You know the Slicerats, I presume? They infest the city. Ever since they outed Otis Steeleye some ways back, they've taken over the wards and yards. Rinik the Rat's clawed his way out of the streets to higher reaches, top sharp of the pyramid.Used to be a local street gang had a sense of decency. Some sliver of sheer sense, not to go mucking about with knifework or the more blatant kinds of assault, but the Slicerats don't play by the old rulebook. Gets them a certain credit, with a certain kind of soul - and so they get a certain kind of recruit, but, friend, you can guess what sort of street-scum is apt to like calling themselves rats and see about slicing parts of other people up for their own gain. Otis ran a tighter ship, back when the old Wardbosses were still in charge. Being in a gang was practically a mark credit, someone you could rely on, the streets had a certain kind of honour. Now its rat nights and dog days.Well. The Watchers aren't wont to do anything about it, the Legion is busy with all its little wars and prayer hasn't helped anyone in this city in decades or more.So we're going to have to solve this rat infestation ourselves.Here in Razorwind the alleys are long and you can hear the wind scream, but it's also the first staging points for many a little import business. Legal or . . . Not so much. Word on the street is the Slicerats have a shipment lying about in the basement of an old building somewhere around here.You can put two and three together and get five, can't you, maskmate?We're going to pay them a visit.We're going to make them pay the tariff for importing drugs and what might be worse into our fair city.And we're going to make their merchandise the cloud's business.A little light assault, a little aggrieved arson and just a slight touch of extrajudical arbitration by way of fists and feet. Watchers might too bribed, too careless or too ignorant to take note of the rats chewing in the wood, but they're still duty bound to respond a fire in the slums. Eventually. Once the smoke gets so sky-reaching tall they can't play-pretend it's someone elses problem.So, really, in a sense, we're just making sure the Watchers get a message about where the crooks of the city might be, aren't we? It's practically civic duty!Any questions?
Now, just in case you're rusty, new, old, or haven't quite managed to remember how things go down around town, perhaps you'd like to peruse the broadsheets left?Though, it's all less complicated than it appears. Rinik and his Rats won't even know what hit 'em, I'm sure.To create a character, you might need a sheet:#Maskmoniker (That's your name, mate)-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture [Pool + total of Fluidity, Finesse,Focus, Ferocity and Foresight]-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 3React 1 Resist 1 Rebuff 1 Attune 1Fluidity 1 Finesse 1 Focus 1 Ferocity 1 Foresight 1 -Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2 -xx-Traits & Tools-!xxNow, for record keeping purposes, maskmonikers have to be searchable and decent-ish. It's hard to get all excited about a wet potato of a name, so make it something . . . With a sense of *style*, eh, softsoul?>There's some other threads, if you're interested. Though they aren't required reading>http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=art%3F>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvYlLtrfA9Y&list=RDnvYlLtrfA9Y&start_radio=1>There's a skirmishy discord, though why you'd want one is your business: https://discord.gg/pvwZQkMe > Been a while, hasn't it?
>>6430506>Any questions?Do we get matching uniforms and dental insurance?
Ah, but now, the real deal. To do justice in this city, sometimes you need to put on a true face. Rinik and his Rats run the underground, the Watchers in their government issue armour keep an eye out of troublemakers, and anyone knows someone on the take or too willing to snitch by half. A city lives by the whispering trade of secrets, shared and stolen. Rinik's got enough clout, friends, push and pressure that someone catches sight of your face and works out who you are? Well, you'll be floating down the river come quick.But . . . We're civilised sort of people around here. Grand Pyther has deal with infestations like this kind of thing before. The civic body has a well established immunity system. Enter: The Red Market. Enter: The Masks. Put one one, softsoul. Be a thing more than mere human, an icon of vigilante justice, an effigy to swinging fists and low-down heroism. Wrap yourself in the myth and marvel of symbol and sign. The Mask isn't who you are, but it also isn't who you aren't. You need a Mask in this line of work, all flourished and fine, with a moniker attached so we know where to send the cold coins you've earned by deed and daring. The Red Market puts up the jobs. Someone - somewhere - puts on a Mask. Takes it for a Dance. Claims the payment. Walks away, justice done and wallet weighty, and to fade back into the crowd, all you have to do is take off the mask and hide it under the floorboards. Is it a perfect system? No, of course not, softsoul. What system is?For one, in a city as old and storied as this, some of these masks have *too much* story attached. You can lose yourself a little, if you take it too far. Somewhere in there perhaps the line between who you are on the inside and what you're wearing on the outside grows thin.Sometimes, under the floorboards, on a rainy night, it might whisper: someone has to do something.-->Masks are changable and adjust over time, but you'll need one for the first Dance.
>>6430508Eeehhhh, best we can do is relatively organised but fashionable dapper drabings around your soft, stabbale skin and the assurance that no one has dental insurance so if you knock a few teeth loose they'll be sipping soup with and thinking fondly of your fists for the next few months.Well. Except possibly if they know a particularly good back alley surgeon. Sometimes you hear things, it's not entirely possibly someone gets creative with glue and prosthetics and. . . Other things.
>>6430511(is "focus" here supposed to be posture?)
>>6430533No. I wouldn't worry about it, maskmate. Probably some sort of dubiously reasonable type thing where if six mean bastards with sharp knives beat you up in an alley you get to experience some kind of phase two style situation where you stand up again and shake off some of the pain but it comes at some kind of cost. I'm sure it's not going to be all that relevant, so I'd just pick the one that appeals to you on an intuitive, heartfelt basis.
>>6430511Can I be a b*xer?
>>6430506Are we allowed to bring back a legacy character from previous Hexped: Maskmates?
# The King (Also known as The Scale-Hearted Swordsman Or The Sea-Splitting Blade Or The Absolute Lord Or-)-Conditions and Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 17--Capabilities and Intentions-Pool 9 | Mobility 3React 1 | Resist 1 | Rebuff 1 | Attune 1Fluidity 1 | Finesse 1 | Focus 1 | Ferocity 4 | Foresight 1-Skills and Secrets--First Aid 2-Reckless Daring 6-Vulpe 2-Rikovian Knifehand 1-Traits and Tools-!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Scale-Hearted Swordsman (Delusional?)!Flash And Panache------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I, The King, have deigned to grace thou all with my own selfs presence. I also find this mask visually unappealing. One of thee, get my esteemed self a new one.
>>6430540That's not a storied fighting art. They just stand stand there and take it. And we do have to do things with a certain sense of flair and panache around here. Otherwise, what's the point? If it's busted teeth and broken bones and hardscrabble spirit, sure, sure, but at least make it look good. In any case, if absolutely must box someone, try a Streetstyle brawler.>>6430545Other stories, other times, other rules. They never match perfectly and you shouldn't expect overmuch, but you can certainly carry on the namesake and maybe something will come of it.
>>6430511What kind of changes do you mean, by the way? Visual or mechanical? Both?
Wait actually that's a silly question ignore it. Do the mask-traits give any bonuses or are they just something that happens on complication to alter how things go for you. Like a Flash And Panache haver would end up with more dramatic complications?
>>6430557Worth a shot>>6430507#El Fantasma Carmesí (The Crimson Phantom)-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture [20]-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 3React 2 Resist 1 Rebuff 1 Attune 1Fluidity 2 Finesse 1 Focus 2Ferocity 5 Foresight 1-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2-Lethality 6-Reckless Daring 3-Streetstyle Brawler 1-Traits & Tools-!Violent Tear of Ashoniti!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Red Dream, Red Rivers------------------------------------------Power and MORE Power. They're going to regret coming out today.
Are we supposed to take six secrets total with 3+2+2+1+1+1 points collectively?
# The King (Also known as The Scale-Hearted Swordsman Or The Sea-Splitting Blade Or The Absolute Lord Or-)-Conditions and Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 18--Capabilities and Intentions-Pool 9 | Mobility 3React 3 | Resist 1 | Rebuff 1 | Attune 1Fluidity 1 | Finesse 1 | Focus 1 | Ferocity 5 | Foresight 1-Skills and Secrets--First Aid 2-Reckless Daring 3-Rikovian Knifehand 2-Vulpe 2-Cool 1-Rage 1-Lethality 1-Traits and Tools-!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Scale-Hearted Swordsman (Delusional?)!Flash And Panache------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I, The King, fucked up my resume, sorry.
>>6430511#Amicus(That's your name, mate)-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture [19]-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 3React 1 Resist 2 Rebuff 2 Attune 1Fluidity 1 Finesse 1 Focus 3Ferocity 4 Foresight 1-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2-Intransigence 3-Discipline 2-Hard 1-Traits & Tools-!Unbending!Unusually Ferocious !Someone Has To Do The Right Thing !Sunlit Muster
>>6430511#Perspicus-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 20-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 3React 2 Resist 1 Rebuff 1 Attune 1Fluidity 1 Finesse 1 Focus 3Ferocity 1 Foresight 5-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2-Cool 3, -Sharp 2 -Lethality 2-Discipline1-Hard 1 -Glitching Cascades 1-Traits & Tools-!Insightful!Unusually Foresightful!Cut the Self Free!Flash and Panache
>>6430506>Small mistakes to correct. Though I liked being able to stack on the Skills and Secrets >>6430584#El Fantasma Carmesí (The Crimson Phantom)-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture [20]-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 3React 2 Resist 1 Rebuff 1 Attune 1Fluidity 2 Finesse 1 Focus 2Ferocity 5 Foresight 1-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2-Lethality 3-Reckless Daring 2-Streetstyle Brawler 2-Hard 1-Wolf 1-Traits & Tools-!Violent Tear of Ashoniti!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Red Dream, Red Rivers
>>6430511#Joe-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 20-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 3React 1 Resist 2 Rebuff 1 Attune 1Fluidity 3 Finesse 1 Focus 5Ferocity 1 Foresight 1-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2-Intransigence 3-Hard 2-Discipline 2-Cool 1-Sharp 1-Glitching Cascades 1-Traits & Tools-!Stubborn!Unusually Focused!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Streetstyle brawler
>>6430511#Blot-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 14-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 4React 7 Resist 1 Rebuff 1 Attune 1Fluidity 1 Finesse 1 Focus 1Ferocity 1 Foresight 1-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2-Glitching Cascade 3-Reckless Daring 2-Sharp 2-Cool 1-Moth 1-Wyrd 1-Traits & Tools-!Lucky!Unusually Mobile!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Flash and Panache
>>6430507#Stray-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 18-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 4React 2 Resist 2 Rebuff 1 Attune 2Fluidity 3 Finesse 2 Focus 1Ferocity 1 Foresight 2-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2-Wolf 3-Wyrd 2-Cool 2-Sharp 1-Wasp 1-Discipline 1-Traits & Tools-!Old Blitzhound!Unusually Fluid!Cut The Self Free!Whispering Witticisms
Driller-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 16-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 3React 3 Resist 1 Rebuff 1 Attune 1Fluidity 1 Finesse 1 Focus 3!Ferocity 1 Foresight 1Glory 0-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 4-Wolf 2-Wasp 3-Discipline 2- Intrasignence 1- Glitching Cascades 1 - Rikovian Knifehand 1-Traits & Tools-!A Scorpion Soul, by Duty Bound!Unusually Focused!Mask Scorpion / Red Droplet !Red Dreams, Red Rivers!Someone Has To Do the Right Thing
>>6430507#Atlas Anchored===+Conditions And Consequences+Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 16===+Capabilities and Attributes+Pool 9 Mobility 3React 1 Resist (1+5) Rebuff 1 Attune 1Fluidity 1 Finesse 1 Focus (1+1+1)Ferocity 1 Foresight 1===+Skills & Secrets+- First Aid 2- Professional- 3 Intransigence- 2 Discipline- 1 Hard===+Traits & Tools+!Someone has to do the right thing!Unusually Focused===>Intent/ability points: +5 resist, +1 Focus>Secrets: +3 Intransigence, +2 Discipline, +1 Hard>Generic Trait: Unusually Focused (+1 Focus)>Descriptive Trait: Professional>Motivation: Someone has to do the right thing
>>6430511>>6430808> Mask: Legion Fullhelm
>>6430646Forgot to add 1 point>+1 Fluidity (2) and 19 Posture
>>6430507# Eight Treasures-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 21-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 3React 1 Resist 1 Rebuff 1 Attune 2Fluidity 3 Finesse 3 Focus 2Ferocity 1 Foresight 3-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2-Rikovian Knifehand 3-Cool 2-Moth 2-Reckless Daring 1-Vulpe 1-Sharp 1-Traits & Tools-!Unusually Finesseful!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Live Wire!Flash and Panache (Moth Mask)"Eight Treasures they call me, and trust me, you won't see the same one twice before you're knocked out cold."
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain and instead only look at the following updated sheet. Please be understanding, I'm good at kicking guys in the face, not paperwork.# Eight Treasures-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 20-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 3React 1 Resist 1 Rebuff 1 Attune 2Fluidity 3 Finesse 3 Focus 2Ferocity 1 Foresight 2-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2-Rikovian Knifehand 3-Cool 2-Moth 2-Reckless Daring 1-Vulpe 1-Sharp 1-Traits & Tools-!Unusually Finesseful!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Live Wire!Flash and Panache (Moth Mask)
Rolled 10, 7, 5, 6, 5, 1, 8, 7, 5, 8 = 62 (10d10)Ah, what a gaggle of marvelous types. All mettlesome and presumptively mighty. Though perhaps that part is yet to tested.Let's see how the night gets on then, then...>Assembling . . .-->>6430897Both are a skillset, though sign your name with enough confident force to a merger and acquisition and how is such different from fisticuffs?>>6430824Ah ah ah, maskmate. If you forget, you forgot, and can gain no benefit from things that were not noticed and not front of mind. The law is impartial even in the face of the grace of kings. That says if you do not correct, it is void. You did not. It is void. Kingly demands made after the fact in light of sudden insight have no bearing. Your course is already set.But fret not. You're barely going to notice the lack, and surely there will be other chances.>>6430740Now, hardly is anyone going to insult you for being who you are as that would be rude, but, maskmate, softsoul, *friend*, if you put on a mask to fight crime at the behest of a whispering trade network of clever skullduggery types and get involved in all sorts of arcane, esoteric business, your maskmonitor, your referential self, your soft calling name whispered by the knowers and the movers and the shakers in the shadows as they track your career with interest? All that? If you do all that, and call yourself "Joe", you make a fucking mockery of the whole fucking enterprise.Sense of fucking style or you might as well be any two bit *assassin*, half-made murderer or maniac with a grudge. What would be the Icon-touched point?Get the fuck out of here and go to a tavern and slug six drinks and come back with a sense of flair and mild inspiration, no proper whispertrader is going to front any liquid means or soft support for 'Joe, Guy In A Mask'. No one is going to declaim the hallowed name of "Oh yeah, Joe" in song or write artisinally inspired graffiti on Legion compound walls or the manors of the grand-standing nobles and sign it "And we wish Joe would help". And when you're bleeding out and dying from six stab wounds and the hard barrier line between this material place and the Other grows thinner and you catch a fleeting glimpse of the High Icons shining down, brought to close convocation with the world by your acts and wills and sacrifice, they're not going to be bound to any measure of attention if your fleeting fucking marketmoniker name is 'Joe'.There's a tradition to these things and by the sure sharp slice of a knife you will by the traditions abide, or it's no end of anarchy. The thing that separates us from mere animals is restraint and respect for the commonality of the law. Get you a sense of poetics before you try this nighttime line of work.--[Right Things] 8[Set Free] 2What a crowd of kindly motivated souls.Good. About time someone started setting things right around. Lose one war and the whole metropol goes to pieces. But perhaps it's not all too late to put it all together again.--
Half the premise of a guard on a door is self-refuting. If you're the type to need to guard your doors, surely, such valuables inside means you are men and women of worth. Who would risk your wrath by breaking down those carefully guarded entrances and seek the things within? The thing that guards your doors more than your paid retainers is the fact that to even think to try is to admit the mighty are not so unassailable as they would appear. Empire is a state of mind. Once someone is already willing to try your guards for your treasures, the whole thing is already starting to slip sideways...
. . . But of course that's only true if someone tries. Empire is a state of mind. A guard on a door is a nice sign that trying itself invokes censure and danger, that to think about trying is almost punishable by itself, that some things are too vast and too grand and too powerful for you to get your fingers involved in. You wouldn't want to catch the attention of powerful people, would you?Live in interesting times?
Reputation is a currency. Secrets are a kind of tradable claim on possibility. Put a mark out and a job and a task and filter the sorts you think might be apt to do it, and the people who do, well, if you have an inkling for the types of soul they are, you might be able to grasp how they'll do this deed of yours. When, why, where. And if so, ah, we have the basics of reliable commercial transaction; that which must be done and the hands that will do it. The Slicerats think they own this town. Rinik is chief knife man with a smile and a ploy. But there are invisible hands at play. Get your teeth in with the substrate of where people live their lives and in so many ways, even if they cannot stand against power directly, they'll find a way.... . . Perhaps to do the right thing. Or to motivate someone else to.-->Postures calcuated, traits locked, masks noted, dance modifiers applied.>There may still be mistakes and misdeeds in character sheets and templates. That's entirely expected. Don't worry too much - if you catch something, make a note of it on a turn and we'll do our best. A dance is a series of stumbling steps... --
The soft kind sun sinks slowly towards the horizon, and night encroaches by whispering step. Some say down the wrong alley, ever since the grand theurges left the city, the night grows too thick. Shadows play. Voices whisper. The sensation of being watched and listened to and waited on by old almost friends. Perhaps. Perhaps not. Those with business wander even the night-touched streets freely. The River Wars are distant, and martial curfew has not been in effect in for years. In other, more strange places, they may have First Citizens or Kings, but in Pyther, Grand and Old, each visitor or inhabitant is justified by ancient accord to alway have the ancient right to wander down any dark alley they might want so long as they don't threaten the peace or plot dire conspiracies. Of course, if the Watchers find six foreigners scurrying about at strange hours, they might ask questions. We could wonder if perhaps not there are degrees of freedom, offered, to degrees of those with means and those without. Some men can move more freely. Some will always be questioned.For instance, those sharp eyed men with their sharp steel by the door over there. Their job is clearly to keep stray wanderers from coming too close to their little building. Boarded windows, chemical scent in the air, marks on the road from heavy transport, a certain fortress-like reinforcement to a building. They don't want you in there because in a place such as this, earnest, clever minds strive to do advanced work on chemicals orginal and strange and from such works provide the tightly-sealed crates that flow elsewhere in exchange for coin and favours. The Shimmergrass Cartels in all their grandeur once split the profits of skirting the line between criminality and legality among themselves. The Slicerats have cut into their business, and cartel by cartel, brought them to heel, bought them out, buried them. They're shadows of themselves now, and for all their past glory, they now bow to the rats and the Rats rule the glimmering drug trade supreme. Lots of money in that. Shame if it all . . . Went up in smoke. -->Stand by...
Ah, and the night is about to begin proper. Best make a show of it>Various intricate questions answered on the side here, though be aware that some rules and interactions are hidden until later.
A pair of slim men exchanges glances, one more worried than the other. Same situation seen by different eyes and as one spots the Red Droplet stained masks in the back of the group sauntering down the street, he reaches the conclusion that he is, on the whole, rather attached to the integrity of his bone-structure and might want to take up fishing in a quiet village up the road far, far away from the sort of situation this night is angling to become.His friend, always more boisterous, instead draws a sharp bit of steel and steps forward with a glare. Must be new in town. He doesn't the signs of impending trouble yet. He plants his feet and spits a few attempted intimidations that roll off of Amicus' steely facade like so many arrows off of a tower shield. Still. Sharp longknife, that thing. Best be careful. Parrying hostiles with weapons inflict a counter when struck and you fail to beat through their defenses. If you see someone flop their opening, it's useful to attempt to support them. Too easy to get cut up other wise.-->Maskphase>Take your time, we're still getting started.--
When acting, please adhere to this SHORT FORMAT. Posture and situation is tracked directly in the world, your Secrets are unlikely to change on a post by post basis, and neither will your attributes. What's much more likely to adjust rapidly is intricate status adjustments and your Traits, so those are what we're actually interested in. No need to infinite repeat the same known information forever and ever. Please. Pleeaaaaseee.This has the little subtletly that when you take an action and you adjust your status, sometimes you'll have have to make some choices depending on how the world has been treating you. Amicus, our amicable test dummy in this case, is asked to fork over 9 Posture or accept a gruesomely bleeding knifewound. So he'd either pay that 9 Posture, and carry on his turn, or he'd update this status to include BLEEDING 3. # Maskmoniker!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!xx!yy!dd!cc
P4: Move 333P2: Fluidly leap off the boxes and hit the underconfident slicerat with the [Leviathan Slaying Harpoon Kick] straight against the reinforced shutters (Fluidity 1 + Reckless Daring 3)P1: Recover and punch him in the gut with the [Seaform Artes: Instant Bullet Punch] to break whatever guard he has left (Finesse 1 + Reckless Daring 3)P1: Focus, analyze his weaknesses, kick him in the balls with the [Seaform Artes: Rising Dolphin Kick] (Focus 1 + Reckless Daring 3)P2: Grab him by the head and stare into his eyes with the ferocity of a tiger observing prey. "Will thee surrender thyself to The King and live? Or do you wish for execution?" (Ferocity 5 + Reckless Daring 3 + P1)
# The King/Scalehearted Swordsman!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Scale-Hearted Swordsman (Delusional?)!Flash And Panache!The Kings Fists Of CourseP4: Move 333P2: Fluidly leap off the boxes and hit the underconfident slicerat with the [Leviathan Slaying Harpoon Kick] straight against the reinforced shutters (Fluidity 1 + Reckless Daring 3)P1: Recover and punch him in the gut with the [Seaform Artes: Instant Bullet Punch] to break whatever guard he has left (Finesse 1 + Reckless Daring 3)P1: Focus, analyze his weaknesses, kick him in the balls with the [Seaform Artes: Rising Dolphin Kick] (Focus 1 + Reckless Daring 3)P2: Grab him by the head and stare into his eyes with the ferocity of a tiger observing prey. "Will thou surrender thyself to The King and live? Or dost thou wish for execution?" (Ferocity 5 + Reckless Daring 3 + P1)
>>6431299# Atlas Anchored!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Someone has to do the right thing!Unusually Focused(Legion Fullhelm)>STANCE // Neutral.>ACT // 3Pool // Move 433. Position to the east of the Underconfident Slicerat. Face the Underconfident Slicerat..>ACT // 3pool // Impose upon the Underconfident Slicerat. Mirror his movements, bodyblock. Deny him from escaping to the east. (2Pool+3Focus+3Intransigence)>BEAT, STAND // Brace frame. Violence flows off graphite indifference. (6Resist+3Intransigence)
Rolled 9, 5, 9, 4, 10, 2, 4, 10, 4, 2, 6, 2, 6 = 73 (13d10)>>6431297!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Insightful!Unusually Foresightful!Cut the Self Free!Flash and Panache>Neutral stance,>3P Attune to Cool (Attune 1 + Cool 3 + 2 Pool)>1P Step SW>5P Finessely (?) pick and throw a barrel at Boisterous Slicerat to distract him (Finesse 1 + Sharp 2 + 4 Pool)
Rolled 4, 5, 10, 2, 10, 8, 9, 7, 10, 1, 3, 2, 10 = 81 (13d10)# Driller!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!A Scorpion Soul, by Duty Bound!Unusually Focused!Mask Scorpion / Red Droplet!Red Dreams, Red Rivers!Someone Has To Do the Right Thing>3P - Adopt Stance: Pressure point strike - an ability to inflict bonus crippling on focused strikes. (Wasp 3 / First Aid 4 + Attune 1, rolling 4 dice, +2 from Pool)>2P - Move 4,3>2P - Tripkick to degrade the Underconfident Slicerat's guard as we pile on them. (Wolf 2, Finesse 1, +1P)>2P - Snapkick targeting the Underconfident Slicerat's knee with the intent to cripple them. (Wasp 3 + Focus 3! +1p)>Beat - Focused Counterstrike, a Waspy React
>>6431324THE KING BIDS THEE LEAVE HIM ALONE MY ESTEEMED SELF HAS HIM HANDLED
Rolled 7, 9, 3, 10, 5, 1, 8, 8, 6, 6, 9, 4 = 76 (12d10)>>6431297>Stance: Aggressive>3P: Move 4-4-5>6P: Grapple and Supplex the Boisterous Slicerat into the Door (Ferocity 5+Streetstyler Brawler 2+5P)>Beat: Stand by grabbing something in reach Streetstyle and interposing it between me and what's coming# El Fantasma Carmesí (The Crimson Phantom)!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Violent Tear of Ashoniti!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Red Dream, Red Rivers
Rolled 4, 10, 4, 2, 1, 6, 1, 2, 10, 4, 10, 4, 5, 2, 8, 10, 9, 9, 6, 6, 4 = 117 (21d10)>>6431297#Stray-Conditions And Consequences-!Status: Alive-Traits & Tools-!Old Blitzhound!Unusually Fluid!Cut The Self Free!Whispering Witticisms>Status: Business as Usual>Stance: Neutral>1P: Ankle-biter stance; harry and unbalance. (Attune 2 + Wolf 3) [Stance]>1P: Stray reaches into his pocket and pulls out something *mean* that he packed earlier. Is it sand? Mostly. (Attune 2 + Wasp 1)>2P: Move [45]>1P: Draw the Boisterous one's attention by simply sauntering forth, then, as Perspicus throws the barrel, Stray too suddenly casts a cloud of hm, dust in Boisterous' face. Get the timing right. (Foresight 2 + Wyld 2)>4P: While Boisterous is reeling from barrel and dust cloud, perform a textbook 'ankle-bite', that is, sweeping their leg out from under them at Reach 1, whilst staying distant enough to pull back if necessary. (Fluidity 3! + Wolf 3 + Pool 3; !Unusually Fluid)>Beat: VOID (React 2 + Mobility 4)
Rolled 1, 9, 5, 7, 5, 9, 1, 1, 2, 2, 1, 9, 6, 10, 3, 7, 8, 8, 8, 5, 8, 8, 1 = 124 (23d10)>>6431297# Eight Treasures!Status: All Good!-Traits & Tools-!Unusually Finesseful!Someone Has to Do the Right Thing!Live Wire!Flash and Panache>STANCE // Neutral.>ACT // 1 P // Attune to Rikovian Knifehand for fleetness of body, lightness of soul. (Attune 2, R.K. 3)>ACT // 2 P // Move 44.>ACT // 1 P // Mock the Boisterous Slicerat (Focus 2, Cool 2)>"No master worth his robes would let a student hold a broom like that, let alone a blade!", accompanied by an exaggerated head shake.>ACT // 3 P // After the rest of my Maskmates have gone in for the kill and he's on the ground, knee him straight into the elbow joint, disabling that arm. (Finesse 3, R.K. 3, 2P).>ACT // 2 P // Play to the Room. Acquire Glory? (Fluidity 3, Moth 2, 1P).>"See? No blood needed. Mercy's still in me some days, if I look for it!"
And so, the night begins. A sharp longknife is a useful tool but against barrels they lack the heft to parry and in a shattering spray of old bits and time-worn wood, the Boisterous Slicerat barely has time to spits out the dust of whatever was in that barrel before a fistful of pocket sand ruins his day and he feels a soft grip on his shoulder...> 1 / 2
Rolled 6, 6, 7, 6, 1, 3, 3, 10, 10, 5, 6, 1, 2 = 66 (13d10)El Fantasma, all red, grabs the not-quite-so-boisterous-Slice-Rat and swings him head over shoulder, supplex-style, towards the door and the old wood is not quite hard enough to stand up to aggressive assaults so dramatic. Timber bend and locks break and dust and grit drops from the ceiling as plaster and parts fail to take the impact. Coughing, confused Slice-Rats on the inside wave hands in front of faces and squint at the evening coolness. Chemical scents and a faint, palpable sense of human misery roll slowly out from this rat nest. The Boisterous Slicerat tries to get to his feet amidst the splintering rubble, but he wobbles sideways, kisses a wall, and slides down it slow. Deeply unconscious. Eight Treasures checks his stance. Amicus adjusts his helmet. En Fantasma cracks a knuckle, adrenaline slow soft pulses. Yeeees. Sometimes, hurting other people can feel . . . Just right. Slice Rat: .. what the fu--Panicking Slice Rat: OH FUCK WE GOTTA GO I KNOW THAT MASKAh. Someone who appreciates the classics.--Meanwhile, elsewhere, a diffident slicerat glances up from Atlas boots, left leg no longer quite working like it should. Uh. Say, is there anything a man of reasonable inclination can do to avoid being stomped on today? One is rather attached to ones teeth, as it were-->Maskphase--Foresight Pool: 13, after modifications.
Well, it's not as if they're paid by the hour.
#The King!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Scale-Hearted Swordsman (Delusional?)!Flash And Panache-The Kings Fists Of Course-A soon to be acquired blade"Atlas, I trust thee to handle my newest subject.">Status: Fine>Set all attacks to nonlethal>Stance: Neutral>1P: Pick up Longknife, this shall serve as a surrogate Sword for the Scalehearted Swordsman.>2P: Now that I finally have a blade in hand, get into proper stance and remember my Leviathanic Artes, the Deluge Techniques specifically, for combating groups (1 Attune + 3 Reckless Daring + 1P)>3P: Move 554>"MY OWN SELFS NAME IS THE KING! AND ALL IN THIS WORLD ARE MY SUBJECTS, THOU SHALT KNEEL!">2P: Blitz through the confused slicerats with [Leviathanic Artes: Third Deluge], being careful not to hit any vitals (Ferocity 5 + Reckless Daring 3 + 1P) !Unusually Ferocious, !Scale-Hearted Swordsman, Nonlethal>1P: VOID dodges, recklessly only moving the minimal amount so the blade glides past me, in order to look cool infront of my subjects. (React 3 + Reckless Daring 3)
Rolled 7, 10, 9, 5, 2, 3, 6, 1, 1, 10, 3, 10, 5, 9 = 81 (14d10)First five dice are attuning, the next 9 are my attack
Rolled 10, 5, 7, 5, 2, 6, 2, 2, 4, 4, 3, 5, 2, 8 = 65 (14d10)>>6431446# Joe!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Stubborn!Unusually Focused!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Streetstyle brawler>1P: Move 554>8P: Examine the Shutters and try to figure out a good way I can get through them. Any weakspots? Maybe it's not put together so well? Maybe I can just shift it around and crawl through? (Focus 5 + Sharp 1 + 8 P)>Beat: Stand (Intransigence 3 + Resist 2)
Rolled 8, 10, 4, 10, 6, 10, 6, 9, 7, 4, 2, 1 = 77 (12d10)# Driller!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!A Scorpion Soul, by Duty Bound!Unusually Focused!Mask Scorpion / Red Droplet!Red Dreams, Red Rivers!Someone Has To Do the Right Thing>1P - Take a moment to appreciate someone wearing the old Joe mask. It's dangerous to play a mistbreather these days. The Watchers and the Raincatchers have had it out for them since the River Wars. >Leave the Diffident Slicerat to Atlas to arrest. Driller believed that those Legion masks got off on arresting people. Besides, he had ride in the wake of the King and wound those who the King had bowled past.>4P - Move 5, 5, 4, 4>3P, 3 PoS - Launch a crippling attack at each of the confused slicerats, this time targeting their knife hands. Small bones break easy, tender ligaments tear. (Focus 3! + Wasp 3, Bitter Stinger) x3 >1P Beat - Overwatch a focused counterstrike on the first opponent to attack me. Attacking me is not a safe activity. (Reflex 3, Wasp/Focus aligned)"..."
Rolled 2, 3, 4, 3, 1, 7, 1, 3, 7, 6, 10, 7, 4, 2, 2, 9, 10, 3, 9, 8, 2, 7, 6, 2, 10 = 128 (25d10)>>6431448>Stance: Still Aggressive>Status: All good>4p: Ferociously Barrel down the corridor knocking the Confused Slice Rats out the way to go 4-4-4-4 in front of the panicky rat (Mobility 3+Ferocious 5+3p)>2p: Feint trying to grab the Panicky Slicerat who will probably dodge this BUT ACTUALLY grab the Chair to his left and attack him with it (Fluidity 3+Streestyle Brawler 2+1p)>3p: Finally attempt to grapple Panicky Slicerat and pile drive him into the chair (Ferocity 5+Lethality 3+2p, Turn of Lethal Damage for this one but put in looots of force)>Beat: Void dodge move out of the way so the drop kick goes for Driller instead of me.# El Fantasma Carmesí (The Crimson Phantom)!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Violent Tear of Ashoniti!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Red Dream, Red Rivers
Rolled 8, 3, 7, 10, 7, 2, 2, 7, 10, 5, 5, 5, 10 = 81 (13d10)>>6431446#Stray-Conditions And Consequences-!Status: Alive-Traits & Tools-!Old Blitzhound!Unusually Fluid!Cut The Self Free!Whispering Witticisms>Status: Business as Usual>Being careful not to interrupt Malicious' smoke-break.>Stance: Harrying Howls>1P: Scoop up the blade [5] of me. I'll break it... soon.>1P: Move [4443] through the fracas in the entryway. (Mobility 4 + Cool 2)>1P: Gesture for the Malicious Slicerat to take a step back, because...>3P: Pull down the shelf on top of the Neat Slicerat. (Finesse 2 + Wolf 3 + Pool 2)>1P: Hey, cutter. Got a light?>Beat, 2P: VOID (React 2 + Mobility 4 + Pool 2)
Rolled 4, 6, 8, 2, 3, 7, 3, 8, 1, 3, 1, 1 = 47 (12d10)>>6431446!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Insightful!Unusually Foresightful!Cut the Self Free!Flash and PanacheWhat stance am I even in? Is Cool not a style with a stance?>4P Run SE 3 S and...>2P ...laser-Focused on the opening, jumpkick the farthest of the 3 Confused Slicerats in the face... (Focus 3 + Sharp 2 + 1 Pool)>1P ...in the exact way that he stumbles back into the path of Mean Slicerat's dropkick once El Phantasma dodges it (Foresight 5 + Glitching Cascades 1)>Beats: void (2 Pool)
>>6431568The King deigns to grant thee grand wisdom, thou must specify what thee want out of a stance for it to function. Just "Cool" is likely too vague.
>>6431446# Atlas Anchored!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Someone has to do the right thing!Unusually Focused!Sunlit Muster(Legion Fullhelm)>>6431454"Handle.""So, be it.">STANCE // Neutral.>ACT // 5Pool // Firmly seize the Diffident Slicerat by his shoulder and drag him to his feet. Pinch a nerve to keep him compliant. Force to him lead the way into the Slicerat HQ. (Pool4+Focus3+Hard1)"Stand. Walk.">ACT // 4Pool // Walk 655 4, forcefully guiding the limping thug from behind.> BEAT, STAND // Endure impacts. Ignore harassment. Continue to press forward unfalteringly. (6Resist+3Intransigence)
Rolled 7, 9, 5, 1, 4, 7, 6, 3, 6, 3, 9, 7, 9, 3, 1, 4, 5 = 89 (17d10)>>6431446Stances: !NeutralTasks: None!Actions:>6 Pool! - ASSUME THE STANCE OF JUSTICE!!! - 5 Pool + Glitching Cascade 3 + Attune 1 + !Lucky + !Flash and Panache (normally, this mix results in a stance called "Everyone's Problem", if it wasn't for one secret ingendient) + !Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!>3P - 4 Move, nay, TUMBLE, into a FOLLOWUP and KICK the KO'd guy into the CROWD! - 3444 - Move 4 + Reckless Daring 2 + 2 Pool>BEATS: Void! - 7 React + 3 Glitching CasadeBlot!!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Lucky!Unusually Mobile!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Flash and Panache
Rolled 9, 5, 2, 3, 4, 2, 5, 2, 9, 3, 5, 9, 5, 7, 3, 5, 4, 3, 5, 9, 2, 10 = 111 (22d10)>>6431446# Eight Treasures!Status: All Good!-Traits & Tools-!Unusually Finesseful!Someone Has to Do the Right Thing!Live Wire!Flash and Panache!RkA: Air Stance>STANCE // Neutral.>ACT // 3 P // Steps 3 with Air stance and then quickly weave through the chaos down the corridor, avoiding the carnage around him, and reaching the space right behind the Panicky Slicerat. Fly like a butterfly.(Mobility 3, Fluidity 3, 2P)>ACT // 2 P // Stare down the Mean Slicerat. He's confident, but is he *that* good? Read the shoulders, the footwork, the way he clenches his fists... (Focus 2, Sharp 1, 1P)>ACT // 3 P // Perspicus throws off the Mean Slicerat's dropkick. Eight Treasures takes the opening, redirects the trajectory and flings him straight into the barrel pile behind them. Sting like a bee.(Foresight 3, Reckless Daring 1, 2 P)>Beats, 1P: Void. (Finesse 3, 1P, Air Stance?)
>>6431570>>6431568But he is, and this is true, so very cool.
Supposedly, chaos is a ladder from which one may elevate the self above the churning masses. But even so. Kings? What a faintly ... Vanadian... concept.
Rolled 1, 4, 7, 1, 5, 5, 8, 2, 4, 7, 9, 10, 9 = 72 (13d10)A storm rolls in. Shelves containing carefully stacked boxes shatter sideways, confused slicerats stumble back from fists and feet and dropkicks, splintering timber and collapsing wood get underfoot and cause stumbles and cascading chaos, Blot boots a man who was getting back to his feet clean across the room, a red phantasm smacks a panicky skittish type with a chair and he was too distracted by Perspicus cool dropkick to get out of the way.A malicious looking slicerat takes a deep puff on his tarsmoke. Mhm. Alright then. Gives a flicker of respect to Stray. Yeah, he has a light. Rummages through his clothes and flicks a nicely rolled smoke across the chaos with an underhand, stepping away just as an avalanche of boxes come a-rolling down the way and the Neat Slicerat yelps...In the back of the building, snapping up from careful needle and knifework, a man with a coolness to his eyes frowns as if the intrusion of masked marauders into his sanctum is equivalent to the curious last-second whining of butterflies stung carefully in a collection box. Interesting specimen, worth, perhaps, study.Chemicae-trained slicerats pause busy work with crates and glass and fire and all the wonders of modern alchemical engineering to look up. Decidedly less sanguine about the sudden intrusion. The thing about rapid hand movements, loud shouts and collateral damage is they're all a terrible fit for the careful work of a chemist. People getting excited tends to mean the process has gone awry. A confused slicerat shakes off some of his surprise and brings his fist up. Driller slides in, two-two, and taps him in the solar plexus with a pointed hand. He falls over with a soft "ufh", crippled.... . . But that's rather a lot of rats, and rather a few of us.-->Foresight: 13, Modified>1/2--
>>6431568You're cool. Trust the process. Wondering too much about how cool you are, exactly, is not cool. If you have to struggle to comprehend if you have It, by definition, you do not. But you do.You're cool.Just be cool. Will the flailing fist of hostile aggressors find their path interrupted? Will rolls of 10 mysteriously have an ineffable edge? Will the timing of things just work out?Perhaps. But trying to hard isn't cool. Just . . . Let it happen.
Rolled 8, 7, 3, 9, 6, 7, 1, 5, 7 = 53 (9d10)Malicious Slicerat: Hmh.
Malicious Slicerat: I'm going to see if the Legion is recruiting. Maybe next time I stab someone it'll be for a good cause.Malicious Slicerat: If you're looking for the senator's kid, she's in cell five... the who?
>>6432115Alright.I'll tell Rinik you said hi. Thanks for the smoke.
Ah, but that's a Dance for you. Always more interested partners than you think. Slicerats yelp and shout and grab for knives and spread out and shake their heads and stumble and throw themselves forward only to be tripped by prepared moves. A pair of lean looking fast ones burst from the Crewtail's office, the soft thuds of meaty fists colliding as someone warms up by punching his hands together a few times, and a Slicerat with a soul like ice shakes his head softly and stares down the intruders.This place, yes, is one of the old Shimmergrass cartels small production huts. The telltale sign of expensive filtration in the far back stands out against the demeanour of the rest of the building. But look, piled high on shelves and carefully put into prepared boxes. Something else entirely. Small, cunningly wrought tokens. Rat, Scorpion, Fox and each made with care by people who would otherwise never prize artistry. The metallic sheen of the box in the corner, near the cold looking thought-slicer.Rinik is branching out. Maybe cutting people up got stale, now he's slicing their souls. That man is an animist, one of the strange and priviledged few who can put the things that are into containers that did not have them prior. They must be cutting memories and craft out of the people in the cell, shunting their proclivities, their abilities and capabilities, into these charm-tokens. Sell it to some higher bidder, somewhere, who wants a brief burst of youthly vigour or concentration or muscle or who-knows-what-else. In the old code, these are Hound Crimes: Crimes against loyalty and the person, to steal from them who they are and pass it on like conceptual contraband. It stops now. Mind that thoughtslicer Lerki. If he's figured out how to do this through experimentation on others, he might very well cut your sense of self apart. And if the tokens with their bound animus burst or shatter, the power is briefly released. Could be a boon. Could be awkward, if it's from a bad batch >Maskphase
Rolled 1, 1, 4, 1, 7, 8, 10, 7, 6, 7, 3, 4, 5, 4, 1, 3, 10, 9 = 91 (18d10)>>6432123!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Insightful!Unusually Foresightful!Cut the Self Free!Flash and Panache-Stance-: Cool>1P Step S>1P Pick up knife>1P Focus and throw the knife straight at the dominant palm of the Clever Slicerat having too clever an idea by those barrels (Focus 3 + Lethality 2 + Pool 5)>1P No-look backhand Mean Slicerat behind me in the face at the exact moment I know he turns around (Foresight 5 + Cool 3)>Beats: void nonchalantly (React 2 + Cool 3)
>>6432123# Atlas Anchored!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Someone has to do the right thing!Unusually Focused!Sunlit Muster(Legion Fullhelm)> STANCE // Neutral.> ACT // 9Pool // Stare through the Even More Confused Slicerat. Knock him on his ass with a haymaker straight to the nose. (Pool 8 + Focus 3 + Hard 1) > BEAT, STAND // Plant feet. Straighten back. Square shoulders. Fill the space confidently. Be as a door barred. None shall pass this way. (6Resist+3Intransigence)>>6431454>>6431706>>6431540As an afterthought, Atlas calls after his associates:>"Storm the offices first. They will be scrambling to burn evidence."
Rolled 8, 5, 5, 2, 5, 9, 7, 8, 9, 6, 5 = 69 (11d10)>>6432134The essence of cool: to do the impossible with ease. The enemy cannot act on their clever ideas if we disable their hands.Here are some extra dice which need not worry anyone…
#The King!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Scale-Hearted Swordsman (Delusional?)!Flash And Panache-The Kings Fists Of Course-The Kings Longknife"That clever ones mine!!">Set all attacks to nonlethal>Stance: Neutral>3P: Realize I need more mobility and switch to the [Leviathanic Seaglide Artes], for movement, and those who desire fleet and light feet yet heavy blades. (1 Attune + 3 Reckless Daring + 2P)>2P: Glide through the crowd 44>1P: Use the KO'd Slicerat as a springboard and leap 3 with the Seaglide Artes, landing on eight treasures, then jumping again 43 past the studied slicerat, gliding like the morning fog (3 Mobility + 3 Reckless Daring)>1P: Leap forward, bounce off the clever slicerats head, then backflip off the barrels and perform the [Whalefall Downward Slash] with my longknife making full use of my blade and my bodies weight as I come back down. (Ferocity 5 + 3 Reckless Daring)>Void Beat // Reckless Daring 3 + 1P, to top off this wonderful turn, dodge and weave recklessly close to danger to look cool.
