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  Here's a thread where my live group (coming up on 3 years, drat) tries our hand at the Microscope board game (??) in order to craft a history for the fictional city in which our upcoming Hunter: The Vigil game will be set, from its initial founding to the time at which the HtV game begins. As Microscope is broadly turn-based and only really requires live play for RPing "scenes", I figure asynchronous PbP will work to hash this out. We'll see if this is hubris on my part. Our players are Terrorforge, Thesaurasaurus and the incomparable Ziegedame. Our city is yet unnamed. Our Palette is the following: quote:Things we wouldn't expect but may yet see: Lovecraftian Elder Things, Happy Alternate Dimensions, Body Horror (Consent Req'd When Inflicted on PCs), Citywide Hunter Agreements, Possibility of Monster Truce Our Big Picture: quote:A mid-sized American city develops a strange and dangerous "alternate geography" of itself, and the barrier between its prime and alternate geographies begins to break down. Our historical Bookends are the following:  Now, we go for our First Pass. Post to follow. I'll update this post as needed as we go. Basic Chunnel fucked around with this message at 20:48 on Mar 31, 2019 |
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Mar 31, 2019 20:37
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| # ? Apr 28, 2024 16:03 |
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Our first order of business: First Pass: quote:Group decisions are now over. For the rest of the game, each player makes decisions individually and has vast power to shape history. For the purposes of our posting, just say where your Period and / or Event is taking place in reference to the others. I'll update the google drawing.
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Mar 31, 2019 20:50
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My First Pass will be a Period between "The area of the city is settled" and "The alternate geography is created".quote:A cult seeking contact with dark entities is exposed from high places within the city’s political machine, and uprooted. (Light) Current board: 
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Mar 31, 2019 22:41
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Adding an event under the alternate geography period.quote:A young woman, Patricia Graham, is an unwilling participant in an occult ritual. The ritual does not go as intended, and Patricia dies an extremely painful death. (Dark)
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Apr 2, 2019 18:27
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I'm adding an Event under The Barrier Between Worlds Break Down. Our Anchor for this Period is "the refugee" (name and species intentionally left undecided), someone or -thing that has escaped into our world from the Other.quote:The inhuman refugee takes shelter in the disused basement of local terrible franchise restaurant "O'Malley's". Its presence begins to exert a peculiar "dulling" effect, restraining the extremes of human emotion. O'Malley's becomes a haven for criminals, survivors, addicts and anyone else looking for a port in the storm, without losing its atmosphere of safe, comfortable tedium. Local media print several fluff pieces about "the restaurant where gangbangers and single mothers eat side by side." (Light) Terrorforge fucked around with this message at 09:06 on Apr 3, 2019 |
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Apr 2, 2019 22:21
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I'm adding a Period between The Alternate Geography is Created and The Barrier Breaks Down. During this time, an extended drought lowers the water level of the crater lake, revealing an extensive network of submerged tunnels. In dry years, these tunnels make the city a boomtown, where small fortunes can be simply carried up by anyone with a strong back and stronger lungs. Casualties are high, owing to both the risk of prospecting and bandits and mining concerns (often one and the same) who lie in wait, but the potential to strike it rich or pay off crippling debts keeps people coming regardless.quote:The meteorite's bounty begins to surface, bringing wealth and peril in equal measure (Light)
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Apr 4, 2019 21:39
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I'll go first. The Focus for this round is The Geography Splits. During the "Alternate Geography is created" Period, before the "Patricia Graham dies painfully" event, there is a new event. It is Dark:quote:After her grandfather dies, Patricia Graham finds the Silver Voice’s holy books locked in his study, and reads of their method for returning the dead to life. (Dark) Here's the board so far: 
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Apr 5, 2019 01:11
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This might be too clever by half, but this event occurs simultaneously with "Patricia Graham dies painfully":quote:Patricia Graham harshly readjusts the ritual at the last minute. Reality begins to crack and the fallout will be extensive, but she is alive and the city is saved. (Light) Terrorforge fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Apr 6, 2019 |
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Apr 6, 2019 17:36
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Adding an event prior to Patricia's interest in necromancyquote:Several landmarks throughout the city are vandalized with angelic sigils, forming an occult matrix allowing an angel of the God Machine to manifest in the cover of Alexander Graham, Patricia's father. (Light) ZiegeDame fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Apr 8, 2019 |
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Apr 8, 2019 21:45
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Final event of the Focus, during the "Geography Splits" Period, after Patricia finds the book her grandfather kept:quote:A Demonic Cell attempts to disrupt the occult matrix constructed by Patricia and the angel masquerading as her father.
