Hollyhock and Ash

A blog (previously also under the name eternity-braid) for tabletop roleplaying content mostly based on the works of Jenna Moran. And for tabletop roleplaying content about trauma and PTSD. Also home to A User's Guide to the Apocalypse, that one huge book about the Replay Value Homestuck AU

[hollyhockash]

Hi, I don't expect you to answer since your blog's been inactive for. . . 5 years, it seems, but all the same I'll ask - what is the last/latest version of A User's Guide To The Apocalypse? All the links in your nav are tied to your old URL and attempts to reroute end up breaking links regardless. Sorry for the hassle!

Here's it on Google drive for now

I'll try to figure out a more permanent arrangement at some point, but this should work for another couple years at least.

[geostatonary]

Glitch RPG Resources by Geostatonary

Reference sheets and resources for Jenna Moran's Glitch RPG

I've updated this to correct some longstanding errors and to add more community content

[hollyhockash]

A Glitch Lifepath

A Glitch Lifepath, the main instructions

Building Ganedil Istrian, an example of how to use it, written by Juniper Roan

The Glitch book's character creation section (chapter 5) mentions a whole bunch of thematics, like Sphere and Bane and Technique, but has no real guidance about what they might look like. I wanted to fix that. So I decided to make a lifepath.

This is based on the lifepath system seen in Nobilis 3rd ed. and Diary of Deceivers, the one with two keys and a bunch of circles you write in. Then I trimmed out the requirement to draw the circles so that I could write it in a flat text document. (You can use the bubble rules from either of those books if you'd prefer.)

Hopefully this helps those of you who are eyeing the game, or who have it but don't know what to do with it!

[hollyhockash]

Your Bane/Curse: a preview

I'm working on a lifepath for Glitch, because Nobilis 3rd edition and Diary of Deceivers contain lifepaths, but Glitch does not. Here's the bit about how to pick a Bane/Curse (though I haven't put the flower keys in because I haven't finalized them yet).

Your Bane/Curse

Something is killing you. Something about Creation Glitched and threw you out of the normal world, and the raw edges left by this scrape and tear at you. This is the thing that sucks your life away: this is your Bane.

The nature of your Bane

A High Concept You're dying of something abstract, philosophical, or perceptual, like Solidity, Identity, or Subjectivity.

Something All Too Mundane You're dying of something that anyone else might interact with in their normal daily lives, like Subscriptions, Erasers, or Light.

Self-Evident What kills you is something that, you know, kills people. Like Bombs, Car Crashes, or Poison.

Seemingly Nonsensical You are dying of a non sequitur that is honestly rather ridiculous: something like Blood Vessels, Examples, or Class Action Lawsuits.

(open the readmore for two more of these lists)

The conceptual color of your Bane

Too Much Of A Good Thing You're being killed by something that few people would consider an affliction. Something like Laughter, Hope, or Beauty.

Something Genuinely Bad You're being killed by something that most normal people would agree with you is a bad thing: along the lines of Stalkers, Dementia, or Despair.

Broken For You, Personally You're being killed by something that could, I suppose, be argued to be good or bad by someone else, but that definitely has it out for you in particular. For example, Cars, Locks, or Eye Contact.

No Obvious Moral Valence You're being killed by something that has no clear relationship to morality, like Smells, Ice, or Spherical Things.

Your Curse

How, precisely, does your Bane kill you?

Directly Sometimes it's blindingly obvious how your Bane kills you. You're dying of trains, so you get hit by trains. You're dying of crowds, so you get trampled. You're dying of bees, so you are regularly stung by bees and it sends you into anaphylactic shock.

With Logical Sequelae This one's a bit more glancing: the thing that kills you is not your Bane itself, but what it does to you. You're dying of sound, so the sensory overload makes you helpless. You're dying of chocolate, so you end up eating yourself. You're dying of cats, so they sit on and in everything, depriving you of chairs, beds, food, and transportation.

With A Metaphor Especially with a really abstract Bane, you might end up reifying a metaphor. You're dying of paranoia, so the cops you imagine show up to arrest you. You're dying of pareidolia, so the faces you keep seeing into things come alive and taunt you until you break. You're dying of dilemmas, so every time you face a decision it turns into a pickle (literally).

Self-Inflicted Like the animal that mutilates itself to escape a trap, the real damage isn't done by your Bane: it's the way that you are forced to respond to your Bane that eats you alive. You instinctively erase your memories so as not to remember your mistakes. When faced with the fact that people will disagree with each other, you stop being able to comprehend language.

Seemingly Unrelated Your Curse appears to be totally unrelated to your Bane. You're dying of hope, which manifests as spontaneous combustion. You're dying of being seen, which means you are speared through by shattered glass.

[hollyhockash]

Cheshire the Unmasked, of the School Disciplinary Committee

As you might know from the corebook of Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine (a PDF of which is, incidentally, presently in a BLM charity bundle on drivethrurpg), School - the main high school of Town, located in the Horizon district - is run by an anime-style all-powerful student council. They maintain dungeons, within which bubble vats of transformative blood-toxin; they are each looking for a way to create a new world; and to a one they are cruel and ironfisted.

Someone from the Jenna Moran Fanclub Chat is presently working on a campaign set within School; I wrote an NPC for it whose situation - considering recent news - has suddenly become very, very topical.

- - - -

Cheshire the Unmasked is the Life-Pleader (devil’s advocate or defense attorney) for School’s Disciplinary Committee. Her role is to investigate and defend people who have been accused of the higher crimes, and to propose revisions to the School rules as times change. In contrast to everyone else associated with the Student Council, she wears a mask everywhere outside of her duties, and takes it off and wears an open face for disciplinary hearings.

She believes that reform from the inside is the only way to make the Student Council less… like that. She is clever, good at picking up on hypocrisies, and well-spoken; she is reasonable when you argue against her, and she backs changes of the rules. But, because of her inner-circle position, her willingness to make monstrous compromises to keep her position safe, she is still complicit:

She knows why some of the students sent to clean out the blood tanks begin to wear the dead colors afterwards, and why those who come back out of Lee Scathing’s labs startle too easily and flinch away from touch for months. She has seen many made into examples, or used as sacrificial pieces in political arrangements. She cannot save them all. She does not try.