>>6432156I bid thee grant The King good dice or face due punishment.
Rolled 5, 8, 8, 6, 8, 8, 8, 1, 7, 5, 10, 8, 10, 9, 8, 1, 6, 4, 4, 8 = 132 (20d10)>>6432156All be damned. Give me good dice.
Rolled 4, 6, 2, 9, 1, 10, 6, 5, 1, 8, 6, 9, 1 = 68 (13d10)>>6432138"Wonderful idea my heroic ally!">>6432123#Blot!Status: !All Good-Traits & Tools-!Lucky!Unusually Mobile!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Flash and PanacheStance: !JUSTICE is EVERYONE'S problem! (!GcA: Cascade Collateral [3])Tasks:>2 Pool - Move 44Actions:>7 Pool - FLY like a BOWLING BALL down an alley, FULL SPEED!!! - Go 3434, send those boxes everywhere, preferably into the Slicerats at the end of the path. - 4 Momentum + 3 Glitching Cascade + 6 PoolBeats: !Void - React 7 + Glitching Cascades 3
Rolled 1, 2, 8, 6, 6, 5, 5, 9, 3, 3, 10, 9, 3, 8, 6, 6, 5, 7, 7, 2, 5, 6, 5, 5, 7 = 139 (25d10)>>6432123# Eight Treasures!Status: All Good!-Traits & Tools-!Unusually Finesseful!Someone Has to Do the Right Thing!Live Wire!Flash and Panache!RkA: Air Stance>STANCE // Aggressive. This party's getting crazy!>ACT // 1P // Prepare to boost THE KING as they jump on me. Eight Treasures relegated to a side part? What's the world coming to? (Fluidity 3, Rk 3); Once THE KING has done their pirouettes, make sure to grab one of the larger pieces of debris from the floor (fluid action), and step 4 (Rk. Air stance)>ACT // 1P // Take careful aim at the Careful Slicerat's head halfway across the room... (Focus 2, Rk. 3) >ACT // 3P // and throw the barrel debris I picked up just a second straight at him, interrupting him from doing whatever black magic he's up to. It's cheating, don't you know? (Foresight 2, Rk.3, 2P)>ACT // 2P // Why stop there? Flying kick the Panicky Slicerat down into the table with the card game on it. Sorry fellas, the house always wins! (Finesse 3, Rk.3, 1P)>ACT // 2P // Grab one of the chairs and crash it over the Cunning Slicerat's head before he gets any bright ideas. (Ferocity 1, Reckless Daring 1, 1P)>Beat: VOID. (Mobility 3).
Rolled 4, 3, 2, 7, 7, 7 = 30 (6d10)>>6432194It seems the powers that be are trying to stop me from rising to the occassion. Here's the last few dice!
Rolled 2, 4, 7, 6, 10, 2 = 31 (6d10)>>6432123# Driller!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!A Scorpion Soul, by Duty Bound!Unusually Focused!Mask Scorpion / Red Droplet!Red Dreams, Red Rivers!Someone Has To Do the Right ThingDriller heard the request. It was a good one, and thoughtful. But like the King, Driller was drawn to other targets. The defenseless and the downed. >1P - Take a moment to recover stance and allow the Malicious Slicerat to pass me by. >4P - Move 4,4,5, 5. The tangled slicerat was tempting, but there was better prey further south and Driller did not wish to wake them with the noise of cracking bone. Smooth is fast.>2P, 1 Pose - Nerve strike the Sleeping Slicerat to extend their sleep condition to last through the mission. Where's your battle buddy bud? (Wasp 3, Focus 3!, Bitter Stinger, +1)>1P - Step 5>1P, Beat: overwatch a reaction strike against any rats who come within striking distance of me. The rules tell them not to hurt the prisoners, but one shouldn't rely on the enemy following the rules. Enemy? Truly? Close enough for a Dance.
Servants please stop throwing knives and barrels at the clever slicerat I'm right there
Excellent time to look fantastic while dodging a knife.
...servants continue throwing knives and barrels at the clever slicerat while I'm right here.
>>6432123Do these crates belong to the slicerats? And if so, are they easily searchable?
>>6432258Joe, can I recommend you either come inside or get ready to brawl with incoming slicerats? breaking the window isn't priority when we're already inside the building, and would just give the slicerats more exits.
>>6432264I would but the entryway is very crowded, I figured it would be easier to find alternate entry.
>>6432265Ah, don't worry, its basically just guys lying on the floor which you can step on and allies which are moving out of the way. Also you should put a barrel on your head or something so your family doesn't get shanked.
>>6432269That sounds heavy, I just want to punch some bad guys and save the day man.
Driller was too busy to stop and admire the old masks, but it was notable that they guarded the rear and allowed the young bloods to rush in and cover themselves with glory. Rather responsible of them. Oh, look. Another Slice Rat who didn't have their guard up...
Rolled 9, 4, 6, 9, 1, 1, 3, 9, 2, 6, 2, 3, 3, 7, 3, 8, 9, 2, 9, 4 = 100 (20d10)>>6432123>Stance: Aggressive>Status: All Good>2p: Move 4-5>2p: Grapple the Confused and Tangled SliceRat and proceed to put him in a bone crushing hug [Ferocity 5+Lethality 3+1Pool]>5p: Toss him through the door to the Bunk. Time to have a SERIOUS talk with the "New Recruits" [Ferocity 5+Reckless Daring 2+4 Pool]>STAND and Parry incoming: Ferocity 5# El Fantasma Carmesí (The Crimson Phantom)!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Violent Tear of Ashoniti!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Red Dream, Red Rivers
Rolled 7, 10, 6, 10, 6, 4, 7, 8, 4, 9, 8, 3, 5, 9, 3, 1, 1, 2, 1, 8, 3, 4, 10, 7 = 136 (24d10)>>6432123#Stray-Conditions And Consequences-!Status: Alive-Traits & Tools-!Old Blitzhound!Unusually Fluid!Cut The Self Free!Whispering Witticisms>Status: Business as Usual>Animists. Not even *once*.>Stance: Harrying Howls [Expose on 10s with Wolf moves]>3P: Fluidly weave [44] through the debris, make as if I'm going to slice them, then instead kick the Studied Slicerat in the thigh. (Fluidity 3! + Wolf 3) !Unusually Fluid>1P: It ain't a Dance if you ain't moving. Move [4344], jumping on top of the table, and scissor kicking Crafty Slicerat as I jump down. (Mobility 4 + Wolf 3)>1P: Boot Crafty in the ribs a bit more. Stay down, man. (Finesse 2 + Wolf 3)>1P: Dab some of the shimmergrass distillate on the tarsmoke, because why not have a little fun with it? (Focus 1 + Wyrd 2) [purposefully tapping !Old Blitzhound, not my first rodeo with stims, *and* I actually know what shimmergrass looks like. This stuff any good? Do I need to kick these chemicae a bit harder? Also tapping !Whispering Witticisms, because... why the hell not]>1P: Then smash and torch everything on this table of pain, papers, chems and all. If only I had a light. Oh, wait. (Ferocity 1 + Wyrd 2) >1P: Attend to Thoughtslicer Lerki. Only knew one guy who could pull off a metal eye, and you ain't him, pal. Damn animists. Don't let him get too good a look, the smoke might help.>1P: Attend to the Far Too Lucky Slicerat. Only two kinds of people to worry about. Those that are good, and those that are lucky.>BEAT: STAND, use the longknife to defend with Wolf style, aggressive parries to set up openings for ripostes. (Resist 2 + Wolf 3)
>>6432317Can't use Ferocity twice a turn mate
>>6432258Awry stacked boxes of various bits, though some are possibly empty. It looks as if it's part of the delivery flow around here. Possibly some of them are either waiting for retrieval, or have been delivered?Since you have some time spare, might as well have a look inside The trio you're near is:- Empty- Empty, albeit faintly stained with chemical marks. Must have been ingredients. - Contains 42 nicely wrapped short knives wrapped in oilcloth to keep the rust away.... Oh.So. Definitively Slicerat contraband, then.
>>6432123# Joe!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Stubborn!Unusually Focused!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Streetstyle brawler>3P: Move 234 444 554>3P: Carefully disarm the guard (Cool 1 + Focus 5 + 3P)>3P: Grab his keys to the cells (Fluidity 3 + Sharp 1 + 3P)>Beat: Stand (Resist 2 + Intransigence 3)
Rolled 9, 9, 2, 10, 9, 1, 8, 5, 5, 5, 7, 4, 3, 6, 5, 1 = 89 (16d10)>>6432412
Common issue with slapping a man about the head is that while it might work in your mass-produced chapbooks featuring Rikovian heroe doing improbably backflip, in real life when you punch someone in the face they tend to experience very many things but seldom is the thing they experiene getting sleeper. The Meaner Slicerat jolts awake, eyes wide and tinged with the soft green of shimmergrass, and he fair falls off his chair as Driller looks down. Where IS this man's battle buddy, anyway? Sleeping on the job? Dangerous. Just about anyone could burst in and srtart punching...--InsightIt might be theoretically possible to punch someone sleepier, as one inflicts conditions via leveraging effects and having the right approach is helpful. A clever wasp-handchop to the throat and some extra effort? It's been done before, softsoul. Unfortunately, it seems to require slightly more impact than was just leveraged; for tricks like that, it helps to focus and ensure you're giving it your best. Without sufficient follow-through, it might not take.
Eyes rolling down the long hallway where little avenues lead to cells where moaning, captives shudder and shiver. They've been fed Shimmergrass and other things, and may not even see the world for what it is. Vivid dreams and hallucinatory insight. Do the Slicerats even need chains for their captives? Dose them high enough and they'll think their thoughts wings and just fly, fly away, and never mind the body left behind...The battle buddy of the Meaner Slicerat slowly slides off of his chair. Earmarks his book. Cracks his knuckles. Gazes up at the Red Droplet maskmate with a soft air of mild amusement. Oh yeah, mate. I bet you think you're hard. I bet you think you know what pain is. He cracks a knuckle, working out some stiffness. Rolls his shoulders. Wait-- wait shit. Shit. His hands come pre-wrapped. He's got a busted nose from prior fights. He's actually taking a proper fighting stance, unlike the studious Slicerats one room over. ABORT DRILLER ABORT THIS MAN IS A... IS... OH BY THE ICONS ABOVE HE'S A BOXER
Rolled 6, 4, 10, 4, 7, 3, 7, 8, 2, 8, 7, 3, 1, 9 = 79 (14d10)But of course the Slicerats would employ a mean miniboss with souped up characteristics and too much pain in the knuckles to make a proper dance of it. Boxing. BOXING? Another sign of the subtle rot at the heart of the metropol, the lack of respect for the proper storied fighting arts. You go to the Moth Circuit you see drama, you see stories, you see a man's soul. All this vanadian import ringside business where two fighters take turns turning each other into gibbering meat? It might sustain the wolf inside but it lacks for soul. They just... Stand there and TAKE IT. Where's the panache? The flash? The sommersault off of a Eight Treasurers extended hands that turn into a painful collision with a support pillar, a borked landing, a slip on the terrible detritus of timber and crate, a skiddering half stop and a mis-aligned reckless knife-swing that cuts the rope holding a large amount of heavy water barrels in one place? You think you see that sort of glory in a ringside boxing match? Of course not, they haven't the sheer grace for it. Maybe before Stray burns the alcehmical equipment he can filch something for the pain, a Scalehearted Swordsperson is going to need it in the morning.Joe ambles in, ducks the chaos, and trades places with the Malicious Slicerat ambling out. From the drowsy specimen on the floor, he plucks a set of WHISKER KEYS. Not much good for the cells, because they turn out to be curtains and rope and implication, but the footlockers around here must be where they keep their valuables. Now, little detail of the Dance: You do get paid, and it's not about making money. But that doesn't mean you can't, as it were, make money. Heroic vigilantees have expenses too, and cold coin go nicely far sometimes. Rooting around for valuables might come in handy at some point, though not so much that it ought to distract you from the deeds of daring. The only real use of coinage is keeping score. Though perhaps there's other valuables, or the much harder currency of SECRETS. That sort of thing...? Now that'll get you very far indeed. The Meanest looking Slicerat in the building in the cell next to quite a pretty problem squares off with Driller and Joe, shifts his stance and brings his fists up. Oooooh no. You're going to get it now. He's going to walk forward slowly and punch you until you're not worth punching any more. Boxers!! Terribly predictable.-->RAT PHASE>Foresight: 14, modified.--
>>6432433So, uh, I’ve got this cleaver now. Would it be problematic if I were to whack that meanest slicerst with it? Or is lethal/ maiming force frowned upon for doers of justice?
>>6432438As detailed in the rulesheet, embedding a meat cleaver in a man's skull would actually be _murder_ and bring all sorts of unpleasant consequences. On the other hand, !Someone Has To Do The Right Thing lets you make any attack non-lethal. Any one.
Ah, that's the stuff. Must be... Hmh... Puregrade Kalcmiri import? Chartered cross seas, harvested by careful hands, still retains that sandy texture. They're cutting it with local produce and remixing the baseline. Excellent painkiller, good margins, no long-term bio-consequences. Worthy of a Blitzhound. Say this for Rinik if you must say something postive about the man: He rarely cuts corner he doesn't have to cut. Sets about his everything with a certain professionalism. With all the knowledge of the Shimmergrass Cartels at their beck and call, of course the Slicerats would be putting it to work finagling together some truly exquisite alchemicals. Ah, strike a light. Glance at the papers. Standard recipe trade secrets. A proper Luperni Blitzhound has burned that before. Stray grinds the tarsmoke into the paper and they catch fire quick. Sparks are always a little more playful around there. Steps back from the table, enjoys the soft reduction in the ridigity of the universe. Can almost feel the soft-pulse approval of distant things, peering in. Well done, softsoul, that was the right thing to do...
>>6432438Embedding a meat cleaver in a man's skull would actually be murder and bring all sorts of unpleasant consequences. That's not to say people never die in the course of justice, or that some people might not warrant killing, but it is to say that there is a fine line between pushing back against rats gnawing at the fabric of the world and piling corpses so high all kinds of people have to start taking notice. You might call it justice, then, but a lot of investigators paid quite a lot of money by the authorities would simply call it a crime, and make scant distinction between them doing it to you first and you doing it to them second. Slicerats do also get arrested.But other than the consequence of state justice, there's a more ineffable quality: If rumour starts leaking that you're the type to do this sort of thing, might not someone else be the type to do it to you, better, faster, harder? We live, unfortunately, in a society. Hired assassins, planned ambush and poisoned meals are tools those without scruples can reach for. The whispertraders in the Red Market has your back for the most part, and this is a ... sanctioned dance ... but the old rules of that trade remains the same: If it's good enough to give, it's good enough to get. Someone hires a hardened killer to put you in the ground? Someone else might tell you ahead of time, their tools might be delayed, their steps watched, some officers of the Watchers forewarned. The City reaches out to take care of its own. Everything leaves a trace. Someone in the know might intercede. But if you yourself are a man of merciless cunning and quick solutions, have you not voided such protections? If someone else on the board hires a man to terminate you, is the rules of the game you have decided to play not that such is eminently reasonable? Cause, well, meet consequence.One would need to be like Rinik, then, and hire guards and watchers and protectors, build a network of layered defenses, constantly watch your back. He spends quite a lot of money on protection, he does, our man Rinik. Not sure you've got the liquid cash flow for the lifestyle.You can live that kind of life, of course. Many do. Consqeuences are never instant. But they accrue, nevertheless, with a certain inevitable vastness. You're the man with the cleaver in your hand.It remains your choice.
The longer this battle goes on the more the layout for this building is revealed, and the more insistently a question gnaws:Does this drug lab slash human trafficking warehouse truly not have a fire exit? Are the rats so sure nothing will ever go wrong by combining arms smuggling, chemicals and soul-theft? But we've gone wrong for them already. Mind the fire, it can spread, even if the ventilation keeps it under control for now. Voracious, happy thing, the empyrean's spark. Mean looking slicerats square their stance and set about delivering a clobbering, water barrels cascade and roll and slam everywhere, the floor gets slippery and wet, and Stray feels the faint satisfaction of a job so very well done indeed. It's a little ruined by the thought slicer ducking left, tearing the lid off of a crate and pulling out a Legion Mark IV Double-Joint Compact Urban Operations Deterence Shotbow With The Extra Barbed Groove.... Some people have no manners. Stray, not unused to being shot at, ducks behind a games table that remains blessedly undisturbed for now. Watch out! He's got a crossbow!! First man to move too much gets it !! --Foresight:Those tokens, they imbue them briefly with the seeming of other things. Rat is skittish and defensive, and they dodge. Fox is cunning and sly, and they strike harder. The pair of Meaner and Meanest slicerat left-wise have some modicum of tactics. The Meaner one will cheer on his brother, who slugs like you wouldn't believe. Mind pledging hard on hard. You'd need to be very hard indeed or his counter-strike might floor you!>Maskphase>If you wait a few minutes, there's a note on Momentum--
With the alchemical fires consuming the production line, things feel ... more right. Ah, but the Dance is just getting started. Come on. Get to your feet. MomentumCarrying out sub-goals and objectives rack Momentum. Terrible calamities reduce it. Forward momentum... Excerbates it. When you have it, check the team wide condition tracker for how much.Each turn, during STATUS, shrug off the ails that haunt you by spending Momentum. No. You're not stunned. No. You're not going to sit down. No, that was just a flesh-wound. And so on. Status' mitigated this way do come back next turn, but for the moment, simply ignore them. Admittedly, if you ignore "YOUR ARM IS BROKEN [3]" with 3 Momentum and you punch someone, the status might come back worse. If you have unspent Momentum, whether by choice or because you're so good you've not suffered anything, when acting, you can apply the lot of it to a single action. If so, that action is markedly, massively improved, as Momentum translates directly to +Effect, force-fires some triggers, and if it's a critical? Ooofh, maskmate. Poor guy to take a swing at. The intention used for a Momentum action is somewhat important, as the thing it modifies is those intentions. You can hash it out: Defensive fluidity, ferocious crackdowns, focused precision...While you can, of course, use this to enhance things you are already very good at, you are already very good at those things. It's equally as useful to use this to enhance actions you might otherwise not have the Intentions to quite carry out, but which, if you just go with the flow, will work a lot better. ( Ah, but what's the drawback? There always seems to be one:And the drawback is this, maskmate: If you really lean into it and flub, well, you were really leaning into it and flubbed. Might get a bit painful. )
>>6432471OUCH, MY FACEAs a soft reminder now the night is geting truly started, call Status at the start of your turn and handle your status. Driller got drilled, so in order to take a turn at all, that must be handled somehow. He pays the posture tax, or he takes the status adjustment. A friend or ally might offer a supporting hand and help him get to his feet, and you can try actions to deal with statuses. The system accounts for this relatively fluidly, so don't worry too much about timing. If someone stands up and runs off, you can still work by how they were at the turn update, if you want to help them out. Sometimes, you get choices! Exciting choices! 3 Posture per 1 Bleed you don't want to suffer! Sometimes, you don't. It's mostly always implied, however? Driller here could pay *less* Posture, but if so, the "tax" gets resolved by the Status application adjustings its value up or down by how much he hasn't paid. You might want to be careful doing this, because it can scramble your turn a little if you get tricky, only half pay your dues, and then the remainder gets applied as a status adjustment that you're not accounting entirely for. Still, it can be done. If you're due to pay 12 Posture and you have 0, the overflow pays for itself by inflicting things on you. That's the other reason to call Status start of your turn; you might have to admit to the world you're unconscious on the floor sans your hat.If you see your ally has a sizable debt due and no means to handle it, it's usually quite useful to attempt to assist them in *some* manner, depending on what's causing it. They'd do the same for you.Joe (still without a mask), gets a free status, no Posture charge, and it just happens. Attempting to mitigate it would be spending an action to try to handle it, somehow, but eh doesn't have to, and might simply carry on as is, while being Rattled [2].
Rolled 2, 7, 1, 7, 5, 8, 8, 7, 9, 5, 1, 1, 8, 6, 2 = 77 (15d10)>>6432471!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Insightful!Unusually Foresightful!Cut the Self Free!Flash and Panache-Stance-: Cool>5P Move 2 SE 2 NE 1N, Focusing on not slipping or stepping on something sharp. Make sure to step on the floored Slicerat on the way though (Focus 3 + Cool 3)>1P Pick up a broken board on the way>3P Jump over the barrel I know is coming my way and clock the Loyal Slicerat over the head with the board.(Foresight 5 + Lethality 2 + Pool 2)>Beats: Parry with the board (React 2 + Cool 3)
Rolled 10, 9, 10, 4, 5, 2, 7, 10, 2, 7, 4, 3, 5, 2, 8, 9, 7, 8, 6 = 118 (19d10)>>6432471# Joe!Status: !Rattled [2]-Traits & Tools-!Stubborn!Unusually Focused!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Streetstyle brawler>-Make actions nonlethal>2P: Attempt to handle Rattled by steeling my spirit and remembering why I’m here. No, YOU move. (Focus 5 + Discipline 2 + 1P !Stubborn)>5P: Use my cleaver to drag the meanest slicerat’s leg from under him, trying to get him to fall over (Ferocity 1 + Sharp 1 + 4P)>2P: Anticipate a counterpunch, and brace to receive it (Foresight 1 + Intransigence 3 + 1P !Streetstyle Brawler)>Beat: Stand (Resist 2 + Hard 2)
BLOT, STRAY, GIVE ME A MOMENT, I WILL HANDLE THE CROSSBOWMAN.
>>6432471>STANCE // Neutral.Atlas leans in and, in a low tone audible only to the captive Diffident, he murmurs."Be quiet. Observe."> TASK // 1Pool // Walk 4. Quietly approach the Mean Slicerat from behind, still dragging the Diffident Rat along.> ACT // 8Pool // The Mean Slicerat is off-balance, distracted. Trap him in a one-armed sleeper hold from behind using remaining free arm. Crushingly compress both carotid arteries until the rodent agitant is rendered unconscious. (Pool 7 + Control 3 + Hard 1)> BEAT, STAND // Take a wide stance, rooted. Head tucked, muscles locked. Do not compromise. Not a single step back. (6Resist+3Intransigence)
>>6432471Trigger to parry something like a bolt can I do it as a normal action like>4P: As I flip through the air, slice away the bolt flying at me with all my might, because I AM that really good swordsman, THY MERE BOLTS CAN'T HARM ME!!! (5 Ferocity + 3 Reckless Daring + 3P)Since its happening as soon as I move or does it need to be a beat
Rolled 4, 5, 1, 6, 9 = 25 (5d10)#DrillerIt is important that one pay one's taxes.!Status: -9 posture. I'd rather not flub 4's and am willing to gamble on the prowess of my fellow maskmates. And while the Universe did say that I could get away with paying 3, that feels like tax evasion, so I'll pay my full 9. If the stun 3 still needs to be resolved after that, take it out of my attack pool, since I don't have 12 posture to give. Luckily, 9+3 does not always equal 12. !Take Status, 1 Pool - The Boxer is covered in scars. While these bring lessons, they also tend to leave enduring wounds as reminders. Focus! on the Boxer's movements to identify their weaknesses, that we might apply pressure to them in the future. (First Aid 4 + Wasp 3, not rolled. If double secret is disallowed, I guess do First Aid 4 + Foresight 1, Wasp for flavor).>Status Action 3: Remember that I'm duty bound to do the right thing. Set 'Strike to Disable' as my default. I've been doing so all along, but sometimes the doctor on my shoulder needs to remind me not to murder people. -Traits & Tools-!A Scorpion Soul, by Duty Bound!Unusually Focused!Mask Scorpion / Red Droplet!Red Dreams, Red Rivers!Someone Has To Do the Right Thing>Stance: !Aggressive. Time to poke little holes in reality and see what Fun! posture debt brings. Is the risk its own reward? Nevermind. The Universe has not allowed this paradox, for Stance degrades Beat, not Posture. >Wolf 2 + Focus 3! + Pool 7 - Entangle the Boxer in this fine cloth. I feel like I've seen this play before, but in the plays the hero either pulls a ranged weapon or uses a set piece to defeat the brawler. I'm going with set piece and friends, because I'm not the lone hero of a heroic epic, and I share the stage with other heroes deserving of Glory. If I spot a weakness that can be exploited by the wrapping, spend my last posture exploiting it. As a Scorpion should. Just ask the Frog. >1 Pool - Whisper a prayer to the Thorned Rose to help this Slicerat learn from their pain and turn from their evil ways. She goes by many names, many kennings, but tonight I use this one. >0 Pool spent on raising my posture above 1. Here's hoping no one slams me in the back of the head with a really sturdy door. Or at all. >Beat - Dodge out of the way of incoming blows, preferably to the east so I don't end up stuck in a corner with no place to dodge.
>>6432562You’d have to be a pretty good swordsman to parry a fast moving crossbow bolt projectile. Since you’re not Merkalin come again, trying will simply mean being shot with a crossbow unless you’re exceptionally lucky.Secondly, acting against known information is simply an action. If you know someone is going to shoot, an action to deal with it isn’t the same as a beat. A generic beat defense applies to everything. Taking pro-active action is simply acting. Very useful.Perhaps this is where Foresight shines?
#The King!Status: 10/18-Traits & Tools-!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Scale-Hearted Swordsman (Delusional?)!Flash And Panache-The Kings Fists Of Course-The Kings Longknife>Nonlethal attacks>Stance: Seaglide Artes (Go Long!)>1P: Boost off blots head and glide through the air onto the gambling table but while I'm in the air.. (3 Mobility + 3 Reckless Daring)>"THOU ART A COWARD AND A FOOL, GIVE ME YOUR BEST SHOT!!">5P: As I flip through the air, use my [Storm-bladed Sea Winds Arte] and slash away the bolt, because I AM that really good swordsman, THY MERE BOLTS CAN'T HARM ME, IT IS AS I DECREE!!! (5 Ferocity + 3 Reckless Daring + 4P) !Scale-Hearted Swordsman (Delusional?) !Flash And Panache !Unusually Ferocious>2P: After landing on the table, scoop up some of the coin and in one fluid motion fling them into the lucky rats eyes with the [Sea-Sling Technique] (1 Fluidity + 3 Reckless Daring + 1P)>1P: BEAT // Void, dodge incoming blows from the rats below by leaping around and flipping onto other objects or people nearby. (3 Mobility, 3 Reckless Daring.)
The first action should apply !Flash and PanacheThird !Scale-hearted swordsman
Rolled 5, 8, 9, 3, 2, 10, 8, 9, 1, 3, 1, 7, 5, 1, 8, 5, 1, 10, 6, 2, 1, 5, 9 = 119 (23d10)>>6432608>>6432610I messed up the dice again
Rolled 8, 9, 6, 3, 9, 7, 9, 10, 5, 2, 10, 6, 6, 6, 8, 3, 7 = 114 (17d10)>>6432471>Stance: Still Aggressive!>Status: All good>2p: Move 4-4>3p: Coordinate with Driller for a well placed hit in the weakness of boxers. Lowkick the Meanest Slicerat (Focus 3+Wolf 1+2pool)>4p: See, he's a boxer and honestly he probably enjoys the pain it means I don't need to hold back as much when I go for a grab of his dominant arm and just go for the...arm bar and break his arm. That's what were doing btw. Non-Lethal I swear we just breaking his arm (Ferocity 5+Lethality 3+ 3 Pool)>Beat: Void (Fluidily dodge incoming and throw a chair in retaliation)# El Fantasma Carmesí (The Crimson Phantom)!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Violent Tear of Ashoniti!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Red Dream, Red Rivers
>>6432552Wannabe-shardsoul, it is to my deep shame that I am not entirely sure how throwing coins and dancing a jig on a table is 'handling' the crossbowman situation.Clearly I am in lack of some greater faculty of Sense...
Rolled 5, 10, 10, 2, 6, 10, 8, 6, 5, 4, 5, 7, 5, 5, 3, 4, 4, 9, 9, 8, 6, 6, 2, 5 = 144 (24d10)>>6432471#Stray-Conditions And Consequences-!Status: AlivePosture: 16/18-Traits & Tools-!Old Blitzhound!Unusually Fluid!Cut The Self Free!Whispering Witticisms>Status: Business as Usual>Take Note:-[Attend]ing to Lerki.-[Attend]ing to the water.-Mind the sigildry, softsoul.>Stance: Harrying Howls [Expose on 10s with Wolf moves]>1P: Attend to Thoughtslicer Lerki.>1P: Attend to the water. Slipping hazard! >1P: Drop down into a crouch and sweep the leg out from under the Studied Slicerat, you're standing in *water*, softsoul. Where's your footing? (Focus 1 + Wolf 3)>1P: Crawl under the table and move [434] (Mobility 4 + Cool 2)>1P: Drag the Hopeful Local's chair somewhere a bit more out of the way. A bit safer, for now. Get them out of that sigildry and cut the ties. Mind the sigildry myself. (Foresight 2 + Cool 2)>1P: Cool bondsteel eye, if I'm not mistaken. I've got something that works against eyes in *both* worlds. Canteen of saltwater. Never leave home without it. You know what they say: a sip a day keeps the Wrack at bay. (Attune 2 + Cool 2)>1P: Stray opens the canteen, takes a drag of his tarsmoke. Takes a sip of his hypersaturated salt solution, pretends it's just water. You know how the Dance is. There's lulls, reprieves. Interludes. Then, suddenly, he lunges forth and spits a fine mist of saltwater mist and smoke into the face of Lerki, and here come the rest of the contents of the canteen! (Fluidity 3! + Wolf 3) !Unusually Fluid>2P: Stray also lunges forth with the longknife, aiming for the crossbow's string. Could be a steel wire, yes, but... Well. More hazard to the wielder if it *snaps.* (Finesse 2 + Wolf 3 + Pool 1 + 2 Momentum)>BEAT: VOID. Hit and run, softsoul. Worms in the wood. Grit in the cogs. (Mobility 4 + Cool 2)
Rolled 8, 8, 4, 6, 1, 8 = 35 (6d10)>>6432783And here's the rest of the dice for the (Finesse 2 + Wolf 3 + Pool 1 + Momentum 2) action.
>>6432783Oh, whoops, BEAT should be Void: (React 2 + Mobility 4) same number but juust a miiiinor bookkeping correction. I'm a law-abiding citizen, Watcher sir, I'd never try to slip an ILLEGAL action string past. Got a license for pummeling Slicerats and everything!
Rolled 10, 7, 2, 8, 6, 2, 6, 6, 4, 10, 3, 2, 2, 4 = 72 (14d10)A scalehearted swordsman boosts off of Blot and sommersaults through the air, loudly declaring exactly where they are and daring the maniac with the bonded eye to put a bolt right through a sternum - which, with a flick of the wrist and sheer instinct, they do with commendable accuracy. Parrying fast moving projectiles in bad conditions is, and you have to understand this maskmate, it's very important, it is: EXTREMELY DIFFICULT. Thudding on top of the card-game, half insensate from sheer pain and shock, the King scatters coins and cards and blood everywhere as the Thoughtslicer racks another bolt and spins around to put one in the next aggressor, but Stray comes up with a convenient canteen and a fast pace and the distraction from taking down one maskmate was enough that he's now too close. Up close, the Thoughtslicer snarls, eye piece licking away, whirring, adjusting, trying to filter out the smoke and the environmental chaos, but neither that nor his reflexes manage to forewarn him, so Stray dumps a canteen over most of his face with a clunk, a wet-spittle spray of salty water to follow. Well, can't fault the classics.--Joe weaves left, expects a counter-punch and hooks the cleave around the Meanest Slicerats mountain-solid stance. He does NOT topple, feet planted like he's ready to shove the entire world aside, but in comes Driller with a flung curtain and though he punches it, it does him very little. A red phantasm slips up on the side and kicks him, and tangled and hooked, he finally hits the ground with a commendably satisfying thud, though getting him in an armbar in this situation is a little difficult *and* his mean looking brother is right there...--Perspicus foresightfully sees the thing that is going to happen with the barrel. The Loyal slicerat, however, did not expect the board to the face. He blinks, half stunned, and spits a splinter..-->RAT PHASE>Foresight: 14, modified.
Rolled 8, 4, 7, 9, 3, 5, 6, 1, 4, 3, 5 = 55 (11d10)Lerki: I should have KNOWN old dogs keep trying the same tricks. Well I've yet to meet a Luperni dogheart who can take a bolt to the heart and *live* so I think I have the upper hand--Lerki]/red]: ...Lerki]/red]: ...>... He cut the string, didn't he. Sigh.THROW THE CROSSBOW, THEN, ICONS BE DAMNED THIS DAY IS NO END OF TROUBLE (Focus xx+RatTacyy+Poolc)
>>6432847I have two questions:- Are they burning the papers right on the floor?- How are the shutters locked?
(cruel QM, not waiting 24 hours between updates, how is a common working anon meant to put his votes in, I was just doing my turn for the last half hour)
>>6432857Oh, apologies. Perhaps a strange time variance? One was so dead certain it had already been 24 hours.>>6432856They appear to be stuffing it into a metallic bin in the middle of the room, feeding it stray bits of accelerant and paper in alternating measure.The shutters are, from this side, secured with nails and boards. Reinforced, it seems, in a way that's hard to open from either direction. As Joe found out, it is a lot easier with something long and sharp to pry with, as then you can get the nails out. Alternatively, throw something appropriately heavy through the boards. Unfortunately it seems the Slicerats are doing lockdown measures of a kind, so from their perspective the secured boarded up nailed in shutters aren't meant to be opened at all. One wonders about the fire safety of this place.
Lerki, coldly calculating, hurls first his crossbow now that it has been rendered entirely useless by Stray's sharp cut and then, spinning, garbs and hurls a vial of shimmergrass distilate that detonates into shards of glass and the faint impression of enjoyment and curious sensation. Woah!--Perspicus, cool, faces down a loyal bruiser who rolls his shoulders and squares his stance. Does one wicked punch that gets parried but turning to the side leaves the other side open, and he was deft enough to feint. His fist comes in like a rock. Alright. Be cool.--The brothers Mean on the left side of the compound roll and snarl and try to untangle themselves, and forced to make do, the Meaner brother steps in and kicks out at the Red Droplets to give his older larger brother time to unwrap and untangle himself from the cloth. He's exposed like this, but his brothers watchful guard might offer some protection. The door behind creaks open, but stops, unable to continue past the faintly moaning bundle of bear-hugged Slicerat. A slim looking face from beyond peers down at it in puzzlement. Maybe the hinges need oil again? Foresight: The Recruits aren't so sharp yet, and they don't think this noise and chaos anything unusual at the moment. --The Cunning Slicerat grabs a chair and uses it to hide his knife and steps in, swinging one and lunging with the other. Crafty, and hard to avoid, even if you're deft. Still. Perhaps a last second throw-the-self-aside and you're in the clean?--A scalehearted swordsman with a new bolt in them bleeds all over, and an inspired civilian but recently rescued pulls them from the table to avoid being beat up by nearby slicerats. Alright, don't panick, you did, admittedly, in a staggering display of truly ludicrous hubris loudly shout to the armed man with the crossbow where you were and got shot, but that doesn't meant you have to die here. Lots of people get shot and mostly make it through fine. Perhaps this is the kind of situation where FIRST AID is quite helpful, though, recall: it's always easier to use it on someone else. Alternatively, if you're tremendously hard, there was something about shrugging things off earlier.--Joe flicks the cleaver neatly around and wards off the punch that might otherwise have decked Fantasma, who, rolling away, hurls a chair. The mean one is off-balance! Get him! -->MASKPHASE
Rolled 9, 10, 7, 5, 5, 7, 5, 3 = 51 (8d10)In most of the chapbooks and puppet-plays, you understand, rescuing the unfortunate is The Right Thing To Do
>>6432872Bank a GloryTreat it like its own Intention, omni-capable to support most things, though it tends to favour doing the right stuff. Glorious actions are ... A little extra, and a little louder.Alternatively, burn your Glory when acting to reroll all failed dice on a single given action. You can do this retro-actively, once you see how many have actually failed or not.Freedom and vengeance have their own rewards, but tonight it looks as if we're doing the right thing
Rolled 10, 3, 8, 10, 8, 2, 10, 7, 7, 4, 3, 10, 8, 10, 9, 10, 7 = 126 (17d10)>>6432870!Status: 6 injury?-Traits & Tools-!Insightful!Unusually Foresightful!Cut the Self Free!Flash and Panache-Stance-: Cool>-Spend 6 Posture to dodge the strike, leaving it to only mussle my hair>3P: Focus on the enemy's movements. Present a false opening he will WANT to exploit even at the cost of dropping his guard (Focus 3 + Sharp 2 + Pool 2)>3P: Once he attacks, he'll be where I want him. Dodge, grapple the arm and break it over my shoulder (Foresight 5 + Cool 3 + Pool 2)>Beats: void (React 2 + Cool 3 + Pool 3)
Focus on the papers, Servants!! Get the Papers!! My Moth servants are telling me we NEED to get those papers!!!!!!!
Atlas, my quite-strong warrior, that group of newbies could use your utterly terrifying visage to keep them sitting in their bunks
Rolled 6, 8, 9, 2, 5, 6, 2, 2, 5, 1, 10, 5, 8, 4, 7, 4, 10, 4, 3, 4, 9 = 114 (21d10)>>6432870#Stray-Conditions And Consequences-Status:!Alive!Shimmerstims +2 [2]-Traits & Tools-!Old Blitzhound!Unusually Fluid!Cut The Self Free!Whispering Witticisms>Status: Don't Stop Me Now- Pay 12 Posture and accept !Shimmerstims +2 [2]>Stance: Harrying Howls [Wolf moves always Expose on 10+]>1P: Attend to Lerki and the little trick he has behind his back.>1P: Attend to the slip and trip hazards.>1P: oh.. noooo... MY FAVOURITE. I'VE NEVER TAKEN IT LIKE *THAT* BEFORE. FAIR, SLICER, FAIR. Let's dance. Smash the Scorpion token {it's on the table [3] of me, just behind the Otherworldly veil} with the pommel of the longknife. (Glory 1 + Wyrd 2 + Stims 2) [!Whispering Witticisms] {3 dice}>1P: Grab those TWO flasks of Shimmergrass Distillate and throw them at Lerki's face! You've got ONE eye and you threw ONE and I have TWO eyes so I'll throw TWO. I UNDERSTAND IT NOW! (Finesse 2 + Wolf 3 + Stims 2 + Momentum 2) {5 dice}>1P: He'll try to push forward whilst I'm throwing the flasks... (Foresight 2 + Sharp 1 + Stims 2) {3 dice}>1P: So I'll FEROCIOUSLY kick the chair into him to keep him at bay! (Ferocity 1 + Wolf 3 + Stims 2) {4 dice}>1P: And then I'll grab ALL. THE. KNIVES. on this table and THROW them at him! You know who's trained with knives? (Finesse 3! + Wolf 3 + Stims 2) [!Old Blitzhound] {6 dice}>2P: Recover 2 Posture.>BEAT: VOID. You're not getting close until I *want* to. (React 2 + Mobility 4 + Stims 2)
#The King!Status: Minor wounds for The King-Traits & Tools-!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Scale-Hearted Swordsman (Delusional?)!Flash And Panache-The Kings Fists Of Course-The Kings Longknife>Set all attacks to nonlethal>Stance: Neutral, Go Long!>"Hm. Thank you, Hopeful Servant, Focus your efforts on healing me, and the bolt? Worry not, hold the bolt still.">Shrug off some of the bolt pain with Momentum 2>8 AP: Regain 8 Posture, try to pay off any debuff I'd get to using my sword with some of this posture.>1 AP: Breathe in. Breathe out. Slash through the bolt with the [Trimming Coral Arte] (3 Reckless Daring + 5 Ferocity) !Scale-Hearted Swordsman (Delusional?) !Unusually Ferocious>Beat: Void, Reckless for the same reason as every other time (Mobility 3, Reckless Daring 3)>"Drag me a little up, hopeful one. Onto one of those undamaged boxes between the giant barrels. Better the heal my esteemed self a little away from the combat, yes?"
>>6432857Good Day Blot,I, Stray, have it on good authority that Something is going to Happen. As our Cascade specialist, I would just like for you to Know. That Something will Happen. In case any enterprising individuals (Nobody in particular, of course) would like to capitalise on such acts. May you live in interesting times,Stray.
Loyal Slicerat I'm going to bust you up and get a raise. C'MHEREEEEEEEEEiiiiiiIIIIIIIIIIIiiiNot so hard with most of his arm bent the wrong way, is he?>>6432934Gasseous drug mixtures throw at will to shatter and spread into an area already containing stray bits of fire and smoke and other gunk? Breathe in deep, maskmate. That's the lovely scent of Interesting Things
The Fast and Cunning Slicerat, eyes flickering to the side as screeching wood splinters and an inspired local bites down on his lunch, wobbling on his feet. Oh shit maskmate was that a good idea? holy shit the bolthead is still in there. Holy shit...( ... Well, of course, beating a score of nefarious never'd'wells WITH a dramatically appropriate shoulder wound? Now that's the kind of thing that can make the audience sit up and take notice. ).. Holy shit there's no way that's sanitary.Foresight: You know, they're too shocked and mildly terrified to protect themselves just now . . .
"DO NOT EVER DOUBT THE GRAND KINGS SKILL WITH A BLADE AGAIN!!"
Rolled 4, 6, 8, 4, 4, 9, 8, 5, 1, 10, 4, 1, 6, 5, 6 = 81 (15d10)>>6432934Thank you for informing me, gallant ally! I should correct the however, the formal address for a so called Cascade "Specialist" is the "Epicenter". It is understandable for you to be unfamiliar, for not many as skilled such as I!On the topics of happening, a knave is doing his dastardly damnedest to embed a chair into my glorious figure, thus, I have to bid thee a good day and good luck pursuing out cause most just, as I am unable to capitalize.On that matter.>>6432951#Blot!Status: 13/14 Posture + A choice most foul: Lose 6 posture, or take an action to mitigate. - I shall take an action to mitigate.-Traits & Tools-!Lucky!Unusually Mobile!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Flash and PanacheStance: !JUSTICE is EVERYONE'S problem! (!GcA: Cascade Collateral [3])Tasks: None!Actions:>4 Pool - Action to mitigate the blow - I shall dodge backwards, away from the blow, using that momentum to perform a series of backwards cartwheels, taking me 2 spaces in direction 2 - Mobility 4 + Reckless daring 2 + 3 Pool>4 Pool - As I end my cartwheel, I see my Cool ally, Perspeicious! He's getting pushed, and it would be precarious to fall in such a mess, I so prepare to catch him! - Foresight 1 + Sharp 2 + 3 Pool>I flip 1 Pool into 1 Posture, as per the Second of the Three standard tricks!Beat: Void! - React 7 + Glitching Cascade 3
>>6432870# Atlas Anchored!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Someone has to do the right thing!Unusually Focused!Sunlit Muster(Legion Fullhelm)>STANCE // Neutral>TASK // 1Pool // Step 4.> ACT // 5Pool // Wade 323. Go to the offices. Simply push through the rubble. (Pool 4 + Ferocity 1 + Intransigence 3).> FREE // Release the Very diffident Rat. Lightly shove him towards a minimally splinter-y pile of rubble."I require both hands. Wait here."Atlas pauses."Instigating a chase will end poorly."> ACT // 3Pool // Pick up a bucket. Attempt to salvage a bucket-full of water from the fractured carcass of the nearby large water cask. (Pool 2+ Focus 3)BEAT, STAND // Inhale. Taste smoke. Turn towards the office. Musculature tightens. Expression hardens. (6Resist+3Intransigence)
Rolled 6, 5, 10, 6, 4, 7, 10, 10, 5, 7, 4, 9, 6, 3, 3, 10, 8, 10, 9, 8, 6 = 146 (21d10)#Driller!Status: 0 Posture, lightly coated in glory. -Traits & Tools-!A Scorpion Soul, by Duty Bound!Unusually Focused!Mask Scorpion / Red Droplet!Red Dreams, Red Rivers!Someone Has To Do the Right Thing>Stance: !Neutral / Bitter Stinger>2 Pool - Recover 2 Stance. It's not a lot, but it's more than 0. >2 Pool - Rikoven Knifehand 1 + Ferocity 1 + Pool 1 - Kick the door into the kid's face. If the kid happens to have a hand or a foot that will get crushed by the closing door, maybe the pain will teach them not to leave their extremities in doorjams. Who need a big dicepool? >1 Pool - First Aid 4 + Fluidity 1 - Perform first aid on the Unfortunate Local next to me. Rely on the Legion to carry you to safety? Pah. Walk out on your own two feet. OK. Sometimes a few extra dice can come in handy. >1 Pool - Wolf 2 + Finesse 1 - Untie the Unfortunate Local next to me. If i brought my trusty, totally legal, scalpel with me, use that to assist in the untying. Both Scorpions and Emergency Responders like to have a little tool with them, don't they? >1 Pool - Glory 1, First Aid 4 - Inject the Unfortunate Local adjacent to me with a stimulant to try and enable them to stand on their own two feet. Isn't rugged individuality Glorious Citizen? >2 Pool, 1 Posture - Scorpion 3 + Focus 3! + 1 Pool - Kick the Offbalance Meaner Slicerat to take advantage of their lack of balance and knock them down. Spend half my posture to activate my Bitter Stinger. Hope that this action came low enough in the initiative order that someone else ate the Boxer's riposte. Maybe that fine fellow who can block a fist with the sharp end of a blade. >Notice that Red Droplet mask hanging out the the left of the Unfortunate Local that I'm first aiding. Offer up my last posture to active that mask-task if that's what it takes. Who needs posture anyway? Just don't invite aggression. >Beat - Dodge into the prisoner's cell, through the ragged cloth door. Rather nice of them to offer the prisoners privacy.
