I got bored and wrote up a GMD-style lifepath for my OC, Sadako Hayashi, the Princess of Emptiness!
The Princess/Prince of Emptiness
Campaign: Looking Glass Heart
Academics Skill: Average
Sports Skill: Average
Favorite Foods: Mozzarella Sticks, Mochi, and Rose Tea
Blood Type: O
Animal: Owl
Age: 17
Genres: Pastoral, Fairy Tales, Immersive Fantasy
Step 1: Choose Your Name
Hello, and welcome to the world of Looking Glass Heart!
You're a brilliant glass-maker, part of the Hayashi family.
You easily develop crushes on everyone you meet, and everything in the world interests you! It's all so exciting! Everything's so fun! (The sad secret you don't realize yet though is that before too long, you're going to stop feeling that way about things. The world is going to chew you up and spit you back out, and I'm sorry that that's going to happen to you. Please don't blame me for it!)
At your core, you're a simple ordinary Fortitude kid.
You work hard, and you help people.
You have a place you're keeping, somewhere good and beautiful, where people can come to be accepted and happy and well-taken care. A Good Place. A place where people are safe. A place where people are loved. You fuel this place primarily on your love for the people around you.
If this is sounding too normal, I should point out now that there's a lot of weird stuff about you too. Your house is probably haunted.
One of your moms was a Rider, so your eyes are full of stars. (Your relationship with your other mom is a bit strained because of that.)
You have the magical ability to take people's hearts out of their chests and understand them deeply by looking into their hearts.
Everything about you seem normal and mundane, but there's a lot that's hidden that's really weird, and a lot of it is harbingers of what's going to come, harbingers of who you're going to become.
But enough about that for now!
Are you...
• ...Sadako Hayashi, the Princess of Emptiness?
• …Jiro Hayashi, the Prince of Emptiness?
• ...some other Hayashi altogether?
Sorry, Jiro! This book is going to assume you're Sadako Hayashi, a girl. But swap the gender and the name and you should find this a useful document about yourself!
Part 2: Choose What You're Becoming
Remember how a little while back I mentioned that bad things are going to happen to you? Remember when I said the world was going to chew you up and spit you back out?
That's going to change you into something that doesn't belong in the world. It's going to change you into something at odds with the world. You're going to suffer, but it's all going to have a point at the end, because what you're becoming has a purpose. And most of all, what you're becoming is what you were always meant to be.
Will you be...
• ...an Excrucian Strategist (the default option), someone who believes that the world is sick
and must be destroyed so that people can exist outside of it and be happy?
• ...an Excrucian Deceiver, someone who believes the world is a lie and must be removed to
free everyone from it?
• ...an Excrucian Warmain, who's still trying to figure out what's the matter with the world,
and who is devoted to overturning every stone and examining each and every person to
work it out?
• ...an apocalypse in human form, a thing that will one day tear down the world?
• ...a glass dragon who will eat the world's heart?
• …a powerful witch of the Outside who wants to drown the rest of the world?
• ...a prophet of doomsday?
• …or something else altogether?
Part 3: Choose Your Initial Hobbies
I mentioned before that you get interested in a lot of things, because you find everything beautiful and exciting. That means you're probably already interested in a lot of stuff. We need to define what you're into now (in addition to glass-making, of course) before you decide later what else you're going to get interested in!
Are you interested in...
• ...sewing?
• ...art?
• ...cosplay?
• …photography?
• …plastic modeling?
• ...bass guitar?
• ...painting?
• ...fashion?
• ...calligraphy?
• ...archery?
• ...role-playing games?
• ...video games?
• ...philosophy?
• ...manga?
• ...superhero comics?
• ...sailing?
• ...knitting?
• ...animation?
• ...scrapbooking?
• ...stamp collecting?
• ...fishing?
• ...or something else altogether?
You'll want to pick a few things, maybe 3-5. Doing things excites you a lot!
Part 4: Choose Your Favorite Scenes
Are you most often seen...
[Purple]...glass-making?
[Purple]...doing chores?
[Purple]...spending time with your family?