To be clear: I do not think Cheshire is, fundamentally, a bad person. She is genuinely trying to do good. But her presence props up the system she believes herself to be dismantling. Her proposals of incremental reform are being used as release valves for unrest, a quarter-turn of one rule or another to let the student body believe that petitions and walkouts do something meaningful. And in so doing, she prevents the Student Council from being overthrown.

Cheshire’s name is one of the nine signatures on every detention sentence that comes out of the Disciplinary Committee’s closed-door meetings. And if she ends up against you, you would do well to remind her of that.

Cheshire has the skills

Respectful Debate 3

Investigation 3

Skateboarding 2

And I think she also gets Gatekeeper 2:

She doesn’t let herself realize her role in sanctioning the Disciplinary Committee’s acts.

She has access to School’s disciplinary records.

She can detain people who have broken the School rules.

She is allowed, and expected, to pressure “favors” out of delinquents.

[hollyhockash]

Feeling guilty is not a form of activism.

To be completely clear about my position: Racism is bad and the police are being incredibly terrible right now.

I could make many more strident statements, but in the interest of my own mental health and that of others:

Feeling guilty is not a form of activism.

Spending all your time checking your privilege is not itself virtuous. Guilting other people by saying that "if you aren't spending all your time thinking about this, you are a bad person" is not effective praxis. In my experience, it leads to people getting stuck in guilt spirals. Triggering someone else's OCD episode is not helping the world.

I think guilt-as-an-end-in-itself is a remnant of Puritan culture, a form of self-punishment that you were supposed to engage in because you were afraid of God. I can't be sure of this, and even if I was, I don't know how I'd back it up with citations. But my parents were Asian immigrants, so I inherited a rather different set of neuroses, and this is what I see.

Human brains were not built to watch helplessly as people suffer far away. Bystander PTSD is a thing that exists. It is OK to pull back and focus on what you can control in your life. It is OK for you to take care of yourself and the people around you. We need to support each other emotionally, too.

It's a lot of work - real work - to be trans, to deal with PTSD, to have chronic health issues. If you, like me, are severely depressed, if you have OCD, if you have CFS/ME, if all you can manage to accomplish on a good day is rolling out of bed and you're lucky if you manage to cook an actual dinner: Existing while disabled, continuing to live and find occasional moments of joy despite being "objectively unproductive", is already a protest. You are defying capitalism and ableism by continuing to exist.

As the information leaflet in an airplane says, you need to put on your own oxygen mask first before you help others. Otherwise you will pass out and be useless for both yourself and anyone else.

Please take care of yourself. Please take care of each other.

[hollyhockash]

World-Class Wonder (full quest set)

[an Aspect quest set about focused practice at the highest levels of a sport or art] [full Shepherd and Storyteller arcs available]

You’re good at something. In fact, you’re one of the best in the world. This is about how you get even better at it, and some of the things that happen along the way.

This quest set is for chess grandmasters, world-record speedrunners, Olympic gymnasts, and marathon runners alike: because being at the top of your field is a peculiarly similar experience, no matter what you're doing.

This quest set consists of five quests, each with a full-size and simplified version. I am posting them in the order in which you would play them for Aspect. Here’s a quickref of the quests, their XP numbers, and the arcs they can go on:

Practice Makes... (20-30/35 XP) (Aspect 1/Shepherd 1/Storyteller 3)

A New Perspective (25/35 XP) (Aspect 2/Shepherd 2/Storyteller 1/2)

Exhibition Match (25/45 XP) (Aspect 3/Shepherd 5/Storyteller 2)

A Rivalry (30/45 XP) (Aspect 4/Shepherd 3/4/Storyteller 4)

The Moments You Missed (20/30 XP) (Aspect 5/Shepherd 3/Storyteller 5)

Arc Features

On this quest set, you will need to define a Sport: the thing you are one of the best at, and the thing you are continuing to work on. While it does not have to literally be a traditional sport, it is competitive and easily measurable. (Thus, pure mathematics research isn’t really appropriate; it has to be Math Olympiad.) Usually it is also a thing where you are ultimately a solo competitor. (Team sports, for example, could probably be shoehorned into this quest set with some modification, but they’re not what I built this set for.) The Sport also has a community of practice - a lot of other people who also know the Skill and are also trying to get better at it.

Your Sport needs to be on your character sheet as a mortal skill (although it’s okay if the wording of what the skill is called is slightly different), and it will almost always be rated 3 or 4. This is because this quest set is designed for things that you've worked hard to get to a very high level at, and I believe that this kind of work must be done on the mortal level. A few people may get away with the skill at 2, if it’s backed by a Bondfliction or miracle that makes you The Very Best, or if it’s something absurdly niche like speedrunning Action 52’s The Cheetahmen, but that’s not recommended.

Also, your Sport is something you genuinely love pursuing. This is something you willingly give up large parts of your life to practice. This quest set is not designed for an outside authority forcing you to pursue the Sport. If you need an explanation as to why this is the case, see the Arc Notes.

Skills for this quest are things like:

chess

gymnastics

go (the board game)

martial arts

musical instrument(s) such as violin or piano

competitive dueling

competitive magic dueling

stunt flying (with a plane, or wings)

a competitive video game, like a fighting game or head-to-head Starcraft

video game speedrunning

swimming

track and field (running, and things adjacent to running)

The conceptual penumbra of your Sport skill here will be quite large, and you can use it for a lot of different things. Not only are you comfortable with practicing your Sport and things related to it, you have an extensive network of contacts related to the Sport, you can teach the Sport reasonably well, and you’ll regularly find financial or fame-related opportunities related to your Sport (such as speaking engagements, getting free trips to play video games pre-release, or offers to put your face on the cover of national magazines). I mean, obviously you will still have an Obstacle 3 to use Swimming to fix a clothes dryer, but even then the HG should let you have a relatively free hand here. Maybe when you give up and call someone else to repair it, they turn out to be a big fan of you and give you a discount?

You will also have a Community. This is a group of people who are also pursuing your Sport. At least some of them will be roughly equal to your skill level, and you regularly compete with them on a friendly basis; they are also, to an extent, a social club. This is because when you are incredibly interested in something, and other people are also incredibly interested in something, and you often interact with each other in the context of competitions, you already have a lot of surface area to bond over.

