[h2]I am NOT Going to GM This![/h2]
However, that said, I offer this bit of Madness to anyone who can use it. I also Invite anyone with some extra inspiration to contribute, to comment, to ask questions and make suggestions. Who knows, the Devs might find it interesting enough to adopt into the game.
My main purpose in writing this up is to get it Out of my Mind! Otherwise, it might pester me for hours, or keep me awake at night.
I was thinking about missions for Supers and one of the plot-bits for a background story I recently wrote, came stumbling out of the basement and ‘Blaaarghed’ at me. ‘Ah-hah! The Threat!’ I thought to myself.
Please excuse me, while I digress into some basic thoughts about story development. I often come up with a basic outline for a story before or while I write it. I find this structure helps me understand what needs to happen in the story, so I don’t get lost out in left field with no clue to where I’m going. As I go along, the structure of the outline can grow, or shrink, or Complicate, as needed
It’s also important to know what the story’s ‘Purpose’ is. Often, that’s some combination of Entertain, Inform, and Inquire/Explore. Sometimes I’ll have some ‘What If?’ which I’m using the story as a tool, to think about. Maybe it’s “How many Valkyries can sit on a barstool?” However, sometimes the question is more philosophical. There can be multiple outlines involved.
[b]Basic Ingredients:[/b]
The Threat
The How and Why
The Environment/Situation
The Tools (The Characters)
The Action
The Aftermath
Similarly there is...
[b]Story Structure:[/b]
The Call to Action
The Explication/Discovery
The Plan
The Action
The Results
And the Story ‘Outline’ might have multiple recursive loops before it’s over. Characters might loop through multiple instances of Discovery-Plan-Action-Results, before they find the end. If Players are involved, the whole thing can go completely off the rails and fly off into a story that you never considered. Sometimes, that can be FUN!
And Fun is the reason that we do it.
Another useful thing about an outline is how it helps clarify what/where the sections or chapters are, as well as helping with the inevitable re-shuffling of parts and time-lines. This part happens After that one and this sub-plot results from that action. If there are multiple contributors, this can be critical! Every Player is a contributor.
So, this story is mostly for entertainment. Which means there’s lots of room for humor, character development, plot, and dialogue, as well as ‘Cinematography’ and ‘CGI’, and other ‘Special Effects’. It’s also somewhat Fantastic, so we can be Creative and descriptive.
Be Well!
Fireheart
[b]The Setting[/b]
Presumably, the setting is the City of Supers. East Coast-ish. Ocean and History. Tall buildings, mixed architecture, mixed cultures, mixed fast-food.
Alternate locations might be Great Lakes, West Coat, Caribbean Coast, Mediterranean Coast, or ‘Who Cares?’ Personally, I’m thinking more Utopian than Dystopian, because I don’t like ‘dark futures’, and generally ‘Contemporary’. It might be Titan City, or Paragon City, mainly because that’s what we’re all here to talk about, and not New San-Fran-Tokyo, or whatever.
‘Officially recognized’ super-assets (whatever that means) have access to official, organized, telecommunications and data sources on, at least, a city-wide basis. Every freelancer has at least a PDA or smart-phone-like device and a wireless headset, tapped into similar tele-data repeater systems. Some might combine a smart-device and ‘Google-glasses’, for two-way heads-up communication. There may be streaming cameras in use.
Someone, perhaps super-teams or other organizations, may offer ‘Bat-Computer’ resources. There may be live operators available, to receive, process, and distribute critical information.
I’m partial to the ‘Dispatch’ service/organization described in the “Wearing the Cape” series, or at least a central ‘police dispatcher’ to help direct the activities of teams and individuals. Also, to keep track of where people are, so, if you go down screaming, at least somebody knows where to send the rescue-party. Or the coroner.
[b]The Call to Action[/b]
The call goes out through the Emergency Action Network for mages, sages, conjurors, dimensioneers, and inter-dimensional critter-wranglers to sign-in on the focus-channel. The information on this Incident Focus Channel reveals that Psy-clone and his team have suffered a failed investigation and some sort of Horror has escaped into our reality.
The consulting Oracles all began Screaming the moment this thing came into being. Except for the ‘Bad Oracle’, who has been laughing hysterically. Half of the oracles have had to be sedated, while many of those who managed to recover on their own are drinking and trying to forget. Some of them volunteered for temporary sedation, hoping that they will see better results after a break.
Civilian Evacuation teams have been dispatched to the neighborhood, mainly light industry, and low-rent offices, around Third Avenue and F Street.