Rolled 1, 4, 4, 9, 1, 4, 8, 5, 4, 4, 6, 10, 1, 3, 1, 9, 10 = 84 (17d10)>>6432870>Stance: Aggress, all the way>Status: No change, all good>3p: Fluidly Feint the meaner slicerat and grab the curtain using my other free hand tossing it at him to hide his vision (Fluidity 2+Streetstyle Brawler 2+ Pool 2)>2p: Move right in between the Meaner Slicerat and Tangled Meanest Slicerat going 4-5/6>4p: SUPPLEX TIME. Supplex Meaner Slicerat into Meanest Slicerat (Ferocity 5+Lethality 3+Pool3)>Void: Sidestep out of the way and try to go for a grab# El Fantasma Carmesí (The Crimson Phantom)!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Violent Tear of Ashoniti!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Red Dream, Red Rivers
Rolled 10, 4, 5, 3, 1, 4, 8, 6, 8, 9, 9, 7, 6, 5, 1, 10, 10, 8, 7, 5, 8, 4, 6, 3, 5 = 152 (25d10)>>6432870# Eight Treasures!Status: Posture -Traits & Tools-!Unusually Finesseful!Someone Has to Do the Right Thing!Live Wire!Flash and Panache>STANCE // Aggressive.>ACT // 1P // Catch the eye of the Inspired Local. Point two fingers at your own and then at his. He is going to want to watch this next bit. (Focus 2, Cool 2).>ACT // 2P // The thrown chair is a gift from heaven. Step onto it mid-arc and ride the wave. (Finesse 3, Moth 2, 1P)>ACT // 2P // From the top of the chair's back, let gravity do the trick. Both feet straight into Cunning Slicerat's face with full momentum. (Fluidity 3, Rk. 3, 1P)>ACT // 3P // Backflip off of this poor man's face and use the Fast Slicerat as a landing mat, knowing he is too stunned to move away. (Foresight 2, Moth 2, 2P)>ACT // 1P // Bow to your audience. Pause for applause. Wait for perfect marks. (Moth 2)>Beat: VOID (Mobility 3)
Rolled 7, 9, 3 = 19 (3d10)>>6433079BEAT dice for your perusal.
>>6433081Far be it from the universe to complain about such offered probalistic delicacies, albeit, maskmate, defenses are usually tested reactively when dire fighters throw fists at you. You don't need to roll them ahead of them.
Rolled 1, 3, 5, 8, 9, 2, 1, 9, 4, 3, 3, 6, 5, 8, 6, 3 = 76 (16d10)>>6432870# Joe!Status: !Motivated [2]-Traits & Tools-!Stubborn!Unusually Focused!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Streetstyle brawler>-Make actions nonlethal>1P: Move 1 S>5P: Kick that meanest slicerat really hard (Ferocity 1 + Hard 2 + 4 P)>3P: Demand the slicerats yield, and they will be shown leniency (Glory 1 + Sharp 1 + 2P)>Beat: Stand (Resist 2 + Intransigence 3)
>>6432870Amicus, could you bring those bodies in?
Rolled 6, 1, 9, 10, 1, 2, 10, 2, 2, 9, 7, 10, 9, 1 = 79 (14d10)Bang! Pow! Kapow! Trying to cut through a finger width thick hardwood shaft with a blunt stolen knife! Ludicrous, extreme pain so searingly bone deep you go momentarily blind with the gibbering, madness inducing intensity of it! In what universe was this a good idea! Oh my saints and suns you've bitten your teeth so hard together something in your jaw went *crack*! Aw aw aw aw! Sploosh! Kaboosh! Eight Treasures kickflipping off of a chair and drop-kicking a guy into a hand-stand into a flip into a feet-plant on a second guy! Did anyone see that? Or were they too entranced by the sado-masochistic display of battlefield surgery with barely adequate tools? Joe slips in and kicks a man while he's doing, Driller snap-kicks the Meaner Slicerat off balance but he's still standing somewhat strong and then El Fantasma slips around his back and uses the opening to wrap both hands around him and what's going to happen next is about 14+ effect of suplex'ing one rat into the other, so close your eyes, it might get a little violent. >Maskphase>Foresight: 14, modified.
Quick as a whispered rumour, a very lucky Slicerat indeed almost runs Stray clean through and he didn't even really mean to (he sort of stumbled over a bit of debris on the way over and it turned into kind of a half extended murder-lunge. He looks very apologetic about it). Sheer instinct and twitch pulse hardened by stimulants makes Stray flick around, dodging, stolen knife up, but it hits the steel coming its way at a bad angle and breaks immediately. El Fantasma Carmesí grabs hold of the Meaner Slicerat, who probably was definitively waiting to fake out a surrender so kindly offered, and shifts, and twitches, and as the Meanest Slicerat rolls and kicks away a cloth, slams a man facefirst backwards in a suplex that rocks the floortiles...( Elsewhere, Perspicus leans a little left and ducks a final haymaker and that's about all the Loyal Slicerat has left in him at this stage )>RATPHASE TWO.>Was last phase maskphase? Ignore that, the universe is clearly suffering a concussion
>>6433197Miiinor thing but I spent 2 Pool to regain 2 posture (from 2-->4) but my posture still shows as 2/18, just want to call for a double-check on that.(Since it seems I will be taking some hits this phase...)
>>6433198Wait, sorry:>As I am aware:Starting posture last Maskphase: 16/18-12 from Shimmerstims+2 from PoolNot seeing any posture damage indications on beginning of ratphase, just want to know if I've taken any damage whilst doing my action.
>>6433197I wish to pull out my ornate leviathanic 2 and a half foot smoking pipe, would this be a foresight roll?
Fret not, Stray, you have sizably worse problems (and some minor debris got underfoot, fouling up the recover).--Screaming like a maddened bull the boxer flails his arms and spittle everywhere, dips his head low and throws himself arm-first towards anything in his path, which, in this case, turns out to be El Fantasma, who backpedals and ducks away and is carried halfway across the room to collide-slam into the support pillar in a rattling impact. Alright, but at least THAT was the worst of --The boxer swing his fist like a meteor impact. Oh.... Ufh.Somehow, pinned and adrenaline-high, the red droplet maskmate stays on his feet. Distant things chortle at the song of flesh and nerve. Ah, it may be graceless, perhaps, this boxing art, but it does provide pain in abundant measure...--Stray shakes off the momentary distraction of almost being skewered only to feel a much . . . stranger . . . sensation flit across his soul. -->MaskphaseForesight: Mind the hardstyle counter! He's still got a hand free to punch back! Get him off Fantasma, he's winding up for another blow!--El Fantasma CarmesíStrayEight Treasures Blothave outstanding status resolutions, though not all negative. --Foresight: 'Stun' deducts pool for a given turn.
Rolled 3, 6, 6, 8, 6, 4, 3, 4, 7, 2, 8, 2 = 59 (12d10)>>6433201!Status: hair mussed-Traits & Tools-!Insightful!Unusually Foresightful!Cut the Self Free!Flash and Panache-Stance-: Cool>1P Step N>4P Pin the Nervous Slicerat down with a heavy stare. With outstretched hand and a curt gesture of the head, invite him to give me his knife and run away past me (Ferocity 1 + Cool 3 + 3 Pool)>-Smooth down my hair>3P Move NW SW NW>1P Study the door for weaknesses, especially whether a knife can get through it and into someone's back (Focus 3 + Sharp 2)>Beats: if he chooses to try and cut me instead, I'll be ready to void (Foresight 5 + Cool 3)
>>6433200Grand apologies, maskmate, but multiple-feet-and-more length items aren't sleeve or pocket portable. If you had such a thing with you to a bust up, it'd have been obvious and we'd all know it ahead of time, as you'd have been carrying it. Best leave such useful personal items and possessions in safe home places when one ventures to go a-brawling. Neat little half-fingered attunement trickery is usually for items much, much smaller, which could concievably (we all agree) have been on your person or in your pockets all along. A canteen, a sandwich, a playing card, six coins, a relatively modest knife, a bit of cloth to wrap around a wound. Deeper pockets and grander bits require more carrying space, and bouncing around all over the place while carrying implied foot-length objects would slow you down. Think of the possible encumbrance!Mind you, there may be a time later where implied possessions and such-what feature heavily, but you will have to wait for what cames after the opening bell and this first dance...
Rolled 2, 1, 5, 4, 1, 1, 9, 9, 2, 6, 7, 10, 9, 7, 10 = 83 (15d10)>>6433201#Stray-Conditions And Consequences-!Status: Alive!Shimmerstims +2 [2]!Slashed Arm [2]!Cut Ferocity [1]-Traits & Tools-!Old Blitzhound!Unusually Fluid!Cut The Self Free!Whispering Witticisms>Status: - Accept !Slashed Arm [2]- Momentum 2: Ignore !Slashed Arm [2] this turn.- Cut Ferocity [1]>Stance: Defensive>1P: I PREDICT that there is a limit to how lucky this rat can be on a singular turn, and declare that being being grappled is LESS unlucky than getting your soul cut up by your teammate that is currently unconcerned with *what* or *who* it is in front of them that they are carving up. (Foresight 2 + Wyrd 2 + Stims 2)>1P: Accept the slash on my arm and push forward to get Lucky into an armlock. (Fluidity 3! + Wolf 3 + Stims 2)>1P: Consolidate my hold on Lucky. Control the legionblade in his hand. (Finesse 2 + Wolf 3 + Stims 2)>6P: Beat: STAND, play MEAN: Use Lucky as my own personal good luck charm (and tangential meatshield) against Lerki, hiding behind him so that Lerki can't get a good sightline on me. Lucky'll be fine, right? (Resist 2 + Wyrd 2 + Pool 6 + Stims 2)
Rolled 9, 10, 7, 4, 4, 9, 7, 4, 8, 2, 2, 8, 5, 1, 5, 2, 4 = 91 (17d10)>>6433201>Stance: Aggress, all the way>Status: Seeing Double [5]>3p: Aleviate Seeing Double [5] (Focus 2+Hard 1+Pool 2)>6p: Put Meanest Slicerat in an Armbar and break his arm (Ferocity 5+Lethality 3+Pool 5)>Stand: And just focus on keeping the Armbar. Reaaal Pain
Rolled 8, 9, 7, 6 = 30 (4d10)>>6433209MMM. NO. >1P: I PREDICT that there is a limit to how lucky this rat can be on a singular turn, and declare that being being grappled is LESS unlucky than getting your soul cut up by your teammate that is currently unconcerned with *what* or *who* it is in front of them that they are carving up. (Foresight 2 + Wyrd 2 + Stims 2)>-1 GLORY>TRY AGAIN, SOFTSOUL.- Rerolling all failures on the predict action.Also, another note: I'm guessing Scorpion 5 is an always active trait that 'flavours' (or taints, if you look at it another way) actions that are... a bit mean in nature?
Rolled 10, 8, 1, 3, 6, 1, 2, 6 = 37 (8d10)>>6433210>>6433201>Burn Glory 1 to reroll the failed dices on the armbar# El Fantasma Carmesí (The Crimson Phantom)!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Violent Tear of Ashoniti!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Red Dream, Red Rivers
>>6433201# Atlas Anchored!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Someone has to do the right thing!Unusually Focused!Sunlit Muster(Legion Fullhelm)>STANCE // Neutral> TASK // 1Pool // Step lightly 1.>ACTION // 8Pool // In the event that the Nervous Slicerat attempts to swing or thrust his weapon at Perspicus, lunge forward and seize his swordhand. Apply directed pressure to a key joint, and dislocate his thumb with a twist. (Pool 7 + Focus 3 + Hard 1)> BEAT, STAND // Brace frame. Loom over the battered slicerat(s). Stare down at them unblinking.>
>>6433214Beat should read:> BEAT, STAND // Brace frame. Loom over the battered slicerat(s). Stare down at them unblinking. (Resist6+Intransigence3)
>>6433211You guess . . . Correctly!You seem to lack a true way to access it, perhaps it requires training or technique, but it is definitively adding and adjusting vicious ambushes and poisonous intent. Scorpions, also, are armored in a thick carapace. It did hurt quite a bit less when that man ran a sharp sword up half your arm. Some sort of. . . Metaconceptual... implied... shell?Meanwhile, the skittish Rat seems to make the Lucky Slicerat a dodgy dodger and the Fox makes them harrying, fast and hounding predators.
Test
>>6433216Training? Techniques? Animistic, animalistic guile and cunning? The strangely sideways and surreal? Sounds a bit Wyrd. You're right, I wouldn't know anything about that.
#Doctor Durbin===+Conditions And Consequences+Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 21===+Capabilities and Attributes+Pool 9 | Mobility 3React 1 | Resist 1 | Rebuff 1 | Attune 1Fluidity 1 | Finesse 1 | Focus 8 | Ferocity 1 | Foresight 1===+Skills & Secrets+-First Aid 5-Cool 2-Glitching Cascades 2-Sharp 1-Wyld 1-Discipline 1===+Traits & Tools+!Someone has to do the right thing (the right thing is WONDROUS SURGERY)!Unusually Focused!Red Dreams, Red Rivers!Flesh-enthralledMask: Red Droplet===>join, surgeringly
>>6433214>>6433205A man so nervous barely constitutes a guard and by the the Perspicus has his knife in hand he's already six footsteps down the hallway, rounding a corner at a sprint and manages to bank and break juuuuuust before he bruises his face on Atlas' stoic mien. Ah, but this door. Actually, well made, solid, good thick hardwood. Looks like a slim plate of metal on the office side, if you don't miss your guess. Of all the places to go overboard on the budget, it had to be the door to the Crewtails office. Of course.>Though the rest of the turn will continue as is, if you wish to, Perspicus and Atlas can take a second, refreshed turn from *here*.
>>6433241# Atlas Anchored!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Someone has to do the right thing!Unusually Focused!Sunlit Muster(Legion Fullhelm)>STANCE // Aggressive>TASK // 1Pool // Carefully place bucket on the ground. Somewhere out of the way.Atlas takes a breath and refocuses on the babbling man before him."...">ACT // 8Pool // Execute a leg reap throw on the Very Nervous Slicerat. Send him slamming hard into the Loyal Slicerat. (Pool 7 + Focus 3 + Hard 1)>BEAT, STAND // Cross arms. Puff out chest. Dig in heels. (Resist6+Intransigence3)"I disagree."
>>6433241The door opened outwards, towards the hallway, wouldn't that mean that the hinge is on the outside too?
>>6433254On the same note, a padlock would be much less efficient on their side, at least, if we attempt to force the door, as it has to be connected to the door to do anything, instead of simply being connected to the walls, as it would be, if the door opened inwards into the roomThis also means that if the padlock is flipped, the person leaning against the door will actually help open it instead of blocking it
>>6433190>>6433254Here is an example of the door opening outwards
>>6433254That would be why Percipicus can see the hinges, yes, maskmate - because they're not inside the room. Much as his vision is sharp it does not yet allow the seeing beyond twin world sight.A padlock would possibly work for extra security (perhaps the Slicerats have invested in them elsewhere), but this door utilises a gravity drop hatch inside the actual frame, secured with a (by the sense of it and some cool squinting) a three-six double-coiled extra pressure pinset. A padlock would be an external fixture but this is an internal mechanism that secures the bulk of the frame inside the lock mechanism. That's why a knife works, you can actually jigger the drop hatch back up by sharply mimicking the movements of the key and unjambing the pins that keep it pressurisied. Takes some doing, but the knife should about do it. If this *was* a padlock, you'd have to spring the internal lock of the padlocks but he'd likely have secured that on the inside to lock the door itself to a mooring on the internal wall, and then we'd be straight out of luck because we can't reach through the door itself to manipulate it. Really, three-six double coiled extra pins, though? Bit of a extra example job for this kind of door, but if they modified the frame to have a metal plate maybe they needed the extra security.It opening outwards is actually a security feature. If they weren't burning contents in the room and presumably having no desire to risk axyphitation, they'd be able to drop a log-bar on the internal rests and the door would have to pull against the walls itself to open. Luckily for us, it doesn't look as if they kept the log bar in the office (or perhaps it's difficult to maneveur or they haven't had time to use it yet )
>>6433276>That would be why Percipicus can see the hinges, yes, maskmateMy own vision was blinded by the text box being beyond the wall.
>>6433277Curse those wiley slicerats. Not only are they keeping secrets in there, they're keeping critical information in hard to spot places!
>>6433225Behold, a doctor (?)
Rolled 5, 7, 6, 1, 6, 7, 8, 4, 2, 4, 9, 5, 7, 10 = 81 (14d10)>>6433241!Status: all good-Traits & Tools-!Insightful!Unusually Foresightful!Cut the Self Free!Flash and Panache-Stance-: Cool>3P: Conduct latchjamming (Focus 3 + Sharp 2 + Pool 2)>6P: Fluidly and quickly open the door and kick the Slicerat behind it. Whether he falls backwards or keeps his balance, the kick should get him (Fluidity 1 + Hard 1 + Pool 5)>Beats: void (React 2 + Cool 3)
>>6433201Do I need to move to attack the meanest slicerat or can I swing from where I am now?
>>6433295Adjacent tiles count as reach 1, but are intentionally a little "Larger" than direct contact so as to contain multiple entities squabbling and scrapping. Actions to attack targets in adjacent tiles by nature involves a little bit of movement to reach them, so you reposition as you act.This is relevant if things are between you and a target - the world eyeballs and estimates rough obstacles and difficulties that would impede the vector of an attack. So if you swung a cleaver at reach 1 against a target on the other side of a table, you might still scatter bottles and glass everywhere and the strike would degrade a little based on this environmental interaction. Usually, complications and failures account for this.So in this specific case, which generalises well, you can punch the Mean looking speciment in the back of the head (punches have reach 1), kick them (declaring you do this gets you a soft damage and impact bonus, but misses and glitches are worse. You might trip over the broken chair). If you stepped NW you'd be equally adjacent - reach 1 - but kicking might tangle you in the dropped cloth. If you stepped N, you'd be in reach 0, the same tile, but the pillars, supportive walls, Fantasma Carmesi close grapple and the struggling stylist would mean a punch might reasonably deck a body, an elbow might hit a wall, and so on.Close quarters brawling is a fraught art. You could even step further away, say, SW, on top of the downed meaner slicerat, plant your feet squarely, and declare a wide-swinging brawling spin-kick. Those can reach allllll the way to reach 2, but of course, spinning so widely you might also miss, trip, and kick a cell.Or take the Meanest Slicerat down with a hit to the back of the head. A streetbrawler might prefer to be close...
Rolled 5, 3, 3, 1, 7, 1, 6, 9, 8, 6, 7, 8, 9, 3, 4 = 80 (15d10)>>6433201# Joe!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Stubborn!Unusually Focused!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Streetstyle brawler>1P: Step right behind the meanest slicerat>3P: Wind up my fist (Ferocity 1 + Sharp 1 + 2P)>5P: Clonk him in the back of the head (Focus 5 + Hard 2 + 4P)>Beat: Stand (Resist 2 + Intransigence 3)
>>6433201In a complete hypothetical here: if one were to introduce enough Shimmergrass into their organism, are there potentially fatal consequences? Do not ask me why I'm asking this. It'll be a surprise!
>>6433394The reactants they cut this product with may have long-term bio-effects, but the shimmergrass itself is actually not absorbed into the body by any known measurement and tends to pass through and breakdown. The vivid dreams and soft whispering and extended blessed high is a side-effect of an abnormal biological processes.That said, overdose and high exposure remains dangerous. The mind is only so flexible; if you stretch it too far it adapts to new shapes. Is this lethal? Perhaps not. Is it always a boon? Perhaps not. Lerki, of course, has breathed in two vials full of concentrated face-first distillate. He's far past any reasonable dosage limits, any further input would probably full disassociate him from his body, grand and free. Too much insight can be blinding.
#The King!Status: Minor wounds for The King-Traits & Tools-!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Scale-Hearted Swordsman (Delusional?)!Flash And Panache-The Kings Fists Of Course-The Kings Longknife>Set all attacks to subduing>Stance: Neutral>5P: Attune to [LEVIATHANIC BODYLOCK STANCE], A technique The King developed herself which requires great control over your body to manually ease wounds when without any tools to do so, slowing bloodflow in the area. (Attune 1 + Rikovian Knifehand 2 + 4P + 2 Momentum)>2P: Carefully move 11 to the diffident slicerat with the awed local>"The King demands thy aid, sinner.">1P: Take this slicerats shirt and tear it into strips (5 Ferocity + 3 Reckless if a roll is even required for that)>1P: "You two, I will sit on this box, I am staunching my wounds with my Bodylock Technique, do rudimentary first aid, if you would. And if you dare get any silly ideas, slicerat, I'll tear you in half, understood?"
>>6433438The cloth strips are for the two of them to use as bandages for me, to be clear.
Rolled 2, 8, 6, 4, 7, 4, 8 = 39 (7d10)>>6433438
Rolled 6, 7, 8, 7, 5, 8, 1, 1, 7, 9 = 59 (10d10)#Driller !Status: All good. Very temporarily carrying positive posture. >1 Pool - Take note that my allies are attacking this slicerat and avoid getting in their way. I was going to throw the loo bucket on the slicerat's head, but it looks like Joe is going to punch it and I wouldn't want Joe to hurt his hand punching a bucket. Better use wolfpack tactics for a moment instead of wanton cruelty. -Traits & Tools-!A Scorpion Soul, by Duty Bound!Unusually Focused!Mask Scorpion / Red Droplet!Red Dreams, Red Rivers!Someone Has To Do the Right Thing>Stance: !Aggresive / Bitter Stinger>6 Pool - Wolf 2, Focus 3!, Posture 1, Grab the rope next to me and lasso the Angry Meanest Slicerat's riposte arm with it. If I can't use my Stinger this way because it's Wolf instead of Scorpion, then keep the posture I guess. >1 Pool - 4 First Aid, 1 Foresight - Remember that I brought some bandages and first aid tools with me to deal with knife and crossbow wounds as those are the Slicerats' best known weapons. >1 Pool - Step to my 4 to pull the rope taunt. That slicerat's strong, and angry,, and meanest, but are they hard enough to move a whole straining maskmate with one hand? >Beat - Tank it with Resist I suppose. I doubt I'll be good at dodging while pulling on this Slicerat's arm at the end of a rope. I do appear to have Intransigence 1.
Ah yes, bloody scraps fit... FOR A KING
CURSE THE UNWASHED MASSES AND THEIR PERFIDIOUS PEASANT BETRAYALS
"TRAITO-"
Rolled 10, 9, 5, 7, 2, 5, 6, 2, 5, 3, 8, 5, 2 = 69 (13d10)>>6433282#Doctor Durbin===+Conditions And Consequences+Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 20===+Capabilities and Attributes+Pool 9 | Mobility 3React 1 | Resist 1 | Rebuff 1 | Attune 1Fluidity 1 | Finesse 1 | Focus 8 | Ferocity 1 | Foresight 1===+Skills & Secrets+-First Aid 5-Cool 2-Glitching Cascades 2-Sharp 1-Wyld 1-Discipline 1===+Traits & Tools+!Someone has to do the right thing (the right thing is WONDROUS SURGERY)!Unusually Focused!Red Dreams, Red Rivers!Flesh-enthralledMask: Red Droplet===STANCE\\Neutral3P: Move 4443P: Move 3333P: Attempt to heal the poor, pathetic patient in need of prescriptions [First Aid + Focus]Comically oversized doctor’s coat flapping in the wind, the giggling doctor takes out bandages and syringes.Best not to ask…
Rolled 9, 1, 7, 5, 2, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 3 = 42 (11d10)Stray ducks left, weaves right, and kicks a Slicerat who seems faintly surprised he stumbled backwards unto a chair. Entirely too lucky, and entirely too comfortable. El Fantasam Carnesi, in the dire grib of a clinch, pressed against a pillar, shifts like a reptile in a death-grapple and grabs the boxers arm and wrenches - wrenches - wrenches-- and keeps it up as a rain of blows slam against the hard facade of his mask. Driller tries to get the flailing appendage under control, but the amount of bodies in close confines makes it rather difficult to loop rope anywhere and the cloths are tumbling to the floor and by the STARS he's STILL PUNCHING and Joe slips up behind him and winds up for a haymaker because SOMEONE has to KNOCK this man OUT before he puts Carnesi clean through the pillar and the oddly soft *shr-blgork* of the Meanest Slicerats arm dislocating clean out of the shoulder rest doesn't even seem to slow him down. Boxers! They just... stand there !! and TAKE IT!!Elsewhere, a peasant uprising overthrows a monarch - sic semper tyrranis indeed - and Perspicus with Atlas securing his back pops the latch, cool as you please, and lashes out at the Focused Slicerat who probably got the job of being the number two rat in this compound because he ducks right clear of the foot and rolls, drawing a sleek sharp thing as he does...[/]-->RAT PHASE>Foresight: 11, Modified>The Red Droplet laughs. +1 Momentum accrued.>Have any Maskmates not acted yet, feel free while things resolved.--
Meanest Slicerat YOU HIT LIKE MY LITTLE BROTHER YOU NOODLE ARM NOOOOONCEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
>>6433488>addendum: Beat: Void
Rolled 10, 10, 5, 4, 4, 3, 4, 8, 3, 4, 3, 2, 2, 8, 2, 8, 7, 4, 6, 3, 7, 4, 4, 9 = 124 (24d10)>>6433201# Eight Treasures!Status: Mothmask Impulse, +2 Mobility this turn.-Traits & Tools-!Unusually Finesseful!Someone Has to Do the Right Thing!Live Wire!Flash and Panache!RkA: Air Stance>STANCE // Aggressive.>3P // Making sure to hold my breath for the following, to avoid any shimmergrass entering myself... (Foresight 2, Reckless Daring 1, 2P)>2P // Sidling over 5 to the shelf with Air Stance, and grabbing two of the wrapped shimmergrass packets, one to throw now, another to throw later. Proceed to throw one at the Cunning Slicerat, so he slices it mid-air. (Fluidity 3, Reckless Daring 1, 1P.)>1P // Run in Lerki's direction, sliding over the poker table... (Mobility 5, Moth 2)>3P // ...and use the momentum to punch Lerki right in his face (mouth?) with the other Shimmergrass packet I pocketed earlier. Just what the doctor ordered...? (Finesse 3, Reckless Daring 1, 3P)>Beat: Void.
Meanest Slicerat And... I mean.. t-tha--that-- as-- ..cccccccooompplimeeeeeeennntt thud--Boxers. Just no sense of style, panache or flash. But give them this: They're not half bad sports about getting their faces busted in.
And so, like a mighty oak, the boxer falls with a thud. Trio of brothers, huh? Rinik's affairs a whole family business. Maybe they're Uthani. He's been hiring out, sourcing out-landers from the plains to do his work lately. The Families and the Slicerats are peas in a pod, and half the new gawping stragglers coming to our fair city end up involved in rat affairs somehow. Strange, for a people who call themselves foxes or wasps or moths, to work for a rat. Interesting times we live in.--With a flourish, a mothmask ducks across the room, dance across the table, leans into a lunging extending full-fist punch with a pouch of high distilate drugs right to the oral adminstration cavity of a snarling thoughtslicer and Stray wicks away the lethal knife with his own shiny blade and for a brief perfect pristine moment it was all so close to perfection . So close. So close.BUT YOU FORGOT THE ONE LINER YOU ABSOLUTE EXCUSE FOR A DRAMATIST.THE ONE-LINER IS THE CRITICAL PART.IF YOU DON'T MAKE IT LOOK EFFORTLESS *AND* INSPIRED WHAT ISTHEPOINTTHIS WON'T STAND>?????
Eight Treasures rmbrhrghgrhrhgll--
Eight Treasures: mrhrghrgpghrh--
Eight Treasures: mrghgh--[unintelligble]AH.much better.You're -welcome-, by the way. Oh, it looks like while we were handling OBVIOUSLY MORE IMPORTANT BUSINESS, the little thoughtslicer fled the premises. He's left the meat behind. Ah, well, he'll come to regret that in time. They tend to.
Sputtering flames leap at wood and materials. Gas and volatiles pop and wheeze. Glass buckles and bends. A controlled burn. Distant laughing things, joyful with the moment, appreciate the display. Such valour. Such daring. Such honour. YOU FUCKED UP THE LANDING BUT WE SAVED IT. THE QUIP IS **PARAMOUN--**-- The soft intrusion of gas dispersed shimmergrass thoughout the entire building might be why the tittering whispers of distant things are a little more... insistent ... tonight. Between blinks, odd shapes, peering down, smiling, supporting, gently nudging. Always interested, always benign, always marveling at the play and the players...Woah.Uh.We're all cracked to the gills high, aren't we? This building ventilation is decidedly not up to code. But the Dance, though winding down, is not over yet. Rescues must be mounted. Evidence must be secured. A message, in some form, must be sent. And the Crewtail, desperately paving over the last shreds of evidence, must be stopped.As a recently arrived doctor bandages a wounded monarch (subjects! So unruly! A soveriegn, to be so tested! And when one so graciously lets them bask in ones glory?), a Focused Slicerat steps quick, clean, kicks a board at Percipus and keeps his space. Oh, this one's focused. Stray and Eight Treasurers gaze down at a mystery. Shimmergrass enough to see true things and reach beyond, and the skills to act on it. Animists. Always going about putting things inside things. Perhaps he put himself somewhere... Nice? But the cooling meat he left behind is an oddity. Service scars of Eastern Reaches militia, six marks of the Empyeran Flame around his bondsteel eye, and an educated appearance. Well fed, old scars. Sharp features. A senator's daughter.A strange eastern reaches animistA compound full of rats.What ... is.. Rinik and his sharp slicers up to? This is a little beyond the usual fare. And come to question it: Why is Stray holding a type six legion shortsword? Military mass munitions are military. Sourcing them is easy enough, they're made in the thousands, but the maker factorum marks on this indicates its from a relatively recent batch. Sharp and keen as anything.If it was second-resold it'd have notches in the steel and a story. This is a legion shortblade that for all intents and purposes matches the Legion style crossbow Lerki was using. Both pristine. Both new. Both barely out of their packing crates. Are the quartermasters that incompetent, or is the River War going so well they're sending frontline material back to the metropol? -->Maskphase!>Rejoicing, delighted, amused: 4 Momentum.Foresight: The Dance might be winding down, but it's not over yet. Best stay alert for any lingering last surprises.
Rolled 6, 9, 4, 10, 1, 8, 5, 5, 2, 1, 3, 9, 3, 5, 6, 8, 7, 6, 6, 1, 4, 5, 7 = 121 (23d10)!Status: All good. >Take Status of the Boxer's Lethal Left Hook. Unlikely to be needed tonight, but the Feint was interesting. -Traits & Tools-!A Scorpion Soul, by Duty Bound!Unusually Focused!Mask Scorpion / Red Droplet!Red Dreams, Red Rivers!Someone Has To Do the Right Thing>Stance: !Neutral / Bitter Stinger>1 Pool - Wolf 2, Foresight 1 - Throw the cloth at the finesseful slicerat recruit to obscure their vision so I don't get shanked doing what I'm about to do next.>1 Pool - Grab the cleaver off the ground. It is to my 1 right now. >1 Pool - First Aid 4 + Glory 1: Administer first aid to the Meanest Slicerat to make sure that they don't die here. They were a glorious opponent.>1 Pool - 4 First Aid + Focus 3! - Administer first aid to El Fantasma Carmesi to treat their bruises. >1 Pool - Move to my 4. >2 Pool - First Aid 4 + Fluidity 1 - Administer First Aid to the unfortunate local to my new 6 and cut them free with the cleaver. >1 Pool - Free the Unfortunate Local to my new 5. I'd give them first aid, but I need my last Pool for something else. >1 Pool - Wolf 2 + Ferocity 1 - Exhort the Unfortunates to get to their feet and move northeast out of this building. The place is on fire and if they don't get out, they'll end up burning to death. I'm not here to abduct a senator's daughter, so I won't worry about her rushing past me to escape. Might be a good thing even since then I won't have to walk all the way down there to rescue her. >Beat - Dodge south. I'm planning on going that way next turn anyway.
Rolled 2, 9, 9, 4, 9, 9, 8, 10, 5, 1, 6, 9, 3 = 84 (13d10)>>6433543# Joe!Status: Motivation 3-Traits & Tools-!Stubborn!Unusually Focused!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Streetstyle brawler"Go, friends, you are free!">1P: Step 5>1P: Cut the ropes loose from the Unfortunate Local using the cleaver (5 Focus + 1 Cool )>1P: Move 35>6P: Cut the ropes loose from the Unfortunate Local using the cleaver (1 Finesse + 1 Sharp + 5P)
>>6433543# Atlas Anchored!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Someone has to do the right thing!Unusually Focused!Sunlit Muster(Legion Fullhelm)>STANCE // Defensive>TASK // 1Pool // Pick up the water bucket. Don't hold it by the handle. Grasp it by the bucket itself. Use both hands for maximum stability.> ACT // 7Pool // Tuck chin, Harden hide, then push through with singular resolve. March unfalteringly past the stand-off between Persipicus and the Focused Rat. Proceed 655. (Pool 6 + Focus 3 + Intransigence 3)>ACT // 1Pool // Quench the paperfire in the office by pouring the contents of the water bucket over it.>BEAT, STAND // Put back to the western wall. Brace for hostile retort. Grit teeth. Stoically disregard pain. (Resist 6 + Intransigence 3)
Please don't let the senators daughter run off into slicerat territory alone. We also need to ask her questions.
Rolled 10, 8, 2, 7, 2, 7, 1, 2, 3, 2, 6, 3, 6, 4, 8, 1 = 72 (16d10)>>6433543#Stray-Conditions And Consequences-Status:!Alive!Shimmerstims +2 [1]!Slashed Arm [2]!Cut Ferocity [1]-Traits & Tools-!Old Blitzhound!Unusually Fluid!Cut The Self Free!Whispering Witticisms>Status: Seeking Redress-2 Momentum, ignore !Slashed Arm [2] this turn.>Stance: Neutral>1P: See if I can attune to the more... metaconceptually arachnid parts of myself. Armoured carapace sounds nice. [Stance Attunement] (Attune 2 + Wyrd 2 + Stims 2) !Cut The Self Free applies.>4P: You took something of mine, but you're not home right now so I'll just take something of yours and we'll call it even, hm? Call it an eye for an eye. Your payment for my Ferocity. Here's something *you'll* never see coming. Carefully take out Lerki's bondsteel eye. (Finesse 2 + Wyrd 2 + Pool 3 + Momentum 2 + Stims 2) !Cut The Self Free>4P: Move [4], grab the whiskerblade and the bondsteel box. Move [11] and... might as well... pocket some of these coins on the gambling table, as well. (Fluidity 3! + Cool 2 + Stims 2)>BEAT: STAND (Resist 2 + Wolf 3 + Stims 2)
Rolled 2, 4, 3, 5, 9, 6, 2, 7, 10, 6, 5 = 59 (11d10)>>6433543!Status: all good-Traits & Tools-!Insightful!Unusually Foresightful!Cut the Self Free!Flash and Panache-Stance-: Cool>1P Attend to the Focused Slicerat>- I haven't said a word this whole map and it's for an amazing reason. I'm not going to start now. Instead:>1P Cock my head left. Cock my head right. Toss the knife to my left hand and demonstratively put my right behind my back. Beckon the slicerat with the knife then let it hang relaxedly. Let him see I don't think highly of his skills.>5P He's been in this trade for long, he has tricks galore. He will feint before he attacks. Use that moment to kick his legs from under him (Foresight 5 + Sharp 2 + Pool 4)>Beats: Focus on his movements and avoid the reach of his knife (Focus 3 + Cool 3 + Pool 2)
>>6432877Is Glory usable only by the masks of the same type that earned it, or by everyone?
>>6433748Due to a quirk of the crew and the way of the world, large scale "alignment" benefits like that accrue to everybody. You're all taking part in the same Dance, no?It's simply significantly easier to accrue depending on involved factors, and if you're of the right "type" there are some underlying soft benefits. Be free enough and you can fit into the glory of other people, and Vengeance is a matter of blood and focus.So Momentum and Glory (and other things) apply team-wide, but accessing them is dependent on achieving and doing the right thing and the magnitude of their effects similar. Though note that even if accrued team-wide, it's resolved individually. If you burn your glory to reroll, your personal glory is spent.
Rolled 6, 4, 2, 2, 7, 6, 5, 10 = 42 (8d10)>>6433746I'd like to spend Glory to reroll the failures here
>>6433746>>- I haven't said a word this whole map and it's for an amazing reason. I'm not going to start now. Instead:Icons, he's so cool
Rolled 2, 8, 7, 7, 9, 4, 8, 8, 7, 7, 5, 6, 10, 4, 1, 8, 3, 2, 10, 7, 6 = 129 (21d10)>>6433543# Eight Treasures!Status: Back to.... normal....?-Traits & Tools-!Unusually Finesseful!Someone Has to Do the Right Thing!Live Wire!Flash and Panache!RkA: Air StanceLooking down at a job well done, Eight Treasures is filled with a strong sense of accomplishment. *This* is why he puts on a Mask. Testing himself against impossible odds! Moving faster than thought! The whole city a stage and every rat in it a prop!A grand old time. Best night in recent memory, really.He is absolutely not thinking about the one-liner. The one that came out of his mouth before he'd finished thinking it because he'd been a little busy punching drugs into someone's face at the time.The Fluttering Moth is a good mask. A great mask. Fits like it was made for him.He is going to stop thinking about the one-liner now.>STANCE // Neutral.>1P // He can't stop thinking about the one-liner. Should he... should he be worried about this? (Foresight 3, Moth 2)>Scooting over [6] with Air stance.>3P // Alright look, burning to death is a pretty horrible way to die. Reorient the Far Too Lucky Slicerat in the direction of the exit and get him on his way. (Fluidity 3, First Aid 2?, 2P).>5P // Move [11] and talk to the knife-happy slicerat recruits. (Finesse 3, Cool 2, 4P)Eight Treasures rolls his shoulders, gestures broadly at the general wreckage of the evening (the Lerki situation, the barrel situation, the fire situation... the general situation, really) and gives the recruits the kind of patient, disappointed look a man gives a student who has just made a very correctible mistake. Eight Treasures adopted this look like he has seen it many, MANY times before."See your boss? He was good. You are not him. Go home, sleep well and consider a career change into a line of work that is going to have much less of all of this.">Beat: Void.
Rolled 4, 6, 2, 1, 1, 6, 3, 3, 7 = 33 (9d10)>>6433543>Stance: Neutral>Status: Bruised 3 and Fatigue 6 (Pending Healing)>1p: Recover from fatigue a bit (Focus 2+Hard 1)>4p: Trade Pool 1 for 1 Posture (+4)>4p: "Convince" the recruits that being a Slicerat fucking sucks and doesn't get you girls. Plus your kidnapping people just for the Old Guard of the gang to hog all the glory that should be yours. This gang isn't the same anymore and they are outrageously unfit for this. They're future outlooks are grim if they keep working for Rinnick. Really got to instore some real Streetstyle Smarts in these recruits. If convinced they can break their knives and go stand outside with Finnicky. Maybe their punishement will be lighter if they help out the prisonners instead of torturing them more. What they ever do to you anyway?? (Foresight 1+ Streetstyler Brawler 2 + 3 Pool)>Beat: Stand and headlock the attacker (Ferocity)# El Fantasma Carmesí (The Crimson Phantom)!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Violent Tear of Ashoniti!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Red Dream, Red Rivers!Mean Right Hook [Ferocity Shatters + Stuns]
Rolled 9, 3, 2, 6, 1, 9, 4, 9 = 43 (8d10)>>6433776>>6433543>Burn Glory Again. Also maybe add Momentum to the first action?
Rolled 10, 9, 3, 8, 8, 4, 9, 1, 6, 3, 5, 1, 9, 3 = 79 (14d10)>>6433543#Blot!Status: 14/14 Posture - 3 Pool or 4 Momentum? - I shall take +3 Pool this round, as Momentum is already at 4-Traits & Tools-!Lucky!Unusually Mobile!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Flash and PanacheTis a shame, the stage lay bare, a near lack of anything to tumble over, under, or around. The knaves lay exhausted, but so does the troupe.Ah well, soon there shall be another act.Action:>1 Pool - Artfully weave over and around the barrels, moving 4 in direction 1 - Mobility 4 + Sharp 2Task: >1 Pool - Pick up water bucket>1 Pool - After Perspicus has defeated his foe Move 1 in direction 6>1 Pool - Move 1 in direction 5 to move around the foe>1 Pool - Empty the water bucket on the fire, trying to extinguish it (I do not know if this would require a deeper resolution)Action: >7 Pool - Intimidate the enemy into surrendering - "Hear me, rat. My allies are many. Some live to inflict pain. Some to repay what your kind does to others. And some, even, simply to scour you to ask for the sake of it. I exist for the joyous moment and ask before others, if you surrender to me, you shan't have to surrender to them after they do with you as they wish." - Pool 6 + Cool 1 + Finesse 1>Beat: Void - React 7 + Sharp 2
With a splash of water and the surge of cooling seas, soggy papers and ash-smeared journals and smoke fill the office. Evidence, wet and secured
Rolled 4, 9, 3, 9, 2, 10, 8, 8, 10, 6, 4, 4, 2, 8 = 87 (14d10)Seldom has one of Rinik's hardworking crewtail crewleaders been more fundamentally aggrieved at the unfairness of the universe. And now his fucking boots are fucking wet. Eye fucking blind, what a day-->RATPHASE>Foresight: 14, modified.>Is that... the distant closing bell? This may be the lingering end of it. What a dance, what a dance...
they shift. They glance at each other. One coughs akwardly. One wilts under Eight Treasurers stern headtilt. One tries to match El Fantasma's focused stare and cannot keep it up, gaze dropping to the floor.