Arc Notes

Aspect arc

Practice Makes...

A New Perspective

Exhibition Match

A Rivalry

The Moments You Missed

This is the original order of this quest set, and fairly straightforward. Your routine involves practicing every day and not really getting anywhere. Then you discover another school of thought. After that, you show off your skills to lots of people. If you continue on, you could end up in a dramatic rivalry, and might also have to confront the fact that you've lost touch with another part of your life.

Shepherd arc

Practice Makes...

A New Perspective

A Rivalry or The Moments You Missed

A Rivalry

Exhibition Match

In the Shepherd version of this quest set, your ordinary routine of practice every day is disrupted by your discovery of a new school of thought, and you work through that for a while. After that, you either finally manage to demonstrate yourself as someone's equal or come to terms with how much you haven't been able to do. Beyond that, you might participate in a legendary battle with another titan in your Sport. And possibly, eventually, you go around showing off just how good you are.

Storyteller arc

A New Perspective

A New Perspective or Exhibition Match

Practice Makes...

A Rivalry

The Moments You Missed

You find yourself suddenly interested in a new way to approach your Sport. Then you either continue to pursue that path to try to wring more results out of it, or you spend some time trying to show other people that this way is better. Eventually, you end up lost and at an impasse as to what to do next. Perhaps you are pushed to new heights by a personal desire to best a rival, and might find yourself facing the fact that you've pushed aside "little" things that are no longer quite so little.

Distinct lack of Emptiness arc

This quest set is designed for a Sport that you give up large parts of your life to practice. On the Aspect, Shepherd, and Storyteller arcs, you do this (mostly) willingly and gladly, and the bad parts come from how much of your life you give up to pursue it. As best as I can tell, then, the Emptiness arc for this quest set would be for you to break because pursuing this would force you to lose other things you cared about.

I can’t write that arc.

To explain why, let me tell you a story.

I am classically trained in piano. Part of piano classical training is to learn to play complex songs from memory. There is a special type of recital - piano competitions, in my case, although I assume there exist similar events for other instruments - where you go about showing off your memorized song playing to judges, who then rate you for your performance/interpretation and award medals, much like figure skating or gymnastics routines.

My sister and I were at one such competition. They had practice rooms, one piano to one soundproofed tiny room. These pianos were in the practice rooms because they were broken in some way; almost all had strings (and thus notes) missing, and some had actual keys missing. When I got to the venue, I went to one of these practice rooms and did some last-minute rehearsal of my song. Eventually, my performance timeslot rolled around, and so I performed the song in front of the judges and an audience, and did so reasonably well.

I was later told (by my other parent, on the ride back home) that my younger sister, when confronted with these practice rooms, went to each piano, said “this piano is broken, so I can’t practice at it”, and demanded to go to a different room, and did this again and again until her actual performance timeslot came up. Then she completely failed to perform the song, as she hadn’t actually memorized how to play it.

We had been given the same amount of training, put through the same amount of required practice, and expected to perform the same. But I wanted to be good at piano, and she didn’t, and in the end that was all that mattered.

(Later on, I encountered depression, and also moved away from that piano teacher, so I stopped. But that’s another story.)

To write this Emptiness arc, then, would be to assert that it is possible to train someone to the highest levels of performance without their consent. Certainly, it is possible to train someone to bare proficiency if you use enough force. But for someone to reach the highest levels of their craft, they have to want it with all their heart. The truly world class spend their days planning out what they want to try next, and their nights dreaming of innovations. That drive can't be forced.

As such: when you experience training as Emptiness, as something that you are broken into pursuing, that’s a story so different that it cannot be fit into this quest structure.

I would know.

Practice Makes...

Aspect 1/Shepherd 1/Storyteller 3

Realistically, when you're one of the best in the world at something, you have to practice intensively every day to maintain your skills. This isn't even time spent improving yourself. This is devoting an hour or two a day just to keep the rust off.

(Mind you, in Chuubo’s realism is not really a concern, but for the purposes of this quest set, the point stands.)

Practice Makes... (35 XP)

This is the one where you are actively struggling to keep up, and it’s hard, and it feels like the goalposts keep moving.

Major Goals: The HG can award you 5 XP towards this quest when:

you suffer a minor injury such as a sprained ankle

you acquire a new nifty gadget that purports to help with your performance and then stop using it after a few tries

you hear of someone younger who is more talented and better than you

You can earn each bonus once, for a total of up to 15 XP.

Quest flavor: 1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP for this quest when you:

wait all day for something that was supposed to be done within an hour or so, with no explanation as to what’s taking so long

get up extremely early for practice

eat a granola bar

write emails or letters to other people in your Community

wash your hands carefully and thoroughly with soap

do maintenance on the equipment you use for your Sport

irrevocably screw up a practice run or practice test and have to start over

You can combine this with an XP action, but you're not required to.

Practice Makes... (Simplified) (20-30 XP)

This is the one where you’re just... practicing. You know? It’s not really such a big deal. (This version is not suited for use on the Storyteller arc.)

This is a Shepherd anytime quest, where the catchphrase is something like “I need to go to practice”.

A New Perspective

Aspect 2/Shepherd 2/Storyteller 1/2

You change the focus of your studies/practices. Sometimes you're looking into a different school of thought (studying AlphaGo's record instead of historical Go games). Sometimes you are focusing on a different specialization (speedrunning glitchless instead of glitched).

A New Perspective (35 XP)

This is for when changing your practice opens up a whole new field of opportunity.

Major Goals: The HG can award you 5 XP towards this quest when:

you acquire a major upgrade for the equipment you use for your Sport

you take a complete break from your Sport, doing your best to push it out of mind, for at least a Chapter

you establish a way that you can practice your Sport without actually literally playing through it (thinking through chess problems instead of playing chess; practicing high diving moves suspended on ropes above a trampoline; using one of those extremely good trumpet mute microphones that digitally processes it back into sounding like a real trumpet)

You can earn each bonus once, for a total of up to 15 XP.

