[Masks!] We Needed To Destroy The School To Save It

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > The Game Room > [Masks!] We Needed To Destroy The School To Save It

GodFish: Oct 10, 2012; We're your first, last, and only line of defense. We live in secret. We exist in shadow.

And we dress in black.

I lied, apping a Doomed!

GodFish fucked around with this message at 11:08 on Jan 20, 2017

# ¿ Jan 19, 2017 21:53

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 14:44

GodFish: Oct 10, 2012; We're your first, last, and only line of defense. We live in secret. We exist in shadow.

And we dress in black.

My name is Claire Brennan, and I am going to die.

You probably know me better as X-Calibre, teenage super heroine extraordinaire, who fights for Justice with a stylish black sword, but that's only half of my story. Because I am going to die. The sword, my sword, feeds off my life force, just by being nearby, so I have to absorb more from other people to keep myself healthy - or to keep it satiated so it won't drain mine. Even if it didn't, I'd still be going to die, because it's other half is out there, coming for me.

Should I start from the beginning? I don't know how to really started, way before I was alive, but for me, it started right after the small earthquake that hit Cascadia suburb my family lived in. You probably didn't hear about it, it was really small - caused by Titanica and Goldboy fighting Volcanian I think. Titanica tends to cause earthquakes. Anyway, the quake caused one of the hills to cave in a bit, but that was about it. Everyone in town went over to check it out once things had calmed down, we dug around in the dirt a bit, there was some shards of rock sticking out - I managed to cut my hand on it, somehow, and after a bit, we all went back home. That night I woke up with a voice in my head. That's not quite right, not a voice, just a... feeling. Of being called. I went back to sleep.

Later, I awoke again - not quite awake, I could see what I was doing, but it was like I was still dreaming. Following instructions I couldn't quite hear, I went outside, to our shed, and then with a shovel, out to the hill. I dug for what felt like an hour, until I'd uncovered a tunnel, stone, carved into the hillside. There had been a door, also stone, covered in carvings, but it'd cracked open. I was a bit more myself then, but not nearly enough, and idiot that I was, even if I'd been completely in control... There was literally no way I could turn back at that point, when you don't have powers in a world with more and more superheroes, being called into a mysterious buried ruin... isn't something anyone could give up. So I lit up my phone's flashlight and headed in.

The walls were covered in even more carvings, nothing that I could read though, and wound down what felt like miles into the ground. The voice got more urgent the further I went, calling for me, again and again. I pushed through a thick net of cobwebs, and into a small room, with just two things in it. A hulking statue of some ferocious monster and, in front of it, a simple plinth with a sword resting on it, in perfect condition. I walked up to the sword, it was glowing softly in the darkness. I reached out, to touch it, and that was when I really heard the voice for the first time. 'Run!' Jumping back, I tried to drop it, but it floated there in front of me, and flew back into my hand. And then the ruin began to shake, the statue rumbled, the ceiling shook, dust raining down.

Unable to let go of the sword, I turned and ran. The place collapsing is the only reason I'm still alive. It trapped the demon inside, underground, and even with it's power, it took time for it to wake up and to force it's way to the surface. By then I was back home, and a massive flaming demon walking through town got the heroes there just after it lit my house on fire. All that time, the blade had been talking to me, explaining things, the demon (the statue) had been sealed away in that crypt, trapped by the power of the sword and the runes covered it, but the quake had finally cracked the seal, and the demon was growing stronger, and if it found me, killed me and took the sword, it would have free to reign over the world. It reached for me as I ran out of the house, almost lazily, with it's giant hand - I don't think it expected me to resist, but I did, panicking, terrified, I drew the sword and sliced right through it's hand - blood splattered all over me, sizzling in the air - and it drew back, howling. Through the blade I could feel it gathering it's power to kill me then and there, and that was when the heroes arrived.

They killed it. And then they tried to take the sword away - I almost died. They brought it back in time, and took us both off to study. A month later, the demon attacked the hospital I was staying in. They killed it again, but not before badly injuring most of the heroes and destroying the facility. During that time, me, the sword, and a few professional mages and psychics had figured out what was going on. The demon - it didn't have a name, so I decided to call it the Jabberwocky, after my favorite poem - could only be killed by the sword, otherwise it would keep coming back, and if it got it, it'd be unstoppable. The sword -also nameless, so sticking with the theme, Snicker-snack - itself drained my life, purely by being bonded, needing that to keep its own magic alive so I could fight Jabberwocky. I could access it's power freely, but I can't go far from it, and it'll always be draining my life unless I can feed it off someone else's, and I won't use just anyone. I can't pass the blade on either, it's mine until I die, and if I DO kill Jabberwocky it'll end the curse of the sword, and... it won't admit it, but I think... I know... it'll kill me too. But if I can end it, stop this curse from passing on, I will, even if it takes my life. And until then, until I'm strong enough to face it, I'll do everything I can to help other people, do some good with what time I have left. And maybe I'll even have a chance to live a little, here at school.

