Welcome To Shearport

Given the small town locale, the odd mystique, and the presence of a talking do- wolfman, I can't help but get certain vibes...


Am I the only one who Liam as looking like Skipper Shelton and our local park ranger as Sheriff Bronson Stone?


Also:


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Shall we share our sea shanties?
 
To pass the time while we wait for everything to be spun together, I'm pondering token ideas. Partly, I'm throwing these out there for the fun of it, partly to see what people think, and partly to see if our illustrious ST might consider allowing them to be built later in the game. Oh, the stories that might be told getting the ingredients for these witches brews.

Resembling an old shore fisherman's rod, this token catches more than mortal kippers and sardines. Strung with a bare hook, the bearer of this rod can walk down to any body of water - a pond, a lake, an ocean - and cast it into the waters. Once they do, they catch not fish... But secrets. The Murmuring Line allows the user to hear anything that was once spoken aloud by the shoreline it is cast into, though finding something specific is a bit difficult. To sift out a specific sound, the would-be fisherman must make a Wits + Composure + Wyrd roll (in addition to any activation roll), penalized by certain factors:


-Time (-1 if a day has passed since the secret was spoken, -2 if a week has passed, -3 if a month, -4 if a year, -5 if a decade, etc.)


-Distance (+1 if fishing where the secret was spoken, -1 if more than a mile away)


-Familiarity (+2 if the fisherman is intimately familiar with the voice of the speaker, -2 if the fisherman has never heard the voice of the speaker)


A roll takes one hour; a failure doesn't prevent the fisherman from trying again, but each additional attempt in the day adds a -1 to the roll. A dramatic failure leads to frustration and worsens the drawback (see below).


Of course, this is only if the fisherman is looking for something specific. A fisherman can, if they so choose, simply listen for interesting sounds. This requires the same roll as above but at no penalty. It takes a pretty dedicated or paranoid fisherman to do this, though, given the drawback.


Action: Extended (Wits + Composure + Wyrd; 1 hour per roll; 4 successes needed)


Mien: The rod earns its namesake; those nearby hear it whisper and murmur incomprehensibly. Only the wielder can hear clearly through it. When the whispers get particularly loud, as they often do, the line goes taut and the rod bends, pulled by the secrets.


Drawback: The Murmuring Line catches secrets. Any secrets. Whenever a fisherman first draws the line to cast it, he feels the hook catch on his skin, though it never physically does so. In doing so, it tears a piece of a secret from him, too, to bait itself. This secret is always one the wielder would prefer someone not to know, and it is inevitably found out by someone. Inevitably, someone walking along the shore hears the fisherman declare his undying love or sees a scene of theft in the waves, or some such other means of transmitting the information. Canny changelings often realize just what this means the fisherman is doing down at the docks, too...


Just what the secret is might seem random (one fisherman casts out his secret love for the Spring Queen, another throws out that he stole twenty dollars from his parents when he was twelve), but it inevitably comes back to the fisherman somehow.


If the fisherman scores a dramatic failure at any time while casting, the frustration makes them clumsy. The line bites again, and a second secret is added to the waves.


Catch: The secret snagged by the Murmuring Line is not taken with it when is cast, at least not usually; someone who feeds the line glamour or is careful in their swing only feels a nick; the memory remains intact. Those who refuse to bait the hook with a bit of glamour, however, feel it bite much deeper; the secret lost is taken from their memory for good. Some fishermen have paid this dire toll and spent the rest of their lives fishing to get it back. Others have made themselves amnesic, tearing out secrets in hopes that some dire memory might be lost forever to the waves.






Magical mechanical mice always come in groups of five. No-one knows particularly why this is. Some swear they come in groups of three but these people seem to be charlatans, trying to pass off broken sets onto the unwary. Whatever the reason, what is not up for dispute is that the magical, mechanical mice are small automata that come in a wide variety of forms but always mice and always with some sort of start-up mechanism, be it a wind-up key or a tiny, steam-powered engine.


The mechanical mice, when activated, are bearers of a special kind of fairy magic: Grace. These scampering creatures, once activated, are imbued with a bit of the wielder's own skill (given to them when activating their tiny engines). The user must choose a Social or Mental Skill and a Specialty. For the scene in which the mice are activated, they provide a +1 to all uses of that skill and a +3 to all uses of that specialty. The user can change this within the scene but doing so requires reactivating the mice.