Quest flavor: 1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP for this quest when you:

study videos of someone else practicing your Skill

attempt a new trick and completely fail at it

practice as the sun rises

calculate probabilities

repeat a nonsensical word or phrase (that you are presumably using as a mnemonic device ICly) to yourself several times

catch something someone throws at you

drink the entire contents of a water bottle in one long gulp

You can combine this with an XP action, but you're not required to.

A New Perspective (Simplified) (25 XP)

This breakthrough is not such a big deal.

Major Goals: The HG can award you 5 XP towards this quest when:

you successfully come up with a setup or technique that allows you to perform what was previously an inconsistent trick consistently

you achieve a new personal best (distance? time? ELO? perfect replication of every note? whatever it is for your sport)

You can earn each bonus once, for a total of up to 10 XP.

Quest flavor: 1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP for this quest when you:

practice in front of a mirror

write a checklist (following through with using it is optional)

carry an extremely heavy bag or backpack

ask for help

drink the entire contents of a water bottle in one long gulp

You can combine this with an XP action, but you're not required to.

Exhibition Match

Aspect 3/Shepherd 5/Storyteller 2

You attend a handful of events that are more about raising your profile than about serious competition. Often these are charity events. Sometimes you are involved in organizing or instigating them. Getting to these events is arduous, and the physical conditions under which you’re performing are not the greatest. But the energy of the crowd rooting for you keeps you going.

Exhibition Match (45 XP)

This one is for when you go traveling or touring.

Major Goals: The HG can award you 5 XP towards this quest when:

you physically meet someone you know from your Community for the very first time

you push yourself to appear and perform despite being sick (usually with a bad cold)

you warn the people watching you that this stunt has never been done in front of a crowd before because it is incredibly scary, chancy, and/or dangerous, do it, and somehow succeed

you set up your equipment or practice despite being in a space wildly unsuitable for it (such as hauling your GameCube and CRT monitor out on a camping trip, or having someone pass you your electric keyboard through a window while you dangle outside on ropes)

You can earn each bonus once, for a total of up to 20 XP.

Quest flavor: 1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP for this quest when you:

take a long plane trip or bus ride

practice in front of a crowd

set up or practice in a place only somewhat unsuitable for it (such as doing a multi-hour running session on some random hotel treadmill, or hauling your thousand-piece wargame out onto the deck of a cruise ship)

eat junk food

connect with a stranger over your shared love of the Sport

are recognized by a slightly-too-adoring fan

have a bad dream about failing in front of everyone

use hand sanitizer

You can combine this with an XP action, but you're not required to.

Exhibition Match (Simplified) (25 XP)

For if you want less travel.

Major Goals: The HG can award you 5 XP towards this quest when:

you compete with someone from out of town

you spend a night on the couch of someone you originally met in your sport’s Community (e.g. staying for a night or two while traveling; having a sleepover; your home being temporarily inaccessible since it’s being fumigated)

You can earn each bonus once, for a total of up to 10 XP.

Quest flavor: 1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP for this quest when you:

sit somewhere extremely uncomfortable

drink your third cup of coffee

solicit donations for a charity from friends

wear an embarrassing piece of clothing someone dared you to

have a bad dream about failing in front of everyone

You can combine this with an XP action, but you're not required to.

A Rivalry

Aspect 4/Shepherd 3/4/Storyteller 4

You compete seriously with someone else - someone so good that people half-jokingly wonder if maybe they sold their soul. (Or maybe they're just cheating with steroids or money or video editing, but you can't prove that. Not during this particular quest, anyway.) It is absolutely infuriating. It also drives you to heights of achievement that you have never before attained.

A Rivalry (45 XP)

This one is for when the rivalry is highly structured and has an audience and so on.

Major Goals: The HG can award you 5 XP towards this quest when:

you lose. No qualifiers. You weren’t at a major disadvantage like being injured or sleep-deprived, they weren’t visibly playing dirty, you just straight-up lose and acknowledge it as such.

you invent and demonstrate a technique or trick for your Sport that was previously thought impossible (such as a quintuple jump in ice skating)

your winning celebration is interrupted by a referee’s ruling that it didn’t actually count

someone from the Rival's end of your Community (insofar as there are different sub-social-circles in your Community in the first place) gives you insider information

You can earn each bonus once, for a total of up to 20 XP.

Quest flavor: 1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP for this quest when you:

skip a barrier

have practiced so long through the night that you find you’re still doing so in the morning

wake up only a few minutes before practice is due to start, and have to rush to get ready

wander into a scene while talking to yourself about strategy

analyze footage/records of your Rival’s past performances for potential weaknesses

clean/maintain your equipment

stop in the middle of washing your face in the sink and stare up at yourself in the mirror, dripping wet

wipe sweat off your brow

You can combine this with an XP action, but you're not required to.

A Rivalry (Simplified) (30 XP)

This rivalry is more unofficial/informal.

Major Goals: The HG can award you 5 XP towards this quest when:

someone threatens to hurt you or ruin your reputation, but you don’t back down

you do something absurd to try to enhance your performance

you don’t show up at an event your rival shows up to, and they’re crowing about it

You can earn each bonus once, for a total of up to 15 XP.

Quest flavor: 1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP for this quest when you:

crack nut shells with your teeth

wake up only a few minutes before practice is due to start, and have to rush to get ready

use a stopwatch or timer

clean/maintain your equipment

wipe sweat off your brow

shake someone's hand

You can combine this with an XP action, but you're not required to.

The Moments You Missed

Aspect 5/Shepherd 3/Storyteller 5

There is someone you haven't gotten to meet, or some part of your life that you lost, because you've been focusing so much on your sport. Maybe you receive an invitation to a family wedding that you had no idea was coming even though you should’ve figured it out. Maybe you had to miss your high school graduation. Maybe you realize that you hadn’t met your new niece for the entire first year of her life.

Perhaps you couldn’t have stopped for it. More likely you’d made the tradeoff knowingly, let it pass by for the sake of the Sport you love. How are you supposed to make up for something like that?

The Moments You Missed (30 XP)

This is the one where you go full-on doubting yourself.