Slicerat Recruit guysSlicerat Recruit guys maybe we... Fussy Local Maybe we don't have to be the bad guys?
>>6433810"Well.."https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k8craCGpgs
>>6433810Awwwwww
Atlas glares. Blot extols a man to surrender. But some people cut themselves to the wretched bone holding on to a dream. Some people, sometimes, they wear their masks on the inside, around the heart. The crewtail has it all. Prestige, power, a cosh office, a hope for tomorrow, subordinates and loyalty and the sense of the inevitable that comes with being part of something. Give Rinik this, for all his other flaws. He understood something Otis Steeleye never quite did, which is that *some* souls don't want to be respected, they don't want to be warm, they don't *want* to work together with their fellows for a brighter tomorrow. They want to be above someone else, and look down, and if there's going to be a boot stamping on the face of the human experience forever and ever, or a knife in the dark, it's going to be them doing the stamping and the slicing and the rat ass business.And he makes it so obvious, so clean, so easy. Pick up the knife. Join the rats. Run with the crew. Get your tail tangled in and your soul bent the wrong way and yield to the orthogonal pressure of the easy life. Externalise the consequences. Get yours. They might not start there, and a lot of them don't have the true cold in their souls to get all the way to the inner circle. Rinik does go through them fast. But some of them end there. Down a long bitter chain of easy betrayals and sharp thoughts, atop the world, sleeping soundly at night because the first thing Rinik really makes you stab and slowly feel bleed out is your sense of basic fucking decency. So, this man, in his office, he squares his shoulders. He draws a knife with the casual ease of someone so use to violence it's like flexing his fingers. He takes a stance. He starts to say "Okay I surr--" and while his mouth is still moving and even Atlas, unflappable, almost lowers his guard, he is already moving. Blot slides aside and Atlas steps in and shoves him the rest of the way clear and the Crewtail twists his wrist as his lethal knife curves across Atlas mask and upper body leaving a trail of red.Foresight: He declares a Fading Cut Beat, and has -two- Intentions in prepared actions. Something Finesful, to throw you off, and something Ferocious, to exploit an opening. Him and his understudy both favour Focus. He is Attending to Atlas, Blot and the Smoke.--Elsewhere, a gaggle of locals drop their knives. One of them stomps on it. Maybe being a rat ain't cool? Hear tell the first thing they really make you stab is your sense decency, and who wants to lose that? It'd be cold rat nights without it. The real fire is on the inside, ain't that what the Theurges preach?
Perspicus ducks out to avoid a thrown knife but that was feint, damn, and a Slicerat takes off sprinting. Meanwhile, locals are dragging wounded, battered people from the fiery building. And Joe gets a faceful of chair as a skittish lean woman who is going to be no end of trouble slips her bonds, slips the room, slips and slides and sprints...Softly, in the ever-distant closeness of Other places, the Wormwood giggles softly. Sometimes, the chain of discordant circumstance shakes itself out just right. Two sprinters meeting in the middle, love and knifes and unconscious rats, and one last determined holdout...... What a dance! Better get the closing steps just right before curtain call, everyone is paying attention now-->MASKPHASE.
>>6433818# Atlas Anchored!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Someone has to do the right thing!Unusually Focused!Sunlit Muster(Legion Fullhelm)>STANCE // Defensive>ACT // 9Pool // Lock eyes with the Crewtail. Slowly walk towards Crewtail with the sheer substance and inevitability of a boulder tumbling downhill. Shrug off this man's edged menace. Keep walking. Invade his personal space. Keep walking. Mirror his attempts to duck and weave past. Keep walking. Force him to give up space he does not have. Keep walking. Pin him against the wall. Keep walking. (Pool 8+ Focus 3 + Intransigence 3)>BEAT, STAND // He will fight back. Brace. (Resist 6 + Intransigence 3)
>>6433734click whirr click whirr clickis it...... looking at you? The long curling optical nerve. It's not meat, it's a glimmering strand of some worked product. Bondsteel, spun out in graceful filament, to root among your neural gradients and shift your perception. Rare thing, such a find. The House of the Bonded only deals with favours, take no bribe, make few deals, and always those that favour them. What would someone trade away, to get a tool like this? To see the vision of a . . . Different tomorrow?clickwhirrclickThe lenses spin, crystal-fine and unattached now to any active mind. Hold it up. See through it. The long filament swirls like a snake, sensing.Do they. . . install themselves? No. Too dangerous. A specialist is needed, but those can be found.This, if you can hold on to it, is either a very weighty favour traded away against a rainy day, or a valuable artifice to make one-self different. But without the protections of meat and skull and flesh and bone and soul, it is... fragile. Don't dent the optics, now.Iceknife Bondeye (Unattached)!4Sight, Lifesense, Two World Eyes.
Rolled 8, 10, 10, 9, 9, 1, 2, 8, 9, 5, 2, 7, 10, 8 = 98 (14d10)>>6433817What has happened, mechanically, with my prepared action to trip the rat? Not enough successes?!Status: all good. Glory used: 1-Traits & Tools-!Insightful!Unusually Foresightful!Cut the Self Free!Flash and Panache-Stance-: Cool>-Shrug>1P Step SW>1P Take Atlas' bucket>1P Attend to Crewtail>1P Jump onto the table, run along the wall, kick off from the shelves and dunk the bucket onto Crewtail's head like in some sort of a ball game involving baskets (Mobility 3 + Cool 3 + Momentum 4 + Pool 4)>Beats: Void (React 2 + Cool 3 + Pool 1)
>>6433825Forgot something.Not used to taking damage.My bad.>STATUS // 3 Posture lost. Not mitigated.
>>6433829>Addendum: to be clear, the intent is to have the bucket stay on his head, restricting vision.
>>6433829He got floored, was tripped, slid along the floor, dropped his knife.That would normally be the end of it, since an interruption interrupts.Unfortunately, a Crewtail has tricks, and motivating an underling to go above and beyond is one of them, so he rolled forward, snatched knife back up and ran, ran, ran, ran away.
Rolled 6, 9, 6, 2, 1, 3, 6 = 33 (7d10)>>6433817#Stray-Conditions And Consequences-Status:!Alive!Shimmerstims +2 [1]!Slashed Arm [2]!Cut Ferocity [1]-Traits & Tools-!Old Blitzhound!Unusually Fluid!Cut The Self Free!Whispering Witticisms>Status: My Precious...>Take Note:- Hold the Iceknife Bondeye in my good arm.>Stance: Spitescorp Carapace [3*]>2P: Move [16], and hide behind the pillar.>1P: Attend to the sounds made by the Crewtail. Dogs? DOGS? Now you've done it.>4P: A simple trap. With one foot resting on the barrel by the pillar and staying out of sight behind the support, Stray waits until he hears the Crewtail running down the hall, and then kicks out the barrel, aiming to trip the crewtail as he tries to jump on the barrel and over the shattered shelf. (Foresight 2 + Wyrd 2 + Pool 3 + Stims 2 + Momentum 4)>2P, BEAT: STAND. Keep the eye safe. Good thing I've got a carapace, yeah? Swap it to my good arm. (Resist 2 + Wyrd 2 + Pool 2 + Stims 2)
#The King!Status: -Traits & Tools-!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Scale-Hearted Swordsman (Delusional?)!Flash And Panache-The Kings Fists Of Course-The Kings Longknife>Adapt to Go Long! (Seaglide Steps Stance)>Strike to disable>"Thou wish to be my own selfs disciple? Of course, anyone would.. Secrets of Cool? Ah, I see. This shall be thy first lesson, observe carefully.">3P: Carefully step 4-3-3, up behind the Senators daughter.>"Sinner, thou art being rude to thy betters.">4P: After tucking my arm into my robes as a makeshift sling, use the confused slicerat as a platform, leap over, spinning through the air and slamming my blade down on the focused slicerat with the [Fallingstar Strike Technique] another technique created by The King inspired by watching the very stars fall from the sky while gazing up from the depths. A technique both powerful yet beautiful, to awe all those who see it. (2 Rikovian Knifehand + 5 Ferocity + 4P + 4 Momentum Effect + 1 Glory Reroll)>2P: After gracefully landing infront of the senators daughter, clear my throat and introduce myself. "Ahem. I would like thee to know we came here to bust this operation, not to hunt thou down or whatever. We would appreciate your help figuring out what they were attempting here, and beseech thee discuss with us who thou art or why they kidnapped you. As it is the only polite thing to do, I shall introduce my esteemed self, I am The King, WHICH IS MY NAME, please do not assault me while telling me about your senatorial republic. What should I call you, beautiful Dame who I am presuming is someone of great importance to the rats plans?"
Rolled 9, 7, 10, 9, 8, 10, 5, 8, 5, 2, 1 = 74 (11d10)!Scale-Hearted Swordsman, !Flash And Panache, No quip necessary for the dispatching of a weakling, just a tch and disapproving look
>>6433851....... . . . . . . acceptable
>>6433866Blot!!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Lucky!Unusually Mobile!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Flash and PanacheTasks: >9 Pool - Pick up papers that are within safe reach. This performance approaches closing time and they need to get as much as possibleActions: NoneBeats: Void - 7 React + 4 Move
Rolled 2, 1, 9 = 12 (3d10)!Status: All good.-Traits & Tools-!A Scorpion Soul, by Duty Bound!Unusually Focused!Mask Scorpion / Red Droplet!Red Dreams, Red Rivers!Someone Has To Do the Right Thing>Stance - !Neutral>3 Pool - Wolf 2 + Attune 1 + 2 Pool - Attune to a fireman's stance to carry heavy loads. I was planning on carrying wounded, but that's already being handled, s time to loot instead. >1 Pool - Move to my 3>3 Pool - Holster this cleaver. I'll dispose of it properly post mission. Grab the two footlockers. (If a roll is needed, Wolf 2 + Ferocity 1)>2 Pool - Move 1, 2. That will put me within range to shepherd/herd the crowd out next turn.
#Driller"Looks like there's some abandoned coin in the barracks to rescue if anyone's interested". >Beat - Block with these footlockers.
Crewtail: ... !
Crewtail: ...??!!
Crewtail: WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOUUUUUUUU WHY WON'T YOU STOOOOOOP
Crewtail: WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE. WHY WON'T YOU JUST **GIVE UP**. FALL IN LINE. I'M THE MAN WITH THE KNIFE YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE SCARED
Crewtail: RESPECT MY AUTHORIIIITTTTTTT----dunk
>>6433905Authority disrespected.
Rolled 2, 2, 1, 10, 3, 3, 1, 8, 3, 8, 7, 6, 10 = 64 (13d10)>>6433806>>6433817#Doctor Durbin===+Conditions And Consequences+Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 21===+Capabilities and Attributes+Pool 9 | Mobility 3React 1 | Resist 1 | Rebuff 1 | Attune 1Fluidity 1 | Finesse 1 | Focus 8 | Ferocity 1 | Foresight 1===+Skills & Secrets+-First Aid 5-Cool 2-Glitching Cascades 2-Sharp 1-Wyld 1-Discipline 1===+Traits & Tools+!Someone has to do the right thing (the right thing is WONDROUS SURGERY)!Unusually Focused!Red Dreams, Red Rivers!Flesh-enthralledMask: Red Droplet===Stance: DefensiveBeat: Void>5P: Move: 1, 1, 6, 5, 5>4P: First Aid+Focus: align Atlas lad’s 7 inner suns and swirl his 92 intestinal moons (heal most wondrously, ancient Sarethian art, most skillful and legal). Also maybe cover his wounds. Bad for the inner suns and moonsStars and suns I love my job
>>6433847Just a minor clarification I'm calling the slicerat a sinner not the senators daughter.
>>6433934She might be - she has that ... air of implied trouble.
>>6433941Thank you, dreamfriend, I'll be a little more wary.
>>6433817Amicus, stop her if she tries to run.
Rolled 3, 10, 8, 3, 5, 8, 2, 4, 2, 10 = 55 (10d10)>>6433817>>6433878"Might as well...">Stance: Neutral>Status: Less tired now>3p: Go pick up the coinage and footlockers in the recruit room. (Fluidity 2+Wolf 1+Pool 2?)>3p: Bring all of this outside and share it with the locals unless it's evidence we need>3p: Pause Pause Pause, there's [A Real Pretty Problem] and there needs to be something understood. Why is the Senators Daughter here?? This is clearly someone we need to learn something from...Maybe we should tail her to make sure she goes back home? Or maybe we need to have a talk on how were the good people and we kind of need her help?... What to do? "Hey btw, why did they have you in a cell for?" (Foresight 1+First Aid 2+Pool 2)# El Fantasma Carmesí (The Crimson Phantom)!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Violent Tear of Ashoniti!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Red Dream, Red Rivers!Mean Right Hook [Ferocity Shatters + Stuns]
Percipicus moves - grabs - vaults - jumps - slam dunks the bucket down on the Crewtail who screams inside it echoe hollow. Atlas slowly lower his fists to staunch the red ocean leaking from puncture wounds. Fear not, maskmate. It's but a fleshwound, a mere triffle, a scrap of scraps, and justice prevails today. You walk the sunlit mustering grounds and the panopoly of the ever victorious sun is yours, in grace and glory, and this man would need a thousand trebutchets to dent your helmet for he lacks the one true thing that separates man from animal and shifts the merciful from the malign: He lacksThe absolutelyUnwaveringFUNDAMENTALAssuranceThat Law and Light makes man more than wolf. Restrains do not bind, they strengthen. Law is not a muzzle on the teeth you could tear out a man's throat with. Justice is not a mitten to soften your fist, clenched to fight your neighbour.Man is more than animal and the merciful is more than malign when they decide, for a just cause and a settled reason, to put the sword down and talkthingsout and be to their pledged word true and stalwart and unyielding. In each soul giving up their own scope of action, each is lessened and in lessening is made so much more.An army is a thing of regulations, codes and compact. Warriors are soldiers neither by spirit by or skill or by champion rite or secret ritual. Warriors become soldiers when each looks to the one besides and each, in unison, together, form a grander whole than any single hero could could ever overcome.This man only has skill and will and tenacity and a knife-fighters creed. You have the suntouched muster of civilisation. What's a knife to that?Are you feeling faint? Does your courageous heart struggle to beat with the red tide that gouts from your body? O-okay, well, the knife... the knife was pretty sharp. That was EIGHT BLEED. But no. Trust the plan, soldier. Hold your ground. Do not waver. Justice, like truth, are nuanced and vast, and a knife can kill a judge but a knife cannot kill the LAW ITSELF. ... Ah, and look! Yes! Here comes the medicae, to apply bandage and skill to the mere minor lethal puncture wounds! To set right that which was going wrong. You are not lethally faint and almost dead from bloodloss and arterial puncture! You are aflush with the battle-fatigue of victory and the tightly wrapped bandages . . . OF VALOUR.-->CURTAIN CALL...
>"Okay the recently ensouled man and bloodloss is messing with my brain, just. Just come with me, I'll show thee some tricks later. Thou saw the shit my allies were doing trust me on this one."
Crewtail In A Bucket: You think you've bested me?? Wearing a mask empowers you! I... I... this might be the shimmergrass talking because I think it's leaking through the building but what is a BUCKET on your HEAD but a MASK? I have.... BECOME... A RATMASK... Possibly Concussed Crewtail In A Bucket, Definitively Oxygen Deprived, Certainly Suffering Shimmergrass Exposure: BEHOLD. MY ULTIMATE TECHNIQUE. RAT. . . BUCKET RAMPAAAGEEEE
Crewtail In A Bucket PINGDONKBONKPINGCrewtail In A Bucket UFHCrewtail In A Bucket I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT WAS BECAUSE I CAN BARELY SEE ANYTHINGCrewtail In A Bucket ... BUT IF I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT WAS, I DON'T NEED . . . . TO FEAR IT!!!
Crewtail In A Bucket FREEDOOOOOOOMMMMMM
>"Ser... Half-shirt, tell me your name and help me walk the right direction to get out of this building. Also is can you ask someone to get your neat friend out from under the rubble we've been burying him under for several minutes?"
Crewtail in A Bucket: in the darkness within this lid i attain insightCrewtail in A Bucket: the NIGHT whispers to meCrewtail in A Bucket: the sun the sun the sun does not shine .. in the bucketCrewtail in A Bucket: i can HEAR THEM they're so CLOSE to my EARSCrewtail in A Bucket: theeheheheEHEEHEHEEHEEH
Crewtail In A Bucket: yessYES. I see the rainbow in the infinite shadows of my new face! I am . . . INVINCIBLE--- I AM-- FUGHKeen FirewatcherBy the mandate of the Senate, the laws of the duly elected representatives of our grand republic, the high sun and the authority so invested in its chosen elects to guard the people sheltering around the campfire, I place you under arrest. You have the right to a fair trial.Crewtail In A Bucket: What? Who is talking? Who are you?Keen Firewatcher You have the right to a public lawyer. You have the right to plead your case. You have the right to shelter, food and dignity. If you do not have representation, we will find representationCrewtail In A Bucket: LET GO. LET GO. I'M A SLICE-RAT. I RUN WITh RINIK. WE RUN THIS TOWN. DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? I MAKE THE SHIMMERS. I MOVE THE PRODUCT. THEY'RE INVITING ME TO THE CLUB NEXT WEEK. LET GO OF ME THIS **INSTANT** OR I'LL GUT YOU LIKE A FISH IN THE STREETS LIKE I DID TO SKISIN Keen Firewatcher You have the right to remain silent. Please keep not exercising it.Crewtail In A Bucket: WHEN THE RAT NIGHT COMES I WILL BE ELEVATED. I WILL BE ONE OF THE TAILED FEW. LET GO OF ME. LET GO OF MEEEEEEEEKeen FirewatcherYou have the right to a bed, a bucket and bread, but I see you've brought your own
>>6433988"Well it is about time to bring down the curtain to this dance.">1p: Knock on the reinforced shutters to signal the rest of our lovely troup"Tis curtain call on this day fellow dancers. It does appear that [The Fuzz] have arrived and they are NOT the ones we are to talk with. Ladies. Gentleman. It is time...to cheese it.">Sneak out with [A Real Pretty Problem]
A word of advice. Sometimes, the better part of valour is discretion. Watchers ask so many questions, they operate by systems and layers and beaucratic gradual grind. Sometimes, it's justice. Sometimes it's a machine that serves the machine. We must make allowances for the outside specialist, at times. Someone must DO something.But when things have been done, when the curtain slowly falls and the Dance comes to an end and ways of things have settled as they will, been nudged, as it were, to a new path, to linger in the cheering of the crowd is unbecoming. Leave them wanting. Leave them needing. A performance that ends on a high note is a thing to be proud of. Everyone has their part to play. Sometimes that involves giving way to the other, lesser talents, and let them flood the stage...
>"Ser Halfshirt it is. Lets grab thy rat friends and leave before the fire begins scorching us? Thou shall recover thy dignity in time. Would thinking thy Maskmate uniform would include a half shirt? Midriff or tits out?">Leave. Leave quickly, just drop the guys off in a reasonable spot to be recovered before they get hurt and GOOOOO
>>6433994*Wouldst thou be thinking thy Maskmate uniform
>>6433992Ah, indeed, indeed, what precisely applied violence to unyielding boards... Trust the process. A close-cut escape is a marvelously appropriate thing. The boards will yield. The smoke will swirl. They will enter, and drag the wounded, and find the office, blood stained, ashen, water-logged, and all the important papers not quite burned within. Blot has secured the savvier secrets, the subtle truths we need, and though the Watchers will be served with the lesser unburned things, these particulars are particular. They fall to us, as just rewards of duty and valour and heroism.
Curtain Call, and what a Dance.>Thanks for playing, as ever.--. . . NEXT TIME ON HEXPEDITION: SOCIAL CLUBS! ACTUAL CLUBS! CARD CLUBS! DRUGS, FANCY FOREIGN FOOD AND HIGH SOCIETY GATHERINGS... ARE YOU FEELING BRAVE TONIGHT? HOW BRAVE? BRAVE ENOUGH TO ENTER. . .
. . . A HIGH STAKES CARD GAME AT THE MOST EXCLUSIVE SOCIAL CLUB IN TOWN? BRING YOUR BEST DRESS AND FINEST MANNERS, MASKMATEWE'RE GOING [u]CLUBBING[/u]
Rolled 4, 2, 6, 10, 1, 4, 7, 5, 5, 4, 6, 8, 8 = 70 (13d10)>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzLuGZ1i-aU&list=RD_qx4hye4hWA&index=4 [Remove]. . . PREPRODUCTION FOR THE PLAY STARTS IMMEDIATELY---Slipping sideways through alleys local and the backcorners of a city bustling, you quickly scrape so far the rising smoke in the distance has the appearance of yet another of the innumerable cooking fires. Blot has spent the time running, mult-tasking, flickering through secrets. Lockboxes have been busted up. KNIFES AND WEAPONS HAVE BEEN DISCARDED, BROKEN, DOWN WELLS. A quick visit to a trusted source, some nervous waiting and pacing and keeping low, and street doctors, sheer determination, brawn, will and care sees to the worst of scrapes, bruises, breaks and beatings.A troublesome seeming lean woman with flightly lilac eyes keeps pace, keeping low, skittish at the sight of every far off watcher. Regal air, fine features, and entirely too aristocratic an air to be so frightened of the meandering machinery of state that guards roads and manages tolls and keeps the civic world flowing. Amicus and Eight Treasurers have to hide her in a cart twice, three Red Droplets skip a side-path to ambush a patrol of skulking slice-rats moaning in an alley, and she's too tight-lipped and trouble-touched to share, what, exactly brings on the palpable sensation of dark storms rolling in until you're well and truly somewhere almost, mostly safe.( A run down and abandoned theatre near the eastern ward, wind rustling softly through moth-touched curtains. The entire place is one bad breeze away from falling over, but at least the rats here are the cheese-loving kind and the sunlight slowly leaking in through the roof takes the air of familiarity )And once Amicus tilts his head just right and someone blinks and offers the right kind of 'Well, go on then' silence, she starts talking.And she does not -stop- talking for quite . . . a . . . while.-->All Maskmates notch 1 Inspiration>All Maskmates notch 8 Cold Coins, after distributing useful bits.>13 Savvy Secrets, testing to 6 Favours.>All Maskmates expected to VOTE ON TWO OPTIONS (Primary, Secondary) from these four pre-production stages.
I say Put Your True Face On is most important, given it unlocks the mask and veneer powers.>Put Your True Face On (Primary)>Put The Word Out (Secondary)
>>6434021>Put Your True Face On (Primary)>Put Your Fists Up (Secondary)
>>6434021>Put Your True Face On (Primary)>Put The Word Out (Secondary)
Put Your True Face On (Primary)Put The Word Out (Secondary)
>>6434021How much time do we all have to vote?
>>6434042So long as you need and not a moment more!
>>6434021But what, pray tell, does coin in your pocket and inspiration in your soul amount to? The world, Maskmate. The world!>Inspiration and Coin rules to your left. >THE LEGION FULLHELM recommends, in keeping with JUST PRACTICE and PROPER GUIDELINES, that you wait for the voting to be over before spending these, as the outcome of the vote may change things markedly.
>>6434021>Put your true face on (Primary)>Put the word out (Secondary)
>>6434021>Put your Cape on (Primary)>Put your Fists up (Secondary)
>>6434021>Put your true face on (primary)>Put the word out (secondary)
>>6430507#Poena -Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 20-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 3React 1 | Resist 1 | Rebuff 2 | Attune 1Fluidity 2 | Finesse 4 | Focus 3 | Ferocity 1 | Foresight 1-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2-Sharp 3-Lethality 2-Rage 2-Discipline 1-Intrasignence 1-Wyrd 1-Traits & Tools-!Whispering Witticisms!Spiteful!Unusually Finesseful!Vengeance, Jagged but Pure
>>6434021>Put The Word Out (Primary)>Put your Cape on (Secondary)
Some things approach unanimous declarations and so a proud senatorial constitutional republic shall yield to the will of the peoples. Who needs secondary voting rounds and tie-breakers?Put the true mask . . . On.DOWN AND OUT IN PYTHER, GRANDThese streets ARE big enough for all of us, maskmate, and a million more lives besides. Warm, kind place, and never mind the ash-stains on some of the older buildings. We had a pyromancer problem a few years back, but it's burning itself out. As you navigate days and relationships towards the next Dance, consequences percolate, the city breathes and lives, and you get up to all kinds of interesting things. Navigate the city, softsoul. Make a mark. Make -choices-. They always have consequences, but sometimes, they're good things.Red notes cannot be bypassed.Green nodes can be moved through freely. ASIDES are Optional, but interesting. Though the node-map might look odd, nothing has truly -changed- about the way the world works. Spread yourself out across nodes by distributing Pool, spending 1 to move as ever if a node is connected to another Node. Intentions can be called once, Secrets can be called multiple times. It does, admittedly, help to focus, pick you area of expertise, as it were. Some node-links have descriptives about the kind of skillset that helps regarding that note. These are descriptive, not prescriptive. If you're JUST THAT GOOD, MASKMATE, you can probably wing a solution using any talent you have, though you will have to tell us what you are actually doing, as ever. Consequences sprawl to connected nodes, and nodes that have traits and conditions on them perhaps get a little trickier. More on that later. If you enter a node and it has a "Do x", you get the benefit of that situation once unless very specifically specified otherwise. Sometimes, being FREE, is helpful for your reputation or other things.So, tonight, you might all start by spending 1 Pool to move to putting your True Face On, and then the rest of the evening is . . . Your business. -->MASKPHASE (Scaled)
But what is a mask, then, and the marks on it? The stories of old, the symbols repeated and repeated, interlinked retellings of tales until they wear a soft groove in the fabric of the universe. The mind yields to symbols, the sigildry of the act, and the world bends to allow the due cause of events to flow as they 'should', if the 'should' is insistent enough. Red Droplets are here for woe and violene, to purify with fists what have gone wrong. They punch you harder. We all know it. You punch them, they love it. So it is. In any stageplay when an extra puts on a Red Droplet and slips into the scene, the audience helpfully knows that violence will soon follow and sets their expectations accordingly. There is a power in that, a slim coating of something truer than true over the mundane wood of reality. A rainbow coated light, a leaking from the Other, and perhaps spinning stories properly is the truest, oldest magic of all? Not even the Theurges, in their heyday, could demand that people stopped appreciating puppet theater. Ban actors? Decry stageplays? No friends to sit around a campfire and share tales of the long roads and dusty dreams? One might as well kill the soul, such things cannot be ordered and cannot be carried out. Stories have a life of their own. The world is all cold sharp bits and angles and relentlessly precise stellar mechanics, and as someone once wrote, grind it all down and you will find no molecule of justice or atom of law. But justice, maskmate, exists. Laws are real things. Hope and friendship and Doing The Right Thing? You can feel it in your fluttering heart. They can be as real as gravity, if someone has but the will and wit to make it so--Veneers and Maskmarks unlockedTry to read carefully, as this adds a fair bit of rules adjustment though nothing too complicated>All maskmates gain 1 Veneer intention, the external mirror of Attune. Attune is to feel something on the inside, and act as if it was true. Veneer is to paint it large, and demand it briefly is. >Veneer is a little special. It takes true Inspiration to raise it in the first place, and nothing less will ever do. If someone tries to deploy a maskmate with 8 Veneer because "oh but character creation lets me add points to--" call them a poser. They're a poser. That's being a poser.>Having a Veneer intention at all unlocks Maskmarks and gains you a Personal Mark. Scratch a Maskmark on your mask, paint it true, carve it in, be in Accord. >Ah, but. Stories take on a life of their own. Veener too dense and things get... Muddled. Maskmarks leave you open to Impulses and Needs. It looks like this-Traits & Tools & Marks-!Whispering Witticisms [Wyrdness 1, Agility 1, Jester's Bells, Legion Chevron 2]!xx!xx!xxThat is, you store the maskmarks inside the !Trait call for the Mask you are wearing, literally, painted on, as it were. -->MASKPHASE, AGAIN (Scaled, now with arts and craft)
>>6434279> Spend Intention to progress Resist from 6 to 7> Commit Veneer to a Personal Mark, Resilience 1.> Do not expend any Coldcoin# Atlas Anchored!Status: 2 Bleed-Traits & Tools & Masks-!Someone has to do the right thing!Unusually Focused(Legion Fullhelm)!Sunlit Muster [Resilience 1]ASIDE // Chase the Focused Slicerat down. // While grazing in the open plain, a lone deer is startled. Senses keen, it spots a predatory shadow approaching from a distance. Instinct honed, the deer promptly and cleanly absconds. Body strong, the deer covering many leagues before exhaustion sets in. Yet, upon glancing back towards the way it came, it finds the shadowy figure gazing back at it from the horizonline. (Focus 3 + Intransigence 3)
Rolled 7, 6, 4, 5, 2, 7, 1, 7, 6, 9 = 54 (10d10)>>6434279>Gain 1 Inspiration and spend it on Insight: Cool (Not being hit)>Gain 8 Coldcoin and spend 1 to rent a room for Kiarb>1P Move to Put Your True Face On>1P Move to About That Sack and talk to Kiarb about the sack and other interesting things (Foresight 5 + Sharp 2)>6P Move to Cool Stories, Brother and teach a local to be cool like me (Focus 3 + Cool 3 + Pool 4)>1P Move back to Put Your True Face On#Perspicus-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 20-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 3React 2 Resist 1 Rebuff 1 Attune 1Fluidity 1 Finesse 1 Focus 3Ferocity 1 Foresight 5-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2-Cool 3,-Sharp 2-Lethality 2-Discipline1-Hard 1-Glitching Cascades 1-Traits & Tools-!Insightful!Unusually Foresightful!Cut the Self Free!Flash and Panache
>>6434308Posted too early>Gain 1 Veneer>Gain Agility 1 personal mark>Inscribe The Ever-Seeing Eye#Perspicus-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 20-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 3React 2 Resist 1 Rebuff 1 Attune 1 Veneer 1Fluidity 1 Finesse 1 Focus 3Ferocity 1 Foresight 5-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2-Cool 3,(Not getting hit)-Sharp 2-Lethality 2-Discipline1-Hard 1-Glitching Cascades 1-Traits & Tools-!Insightful!Unusually Foresightful!Cut the Self Free!Flash and Panache (Agility 1, The Ever-Seeing Eye)
Rolled 5, 9, 6, 8, 9, 7, 6, 2, 7, 8 = 67 (10d10)>>6434274> Join The Cause> 3P: -> Flourishes and Finishers -> Put My True Face On -> ASIDE: Chase Down A Focused Slicerat> 4P: Unusual Mobility/4 + Sharp/1 + 3 Grab That Boy> 2P: Ferocity/2 + Rage/3 + 1 Get A Headstart On Those InterrogationsStruck by the sight of the fleeing, focused slicerat forcing his way through the market square, a failing man realises, at last, his moment, to shed his skin and be what he was BORN to be.Triple M! strides forth!# Triple M!-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 13-Capabilities and Attributes- Pool 9 Mobility 4React 1 Resist 3 Rebuff 1 Attune 2Veneer 1 Impulse 3 Fluidity 1 Finesse 2 Focus 2Ferocity 2 Foresight 1 -Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2 -Rage 3-Glitching Cascades, Reckless Daring 2-Cool, Sharp, Discipline 1 -Traits & Tools-!Fluttering Moth [Jobber, Fingers Up 4]!Unusually Mobile!Flash and Panache!Cut The Self Free!Musclebound
Rolled 4, 7, 10, 9, 6, 1, 9, 10, 5, 2, 10, 6, 10, 2, 10, 10 = 111 (16d10)>>6434274>>6434279>Gain 1 Inspiration, 8 Cold Coins, and 1 Veneer Intention >Fluidity 2 -> 3 (-1 Inspiration)>Commit 1 Veneer Intention to !Single Sharp Dividing Line>Add the Personal Mark: Sharp>Do not spend any Cold Coins>Spend 3 Pool to move and go to Ask About That Sack. Cut to point, ask the right questions quickly. (Finesse 4 + Sharp 3 + Pool 1)>Spend 2 Pool to move and go to Punch My Way Up The Chain. Focus on why I'm here, why they stoke such Rage within me, and push forward. (Focus 3 + Rage 2 + Pool 3)#Poena -Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 20-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 3React 1 | Resist 1 | Rebuff 2 | Attune 1Fluidity 3 | Finesse 4 | Focus 3 | Ferocity 1 | Foresight 1-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2-Sharp 3-Lethality 2-Rage 2-Discipline 1-Intrasignence 1-Wyrd 1-Traits & Tools-!Whispering Witticisms [Sharp 1, Single Sharp Dividing Line]!Spiteful!Unusually Finesseful!Vengeance, Jagged but Pure
>>6434279Can the 1 Inspiration we gained be spent to raise Veneer to 2?
#Driller>Status: Alive and Mobile, Glowing with Glory. >1 Pool – Put my true face on and gain 1 Veneer>1 Inspiration – Increase Veneer to 2.>Pain My Mask – Impart two personal marks: The Scorpion, all venom and cruelty and hardness; and The Winged Ax, a Duty to use violence and poison to heal the sick and wounded. As Maskmarks for the coming dance, paint on !Fist of the Legate [2] and !Hand of the Rebus [2]. I am no Steelspine, but a Scorpion has weight and hardness of its own. >4 Pool – Hunt Karsto the Focused Slicerat using Wasp 3 + Focus 3! + 3 pool. A scorpion soul hardend by a childhood spent on the street. Poisoned intentions calcinated by the great fires and distilled by the wars. Driller hunts the old streets, talking to the locals from behind a Scorpion Mask which promises pain to Someone. Better that Someone be a fleeing Slicerat than you Citizen. >4 Pool free. If allowed, spend some of it to donate 4 Cold Coins to that Soup Kitchen over by the Orphanage and the Veterans' Association. I forget the roads' names, but I remember the little houses with their little pools and the watchers with shadowed eyes who kept the vermin away. The streets can be cold and hard. Sometimes one needs a warm fire and a bowl of something to ward off the hungry darkness.
Rolled 10, 7, 10, 6, 9, 10, 7, 5, 5, 6, 7, 4, 6, 2 = 94 (14d10)>>6434021>Gain 1 Inspiration and spend it on raising First Aid from 5 to 6>Gain 8 Coldcoin and spend 2 on Prepared Medical Caches>Inscribe The Single Sharp Dividing Line>1P Move to Put Your True Face On>Neither a Preparation nor a Favour, but I'd like to get the best surgery tool I can ge with 6 cold coins?>1P to fix up Sir Shirtless's broken... things (first aid + focus)>7P on First Aid+Focus giving First Aid to THE PEOPLE
Rolled 6, 6, 5, 4, 2, 8, 2, 5, 1, 5, 3, 4, 5, 5 = 61 (14d10)>>6434427now rolling to help THE PEOPLEalso>Inscribe Snakefang 1 through 3, fuck sanity I want drugs>spend 6 cold coins on a very nice abandoned workshop to practice my craft in (since I cant get the damn knife)
>>6434428NEVERMIND I SUPPOSE, I'VE BEEN TOLD I SHOULD SAVE MY COINS SO *NO SPENDING 6 COLD COINS, JUST SHOVING THEM UP MY ASS*
Rolled 5, 2, 7, 1 = 15 (4d10)>>6434381Cutting through the stalls, trailing his target by the ripples left in its wake, Triple M! is aware, suddenly, of hands clenched unconsciously into fists>I rolled too few dice, this should be enough?
Rolled 8, 4, 1, 2, 7, 8 = 30 (6d10)#Driller>>6434415>The 6 dice above are Wasp 3 + Focus 3! + Pool 3 to go after Karsto. -Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 16-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 (-2 Rebus) Mobility 3 (-2 Legate)React 3 Resist 1 Rebuff 1 Attune 1Armor 4 (4 from mask)Fluidity 1 (-1 mask bleed?) Finesse 1 Focus 3!Ferocity 1 Foresight 1 (-1 mask bleed?)Glory 2 Veneer 2-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 4-Wolf 2-Wasp 3-Discipline 2- Intrasignence 1- Glitching Cascades 1- Rikovian Knifehand 1-Traits & Tools-!A Scorpion Soul, by Duty Bound!Unusually Focused!Red Dreams, Red Rivers [ Hand of the Rebus 2, Fist of the Legate 2, 2 Mobility, 2 Pool, 2 Veneer, 1 Fluidity, 1 Foresight from Maskbleed, assuming the lost mobility and pool from the Legion Marks are in addition to the Maskbleed ]!Someone Has To Do the Right Thing+4 Cold Coins
Rolled 6, 5, 2, 9, 7, 6, 3, 4, 3, 8, 4, 5, 7, 5, 5 = 79 (15d10)>>6434279#Stray-Conditions And Consequences-!Alive!Cut Ferocity [1]Limit 11 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 17-Capabilities and Attributes-Inspiration 0Pool 9 Mobility 5React 3 Resist 2 Rebuff 1 Attune 2Veneer 2Fluidity 3! Finesse 2 Focus 1Ferocity 0 Foresight 2-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2-Wolf 3-Wyrd 2-Cool 2-Sharp 1-Wasp 1-Discipline 1-Traits & Tools-!Old Blitzhound!Unusually Fluid!Cut The Self Free!Whispering Witticisms[Wolfness, Ward, !Pathfinder's Scratches [1], !The Ever Seeing Eye]Assets:Cold Coins 4!A SAFEHOUSE [1]!EARS TO THE GROUND, WHISPERS ON THE WIND [3]>1P: Put Your TrueFace On: Gain 1 VeneerInspiration: Veneer 1 --> 2A soul, cut and jagged, but: so much more room for *more*.Personal Marks:- Wolfness- WardMaskmarks:- !The Ever Seeing Eye - !Pathfinder's Scratches [1] (+1 Mobility, +1 React, -1 Limit)>1P: ASIDE: About that sack? I've seen some weird stuff in my time. Maybe it will all make sense in the end? (Foresight 2 + Cool 2)>1P: [Attend], keep an eye and an ear out for any nasty tricks the Slicerats might have planned. Word travels quickly, would hate to bleed out in an alleyway. !The Ever Seeing Eye>6P: Punch your way up the chain. Animists? Weapon shipments? Something smells off about this whole thing. Hunting's better with a pal, go prowling with Poena. (Fluidity 3! + Wolf 3 + Pool 5) !Wolfness>Purchase Assets:!A SAFEHOUSE [1]- Somewhere to lay low, if needs be, and stash my goods.!EARS TO THE GROUND, WHISPERS ON THE WIND [3]- Amazing what whisperfriends are willing to tell you when they get paid.
>>643442OK, so it's # Marks for maskbleed, not # Ranks, so no maskbleed for me, so Pool is at 7, Mobility is at 1, Fluidity is at 1, Foresight is at 1, and Red Dreams is:!Red Dreams, Red Rivers [Hand of the Rebus 2, Fist of the Legate 2]
>>6434443ack, already messed up, need 3 pool to move between nodes, should actually only be 3 pool total spent on punching up
>1P: Move to put your true face on>Gain 1 Veneer>Gain +1 Veneer (Inspiration)>Personal Mark: Scale-Heartedness, Speed>Maskmarks: !Leviathan Fair, Falling | !Single Sharp Dividing Line | !One White Dot | !Ashoniti's Teardrops | !Karathiels Sharp Feathers, 1+2+3 Impulse>1P: Move to Ser Halfshirts hex>7P: Train my Disciple Ser Halfshirt in the Leviathanic Sword Artes, start simple, only the Pondcutter and Riverslashing techniques. (2 Rikovian Knifehand + 6 Impulse + 6P) !Leviathan Fair, Falling !Single Sharp Dividing Line !One White Dot | !Scalehearted Swordsman !Scaleheartedness# The King (Also known as The Scale-Hearted Swordsman Or The Sea-Splitting Blade Or The Absolute Lord Or-)-Conditions and Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 18--Capabilities and Intentions-Pool 9 | Mobility 3React 3 | Resist 1 | Rebuff 1 | Attune 1 | Veneer 2Fluidity 0 | Finesse 0 | Focus 0 | Ferocity 3 | Foresight 0 | Impulse 6-Skills and Secrets--First Aid 2-Reckless Daring 3-Rikovian Knifehand 2-Vulpe 2-Cool 1-Rage 1-Lethality 1-Traits & Tools & Marks-!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Scale-Hearted Swordsman (Delusional?)!Flash And Panache [Scale-Heartedness 1, Speed 1 | !Leviathan Fair, Falling | !Single Sharp Dividing Line | !One White Dot | !Ashoniti's Teardrops | !Karathiels Sharp Feathers]
>>6434451In case he wishes to spar, Strike To Disable.
Rolled 2, 6, 6, 9, 1, 9, 10, 1, 7, 1, 10, 1, 3, 10 = 76 (14d10)>>6434452>>6434451
>Purchase Assets:!A SAFEHOUSE [3] (6 Coins)- Somewhere to lay low, secure enough and large enough to store a few others. Notably, Halfshirt and Eight Treasures.
Rolled 6, 6, 4, 10, 8, 9, 2, 3, 6, 10, 9, 5 = 78 (12d10)>>6434279>Gain 1 Inspiration and 8 Cold Coins>1 Pool - Move to Put Your True Face On - Gaining 1 Veneer>Spend 1 Inspiration to raise Veneer to 2>1 Pool - Add personal distinction to your Mask - Acrobatics 2, Add in three Maskmarks - !Dancer's Mark, !Karathiel's Sharp Feathers, !Leviathan Fair, Falling - The masks itself depicts a daring grin on it's mouth, the rest of the mask is depicting a sky, with the right side (from the wearer's side, left from the observers) depicting many feathers swirling upwards, and the other side depicting a great shape hurling downwards>Do not spend cold coins, you've been living like this for this long, you can handle longer>2 Pool - Moves to Aside: Bottled Misery - Fragile bottles fully of poison? Why that is the most prefect stage for a performance! After all, if they're making it, they surely wish to taste it. >5 Pool - Half dance half chase, a mix between a cat with it's tail on fire, and a prankster after plying his craft - 4 Pool + Glitching Cascade 3 [Magnitude 3 + Splash 3] + Mobility 5>Beat: Void - React 7 + Glitching Cascade 3#Blot-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 14-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 4+1React 7 Resist 1 Rebuff 1 Attune 1Fluidity 1 Finesse 1 Focus 1Ferocity 1 Foresight 1-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2-Glitching Cascade 3-Reckless Daring 2-Sharp 2-Cool 1-Moth 1-Wyrd 1-Traits & Tools-!Lucky!Unusually Mobile!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Flash and Panache [Acrobatics 2, !Dancer's Mark, !Karathiel's Sharp Feathers, !Leviathan Fair, Falling]!1 Agility!2 Acrobatics!-2 Strength>0=1-1 Inspiration>8 Cold Coins>2=1+1 Veneer intention
Rolled 8, 4, 5, 3, 7, 6, 3, 4, 8, 4, 5, 4, 1, 5, 4, 9 = 80 (16d10)>>6434279>Gain 1 Inspiration, 8 Coins, 1 Veneer.>Finesse 3 -> 3* (-1 Inspiration)>Commit 1 Veneer to !One White Dot.>Add the Personal Mark: Dodge.>Spend 2P to move to Cool Stories, Brother.>ACTION // 1P // Ser Halfshirt is getting a lot of attention from THE KING right now. This is fine, Eight Treasures is not keeping count. He is going to go teach him something anyway, out of pure generosity of spirit. Some footwork, to keep him out of trouble. It's the least he can do (and *don't* forget the quip!). (Fluidity 3, Rikovian Knifehand 3)>Spend 2P to move to So, about that sack?>Spend 1 Coin to buy a [Suitably Senatorial Tea Set]. It has little painted flowers on it. Very dignified.>ACTION // 1P // Karib has had an evening. Eight Treasures sets the water to boil, pours without rushing, slides the cup across to her. The questions can wait. Let her remember what it feels like when someone isn't extracting something from her. She'll talk when she's ready. (Finesse 3*, Cool 2).>Spend 2P to move to Those Poor Unfortunate Souls.>Spend 1 Coin back into the neighborhood. What the rats took, is slowly trickling back.>ACTION // 1P // Pull together whoever will listen (shopkeepers, stallholders...) and show them the basics. Where to stand and how to make themselves inconvenient just enough that the rats think twice next time. (Focus 2, Rikovian Knifehand 3).# Eight Treasures-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 21-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 3React 1 Resist 1 Rebuff 1 Attune 2Fluidity 3 Finesse 3* Focus 2Ferocity 1 Foresight 3-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2-Rikovian Knifehand 3-Cool 2-Moth 2-Reckless Daring 1-Vulpe 1-Sharp 1-Traits & Tools-!Unusually Finesseful!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Live Wire!Flash and Panache [Dodge 1, !One White Dot]!Six Coins.
