Strife in Lake Superior (Chronicles of Darkness, OOC)

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Templum Domini

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Note: This game contains a Fan Template, Princess: The Hopeful, which will be the main focus of this game alongside Mages.

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The city of Breezeton, Wisconsin, has seen better days. Once a flourishing center of manufacturing and processing, the Recession and the outsourcing of work to China has seen jobs lost and poverty rise, all the while as the city's remaining sources of support, the high-tech Lake University of Technology, and the Breezeton Association of Dairy Farmers, find themselves at odds. The Lake University sees the Association as a front for bigots, while the latter sees the Lake as out-of-touch elitists.

This polarization has been exploited by the Mayor, Eugene Fitzhue, who grants the Lake University the power to declare itself a 'safe space' one moment, then publicly condemns said University as a threat to public decency the next. All the while, he establishes a 'Neighborhood Watch' that is his private militia in all but name, as well as a network of surveillance cameras to 'monitor for crime'. And of course, there are rumors that he is taking money from both major factions of the city...

In all this, you are ordinary people who live ordinary lives, but as a crisis approaches, your destiny is changed. The Light, a force of Love and Hope, gives half of you the power to change the way things are, while the other half of your band sees through the veil separating the Supernal from the Fallen. Half of you are now Princesses (or Princes); the other half, Mages. Despite differences in power, you are still friends, bound by mutual respect and love.

And you will change this town.

------

Basically, this is a game based on crossing over Mage: The Awakening, with Princess: The Hopeful, a splat based on Magical Girls and Boys (Think Madoka, plus the darker moments of Nanoha and Sailor Moon Crystal instead of Pretty Cure, though). You get 5 extra XP you can use for your characters (Princess or Mage). Orokos.com will be used for rolls, while this thread will be used for character storage.

House Rule: Non-Mage Supernaturals can use their Supernatural Tolerance stat (Inner Light for Princesses) instead of Resolve, Composure, or Stamina when Withstanding a Spell.

House Rule 2: Withstand Penalties for Mages now stack. Also, Exceptional Successes no longer ignore Withstand; just reduce it by -2.

House Rule 3: XP gained in the game is shared with the entire party; Arcane and Luminous Beats are also interchangable. Newbies get the extra XP as well.

House Rule 4: Instead of buying individual Charms in your dice pool, you now buy the Charm trees themselves. That means that you can get all Govern 3 Charms by putting 3 Charm Dots in Govern 3.

Any more questions?

PS: No discussion of IRL politics, per the site rules. The subject matter of the RP is a bit political, but I expect any debate to be in-game only...

PSS: Players are to respect each other despite the power disparity between Princess and Mage PCs.
 
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-Edited to fix that I forgot to add a Second Praxis because of Gnosis 2.

Changes include
Added "Mind Scan" as Praxis.
 
Everyone, you all have 4 Mundane Beats now; you'll get 5 Beats and 1 XP once this chapter ends, which will be soon.
 
First custom spells of the game:

Sense Taint (Death •)
Practice: Unveiling
Primary Factor: Duration
Suggested Rote Skills: Investigation, Occult, Empathy
The mage's eyes are opened to the presence of the Darkness. She recognizes Tainted Places, Creatures of Darkness, and characters with the Tainted Condition on sight. With a turn of concentration she can determine the Size and Severity of a Tainted Place, the Shadows or Inner Night rating of a Creature of Darkness, or the level of a character's Tainted Condition.
+1 Reach: The mage recognizes a Tainted Place's foci and can determine the Severity associated with a given focus.
+1 Reach: The mage recognizes the subjects of Dark powers such as Umbrae, Caligenes, and Hexes and can determine the Shadows or Inner Night ratings of their users.

Control Device (Forces ••)
Practice: Ruling
Primary Factor: Potency
Suggested Rote Skills: Computers, Crafts, Science
By controlling the currents within an electronic or electrically-operated device, the mage can operate it in ways that wouldn't otherwise be possible. She adds the spell's Potency to all rolls to use or compromise the device and may do so mentally without need of an input device of any kind. This spell may also be used to damage the subject by overloading its circuits, as per Control Electricity.
+1 Reach: If cast on a computer or other digital device, the mage may operate it without regard to its normal user interfaces; she can open browsers to specific addresses, write code at the speed of thought, or skip straight from the login screen all the way to a specific file folder. Halve the interval of all Computers actions with the controlled device once per level of Potency, and the mage may bypass any security measures on the device reflexively without a roll.
 
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Re: Possible Arcane/Luminous Beats (henceforth known as "Splat Beats" for short):

1. Liliana has definitely uncovered some of the town's mysteries (her Vocation).

[If anyone else thinks they made progress on a Vocation that I missed, remember to say so.]

2. Riley seeing his sister transform is definitely "a meaningful and new encounter with the supernatural."

3. IMO meeting the werebear probably counts too?

4. Lionel's initial experience with the Noble PCs and the Neighborhood Watch probably counts.

5. Adrian's scene involving the Darkness and the werebear definitely counts.

6. If this version of Melanie is still "related to the Arthurian Legend" then Riley might have made progress on his Obsession depending how far he got on Mage Sighting her (or possibly even regardless of that)?