[Purple]...hanging out with friends?
[Purple]...tending to things in the Good Place?
[Purple]...working at your family's shrine?
[Silver]...reading manga?
[Silver]...daydreaming about one of your many crushes?
[Silver]...worrying about the future?
[Red]...looking out at the ocean all starry-eyed and filled with wonder?
[Red]...taking care of a friend who's hurting?
[Gold]...working obsessively on your newest hobby?
[Blue]...experimenting with Heart Magic?
[Black]...experiencing surreal harbingers of what you're going to become?
Pick 2-3 favorites to help you figure out what you might be doing when you're not sure what to do in a scene.
Part 5: Review Your Goals
You've got a lot to work on with your Good Place. You've got a lot of friends to take care of. But that's not the biggest thing you're worried about right now.
You're graduating high school in a few months, and you're not ready for that at all. You're going to be an adult, and that has you really scared. Everyone has all these expectations of you, and you don't know how to meet them. People are starting to treat you like an adult already, but you feel like just a big kid inside. Sometimes worry about that overwhelms you, and then it's made even worse when you think about the fact that after you graduate, a lot of your friends are probably going to go their separate ways and you won't see them nearly so often.
So right now you're focused quite a lot on figuring out what to do about that. You're trying to make sense of the whole idea of what you're going to be doing as an adult.
Do you want to keep being a shrine maiden? Do you want to open your own glass-making shop? Or do you maybe want something weird and unexpected? Maybe you want to go on a great adventure. Maybe you want to destroy the world! (Although you're fairly certain you don't want that last one, at least not right now.)
Part 6: Choose Your Connections
There's a few people you're close to from the start. Your starting Connections are typically as follows:
• The Good Boyfriend (or Girlfriend) 3. You grew up with Matteus. He's kind of your rival, but the whole rival thing wears thin at times. You also have a giant crush on him.
• Jiro Hayashi (or Sadako, if you're Jiro) 2. You have a little brother (or sister). You care about them a lot, and want them to be safe.
• Junko Hayashi 2. You're really close to your grandmother.
• Katsumi Hayashi 1. You love your mom, but things are kind of strained with her. You think it's probably because you remind her of her ex-girlfriend, who was a Rider.
You can get rid of these Connections later if you don't want them or they start to not make sense.
Talk to the other players about your relationship with their characters. If someone agrees that you should feel comfortable around their PC and have a fair amount of knowledge about how to take care of them, you can get a free level 1-2 Connection to their character as well! You can improve these Connections later, if you want. (Knowing you, Sadako, you probably do want!)
Step 7: Review Your Powers
You have the following special abilities. They might be magic, or some piece of what you're becoming that's working within you before you've even become it. Either way, they're things you know how to do.
• There's a sense of what you're going to become that lingers on you. People notice it.
• You can pick up on little bits of insight from your future self.
• You can create blessings based around a theme, small things that you and other can people can do now and then.
• You can move around quickly, escaping stressful situations with ease.
• You're almost supernaturally good at caring for your friends.
• You can sense what's going on with your friends in some capacity, and you can help them a little bit while they're thinking of you.
• You can understand someone a little intuitively now and then.
• You can sense when your friends need you.
• You can help your friends do some really cool stuff.
• With some help from your friends, you can do some really cool stuff too!
Noticing Things About a Friend You Haven’t Before (A 40 XP Quest)
This is the fifth and final in a series of quests I’m writing for a project of mine. Here are the others: 1 2 3 4
This is another quest I designed for a project I’m working on. For this quest, you need to be able to point to a friend who you’re falling in love with, because that’s what this quest is about. It’s about that moment when you look at your friend who you’ve known for all this time, and the sunlight hits them in just the right way, and you think to yourself “How did I not notice before how beautiful they are?” and then from there, you realize that you’ve loved them for a long time, but just didn’t know it. It’s about all those complicated and beautiful emotions. Which is honestly a lot prettier and nicer than some of the stuff I’ve been writing today, so it’s a pretty good way to close out this series.
