physical injury (or death) that carries over into the physical world.
As for Jack specifically: her Horror is a smoke-form boogey monster, which is how she appears in Nightmares and the Primordial Dream, and her specific Hunger is for Punishment. Nightmares that she creates that focus on punishment feed her Horror better than any other Nightmare, though she is perfectly capable of creating other genres of Nightmares.
So what does this have to do with you? Glad you asked! I’ve been handwaving Jack feeding her Horror by causing Nightmares for random NPCs on the various past planet stops, but now I am opening up the option for a little extra terrorization to all of you. I will have a Jack post up either tonight or tomorrow in which she will make an offer. That weird transmission that went out yesterday came from the self-aware homicidal AI that was running the city where she lived before she was brought here, so she recognizes it and is now on high alert. Because she is not an altogether terrible person, she’s willing to provide a measure of defense for you, her shipmates - a sigil tattoo that renders the person invisible to surveillance. This is 100% effective! Cameras - and more importantly, Mindseye - will not be able to “see” anyone who opts to get this tattoo.
And all Jack wants in return is a story. She wants to know a bad thing you did and got away with, that’s all!
But no, that’s not really all. The reason she wants these stories is because she will create Nightmares from them so her Horror can feed. She will, of course, neglect to mention this in advance ICly.
TL;DR - Tell Jack about a bad thing you did and were never punished for, get a sigil tattoo that makes you invisible to the big scary AI that has decided it’s your soulmate, plus a bonus worst nightmare of your entire life.
Of course, someone is bound to put pieces together and realize that there was more to the bargain than they were told, and I’m totally fine playing out whatever negative IC consequences may come for Jack later on. I definitely don’t expect her to get away with this without facing some sort of reprisal for it, but the figuring out shouldn’t happen immediately and (mod hat on) I’ll need to see how whoever reaches this conclusion does so. In other words, you can’t just decide Billy Bob magically knows Jack gave him a bad dream, there needs to be some kind of thought development/discussion and comparing of notes among affected characters before the pitchforks come out (mod hat off). Logging the actual nightmares will be spaced out, because a) I can’t balance running a bunch of intense threads all at once, 2) there’s other mayhem a-happening as well, and d) if the Horror feeds too much all at once, it gets really sleepy and that’s not good for anyone. So I’ll arrange to log the nightmares with individual players one on one at a later time.
Again, this is completely optional, but if you would like to terrorize your character a little more than they already are, I am offering a (hopefully?) fun way to make it happen.
Questions, concerns? Comment below or DM me on Discord. Wanna volunteer as tribute? Sign up below!