>>6434451Correction to my mask, instead of Ashonitis, mark Gnawing Teeth.
>>6434300He runs. So we must chase. This is the essence of the thing. >>6434308Kiarb appreciates it. Her life has gone from high peers and dining halls to pea-scented sacks to small cells and bad bunks in very rapid order, and she is, uh, out of pocket, down on her luck and in no end of trouble. She'll take the floor. It's fine. Barely snores or nothing>>6434381Atlas, he's cutting through the market stalls GET HIM. Yes. Yes! This is your MOMENT. You hear the soft pressure song of . . . the moment. The sun, like a spotlight. The crowd, in awe. GRAB A MELON, HUCK IT IN HIS PATH, AND TACKLE HIM THROUGH THAT RUG IMPORTER---- Drat, he's up and away but with two of you, what chance does he have?
>>6434398Well, it was a bit odd they had a pea-scented sack just handy and six brawly men with cold eyes in the dining room. She'd been asking about these papers she'd come across, see. Someone in one of the offices might have mis-written a ledger note, because apparently a whole shipment was missing? And not just of reikan style important peas!>>6434402How inspired. Yes. Quite the only way to do so, and it does, maskmate, pay grand dividends in the ability to bear and wear. But you do pay a soft cost, for your own attributes and abilities lessen a little if you don't keep up with the fitness regime. Telling you this just so you understand: sometimes, being truly ferocious or fluid is quite useful.But please. Yes. Yesssss. Wear your -real- face with pride.>>6434415... and then there were three. Scorpions are sometimes ambush predators. Guess the alley he's going through, tackle him when he does and OH COME ON WHY IS THERE A PARADE TODAY? OF ALL DAYS ?? QUICK HE'S GETTING AWAY>>6434427Haggling and barter and buying steel and scrabbling for the right tools gets you nothing, for you know no specialist to sell such knickknacks and the doctors are fresh out and half of the people don't even know what a scalpel is and it's a hot warm day and one guy might have had a clue but then a focused slice-rat and three maskmates chasing him cut through the market square and he went home for the day.No maskmates have access to personal tools or pockets to put them in, yet. No shopping for such possible. Perhaps later?>>6434432Don't worry about it, we make do.>>6434443... So get this, right, the office is one of the Reikan connection sub-divisions, deals with something agricultural, but we've recently transistioned to a Kalcmiri outbound commodities line after some minor mishaps at a shrine down that way and some things that needed resolving, and so, anyway, I asked about the irregularities in the Luperni pap--( Distantly, in your secret soul, the sound of hounds: snarling )>>6434451Oh, indeed? Well. Well well well. >>6434473How inspired and frugal.>>6434490Kiarb hasn't had proper tea in what feels like forever but is actually just a week but those two are, in the mind, almost equal. Ah. Steamy.
Rereading the rules, it seems I have missed a part.>>6434274>Red notes cannot be bypassed.>Green nodes can be moved through freely.I had simply observed how others acted and made hasty assumption. However, my movement over the map is illegal.>>6434473Thus, I request, if possible, to allow me to do a similar move, but in the Punch your way up the chain tile. Disrupting general slicerat operations, instead of a specific laboratory.
>>6434497Thank you for catching that, maskmate. It was going to be how your actions were resolved, but the clarity is useful.Active Slicerat operations impede the freedom of movement rather a lot. Sometimes, you have to work your way through the layers. Later on, maybe the precise layers worked when will have an influence.( There is actually a secret way to bypass Red Notes, and it will be relevant later, but for the moment, without contacts and shortcuts, it's harder to know what paths to take. The Slicerats run tight operations and they're not all bad at keeping their territory together. Slipping past them is an act of great mobility, hint, hint, but you won't need to for now... )
Rolled 3, 8, 2, 4, 3, 4, 10, 3, 10, 6, 4 = 57 (11d10)>>6434274>>6434279>1p: Move to put your true face on>Gain 1 Inspiration, Commit to Veneer for Veneer 2>Gain 1 Veneer, Commit to !Ashoniti's Teardrops and !One White Dot. For personal mark put in Ferocity 2>Gain 8 Coldcoins. Spend 3 to... Campaign for a governmental position !Campaigning 3, 3 for a !Series of Admission in the right place, 1 for !A Safehouse and 1 for !An Advertisement Campaign 1>1p: Move to [Those Poor Unfortunate Souls]>7p: to help the person and their cat (Fluidity 3+Hard 1+Pool 7)#El Fantasma Carmesí (The Crimson Phantom)-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture [20]-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 3React 2 Resist 1 Rebuff 1 Attune 1Fluidity 3 Finesse 1 Focus 2Ferocity 5 Foresight 1-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2-Lethality 3-Reckless Daring 2-Streetstyle Brawler 2*-Hard 1-Wolf 1-Traits & Tools-!Violent Tear of Ashoniti!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Red Dream, Red Rivers [Veneer 2, Ashoniti's Teardrops, One White Dot, Ferocity 2]!Campaigning 3!Series of Admission in the right place 3!A Safehouse 1!An Advertisement Campaign 1
EL FANTASMA IS *MY* SENATOR!!!
And so the evening goes, in crashing market stalls, in reinforcing the doors of an out of the way safehouse, in chasing down leads, in busting faces, in rescuing cats and teaching middle-aged shopowners that the real chains of any tyrant are in the mind, with tea and stretches and almost losing a leg by the river though at least there is someone who calls themselves a doctor present...Kiarb drops a measure of the worry she has carried like a cloak when the door of the safehouse finally slides shut and she finds herself, on a moth-bitten pillow with a chipped mug of tea in her hand. The pea-scented sack might be where things went sideways but it is not where it started. To cut to the chase, foresightful prodding and some cross-reference with the files Blot acquired provides the skeletal scaffolding of a curious, shambling conspiracy-creature. A unity of rats, hounds and high senators, low legionaires and savvy, interesting outsiders.Her crime was asking questions about it to the wrong authority figure. Family it is an asset until it becomes a leash. Her father is known in the circles; Senator of an old line, supported by the Luperni and Cestiphon tradehouses both and renowned for the foresight of his vision in his younger days. Casetus Erlomi va Cestiphoni, and six more cognomens besides if you're not on a first name basis. Rarefied air Rinik's been keeping.Kiarb's problem is this: She's one of the seven siblings of a large family with curious branches, and, to pass the time and do some useful things with her life, she took up an offered spot as an assessor-clerk for a dockside trading house operation, cut her hair and pretended her father didn't have enough money to buy out the district when her colleguaes asked if she wanted to go out for drinks. And then one day there was a disrepancy in the import logs. Legion factory shipment from down the Aroloki way, slated for further transport down-road to some distant refit operation. Smallest thing. Rush order. All the stamps check out, she saw eighty of those a week, and oddly, this one had a perfectly legal and normal stamp of an officer who had also, just last week, stamped a shipment from up the Oakslog.Kiarb pondered. The foresightful maskmate listening to this pours some more tea. They can sense the punchline. This is big trouble. It must be. It's multiplying. Somehow, the Legion is managing the adroit trick of having the same officer in two garrisons separated by several hundred miles of country-side. Well, logistics do win wars, but . . .Kiarb, bored out of her skull and skipping drink nights with her associates, went back through nine months of import logs and wouldn't you just know, the same officer must be one of the most hard-working men in Pyther, because he shows up everywhere.She put on her best dress and went home and asked her father, privately, politely, over tea: Say, are we doing something particularly clever with tax exemptions...
Kiarb: And he said "Not to my knowledge but I'll go check" and next thing I knew six of Rinik's slicerats burst into the dinning hall, knock a servant out, stuff me in a sack and carry me down the kitchen entrance.Kiarb: The worst part is they must have been having a meeting with him in another room! They were inside the house!Kiarb: They've been shuffling me from safehouse to safehouse. And then this GUY with COLD EYES and NEEDLES shows up, and there's a LOT of whispering, and I don't like where that is going -one bit- Kiarb: I hear rumours, you know. I read. People like that can cut your sense of self right out, punctures of the soul. Kiarb: And that's when I knewKiarb: My dad was paying them to filch my memories! He was going to -- I was going to -- They were going to cut the whole thing right out of my head, put me back in a dress and send me right back to that manor and he'd been like "Oh, did you enjoy our vacation" and I'd be like "uh, I don't... remember... much of it... " and he'd smile that smile he does and chortle and I'd go back to working at the office and ... and... and...Perspicus, cool, times the new batch of tea directly. This is the part of the story where the shuddering and shivering and shaking of emotions released give way to tears and flexing fingers and sheer pique and ire and tangled emotions. Kiarb holds on to the cracked mug of something steamy and soothing with the vice-like tenacity of a drowning rat clutching a lifeline. Most normal thing she's done in weeks. Eventually, the moment paces.Kiarb: Bastard.Kiarb: They're shuffling arms crates and who knows what around. Clerks and quartermasters somewhere must be IN on it. My old manager, certainly. House personnel. Not a lot of stuff PER shipment, but a lot of shipments over time, and it does add up. I don't know where it'd all end up or why they'd need so much stuff. Even if Rinik's riffraff rats are just selling it, the whole operation must be flooding them with cold coins. I know my father needs to run his campaigns, but I didn't think he'd be so hard up for coin he'd be running with the rats.Kiarb: It's a good line. They chewed a whole hole right through the wall into the metaphorical pantry. Every time the Legion, or, hell, the government orders anything from anywhere, the Slicerats chew out two percent!! Kiarb: They'll have stuffed the papers, fixed the trails, probably changed names.Kiarb: But. . .Kiarb: . . . My manager did invite me to this club, once. Drink nights, for an end of year bonus? Real exclusive. Hobnob with some up-and-comers. I stayed home, fancy foreign food gives me indigestion. Kiarb: Buuuut. If we don't have the papers and they're hiding the trial, the next best thing we could get...
Kiarb: ... Is a one on one with their money guys, right? Oh, a rat shorn of easy access to all its delightful cheese? They'll be so very, very mad. >WORLD PHASE
Aha... A bundle of rats... all tangled together... Like... A Rat King...... I shall assist in untangling this web of rodents, and slaying this Rat Borne King!!!!
oh by the icons and the staffing cost too, the criers and insurance and wages and ... Politics! It's no end of expenses! ( faintly, the Red Droplet shudders, for this is quite some esoteric flavour of financial violence )
And so the stage is set, the pre-production cleaned away for later things, and the world more truly aligned to how it is and what must occur. Take status of yourselves, wander the city, get caught up. Halfshirt has some questions about how he should spend his time, but guiding him is a costless interaction (unless you want to -really- guide him, and then perhaps he might learn a trick or two). Campaign financing is a fraught thing. We're on the trial of couriers and guards and dangerous situations.Assets are useful to know and to have. The kind of actions you can take is contigent on them, so money does make the world go around sometimes. Move to a node with an asset, and it helps your acts quite a lot. Prepared medical caches and abandoned surgical workshops might help alleviate injuries, and more so if there's a doctor present. Advertisement campaigns buy good-will. A safehouse is a very, very useful thing to have. Moving through the city streets is easier if you know the layout. Red Nodes of course bar a path directly, but friendlier Blue Nodes are easier to each. You can take a mobiltiy action to cut a shortcut there, moving past other things (and even skipping red nodes... ). You might even need to, to reach some places. Press on, push closer. The Red Dreams by River, a most exclusive club, is our target. Eventually. But there is much to do and many citizens with grand needs. Be mindful - the slow percolation of consqeuence reverberate. Some nodes gain condition traits of their own, and now the fun really starts. When you act, you can of course also act to influence those traits. That might be quite useful. Perhaps someone of unreasonably brass-souled confidence ought to go punch those armed guards right out before the rest of you try something...?>MASKPHASE (Scaled)>OH NO. CAMPAIGN FINANCING REQUIREMENTS. QUICK, DO SOMETHING BEFORE THIS DEVOLVES INTO A GREY COMMITEE CIVIC OUTREACH MEETING.
Rolled 3, 6, 2, 7, 5, 4, 2, 1, 4, 2, 6, 7, 3, 7, 10, 4, 4, 7, 9 = 93 (19d10)>>6434667#Stray-Conditions And Consequences-!Alive!Mean Bruises [2]!Cut Ferocity [1]Limit 11 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 17, Veneer 2-Traits & Tools-!Old Blitzhound!Unusually Fluid!Cut The Self Free!Whispering Witticisms[Wolfness, Ward, !Pathfinder's Scratches [1], !The Ever Seeing Eye]>Status: Accept Mean Bruises [2]>2P: Move to the Prepared Medical Caches.>1P: Just some bruises, they'll heal with time, but let's just wrap them quickly, I've got some time and some bandages here. (Fluidity 3! + First Aid 2) !Unusually Fluid>1P: Attune to the Pathfinder's Scratches. Plot a course through contested territory, find anything, get anywhere. (Attune 2 + Pathfinder's Scratches 1)>1P: Attune to the Ever Seeing Eye. I'm looking for one Constantinus Ferro, Lower Firewatcher, Investigative Services, right? I've heard of him. (Attune 2 + The Ever Seeing Eye)>1P: Attend to those armed couriers, I'm a courier too technically, would hate to run into them. !The Ever Seeing Eye>3P: Nighttime deliveries? That's easy, I won't even leave footprints. (Mobility 5 + Pathfinder's Scratches 1 + Pool 2) !Old Blitzhound
Rolled 3, 2, 5, 6, 2, 1, 3, 5, 6, 2 = 35 (10d10)>>6434667#Perspicus!Status: had some tea with a charming lady-Traits & Tools-!Insightful!Unusually Foresightful!Cut the Self Free!Flash and Panache!Coldcoin 7>2P: Move to political campaign>1P Acquire a fast carriage>1P Donate the remaining coins to the campaign>1P Move to Knifehunters >4P Ambush the Rat extortion teams where they least expect it (Foresight 5 + Sharp 2 + Pool 3)
-Conditions and Consequences-!AliveLimit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 18, Veneer 2-Traits & Tools & Marks-!Sea-Splitting Blade, Second Seal8 Cold Coins!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Scale-Hearted Swordsman (Delusional?)!Flash And Panache [Scale-Heartedness 1, Agility 1 | !Leviathan Fair, Falling | !Single Sharp Dividing Line | !One White Dot | !Gnawing Teeth | !Karathiels Sharp Feathers]>Status: !Knock-on Consequences [6] !Strike to disable>3P: Teach Ser Halfshirt more Leviathanic Sword skills, and the secret to cut through anything; Absolute belief that you *will* cut through it. (3 Ferocity + 3 Reckless Daring + 2P) !Scale-Hearted Swordsman !Single Sharp Dividing Line !Unnaturally Ferocious !Sea-Splitting Blade, Second Seal>1P: Move to the Alleys>1P: Move to Arm Shipments >4P: Go on a rampage through the slicerats and their illegal arms trade with my Sealed Sea-Splitting Blade, hunting the moonlit streets for slicerats like a madman (6 Impulse + 3 Reckless Daring + 3P | !Magnitude 3 [Intensity] !Splash 3) !Scale-Hearted Swordsman !Single Sharp Dividing Line !Sea-Splitting Blade, Second Seal>BEAT // ZANSHIN, strike my foes before they strike me!! (React 3 + Reckless Daring 3) !Sea-Splitting Blade, Second Seal
>>6434697
Rolled 3, 9, 5, 3, 7, 1, 4, 6, 3, 6, 4, 8, 1, 6, 2, 7, 8, 4, 10, 1 = 98 (20d10)>>6434697
>>6434685>BEAT: Void. (React 3 + Mobility 5)
Rolled 4, 2, 4, 4, 7, 5, 4, 10, 5, 8, 5, 10, 2, 8, 6, 5, 7 = 96 (17d10)>>6434667#Blot>Status: Take 3 Injury-Traits & Tools-!Lucky!Unusually Mobile!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Flash and Panache [Acrobatics 2, !Dancer's Mark, !Karathiel's Sharp Feathers, !Leviathan Fair, Falling]!1 Impulse!1 Agility!2 Acrobatics!-2 Strength>Trade 2 Cold Coins for 2 Favors>Spend 2 Favors and 8 coins, leaving me with 6 Cold coins - Expand and Improve the Medical Caches en mass. Not merely hidden stashes of bandages and disinfectants, some herbs to aid swelling, nay. Midwives, Barbers, Herbalists, Common Clerks who wish to see their streets clean and protect their community, steady hands, and, most importantly, the will to aid the cause even just a bit. To them, your bit of worthless coin means feeding their youngest and eldest, and thus, there is no better way to spend it.>5 Pool - Take advantage of the newly expanded network to help you heal your Injuries - First Aid 2 + Pool 4 + Neighborhood Medics + Finesse 1 >4 Pool - Carefully stretch and ready your body for the next outing, a broken body makes for a poor act - Mobility 5 + Sharp 2 + Pool 3Beat: Void - React 7 + Sharp 2
>>6434667#Atlas AnchoredColdcoin : (8+2)===+Conditions And Consequences+Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 16===+Capabilities and Attributes+Pool 9 Mobility 3React 1 Resist (6+1) Rebuff 1 Attune 1Fluidity 1 Finesse 1 Focus 3Ferocity 1 Foresight 1===+Skills & Secrets+- First Aid 2- Professional- 3 Intransigence- 2 Discipline- 1 Hard===+Traits & Tools+!Someone has to do the right thing!Unusually Focused(Legion Fullhelm)!Sunlit Muster [1 Veneer // Resilient 1]===> STATUS // ASIDE Resolution // Extract intel on Slicerat networks and key operations from the Focused Slicerat. Officers, affiliates, clients. Names and faces.>TASK // 1Pool // Procced to the [Lupermine connection].>ACT // 8Pool // Meticulously track Slicerat Courier routines from a distance. Catalogue pick-up, drop off points, hand-offs, rendezvous, and breaktimes. Identify optimal windows to pick-off armed couriers, detaining them while alone, unprepared, and not immediately expected elsewhere. (Pool 7 + Focus 3 + Discipline 2)
>>6430507#Stratum-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 16-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 5React 3 Resist 1 Rebuff 1 Attune 2Fluidity 1 Finesse 2 Focus 1Ferocity 2 Foresight 1-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2-Reckless Daring 3-Streetstyle Brawler 2-Rage 2-Hard 1-Cool 1-Sharp 1-Traits & Tools-!Flash and Panache!Aerodynamic!Unusually Mobile!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing
>>6434730What an agile looking fellow you are, and sleek and sly. Welcome aboard, Maskmate. I hear tell a mothdiver much like you once elbow dropped a Grey Rat, but perhaps you might knock them even deeper into the stratus of the earth?Please - proceed. Find yourself in a well furnished safehouse, tea softly boiling, grunting sword-would-be-wielders going through the motions, two times ferocious, one times . . . flippantly??>Partial Update, New Maskmate joins up>Free to act!
>>6434763A halfshirt wearing raggedly clad lean thing with hungry eyes and a pilfered, broken flagpole still wearing the fluttering rags of some prior proud banner goes through the motion of swordplay.Cool? Of course. Working very hard to be, and it is definitively working.(right?)>Minor editing pass mistake, that Maskmate has zero cool.
Rolled 5, 7, 6, 10, 4, 10, 4, 4, 4, 2, 5, 5, 5, 4, 1 = 76 (15d10)>>6434667>>6434656>Status: Gained 5 favours, Trade 2 Favours for Good Will, the Other 3 Favours will be traded for [!A man on the inside 2] (1+2? unless it translate directly to 3. I'd like that)>Stance: Neutral>2p: Attune to Whisper Shattering (Attune 1+Reckless Daring 2*+1Pool)>1p: Move to resolve [ASIDE: Exciting Adventures In Local Politics And Pytherii Campaign Finance Resolution Mechanisms]>4p: It's very simple my Local Organiser. Take some notes for the Campaign Advertising. "Hello Debt Collectors. Let me change your mind and show why you aught to support in a more... pro-bono way. You see the state has a promise of violence on disidents that they themselves wield it with malicious intent. Me on the other hand..." [And then we proceeded to send all the Slicerats Packing](Ferocity 5+Streetbrawler 2*+Pool 3 !Unusually Ferocious, !Ashoniti Teardrop) Oh yeah, Use that [Force] and [Disabling] we are harsh but fair on crime!>2p: This somehow leads us to the ASIDE: Knifehunters. Where we will break their knives. Fluidity 2+Lethality 3 slick motions to break knives>Beat: Zanshin to PUSH THEM BACK... HARD"This platoform will not be corrupted by you Slicerats! Not as long as Rinik is in charge!"#El Fantasma Carmesí (The Crimson Phantom)!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Violent Tear of Ashoniti!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Red Dream, Red Rivers[Veneer 2, Ashoniti's Teardrops, One White Dot, Ferocity 2]!Campaigning 3 but is supposed to be 2!Series of Admission in the right place 3 but is suppsoed to be 2!A Safehouse 1!An Advertisement Campaign 1
Rolled 2, 3, 1, 1, 5, 1, 9, 3, 2 = 27 (9d10)>>6434763You'll tell us what you know, before an audience of your peers!> STATUS: Coins! and demand loudly before the crowd the most dramatic of the options: what was your GANG planning, kidnapping the senators daughter?!...>1P Once done, throw him to the crowds, if they look suitably enraged Impulse/3 Rage/3, else, a good knocking out will do>2P Move to -> Sideroads -> Whispers on the Wind>5P Focus/2 Rage/3 +4 be so righteous that someone from the market square chases me down with useful information (9d10)>1P Back to Streets#Triple M!!Status: Reborn-Traits & Tools-!Flash and Panache [Jobber, Fingers Up 4]!Unusually Mobile!Cut The Self Free!Musclebound
>>6434763Requesting aid with the arm shipments, I don't want the 6 consequences to hit when the hex isn't busted
Rolled 2, 1, 1, 4, 10, 6, 3, 3, 9, 6, 2, 4, 9, 6 = 66 (14d10)>>6434763#Doctor Durbin===+Conditions And Consequences+Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 21===+Capabilities and Attributes+Pool 9 | Mobility 3React 1 | Resist 1 | Rebuff 1 | Attune 1Fluidity 1 | Finesse 1 | Focus 8 | Ferocity 1 | Foresight 1===+Skills & Secrets+-First Aid 6-Cool 2-Glitching Cascades 2-Sharp 1-Wyld 1-Discipline 1===+Traits & Tools+!Someone has to do the right thing (the right thing is WONDROUS SURGERY)!Unusually Focused!Red Dreams, Red Rivers!Flesh-enthralled!I HAVE A KNIFE (for healing!)Mask: Red DropletMark: Single Sharp Dividing Line===>9P, First Aid 6+ Focus 8: Assist the bozo king by healing his wounds when he inevitably gets swishy swash swunk with sharp bits
Kiarb swirls a long practice blade of dense wood in tight, troubled movements sketching the outline of a problem too vast to approach. Halfshirt and a scalehearted dreamer get their practice in, tap their sheaths together as is tradition, and pledge arms against arms. It's not exactly hard work to chase down sword shipments when one carries, by the self, a sword. Feel, simply, where your feet want to go and the impulse will carry you there, towards duel, towards death, towards glory. The balancing moment where some Slicerat draws a shortblade and shouts: YOU! STOP! HAVE AT YOU and steel meets steel.In Rikovol, they say some things are worth dying for and precious warped few call themselves Blades. They hold steel tightly in thoughts and loosely in their hands. We don't have that kind of tradition around here. No one could mistake Rinik's riffrat rats for noble warrior-seekers of the shortblade. A legionaire is a professional through and through, soldiery worne so deep in the institutional bedrock that the idea that they'd ever need to be championship swordfighters would pass over their heads like the artillery support. Isn't the whole point of being a multiple-layered interlocking combined arms force backed by the grandest state in the world that you don't engage in hair-raisingly intense duels to the death with swords? You need something DONE you send, yes, a champion, and then the sixteen man support group and the outrider scouts and the extra flank hardening. In Vanadia, or the Reiks, maybe, yes, they do duels by sword and pistol and powder. But no duel is ever about the duel, it's about the fragile emotional instability of the egoes involved who can only seek redress by angry acts. In the Kalcmirs the knights-chevaliers of their various chapels clad themselves in sharp valour to test their mettle and prove it in the clash. That seems almost civilised. After all, civilised people like us don't go in for the mysticism of the Rikovol seeker. If you want to fight each other, first of all, "to the death" seems rude and in private parks seems unbecoming of the poor work you ask the cleaners to handle. Oh, we do do duels around here. But it's a spectator sport in the grand Moth Circuit, where roaring champion-aspirants throw fists, feet and fluid technique to the resounding roar of applause. Duels are best enjoyed, then, as a spectator sport and with copious snacks. But if we were going to do have duels, in rolling fights across streets and rooftops, perhaps like this would come almost close. The slicerats draw their arms. Halfshirt grabs the plundered flagpole tight and swirls it like a spear. And so we clash.( Good thing there's a doctor(?) present. Sharp steel is the kind of thing you get up facing, and by the ninth time in the evening the rolling engagements have to pause because a self-proclaimed scalehearted monarch loudly screams a challenge at six sharp slicerats, the whole thing is becoming a little fraught. )
El Fantasma Carmesi, in the guise worn without the mask, whispers words to the politically minded. And then the man in the mask stands tall on the city streets and corners and climbs fountains and declaims about the possibility of better days. Of punching up. The last right of the downtrodden is to put their fists up, lock their stance and punch the bastards. And haven't we? Haven't WE? All been, by the rats, by Rinik, by the taxes, by the flame, by the burning screaming archtheurges, by war and woe and wonder, been punched a little too much? Doesn't it make you want to just . . . Throw down?There are disrepancies in the accounting. Offices to rent, posters to bring, newssheets to get ink, bandages to acquire, people to train, something called a "Political consultant" who does a magic trick where all your funding disappears and never comes back and then he tells you that the "Opinion poles are good" and you're not entirely sure what that means, but it's political, so it must mean something good. Stray wanders a little close in his meandering way-finding and accidentally gets caught up in helping a gaggle of local organisers canvas the ward neighbour and before he knows it a massive liquidity shortfall vaporises his coinage. Other maskmates with gotten gains from slugging down with Rinik's well-fed rats throw theirs in the pot, and the local community goodwill lifts the enterprise higher, and higher. The orphanage, the one that runs a soup kitchen, finally gets the cash means to expand, hire nurses, buy more beds, check the market stalls for the better herbs, boil more water, and the political consultant comes back and says the the "integrationist methodology of street level focus groups for testing fluid adaption of local mutual aid tests favourable with the demos grafficks" and somehow even more coins have disappeared.But: A fever that might have claimed a life is broken. A broken wrist becomes a bandaged sore thing which will restore better and let a mason find work again. A knife wound becomes NOT infected as it gets cleaned out. Blot and Stray have their bruises fixed, their wounds cleaned, the bandages wrapped. And walking the street one night, someone, for what feels like the first time in a long time whistles quietly. Maybe there is something to this whole thing?>Mutual interaction splash effects occur across political campaigns, orphanages, soup kitchens, medical caches, restored and improved medical caches, community good will and political aspirations. . . Unfortunately, money seems to always be short. Kiarb, a little bitter about it, says that yeah:Her father always said much the same thing.This time, at least, by the combined pockets of multiple maskmates and a little bit of luck, a liquidity crisis turns into a community blossoming.And then the debt collectors show up, cracking knuckles. If people have so much money they're just throwing it around, clearly Rinik's been to nice on you lately. Pay up.
And what can one say but no?. Perhaps before Eight Treasurers showed some of the shopkeepers how to maintain a soft guard, they might have gone along with it. Perhaps before kittens were pulled from trees, and children were getting their scraped knees looked over by nurses or before local community organisers with freshly lit fire in their eyes asked: hey, do you want to help with this, perhaps before all that someone would have paid up and everyone else, seeing that, would have given up one by one by one.This time, the Slicerats draw knives, glare, shove bystanders. But it's a thin veneer of invincibility painted over the fragility of fear. The man they shove get back up and in getting up he swings his fist and the Slicerat goes down and someone else throw a brick and then the whole damn thing descends into a furious street brawl.
Ah, eventually, the Watchers show up. People retreat. Slicerats slip down sideways or drop knives and become normal citizens by seeming. Wounded get dragged to nursing beds or fed water or given a shake until they get back on their feet. A little flare up of the tempers, and no one dead and a minimum of broken bones. Happens around the city every day, for all kinds of reasons. It's a big place. And it might have been a footnote. Except, maskmate, you had to go and draw Attention to yourself. You had to go and get good ideas. You had to go and hog the spotlight. You like the applause of the adoring masses and the chance to bow at the end of the act where you're the hero and everything goes so well? It must feel so . . . Good.This ain't that story, maskmate. There are rats in the walls and whiskers in the pantry and swarms in the sewers and hungry mean-spirited fleet and vicious sharp little things with knives for claws and a thousand ears and their long tails tangled into the great rat king of Rinik's design don't get beaten by by half a hundred screaming citizens in a one-time brawl. You had to go and rock the boat. You had to go and make a fuss. You had to go and draw Attention to yourself.Might have let you get away with it too. Sometimes, competition is good for business. It reminds the lower rung what they're fighting for, motivates them, gets the leaders involved, lets you shuffle some numbers around, do some promotions, string your enemies up by the Sea Gate and let their entrails hang like cut off tails across their homes as a nice little reminder of what happens when you get in the way. Whisker-whispers flow up and up and up. Crewtails shiver. Clawsmiles check their taskings and their Gutterrunners, tell them its time to get mean again. Whiskersniffers trace the air. A Grey Rat, from the Knife Cadre, sharpens a sleek little shiv. Money changes hands. It's a big club, maskmate, and you're not in it. You and everyone you like and love? They're lunch. And Rats, softsoul, eat almost everything and are always hungry. And then, from up on high, word comes down. Distracted, disinterested. This just another of a hundred hotspots and a thousand things and a myriad myriad of on-going measures. Managing a tangled network of tails this vast? The real precious ressource isn't money, material, manpower or malice, because that you have in such uncompromising abundance you never lack for the means to make your missions matter. The real limiter on your efforts in the world is attention. And some small speck in some noname slum in some entirely useless part of the whole vast enterprise is demanding just a tiny little sliver more of it. Knives out. Smiles on. Rat nights to come. >RATPHASE>The local Tailed One spends accumulated attention to instigate an ACTIVITY.
>>6434763I'll act. Eventually. Gotta level up first, though.>>6434021>Gain 8 Cold Coins and sit on them for now.>Gain 1 Inspiration.I am going to take this 1 Inspiration and achieve an Insight in Reckless Daring (Drops). It can be a particular kind of aerial impact move, like an elbow or a knee drop, if it needs to be that specific. I'll specify that an elevation difference must be explicit. For dropkicks, only missile dropkicks count.>>6434763As for Veneer...>>6434279I can go without a Maskmark for this dance, but for the Personal Mark>Commit Veneer to Personal Mark: Recklessness
>A local support chapter runs a donation drive. Free coins!We've busted our long and winding way UP THE CHAIN.The Red Dreams by the River club is within reach. But it's guarded and warded and secured and not VULNERABLE. To make it vulnerable, bust your way in and then THE DANCE can Begin.Sometimes, unfinished business elsewhere should stay unfinished. Opening night always comes at you faster than you think. But conversely, stretching yourselves a little thinner, it could be useful to solve a few things before the BIG NIGHT...The Red Dreams Club has three active RATSETS, from asides not resolved or complications or attention. These modify the events of the Dance, bolstering, like assets for you, the Slicerats. The Red Dreams Club has three active positive favour granted traits. Busting up the weapons shipment leaves the Slicerats on the premises with less weapons, good intelligence work on the Focused Slicerat leaves us with the names and faces of their leaders and higher ups and so we can know their weaknesses, and the Rat Networks is getting us a second way in.This is where FAVOURS **really** shine, because just like Cold Coins buys mundane assets for the world, FAVOURS is what you pull in when you have to prepare for a Dance; apply them to the club and they translate to favours during the Dance itself. Extra doors, a man on the inside, prepared medical caches, a clean get-away, a fortunate circumstance... You've earned some favours tonight, and everyone starts with 6 banked favours from all the secrets we acquired from the Crewtail's Office during the first Dance. Hold on to them as you like, or spend them when you're on the Dance Node. [/i]And then when you're ready to begin. . . the Dance can start.Though you will have to finish up some business first! -->MASKPHASE
>>6434835do it.
>>6434854>>6434856>SORRY, WRONG WORLD, TRY THIS ONE--Rats in the walls, whiskers in the dark, knives in the night. They pair up. They split up. They spread out. They sharpen knives. They whisper orders. They kick in doors, they pay for drinks, they swagger and saunter and slice their way into things, they bust over stalls, they throw coins at the greedy, they ask questions, they ask questions, they ask questions, and none of the questions quite reach us, A SAFE HOUSE having been an excellent earlier investment, they spread about.Rat nights.Shipments are secured. Couriers are recalled. Route are shifted, codes are updated, guards are assigned, BOXERS are called in, smart rats with clever eyes make better plans for bigger deals. Yeah, someone busted up the weapons. Yes, someone got the drop on the swords and sharps. Yeah, we're down to blunt bits and clubs and cutters, but we've got grit, street smarts and sense to see it through.They recruit. They harass. They go to town, and they spread terror. They bust up a politica meeting, they shout slogans, they make themselves a nuisance, but a nuisance you can help but talking about.The knifehunt having failed as the sprawling mob rushed the world, the Cutter Cadre is mustering at the Club.The outlying shimmergrass labs? Reinforced, re-integrated, stimulant patches and pouches spread out among the trustworthy against bruises and broken bones.And then, one bad day, it comes to one big showdown. Maskmates with fists and feets, swords and guts and glory, and a hard-bitten crew of fast hitters with blunt knives but good planning. By the time the smoke clears and they've fallen back, Dr(?) Durbin will need to work overtime hours patching up the cut wounds. Triple ambush. The first pack fell right back into the waiting second, and a Scalehearted Swordsman and man in a half ragged shirt and little else had to ward off a sudden flurry of sharp things from flank as Fantasma, Blot and Perspicus got six politically motivated canvassers out of there and threw down with a crewtail with a sharp smile and a smoke captured in a bottle.Triple M listens to an agitated man talk about his sister, the last sharp important arms shipments, and what anyone can tell is obviously a trap.Obviously.Obviously.You'd have to be really recklessly daring to walk RIGHT into a WHOLE apartment block of SLICERATS just to GRAB the OBVIOUS BAIT and--. . . Do it right and they'd never see it coming.-->Maskmates are hit by a FEROCIOUS reprisal campaign! Wounds and bruises!! They fall back to their warrens in the end. We'll have to CHASE them.>the Local Backalleys are hit by a FLUID reprisal campaign, cultivating terror and breaking down local integrity, robbing us of assets! Stop their shakedown!!>Firewatcher Constantinus Ferro, on the case, is hit by a FINESSEFUL reprisal campaign. Oooh, hard work you'd best do focused and alone? But I have so many questions! Quick, he needs to focus on the CRIME, not the dame!
My servants, we should try to keep things hush hush for now.. THEN! WE JUMP THE BIG WIGS WHILE THEY THINK WE'RE DEAD!
Rolled 5, 5, 3, 6, 8, 6, 2, 5, 1, 8, 9, 9, 10 = 77 (13d10)>>6434857#Perspicus!Status: 4 Injury-Traits & Tools-!Insightful!Unusually Foresightful!Cut the Self Free!Flash and Panache!Favors 6>-Did I manage to acquire a fast carriage on the previous turn?>1P: Move to Local Backalleys>1P: Visit the nurses>7P: Enact reprisals toward the reprisal enacters by hitting them when they don't expect (Foresight 5 + Sharp 2 + Pool 6)
>>6434865You're not going to want to hear this but you absolutely did and it was REALLY impressive and SO COOL and then fifty rioting political supporters and a gaggle of armed men with knives had this great big bust up and......the shattered carriage wheel is a very cozy safehouse decoration.
>>6434868I just wanted to have a cool carriage chase sequence...
>>6434870Deal
Rolled 3, 4, 9, 9, 5, 4, 10, 6, 2, 8, 3 = 63 (11d10)>Status: Cold Anger. Venomous disdain. Beat up on aid workers and nurses will you? >Smear a pathfinder mark on my mask in the Crewrat's blood. !Red Dreams, Red Rivers [Hand of the Rebus 2, Fist of the Legate 2, Pathfinder 1, React 1]>Ask the Crewrat about their eastern Militia marks. If they don't want to answer right away, that's ok. Finger bones heal eventually. It's really the tendons you need to worry about. >Accrue 7 Pool >1 Pool - Patch up Poena. It's just a bruise. Toss a hardpatch on it to keep it from getting hit again and walk it off. (First Aid 4, Resist 1, if Resist not viable, use a bit of Finesse 1 instead). >2? Pool Deliver the Crewrat to one of the Vulpes gangs. Maybe the Rabbits. I owe them something after I beat up that kid and stole his magic ring. If the rat won't talk, those foreigners will know the eastern sign. Vulpes are from the east, right? Northeast? East enough maybe. A proper Pathfinder knows these things. >2 pool, 6 coins - go to the Lonely Light Orphanage, or rather the Veteran's Association nearby. Hand them my 6 cold coins and ask them to get a whistle, a sportsball, and maybe some of that sportsball armor that the youths wear nowadays so that the soup kitchen lads can do some sportsball drills. Good for the youths, sportsball, especially if they've got the calories in their system to sustain it. Builds teamwork, healthy rivalry, and physical fitness. Keeps them too busy to steal things or run errands for Rats. Oh, and by the way, I heard a rumor that the Rats were coming here to harass those pretty nurses who just set up shop across the street. Heard it said if they can afford food and medicine, then they can afford to pay the Rats protection. Them and all the people what donated. >All remaining pool - Ambush the rats who come to attack the crowd and soup-kitchen nodes. Take out their pathfinders and ambush watchers. In short, blind them. (Wasp 3, Focus 3!).
>>6434895>!Fist of the Legate 2, 4 Effect from Armor 4 - Crush more invading Rats>!Hand of the Rebus 2, Add 4 Effect from Armor 4 to my Legate strike. Law & Order are here for you Rats. If I can't do this, spend the 4 effects explaining Sportsball to the Veterans. >Beat - React 3 (+1 pathfinder, -1 maskbleed) to try and shift my body to deflect the blows off my armor. >Limit 11 and dropping. Am I a better pathfinder than a bunch of Slicerat Scouts? No dice here.
-Conditions and Consequences-!AliveLimit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 18, Veneer 2-Traits & Tools & Marks-!Sea-Splitting Blade, Second Seal8 Cold Coins!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Scale-Hearted Swordsman (Delusional?)!Flash And Panache [Scale-Heartedness 1, Agility 1 | !Leviathan Fair, Falling | !Single Sharp Dividing Line | !One White Dot | !Gnawing Teeth | !Karathiels Sharp Feathers]>Status: !Strike To Disable, 4 Injury, now, the swordfight, of course the swordfight. But, I'll make a quick stop to the nurses, this'll be a good show and we should have cool recently patched wounds to go with it, right?>Halfshirt, take injury and follow me.>1P: "Stance" change, start being a little more clever, try to minimize problems like "Getting spotted" or "Being surrounded by 30 slicerats" in interesting ways (1 Attune + 3 Reckless Daring)>1P: Attend to Slicerats, so I don't have nasty encounters with them !One White Dot (For the good senses)>1P: Move to backalleys>2P: Get first aid from the on staff nurses with Halfshirt (Give 3 coldcoin to them for their services)>1P: Sneak into the apartments with halfshirt, taking the lead because I have impeccable senses and can keep us safe. (Mobility 3 + Reckless Daring 3) >1P: Speak with the citizens sister about where the important rats are>1P: Time to TEAR UP THE PLACE!! With halfshirt start cutting up as many slicerats as I can, starting with the ones in charge, to plunge the place into chaos. !Magnitude 3 (Intensity) (3! Ferocity + 3 Reckless Daring) !Sea-Splitting Blade, Second Seal>1P: Dispatch the rats with Ser Halfshirt's and my own immaculate skills, funneling them into tight hallways and bashing out lights (6 Impulse + 3 Reckless Daring) !Sea-Splitting Blade, Second Seal >Beat // Zanshin; When attacked, run off somewhere with Ser Halfshirt and hide so we can perform a dramatic ambush on our foes once they think we're gone. (3 React + 3 Reckless Daring)
Rolled 10, 1, 2, 1, 7, 3, 5, 9, 10, 9, 9, 6, 4, 1, 3, 7 = 87 (16d10)>>6434857#Blot>Status: Take 4 Injury - Strike to Disable-Traits & Tools-!Lucky!Unusually Mobile!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Flash and Panache [Acrobatics 2, !Dancer's Mark, !Karathiel's Sharp Feathers, !Leviathan Fair, Falling]!1 Impulse!1 Agility!2 Acrobatics!-2 Strength!6 Cold Coins>2 Pool - Go get healed at the Nurse office, do not forget to say please and thank you.>1 Pool - Move to Aside My Sister Said. Wait until the King starts their show, being unsynchronized is so passé - Momentum 5 + Sharp 2>6 Pool - When the show starts, give them a great performance. A running act, from room to room, full of flips and daring jumps, using environment to slow others down while you remain unbothered and they fall one by one. - Pool 5 + Glitching Cascade 3 (Magnitude 3 + Splash 3) + Finesse 1Beat: Void - React 7 + Glitching Cascade 3
>>6434857#Atlas AnchoredColdcoin : 10===+Conditions And Consequences+Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 16===+Capabilities and Attributes+Pool 9 Mobility 3React 1 Resist 7 Rebuff 1 Attune 1Fluidity 1 Finesse 1 Focus 3Ferocity 1 Foresight 1===+Skills & Secrets+- First Aid 2- Professional- 3 Intransigence- 2 Discipline- 1 Hard===+Traits & Tools+!Someone has to do the right thing!Unusually Focused(Legion Fullhelm)!Sunlit Muster [1 Veneer // Resilient 1]===>STATUS // No Change>TASK // 1Pool // Enter Lupemine connection from the southwest.>ACT // 8Pool // Armed with courier activity logs and insights of the local Rat's hierarchy and operations, action is overdue. There will be no attempt to engage with the labyrinthine spiderweb of intrigue, bureaucracy, petty criminality that the Rat braintrust have spun around themselves. Atlas has a list of names, suspected Slicerat collaborators. He is going to pay each target an unannounced midnight visit and do extremely unkind things to them until an answer materializes. (Pool 7 + Focus 3 + Hard 1, Monitored Armed Courier routes + Slicerat Hierarchy and Operations Intel pried from the Focused Rat) >BEAT, STAND // This blunt approach to investigation will inevitably draw attention. This is expected. Keep your guard up. March through any resistance. (Resist7+Intransigence 3) [Resilience 1]
Rolled 3, 5, 3, 3, 4, 4, 2, 5, 1, 4, 5, 6, 9, 2, 7, 1, 4, 8 = 76 (18d10)>>6434857>Status: 4 Injury>Stance: !Whisper Shattering>2p: Move to the Nurses Office and get healed. Where? Where it hurts. How deep? Not too deep.>1p: Inspire the people to make a banner to prove they aren't afraid! A crimson banner with 2 white hands breaking a blade and the symbol of the city in the background. !Advertisement Campaign 1+Focus 2 >1p: Chant: "For Razorwind!"-"No More Slicerats!"-"The Streets Are Ours!"-"Justice Walks at Night!" !Campaigning 2+Foresight 1 >5p: Enact the reprisal against the reprisal campaigns. Break them! Before they try and break us again! (Ferocity 5+Lethality 3+Pool 4 !Unusually Ferocious, !Ashonitis Tears)>Beat: Zanshin grab before they act and throw them against another slice rat.#El Fantasma Carmesí (The Crimson Phantom)!Status: 4 Injuries being healed by nurses-Traits & Tools-!Violent Tear of Ashoniti!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Red Dream, Red Rivers[Veneer 2, Ashoniti's Teardrops, One White Dot, Ferocity 2]!Campaigning 3 but is supposed to be 2!Series of Admission in the right place 3 but is suppsoed to be 2!A Safehouse 1!An Advertisement Campaign 1
>>6434856Watch this.>>6434857>Status: all good in the hood. For now (not for long).>Stance: !Aggressive.>Act, 9Pool: leap into danger (ASIDE: My Sister Said...), springing the obvious trap at the apartment blocks with panache, daring, and no shortage of aerial moves. Scale the neighboring building, leap across the rooftops and conduct my "search" from the top to the bottom floor. This approach not only is maximally glorious in its audacity, but also shifts the verticality of the apartment blocks to be more conducive to aerial attacks! OH FLAME WATCH OUT HE'S COMING DOWN FROM THE TOP STAIR LANDING! Mobility 5 + Reckless Daring 3 (Drops?) + Pool 8 + !Flash and Panache [Recklessness] + !Unusually Mobile + !Aerodynamic>Beat: VOID. If, somehow, there are too many slicerats for me to elbow drop (it would have to be an n-amount, but I digress), try to lose them in the backalleys. React 3, Streetstyle Brawler 2.#Stratum-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 16-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 5React 3 Resist 1 Rebuff 1 Attune 2 Veneer 1Fluidity 1 Finesse 2 Focus 1Ferocity 2 Foresight 1-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2-Reckless Daring 3 (Drops)-Streetstyle Brawler 2-Rage 2-Hard 1-Cool 1-Sharp 1-Traits & Tools-!Flash and Panache [Recklessness]!Aerodynamic!Unusually Mobile!Someone Has To Do The Right ThingI'll devise a shortform sheet for further posting later. Bear with the information overload for now.
