The TV glows and lightly illuminates the dark room. You sit hunched over yourself, anticipating the program that comes on right after the commercial break ends. Every second of waiting is worth it to you when the loud, hard rock music starts blaring from the TV speakers.
"RND ... RAPID NON-STOP DESTRUCTION!" A burly voice screams from within the screen. Many fast clips of various legendary and newly rostered wrestlers play as they perform finishers, scream, deliver signature taunts, and point at whoever is watching the program through the lens of the camera.
This is what you've been waiting for all week, the intro music blaring and the videos playing along with it gets you hyped, causing you to jump up from the spot you were sitting from and jump around your bedroom. Though this day exactly doesn't fall on any special event or finished storylines within the program, you've always loved just being a witness to the tension and fights that break out from each live event.
Just as you manage to compose yourself and sit back down, your mom calls out to you from the kitchen.
"Honey, dinner is ready! Come down here," she yells from outside your room.
You sigh, groan, and put up a little bit of a fight with yourself before complying. Standing up and opening the curtain to your room the afternoon sun lights up the previously darkened room once more, a last ditch attempt before it slowly begins setting away for the dark sky to take it's place.
When you go down to the kitchen and take a seat at the table dinner progresses by as it normally does. Your parents both ask how school was today, you simply just reply with a grunt or give a simple & diplomatic answer.
It's not until you finish your plate that your little legs race back to your room and once again you're seated in your previous state before the television. Too late to witness the beginning of today's program, an ad is blaring from your TV.
"Hey kid! Love our program? Write a letter to us and enter a chance for us to come to your city for a show!" The voice yells. Shortly after a sped up version is accompanied with a long list of fine print words like 'minimal demographic range', or 'subject to location', though you don't really understand what any of that means.
Immediately you run to the small desk in your room and pull out a piece of paper, a pencil, and get to writing.
You are Cindy Moon; Warrior Priest of Khonshu, Ward of Ben Parker, Part-time local vigilante. And, just recently, you somehow obtained the title of "Slayer" from an ancient Vampire Lord with an evil agenda. Between going to school, fighting bad guys, wrangling an overeager sidekick and dealing with an <span class="mu-s">insane</span> amount of family drama, now you're expected to potentially help save the world! No pressure.
Last time: After accepting the help of Wilhelmina the Blood Witch, Cindy defeated her brother Ward, and not only managed to convince him to stand down, but got the rest of Monster Council to stop fighting each other, and instead direct their anger at the creature responsible for deceiving them all: Varnae, The First Vampire!
Thanks to her quick thinking, she and the council made it out of Varnae's trap in one piece, and reconvened at a tavern in Monster Metropolis. There, she learned that her new blue friend was actually a clone mashup of Beast and Wolverine, and that the mutant scientist (Hank McCoy) had offered his help to Varnae, Skul the Slayer, and the current ruler of Limbo, Belasco.
Now that they know who their enemies truly are, Cindy and her group devise a plan to appeal to the Kaiju King, in hopes that he can muster up an army for the battle to come.
Will the Kaiju King's help be enough to save the day? Is Cindy capable of slaying something as old and powerful as Varnae, or even Belasco? And why is a member of the X-Men lending aid to a bunch of monsters?
Find out more in the latest issue of…<span class="mu-s"><span class="mu-r">MAXIMUM SPIDER QUEST!</span></span>
Rules: Most dice rolls will be 1d100. Modifiers will be added depending on the situation or on the alien being used(Usually +10 or -10). Crit successes and crit fails apply. Crit fails can be overridden by crit successes, but crit failures cannot override crit successes.
How to Roll: To roll dice, type “dice+1d100” in the options field without the quotations. To roll dice with positive modifiers, type “dice+1d100+modifier number” in the options field without quotations, and with an actual modifier number. To roll dice with negative modifiers, type “dice+1d100+-modifier number” in the options field without quotations, and with an actual modifier number.
You are Kara, High Priestess of the Starlit Grove, handmaiden to Queen Selanwe, and the spiritual voice of your people.
You remember the last Gathering of Lanterns—the shimmer of silver pollen in the air, the laughter of children riding on currents of magic, the low, gentle hum of the fairies as they blessed the winds. That world, your world, is now behind you. The Otherworld, realm of fae and dream, is doomed.
One of your oldest sages saw it: a demon tide rising, swallowing the edges of reality, bleeding through the cracks in the veil. Even the fairies, eternal and radiant, fear it. No magic in your homeland can stop what is coming.
The Queen could not save the land. But she could save a people.
She chose you.
You knew what it meant. All elves do. Without the blessings of the fairies, your bodies will begin to falter. Long will your lives be, still—but they will now have an end. You will age. You will weaken. You will die.
You accepted.