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Apr 12, 2019 21:49
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All right, I'm the Lens this time. The Focus for this round is going to be simply Monsters. I want to hear about the creepy crawlies that assuredly infest every corner of the city, including some corners it's not even supposed to have. To start us off, I'm going to create a Period following "The meteorite's bounty". Following a period of relative peace, the various hunter factions of the city begin to squabble and turn against each other, leaving both them and the people they're supposed to protect exposed and ushering in near-unchecked depredation. quote:Hunter infighting turns the city into a monster's paradise (Dark) And I'm also going to create an Event under that period. During a fraudulent emergency meeting of high-ranking hunters, Vox Martin Prester, leader of the respected local compact known as the Silver Voice, beheads the shapeshifting thing that has been impersonating him for years before it can spring the trap. In order to avoid being compromised further, the assembled hunters immediately accept his proposal for a defense alliance and a series of covert signs and countersigns. quote:Vox Martin Prester of the Silver Voice saves a diverse congress of hunters from a malevolent shapeshifter, laying the groundwork for a citywide hunter alliance (Light) And as per our policy, I'm also adding a Period on the other side of the split. Residents of the eastern Alternate discover that the physical, mental and spiritual barriers between individuals are eroding. The starkest manifestation of this is the "Compatibility" phenomenon. When two individuals who are, by some arcane metric, "Compatible" spend more than the briefest of moments in each others' presence, they begin to feel as if they are divided halves of the same whole and develop an intense desire to be physically reunited by any means available. This frequently results in fatal co-self-mutilation, but is on occasion (somehow) successful. Individuals thus joined form the initial stage of an organism referred to as a "Heap". Each individual subsumed by the Heap is Compatible with a different selection of other individuals, and so the Heap keeps growing. Understandably, survivors become intensely paranoid about human interaction. quote:"Compatibility" kills many in the eastern parts of the Alternate, transforms others into grotesque colonial organisms called "heaps" and leaves the survivors descending into isolationism and paranoia (Dark) Terrorforge fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Apr 13, 2019 |
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Apr 13, 2019 16:22
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Creating an Event under the new Period, one which spans both sides of the divide.quote:That Inhuman Connection
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Apr 15, 2019 04:34
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I'm posting a Period in the Alternate timeline, after the Event of Patricia surviving the ritual:quote:The natural environment and wildlife of the Alternate begins to change and warp. People discover they can’t leave the greater metro area, and then they begin to change as well. (Dark) Basic Chunnel fucked around with this message at 05:44 on Apr 15, 2019 |
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Apr 15, 2019 05:24
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An Event under 'Barriers between worlds break down' period'quote:A string of murders leaves local law enforcement flummoxed when, after using fingerprinting and dental records to positively ID the victims, they later find these victims alive and well in their homes, apparently unaware that their body is locked in the city morgue. DNA for both subjects is also exactly the same, though curiously the only thing linking the victims is that their DNA was already recorded in a law enforcement database.