Rolled 7, 2, 7, 5, 5, 10, 10, 4, 3, 7, 6 = 66 (11d10)>>6434857#Stray-Conditions And Consequences-!Alive!Cut Ferocity [1]Limit 11 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 17, Veneer 2-Traits & Tools-!Old Blitzhound!Unusually Fluid!Cut The Self Free!Whispering Witticisms[Wolfness, Ward, !Pathfinder's Scratches [1], !The Ever Seeing Eye]>Status: Two Can Play At That Game>Stance: Defensive [+EFF when spending POOL on BEATS]>1P: BUT WHAT EFFECT WILL THIS HAVE ON THE PRICE OF SILVERWHEAT? (Attune 2 + !The Ever Seeing Eye)>4P: Aid where I can to keep the investigation running fluidly and run interference on Suave's interference. If Ferro gets overly distracted, pull out the one thing I know that kills the mood dead: an actual understanding of grain economics. (Fluidity 3! + Cool 2 + Pool 3) !Unusually Fluid>BREAK GLASS IN CASE OF EMERGENCY:Have you heard what the Kalcmir borderlands are doing to address their trade deficit with us? I think it's deplorable, really. Their problem is that they import huge amounts of grain from us, but we're less interested in what they have to offer, (I'll tell you one thing, and that you can't eat your stomach's-fill of chivalry) so in recent years they've turned their attention to stemming the haemorrhaging of their bullion reserves. Firstly, they started importing more Dust. Of course, you already know of this in the old Dust scandals about... half a decade ago, and there were concomitant crackdowns on the importation of Kalcmiri Dust. But you of all people surely know that when you force a decrease on supply, you are also creating niches for... side-market importers. So now, recently, they caught some people trying to smuggle Dust in *sheaves* of imported silverwheat; I dread to think of what would happen if someone consumed some of that contaminated produce and don't get me started on the knock-on effects this will have on silverwheat stocks if this becomes a trend, silverwheat shares will really become a dog if there's a few more of these incidents.>BEAT, 4P: STAND, please, he's a busy man, perhaps someone else can assist you with your queries? (Resist 2 + Discipline 1 + Pool 4)
Rolled 9, 2, 8, 3, 8, 8, 8, 8, 10, 8, 6, 7, 6, 1 = 92 (14d10)>>6434803#Doctor Durbin===+Conditions And Consequences+Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 21===+Capabilities and Attributes+Pool 9 | Mobility 3React 1 | Resist 1 | Rebuff 1 | Attune 1Fluidity 1 | Finesse 1 | Focus 8 | Ferocity 1 | Foresight 1===+Skills & Secrets+-First Aid 6-Cool 2-Glitching Cascades 2-Sharp 1-Wyld 1-Discipline 1===+Traits & Tools+!Someone has to do the right thing (the right thing is WONDROUS SURGERY)!Unusually Focused!Red Dreams, Red Rivers!Flesh-enthralled!I HAVE A KNIFE (for healing!)Mask: Red DropletMark: Single Sharp Dividing Line===…you know what? Fuck you all. Fuck this. Durbin is tired. Durbin is going to his new workshop and taking a break>take the 4 injury>9P to First Aid+Focus to heal himself
Rolled 5, 8, 3, 7, 10, 3, 6, 1, 5, 4, 8, 1, 9, 4, 6, 3, 9 = 92 (17d10)>>6434857> STATUS: Gain +3 Motivation>1P Unusual Mobility 4 + Reckless Daring 2: Straight to the ASIDE and through the sisters window>1P: Bolster the Jobber mark (Veneer 1 + Attune 2)>5P: Draw a crowd! Be a hero! PUNCH THEM ALL wait thats a lot of knives Finesse 2 + Rage 3 + Motivation 3 (this is a trait, right) + 4P> -STAND +1P#Triple M!!Status: Reborn-Traits & Tools-!Flash and Panache [Jobber, Fingers Up 4]!Unusually Mobile!Cut The Self Free!Musclebound
You may hang the agitator but you cannot hang their dreams of justice. Criminals may cut down the protestor but the banners remain to be picked up by other hands for the cause, because the cause cannot be killed knife or sword or arrow. Ideas do not bleed. Ideas are arrowproof. Ideas cannot be rounded up at night and thrown in a cell. When the whisper is out there on a hundred lips, it cannot be contained. The notion itself will change, and the pressure mount until something inside snaps. As a poet once wrote: To tear down a tyrant, start by shattering the chains wrapped around your soul. If the unjust law says yield, you can choose to disobey. You can choose justice. The right thing is not the rigid thing, because the right thing is a cloth stretched out, mallable, as a bandage, to stem the bleeding from world.Rags and rage will beat steel and stricture and the smug sovereigns that would keep a good man down will get their faces punched in, in the end. if the banner falls, pick it up.( Is this entirely wise? Some forces once slowly unleashed only build up. A hundred dead protestors is a hundred dead protestors, and then what good is all your ideas and ideals? you wanted a better world with better people, and what you have is a square of broken bodies because the unyielding iron truth is that the powerful have the one thing the powerless do not: abundance of choice and a lack of restraint. Ideas may not bleed, but the people who have them are far, far more fragile )
Slice-Rat: Hah! You've fallen for our tricks! This is a TRAP---Ah yes, but for who?-->RATPHASE
What a show, what a marvelous show, and the rubble and dust and plaster in your hair is the grand standing ovation of the audience! Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, earn your just coins...>If you cut yourself free of reputation, you can opt whether to accrue it or not. --Stray and Constatinus Ferro talk and talk and talk and someone else who had something to say eventually stamps her pretty feet, shakes her pretty head and stomps off (prettily) and throws toxic daggers over her shoulder at the station as she leaves. Oh no, Maskmate. Women scorned and all that.Kiarb goes over Atlas words, busted slicerats and spiderine intrigue dismantled. Turns out you can punch a math problem until it falls into a certain shape, and though enough of the smart brainiacs moved elsewhere their operations are still on-going, their efforts have been entirely disrupted here. Kiarb's troubled eyes catch a line item in a single snatched journal taken from an abode (well, no, taken from the rubble outside the abode where Atlas threw the cabinet the slicerat was hiding in). With a little yelp, she dashes off to follow up on an archival record. --Agitators and political supporters go about setting the neighbourhood to rights, repairing and resolving. But their job isn't made easier by the reprisals and the terror tactics of the Slicerats. --The reprisal campaigns and the Finefur organising recieve the bedraggled beat up stragglers from the apartment blocks and frown. Alright. You want to play hard? We can play hard. They lock the place down TIGHT, guards and couriers and sharps. It interrupts their operations, but on high alert like this, assaulting them would be dangerous-->MASKPHASE!
>>6435418# Atlas Anchored10 Coldcoin!Status: All Good.-Traits & Tools & Masks-!Someone has to do the right thing!Unusually Focused(Legion Fullhelm)!Sunlit Muster [Veneer 1 // Resilience 1]> STATUS // Stable. No change.> TASK // 1Pool // Travel to [ASIDE: Read it in a book once].> ACT // 8Pool // Split between growing his modest trove of wealth and committing to fund some small initiative to improve the state of fair Pyther, Atlas stumbles upon the concept of Interest-yielding Banking. Entrusting money to a bank, which in turn issue loans to local individuals and businesses growing and enriching the community as a whole, then the bank harvests interest to cover its operating costs and pay interest on the money it has borrowed from others. Yet, the enduring maskmate has reservations, all these lofty promises of facilitating the betterment of society bear the faint tang of a charlatan's spiel. He knows too little about the exacts of these opaque financial institutions, and the mechanisms of monetary economics in general. Staring at an imposing pile of textbooks, Atlas steel himself, cracks one open and begins squinting down at paragraph upon interminable paragraph of unfamiliar patois. (Pool 7 + Focus 3 + Banking and The Pytherian Financial Ecosystem)
>>6435418What does degrading intent do?
Rolled 5, 6, 3, 6, 7, 2, 4, 5, 8, 7, 4, 10, 10, 6 = 83 (14d10)>>6435418#Stray-Conditions And Consequences-!Alive!Cut Ferocity [1]Limit 11 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 17, Veneer 2-Traits & Tools-!Old Blitzhound!Unusually Fluid!Cut The Self Free!Whispering Witticisms[Wolfness, Ward, !Pathfinder's Scratches [1], !The Ever Seeing Eye]>Status: Learned This In The Kalcs>Stance: Neutral>1P: [Attend] to Jilted Jill. When you know you have a tail, you're not surprised when you turn around. !The Ever Seeing Eye>1P: Move to Dusty Days and Marketstalls.>4P: Rubble, good ambush spots? A laughing Dog lays a cunning trap; his fierce foes fall without ever fighting back. (Finesse 2 + Pathfinder's Scratches 1 + Pool 3)>3P: Ambush them from a good spot, pick a fight with them one-on-one, and when their friends come running? Well... (Fluidity 3! + Wolf 3! + Pool 2) !Unusually Fluid, Wolfness>BEAT: Void, luring them into my pre-prepared surprises. (React 3 + Mobility 5)
>>6435418#Perspicus!Status: 2 fatigue-Traits & Tools-!Insightful!Unusually Foresightful!Cut the Self Free!Flash and Panache (Agility 1, The Ever-Seeing Eye)!Favors 6>>6434909 >>6435181 >>6434490Driller, Durbin, Eight Treasures, will any of you lend me 2 coldcoins?
REMINDER TO EVERYONE TO USE THY BEATS!!!!! THOU CAN USE THEM TO REDUCE ATTENTION OR NOT GET PUNCHED AS BAD WHEN GOING INTO BATTLE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Reducing attention is VERY important right now please remember
Rolled 9, 6, 6, 10, 10, 7, 2, 1, 7, 3, 4, 5, 2, 1, 4, 2, 3, 3, 7, 4 = 96 (20d10)>>6435418>STATUS: take 7 Injury, and coins!>STATUS: UNTAXED GAMBLING PROCEEDS (minus a little off the top) and FAR TOO MANY POINTY THINGS TO BE INNOCENT OF ANYTHING (minus a few stuck in me) (++Leads)>3P: (Impulse/3 + Cool/1 +2P) Carve THE TRIPLE M into the busted up door I surfed in on, and prop it up by the entrance for The Watch to find>5AP: (Finesse/2 + First Aid/2 +4P) help the others with some bandaging. myself? don't worry, they barely got me>1P: (Unusual Mobility/4 + First Aid/2) Leap away (without leaking too much) to the Lonely Night Nurses#Triple M!!Status: Lightly Skewered-Traits & Tools-!Flash and Panache [Jobber, Fingers Up 4]!Unusually Mobile!Cut The Self Free!Musclebound
Rolled 5, 3, 6, 8, 4, 10, 3, 8, 4, 9, 2, 5, 9, 4, 1, 3, 8 = 92 (17d10)>>6435418#Perspicus!Status: 2 fatigue-Traits & Tools-!Insightful!Unusually Foresightful!Cut the Self Free!Flash and Panache (Agility 1, The Ever-Seeing Eye)!Favors 6>-Neutral stance>1P: Via a courier, borrow 2 coldcoins from The King>2P: Find the street food vendor with the worst sanitary practices I can, purchase his whole cart and let it sit in the sun just enough to become unsafe but not enough to become unappealing. (Focus 3 + Sharp 2 + Pool 1, !Insightful)>1P: Roll the cart to Reprisal Campaigns>5P: Leave it in the place where the Rats will see it, at the time when they should be the hungriest, in condition that makes it easy to steal, then wander off (!Foresight 5 + Sharp 2 + Pool 4, !The Ever-Seeing Eye)>--Hope that Slicerat stomaches aren't stronger than food poisoning>Beat: void (!Agility 1)
>>6435702To clarify:> Beat: void to avoid attention
>>6435514A bruised shoulder, a pulled muscle, a stinging pain. Knocks out that many ranks of intention (Degraded Ferocity [3] would be -3), and adds extra complications when that intention is used. Since this can sometimes zero people out, the overflow into a bust intention degrades further.If your leg is a little sore from a cut (Degraded Mobility [1]), you're only mildly slowed down. If someone concussed you so much your senses are rattled (Degraded React [4]), things is worse.If it's not specified, it's because you can apply your own. In your case, instead of taking injury, block and deflect dramatically as you bring the house down and stand victoriously in the rubble. The effort has then cost you some intent.This of course lowers pools for further action, but it is, if you're short on resilience, a good defend yourself. Throw your arm in front of the damage and accept Degraded Ferocity [3]. ( You will naturally want to do this to other people, and be aware that you can. Focus nulling hit location modifiers isn't just for show, and a ferocious kick to the arm can be done in such a way your intent is to degrade their intents. )
Rolled 3, 6, 7, 1, 10, 2, 10, 1, 10, 3, 9, 5, 7, 7, 5, 1 = 87 (16d10)>>6435418#Blot-Status:>Gain +1 Reputation - +2 Cold Coins - Degrade Ferocity Intent by 2, to -1 - 7 Total Injury>Sharp swords lying around (++Leads) - While some Performers extend their act with audience interaction after it's conclusion, the work of true artists speaks for itself.-Traits & Tools-!Lucky!Unusually Mobile!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Flash and Panache [Acrobatics 2, !Dancer's Mark, !Karathiel's Sharp Feathers, !Leviathan Fair, Falling]!1 Impulse!1 Agility!2 Acrobatics!-2 Strength!2 = 6+2-6 Cold Coins>1 Pool - Move to the Lonely Light Orphanage - Move 5 + Finesse 1Money can't solve everything, in fact, it can't solve anything on it's own. However, in a system, it becomes abstract, not "value", but time itself, crystalized. You can't conjure good people out of thin air, but you can shift the patching up of children's clothes from a nurse to a tailor two streets over. Or take a regular beneficiary of the soup kitchen, and have them aid in the cleaning, basic simple labors, all for a few coins that make the difference between sleeping on soil and on cloth.Money, on it's own, does not make good people, but it can help good people do good work. >Donate 6 Cold Coins to the Lonely Light Orphanage (leaving me with 2)>8 Pool - Spend the turn recovering from the injuries and the degradation with the help of the nurses, including some light stretching to build myself back to peak shape for a possible brawl next turn. - 7 Pool + First Aid 2 + Focus 1Beat: Rest among allies, such luxury you can hopefully afford.
-Conditions and Consequences-!AliveLimit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Veneer 2-Traits & Tools & Marks-!Sea-Splitting Blade, Second Seal8 Cold Coins!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Scale-Hearted Swordsman (Delusional?)!Flash And Panache [Scale-Heartedness 1, Agility 1 | !Leviathan Fair, Falling | !Single Sharp Dividing Line | !One White Dot | !Gnawing Teeth | !Karathiels Sharp Feathers]>Status: !Strike To Disable, take +++Good Will, Burn 2 Good Will>Halfshirt, just pick whatever thou need to survive, I'll be back later, but I'm headed to the library for now. Don't get in any fights I doubt thou can handle much with those wounds. Head to the nurses office perhaps? >1P: follow the slicerat route to Dusty Days and Marketstalls (3 Mobility + 2 Vulpes)>1P: Charge the slicerats from behind with my Sea-splitting blade, blitzing through them right after they fall into Strays trap, I have MUCH more important matters to get to, THE LIBRARY OPENED!!! ITS TIME TO READ ABOUT LEVIATHANIC HISTORY!!!!! (6 Impulse + 3 Reckless Daring) !Sea-Splitting Blade, Second Seal>1P: Move to dry offices and dusty papers>1P: Move to Read It In A Book Once>5P: Grab "Comprehensive History Of Arashton" off the shelves and (METAPHORICALLY) TEAR through it for info on leviathans and leviathan scales and leviathan sightings (!3 Ferocity + 1 Scale-Heartedness + 4P, !Magnitude 1 (Intensity)) !Scale-Hearted Swordsman>Beat // Zanshin; try to mitigate attention (3 React + 2 Vulpes)
>>6435743Pleasplesaeplpesalpelpleasepleaseplease good rolls
Rolled 5, 6, 2, 5, 9, 10, 6, 7, 3, 6, 2, 7, 4, 3, 9, 4, 4, 4, 4, 1, 2, 9, 6 = 118 (23d10)>>6435743>>6435750PLEASE dice bot PLEASE
>>6435743Also misprint, thats meant to be 0 coins, since Perspicus took two
Rolled 2, 4, 9, 9, 5, 9, 7, 6, 9, 5, 8, 6, 7, 2, 2 = 90 (15d10)#DrillerTraits & Tools-!A Scorpion Soul, by Duty Bound!Unusually Focused!Mask Scorpion / Red Droplet!Red Dreams, Red Rivers [Hand of the Rebus 2, Fist of the Legate 2, Pathfinder 1, React 1]!Someone Has To Do the Right Thing>>6435622I would, but I spent all my money on Sportsball. >>6435439>Status: Physically Healthy, but my mind is starting to fragment under the strain of so many stories. >1 Pool - First aid on Triple M as they come in (First Aid 4 + Finesse 1)>1Pool - Attune to the Scorpion's Scales (Wasp 3 + Attune 1), looking to improve my armor. Flavoring with react. Small motions to parry their blades with the hard parts of my armor and keep their points out of my joints. Smooth and efficient. >1 Pool - Move South to interfere with the Reprisal campaign. The book is tempting, but it's time for some physical drills instead.>4 Pool, 3! Focus, 3 Wasp, +4 Hand of the Rebus. Pick off lone Rats and small groups as I work my way in towards the Rat mustering ground. Where are your reinforcements? Many before you have asked the same question. >Offhand any Rats who remain standing in the muster area (4 Effect from !Fist of the Legate)>Beat - React to tank the retaliatory punch on my armor. Armor 4. React 3. Attuned to Scorpion Scales. Internal MonologueHealer Who Harms: Oh, a change to read a good book!Patient Hunter: Time to hunt. I can read after we've won. Ironhearted Patriot: Physical drill is good training too. Can't learn everything from books.
Rolled 8, 4, 5, 10, 1, 8, 7, 5, 6, 5, 4, 5, 1, 1 = 70 (14d10)>>6435418#Doctor Durbin===+Conditions And Consequences+Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 21===+Capabilities and Attributes+Pool 9 | Mobility 3React 1 | Resist 1 | Rebuff 1 | Attune 1Fluidity 1 | Finesse 1 | Focus 8 | Ferocity 1 | Foresight 1===+Skills & Secrets+-First Aid 6-Cool 2-Glitching Cascades 2-Sharp 1-Wyld 1-Discipline 1===+Traits & Tools+!Someone has to do the right thing (the right thing is WONDROUS SURGERY)!Unusually Focused!Red Dreams, Red Rivers!Flesh-enthralled!I HAVE A KNIFE (for healing!)Mask: Red DropletMark: Single Sharp Dividing Line===>Beat: Void>Stance: Neutral>1P: Move to Dusty Days>7P: First Aid + Focus to help keep the supporters unwounded!
Work, an ever-present dragon, devours. Thank you for your patience and your attention, and thank you for playing. Updates to come within twelve-ish hours, but as ever, Things Get In The Way
>>6435418>+1 Reputation noted. Can it go under Traits & Tools? I'll put it under Traits & Tools for now.>+2 Coins noted.>STATUS: I'll take 7 Injury.>STATUS: I am an ally of justice! WRITE THEM UP! (++Leads)>STANCE: back to !Neutral, please.>1P: Vacate the scene and drag myself to the Lonely Light Orphanage. (Mobility 5, !Unusually Mobile)>Donate 4 Cold Coins to the Orphanage.>8P: Spend time in convalescence at the Lonely Light Orphanage for the injuries sustained in my (apartment) block-busting heroics. (Pool 7 + Focus 1 + First Aid 2 + Nurses 4**)>BEAT: There are times to strike out and there are times to lay low. The latter follows the former and it's definitely time for the latter now. Luckily, the mean streets instructed me well in how to lay low. (React3+Streetstyle2 to try and avoid Attention)#Stratum-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]7 InjuryPosture 16-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 5React 3 Resist 1 Rebuff 1 Attune 2 Veneer 1Fluidity 1 Finesse 2 Focus 1 Ferocity 2 Foresight 1-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2-Reckless Daring 3 (Drop)-Streetstyle Brawler 2-Rage 2-Hard 1-Cool 1-Sharp 1-Traits & Tools-!Flash and Panache [Recklessness]!Aerodynamic!Unusually Mobile!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Reputation 16 Cold Coins
Gasp! A beast so strong it beggars nations and all yield to its passage, for the banking industry is the art and craft of holding on to that which we all need tomorrow. But in this fallen age, if all men wanted to empty their accounts, the bank itself would not have enough funds in the accounts to cover it. It is a leviathan of air! The sesterine is not backed by gold but by the belief the sesterine is backed by the obligation of the Pytherii Senate to never default on its debt, a proposition that has not yet been tested in truth for throughout all the many years of its existence it has always honoured the interest payments on its held debt at distant bankers and private individuals. The magnates, they circle like sharks, for the River Wars must surely devour funding as it devours lives! Horrible insight, maskmake! The economy but exists because men and women insist the economy exists!! Leviathan Prime may be the grandest, oldest bank in all the world but it is a leviathan composed of the individual. There must be more to it. What is the interest of the people's interest in interest? Secrets unbound, secrets unknown, alchemical transformations of intent into the thought-matter of bearer bonds and default swaps and derivatives of the Kalcmiri glass exchanges on grain yields and fireglass shipments to factories. . . The economy!! The economy!! A dragon that is itself the hoard of wealth it sits on.
Rolled 4, 7, 6, 7, 10, 8, 2, 3, 3, 1, 3, 5, 4 = 63 (13d10)>>6435418>Status: Fatigue 1>Stance: Neutral>1p: Rest a bit before heading out: (Focus 2+Resist 1+!A Safehoise 1)>3p: Head out towards the Red Dreams by the Rivers>5p: Begin "Busting down" the [10] for the Dance by covertly reducing patrols around and giving false reports of patrols being fine [Fluidity 2+Lethality3+Pool 4 !Red Dream, Red Rivers]#El Fantasma Carmesí (The Crimson Phantom)!Status: Fatigue 1-Traits & Tools-!Violent Tear of Ashoniti!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Red Dream, Red Rivers[Veneer 2, Ashoniti's Teardrops, One White Dot, Ferocity 2]!Campaigning 3 but is supposed to be 2!Series of Admission in the right place 3 but is suppsoed to be 2!A Safehouse 1!An Advertisement Campaign 1
The light of the sun is golden and so is the shine of coins. Some mistake the worship of one for the worship of the other, and for the long years of theurgic rule and the suntouched Adherency, a thousand screeds have been writen against being blinded by the shine of the wrong sort of yellow. Financiers, bankers and other strange sorts who whisper phrases like "collateralised" and "default deriative swaps" argue back: material conditions are material, and someone must take account. What is the people's interest in interest? Wherefore do we need money? Why does politics cause liquidity shortages, and why is the Vanadian-Reikan trade houses currently investing large funds in Pytherii short-term debt, funding, in some part, the Senatorial efforts in the River Wars against the sectarian hardliners of the pyromantic creed in Eastern Reaches? Will the fluctuations in the Vanadian crown have long-term effects on the stability of the Kalcmiri grain-market? First Citizen Ghellis and his proclamations of securitee and stabilitee may attract foreign investors, but roaming crackdown squads and martial law on occassion scare them off - the grand Pytherii houses have been burned on Vanadia before, in war as well as investment, so can the self-proclaimed raintouched republic sustain their publics works project if they cannot adequately draw in enough international attention? Perhaps these chaotic times explain why the investments in Pytherii debt outstanding is surging, for safer place has ever existed for your excess capital than the sun-touched vaults of Pyther, Grand and flamekissed? To default on national debt would be a crime and when the Theurgic Council ruled in all but legal name as close to heresy. The Senatorial Commitees may not have the faith to hold the same truth but they do employ economists and they might argue even harder against defaulting. Money makes the world go around.Or so they write and say and argue, but as Blot holds down a child who is shivering in the bed and a nurse applies tincture recently bought from a local peddler of alchemicals, the truth may seem more mundane. Money helps you keep score. This young sunball enthusiasts fever will break, and he will go on to grow up thinking of a smiling nurse and masked stranger. Will he become an economically productive member of the citizenry? Perhaps one day in some statistical chart from the assesors and clerks offices, he will have a good rating and the Leviathan Prime bank will extend to him a reasonable loan against outstanding collateral and socialised obligations. But his life will be measured in more than the coinage that flows through his hands. Who he touches, who he loves, where he ventures, who he makes laugh. These don't have monetary value to most and yet matter more, perhaps.The nurse smiles. Taps, gently, Blot on the shoulder. Gives a nod. Tired, crow-feet wrinkle under her eyes, always more people to help with bruises and sprains. Did a good thing today.[/]
Rolled 4, 9, 2, 4, 8, 5, 1, 2, 7, 5, 4, 1 = 52 (12d10)The Armatura Tacticus says: In a battle where one side is entrenched, with superior numbers, on oppertune ground, with sizable morale advantage, endeavour to be the side to which these advantages fall.Slicerat: JUMP HIS ASS. YOU'RE IN THE WRONG NEIHGHBOUR, RED. THIS IS IS RAT COUNTRY.
Armor invincible and stamina unending, the steel spine of the Legion, which have guarded the people and the polity of Pyther for years beyond years. Give them this, and all who stand by their namesake: They stay on their feet until the end
The soft sea breeze, so gentle and warm. The vast ocean ever-reach out there, where fishing cutters and trade ships and larger, grander things roam. What does a leviathan see when it shifts its bulk along currents we cannot know? We see them as small mountains in the distance, passing, the tidal-waves of their immenance shifting ships and causing sailors to whisper prayers. Sometimes, they are curious, enormous things, that follow along ships to distant routes. Gentle, for things of such enormous size. There are always rumours of Leviathans crashing into and devouring ships, and it always happened to some sailor from the last voyage who swears he heard it from a friend of a cousin. Perhaps prodigious size itself induces them to caution, knowing the world is so very fragile? The wave wakes of their passing can shift small boats. Accidents occur. But do the enormous creatures when they reach out know that their very movements are dangerous?Does a mountain percieve of the fragility of an ant? the leviathan-in-making Rinik has built, this analogy of conceptual vastness, does it even know what it robs from us when its merest brush reduces our works to rubble and ruin and our friends to meat and misery? It reaches out with vast indifference and applies the smallest measure of pressure and things simply fall apart . . .
You are dead, maskmate. But what is death, really, but the chance for a costume change? A new actor, to try the lines and role? A Red Droplet cannot die, for a Red Droplet cannot be killed, for a Red Droplet is all of us, fists raised against injustice. The Moth will always be there to backflip. The law will be as solid today as it is tomorrow as it is in a thousand years. A mask is a thing one can always put on. Applaud the man who wears it, and the grand acts they do, and accept, perhaps, that others may try the same role and add a different expression, a flair, a flourish, an unknown touch, a new idea, a novel insight...>Driller is dead.>If the Scorpion Mask can be recovered, a new character can choose to wear it. Traits and Marks of that mask are innate, and transfer to a new character. >Otherwise, for new characters, see standard role generation: >>6430507
Kiarb and El Fantasma Carmesi skulks the perieter, checks the windows, sniffs as the guards. Gets the drop on a pair of couriers and asks them some pointed questions, filch through the trash for discarded bits. What a place, coin flows freely and the imported wine fills the cellar. Music and laughter from the inside, and a steady flow of the coming and the going. They keep court in here, among the cigar-smoke and gambling tables, where fat rats with smug smiles lean back in cushy chairs and give soft whispered orders to hard men. Crewtails coming and going, couriers running about. There's a Tailed One in there, and no mistake: A little part of the things that tangle up the city, a nerve cluster of the Slicerats far flung operations. They must have met the Easternlinger animist in a place like this, when they hatched their scheme to pilfer memories. It's so easy to talk about the lives ruined over a good glass of something soothing, isn't it? For that one local tied to a chair that Stray rescued it was the worst day of his life. To these people, planning that was five minutes on a monday and footnote.Someone oughta *do* something...-->MASKPHASE!
Rolled 4, 3, 2, 9, 9, 7, 1, 9, 5, 6, 5, 2, 1 = 63 (13d10)>>6436263>Status: All good>Stance: Neutral>9P: Keep busting down the [6] for the Dance in preparation for the dance. Put him the rear naked choke! Anaconda Squeeeeze! Sweet dreams patrol rat! And the odd BONK on top of head! Drag the bodies and hide! (Fluidity 2+Lethality 3+ Pool 8 !Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!)#El Fantasma Carmesí (The Crimson Phantom)!Status: All Good-Traits & Tools-!Violent Tear of Ashoniti!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Red Dream, Red Rivers[Veneer 2, Ashoniti's Teardrops, One White Dot, Ferocity 2]!Campaigning 3 but is supposed to be 2!Series of Admission in the right place 3 but is suppsoed to be 2!A Safehouse 1!An Advertisement Campaign 1
Well then. Sometimes, conviction and forward momentum pays off. Kiarb checks the backdoors. Carmesi cracks knuckles and whispers a slogan. Yeah. Get off of our streets. Peeling past the couriers, scouting the route, knowing when the money men we need are in attendance, all that takes time, but slowly built up and acquired, the way forward is clear.Tonight, the Dance! Sensing threats in the air and lingering day, flailing and furious, the Slice Rat whisper networks resound with snippets of angry chatter. Who? What? Where? They got the drop on the couriers? Weapon shipments are missing? They're coming RIGHT for us?? The rats shift, shiver, draw attention elsewhere, move focus, screech and flail and sharpen knives... Attention will solely go towards hardening their protected important node, now, so we're on the clock.But soon, it will be time. The rats have ruled these streets long enough. Someone's going to DO something about it. We're going to kick in the door, we're going to find the money men and backroom dealer-wheelers and Luperni contacts, we're going to bust them up and we're going to ask some pointed questions about where-what-why-how-when and then when we know where Rinik's Slicerats keeps all their shiny toys and cold coinage, we are going to take it away from them. Oh, they're going to be SO MAD, Maskmate.-->Dance tasks unlocked. These are prepration actions for the map deployment>Favours now unlocked to be spent on the Dance; unlike coins these are Dance-specific modifiers for the deployment map, burning contacts, favours and associates to shift the odds in your favour and prepare things. You have accrued some favours on your own, but everyone else has the base level of banked favours (7).>Dance-Roles unlocked. These are Style-modifiers on actions that give you a boost for the first few turns but invert if you try to work against them, becoming a penalty. Don't loudly declare you're going to be BOLD AND BRASH and then sneak around the entire time, that's bad form, maskmate... >Maskphase: Redux. >Carmesi, take another action.
>>6436305Whats the rate of exchange for favours to -1 of a ratset?
>>6436321I reread so I got it nvm
>>6436263> STATUS // Inspired: Gain !Coincounter."Foreign Investment? Market manipulation? Vanadians?""...""... I have opinions about this."# Atlas Anchored10 Coldcoin!Status: All Good.-Traits & Tools & Masks-!Someone has to do the right thing!Unusually Focused!Coincounter(Legion Fullhelm)!Sunlit Muster [Veneer 1 // Resilience 1]>TASK // 1Pool // Travel to [Wanted: One Employee].>ACT // 8Pool // Sensitive cargo has been stalled in the city for weeks, waylaid by an aggravated dispute with a customs official that has escalated out of proportion. The owner has gone to the Red markets, apparently pre-negotiated security contracts have expired and fast, reliable replacements are needed. The job is simple. Keep the beak-nosed meddlers and sticky-fingered riff-raff out of the storage warehouse, ensure the building remains secure and the cargo unmolested. (Pool 7 + Focus 3 + Intransigence 3 // Discipline 2)>BEAT - STAND // Keep guard up. (Resist 7 + Intransigence 3 // Resilience 1)
Rolled 5, 5, 4, 3, 3, 7, 2, 7, 2 = 38 (9d10)>>6436305#Perspicus!Status: 2 coins owed to The King. Wasn't a very good ROI-Traits & Tools-!Insightful!Unusually Foresightful!Cut the Self Free!Flash and Panache (Agility 1, The Ever-Seeing Eye)!Favors 6>-Neutral stance>2P: Move to the club>1P: Attend to not being jumped>6P: Ferociously beat up the smart rats. Stuff them into closets, give them wedgies, take their lunch money (Ferocious 1 + Cool 3 + Pool 5)>Beats: Foresee and outmaneuver all the smart rats' plans and traps (!Foresight 5 + Sharp 2, !The Ever-Seeing Eye)
```>Status: Upgrade my #1 trait to Delusionally Scalehearted>1P: Move to dress rehearsal>1P: Redo my mask to !Flash And Panache [Majesty 2 | !Leviathan Fair, Falling | !Single Sharp Dividing Line | !One White Dot](Should I use Majesty or The Weight? I'm going with Majesty because I feel like its the more fitting term for one as regal as myself)+1 Fluidity, +1 Focus, +2 Ferocity, +1 Foresight, -5 Impulse, -3 Maskbleed>1P: Acquire prop: [The Kings Crown]>1P: Move to stage design and prop room>5P: Spend 7 favours to plant a bunch of false rats in their ranks, who are to cause problems and confusion. Make sure they aren't afraid to bash a rat or two in the back of the head. If it needs a roll (5! Ferocity + 3 Reckless Daring + 4P) to try and find people violent and reckless enough to do the job.# The King (Also known as The Scale-Hearted Swordsman Or The Sea-Splitting Lord Or-)-Conditions and Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 18-Capabilities and Intentions-Pool 9 | Mobility 3React 3 | Resist 1 | Rebuff 1 | Attune 1 | Veneer 2Fluidity 1 | Finesse 0 | Focus 1 | Ferocity 5 | Foresight 1 | Impulse 1-Skills and Secrets--First Aid 2-Reckless Daring 3-Rikovian Knifehand 2-Vulpe 2-Cool 1-Rage 1-Lethality 1-Traits & Tools & Marks-!Delusionally Scalehearted!The Sea-Splitting Blade, Second Seal0 Cold Coins!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Flash And Panache [Majesty 2 | !Leviathan Fair, Falling | !Single Sharp Dividing Line | !One White Dot]```
Rolled 6, 7, 1, 1, 9, 4, 8, 9 = 45 (8d10)>>6436403I forgot this is not how this works. Oh well. I'll go for a different approach#Perspicus!Status: 2 coins owed to The King. Wasn't a very good ROI-Traits & Tools-!Insightful!Unusually Foresightful!Cut the Self Free!Flash and Panache (Agility 1, The Ever-Seeing Eye)!Favors 6>-Neutral stance>2P: Move to Day Offices>1P: "Work" betting on chariot races (Foresight 5 + Cool 3, Sharp 2 on the side, roll in this post)>1P: Move to the dance prep>4P: Practice the role of the Old Master (Focus 3 + Cool 3 + Pool 3, use the roll in the previous post)>1P: Spend 6 Favours to acquire alchemical protective equipment to counteract the Chemrats>Beats: Avoid attention
Rolled 5, 2, 4, 3, 2, 7, 6, 1, 10, 3, 3, 7, 8, 4, 10, 3, 4, 6, 9 = 97 (19d10)>>6436305#Stray-Conditions And Consequences-!Alive!Cut Ferocity [1]Limit 11 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 17, Veneer 2-Traits & Tools-!Old Blitzhound!Unusually Fluid!Cut The Self Free!Whispering Witticisms[Wolfness, Ward, !Pathfinder's Scratches [1], !The Ever Seeing Eye]>Status: ...>Stance: Neutral>7P: This cannot stand. This *will* not stand. Get there quickly, cut the body down before the break of dawn, best to work before more people see it. A message sent is a message sent, but a corpse left flailing gently in the wind until the early afternoon when a Firewatcher *eventually* gets around to it leaves a... different taste in the mouth than one that was strung up but cut down swiftly. We cannot, will not let this linger. Can't bring the man home alive but the mask? The mask we can. (Fluidity 3! + Pathfinder's Scratches 1 + 6 Pool) [10]>1P: Tag the Ever Seeing Eye on the wall. Someone, *something* always bears witness. I could tell you what the symbology means to me, however I'm on a tight schedule. Death of the author and whatnot. (Veneer 2 + The Ever Seeing Eye 1) [3]>1P: Time to leave. Go to ground. (Mobility 5 + Pathfinder's Scratches 1) [6]>BEAT: VOID. It takes a thief to catch a thief; but be a pursuer to outwit your own. (React 3 + Wolf 3!) !Wolfness
>>6436418!Unusually Fluid on the Fluidity roll, I do have it listed under Traits and Tools but just want to draw that to attention :P
Rolled 9, 2, 8, 10, 4, 9, 9, 9, 3, 8, 7, 1, 2, 2 = 83 (14d10)>>6436418>>6436305#Doctor Durbin===+Conditions And Consequences+Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 21===+Capabilities and Attributes+Pool 9 | Mobility 3React 1 | Resist 1 | Rebuff 1 | Attune 1Fluidity 1 | Finesse 1 | Focus 8 | Ferocity 1 | Foresight 1===+Skills & Secrets+-First Aid 6-Cool 2-Glitching Cascades 2-Sharp 1-Wyld 1-Discipline 1===+Traits & Tools+!Someone has to do the right thing (the right thing is WONDROUS SURGERY)!Unusually Focused!Red Dreams, Red Rivers!Flesh-enthralled!I HAVE A KNIFE (for healing!)Mask: Red DropletMark: Single Sharp Dividing Line===>Beat: Void>Stance: Neutralooooh, how wonderful, fresh... wait. Is that... Oh Eye>9P: Try to recoevr and patch up Driller's corpse (First Aid + Focus)
>>6436305#Blot-Status: !All Goodit's conclusion, the work of true artists speaks for itself.-Traits & Tools-!Lucky!Unusually Mobile!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Flash and Panache [Acrobatics 2, !Dancer's Mark, !Karathiel's Sharp Feathers, !Leviathan Fair, Falling]!1 Impulse!1 Agility!2 Acrobatics!-2 Strength!2 Cold CoinsFortunes rise and fall in Pyther every day. Tragedy sweeps across the city endlessly.Finding one willing and able to defend helpless is possible.After all, his allies can be counted in that number.This will require a specialized mission, a personalized one.A protector, a Guardian, exists within this city, it is a matter of finding them.Thankfully, Blot has performed from the loneliest of street corners to the tallest of palaces. A Guardian will need something to connect him to his Ward, they will need a heart that cannot be shaken and subverted, and they will need... no, no corners will be cut, a noble cause is being fought for... even if the usual methods are reserved for scum, they work on innocent all to well.The place to look is for a simple person with a kind heart, and something they value over the world.A performance for children, set at a specific time, where night and night workers have a breath of relief before switching, set near the docks and the warehouses, jobs that require strong people with stronger wills. Avoid proximity to seedy entertainment, even if a Guardian worked there, they wouldn't take their most precious there.The performance itself should... it will be free, donations allowed, too suspicious to deny, but any gained will be marked for the orphanage. Entertainment focused on children, making them laugh.The mark... the thought curdles milk, but it is a mark none the less. They shall ideally have a singular child, signs of exhaustion emanating from both, build for good work. That kind of Guardian can protect their child in the orphanage, have their own child find a community, with the parent staying near and protecting all. Older sibling also viable
Rolled 4, 10, 7, 10, 8, 9, 8, 6, 6, 6, 7, 9, 3, 4, 9, 7, 6 = 119 (17d10)>>6436593>2 Pool - Move to Dry Offices and Dusty Papers>7 Pool - WANTED: ONE EMPLOYEE (or something of that suit) - As above, perform your search for a Guardian though a series of public plays aimed at children, set somewhere a warehouse or dock house worker parent would see when going from their daily or nightly work. The plays itself will consist of a simple act of a Jester being accidentally chosen to save a Princess and bumbling his way though adventures to get to her. Primarily slapstick comedy, good-natured, silly, not violent. - (First part is performance, second part is trying to get the mark, if this does not fit into the framework of this activity, remove the last roll and consider these two actions) - Glitching Cascade 3 (focused on myself, for optimal slapstick) + !Someone Has To Do The Right Thing (no collateral, this is not an offensive use of my Epicenter Powers) + Mobility 5 (LOTS of acrobatics, lots of falls tumbles and splats straight to the face) - Sharp 2 (Spot your mark, take advantage) + 7 PoolBeat: Void - React 7 + Sharp 2 (Watch your surroundings, be ready to avoid any gang activity, you will not start a fight near children if you can help it)
Rolled 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 3, 7, 9, 10, 8, 10, 2, 5, 6, 6, 8 = 107 (16d10)#Dusty-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 Posture 18-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 3React 3 Resist 1 Rebuff 1 Attune 1 Veneer 0Fluidity 1 Finesse 1 Focus 3Ferocity 1 Foresight 4!. -Skills & Secrets--First Aid 4-Sharp 3-Wolf 2-Intransigence 1-Discipline 1-Vulpe 1- Mask: TBD. I'm leaning towards Stained Wormwood. -Traits & Tools-!Pragmatic (usually)!Unusually Foresightful!Vengeance, Jagged But Pure>Deploy to the Lonely Light node?>Foresight 4! + Sharp 3 +1 Pool - Memorize the faces of the rats who strung up Driller. They should have worn masks. >1 Pool - Focus 3 + Wolf 2 - Assess the capabilities of the Maskmates, especially that Stray in the fetching mask who cut Driller down. Do I see any obvious advice I could give them to improve themselves. Brave enough to steal a mask from the Gate and the Watchers. Legendworthy. >1 Pool - Put on a mask. Anything I can find at the moment will do. Looks like the masks are about to hit the restaurant. Maybe I'll find something good here, or maybe in the market stall on the way. >3 Pool - Move to the Club. >3? Pool - Ferocity 1 + Sharp 3 + Knives Out 1 + 2? Pool - Try to murder one of the rats in the Hunters with Knives node and stash the body for later. I've heard that the Dancers aren't supposed to kill during a dance, but have I really started yet? Maybe just a little killing first, of a people who should have worn masks.