(...See what I mean about why the Splat Beats needed to be merged? The Arcane Beats will probably slow down over time but the early stages of a crossover-heavy chronicle like this one can pretty much just puke them out even without any deliberate effort on our part.)
 
Okay...I'm really sorry about this, but I have to ask: Should we end the game already?
 
Guys, I am sorry, but the game is dead. Thank you all for participating.
 
Future Plans for the Plot:

1.) The first Story Arc involves inviting in an Olympic-level Figure Skater, Yuri Nikiforov, to set up a skating academy in Breezeton. Yuri Nikiforov has roots from his paternal family there, and so it would be likely he'd consider the offer. Problem is, a.) Yuri Nikiforov's skating academy will be built on prime farmland, b.) the Mayor has rigged it so that the landowners are inadequately paid for said prime farmland, and c.) Yuri Nikiforov is gay. This might cause protests by the Association, and the University is planning to organize chaotic counter-protests to 'protect' Yuri without being asked. The PCs' job is to prevent this from happening through any moral means possible.

2.) The second arc begins with Kyle Thompson recieving a call from the Barret Commission (Hunters who focus on keeping Supernaturals out of Government and Politics), saying that they are sending several inspectors to Breezeton to audit the Mayor's accounts and see if the town is eligible for a Stimulus Package. Kyle and the PCs' job is to keep the inspectors from being supernaturally-influenced or decieved in any way. If they do this, the Barret Commission will turn a blind eye to Alouette becoming Mayor of Breezeton.

3.) The third arc has the party being asked to go to Minneapolis-St.Paul to charm Alexander Sky, a seemingly-mortal owner of SportsCo., a corporation making Sports Gear, to come over to Breezeton and set up a new factory there instead of moving his factory to China. Unknown to the party, Alexander Sky is a Free Council Mage who has been testing them all along; said test involves throwing a birthday party for the Guardian of the Veil who serves as Heirarch, and using said birthday party to bring the Pentacle factions of the city together.

4.) The Mid-term elections in November; this will be revisited in Crisis in Waveton if Darinas Darinas permits. If Alouette wins, then that would be the 'win' condition for the party.

======

Lake University Headmaster (Female, in her 50s but looks 40s or late 30s): Life 3, Spirit 4, Time 2.

Association of Dairy Farmers Head (Male, in his 50s): Matter 4, Death 3, Forces 2.

Lake University Headmaster is Thyrsus, but has Computers and Academics and Politics in addition to Medicine. Gnosis 2.

Association of Dairy Farmers is a Moros with Firearms/Crafts/Intimidation/Politics. Gnosis 2.
 
Spoilers for the (now-defunct) Game - Politics are merely In-Character, not Out-of-Game:

Lore:
The Lake University of Technology is an old institution, dating back to the nineteenth century, with a strong activist tradition. An outward patron of libertarian, liberal and progressive causes, it nevertheless undermines said causes by encouraging bullying, threats, and tacit advocacy of cyber-crime and withdrawal of charity to working-class people. Alumni from it have also spoken out against Democracy, echoing Peter Thiel's 2017 quote that: 'Democracy and Freedom are no longer possible' (which is an IRL quote from the guy). Just as with the Association of Dairy Farmers (their 'conservative' counterpart), they are pawns of Mayor Eugene Fitzhue, a Seer of the Throne who seeks to use the Darkness and Taint to nullify Paradox.

Size: 5 (The University, its side buildings, and its Grounds)

Focus (1): A Whiteboard in the Economics Classroom where despite the University's Pro-Gay stance, Ayn Rand's teachings are regularly proclaimed as the gospel truth and working-class people are put down as 'muscle power' (a view I myself saw an Objectivist espouse on the Internet; she said that 'Brain power, not muscle power, is the source of western civilization's wealth; this is a view shared by economists like...). Curse: Vice (Greed).

Focus (2): A podium in the Student Activist Club, where social justice rhetoric against [insert injustice here] is ramped up to levels where threats of murder, torture, and mutilation are deemed allowable. Curse: Vice (Wrath).

Focus (3): Three computers in the third stories' offices, where hacking, revealing others' personal information without their consent, and cyber-bullying is constantly planned. Curse: Computers - 2 for people with generally good intentions.

Focus (4): A statue of Ayn Rand at the centre of the hedge maze on the back of the grounds, where the University Chancellor (Astrea Williams, the first Female to have that post) meets with the Mayor and her 'conservative' counterpart from the Association of Dairy Farmers to plan the city's downfall. Curse: Terror

For Mages:

Mage Spells: Ward (prevents scrying through space), Lying Maps (messes up subject's sense of direction), Warding Gesture (shields the building from fate-based magic), Shield of Chronos (prevents scrying through time, as in, looking at a target's past or future), Wards and Signs (prevents magic from being used on the building itself, but not on the space around the building).

Clash of Wills dice: Wards and Lying Maps (10 from Arcana, Gnosis, and Duration; Lying Maps activates at Night), Warding Gesture (9 from Arcana, Gnosis, and Duration), Shield of Chronos is (6 from Arcana, Gnosis, and Duration), and Wards and Signs is (6 from Arcana, Gnosis, and Potency).
 
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