The Doomed posted:

Hero Name: X-Calibre
Real Name: Claire Brennan

Look: woman, white, steely eyes, unassuming clothing, no costume

Abilities
Superhuman strength and speed: empowered by her sword, Claire can move inhumanly fast, slice through a foot of steel easily, and even punch kick or smash her way through ordinary walls without much difficulty. These powers are enhanced after absorbing someone's vitality.
Vitality absorption: making physical contact between her hand and someone else, she can absorb their vitality, draining way their strength and energy, both physical and mental, leaving them exhausted or even dead if given enough time. Coupled with her telekinesis, she can do the same thing at a distance if her target or targets have open wounds - especially ones caused by her.
Telekinesis: Claire's telekinesis is fairly limited without having recently absorbed someone's strength, only really able to move small objects at a distance. Within about arms length her powers are a deal stronger, able to move things fairly freely, but even then she isn't going to be lifting houses up or anything. She can move herself and her sword with complete freedom, and she can speak mentally to it - though not anyone else. Weather it can or not remains unknown.

Nemesis
You have a nemesis, an epic and powerful enemy representing and embodying your doom. It�s going to take everything you have to take them down in the time you have left.
Who is your nemesis? Jabberwocky

At the end of every session, answer the question: Did you make progress on defeating your nemesis? If the answer is yes, mark potential. If the answer is no, mark your doom track.

Doom
You�re doomed. Your powers may be killing you, or maybe you�re hunted ruthlessly, or maybe you embody an apocalypse. But one way or another, your future is grim. What brings your doom closer?
Injuring Innocents and Showing Mercy damage the holy nature of the blade, forcing it to drain even more of my life to heal itself. I think the latter offends it more than anything else, but... it still hurts it.

Whenever you bring your doom closer, mark one box on your doom track.
Doom Track: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
When your doom track fills, clear it and take one of your doomsigns.

Doomsigns
These are abilities that come to you with your approaching doom. Once you have taken all five doomsigns above the line, you must take �Your doom arrives� the next time your doom track fills.
Infinite Powers: Mark your doom track to use an ability from any playbook, one time.

Sanctuary
You have a place where you can rest, recover, and reflect upon your powers.
- a scattering of ancient relics
- a meditation space
- a teleportal
- draws dangerous attention
- tied intricately to your doom

My Sanctuary are the same ruins I found Snicker-snack and Jabberwocky in, or nearly. Those collapsed, but underneath them was a larger ruin, created by the same people who forged Snicker-snack, and it's full of the same protective carvings, and other holy or magical artifacts. The sword won't tell me about the people who made it, but it will explain what a thing is, and how to use it. The entire place is very peaceful, calming and comforting, but using the portal to get there and back sends a signal Jabberwocky can recognize, and helps it find me, and the portal, and all the artifacts, need my life energy to function, bringing me closer to the end every time I use it. Still, sometimes I need to be alone.

When you call upon the resources of your sanctuary to solve a problem, say what you want to do. The GM will give you one to four conditions you must fulfill to complete your solution:
❑ First, you must _______________________
❑ You�ll need help from ___________________
❑ You and your team will risk danger from ______
❑ The best you can do is a lesser version, unreliable and limited
❑ You�ll need to mark one box on your doom track
❑ You�ll have to obtain ___________________

Stats
Danger +2
Freak +1
Savior +1
Superior -1
Mundane 0

Moment of Truth
The prickly tingling fear of your doom, always in your head�it holds you back most of the time. But right here, right now? It gives you the confidence to do anything. After all, what�s the worst that could happen? Is it worse than your doom? Do impossible things. Do anything. But mark a doomsign after you�re finished.

Team Moves
When you share a triumphant celebration with someone, give them Influence over you and spend 1 Team from the pool to clear one box on your doom track.

When you share a vulnerability or weakness with someone, give them Influence over you and ask if they honestly think there�s hope for you. If they say yes, mark potential or clear one box of your doom track. If they say no, mark a condition or mark your doom track.

Relationships
You told _______________ all about your doom and the danger you�re in.
You�d love to kiss ________________ before your doom comes.

Influence
These people matter for what you need to do. Give Influence to two of your teammates

quote:

What made you decide to join the academy?