The HG can award you 5 XP towards this quest when:
you spend a weekend alone with your friend, likely on a vacation or wilderness retreat
the sunlight hits them in just the right way and you realize just how beautiful they truly are
you get stressed out worrying that talking about your feelings is going to mess up the wonderful friendship you already have
you're feeling sad and they show up at just the right moment, drawing you into a grand adventure
You can earn each bonus once, for a total of 20 XP.
Once per week, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest when you:
gaze longingly at them, and then catch yourself
notice something you love about them that you hadn't put a lot of thought into before (e.g., the color of their eyes, their laugh, the way they smirk when they know they're right about something, the way they move)
compare them to something poetic and beautiful, either silently or aloud
question what your feelings for them mean
talk to someone about the difference between friend-love and romance-love
try to express your feelings for them in a letter or a poem, but to no avail
struggle to express something, and they help you find words for it
do something with them that normally is the sort of thing someone would do with a partner (e.g., kiss them, walk together holding hands, sleep in the same bed, get jealous when someone flirts with them)
tell someone that you and your friend are "just friends", but you don't believe it
You may combine this with an XP action, but you don’t have to.
Yo. I hope you're ready, because it's time to enter the world of Looking Glass Heart!
You're a Delinquent. Note the capital “D”. You're not just any old delinquent.
You're one of the Delinquent Princes, one of the ten deliquents chosen as royalty by your old mentor, Soun Shoujo, who was the Queen of the Delinquents.
There was a war, a couple of years ago, a war between our world and the world behind the mirror. You fought in that war with Soun Shoujo and the others. She was your first friend at School, and you were sort of in love with her.
Then at the end of the war, she ended up trapped in the world behind the mirror, and you were alone. This experience has shaped you in a lot of ways.
And in some ways, it's made you more distant. You were never very good at connecting with people, but since she left, it's been even harder.
You're the coolest of the cool, but you're alone, and nobody really gets how hard that is.
You went into the Outside for a while after she left.
You trained for a year and a day to unlock the true power of your soul. It caught fire from all that training, and that fire drives you, gives you power, keeps you going even when things are looking really bad.
You were always more than a bit inhuman (I mean, you're nearly seven feet tall and you have blue skin and pointy ears!), but you've become even more inhuman since your soul ignited. You're so different from everyone, so far away from them all.
You missed a lot while you were gone. Everybody got caught up in all kinds of Delinquent politics, and you were left out of the loop. At this point, you've decided staying out of it might be good. It's all kind of a mess, and you're better off without it.
But everybody else seems to having such a good time with all the stuff that's going on in their lives. You kind of wish you could be a part of it.
But how does that even work...
We'll come back to some of this in a while though.
For now, are you...
• ...Sora Nathalla, a gender non-conforming girl?
• ...Hayate Katagiri, a gender non-conforming boy?
• ...or someone else altogether?
Sorry, Hayate! This book is going to assume you're Sora Nathalla, a girl. But swap the gender and the name (and put on a dress) and you should find this a useful document about yourself!
Step 2: Choose Your Flaw
You're practically perfect in every way, but there's something you just don't seem to understand about connecting to people. You get worked up and stressed out about this sometimes, and when you do, it gets worse.
What's your problem exactly?
• I get horribly, horribly anxious when I even as much as think about talking to someone.
• I'm bad at communicating to the point that no one can read me.
• I'm awful at reading social cues.
• People are kind of afraid of me, so whenever I try to get close to them, they walk the other direction.
• I don't seem trustworthy, so nobody lets me get close to them.
• I have no tact, so I always end up upsetting the people I talk to.
...or is it something else altogether that troubles you?
I hope you learn to deal with this, I really do! It sucks not having any friends!
Hopefully even if you don't learn to solve your problems, you'll make some friends anyways. Being alone isn't fun for anyone.
Step 3: Choose Your Condition
Within the first few sessions of play, you're going to be picking up some sort of medical condition that helps people understand what's going on with you, why you're struggling with making friends.