Three great galleys awaited at the far western shore, vessels of living wood and spell-threaded sails. Each carried three hundred elves. Two wave-masters aboard each ship stirred the sea itself, ensuring safe passage even through storm and whirl.
You brought with you:
30 healers, keepers of body and spirit 12 druids, bearers of the last sacred seeds 300 soldiers, trained to row and ready to fight The rest—craftsmen, poets, hunters, teachers, dreamers, lovers—all volunteers
Elvish travel bread, rich with dreamhoney and sealed in ferncloth, will feed your people for years.
You crossed the threshold of worlds.
Now you stand on the edge of a new land. A mortal coast. A strange forest of broad-leafed giants. The sun rises on alien birdsong. The rivers gleam with silver, and the soil is dark and alive. You see no humans yet. The land is wild, and still.
At night, the stars do not speak to you here. They are distant. Watching. Silent.
You gathered your people beneath those quiet stars. No one wept. One child asked if the fairies would follow. You told him they would not. But something else would follow—what you choose to make of this new life.
In the history of humankind, war has been a constant. Over resources, land or ideology, warfare has been the front at which humanity found itself time and time again. When dozens of atomic bombs peppered the United States of America in atomic hellfire more than 200 years ago, the world as it once was ended. Society and order ceased to exist, and anarchy reigned supreme. Some sheltered in Vaults, spared the worst of the suffering deep underground… or exposed to an entirely unprecedented form of it. In the ashes of the old world, a new one was born. The fledglings of humanity survived and forged a new world with brutal, unforgiving rules.
Raiding. Murder. Theft. Destruction. But also, hope. Hope that things could return to how they once were, or move in a new direction entirely, casting off the shackles of folly that led America to ruin. But with hope came fear and conflict, discontent and brutality. Every step taken was taken with bloody footprints. Because war… war never changes.
==============================
It’s no secret to anybody that the landscape of America changed dramatically after the Great War. New creatures emerged from the irradiated wastes, the land shifted and became filled with new plant life twisted and bent into strange shapes. Even the ground itself was altered in many places. In one such case, the Outer Banks of North Carolina became the shattered, flooded Broken Banks. Flotsam and wreckage littered amidst drenched islands and raft-masses, while the mainland’s coast was filled with all manner of blasted boardwalks, trading posts and shantytowns. The further south a soul travels, the more flooded the land becomes. South Carolina is a mired, messy swamp patrolled only by the grandest of mirelurks and the most savage of tribes, while the untamed wilds of Florida boast drenchghoul cults and radgators of truly epic proportions. All in all, a severely inhospitable section of the wasteland.
The snow continues to fall, but less and less as the weeks go by. The icy waters of the Great Lake slowly thaws as spring's getting closer. It's still ways away and your tribe's running out of food though. In the snowy tundra a small group of hunters slowly moves tracking a herd of raindeer. The strong wind bites at your face as you grip your stone tipped spear, trying to ignore your sweaty palms. You have to bring meat to the tribe or die together.
What's your age, gender and name?
Who are your people?
>Long-men Long Men are Homo sapiens sapiens, meaning they belong to our human species, in a slightly more archaic version that is usually referred to as Cro Magnon. They are from the Aurignacian culture and their craftsmanship is refined. Their stone, bone, and skin craft shows a great level of precision. They live in semi-nomadic settlements, in large, elaborate and comfortable huts that protect them from the harsh conditions of the ice age.These humans are robust and tall: 1m80 (men) and 1m65 (women). Most of the men and women of this people have come to live in the Tribe lands from the far lands of the rising sun, beyond the Icy Mountains, which is why their complexion usually goes from tanned to dark, their hair is black, and their eyes brown, black, or dark blue. These humans usually live in clans of 20 to 40 individuals.
Key Strengths of the Long Men: Choose either Hand of the Ancestors or Speed of the Horse.
>Bear-men Bear Men are Homo sapiens neandertalensis, also called Neanderthal Men. The Long Men of the ice age world sometimes call them Trolls. These humans are very robust. Their bones are thick and they possess a great physical strength due to muscle joints that sometimes differ from ours. They are small, the average male size being roughly 1m65, the average female 1m55. They have unusual facial features: powerful jaws with no chin, a long and wide nose, and a supraorbital torus forming an impressive brow ridge above the eyes. Built to whistand the cold climate of the Tribe Lands, these men and women have an exceptional resistance to the harsh conditions.
Key Strengths of the Bear-men: Choose either Strength of the Bear or Heart of Ice.