>>6436580Everything we treasure has already leaked out the punctures. What use it to patch the pale thing a friend has become? All that he was is elsewhere and in our memories, and the bruised gristle left behind and entrails strung out and bloated tongue is simply the detritus of a life spent for some grander purpose. You pretty up a thing, but what do you hope to use it for? It is a very short-lived decoration. Ours is a warm, sometimes humid city.
>>6436596One wears a mask to do the bidding and business of someone else, and to remove the stain of personal foible from the iron-law of commercial enterprise and the reliable resolution of differences personal and providential. The Slicerats have no need to wear masks. They are doing their own business, and they want you to know it. They do not hide. They only hide their knives when the Law is near, and skulk lively otherwise. Few masked criminals in this fair city, friend. The sun will know its own. If the acts you’re engaged in require the wearing of a facial covering to hide your misdeeds that may say more about the state of your soul and intentions than the prudence of the rats in the walls.>>6436407To refer it as the Weight is the Kalmciri term. Admirable, but lacks weight. We call it Majesty, in our civilised circles
>>6436305>STATUS: 7 Injuries cleared. All good.>STANCE: keep it !Neutral for now.>3P: Move to Activity: Stage Design and Prop Room>6P: prepare contingencies against the cutters for the upcoming dance. Secure additional medical supplies to help maskmates staunch heavy bleeders (and maybe a doctor off to the side to patch up anyone that gets too badly hurt) and procure clothing reinforced against cuts and stabs. Maybe even some discreet light armor that could be worn under street clothes? (6 Pool, 7 Favors, Finesse2+Cool1)>BEAT: avoid slicerat attention, sticking to backalleys as I go about my preparatory activities (Mobility5+Streetstyle2)#Stratum-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 16-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 5React 3 Resist 1 Rebuff 1 Attune 2 Veneer 1Fluidity 1 Finesse 2 Focus 1Ferocity 2 Foresight 1-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2-Reckless Daring 3 (Drop)-Streetstyle Brawler 2-Rage 2-Hard 1-Cool 1-Sharp 1-Traits & Tools-!Flash and Panache [Recklessness]!Aerodynamic!Unusually Mobile!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Reputation 16 Cold Coins
>>6436305"Lets Dance!">Status: All Good>Stance: Neutral >Spend 7 banked favours to lessen the Hunters with Knives Ratset. Break their assets and make them unusable>3P: Practice an aspect of the Dance: Grapple Painter>1P: Adjust Maskmarks (Although they are already noted)>3P: Acquire several bags of Pocket Paint (Mostly Non-Toxic) (Fluidity 2+Streetstyle Brawler 2)>2P: Spend 3 Personal remaining Favours to gain access via the rat tunnels to the Servants Entrance>Beat: Zanshin to grab and throwback what comes at me#El Fantasma Carmesí (The Crimson Phantom)-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture [20]-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 3React 2 Resist 1 Rebuff 1 Attune 1Fluidity 3 Finesse 1 Focus 2Ferocity 5 Foresight 1-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2-Lethality 3-Reckless Daring 2-Streetstyle Brawler 2*-Hard 1-Wolf 1-Traits & Tools-!Violent Tear of Ashoniti!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Red Dream, Red Rivers [Veneer 2, Ashoniti's Teardrops, One White Dot, Ferocity 2]!Campaigning 3!Series of Admission in the right place 3!A Safehouse 1!An Advertisement Campaign 1
Rolled 5, 6, 5, 9, 10, 10, 2, 5 = 52 (8d10)>>6436596Prowling Sharprat Nice piece, shivsoul. But a sharp in your fist ain't a sharp in your soul.
Prowling Sharprat And now there's a sharp in your gut. Maybe you can use some of those rags wrapped around your face to stop yourself dying too fast for this to be fun? I had to put my drink down and everything, have the kind courtesy not to keel over immediate like, eh?
It's a long lonely climb to the top of the Seagates, ducking bored Urban cohort patrols (the gates, by ancient decree, are Legion business, and though the jurisdictions get contentious the Watchers let them have it and simply send their better examplars to keep watch over the other watchers who watches the Watch watching them, and so it goes and so it has gone for centuries). A dead thing sways in the breeze, the markings of an on-going investigation warning people to keep clear. Stray makes it with a few heartsbreat to spare, fingers straining from the long climb.That is one of the Slicerats particular terrors, though they have many more. To carry a dead thing up so far, stairs and walls and ways, past both Legion and Watchers, one unbending, one unbribable (by convention and tradition if not by truth), to cut it up, to string it up, to leave it there for all who pass below to see. How do they do it? How many people are involved? Why can neither soldier or keeper or guard stop it? How far does their power extend? Those below cannot look up without wondering if they might end up there, swaying in the breeze. It is an impossible thing unless the Slicerats and Rinik's indisious influence extends vast - vaster - than it ought. They don't string many people up by the Seagates. They've never had to. The few examples have been enough.But this one, Stray steals home, and Durbin prepares the rites dutifully and finds the wooden fuel, makes of the mess and missing parts a last faithful, friendly thing. He does look peaceful in death. He looks a man with unfinished business that now passes to his peers. The body will go to the Sun and the smoke carrying the ashes of his soul will elevate him higher and the wind take him home and a little bit of his spark always be with us and the world. And life will go on, a little warmer for his offering.--Perspicus bets on horses, cleans house, gets robbed, bets again, has an exciting half-time show fight with two brawny legbreakers from a local bookie in the stalls and still has time to pick up a branded sash from the two most famous teams of chariot and race enthusiasts, either the Fleet Fishes or the Fast Birds. Just don't be caught in the wrong part of town with the wrong sash, softsoul, they take that kind of thing a little too seriously. Blot puts on a puppet show, all voices and flips, and charms and laughing children mixed with scrying eyes measuring, wanting, waiting. Mix the right marks in the show and offer the right words and speak the Signs, and the intent carries. The Red Markets are a trade by whispers. The symbols will do, and though none of us are yet so known we know the real signs of Invitation, we can mimick some and ply the contract-craft trade. See the gaze of the ones to the back of the show, the ones with haunted eyes. The children. The mothers giggle. The ones who can read what the story is really about frown, softly, wondering. Most leave. Some stay. One leans forward
>>6437056"I am of the opinion that the races would be more exciting if the horses raced alone, without chariots or drives, and also were cute girls. Plus improved security for honest winners would be nice">Choose !Go Fishes!
It's a small service, but warm
The sea shall find his ash, and he will be sung the soothing song of the deep forevermore.
Perspicus collects his winning. Atlas settles out his kinetic security contract. Dr (?) Durbin adds the torch the pile of fuel. A man becomes smoke and ash and memory. El Fantasma Carmesi scouts out a back entrance. Kiarb scratches her nose, over sensitive with newly bought senses. Blot flips and flaps and performs, and the applause starts slow and builds and children laugh and the crowd breaks up and figures in the back stay, waiting, wondering. Eight Treasurers help move a couch and shift a chair and sweet a road and instructs two old shopkeepers in the basics of throwing a punch. Triple M chases a prowling group of brawlers down an alley, stopping briefly to accept a basket of bread from an appreciative local. A scalehearted swordsman tests the weight of a sheathed blade. Amicus stretches and cracks knuckles and tasks a courier with buying some sweets for someone far away, who knows the masks and loves the man beneath it. Life goes on. And someone dies, bleeding out in a dusty alley.
Prowling Sharprat Good point control but a little short in reach department. Did you pick this up on the way over, dreaming big dreams of sharp revenge? Prowling Sharprat Word of advice, meat. Prowling Sharprat You want to bring a proper knife to a knifefight. This... kitchen cutter of yours... Ehhh.. Good steel for cheese, bad steel for people.Prowling Sharprat Hmh. You don't have the blood left to answer me, do you?Prowling Sharprat SighProwling Sharprat Could've made a proper in-fighter out of you, mate. You've got the instincts and the attitude. Could've gone knife-killing, skulk-minding professional. Prowling Sharprat Ssshh, stop struggling. I'll make this quick. You'll barely feel the thing going in. Theeereee you go... Prowling Sharprat Isn't that easier? Drowning in your own blood's a bad way to go. But this way. . . with the right . . . angle . . . it's just . . . under the rib and . . . up ... into the . . . hea--Lurking Sharprat Must you make a production out of everything?Prowling Sharprat He's the one interrupted my meal. Maybe I'm cranky on account of the lack of the cold potatoes and peas.Skulking Sharprat Not going to make a juicy red steak joke? Prowling Sharprat I have class, unlike some sharps around here.
Slow Firewatcher GOOD EVENING GENTLEMEN. NICE NIGHT TO BE STANDING IN AN ALLEY OVER A CORPSE.Prowling Sharprat Uhhhhh OH FUCK RUNSlow Firewatcher WHY DO THEY ALWAYS RUN
And so it comes fast and slow at the same time. Opening night. We won't find a better moment than this. Meetings of moneyed men and interests are tonight, but by our punching and scuffling and moving our way up the chain the Slicerats are starting to notice things are not as easy for them as they used to be.They will take precautions. We will take action. --Better make your way to the Dance, find your mask, prepare your lines, crack your lines, warm up. Tonight's the night--Skulking, prowling knife cadre specialists from the upper echelons of the Slicerats sharp toolkit duck the law and weave through alleys, cutting shortcuts. They run and the Firewatchers chase. An investigator tilts his head, adjusts his glasses, peers down at the remains of a cooling corpse. Breathes the air, iron and sharp salt and distant mistakes. This can't go on like this, can it, forever? Rats with sharp teeth, chewing through the walls. Someone will have to do something, for every nameless gutter runner dead by the keen edge of those who don't play by the old rules. What good is the law if doesn't provide shelter? If the law binds you from action and callous things wearing the faces of people use the blindspots of authority and the state to do their deeds . . . Hmhm. The state needs better eyes. It needs better Watchers. Yes. Someone will have to *do* something.--Blot holds an interview and quickly comes to regret not quite knowing the right Signs for the Red Market in extending the benefits of the whisper trade do do some filtering on the candidates for contracts, work and trades. Maybe, uh, no. And no. And DEFINITIVELY NO to the woman whoose shadow falls sideways and who speaks with three voices. NOPE. Ah, but here is an old grey large man with calloused knuckles, a soft smile, and a nose which has been broken so many times he got the "handsome" punche out of him at least four decades ago. But you look into his eyes? Ooh. They put steel in there, in the deep bits, where it matters. Even chance the building comes down on his head, he'll hold it up just long enough for the kids to get out simply because he simply cannot think that he wouldn't nor accept not trying to. -->A man dies, a Tailed One spends some attention to divert the law and maintain useful assets, and time goes on. Opening night soon. Best get ready.>MASKPHASE
EVERYONE GET IN ITS TIME TO CAPTURE A TAILED ONE
Speaking of capturing a Tailed One, due to chasing down and capturing a Focused (fleeing) Slicerat earlier, we have a little extra access beyond the main doors.Our opportunities for the moment (unless you contrive some different?) are:- The Main entrance. Simple. Grand. Why not start with a big entrance?- The Garden / Servant Access, subtly behind the building, in case the staff needs discrete access. - The kitchen direct wares entrance. They trust the staff and have vetted them, so there will be less eyes on the servants entrance. The Slicerats understand security enough to keep sharp men with sharp tools watching the kitchen entrance. Good, easy way to get in, or mess with expensive things for troublemakers. It's also where the extra security, off-duty, hangs out stealing cakes. However, though there will be Slicerats in the kitchen in super-abudance, it might be a good chance to get them without their tools and kit and sharps and alchemicals, because the chefs wouldn't have let them bring them for fear of an awry smoke-bomb messnig up the pastry. You should, if you are ready, decide which door you're kicking in. Our target tonight is the Tailed One and the Money Men (and Women) in the private gardens, their papers, their brief-cases, their secret insights, the journals and notes. If we know where they keep their money, what deals they're making, how it flows and moves and twists . . . We can take it all away.
>>6437117>STATUS // Acquire recompense. Do not trade the Merit Marker for an extra Hot Ticket.# Atlas Anchored(10+4) Coldcoin(0+2 => 0) Favors(0+1) Hot Tickets(0+1) Merit Marker!Status: All Good.-Traits & Tools & Masks-!Someone has to do the right thing!Unusually Focused!Coincounter(Legion Fullhelm)!Sunlit Muster [Veneer 1 // Resilience 1]>TASK // 1Pool // Proceed to [Practice your Role]>ACT // 2Pool // Formally internalize the role of 'An Unavoidable Inevitability' for the duration of this dance. // Escaping from confrontation and pursuit is markedly more difficult. This effect cuts both ways. // An unrelenting pursuer. A problem that must be addressed. No ways around. Backing out is not an option. (Pool 1 + Focus 3 + Intransigence 3)>TASK // 1Pool // Proceed to [Stage Design and Prop room]>ACT // 4Pool // Orchestrate a heightening in the watcher presence around the Rat's Club. // Share a drink with some off-duty lawmen. Drop a measured hint here. Slip a clarifying observation there. Keep a straight face as a convenient bow-wrapped lead falls into the hands of beleaguered gumshoes. (Pool 3 + Foresight 1 + Discipline 2, Favors 2)>TASK // 1 Pool // Proceed to [Red Dreams by the River]. Await the grand drape's parting. Tonight's performances begins soon.>BEAT, STAND // Close to hostile territory now. Raise guard. Stay vigilant. (Resist 7 + Intransigence 3, [Resilience 1])
>>6437124>Deploying via the Main entrance.
>2P: Grab one more prop [The Kings Speaking Trumpet]>7P: Bring Halfshirt as my backup along with whoever follows me and with them make a LOUD entrance through the front door of the club, try to be shocking enough to bring the chaos to a standstill for a moment. (5! Ferocity + 3 Reckless Daring + 6P, !Magnitude 3) !Flash And Panache [Majesty 2]# The King (Also known as The Scale-Hearted Swordsman Or The Sea-Splitting Blade Or The Absolute Lord Or-)-Conditions and Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 18--Capabilities and Intentions-Pool 9 | Mobility 3React 3 | Resist 1 | Rebuff 1 | Attune 1 | Veneer 2Fluidity 1 | Finesse 0 | Focus 1 | Ferocity 5 | Foresight 1 | Impulse 1-Skills and Secrets--First Aid 2-Reckless Daring 3-Rikovian Knifehand 2-Vulpe 2-Cool 1-Rage 1-Lethality 1-Traits & Tools & Marks-!Delusionally Scalehearted!Sea-Splitting Blade, Second Seal0 Cold Coins!The Kings Crown!The Kings Speaking Trumpet!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Flash And Panache [Majesty 2 | !Leviathan Fair, Falling | !Single Sharp Dividing Line | !One White Dot]
>>6437140Atlas would you be willing to do a little work backing me up as my cool and stoic minion when I try and rally the many reckless somewhat suicidal people
>>6437143I am not your minion.I am your associate.I will cooperate with you, if circumstances leave me able to do so.
>>6437149I mean ACTING as my cool and stoic minion. If I appear to have powerful underlings It'll make me look better
>>6437150I do not mind.
Rolled 1, 1, 10, 7, 8, 8, 4, 9, 10, 4, 5, 9, 4 = 80 (13d10)>>6437124#Stray-Conditions And Consequences-!Alive!Cut Ferocity [1]Limit 11 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 17, Veneer 2-Traits & Tools-!Old Blitzhound!Unusually Fluid!Cut The Self Free!Whispering Witticisms[Wolfness, Ward, !Pathfinder's Scratches [1], !The Ever Seeing Eye]>1P: Go to DRESS REHEARSAL (Mobility 5 + Pathfinder's Scratches 1)>1P, 1 Favour: Sharpen myself up. Get some formalwear, gloves, apologise to the tailor: it might come back a bit slashed, sorry. Stray combs his greying hair and neatens up. It's an important night for the rats, might as well show some respect to the enterprise by looking good.>PROP: A wooden cane, sturdy, if a bit modest.>1P: Go to Stage Design and Props>5P, 6 Favours: Ingratiate myself with the servants, investigate exactly who are those specialist assets on site, and find out if there are any *interesting* things on-site. Any rooms not even they are allowed in? (Foresight 2 + Sharp 1 + 4 Pool)>1P: Showtime, deploy by the servant's entrance.>BEAT: VOID, stay out of sight until the time is right. Trust the process. (React 3 + Cool 2)
>>6437277>DRESS REHEARSAL MASK ADJUSTMENTS:Pathfinders Scratches [1] --> [2]Limit 10, Mobility 6, React 4
>>6437117RIP Dusty, you did destroy that asset in the end.
Rolled 9, 3, 10, 4, 1, 4, 1, 6, 1, 4, 1 = 44 (11d10)>>6437124#Perspicus!Status: 3 coldcoins. 2 coins owed to The King.-Traits & Tools-!Insightful!Unusually Foresightful!Cut the Self Free!Flash and Panache (Agility 1, The Ever-Seeing Eye)!Favors 1!Old Master 2-!Go Fishes - left at home>1P: Return debt to The King>1P: Swap The Ever-Seeing Eye for One White Dot to be more in line with Old Master>7P: Spend 1 Favor to acquire Means Of Getaway And Pursuit (!Foresight 3 + Sharp 2 + Pool 6)> Beats: zanshin>Deploy through the kitchen entrance
>>6437124>Spend my inspiration to Veneer 1->2!Personal Marks (Inspire, Intransigence)>Maskmarks!Swordhunter's Mark!Legion Chevron 3 (-3 Fluidity, +3 Rebuff)!Heart of the Legion (+3 Armor) (-1 Finesse, +1 Impulse)!Fist of the Legate 3 (-3 Mobility, +3 Armor) (-1 Ferocity, -1 Foresight, +2 Impulse)>Practice for the role (ARMORED FIST OF THE LAW)>Deploy by Fulmen Smashing though the front door#Amicus-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture [15]Maskbleed 5-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 3-3React 1 Resist 2 Rebuff 2+3 Attune 1 Veneer 2Armor 6Fluidity 1-3 Finesse 1-1 Focus 3Ferocity 4-1 Foresight 1-1 Impulse 3-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2-Intransigence 3-Discipline 2-Hard 1-Traits & Tools-!Unbending!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Sunlit Muster!Personal Marks (Inspire, Intransigence)!Swordhunter's Mark!Legion Chevron 3 (-3 Fluidity, +3 Rebuff)!Heart of the Legion (+3 Armor) (-1 Finesse, +1 Impulse)!Fist of the Legate 3 (-3 Mobility, +3 Armor) (-1 Ferocity, -1 Foresight, +2 Impulse)
Rolled 2, 9, 4, 4, 10, 10, 2, 7, 1, 8, 5, 7 = 69 (12d10)>>6437124>Status: All good>Stance: Neutral>9p: Get a disguise as a servant (Finesse 1+Streetstyle Smart 2)>Sneak through The Garden Access
>>6437117>Deploy. Kitchen entrance.#Stratum-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 16-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 5React 3 Resist 1 Rebuff 1 Attune 2 Veneer 1Fluidity 1 Finesse 2 Focus 1Ferocity 2 Foresight 1-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2-Reckless Daring 3 (Drop)-Streetstyle Brawler 2-Rage 2-Hard 1-Cool 1-Sharp 1-Traits & Tools-!Flash and Panache [Recklessness]!Aerodynamic!Unusually Mobile!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Reputation 16 Cold CoinsAlright, I swear I will have a shortform sheet by the time the actual map kicks off.
knock knock>Mid Maskphase Update>If you have not acted yet, please feel free to do so.>Opening Night Soon...
Rolled 6, 10, 10, 3, 8, 4, 3, 9, 1, 3, 7, 6, 7 = 77 (13d10)>>6437124#Blot-Status: !All Good-Traits & Tools-!Lucky!Unusually Mobile!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Flash and Panache [Acrobatics 2, !Dancer's Mark, !Karathiel's Sharp Feathers, !Leviathan Fair, Falling]!1 Impulse!1 Agility!2 Acrobatics!-2 Strength!0 = 2-2 Cold Coins!6 Favors>1 Pool - The Guardian will serve, protecting both the ones most in need, and the peace of mind of those on mission. His offer is accepted, and two Cold Coins are pressed into his palm, all that is left. More will come soon, for the community, for the orphanage, for the good people. - -2 Cold Coins, >7 Pool Practice for the Role - Assume the role of the !White Stag - A symbol of higher power, of nobility. It, in itself is harmless, serving as a reminder of what one should aspire to, to harm it brings great misfortune. - The stag can do no harm directly, misfortune strikes those who would do it harm, cannot act selfishly (such as looting), follows noble goals (such as protecting the innocent), as a beast (no matter how noble) it cannot speak - Cool 2 (A distant presence) + Mobility 5 (A White Stag is still a Stag) + !Unusually Mobile (See previous) + !Someone Has To Do The Right Thing (Nobility) + !Lucky (Favor of higher power) - !Dancer's Mark (It shares many a quality with sacred beast) + Magnitude 2 + Pool 6>1 Pool - Enter through the Garden Entrance>Beat: Void - React 7 + 3 Cascading Calamity
And so, slowly, the soft chime of a distant bell calls the curtain to open and the dance to slowly begin...A few more preparations yet remain, a few more spaces left to pace and masks to set and lines to practice and intentions to clarify and then, ah, then, the night can truly begin...If you have not found your place and pace, now is the gradual time. Though, for the sake of ensuring everyone ready for the performance, we won't start for quite a while yet. If you're already in place, do a stretch, try a small, plan a little, think a little...>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OETmp0LqNG8&list=RDOETmp0LqNG8&start_radio=1
Rolled 8, 1, 9, 10, 8, 6, 5, 3 = 50 (8d10)Draugr-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 18-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 3React 1 [off] Resist 4 Rebuff 1 Attune 1 Veneer 1Armor 4Fluidity 1 [-1] Finesse 1 Focus 1Ferocity 4! Foresight 1-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2-Hard 3-Rage 2-Intrasignence 2-Vulpe 1-Discipline 1-Lethality 1-Traits & Tools-!Oathbound !Vengence, Jagged But Pure!Sunlit Muster [!Heart of the Legion A4, !Karathiel's Sharp Feathers, 1 Fluidity, 1 Chained Resilience, Maskbleed 1?]!Unusually Ferocious!Personal Maskmark 1 – The Chained Gate: An oath not to pass into the realm of the dead until my mission is done. (Resilience? 1, shown in !Sunlit Muster above)>Staus: All Good>Deploy through the front door. Join the Fulman charge, and be the Boar's Snout. >Say my pre-battle prayers before I show up. The standard prayer for strength, honor, the survival of my teammates, and a short and victorious battle. (Foresight 1 + Discipline 1 + Pool 4)>Swear an Oath that the Tailed One will not escape. They will be captured or killed here. [Ferocity 4! + Intrasignence 2 + Pool 4, !Oathbound]>1Pool reserved to guard against rat shenanigans. >Beat - Resist any damage.
>>6437402#Doctor Durbin===+Conditions And Consequences+Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 21===+Capabilities and Attributes+Pool 9 | Mobility 3React 1 | Resist 1 | Rebuff 1 | Attune 1Fluidity 1 | Finesse 1 | Focus 8 | Ferocity 1 | Foresight 1===+Skills & Secrets+-First Aid 6-Cool 2-Glitching Cascades 2-Sharp 1-Wyld 1-Discipline 1===+Traits & Tools+!Someone has to do the right thing (the right thing is WONDROUS SURGERY)!Unusually Focused!Red Dreams, Red Rivers!Flesh-enthralled!I HAVE A KNIFE (for healing!)Mask: Red DropletMark: Single Sharp Dividing Line===>DeployI THINK YOU’LL FIND LEGION RULES DEMAND THE PRESENCE OF A CORPSE-FIXER
Shoving grounds, steam from the kitchen vents, the distant half muffled sound of a band on stage lead by a sonerous voice. A polite slicerat glances over El Fantasma's pretend burdens and steps aside.Well, now is the night. Original plan may have been to kick in the doors loudly and immediately, but this is a lot of people to shoulder aside. Spreading out the word out and whisper-wondering to rile up a mob has dragged in tens of completely unrelated, affiliated people with poor impulse control here mostly to participate in the old crowd fashion of having a rollicking good time in the vague expectancy that sometime tonight somewhere somehow something will happen. Was it a good idea to invite so many VIOLENT, RECKLESS people into the middle of a brawl? Problems and confusion will mount. Things will go wrong. Already the managerial rats have called out their extra brawny burly types to man the door and we are stuck at the back of the crowd, trading shoves and pushes...But things have not boiled over yet.--Outside the kitchen entrance, solidly closed but not locked and so ready to be kicked in or opened up with a deft wrist, the faint sounds of a shouting voice. A lord in the centre of his domain, the chef gourmand who manages the place. Atlas information and the whispers about him run towards temper, aggression and FEROCITY. Chef Ratsay, washed out of the Reiks and come ashore here, to forge the shaking recruits of his kitchen army into the battled-tested butler battalions that may deliver deserts and delicacies to the demanding. Runs a tight ship. Wields a mean cleaver. -->MASKPHASE>Please hold for slight additional mentions
Opening Bell, maskmatesBest recall the specifics-->>6431288Stretch, crack your knucles, recall. On your turn, think of taking a STAB at it. You declare STATUS, handling any outstanding, adjusting stances, so on.TASKS and ACTIONS is your action turn. TASKS are any small, quick generic 1P activity. Move, look at, pick up, shove, adjust. You can actually spend Pool freely to generate pools of d10 if your task requires a little more effort, like "nudge this door". ATTEND is of particular value; pay attention to something specific, move in a particular way, be aware of something. The universe tries to avoid putting you in trouble you're intentionally being aware might be troublesome, so an action such as:>Attend to my footsteps, best be quiet>Attend to the big guy's knife, he's probably planning something badAnd you move as silently and watch the knifeplay It does help, and it is also how you apply a self-chosen "turn" modifier.Actions are 1P to access your whole pool of INTENTION and SECRET, combined together, and rolling a lot of dice. Intentions tap out when used like this, so you can only call them once per turn. But as per: >>6430507 action with Intent adjusts how boons work, critical ratings, extra outcomes. Secrets add a whole layer of extra flavour, flourishes and control.Beats go last, and they're your defensive. VOID or STAND, to duck away or try to be hard and hold ground. You can use Secrets in place of the standard Mobility for VOID or flat Resist DR from Beat-Resist, and then that modifies 'how' you defend yourself. A recklessly daring high mobiltiy void, a Hard-Style stand/react counterpunch... Lots of ways. Beats are defensive though. A question raised earlier was how you reacted to something you knew was going to happen on your turn. A foresight action boosts that, but any can do. If you see a Slicerat has a prepared thing or Foresight-predicts they'll do something, interacting with it on your turn with an action is entirely appropriate. A beat is just your "overall" defense when they come at you.--IT'S QUIET AND CALM.You'll notice some Slicerats do not have a posture. Like our Charming and Keen friend here. One with cake. One with a job. One with posture. One without. Some of them do not expect trouble (yet). They haven't put their fists up.They don't yet have themselves settled for a fight, so they'll be able to resist a lot less. Surprise! On your turn, as Status, assume a normal stance and declare posture on, readying yourself. Slicerats who expect trouble are likely to do this too, so surprise doesn't last *over* long. If so, your fists are up and you're in combat mode. Alternatively, LAY LOW as a stance, feigning at being a civilian, tonights entertainment, local staff. Odds are good every hostile will pay a lot less attention to you, and that has value all its own...
>>6437369Friend Stratum, you seem to have the stats to kick the door in and maybe even straight off its hinges and into the Keen Slicerat's face. What do you think of this idea?
>>6437882I'll do that and then do you one better. I'll run in and dropkick him right after. Probably going to shift into !Aggressive or some discrete stance for throwing myself at people, so I'll need you to make sure I don't get curbstomped right after. Can you do that for me?
>>6437884I can and I will
>>6437885Alright. Wait on my act and let's make things happen.
>>6437873#Atlas AnchoredColdcoin : 14Hot Ticket : 1Merit Mark : 1===+Conditions And Consequences+Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 16===+Capabilities and Attributes+Pool 9 Mobility 3React 1 Resist 7 Rebuff 1 Attune 1Fluidity 1 Finesse 1 Focus 3Ferocity 1 Foresight 1===+Skills & Secrets+- First Aid 2- 3 Intransigence- 2 Discipline- 1 Hard===+Traits & Tools+!Someone has to do the right thing!Unusually Focused!Professional(Legion Fullhelm)!Sunlit Muster [1 Veneer // Resilient 1]===> STATUS // Assume Normal Stance. Posture on.> TASK // 1Pool // Discreetly step behind the Late Slicerat at 1.> ACT // 8Pool // Lock the Late Slicerat in a rear chokehold. Fall to a knee, pulling the unfortunate rat down behind the heaving crowd and out of sight of the bouncers. Apply pressure to carotid arteries until victim is incapacitated. (Pool 7 + Focus 3 + Hard 1)> BEAT // Brace for struggle and possible retaliation. (Resist 7 + Intransigence 3, [Resilience 1])
Rolled 6, 10, 5, 7, 1, 8, 9, 5, 9, 10, 6, 8, 3, 6 = 93 (14d10)>>6437876>>6437873>Status: All Good!>Stance: Lay Low>4P: Politely answer the Polite Slicerat with "Don't ask me. Chef said they weren't sweet enough and sent me back. If I'm late again, he'll skin us alive. Mind guiding me? Heard we are packed tonight and don't want to get in the way of guests." (Finesse 1+Rebuff 1+ Pool 3)>5P: Dedicated to follow the Polite Slicerat to destination without incidents. (Mobility 3+ Fluidity 2+Pool 4)#El Fantasma Carmesí (The Crimson Phantom)!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Violent Tear of Ashoniti!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Red Dream, Red Rivers[Veneer 2, Ashoniti's Teardrops, One White Dot, Ferocity 2]
Rolled 5, 8, 3, 6, 1, 5, 5, 7, 4, 4, 3, 4, 2, 10, 6, 3, 4, 8, 1 = 89 (19d10)>>6437876>STATUS: All good. Quiet and calm? Yeah, not for long.>STANCE: shift to !Aggressive.>5P: Make a GLORIOUS entrance. Step back, wind up, and, with a shout, kick the kitchen door as hard as I can! The allies of justice are here, rats! (4Pool+Ferocity2+Reckless Daring3, !Flash and Panache [Recklessness]) - 9 dice>3P: They have someone keen watching the door? Good. They will have had a ringside view of what happened. And, as a two-for-one, I'll gift this soon-to-be adoring fan with an in-ring perspective for this next act. Rush inside the kitchen 3 and hit the Keen Slicerat with a running dropkick. (2Pool+Mobility5+Reckless Daring3, !Flash and Panache [Recklessness], !Unusually Mobile, !Aerodynamic) - 10 dice>1P: Get up off the ground in case I fail to stick the landing. It isn't very glorious or heroic if we're both on the ground for too long, you know?>BEAT: STAND. Streetstyle blocks and parries! (React3+Streetstyle2)Status: All GoodPosture: 16/16---Traits & Tools!Flash and Panache [Personal Mark: Recklessness]!Aerodynamic!Unusually Mobile!Someone Has to Do The Right Thing!Reputation 1>>6437885You're up.
WHO ORDERED A THREE COURSE MEAL OF PUNCH 'EM UP?Ack, it just slipped . . . Right out!
Rolled 2, 8, 10, 5, 10, 3, 1, 3, 9, 6, 8, 2, 7, 9, 7, 7 = 97 (16d10)>>6437924#Perspicus!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Insightful!Unusually Foresightful!Cut the Self Free!Flash and Panache (Agility 1, One White Dot)!Coldcoins 1!Old Master 2-!Go Fishes - left at homeCool 3 (Not getting hit)>Posture up, Stance Neutral >1P: Assume a counterattacking stance. The Old Master makes fools of opponents using their attacks against them (Attune 1 + Cool 3)>1P: Step inside>6P: Focusedly grab the Charming Slicerat and shoulder throw him into the Smiling Slicerat (Focus 3 + Cool 3 + Pool 6)>1P: Intercept potential attacks on Stratum (!Foresight 5 + Cool 3)> Beats: zanshin
>>6437873#Stray-Conditions And Consequences-!Alive!Cut Ferocity [1]Limit 10 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 17, Veneer 2-Traits & Tools-!Old Blitzhound!Unusually Fluid!Cut The Self Free!Whispering Witticisms[Wolfness, Ward, !Pathfinder's Scratches [2], !The Ever Seeing Eye]>STATUS: Fine and *Dandy*>Stance: Lay Low? I'd never lay anyone low, it's impolite. Very unbecoming of a gentleman such as myself.>9P: Follow Considerate Slicerat. What a polite young man! You know you remind me of someone I once knew and...>BEAT: VOID: Do mind to not tread on anyone's toes, mm, yes. Indubitably. (React 4 + Mobility 6)
# The King (Also known as The Scale-Hearted Swordsman Or The Sea-Splitting Blade Or The Absolute Lord Or-)-Conditions and Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 18--Capabilities and Intentions-Pool 9 | Mobility 3React 3 | Resist 1 | Rebuff 1 | Attune 1 | Veneer 2Fluidity 1 | Finesse 0 | Focus 1 | Ferocity 5 | Foresight 1 | Impulse 1-Skills and Secrets-Reckless Daring 3 | First Aid 2 | Rikovian Knifehand 2 | Vulpe 2 | Cool 1 | Rage 1 | Lethality 1-Traits & Tools & Marks-!Delusionally Scalehearted!Sea-Splitting Blade, Second Seal!The Kings Crown2 Cold Coins!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Flash And Panache [Majesty 2 | !Leviathan Fair, Falling | !Single Sharp Dividing Line | !One White Dot]>>6437309>>6437710Amicus, Draugr, Ser Halfshirt, Form up and slam the slicerats through the door after I distract them.>Status: Neutral stance>1P: Stance Change // The Kings Ire, exacerbate the inherent terror in my grandness and majesty to make even the most stoic feel choked in my presence. (1 Attune + 5! Ferocity, !Magnitude 5 [Intensity]) !Flash And Panache [Majesty 2]>4P: Push up to the front of the mob and before the slicerat can get a word in stare him in the eyes and go: "Hey. Do you know who I am? Is this how you treat your esteemed guests, shouting in their face and letting this OBSCENE line form? If you don't get out of my way Now I'm going to have your boss gut you like a fish." Distract and intimidate, give Amicus, Draugr, and Halfshirt a chance to bash through them (1 Focus + 2 Vulpe + 3P) >4P: Foresight, after Amicus and Draugr and Ser Halfshirt slam through the door announce to the reckless mob EVERYONES ON THE LIST!! TIME TO PARTY!!! And step 323 from my original hex>Beat // Zanshin, easily weave around those who threaten me to show how much better I am than them. (React 3 + Reckless Daring 3)
Rolled 4, 6, 8, 10, 5, 5, 8, 1, 6, 2, 1, 10, 10, 3, 1, 5, 8, 7, 9 = 109 (19d10)#Drauger-Traits & Tools-!Oathbound!Vengence, Jagged But Pure!Sunlit Muster [!Heart of the Legion A4, !Karathiel's Sharp Feathers, 1 Fluidity, 1 Chained Resilience, Maskbleed 1?]!Unusually Ferocious!Personal Maskmark 1 – The Chained Gate: An oath not to pass into the realm of the dead until my mission is done. (Resilience? 1, shown in !Sunlit Muster above)>Status: Good enough. Was that one calling themselves a King? In Pyther? Vainglorious. And wielding a veil of authority to inspire terror in the peasants? Am I on the right side? >Stance: Neutral>1 Pool: Take Status of the crowd. It would be unlawful to charge through these citizens like a boar, and for some reason that matters. However, they are impeding our investigation and arrest of the individual suspected of stealing military supplies. I'd like to make my way through without hurting the civilians. >Action 1: Attune to the hard wind that bowls men over. It takes great fortitude to resist the gale which roars louder than thunder. (Attune 1 + Hard 3 to add a push effect to my Hard actions). >Action 2: 2 Pool - Move 1 hex NE and divert the slicerat on my path into the slicerat to their south. This club is being too exclusive. (1 Focus + 2 Intrasignence)>Action 3: (5 Pool + 3 Hard + 4! Ferocity, Steelspine tackle, Splash 3 from Feathers) - Tackle/shove these three large lads to drive them into the north wall. It's just like sunball, you just keep your head up, your shoulder low, and keep driving your opponents until the whistle blows. Lineman.>Beat - Resist any damage thrown at me.
Rolled 8, 3, 6, 7, 10, 1, 4, 2, 1, 4, 4, 9, 10, 10 = 79 (14d10)>>6437876#Blot-Status: !All Good - Unable to Strike-Traits & Tools-!Lucky!Unusually Mobile!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Flash and Panache [Acrobatics 2, !Dancer's Mark, !Karathiel's Sharp Feathers, !Leviathan Fair, Falling]!1 Impulse!1 Agility!2 Acrobatics!-2 Strength!0 Cold Coins!6 Favors!White Stag>Stance: Neutral>Task: None>Action:>9 Pool - Adopt a Stance - White the Mask is worn, the character mantled, the posture is wrong. The muscle of the shell does not know how it should be, how it must be, before performance begins. Their step unhindered by obstacle by the will of the gods, with a touch as soft as a feather. - !Graceful Prance - Attune 1 + Mobility 5 - Pool 8 + !White Stag + !2 Acrobatics + !1 Agility>Beat: Void: 7 React + 3 Cascading Calamity - Dancer's Mark moving 5 tiles, 34444, around the building
>>6437935The Slicerat escorting you knocks an intricate series of taps on the reinforced door and the counter-signal from behind takes a moment. He leans into a slot and whispers a password Stray doesn't catch. The door slides open to a warm blanket of steaming clouds, laughing people and the faint scent and sense of very expensive alcohol...
Rolled 2, 7, 9, 1, 4, 3, 6, 10, 10 = 52 (9d10)Scalehearted Swordsman: DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM--Giant Slicerat: huh I really thought I made myself super clear when I shouted earlier but for those in the back who didn't get it thanks todays volunteer for stepping up to demonstrate>SHANK
Rolled 9, 4, 1, 9, 3, 8, 9, 3, 2, 9, 8, 9, 8, 3, 3, 1, 5 = 94 (17d10)>>6437873Status: Never betterNeutral Stance3P: Remember what the Legate taught me. Attune my stance to Legionlock, as the Fist of the Legate (Attune 1, Veneer 2, Pool 2)1P: Move 3 through the crowd, stand in front of the bouncer rat. He will stab me. I do not care.3P: After he strikes, grab the rat by the throat (Focus 3, Intransigence 3, Pool 2)1P: Holding that rat, Fulmen Advance through the door, through the table and through the Crewtail straight to the wall. Let Drauger tackle the other two bouncer ratsFree: Let go of the rat, Fist of the Legate the Crewtail1P: Strike low at the Crewtail, smash him to the wall (Ferocity 3, Hard 1)Beat: STAND FIRM (Resist 2, Intransigence 3)#Amicus-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture [15]Maskbleed 5-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 3-3React 1 Resist 2 Rebuff 2+3 Attune 1 Veneer 2Armor 6Fluidity 1-3 Finesse 1-1 Focus 3Ferocity 4-1 Foresight 1-1 Impulse 3-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2-Intransigence 3-Discipline 2-Hard 1-Traits & Tools-!Unbending!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Sunlit Muster !Personal Marks (Inspire, Intransigence) !Swordhunter's Mark !Legion Chevron 3 !Heart of the Legion !Fist of the Legate 3
With a smile and a nod, Stray is escorted to the interior private spaces. Beyond the steam and the drinks and and the laughing girls paid by the hour, sweating accountants in stiff clothes take notes as their bosses haggle over some sort of business arrangement. The Cestiphoni Merchant-Cartel, House Cestiphon, dear child many names, and a finger in every agricultural deal and farming product derivative from here to the Kalcmirs. The Finefurs, large brawny men and women elevated to higher status in the Slicerats nod and laugh and make a few sharp comments the Smartrats will check later. Straining to listen, it sounds as if they're discussing entirely mundane things only elevated to oddity by the millions of bank balances involved. Serious funding. Hm. --El Fantasma, feigning at a servant, carries the apple crate down the lounge and past the gaming tables. The polite compatriot sweeps the cloth aside and he steps into the smokey interior of the main lounge, music playing from a ministrel-bard strumming her way through some heroic song of distant valour. Display tokens in glass gleam with... Animist tokens? Yeah, the same style from the busted up distillery. Here, in open display. They look merely like exotic and interesting display pieces to the uninvited outsider. But this is a ostentatious display of wealth and a security measure both. The Slicerats in the know can bust them up and bolster their own martial skills by pilfered animist-granted ability. But to display such things so openly... Does no one here talk? Does no one notice? A watch officer in this place who has read the right kinds of books or one of the infamous and mysterious Senatorial Rebus Agents walking in here. They'd know the score in two minute flat on a bad day and much faster besides. Does the Slicerats truly not fear the power of the state at all? Is Rinik so uncompromisingly sure of his blackmail and connections and clout? This all sends a message: Gold-tinged tables, decor on the walls, fine food and better drink in grand abundance. All the measured markers of power so far beyond any one visitor they can't help being awed. Much better, yes, to bow and fall in line, than deal with all this? Though the visitors are not trained in the animistic arcane arts. Few are. They might simply think them interesting, exotic trinkets...--Stratum blows the door in and Perspicus follows up and the Dance is on. One Slicerat slams against a wall, another pair goes down in a tumble that shatters a crate and sends expensive imported strawberries everywhere and a howl of indignant rage erupts from the chef - more concerned about how he's going to make desert than the sudden arrival of assailants! He NEEDED those! --Outside, shoving, pushing, shouting, muttering breaks up. Covers up Atlus disposing of a Slicerat and slipping his unconscious body under a nice looking carriage. Someone rich is here tonight...>RATPHASE
Rolled 2, 2, 4, 9, 3, 7, 9, 6, 3, 6, 2 = 53 (11d10)>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2S1I_ien6AA scalehearted king staring down the keen edge of a sharp knife is saved from being fileted in public by the imminent arrival of a mailed fist of the Legion, which ever strides to protect the citizenry. In some better, more wonderful world, slamming into the three brawny bouncers would scatter them like leaves before the glorious charge and thrown open the doors wide in a wonderfully dramatic display but tonight the front of the club is full of people, there is no way to gain the sprinting speed to get the momentum to throw through the doors, and just because Karathiel's Feathers lets you [Splash] across multiple targets does not actually mean that it massively magnifies your ability to out-mass people with a three-to-one factor of leverage against you, locking hands, braced against a door and a wall. Draugr throw himselfs in a tackle, slams face-first into the prepared bouncer line, each and all STANDING' to resist in their leather armor and their heavy boots, and he bounces right off and lands on a man in line who is thrown back into the pushing shoving disarry the whole thing has become. A scalehearted king shouts EVERYONE IS ON THE GUEST LIST and half the people are trying to get out of there because someone drew a knife, the other half is still trying to push forward to get IN because this is THE COOL CLUB, RIGHT, a slicerat is dragged underfoot in the mob and stomped on by accident, Kiarb yells as someone steps on her foot and Amicus relentless impact disarmed the giant Slicerat but even with a hand around his throat and pushing him back against the door the massive man braces himself and pushes -back- and this is a more even contest than one might think...--Elsewhere, more calm, Blot achieves a rare insightful moment of martial arts and acquires a -true- stance. These are not so different than any others, except for their prowess and power. He gaily, gracefully slips down the hedges and through the fine gardens and moves past the enormous windows where a vigilant Slicerat sees him and frowns. Why are there white stags in the garden? Huntplay isn't for another week. Hmm...-->RATPHASE, PROPER--Foresight: You don't multiply your own mass when you Splash to affect multiple targets, you spread the impact of your action out across them. If they're bigger than you, you're likely to bounce off unless you have sizable impact factors. Foresight:: Foresight 11, modified
A giant slicerat rears back his head for the headbutt of the century but forgets the integrity-testing of the standard Legion helmet and comes out much the worse in the exchange. Draugr, on the ground, is treated to the streetstyle brawlers specialist: THE BOOT!!! and the armor takes the worst of it, but that's still foul and no fair thing to do to a man on the ground.Kiarb yells and dives past the people Halfshirt can't quite push through and throws herself in a rolling tackle that was supposed to floor the massive Slicerat but instead ends with Kiarb precariously mounted on him in a grapple that has her off the floor and his hands wrapped around Amicus in a CONTROLLING GRAPPLE. --Perspicus, cool, wards off a punch thrown at Stratum who is finding his feet, and two staff-members more worried about strawberries than fighting make the other Slicerat in the room have a harder time getting closer. A ministrel strum a few more tunes, the steams roll thick and a man outside the window draws much attention.Stray's credentials from a former life - clear sign of slightly too much stimulant use once upon a time - draws the eye of a magnate operator from House Cesteriphoni. He smiles, nods, tips his glass, appreciates the presence of a colleague. His compatriot Finefur slicerats, wheelers and dealers and movers and shakers, play at placation. --The door thuds from multiple impacts. Sturdy but not invincible...--Foresight: The moshpit mob outside is throwing fists and feet at complete random, quite an uncontrolled impediment. Amicus is being grappled by the Massive Slicerat, his meaty hands wrapped around an arm. Naturally, Control, unless broken off, will try to mitigate actions by rolling itself and buying down your successes. Enough Control and you can lock someone down, or worse... (Kiarb is controll the massive slicerat, but her control doesn't influence his grapple, it just prevented him from throwing a punch)-->MASKPHASE!