This medical condition isn't going to be a fun thing for you, but in the end it's going to be a good thing, because it's going to help people get through to you and get close to you, because it's going to make them realize that you're trying, even if you're bad at showing it otherwise.
Are you going to contract...
• ...Glythia Painta (the default option), which causes you to exude copious amounts of paint from your body when you feel anxious?
• ...Cerberus Cerebra, which is when a small dog roosts inside of your head that starts barking loudly when you're hiding your emotions?
• ...Corporis Lux, which causes you to glow when you're lying?
• ...Mirum Vox, which causes you to blurt out exactly what you're thinking, no matter how embarassing?
• ...Bubblia Caper, which causes your flesh to begin to boil when you're feeling affection-starved?
• ...or something else altogether?
Step 4: Choose Your Corruptor
Remember how we talked a little while ago about the fire in your soul, the fire that ignited in you when you were training in the Outside?
You like that power, don't you?
You'd be unhappy if you lost it, right?
If so, I hope you're sitting down right now.
(If not, I'm questioning your choice of playing The Wild Card, honestly...)
There's someone out there who wants to corrupt your power, and ultimately to corrupt you. They've maybe even already started doing it. If not, they will soon.
At first, it's going to seem like they're helping you. At first it's going to seem like they're making you stronger, and encouraging you to be all that you can be.
They're even going to tell you that they love you, and that they want you to be happy. And to you, the girl who exists all alone, that pitch is going to be more than a bit enticing.
But that's not true at all.
They're trying to make you into something that you're not.
They're trying to corrupt you with bleak intent and turn you against everything you know and hold dear.
Who's corrupting you?
Is it...
• ...Katsuko Vasuki (the default option), a giant snake who might best be described as a goddess, who is imprisoned in a rotting shrine in the Outside and wants you to be her envoy?
• ...Ebrôt Appêkā, an ancient and powerful demon who wants you with her plans to invade heaven?
• ...Teatrix the Deacon, a Magister of the Bleak Academy who wants your help to destroy the world?
• ...Cleanthe, a twelve-winged angel who has saved your life with one of her lotus flowers and bound you to heaven's service, whether you want it or not?
• ...Typhon, a Mystery of the Far Roofs, who wants your help overthrowing the leadership of Town so that she might rule the world with a golden fist?
• ...Anakha Melchior, a hero (or rather villain) of ancient times who has lost her body and wants to use yours as her vessel?
• ...or someone else altogether?
Step 5: Your Rival
You have a rival. They're a lot like you, but more heroic and well-liked - or more villainous, if you're heroic by some chance, but given the fact that you're being corrupted, you're probably not going to get to be super heroic.
They're one of the Delinquent Princes too, and their soul has ignited too.
They have difficulties making friends, which are probably either the same as your difficulties, or the exact opposite.
Whatever your medical condition is, they're probably going to pick up the same condition, or something similar.
Are they...
• ...Ayako Kamiki, a girl?
• ...Itsuki Kamiki, a boy?
• ...or someone else altogether?
Typically your rival is of the same gender as you, but that's not by any means a requirement.
Step 6: Choose Your Favorite Scenes:
Are you most often seen...
[Gold]...getting into fights with other delinquents?
[Gold]...training in an abandoned building or dojo?
[Gold]...stressing over your lack of friends?
[Purple]...protecting younger students from bullies?
[Purple]...working on a painting?
[Silver]...lounging about beneath a tree playing video games?
[Silver] ...painting graffiti somewhere in the school?
[Silver] ...sitting in detention because you pissed off a teacher yet again?
[Silver]...standing around and people-watching?
[Silver]...feeling dismal?
[Silver]...napping under a tree?
[Blue]...experimenting with a new outfit?
[Red]...getting drawn into a strange and exciting adventure?
[Red]...acting as a “bad example” to younger students?
Pick 2-3 favorites to help you figure out what you're doing when you're not sure what to do in a scene.
Step 7: Review Your Goals
You don't have a lot of big goals. You're a simple woman.
You're just a punk who likes to fight.