[b]The Explication and Discovery[/b]
Psy-clone and team have captured the primary perpetrator, one Joey Springfield aka “The Villainous Malefactor®”. I kid you not, this guy actually Trademarked his Foe Handle. Most of what we know about him comes from his ‘Fansite’, where he claims to have read the entire “Evil Warlord’s Handbook” and promises to violate every precept in it until he is taken seriously.
As much as one might be tempted to label this person as an amusing loser, he has managed to summon a pseudo-Lovecraftian being from another dimension. Said ‘Thing from Beyond’ is now loose in mid-city and, so far, nobody has been able to handle it.
One Civilian Hero-Team Adjunct encountered the Thing and temporarily drove it back, but suffered partial digestion and acid-burns. He has been rushed to Mercy Hospital in critical condition.
Two civilians were saved by the Adjunct, a man and his seven-year-old daughter. Their small dog was eaten by the Thing.
Additional information on the Incident Focus website includes location overview maps and links to helmet-cam video from the heroic Adjunct with severe warnings regarding the uncensored nature of the footage. Comments posted on the video vividly describe the subject as looking, “Like an accident at a pasta-factory,” like a “half-ton, animate pile of uncooked pork-products and guts, covered in purple goo,” and “like an avalanche of leftover meat from a fishing boat, all tubes, and tentacles.”
Another commenter posted, “My god! He got it with Fire-fighting Foam-grenades! Baking Soda FTW!”
One person added, “Yuck! It Melted that poor guy!”
The incident location is several blocks of one-story buildings and twisty alleys filled with dumpsters and junk. Happily, all civilians have been removed from the area and none have been injured, except for the Hero-Team Adjunct. Incident Reaction Teams from the Police and Fire Department have cordoned off the area, but there have been no further sightings of the Thing From Beyond.
[b]The Tools, The Plan, The Action, and The Results[/b]
I leave the rest of this for development by the vict... I mean, the Volunteers! Whoever accepts the challenge.
Have Fun!
Fireheart
[b]The Tools[/b]
The Amusing Loser knows best what he had done, which might not be much. But he'd be an invaluable informant if you could pummel him into submission....OR appeal to his ego ;)
The Emergency Action Network may become invaluable for organizing various spellcrafters to handle the Horror.
Split-Mage arrives on the scene of Mercy Hospital. The mage is unstable and switches between personalities and powersets somewhat randomly. One of his forms is a powerful life mage that claims to be able to heal any wound.
Hell-Hath begins tracking the Horror. She intends to control it for her own destructive, nihilistic machinations.
Major Harris of the TCPD Giant Monster task force begins assembling a team to contain the massive Horror.
ThreadMaster begins mining the fansite and other media related to The Amusing Loser to see if he got intel from an outside source, since this Horror seems outside his scale.
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Out of Character
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Presumably any other mentioned character would be applicable to the next sets, I just added a few that might be fun. This does seem like a fun improv RP exercise :)
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[color=red]PR, Forum Moderator[/color]
[url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/desvipers-creative-impulsivity]My Non-Canon Backstories[/url]
Avatar by MikeNovember
Perhaps the 'Thing From Beyond' finds our Sun 'too intense' and has schlorpped its way into the sewers. Perhaps it is hiding out in a warehouse, waiting for dark. Perhaps it is a 'helpless alien visitor' and 'more scared of us than we are of it'? Whoever suggested that is welcome to go down there and 'comfort the poor thing'.
I never did worry about How the Amusing Loser, aka “The Villainous Malefactor®”, aka 'VM', actually managed the awful 'feat' of bringing the Thing into existence. It might have been the 'Science of Magic', or the 'Magic of Science', or 'Pure Random Insanity'. All that is clear is that that Thing is not from around Here, which is why the Call to Action went out to such a diverse sample of 'specialists'.
Another few loops of 'Discovery' might run around, What IS it? Where did it Come From? What does it Want? And especially How do we get it Out of mid-town?
Is it actually an extra-reality being? Is it a Construct of some sort? Is it a sentient being, or just a cockroach? If we have to kill it, is that Murder?
So far, it has, arguably, only defended itself from 'Wuffles the Mad Barker' and that fellow who yelled and threw hurtful things at it? (Pepper Grenade, Flash-Bangs, Baking-soda bombs). It might have sensitive hearing? It seems to carry its digestive organs on the outside?
===>> Out of 'Character': I did imagine this as an exercise in creative storytelling, more than as Role-Playing per-se, but Anybody is welcome to approach it however they feel comfortable.
Be Well!
Fireheart