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Apr 16, 2019 00:35
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And to finish off this round, I'm adding en Event after "The Inhuman Connection" in "Compatibility": Andreas Lichtner, a Nosferatu Holy Engineer, bursts through the doors of the Alternate Rosewood Station halfway dead from Radio Sickness, with his right arm missing, his chest cavity stuffed full of Cheiron-branded monitoring equipment, and in the full grip of Frenzy. He tears off towards what remains of the business district, where he finds, attacks and diablerizes himself. Insight thus gained, he manages to find and broadcast the question that saves his unlife. His Cheiron handlers continue to receive garbled telemetry data that suggests he remains active, but he makes no attempt to return to or communicate with the Prime. quote:Andreas Lichtner, Holy Engineer, travels into the Alternate with the aid of the Cheiron Group and at great personal cost, where he diablerizes his double and saves himself from Radio Sickness. (Dark) Terrorforge fucked around with this message at 18:06 on Apr 16, 2019 |
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Apr 16, 2019 10:40
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My Legacy choice for this round is Divide Doppelgangers. To that end, I've dropped an event at the bottom of the "Crater's Bounty Unearthed" Period.quote:The mines opened around the crater gain repute for being haunted. Shafts closer to the city produce more benevolent encounters, most famously a miner encountering his brother, long dead from childhood illness, and having a cathartic talk by lamplight. Current board layout: 
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Apr 17, 2019 05:14
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As the Lens for the current round, I hereby declare the Focus to be People! Not gods, not monsters - only ordinary mortals doing their best to get by in this mad, mad world. On the Prime side of the split, a Period directly before "The Barriers Between Worlds Break Down":quote:Who Owns This Town?  Now have an Event that is the beginning of the Period's end.quote:Not Gonna Take It Anymore: Ignatio Carmine will be the Anchor for this Period. Thesaurasaurus fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Apr 20, 2019 |
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Apr 19, 2019 22:41
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Placing an Event down under the very first Period concerning the settlement of the town. (Probably near the end of that period.)quote:Thaddeus Prescott Miller, a stakeholder in the Union Pacific railroad company, arranges for an offshoot line to be built, connecting Goldsprings directly by rail to the recently completed transcontinental railroad. Miller builds an upscale resort hotel which he markets far and wide by touting the supposed health benefits of the unique mineral content of the lake's water. (Light)
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Apr 20, 2019 00:10
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To clarify, at Chunnel's behest: this took place in the 1980s, because much as we'd like to think company towns and corporate militias are a thing of the past, they are very much alive and well. The rumor mill posits that Saltmorton was killed by his bosses at Bridger for failing to keep a lid on the scandal, but between small-town Americana and genuine supernatural weirdness, stories abound that he was killed by everything from vampires to Heaps to the good old conspiracy-theory standby of reptilians. Some even claim that he didn't die at all. BCM's legal troubles continue to this day, forming a backdrop of perpetual congressional hearings, lawsuits, counter-suits, shady backroom deals, and ratfucks. Their bottom line has dropped and they're no longer the effective rulers of all they purvey, but they're still richer than some small nations and a force to be reckoned with.
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Apr 20, 2019 00:13
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I'm adding an Event following "The Train to the Lake", in the beginning period in which the city is first settled:quote:The Arrival of the Prophet Basic Chunnel fucked around with this message at 02:12 on Apr 20, 2019 |
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Apr 20, 2019 02:06
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A Period following "Compatibility" Turns out that the worst monsters aren't always the ones that crawl in from between the cracks in reality to lay eggs in your brain. Cut off from their offshore banking accounts and congressional bosom buddies, the robber-barons of the Alternate see their once absolute power evaporate. Faced with an angry coalition of workers, gang members and their own security personnel, the smart ones peacefully surrender their assets, and the stupid ones don't get much of a chance to regret their decision. Much of the industrial district is converted into a self-sufficient community, with both the location and the organization that runs it coming to be known as "The Goldsprings Co-operative" or just "The Co-op". Production continues, but focus shifts to providing for the needs of the community rather than chasing abstract profits, allowing the Co-op to become the closest thing to a safe, comfortable oasis the Alternate has. quote:Citizens oust the predatory elite and use their seized assets to construct the Goldsprings Co-operative and put them to use for the common good (Light)
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Apr 20, 2019 13:33
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I'm doing my Legacy things a little out of turn so I can go to sleep. My Legacy is "Bridger Consolidated Mining". I'm adding an Event following "The mines gain repute for being haunted": Controversy explodes as BCM oversteps its boundaries yet again, this time by pushing its employees to sign a bizarre waiver entrusting their bodies into the care of the company in the event of their death. Company spokespeople insist that it's a strictly voluntary program that's going to help save the lives of future miners by providing insight into the medical hazards associated with the profession, but whistleblowers speak of unofficial sanctions levied against anyone who refuses to sign, and independent investigations strongly suggest (but fail to conclusively prove) that BCM is receiving substantial financial compensation from the institutions accepting the "donated" bodies. The story becomes national news for a hot second, but quickly fades into just another bullet point on the prosecutor's laundry list. quote:BCM pushes to gain control of its workers' corpses to sell to the highest bidder. Outrage is fierce, but as always the charges don't stick
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Apr 20, 2019 22:35
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