Major Goals: The HG can award you 5 XP towards this quest when:

you construct a coherent story of how things could’ve gone differently, thinking through what other decisions you’d have made if you’d been less wrapped up in your Sport

you get sick in an ordinary, Sport-unrelated way

someone in your Community helps you out of a bad situation

You can earn each bonus once, for a total of up to 15 XP.

Quest flavor: 1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP for this quest when you:

take an extremely, extremely long shower

fixate on how you could’ve done things differently

compare something in ordinary life to something in your Sport

make an extremely obvious mistake in your Sport that you should really have caught earlier

distract yourself from negative feelings by throwing yourself into your Sport instead

peel the shell off a hard-boiled egg

You can combine this with an XP action, but you're not required to.

The Moments You Missed (Simplified) (20 XP)

This is the one for when you have already gone through this a couple times, and have more or less made your peace with the fact that your Sport will make you miss things.

Major Goals: The HG can award you 5 XP towards this quest when:

you watch a home video of someone else’s major life event

a teacher, coach, and/or mentor retires, moves away, or otherwise exits your life permanently

You can earn each bonus once, for a total of up to 10 XP.

Quest flavor: 1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP for this quest when you:

repair something

haul old toys or clothes to a donation center

do stretches

talk about what you "should" be doing

You can combine this with an XP action, but you're not required to.

[hollyhockash]

So there's this new meme format...

(Text from "A Far and a Sunless Land" by Jenna Moran, as written in the Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine corebook)

[thestuffedalligator]

On a small farm outside of a small town in Canada, a horde of four-hundred thirteenth-century Mongol soldiers on horseback rode out through a hole in time and space.

One of them had a thick leather glove, on which a golden eagle perched. Its handler reached up, slipped the little hood off the eagle’s head, and flicked his wrist. It took off, caught a thermal, soared in a lazy arc, dove, spread its talons forward, and then hit a window with a thunk.

Daniel DiSebastian, who was fifteen and on the other side of the window, stared. The eagle had managed to sink its talons into the mesh of the window screen before it stunned itself. It was hanging upside down. Over it, Dan saw a horde of four-hundred thirteenth-century Mongol soldiers standing in formation in his neighbour’s field.

He stared for a moment longer. Curiosity won over self-preservation, and he walked out onto the porch of the house for a better view.

There was a ripping noise, the sound of panicked flapping, and something huge and tawny swooped low over Dan’s head. He ducked and only just managed to see the golden eagle fly in a wide circle back towards the horde of waiting soldiers. He heard a distant shout. Then two-hundred-and-forty of the soldiers drew their bows and fired into the air, creating a screaming cloud of arrows that blotted out the sun before raining down in a lethal shower.

Eighty-seven of these arrows hit Dan.

Dan died instantly.

He got better. When he did, the horde was already gone.

*

Eleven months later, Dan was mostly sure that whatever had happened that day eleven months ago had not, in fact, happened.

He was very happy to accept that it hadn’t happened until he walked into a Tim Hortons for a coffee and a donut and walked out to find a golden eagle perched on the sign for the drive-through.

Dan blinked. The eagle blinked. It took off with a heavy thump of wings, and Dan noticed the four-hundred thirteenth-century Mongol soldiers on horseback in the parking lot.

There was a whistling noise. Dan was hit by one-hundred-and-seventy-nine-arrows.

Dan died instantly.

He got better. The horde was gone again. One of them had stolen his donut.

*

It was already dark when Dan and Cameron Burnaby walked out of the theatre.

“God, what a bad movie,” she laughed. Her breath came out in puffs of vapour in the November air.

“Like not even so bad it’s good,” Dan said. “It’s so bad it goes all around the world and crosses back into bad.”

“It’s supposed to be the last one, right?”

“That’s what I heard?”

Another puff of laughter. “Hope,” Cameron Burnaby said, grinning. “That’s what you hope.”

A huge bird took off from the sign over the theatre. Cameron Burnaby oohed at the sight and watched as it flew away.

Dan looked at her. This was nice. It was slow, but it was nice. It was nevertheless slightly spoiled by the little anxious voice that banged around in his hindbrain. It had been a year since his last attack. It was bound to happen eventually, and he had no idea how to bring it up in conversation. ‘So, I see you like the Mongolian beef and broccoli. Speaking of Mongolia, have I ever told you that I’ve been killed by Mongols four times?’

He had to tell her. But maybe he didn’t. Maybe they were done. It had been a whole year. Maybe killing him four times was enough for them. Surely killing somebody once was enough for most people, right?

Cameron Burnaby turned back at him and grinned. “So!” she said. “Was it the worst horror movie you’ve ever seen?”

He shook himself out of a vision of archers on horseback. “Nope, not even,” he said, walking forward again. “There was this one movie that came out last year. It’s about a guy who kidnaps tourists and turns them into walruses, it’s amazingly—”

Dan slipped on the ice. His leg flew up from underneath him. He felt sudden weightlessness and there was a crack as he landed on the sidewalk.

Everything hurt. Stars flashed across his vision. They faded to reveal the face of Cameron Burnaby, mittens clasped over her mouth. “Are you okay?” she asked.

No, Dan thought. “Yep,” Dan groaned. He pulled himself up onto his elbows. “Trust me, I’ve had worse.”

Cameron Burnaby offered him a hand. He took it, she pulled him up to his feet, and the two were suddenly standing much closer than he had expected.

Dan swallowed. He was suddenly aware of a thousand tiny details. The snowflakes that hung in her hair. The freckles on her nose. The shape of her lips. The terror in her eyes which were looking at something just over and past his shoulder.

He was briefly aware of seventeen arrows hitting the back of his skull.

Dan died instantly.

He got better. Cameron Burnaby was retching in the snow.

“What the fuck was that?!” she finally said, wiping the corner of her mouth with a mitten.

Dan considered a variety of responses. He decided that they all sounded stupid. He settled for the only one he knew was accurate. “A horde of four-hundred thirteenth-century Mongol soldiers,” he sighed.

“They – you—” She gestured wildly. “Your face.”

Dan winced and eased himself onto the sidewalk. “I didn’t want you to see that,” he said.

There was a pause. “Has this happened before?” Cameron Burnaby asked.

Dan thought. “Yeah,” he said. “Five times, counting this one.”

“So this is just a thing that happens.”

“It – yeah,” he said. “I think so. It is.”