Two reasons, really. The first is, I'm not strong enough to defeat Jabberwocky yet - if I ever will be, so I need to get stronger, and what's a better place to train in heroics than the Justice Alliance's Hero Training Academy? The second, I'm not safe to be around. I can't stop Jabberwocky from hurting other people, and since it'll keep coming for me I can either go somewhere alone and isolated, and wait for it to kill me, or I can go to where the other heroes can stop it if it shows up. They can't kill it, but if they can keep putting it down as I get stronger... I might make it long enough.

...And I don't want to be alone. I'm going to die, and I only have, what, a year? five years? maybe less even if I don't win, and then poof, gone. No more Claire. I can't stand the idea of spending that entirely alone, hunted and afraid. At school, I can at least pretend to have a normal life again.

quote:

Which hero sponsored your entrance into the academy? What did you do to impress them?

I'm pretty sure it was Titanica - was in the area when Jabberwocky showed up, and was one of the ones who took me to the hospital. After the second attack, she and Goldboy brought me along with them to keep an eye on while the experts worked out what to do with me. They both made it clear I wasn't to get involved with their fights, and had me sit safely out of the way. But she tends to... cause a lot of collateral damage (she can grow really really big) and towards the end of the fight a piece of bridge got sent flying right towards a car full of people. I couldn't just stand there, let it happen, and Snicker-snack was 'yelling' in my head to move, so I did. I launched myself between them, sliced the piece in half before I'd entirely realized what I was doing, and pushed both halves aside, saving the people. The next day, she asked me if I wanted to go to the Academy.

quote:

Tell me about that one interesting person in your class!

Elly - Eclipse - is my favorite classmate. She has 'Darkness' powers, control over shadows, that sort of thing. You'd expect someone like her to be all broody and "I AM OF THE NIGHT" right? Well she isn't. She's probably the friendliest person I've met, doesn't take anything very seriously, always has a good joke. I always feel a little better hanging out with her, it's hard to take things as seriously when she's around. Really 'lightens' the mood, heh.

quote:

What's your favorite class? What about least favorite?

Gym and Math. I'm super fast and super strong, so ordinary gym would be really easy, but this is a school for superheroes! The different ways people can move and the powers they use for games like dodgeball and soccer and all that are just crazy. It's like watching a really high budget movie every time we practice. Of course... I can't really use most of my powers, because I have to avoid hurting anyone, which is definitely a pain. And math... well, people always say you'll use it when you get older and I don't entirely believe that anyway, but I'm not going to be getting older, so this is entirely a huge waste of time. At least Snicker-snack is pretty good at complex equations, for some reason.

quote:

What do you like to do in your free time?

Train.

quote:

New Arcadia�s a pretty sweet place, isn�t it? Tell me about that one cool place you like!

Okay, I don't always train. Sometimes I go to the Ye Olde New Arcadia Pizza and Arcade. They have some of the best pinball machines I've ever used, a good selection of other arcade stuff, and really good cheap pizza. Easily the best place in the entire city. My hometown isn't bad or anything, but you could never find a place like this there.

...Yeah I pretty much spend the entire time I'm not training, in class, meditating in my Sanctuary or fighting villains in here. I've even got a special discount card for being such a good customer. Don't look at me like that!

GodFish fucked around with this message at 05:19 on Jan 24, 2017

# ¿ Jan 23, 2017 09:27

GodFish: Oct 10, 2012; We're your first, last, and only line of defense. We live in secret. We exist in shadow.

And we dress in black.

Tardzilla posted:

- Wow, that's rough. Nobody should ever have to deal with a fate like that. What's the one thing you want to do before your time is up?

Thanks for the sympathy.

Did that seem a little dry? Well, I've heard it often enough, doesn't do much to help though. That's why I prefer not to mention it much. Just gets people acting sorry for me, when I'd rather just treated me like normal, or maybe like normal but with extra free pizza and floats.

One thing? One thing... Tricky... There's a lot of things I'd like to do, but just one... It's a bit selfish, considering I'm going to die, and leave them all alone, but... I'd like to date someone. Not just one date, but be together, dating. Watch movies together, make-out in front of the stars, sneak out of class to go joyriding, whatever. Couple stuff. Mushy, romantic garbage.

Tardzilla posted:

What would let you pass on with no regrets?

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
She left it dead, and with its head
She went galumphing back.

Tardzilla posted:

- The sword talks to you? What does it usually talk to you about?

At first it was pretty limited. Talked about how to use its powers, the demon, that sort of thing. In a fight, it usually has good insights about the battlefield, what to do, probably from it's experience fighting in the past, and it's general telepathic powers.