The mice provide this bonus in any number of ways. A bonus to Intimidation may come about from the mice becoming hissing, aggressive things, which stare, red-eyed, from within their bearer's clothing and threaten to bite anyone that comes too close, while a bonus to Expression might result from the mice producing tiny musical instruments and assisting in their owner's performance. Mental skills often involve tiny rodent researchers fetching relevant books from library shelves or forming acrobatic displays to inspire the thoughts of their possessor.


Action: Standard


Mien: The magical mechanical mice come in a variety of forms, from stuffed toys to clockwork automatons to simulacra indistinguishable from real mice. They normally appear as small, artistic statues or toys but, when activated, they surge to life in a manner that is exceedingly fluid and graceful.


Drawback: The mice are hungry little things, which do not - and cannot - move without magic to power them. As such, the user must feed them one point of glamour in addition to any that might be used to bypass an activation roll (meaning that the mice may cost two glamour per activation).


Catch: As the mice are hungry, those unable to feed them glamour must pay in some other form: Blood. Those who fail to feed the mice in magic must cut their own fingers to feed them; five in all. These wounds are particularly painful, even if shallow, and so inflict a -2 on all actions involving the use of the user's hands for the next 24 hours.






This battered Roman lancea (a wooden spear with a metal head and counterweight) is blackened around its iron head, as if burnt by fire, and worn by age and attempts to fix it. Said to be wielded by St. George himself, there are simply too many copies of it in existence for that to be true. If it was true, anyway, then the implications are unfortunate for St. George...


The Blessing of St. George is, in all ways, a standard spear, unremarkable but for its rather degraded quality (-1 to attack rolls made with it). When activated, however, it seems to remember its noble heritage as a monster-slaying spear. The penalty inverts, becoming a +1, and the spear deals aggravated damage to hobs and changelings. The weapon is, however, surprisingly blunt against the True Fae, and its iron tip may as well be dull steel to them; even activated, it only inflicts bashing damage.


Action: Reflexive


Mien: Typically, the spear appears old and worn and slightly burned. When activated, the rivets on its iron head seal tighter, however, and the weapon begins to look much more sturdy and proud. It also smells faintly of sulfurous fire and becomes slightly warm to the touch.


Drawback: St. George was a dragon-slayer, but also a martyr. Those who take up his lance must also be willing suffer, too. Each attack made while the spear is activated takes a toll on the wielder, inflicting two points of bashing damage, whether the attack strikes true or not. Legend holds that a mighty Summer Courtier, wielding one of these spears in the 17th century, was found dead from invisible wounds atop the body of a particularly fierce hob.


In addition, the lance holds a second, less obvious drawback: The weakness it bears against the True Fae, as compared to its potency against the Lost, often leads some to presume that the bearer of the Blessing is actually a loyalist or privateer. After all, who but the Gentry would make a weapon so potent against their wayward charges but to which they are almost immune?


Catch: Martyrs die. Plain and simple. Those who aren't sufficiently potent to steel themselves against death's cold touch find him coming all the sooner for them. Those who do not pay the cost to activate the weapon suffer a level of lethal damage instead of bashing damage on each attack.
 
Have we picked a name yet?


Also, Lita has the addiction: kleptomaniac flaw. I would like to start and try this out but if it causes a bunch of drama I'm okay with dropping it.
 
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Kleptomania can lead to some troubles, if directed at members of the group, but it's entirely possible to do it well.


Question for our illustrious GM: Is the Goblin Vow merit allowed? Can't afford it right now but would certainly like to buy it later on.
 
After knowing Lita for more than a few days Liam would probably have started nailing things down, dulling small shiny valuables with boot polish and keeping his bedroom door firmly locked.
 
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Zach doesn't have much in the way of possessions apart from his lighter, and she ain't getting her hands on that one!
 
Oh, shit, bunch of posts but I didn't get alerted!


I'm ok with the Goblin Vow Merit, that's cool. You'll need to run the specific purviews you have in mind past me, but that's par for the course.


Right now, I just want to see everyone sticking their character threads up, and you seem to be approaching some ideas on how y'all get along.


Oh! Alexandra! Character! And such.
 
She's been busy with preparations for a Dia de las Muertos event, and we spent the long weekend at a convention.


I wouldn't expect to hear from her before Friday, to be honest.
 
Dual-Kith as per RoS or WM? According to Winter Masques it's a 2 dot with a Wyrd 2 pre-req, but Rites has variable 2/3 dot versions with a chargen only requirement.
 
Hood's BS (hurr) is up. Adding sheet soon, just want to know this is okay.
 
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