Cameron Burnaby nodded. “Oh. Okay.”

Another pause. A car drove past. Cameron Burnaby stood up. “I’m going to go.”

Dan nodded. “Right,” he said. “Some other time?”

There was no answer. Dan closed his eyes. He laid down on the sidewalk and listened to the crunch of snow under boots until they died away. Snowflakes landed on his face, tiny pinpricks of cold which stung and faded almost instantly as they melted.

There was a thump. Dan opened his eyes and looked over. There was a golden eagle standing there, twisting its head to glare at Dan.

Dan glared back. “I hate you,” he said. “I really, deeply hate you.”

The eagle, apparently satisfied with the answer, took off.

Another two-hundred-and-forty arrows sprouted from the sky.

Dan died instantly.

He got better. Physically, at least.

Keep reading

[hollyhockash]

(Previously posted on Dreamwidth.)

So, I made a poster-size Chuubo's character sheet. It's... big. Very big. Originally the intent was to make it so that you could tape up the quest cards, but then things went a bit off the rails and I ended up with a very ornately decorated poster.

You can find the various iterations and printables over here, along with assembly instructions.

(mirror of these files on my own website if you're intent on avoiding elgoog)

[hollyhockash]

The “Gamers Against Weed” group from SCP are a set of Glitch PCs.

So. There's this group/fiction collection/shared subuniverse of SCP that's called Gamers Against Weed, which is an online chatroom with an ironic name whose membership includes several "anomalous individuals". This is not particularly unusual as SCP groups go. Only, when I read it, I keep finding bits and pieces that extremely remind me of Jenna Moran's Glitch, a tabletop RPG about trying to live with a world that is incorrect. (Well, technically, Glitch takes place in the world of Nobilis, but Nobilis 3e is unavailable on the internet anymore and 2e is from like, two decades ago.)

The trick here is that the SCP Foundation wants to contain "anomalies", which happen to include several of the members of this group; this results in a larger social context broadly similar to the status of Glitch's Chancery organization - theoretically, they're not part of any world-destroying schemes anymore, but if they draw attention, they're still going to get locked up just as fast as any other anomaly is. In the meantime, they have a chat group on the Internet, and their way of coping with absurdity, meaninglessness, gender dysphoria, and the general suckiness of the world is to try to lighten the tone of the world with pranks - pranks they try very hard to keep from causing any actual harm. (See also this tumblr thread about millenial neodada.)

So here's some examples: there's the Cool And Awesome Ways To Say No To Weed series (part 1, part 2, part 3), where the characters do such things as breaking the space inside a Denny's to get away from the consequences of accidentally spending cloned bills, finding someone by following the "coincidences" that are not coincidences that surround them, finding an Anchor and dragging her handler out through the phone line, and enacting the Cliffhanger Rite to seemingly die but actually escape. There's also the one member who is probably a world-killing superweapon who decided to stop after discovering Homestuck, and the one who left a group of "artists" because their performance art had become lethal. And the project where they're trying to make what is basically a Chancel: a safe untraceable place for people who have nowhere else to go.

...Which is to say that this is perfect enough that I'm currently reskinning it, so keep an eye out for if/when I start talking about writing and/or running a Glitch game called The Finding Lord Entropy Hot Club.

[hollyhockash]

There are less than 24 hours left to fund Glitch on Kickstarter - it's already all written and there's a PDF and everything. The Kickstarter is to pay for art commissions and a premium print run. We're almost at the stretch goal for full art replacement!

I wanted to make a character sheet that had everything relevant on it, and figured I'd take the opportunity to make it beautiful too. Here's all four pages of my printable character sheet (PDF).

[hollyhockash]

And here: my printable, extremely aesthetic Ending Book sheet for Glitch, to go with my printable character sheet. Again, found the font, found some botanical drawings, dragged text boxes around in Scribus for a few hours, and here it is.

The Kickstarter to get a premium print run ends on the 6th - the book itself is already written, but it would be nice to get the total up to 84K when the art can be commissioned custom!

Download and print:

this Ending Book sheet here

my printable character sheet here

Technically I still have two other pages of this that I haven’t posted yet, but one relies on stuff that hasn’t come out yet and the other I am still going back and forth on the design for.

[hollyhockash]

edit: have pointed the "this ending book sheet here" link to the correct place

[hollyhockash]

And here: my printable, extremely aesthetic Ending Book sheet for Glitch, to go with my printable character sheet. Again, found the font, found some botanical drawings, dragged text boxes around in Scribus for a few hours, and here it is.

The Kickstarter to get a premium print run ends on the 6th - the book itself is already written, but it would be nice to get the total up to 84K when the art can be commissioned custom!

Download and print:

this Ending Book sheet here

my printable character sheet here

Technically I still have two other pages of this that I haven't posted yet, but one relies on stuff that hasn't come out yet and the other I am still going back and forth on the design for.

[hollyhockash]

The Broken Clock (full quest set)

[a quest set about dealing with the depression associated with enormous guilt, and self-sabotaging in the process] [full Emptiness, Binding, and Shepherd arcs, but see description for significant caveats]

So. The premise of Glitch is that you are a Strategist retired from the Valde Bellum, the Excrucian War, and you're trying to make a life based on something, anything, else. But you were probably fighting said War, once, and if you were, you almost certainly did horrific things. I decided to tear open this subtext and make it text.

Glitch has quest sets, and their broad structure is similar to that in Chuubo's. There are, however, subtle differences in structure. So while you could probably lever a Chuubo's quest set into Glitch or vice versa, I thought it would be worth it to specifically write a set for this particular version of the system.

Also, the entire quest set is going to be in this post, because cutting it apart for posting seems pretty pointless.

The quests go as follows:

The Void Inside (20/35 XP) (Emptiness 1, Bindings 1, Shepherd 5)

The Past Rises (20/35 XP) (Emptiness 2, Bindings 2, Shepherd 2)

It Already Happened (30/45 XP) (Emptiness 3, Bindings 5, Shepherd 1)

Whose Knife Is It Anyway? (35/50 XP) (Emptiness 4, Bindings 3, Shepherd 4)

Instructions For Reassembly (20/30 XP) (Emptiness 5, Bindings 4, Shepherd 3)

Note that this quest set is about depression and self-sabotage/self-harm.