I think I've... corrupted it or something though, because these days when we aren't in a serious situation, it mostly wants to talk about classic anime and TV shows. I really shouldn't have left it around while I was binge watching shows in the hospital, because it eats that stuff up. I suppose being stuck in a ruin for centuries must be really boring, because it tries to eat up every bit of history and pop culture it can get it's hands on. At least recently it's started paying attention to the Hero news, so I can ask it for information about that stuff if it comes up in class or we meet one.

Still, you don't know what annoying is until you're trying to focus on an arcade game and you have a literal voice in your head bugging you to go home so it can watch the next episode of "My Totally Irresponsible Ninja Past!" I don't even like that show!

Tardzilla posted:

Also, what is it about showing mercy that offends it? Is it one of those "all evil must be punished" sort of things?

"Suffer Not Evil."

That kind of idea. It's definitely an "all evil must be punished" mindset, but it's also a bit of an extension of the "harm no innocents" thing. If I stop a criminal, and then allow them to go free and they commit another crime, I might be less guilty of it, but that blood is still on my hands, because I could have stopped it, and didn't. I don't... really agree with that, but... that's how the sword views it. I sees things very black and white, which I suppose is fitting based on it's color scheme. And being a sword. "When all you have is a hammer..."

Tardzilla posted:

- What's the most interesting artifact you've found in your sanctuary? What makes it stick out above the rest? Is there a special significance to it?

So, there's a whole lot of artifacts in the sanctuary. I don't have a clue what most of them do, Snicker-snack can usually guide mt to one if there's one that'll help me with what I need, and sometimes I'll just pick one up to find out what it is or does, which is more or less what happened with this one. A lot of them seem to have some kind of combat relating use, which kind of gave me the wrong impression of whoever built this place. But then I found the... I don't really have a good name for it. It's some kind of instrument, a small flute maybe, and it was tucked away inside a stone box, I didn't realize it was a box for awhile, which is why it took so long to find. But it immediately stood out, mostly because of how it looks.

Now, most of the stuff in my Sanctuary isn't alive, like Snicker-snack. He's pretty unique. This one isn't either, but it has a similar telekinetic effect. When I play it, instead of making music, it makes memories and emotions. Good ones though, it only makes happy memories, brings back good times, even ones you've forgotten, like the first hug you ever got. I probably wouldn't have made it without that, being able to go to the Sanctuary and play it to comfort myself. I've never tried it around anyone else though, I wonder if it'd work on anyone but the person using it? But really, any culture that would make that can't be one that values war. I wish I could have met whoever built this place.

GodFish fucked around with this message at 12:34 on Feb 4, 2017

# ¿ Jan 27, 2017 06:58

GodFish: Oct 10, 2012; We're your first, last, and only line of defense. We live in secret. We exist in shadow.

And we dress in black.

Relationships
You told Sanguine all about your doom and the danger you�re in.
Sanguine is really strong. Physically, obviously, but he seems emotionally together as well. I don't like talking about what's going to happen to me, but I couldn't go on without telling anyone, and if - when the Jabberwocky attacks, I think he's our best hope of driving it off until I'm strong enough to kill it. And even then, I'll probably need all the help I can get. It helps to have someone know too, especially since I trust him not to spread it around. Most of the rest of the team doesn't seem that... reliable.

You�d love to kiss Psychosoma before your doom comes.
There's just something about her. She's so... pure, but at the same time, I've heard people talking about how she's connected to Phantom, and some people actually think she is going to become Phantom? That's crazy. But if it's true, or... possibly true - I don't get time travel stuff, it's all way too confusing - then she's sort of like me. A fate hanging over her head. And she's real pretty...

Influence
These people matter for what you need to do. Give Influence to two of your teammates.
Sanguine and Psychosoma

--

Voting for Sanguine for Team Leader, no vote for name.

--

When our team first came together...
We paid a high cost for victory. What was it?

Did you ever go to the Hydroponic Gardens? They were really incredible, Dryad and Undine's -two of the teachers- pet project. They'd spent years building it, and they grew nearly all the food used for meals on campus there. Along with that, it was a good place to relax if I didn't have time to go to the arcade or visit my Sanctuary, just for a few minutes to be around nature, all that green and water sounds. Very peaceful. Unfortunately, in order to put out the non-living fire before it could spread any further, we had to take the water from the Gardens and use it all up. We saved a good portion of the city, and the gardens would have gone up anyway, but... it's a shame that all the plants died, and I'm not sure how long it'll take them to get it running again.

Better than the campus and city burning down though.

GodFish fucked around with this message at 08:40 on Feb 6, 2017

# ¿ Feb 5, 2017 10:02

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > The Game Room > [Masks!] We Needed To Destroy The School To Save It