>>6438064# Atlas AnchoredColdcoin : 14Hot Tickets : 1Merit Mark : 1!Status: All Good.-Traits & Tools & Masks-!Someone has to do the right thing!Unusually Focused!Professional!Coincounter(Legion Fullhelm)!Sunlit Muster [Veneer 1 // Resilience 1]STATUS // No changes.STANCE // Neutral.ACT // 1Pool // Push through the rambunctious crowd. Approach the Bulky Slicerat at 3. (Mobility 3 + Intransigence 3)ACT // 8Pool // Grapple the Bulky Slicerat's Knife arm. Apply armlock. Leverage joint pressure to force him to his knees. (Pool 7 + Focus 3 + Hard 1) > BEAT, STAND // Brace for violence. Tuck your chin. Widen your stance. (Resist 7 + Intransigence 3, [Resilience 1])
Rolled 8, 4, 8, 4, 7, 6, 2, 2, 9, 6, 10, 3, 5, 5, 4, 8, 5, 3, 3, 9, 6, 2, 10, 8 = 137 (24d10)#Drauger-Traits & Tools-!Oathbound!Vengence, Jagged But Pure!Sunlit Muster [!Heart of the Legion A4, !Karathiel's Sharp Feathers, 1 Fluidity, 1 Chained Resilience, Maskbleed 1?]!Unusually Ferocious!Personal Maskmark 1 – The Chained Gate: An oath not to pass into the realm of the dead until my mission is done. (Resilience 1)>Status: Accept 1 injury. There's a Dr? in the mob. Might as well give them something to throw first aid at. >Stance: Neutral>1 Pool. Take Status of the knife. Smile. Draugr likes a good brawl, and the mask is telling him that it's illegal and impolite to draw a knife. That means Draugr can get a bit rude too. >1 Pool - Attune to the beat. This is a mash pit, all flailing limbs from random angles. (Attune 1 + Rage 2)>2 Pool: Feint a kick at the Bulky Slicerat's groin (Rage 2 + Focus 1 + Pool 1)>1 Pool: Leap to my feet like one of those young people. I may have a spine of steel, but a seven legate army doesn't hold me back. (Mobility 3 + Vulpe 1)>1 Pool: Flail a armored fist into the Giant Slicerat's face. Fists come from all over here in the mash pit. When suffering from a concussion you should avoid further blows to the head. (1 Foresight + Rage 2)>2 Pool, 1 Injury - Slam the Bulky Slicerat into the wall. (Ferocity 4!, Hard 3, Pool 1, 0 Force because I just switched to a Mosh stance. Toss in 1 injury for one effect.)>1 Pool - Give the Giant Slicerat a destabilizing Mosh Elbow. Is it wise to flail randomly with small dicepools against armored foes? Probably not. (Finesse 1 + Rage 2)>Beat - Resist any damage thrown at me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04F4xlWSFh0
Rolled 7, 1, 1, 6, 3, 3, 3, 3, 2, 3, 7, 2, 3, 10, 3 = 57 (15d10)# The King (Also known as The Scale-Hearted Swordsman Or The Sea-Splitting Blade Or The Absolute Lord Or-)-Conditions and Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 18--Capabilities and Intentions-Pool 9 | Mobility 3React 3 | Resist 1 | Rebuff 1 | Attune 1 | Veneer 2Fluidity 1 | Finesse 0 | Focus 1 | Ferocity 5 | Foresight 1 | Impulse 1-Skills and Secrets-Reckless Daring 3 | First Aid 2 | Rikovian Knifehand 2 | Vulpe 2 | Cool 1 | Rage 1 | Lethality 1-Traits & Tools & Marks-!Delusionally Scalehearted!Sea-Splitting Blade, Second Seal!The Kings Crown2 Cold Coins!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Flash And Panache [Majesty 2 | !Leviathan Fair, Falling | !Single Sharp Dividing Line | !One White Dot]>1P: Attend to the mob>1P: Attend to Slicerats>1P: Kiarb, careful, I'm about to launch that fool you're attached to.>1P: Bring the grand weight of my soul to physical form to empower my next attack and bolster !Leviathan Fair, Falling (1 Attune + 2 Veneer) !Delusionally Scalehearted>5P: A grand being like myself needs no space to wind up an attack, my mere touch will destroy. Punch the massive slicerat in the gut so hard hes flung through the door. (!5 Ferocity + 3 Reckless Daring + 4P) !Delusionally Scalehearted
Rolled 2, 5, 6, 5, 2, 9, 3, 4, 7, 4, 10, 5, 6, 6, 9, 9, 4, 5 = 101 (18d10)>>6438064I see damage from my retaliation stance, but not from zanshin. Can I ask for a clarification on how it works?>>6437922The chef seems to be devoted to his work, and he's also not our target. Perhaps we can just leave him be.#Perspicus!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Insightful!Unusually Foresightful!Cut the Self Free!Flash and Panache (Agility 1, One White Dot)!Coldcoins 1!Old Master 2-!Go Fishes - left at homeCool 3 (Not getting hit)Stance: Retaliate [2]>1P: Interrupt Smiling Slicerat's next attack with a preemptive strike (!Foresight 5 + Cool 3)>1P: Step N>1P: Grab a fox token and apply to myself>5P: Machinegun punch Cunning Smartrat straight in the face (Focus 3 + Cool 3 + Pool 4, agility 1?)>1P: Swipe the rest of the tokens in reach>Beats: zanshin
>>6438212How do you know which is from what? I wouldn't make such assumptions, Maskmate, because you don't know such things. It's equally as likely as anything that a Smiling Slicerat tried to push you out of the building and you punched him in the face for it.
Rolled 6, 1, 4, 9, 1, 5, 3, 6, 7, 7, 6, 3 = 58 (12d10)>>6438064#Stray-Conditions And Consequences-!Alive!Cut Ferocity [1]Limit 10 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 17, Veneer 2-Traits & Tools-!Old Blitzhound!Unusually Fluid!Cut The Self Free!Whispering Witticisms[Wolfness, Ward, !Pathfinder's Scratches [2], !The Ever Seeing Eye]>STATUS: Fine and *Dandy*>Stance: Lay Low>9P: Play the role of the Gentleman Thief, be a suave, cunning, and conniving conman, but above all: polite. [Stance] (Attune 2 + Finesse 2 + Pool 8) !Cut The Self FreeStray gives a polite nod and doffs his hat to the Cesteriphoni Visitor, then turns to the Finefurs. They meet a lot of people, perhaps if he acts... Cool enough, they'll think him just another face they've forgotten."If I must be frank, I'm more here for the showing afterwards," he jokes, not lying in the slightest. Glancing about, "But: I don't suppose it'd be here; if it is, I simply am a tad overdressed, no?" >BEAT: Be suave and... Cool. (React 4 + Cool 2)
CRASHCunning Smartrat AIIEE AWW AIIEEE THE FACE NOT THE FACE AAAHHHH THIS IS LIKE BEING BACK IN THE SEMINARY NOOOOO AAAAHHH HEEEEELPPPPCRASH SLAM BONK TINKLE TINKLE TINKLE SHATTER {EXPENSIVE VASE BREAKING SOUNDS}every other slicerat in the entire club: WHO THE FUCK IS THAT GUYevery other slicerat in the entire club: BEAT HIM TO A **PULP**--Yes! A truly dramatic entrance! The night will be SO MUCH MORE EXCITING now that you've succcesfully managed to forewarn EVERY SECURITY OPERATIVE IN THE ENTIRE CLUB, maskmate! Assaulting that guy in the open room in the middle of everyone else looking right at him was a brilliantly dramatic idea! Now do a backflip! NO POINTS FOR STYLE THOUGH YOU FORGOT THE QUIP.
Rolled 5, 3, 6, 10, 4, 7, 7, 3, 6, 4, 2, 10, 3 = 70 (13d10)>>6438064>Status: All good>Stance: Lay Low>9p: In the chaos of all this, Move through the crowd to reach the kitchen and bring the apples to the Chef (Mobility 3+Fluidity 2+ Pool 8)#El Fantasma Carmesí (The Crimson Phantom)!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Violent Tear of Ashoniti!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Red Dream, Red Rivers[Veneer 2, Ashoniti's Teardrops, One White Dot, Ferocity 2]
Authorative Smart-rat: That was the sound of a twenty bit crystal decanter vase breaking because someone was shoved into a fifteen bit imported scentwood table. Whoever just did that has incurred sizable debts, gentlemen.Authorative Smart-rat: I know you were asked to stand by this special private entrance door all night and under no circumstance leave to go roam the club as mobile security specialists unless someone randomly kicked in the door and assaulted one of our people in the middle of the large lounge and club area, an event so totally unlikely that it seemed reasonable to presume you'd be stuck by this door forever BUT by the power invested in me by this badge and select-members list journal I hereby authorise you to go FUCK WHOEVER DID THIS UP REAL GOOD. Authorative Smart-rat: HE ALREADY COST US MONEY. MAKE HIM BLEED.
Rolled 9, 10, 8, 6, 8, 7, 6, 6, 3, 3, 5, 1, 3, 4, 9, 7 = 95 (16d10)>>6438064>STATUS: still good!>STANCE: shift back to !Neutral.>3P: in a classic dirty streetstyle move, pull the Keen Slicerat's shirt over his head (2 Pool + Focus1 + Streetstyle2) - 5 dice>3P: and then, seeing as he's off-balance and up against a wall, hit him with a flying knee. (2 Pool + Ferocity2 + Reckless Daring3, !Flash and Panache [Recklessness], !Aerodynamic) - 7 dice>1P: kick the chair into the Smiling Slicerat's shins. (Finesse2+Streetstyle2) - 4 dice>2P: recover 2 Posture.>BEAT: VOID. Duck and weave all comers. (React3+Mobility5, !Unusually Mobile)Status: All GoodPosture: 16/16---Traits & Tools!Flash and Panache [Personal Mark: Recklessness]!Aerodynamic!Unusually Mobile!Someone Has to Do The Right Thing!Reputation 1 >>6438212Maybe, but I'm guessing he's pissed at us for busting up his kitchen and getting in the way of meal prep. We should make ourselves scarce.
Rolled 7, 3, 9, 6, 4, 2, 8, 6, 2, 6, 5 = 58 (11d10)>>6438064#Blot-Status: !All Good - Unable to Strike-Traits & Tools-!Lucky!Unusually Mobile!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Flash and Panache [Acrobatics 2, !Dancer's Mark, !Karathiel's Sharp Feathers, !Leviathan Fair, Falling]!1 Impulse!1 Agility!2 Acrobatics!-2 Strength!0 Cold Coins!6 Favors!White Stag>Stance: !Rustling Passage>Tasks: None>Actions:>9 Pool: Stare the onlookers down. The White Stag's duty, after all, is to serve as an omen. Maybe one of them will realize the implication of the appearance and reflect on their path, as unlikely as it may seem. - 8 Pool + Cool 2 + Finesse 1 (trying to 'harass' the onlookers, making them reflect on their actions, realize the fruit of evil which the water, and the juice of which they suckle upon) + Magnitude 2 + Splash 2>Beat: Void - React 7 + Cascading Calamity 3 - Dancer's Mark move, 5 Mobility, move 5 tiles, direction 44444 - The omen must be witnessed by all
Rolled 4, 7, 4, 4, 8, 2, 2, 1, 2, 8, 4, 9, 9, 5, 3, 6, 6, 4 = 88 (18d10)>>6438064>Status: Annoyed>Stance: Gauntlets Up>Free: Backfist of the Legate the Rat holding me to break and if possible reverse his grapple>5P: He cannot be moved, and neither can I. But I cannot bend and he's a rat used to bending. Be impolite. Break his arm. (Focus 3, Intransigence 3, 4 Pool)>4P: Gutpunch the Giant slicerat, keep punching until he's out of the fight. (Ferocity 3, Discipline 2, 3 Pool)#Amicus-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture [15]Maskbleed 5-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 3-3React 1 Resist 2 Rebuff 2+3 Attune 1 Veneer 2Armor 6Fluidity 1-3 Finesse 1-1 Focus 3Ferocity 4-1 Foresight 1-1 Impulse 3-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2-Intransigence 3-Discipline 2-Hard 1-Traits & Tools-!Unbending!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Sunlit Muster !Personal Marks (Inspire, Intransigence) !Swordhunter's Mark !Legion Chevron 3 !Heart of the Legion !Fist of the Legate 3
Rolled 10, 4, 3, 7, 1, 8, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4 = 45 (11d10)THUD. THUD. THUMP. THUD. One bouncer is disarmed, another kicked repeatedly in the groin, Kiarb and King struggle with the massive lad on the south and as Atlas, Amicus and Draugr take blows and struggle with the brawniest Slicerats Rinik could find, Halfshirt finally has enough clearance to wave his hard-scrabble banner high...--Stray slips smoothly into the persona of a suave man about town, to the giggling delight of the scantily clad sleekrats and the guffawing approval of the movers and shakers. El Fantasma delivers apples and is dragged into a kitchen side-quest minigame. Oh no. He wants you . . . TO COOK. Perspicus beats on a smart rat who can barely defend himself, but the aggressive result was out past the kitchen cut off curtains and the ENTIRE ROOM sees him do it. The Well-Mannered Slice Rat, with a sigh, extracts the type nine siege crossbow he keeps under the desk for the rude kind of customer and then he coughs politely. Sir? There's a . . . No fistfighting rule on the premises. --Foresight: 11, modified>RATPHASE
Shocked Visitor really, keeping a siege crossbow under the desk. how low class can you get? psfh, I come here for the STYLE. When I pay premium, I expect /at least/ a pathfinder rifle...
SURGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
SURRGEEEEEEEEEEThe people in power can stop a lot of revolutionaries, but the trick of the masses is the ever present question: can they stop -all- of them?
WE ARE ALL ON THE LIST IF YOU JUST CHECK IT I PROMISE!
Rolled 1, 9, 9, 10, 4, 7, 6, 6, 8, 10, 9, 2 = 81 (12d10)>>6438494Polite Slicerat Thank you that's very helpful-URHGAHRGHGOGAHARHGKiarb (having been accidentally crowd-surfed and launched like a missile) SORRYYYYYY>Ratphase, Proper>WILD MOB CHAOS DICE
BANG CRASH SURGE SURGE SURGE HEEEEEELPBefore the flood the door gives way and visitors are fair swept off their feet as the galvanised sudden surge of freed energy is directed down a viable channel. Brawny bouncers are slammed against walls, pushed aside, trampled, Kiarb and King and Dr (?) Durbin carried along on the sudden momentum as the Sunlit legionaires plant their feet against the tide and stand. Ragged, cheering types bounce off of the heavy armor and braced footwork! Inside, shouting visitors and surprised Slicerats yell and crash. A crewtail, quick on the uptake, screams for order and for everyone to FALL IN STAND UP LOCK HANDS GO GO GO and the sudden coordination of someone having slightly more wherewithal than everyone else lets the Slicerats lock off one vector of advance, so the tumbling, cascading mob-in-motion flows like a fire towards the other viable avenue. On the stage, the ministrel shrugs, flashes a charming smile and plucks at her strings. Alright, fight music it is. Perspicus, gruesomely outnumbered eight to one and facing down the hardened security specialists and their really really really sharp knives ducks left, weaves right, baps one feinting probe, deflects another and is doing really rather well in the whole affair until a bag of alchemical powder slams into his mask and a very smart slicerat shouts WATCH HIS FOOTWORK and foresightfully predicts exactly when he'll have an opening just in time for a Precise Slicerat, covered in scars and knife ina a fighting grip, to drag the keen edge of a sharp across the maskmate. You know what they say about eight on one fights: Don't get into them.Stratum keeps the back approach clear, fists up, feet light, but the stumbling, tumbling, splinter-faced, tangled and confused Slicerats in the kitchen have critically more trouble with finding their footing than fighting their foe. Plates crash and clatter as they go down, slip on strawberries, throw a punch that overbalance them and cause one to head-desk into a heavy counter. Hell of a kitchen, this.Chef Goreman eyes the whole thing like a general. By shint of dear blessed luck, Stratum's dodge does not step on a strawberry, so the Chef turns away and instead accepts a delivery of ripe Reikan red apples. Perfect. Summer in a bite, and fit for the greatest apple pie the Tailed One, Mr. Desko, has ordered. He puts a meaty hand on El Fantasma's disguised form and shoves an apron into his waiting hands. We must cook. There is no finer purpose.Weary and fatigued staff spring to carry out his snapped orders. And if the outside of the kitchen resounds with music and screams, what is that to the men and women who work tirelessly in the great war against hunger? Battles elsewhere are nothing. To cook requires ferocious finesseful fluid focus in foresightful measure, and so, it occupies the totality of the attention that could be spared. --A white stag gracefully rounds a corner...
. . . beyond the privacy screen of red-leaf bloosming trees, quiet men and women in fine suits and with gold to spare for jeweller and teeth debate business. The soft thudding sound of fist on flesh undercut their whispering dealings. From the vantage point in the bushes, the total shape of it is hard to see. But it seems the house rule against fistfights does not extend to the private garden, where a slim, sleek looking man with sharp eyes is leaning on a staff while watching two blank-faced pugilists beat the absolute tar out of each other. He doesn't so much smile as imply the vague sensation of the possibility he might, one day, cut a sleek little wry thing across the stoic mien of his face. Ah, a Tailed One. Can't mistake them in the flesh. Something about the palpable aura of confidence and the unsettling ice in their eyes, the authoriative sway of the hand and sweep of the wrist. Look, at his belt. All the most private, precious secrets of the Slicerats. Courier orders, bank-access markers, secretive communications, private correspondence, keys and notes, all the things a man can only trust to his own belt. Now there - there's a prize...But the Garden is guarded. And though the Tailed Ones are not often the largest, or the quickest, or the meanest, or the most lethal out of Rinik's lot, they are the ones with the most uncompromising sense of their own ability and importance.A man like this always has at least one very good bodyguard.. Rank has its priviledges. Reach high enough in the Slicerat hierarchy and you can pass your knife to someone else and be assured that any cutting needs done gets done by your expressed intent rather than your own hard working effort. To transcend to some higher, more sharp stage: to part with a word and slice with a whisper. --FORESIGHT: the mobbing crowd is pretty fierce. To pass through without incident is a MOBILITY action, though if you've more RESIST than half the occupants, you can simply press your way clean through. Mobbed tiles are so crowded they cost 3x Pool to enter normally (the mobiltiy action is, indeed, much faster).Mind the swinging elbows and swaying fists! No one is trying to hurt you, as such, but there's a lot of limbs flailing about! Being near or next to a rampaging mob is fraught business for EVERYONE. -->MASKPHASE!!
>>6438842This would be the perfect time to find out what my action to acquire alchemical protective gear netted us
>>6438842Also, is there any alcohol on the table?
>>6438847You packed extra purgatives, cleaners, charcoal absorbers and eye-and-skin rinsers in your pockets. So, your First Aid preparations cover the ability to mostly defang the worst of chemical aggression, rinse out your eyes, clean wounds, resolve acid burns, deal with flame and other such minor problems (and extra bandages for dealing with bleeding wounds, too!). Very useful, since the Chemrats on the premises are bad sorts and all the extra kit the Slicerat Security are using is mean too! Which means instead of not working at all, First Aid attempts to mitigate chemical problems both can work and even might work quite well. Usually, the condition would apply a minimum threshold to work at all, but with proper preparations that gets bypassed.Whiiiich... Won't do you alltogether much good at the precise moment.Unfortunately.Since if you try to apply any pallative to yourself the sharp-eyed men with knives within reach will kick you in the leg before you finish cleaning anything. No one can get to you and clean out your eyes because there's MEN with KNIVES in the WAY and sure as the Sun is grand and glorious will they not let you take five to apply a curative and wash out your without reacting. Those SWORD symbols mean WATCH OUT.But if you manage to get some arm room to work in where no one is standing around THREATENING TO HURT YOU, someone else can help apply a curative and hopefully make your hands stop shaking, wash the gunk out of your eyes and so on.Someone else, mind, maskmate. There's probably some kind of universe in which a maksmate can simply make repeate First Aid attempts on themselves to negate problems, but in this particular punch-up universe, trying to mitigate excruitiating pain while suffering from excrutiating pain tends not to work so well, as the condition(s) themselves negate your effect(s). Since you're a solipsitic narcicist who will no doubt run off to stand in a corner and try to do so anyway, teamwork being some quixotic Reikan delicacy, please at least put enough Pool into the effort to actually get somewhere when you do, otherwise it really won't work very much at all and you'd be left stumbling and fumbling.The are, of course, ways to mitigate some problems some of the time. A gas that gunks up your eyes could be washed out with a bottle of wine, perhaps or, even better, a quick dive into a pool...>>6438850Big bottles, big glasses, small glasses, small bottles, this entire club is REPLETE with alcohol, Maskmate.
>>6438850For your refined palate, sir, tonight the House is offering a bespoke sample of imported Riekan Deep Crimson, a most vaunted vintage derived from a long-process specialist grape. It's actually an Eastern Reaches speciality, as Grapes do not grow in the Reiks, but due to the hearty flavour and stout advance straight to your frontal cortex where the first glass will continue to invite all its friends until the bottle and the next three bottles also are all empty and you wake up on a trade ship bound for Illiosi with a pounding headache, the name stuck. Pairs excellently with apples, a well-done steak, or high intensity fisticuffs due to the articulated glass handle that makes grabbing and swinging one while shouting a pithy one liner a most excellent dinner choice.
>>6438857>Pairs excellently with apples, a well-done steakA *well done* steak? These guys are fucking animals.
>>6438878Ahem.I meant: thorough people, these slicerats, with conviction and determination to see things through with uncompromising finality. And really, if a thing cannot be done well, then why do it at all? Admirable.
>>6438878>>6438880We used to be a country, you know. Used to be a steak was juicy, not charred.
Rolled 3, 5, 1, 4, 10, 6, 1, 9, 7, 2, 8, 4, 6, 2, 6, 5, 9, 7, 7, 4 = 106 (20d10)>>6438846>Status: Determined>Chevrons restore 3 Posture>Stance: Accorded Rights>1P: Move 2, shove my way through the mob, get to the front in between the civilians and the ratwall>4P: These rats think they're playing at formation warfare? They have no idea what it really takes to lock shields with your comrades and stand firm. Break their formation with a furious assault. (Ferocity 3, Discipline 2, Pool 3)>1P: Fulmen Advance through the disrupted ratwall to the Crewtail, backhand of the Legate on the way to take him with me and smash him to the wall behind him>1P: With his back slammed to the wall, punch the Crewtail on the head (Focus 3, Intransigence 3)>1P: Inform the rat under the table that he should slide his knife out on the floor and stay down there. (Impulse 3, Discipline 2)>1P: Seize the illegal gambling profits for the orphans fund (1 pool)>Beat: STAND (Resist 2, Intransigence 3)#Amicus-Conditions And Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture [15]Maskbleed 5-Capabilities and Attributes-Pool 9 Mobility 3-3React 1 Resist 2 Rebuff 2+3 Attune 1 Veneer 2Armor 6Fluidity 1-3 Finesse 1-1 Focus 3Ferocity 4-1 Foresight 1-1 Impulse 3-Skills & Secrets--First Aid 2-Intransigence 3-Discipline 2-Hard 1-Traits & Tools-!Unbending!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Sunlit Muster !Personal Marks (Inspire, Intransigence) !Swordhunter's Mark !Legion Chevron 3 !Heart of the Legion !Fist of the Legate 3
>>6438846Can one attune to two Maskmasks over two turns, without the action of attuning to the second consuming the attunement of the first?
Rolled 4, 9, 4, 8, 7, 5, 4, 2, 5, 10, 3, 7, 5, 4, 6, 6, 9, 8, 8, 10, 1, 9, 9, 6, 1 = 150 (25d10)>Status: Slightly wounded, but no new injuries to deal with.>1 Pool: Take status of the green bouncer and respect their line in the sand. No conflict between us, so no need. >Stance: Neutral>1 Pool - Dance 1 hex to my 2. I say "Hard Rock", you say "Dance Lock". (Mobility 3 + Rage 2)>1 Pool - Exhort these revelers to martial heights. If the slicerats would make a wall of bodies, then so too shall our siege engines be. Trying to get the crowd to overrun the three slicerats being led by the Crewtail near me. "First rank down, lock and pop. Second up and o'er the top. Ain't no Rat can hold the line against the People, time to shine." (Attune 1+Rage 2) >1 Pool - Flank the Fortunate Slicerat with a Legion Elbow. Finesse 1+Rage 2) >1 Pool - Legio Advance - Push past the Fortunate slicerat to move to my 2 (Mobility 3 + Intransigence 2, Steelspine)>3 Pool - Smash the Ratline with a chair before the crowd gets in the way. Have ye spines of steel? (Hard 3 + Ferocity 4 !, +1 Pool (assuming picking up the chair is only 1 Pool, 2 free hands to wield a chair + Karathiel's Sharp Feathers)>1 Pool - Fend the Crewrat off with the Chair. I expect you to retreat, but in case you don't, this is my 'You Shall Not Pass' chair. (Intrasignence 2 + Focus 1)>Beat - Stand and Resist. Resist 4, Armor 4, Rebuff 1. Hard 3/Intrasignence 2.
Rolled 3, 3 = 6 (2d10)25 dice aren't enough for high flying fisticuffs. Will I find a way to 50 this game?
Rolled 8, 5, 3, 10 = 26 (4d10)>>6438842#Perspicus!Status: Bad Gash [3], Wrenchdust 3-[6]-Traits & Tools-!Insightful!Unusually Foresightful!Cut the Self Free!Flash and Panache (Agility 1, One White Dot)!Coldcoins 1!Old Master 2-!Go Fishes - left at homeCool 3 (Not getting hit)Stance: Defensive>Accept Wrenchdust 3-[6]>Accept Bad Gash [3]>Stance: Defensive>1P: Grab a bottle of wine from the table and pour half of it into my mouth and half to wash my eyes>1P: Become Old Drunk Master (Attune 1 + Veneer 1 + Pool 2 + wine?) to become unpredictable>1P: Throw the bottle at the Chemrat to cause the Well-Mannered Slicerat to shoot at the sound>1P: Shout "Free booze here, while supplies last!" to speed up the stampeding mob and direct it here>1P: Move S and take up a position in the doorway to limit the amount of enemies able to get to me>Beats: zanshin (!Foresight 5 + Sharp 2 + Pool 2)
>>6438936To pontificate.A Mask is a thing of empowement, to be a grander figure on a grander stange. It has Traits. Those Traits always apply. Hence, Flash and Panache will make your actions gently more dramatic and Red Droplets are gently more inclined to pain and problems.You start your turn by assuming a Stance. Neutral is the standard, but often, you will Attune to various ways of acting, moving, being - something -decidedly- not NEUTRAL and often one that pulls you in certain directions. Our man Stray is suave right now, our hard-hearded Amicus is compelled to do his duty. This is an ATTUNE action, to self-modify out of neutral. You can return to neutral and drop such stances (mostly, there are cases where they're forced on you, such as Amicus' situation this turn).You could attune a stance to a Maskmark, and hone a capacity it has, heightening it. Completely normal operation, as Attune is quite broad and lets you feel on the inside in the way you act and are what you might want to be and accomplish.On your turn, when you have Veneer and Maskmarks, you can also attune + veneer to the specific Maskmark. This is not a stance, but is a single brief enhancement of grandeur and capacity, to do the nigh impossible with merely human hands, to go beyond. Because Intentions tap out when used, you could not do this on the same turn (as your Attune is spent), but you could be in a stance you assume last turn and then attune for some specific action.This leads to the answer to your question also: Yes, it is possible to call upon a maskmark and seeming and prepare to do something and then lean into it further next turn (and next turn, and next turn), attuning more and more or different things. Nothing in this action-chain self-cancels, after all. You attune to Dancer's Marks for great speed and Leviathan Falling for grand impact and pick your true moment, and Foresight+Wolf strike for all its worth at the precise moment you need to three turns from now...However, there are many, many drawbacks.- It takes a long time- You can be disrupted, if you stand in place waiting to do something- The world changes sometimes so what you were going to do is now always reliable- true world-changing intentions cannot be "Banked"When you "attune+veneer", at the core of it, you generate a very brief powerful self-modifier such; such as Dancer's, which is normally spent immediately on the action you're attuning to your veneer to do. It's clearly from this entirely possible to simply prepare multiples, gather your focus, heighten yourself, so on. But they do compel to action. When attuning a veneer to do SOMETHING, it is always applied on the next (non-veneer) grand action. so you cannot "build it up" over 3 turns and then unleash it it later WHILE inbetween all that, STILL go about doing grand other actions. If you did, it'd be applied to those! So it requires supreme focus...
>>6438982Though if you want to stand in place and gather your wits, it works!Alternatively, if you end your turn veneering one mark then begin your next turn veneering another welllllll... No rule says a Maskmate can't be under the influence of two veneered marks when they take an action. Or three. Or ten. I did hear a Red Droplet once beat up an entire bar of sailors, and you don't win fifteen on one fights if you don't have a -few- tricks up your sleeve. ( There may even be ways to accomplish something like this more readily, building up a small reserve to be unleashed at will. Then you could end all your turns with Attune 2+Veneer 1 and bank 'True Alacrity' over 3 turns to then unleash them at a time of your choosing in the perfect moment while still taking other actions, without force-triggering the spending of veneered marks. But it's rather rare and difficult and requires martial arts training and supreme focus. In a sense, a prepared role like the White Stag or an Old Master is a kind of veneer writ large to temporarily flavour all actions with that kind of style, so if you can do it one way, possibly it can be trained in other ways. But that's probably bound to be some kind of specialist function that requires unlocking the right pre-requisites involving martial arts study this is a literary technique known as foreshadowing )( So for now, while you can attune-veneer several marks and over several times, you do have to contend with your preparations being unleashed on the "next best fit" grand scale action; so it can be a bit awkward unless you have time on your side or allies or are hiding in a bush.. )( Though )( Come closer )( Lean in )( If Attune is an intention . . . )( And Veneer is an intention . . . )( it's quite possibly quite possible to Attune + Veneer: Stance myself into perpetual veneer attunement of [MASKMARK GOES HERE]. Then every time your turn rolls around, you adapt whichever stance-focus this lead to, and now you have an always on call that might modify some things. )( Though you didn't hear this from me )( It's quite possible doing that thing is exactly how maskmates go a little mad, and surely if simply using the veneered maskmarks for a single action is apt to be strainous, surely channeling your entire being into living up to some exalted ideal in a stance might cut your prep-time corners, but that sounds like it'd quite possibly burn you out rather fast )
Rolled 5, 8, 3, 1, 2, 7, 1, 1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 4, 3, 3, 6, 4, 4, 1, 8, 4, 10, 10 = 106 (23d10)>>6438842>Status: All Good>Stance: Neutral>1P: Attune to Chef Goreman Ratsay for some sort of Cooking(?) Stance (Attune 1+ Focus 2)>1P: Attend to a Knife and Apples>1P: Proceed to chop the apples fine (Fluidity 2+Lethality 3) This proceeds to take it's place into the Pie>1P: Once the apples are done move on to the Cream. Take a cooking whip and proceed to Whip the cream until it holds it's shape (Ferocious 5+Hard 1)>3P: The important part. Finessfully drizzle the crumble over the pie gently and evenly over the pie base. (Finesse 1+ First Aid 2+Pool 2) [I'd argue First Aid makes for careful hands]>2P: "I need a strawberry over here!" with assistance we carefully put 1 single strawberry on top Artisitcally (React 2+Wolf 1+Pool 1)#El Fantasma Carmesí (The Crimson Phantom)!Status: All good-Traits & Tools-!Violent Tear of Ashoniti!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Red Dream, Red Rivers[Veneer 2, Ashoniti's Teardrops, One White Dot, Ferocity 2]
# The King (Also known as The Scale-Hearted Swordsman Or The Sea-Splitting Blade Or The Absolute Lord Or-)-Conditions and Consequences-Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 18--Capabilities and Intentions-Pool 9 | Mobility 3React 3 | Resist 1 | Rebuff 1 | Attune 1 | Veneer 2Fluidity 1 | Finesse 0 | Focus 1 | Ferocity 5 | Foresight 1 | Impulse 1-Skills and Secrets-Reckless Daring 3 | First Aid 2 | Rikovian Knifehand 2 | Vulpe 2 | Cool 1 | Rage 1 | Lethality 1-Traits & Tools & Marks-!Delusionally Scalehearted!Sea-Splitting Blade, Second Seal!The Kings Crown2 Cold Coins!Unusually Ferocious!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Flash And Panache [Majesty 2 | !Leviathan Fair, Falling | !Single Sharp Dividing Line | !One White Dot]>Stance: !Heavy Shadow 3>1P: Attend to Slicerats>3P: Move 455, calmly walk across the table onto the stage.>1P: "Maerin, I'll toss you a coldcoin if you play me something grand and slow, like a leviathan.">3P: Project absolute Majesty and Authority, as a Leviathan should. Action to buff the next (1 Attune + 2 Veneer + 2P) !Flash And Panache [Majesty 2]>1P: [Stunt] +5 Effect. Step into my rightly given role as a being much grander than everyone here, and simply command them, as their better. "All of you, sit down." (!5 Ferocity + 3 Reckless Daring, !Magnitude 3) !Flash And Panache [Majesty 2]>BEAT // Zanshin, Redirect anything that dares strike at The King away with ease. (3 React + 3 Reckless Daring) !Sea-Splitting Blade, Second Seal
>>6438846# Atlas AnchoredColdcoin : 14Hot Tickets : 1Merit Mark : 1!Status: All Good.-Traits & Tools & Masks-!Someone has to do the right thing!Unusually Focused!Professional!Coincounter(Legion Fullhelm)!Sunlit Muster [Veneer 1 // Resilience 1]>STATUS // 2 Posture damage. [Inevitability] ablated by 1? No mitigation taken.As Atlas surveys the chaotic scene, he glimpses a crossbow-toting man through the service window.This threat must be eliminated.>STANCE // Neutral.>ACT // 3Pool // Force your way through the tight-packed crowd, moving 345. (Pool 2 + Mobility 3 + Intransigence 3 )>ACT // 6Pool // Dig your fingers into the underside of table to the southwest. Upend it and utilize it as a makeshift riotshield. Charge into the Well-Mannered Slicerat ramming him with the table. Slam him into the wall and furniture behind him. (Pool 5 + Mobility 3 + Intransigence 3)>BEAT, STAND // Brace for retaliation. Your flank is open to several rats, there is a chance of receiving a bottle to the back of the head or a knife to the back. Ready yourself to face these outcomes. Solidify stance, lock joints, and stiffen muscles. (Resist 7 + Intransigence 3, [Resilience 1])
Rolled 6, 7, 2, 9, 1, 2 = 27 (6d10)>>6438846#Stray-Conditions And Consequences-!Alive!Cut Ferocity [1]Limit 10 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 17, Veneer 2-Traits & Tools-!Old Blitzhound!Unusually Fluid!Cut The Self Free!Whispering Witticisms[Wolfness, Ward, !Pathfinder's Scratches [2], !The Ever Seeing Eye]>Status: >Stance: Lay Low [Suave as the Sun]>4P: You've piqued my interest, what's the name of this charming newsletter of yours, pray? I may have to check it out later. By all means, lead the way. [Follow Academic to THE PRIVATE COLLECTION, make small talk, act natural.]>1P: [Attend] to make sure nobody's watching me too closely (a certain stag does have the attention of the watchful) !The Ever Seeing Eye>3P: Move the ball in front of the door out of the way and surreptitiously make the table with the cakes on it complication-prone. I'm no Epicenter, but a lot of things can go wrong on wet floors. Trust the process. They'll get their just desserts, eventually. (Foresight 2 + Pathfinder's Scratches 2 + Pool 2)>1P: [Attend] to the last snippet of the conversation between the finefurs and the Cesteriphoni delegate. What's the secret? I know a guy I can send a pseudonymous tip-off to. !The Ever Seeing Eye>BEAT: Be Cool (React 4 + Cool 2)
Rolled 6, 7, 3, 3, 5, 6, 1, 8, 10, 5, 7 = 61 (11d10)>>6438982Thank youI have an additional question, can a Beat be taken before an Action? With Dancer's Mark, being able to incorporate the movement would be quite advantageous >>6438846#Blot-Status: !All Good - Unable to Strike-Traits & Tools-!Lucky!Unusually Mobile!Someone Has To Do The Right Thing!Flash and Panache [Acrobatics 2, !Dancer's Mark, !Karathiel's Sharp Feathers, !Leviathan Fair, Falling]!1 Impulse!1 Agility!2 Acrobatics!-2 Strength!0 Cold Coins!6 Favors!White Stag>Stance: !Rustling Passage>Tasks: None>Actions:>9 Pool - The dark core of the wretched tree is within reach, but piercing it's layered bark is a monumental task. However, the duty must be served, an earnest chance must be offered, and for it, perfection is required. - Attune to !Leviathan Fair, Falling - Attune 1 + Veneer 2 + Pool 8 + Magnitude 2>Beat: Void - React 7 - Cascading Calamity 3 - Dancer's Mark, move 2, direction 44
Rolled 7, 9, 10, 1, 8, 9, 1, 5, 7, 6, 10, 4, 6 = 83 (13d10)>>6438846>STATUS: meting out justice by the fistfull (all good).>STANCE: keep !Neutral.>1P: Attend to the strawberries on the floor around me. Them being a slipping hazard aside, the staff here that aren't rats would get in trouble with the chef if I smeared that stuff all over the floor.>2P: Look over at the Charming Slicerat and how they managed to damn near knock themselves unconscious without me even touching them. There's no glory in vanquishing a foe this sad...Just punch them out, no fanfare needed. (1 Pool + Ferocity2+Streetstyle2) - 5 dice>6P: For the main event, though, consider the not-so-Keen Slicerat, tangled, shirtblind, with a busted wrist. He needs some help. I'm gonna try something to help him. Tangle him up in that curtain even more and give him a solid push into the Mean and Precise Slicerats! (5 Pool + Finesse2+Cool1) - 8 dice>BEAT: keep VOIDin'. (React3+Mobility5)Status: All GoodPosture: 16/16---Traits & Tools!Flash and Panache [Personal Mark: Recklessness]!Aerodynamic!Unusually Mobile!Someone Has to Do The Right Thing!Reputation 1
Rolled 2, 5, 9, 10, 5, 9, 10, 6, 3 = 59 (9d10)>>6438842#Doctor Durbin===+Conditions And Consequences+Limit 12 [Resilience, Psyche, Ward]Posture 21===+Capabilities and Attributes+Pool 9 | Mobility 3React 1 | Resist 1 | Rebuff 1 | Attune 1Fluidity 1 | Finesse 1 | Focus 8 | Ferocity 1 | Foresight 1===+Skills & Secrets+-First Aid 6-Cool 2-Glitching Cascades 2-Sharp 1-Wyld 1-Discipline 1===+Traits & Tools+!Someone has to do the right thing (the right thing is WONDROUS SURGERY)!Unusually Focused!Red Dreams, Red Rivers!Flesh-enthralled!I HAVE A KNIFE (for healing!)Mask: Red DropletMark: Single Sharp Dividing Line>Stance: Neutral>5P: Create Stance: Attune 1 + Focus 8: Hypogean Oath- I wish to channel the Single Sharp Dividing Line. I must be the cut that saves, not the one that kills.>4P: Move 5-5-4-5
soon
Chef Goreman Ratsay: ALRIGHT YA MOOK THAT LOOKS ALMOST FOOKING EDIBLE LET ME SEE WHAT YOU COOKED UP-- IS THIS FUCKING PIE FUCKING DRIZZLED PRECISELY WITH FOOKING BROWN SUGAR?El Fantasma Chef-mesi: Improvising, chef! For extra flavour, chef! It heightens the texture, chef!Chef Goreman Ratsay: HmhhmhhmhmhhhmhmhhmhhmhhmhhhmhmhhmhhmChef Goreman Ratsay: m hmhmhhmChef Goreman Ratsay: . . . not . . .Chef Goreman Ratsay: . . . bad....Chef Goreman Ratsay: GET ME A FORK AND LET'S SEE IF IT'S AS SPONGY AS IT LOOKS