It is probably incredibly obvious that I am writing this from underneath an episode of crippling depression. I think this is a feature, not a bug.

This quest set takes cues from the True Lab sequence in Undertale, and the We Must Be Killers: Tales from District 2 fanfic series by lorata.

Do you know why Replay Value returns again and again to the topic of moral injury, of being forced to break or kill other people in order to survive, and trying to live with that fact? It’s not because of, as I thought at the time, the fact that the morality dimension of combat PTSD is underrepresented in fiction. It’s because -

There is just enough true horror I did that I cannot wholesale dismiss the guilt as brain lies. I was coerced to do these things under circumstances that nobody would consider me culpable, I wasn’t given a choice and was too terrified to disobey, but that doesn’t seem to matter. Even now, knowing full well that I am an adult and can just leave if this is visited upon me again, I am terrified that should someone ask me to do this again, I would buckle and fold.

...So it’s easier for me to think in terms of “terrible people should still be allowed recovery” than “I am not a terrible person.”

Arc Notes

Emptiness

The original, canonical order of the quest set.

The Void Inside - you’re trying to live a normal life and avoid any contact with the things in your past

The Past Rises - evidence piles up that no, this isn’t going to go away

It Already Happened - depression rises and swallows you whole

Whose Knife Is It Anyway? - you fight halfheartedly against some enemies because, unconsciously, you kind of want them to win

Instructions For Reassembly - you try to fix things

The thing about Emptiness is that there’s not really any more “cracking under the strain” that you can even do, anymore; far, far worse has already been visited on you. And so Emptiness 3 instead ends with you remembering something important you’d forgotten, and making a decision on how to deal with it.

Someone once asked what the point of being on a silver arc even is, because it doesn't involve "progressing" or "improving" in any visible fashion. I didn't have an answer then. I have an answer now. Emptiness arcs are the story of how you don't commit suicide. I suspect that the answer could be something less bleak, but right now that's all I have.

Bindings

The Void Inside - you’re struggling with whether you can ever live in normal society again, and it turns out that the answer is “no”

The Past Rises - you stop trying to push away your history, and try to engage with it; it’s terrifying to even face down the shape of things, but you have to know the scope of the problem before you can even try to fix it

Whose Knife Is It Anyway? - you’re being pursued by people who are trying to take revenge, and you think that if you let them succeed, maybe that’ll fix everything. Fortunately or unfortunately, they realize what you’re doing, and give up before you do.

Instructions For Reassembly - you decide that reparations are a thing you are going to have to do yourself, the hard way

It Already Happened - you are hit by the full force and scale of how much you once did, and realize that no amount of work on your part will make everything right

Bindings arcs are at least broadly similar to their Chuubo's counterparts. So there’s not much more for me to say.

Shepherd

It Already Happened - your life is a haze of gray helplessness

The Past Rises - some specific guilt manages to break out from underneath the depression

Instructions For Reassembly - you try to make up for what you’ve broken. You make it up to some people, but not enough.

Whose Knife Is It Anyway? - you put up a halfhearted fight

The Void Inside - you reach a new equilibrium, which is still depressed but at least slightly more functional

This is where the largest divergence from Chuubo’s arcs shows up. Shepherd 3 doesn’t end with you managing to put an old thing to rest. It ends with you nearly fixing things... only for that hope to be snatched away from under you.

The Void Inside (20/35 XP) (Emptiness 1, Bindings 1, Shepherd 5)

You try to be good. You do your best to be polite. You attempt to keep up with your bills and your laundry. And you try not to use your miraculous nature to facilitate this, because your powers only ever make things worse.

You're not an enemy of the world. So you won't do any more enemy-of-the-world things. Keep telling yourself that and it’ll work eventually, right?

...Right?

The Void Inside (35 XP)

Major goals (5 XP each):

a supernatural event gets in the way of you going to some sort of scheduled appointment

you pass out from exhaustion while trying to do an entirely ordinary thing (like standing in line at the DMV)

you leak your Bane/Curse out onto innocent people

Quest flavor (1 XP for yourself and 1 XP for the quest each):

tell someone that you don't need help even though you clearly do

drink lukewarm coffee

accidentally superglue yourself to something you were trying to fix

lie down with your face in a pillow

leave a note to someone else on the floor

try to pick up something far too heavy, or unwieldy, for one person to carry (like an enormous basket or a towering pile of books)

take painkillers

The Void Inside (simplified) (20 XP)

Major goals (5 XP each):

not doing some maintenance task that you kept putting off (cleaning the gutters, getting the car’s oil changed, etc.) leads to an entirely predictable disaster

you leak your Bane/Curse out onto innocent people

Quest flavor (1 XP for yourself and 1 XP for the quest each):

tell someone that you don't need help even though you clearly do

feed coins into a jammed vending machine

pick burrs/seeds off your clothing

stand in an empty elevator

The Past Rises (25/35 XP) (Emptiness 2, Bindings 2, Shepherd 2)

The remnants of your past intrude upon your life. Memories. Dreams. Glimpses in reflections. Physical reminders, maybe. And everyone can tell that something has gone terribly wrong. But you should be above this. You should be better than this.

They say the girl who had no feet could smile because she was luckier than someone who had no legs. And you keep asking yourself: why can’t you do that?

The Past Rises (35 XP)

Major goals (5 XP each):

someone shows up at your Sanctuary and forcibly drags you out of it

you panic and delete all the evidence of a problem rather than trying to solve it

one of your Treasures or Arcana visits you without notice, bearing a gift you didn’t ask for

Quest flavor (1 XP for yourself and 1 XP for the quest each):

try to drink from a glass of water that's already empty

listen to several voicemails and then don’t respond to any of them

are out of lotion, chapstick, or sunscreen

wake up with a piece of paper clutched in your hand

find wood that is too damp to burn

have a nightmare about hurting someone or something you care about

open a package or bag, only for the contents to spill and scatter everywhere

The Past Rises (simplified) (25 XP)

Major goals (5 XP each):

you are ill with a stomach flu, or a similar transient but extremely unpleasant condition

you open a container and find something completely different than the label said it had, usually something dangerous (i.e. a coffee can turns out to have a scorpion in it)

Quest flavor (1 XP for yourself and 1 XP for the quest each):

don't realize you're crying until somebody tells you

argue with a hallucination

repeatedly write and scribble out the same exact sentence

have a nightmare about hurting someone or something you care about

open a package or bag, only for the contents to spill and scatter everywhere

It Already Happened (30/45 XP) (Emptiness 3, Bindings 5, Shepherd 1)

You accept it now. You were a horror. You are a horror. The stain will never, ever wash out; the specter of the past crushes you underneath its weight. You wander blank-eyed through life. You can’t even cry anymore: that’s gone, too.