Also, you're not really that interested in school. You've just got a few months before graduation though, so right now your main goal is trying to make it through those last few months. You need to keep your grades up if you want to graduate. Which isn't that hard, but it's something you have to at least sort of try to do.
And after that, who cares?
You'll figure it out when the time comes.
Step 8: Choose Your Connections
You don't really have any friends, so this section isn't terribly relevant to you!
But so that you don't leave this section empty-handed, let's say that maybe you have the following Connections:
• Ayako/Itsuki Kamiki 1. They're your rival, which means you at least sort of know them, right?
Talk to the other players about your relationship with their characters. If someone agrees that you should feel comfortable around their PC and have a fair amount of knowledge about how to take care of them, you can get a free level 1-2 Connection to their character as well! You can improve these Connections later, if you want.
Knowing you though, you probably don't have Connections to the other PCs, but you'll likely be picking them up in your first Arc or two.
I'm sorry about this! It sucks!
But that's the way it is for you.
Step 9: Review Your Powers
Your soul is on fire. You don't know very much about how to use that power right now, but it's a thing.
• Your flaw gets in the way of you being happy. This isn't so much of a power as it's a bad thing, but there's also some cool stuff that can happen because of it, so let's call it a power, okay?
• You're miraculously good at taking care of yourself day-to-day. You always look impeccable. Your clothes are always clean. Your hair is always perfect. It's almost supernatural. If this doesn't sound terribly useful, that's because it's not, but it'll get more useful over time, as you train and get stronger and stronger.
Faerie 0 – Shoes hurt your feet a little bit, but only when they're especially uncomfortable shoes. The only way you're going to find an entrance to the Hidden Realms of Faerie is if someone else takes you there.
Faerie 1 – You're a half-fey, a changeling, or a human becoming a faerie. You probably can't wear shoes, but you're generally unaffected by cold iron. If someone cuts you with a cold iron knife, it's going to hurt only as much as being cut with any other knife would. You can see what's really there1, and maybe can perform minor feats of intuitive feyyish magic. If you search for the better part of a day, you might be able to find a pathway to the Hidden Realms of Faerie.
Faerie 2 – You are a full-blooded faerie, an otherworldly thing, connected deeply to the world around you. You have access to various intuitive feyyish magics. Flowers bloom where your feet touch the ground sometimes. You can see things that are really there. You know the secret pathways to the Hidden Realms of Faerie, but finding the right way might take you some time. Shoes and cold iron burn you like the hottest flames2.
Faerie 3 – You're probably an extremely ancient and powerful fey. You can perform massive feats of intuitive feyyish magic. You can see everything, even things microscopic or beyond the world. You can enter the Hidden Realms of Faerie instantly, and without any difficulty. This level of the skill is generally reserved for feyyish nobles and other important people, such as Oberon, Titania, Puck, the Leanan Sidhe, etc.
I can't imagine this skill existing at level 4 or 5, but it's possible that there's a faerie out there somewhere who could prove me wrong, because the impossible is beyond possible, and even commonplace for them. I don't get it either.
1 Surprisingly, not everyone can do this, even though most people think they can!
2 It's okay though because why would you want to wear shoes or touch cold iron anyways? Shoes are expensive and get worn out every few years, and cold iron is gaudy and hideous!
This is a quest about trying to be a simple gardener while your enemies get in your way and keep messing things up. I designed it for a project I’m working on, where I’m going to be using the CMWGE RPG as a writing tool, but this quest is (hopefully) also totally viable in normal play. ^_^
The HG can award you 5 XP towards this quest when:
enemies destroy your garden
you accidentally trample your garden while fighting someone or something
you see the first sprout of a plant poking out of the soil
You can earn each of these bonuses once, for up to 15 XP.
Once per week, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest when:
you watch people walking past your house as you tend to your garden
you plant seeds
you have a conversation with someone while gardening
a more experienced gardener helps you with your garden
you try to avoid trampling your garden during a fight with an enemy
you buy gardening supplies
someone asks you to go somewhere with them, but you're covered in dirt from working in your garden, so you have to turn them down
You can combine this with an XP action, but you’re not required to.