Nobody can save you, because you don’t let them. Because this is what you deserve.

It Already Happened (45 XP)

Major goals (5 XP each):

someone yells at you, and you accept it silently

you accidentally cut yourself and then stare at the blood welling up

you spend days in bed, too exhausted or depressed to get up

you descend into Infection State while alone

Quest flavor (1 XP for yourself and 1 XP for the quest each):

burn a candle all the way down to the stub

sit in a silent, dark room

shove a care package into the corner, unopened

run a finger over your scars, or other remnants of old injuries

eat instant noodles dry from the package

wander in a daze

throw something into an already overflowing trash can or dumpster

don't even try to leave for an appointment

It Already Happened (Simplified) (30 XP)

Major goals (5 XP each):

you visit a waterfall

you stick your hand into something that will obviously hurt you (like a bonfire, dry ice, or some sort of caustic chemical)

you descend into Infection State while alone

Quest flavor (1 XP for yourself and 1 XP for the quest each):

take pills that someone else presses into your hand, without looking at them or asking what they are

stand at a bus stop or train station, as buses and/or trains pass by without you

stare blankly at a huge stack of something

eat instant noodles dry from the package

suffer insomnia

try to read a book but can’t focus on the words

Whose Knife Is It Anyway? (35/50 XP) (Emptiness 4, Bindings 3, Shepherd 4)

The people you once wronged are here again. They (at least initially) want to beat you up. You, unfortunately, also want to beat yourself up. How long will it be until they, or you, realize that you're just using them as an instrument of self-harm?

Whose Knife Is It Anyway? (50 XP)

Major goals (5 XP each):

you let a pursuer catch up to you

you don't defend yourself against a crippling strike

you share a poisoned drink

someone who ought to be your enemy shows you unexpected kindness

an ally or friend tracks you down in some alien place and, angrily, asks you: what the hell were you thinking?

Quest flavor (1 XP for yourself and 1 XP for the quest each):

attack someone who should be on your side

sit with your back pressed up against a locked door

look around a bedroom or hotel room that is unfamiliar to you

are careless with a blade or scissors

receive a bouquet from someone you don't like and/or are afraid of

load and/or sharpen a weapon

hold paper to a flame and watch it burn

use antiseptic that burns and stings on a wound

hold a symbol or representation of your Bane in your hands

Whose Knife Is It Anyway? (simplified) (35 XP)

Major goals (5 XP each):

a blade is held against your throat

someone removes your heart, or something that could be reasonably defined as your heart, while you can't or don't object

someone who ought to be your enemy shows you unexpected kindness

Quest flavor (1 XP for yourself and 1 XP for the quest each):

sit with your back pressed up against a locked door

throw something at the wall in frustration

use antiseptic that burns and stings on a wound

sleep somewhere uncomfortable or inconvenient

continue to chew gum that has gone completely flavorless

pour water onto the ground

ignore and walk away from someone you recognize

Instructions For Reassembly (20/35 XP) (Emptiness 5, Bindings 4, Shepherd 3)

You try to fix what you broke. Or, at least, make reparations. It's not going to fix everything. But you do what you can.

Instructions For Reassembly (30 XP)

Major goals (5 XP each):

you deactivate some sort of security system

a Power visits you and gives you a task to complete

another Chancery member agrees with you that you are a monster, because everyone here is, and it is strangely comforting

Quest flavor (1 XP for yourself and 1 XP for the quest each):

suddenly find an ordinary thing inexplicably hilarious and start laughing helplessly

contemplate a bottle of medicine

look through a window at flowers outside

take out the trash

rake or sweep debris into a small pile in the corner

take a walk through a neighborhood you’ve never seen before

Instructions For Reassembly (simplified) (20 XP)

Major goals (5 XP each):

you visit someone whose life you saved

another Chancery member agrees with you that you are a monster, because everyone here is, and it is strangely comforting

Quest flavor (1 XP for yourself and 1 XP for the quest each):

bandage yourself

dump ashes into water

eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich

take out the trash

[hollyhockash]

A lot of the people I know with very serious mental illnesses end up living pretty ordinary lives around experiences that other people find unthinkably, unendurably horrifying. “I don’t want anything more than death, and I’m not sure if I’m going to make tofu with peanut sauce or rice with kale and yams for dinner.” “I believe I am an Evil Overlord, worse than Hitler, and I am cleaning the cat’s litterbox.” “Every time I look in the mirror I want to vomit, and I’m so excited about the new Marvel movie.” “The demons are telling me to draw pentagrams on the walls, and my mom forgot to buy tampons.” Eventually, the Worst Thing just becomes an everyday annoyance.         And the thing is… that’s hopeful. Because it means that if the Worst Thing happens you can cope. People have coped with what you’re going through and worse for thousands of years. You will get used to it. Normal life goes on. Most of the time, when you say “if this happens my life wouldn’t be worth living!”, your life can still be worth living, if you choose to make it so. Your life might not be as happy as it could have been. It might suck. But it can still be worth living.

– “Radical Acceptance”, by Ozymandias @ thingofthings

(Why am I posting this now? Why am I posting this here? Someone asked me what the premise of Glitch was. And to me? It’s this.)

[hollyhockash]

A nice-looking, printable character sheet for Glitch, a currently-being-kickstartered tabletop RPG by Jenna Moran! I found the exact font used in the book, then added an icon font of botanical-style drawings.

PDF version for download-and-printing here.

There's more pages I've made of this sheet, but they're for game mechanics that haven't been released on backer drafts yet, so I'm sitting on them for now.