Lastly choose two additional Strenght's: > Hand of the Ancestors > Majesty of the Aurochs > Secret of the Bear > Strength of the Bear > Knowledge of the Beaver > Might of the Bison > Song of the Blackbird > Flight of the Crow > Rise of the Eagle > Breath of the Giant Stag > Speed of the Horse > Agility of the Ibex > Heart of Ice > Fury of the Lion > Reflexes of the Lynx > Softness of the Otter > Sight of the Owl > Wisdom of the Mammoth > Eye of the Panther > Magic of the Rhinoceros > Inspiration of the Rocks > Flame of the Salamander > Fins of the Salmon > Grace of the Swan > Venom of the Viper > Protection of the Vixen > Cunning of the Weasel > Nose of the Wolf
You are Booba Fett. You don't know anything at all about where the name came from, someone just called you that once and it stuck. You live in a post apocaliptic wasteland. The nukes went off and history finally ended.
You live in a Pueblo called San Björn. There is radioactive desert in all directions. Forty people live there, most of them Redskins.
The people there share what they get and are used to doing long fasts. Maybe that's why they survived this long. They built a wall with scraps and car parts, and the settlement been holding.
The village has a well, but it isn't very deep. It works more as a water storage than a water source. There is an old abandoned well ten miles to the north, deep enough to draw brackish water from. The village has a bunch of solar stills, and people often go to the abandoned well with bikewagons and jerrycans to fetch the saltwater. Could we dig a deep enough well? Maybe. But so far it proved elusive and too labor intensive to attempt. Should we move to the other site with the well? Well, genius, this was proposed many times, but the point is the damn place is built on top of rock. Nothing grows there.
What takes us to our little garden. We plant some stuff, mainly squash. It looks weird, and tastes weirder, but is good enough to feed us.
For meat, we have a pigsty. Our pigs are slightly mutated due to all the radiation, but no one complains.
Most people in the village have some kind of mutation. In your case, you just got a bunch of extra toes, abnormaly large breasts and a fucked up face. You wear a helmet you found to hide the radiation damage in your head.
Radiation also gave you a small boon:
> Fast Reflexes. You can react faster than regular humans. It is almost catlike. > Regeneration. Your flesh regrows at an astounding rate - provided you eat enough protein. Can even regrow lost limbs, but it won't fix your fucked up face. If you're not well fed, you can't regenerate at all. > Psychic Burst. You can subvocalize a screech that gives instant headache to everyone who can hear it. They can't actually hear it. May cause internal bleeding in their heads. Occasionally lethal. People consider you a witch. > Write in
You are Charlotte Fawkins, Herald and heroine. With the power of your positive spirit, you have overcome deceit, defeat, and divine possession, and now you are going to save the world. First, though, you need to relocate to Earl's place, lest Lucky track you down and arrest you.
Rallying Earl and Gil is easy. Rallying a sleepy, cranky Claudia is harder: on your first attempt, she flips over and shoves her face into the settee, and you have to get Gil to coax her out. Why does she listen to Gil and not you? "She knows me," Gil mumbles, and it might help that he didn't violently absorb her. Even though he might've, if he were God and not you. It's harder than it sounds.
Earl pats you on the shoulder and says he'll wake up Branwen, who emerges, hair frizzled, and grunts when you say you have to go. "Suit yerself."
Gil clears his throat. "Er, i-it was really nice of you to let us stay here, and, uh—"
"Yeah, yeah. Jes' doing the sound thing to do. Won't tell them Courters shit, given I can help it. Fawkins."
"Huh?" She's looking straight at you.
"Don't git killed out there."
"Oh! I won't! Don't worry!" Not before you're God, anyhow. It just wouldn't work. "...Um, thanks, too. I meant to say that before he did. Thanks."
"Mm-hm. Git moving." She jerks her head toward the door. "Seeya around, Toothless."
"Hey, thanks! Seeya, Morris!"
Earl herds you, Claudia, and Gil out into the early morning darkness. Feeling sluggish, you exit last. It would be easy to blame on the odd hour, your lack of sleep, but as Earl counsels the three of you on nighttime safety measures (eyes <span class="mu-i">forward!</span> stay <span class="mu-i">together!</span> mind on the <span class="mu-i">destination!</span>), the feeling doesn't lift. When you get moving, it gets worse. Something about you is slow. Something about you is <span class="mu-i">heavy.</span>
«Your mass has increased.»
What? No it hasn't. (You prod surreptitiously around your waist.) Yeah! You're not any bigger. Did you bite your lip in your sleep? Maybe you're half-paralyzed? Could Richard please purge your blood of any—
«I said nothing about size. Your physical size is the same.»
'For now,' he'll say ominously. You're onto him.
«Yes. For now.» «But right now, you take up the same amount of space you always have. It's just that there's... more of you in it. You are experiencing difficulty moving that increased mass, which is only natural. You are now more strongly rooted to the ground.»
Where the Wyrm is.
«Yes.» «I take it that last night was a success.»
Yes. Something like that. Could he...?
«Anything for you, Charlie.»
>[-2 ID: 13/15]
You shiver as Richard's whatever-it-is crackles up your spine— does he use special equipment for this too? It really isn't magyck? He sits at his snake desk and pushes a snake button and some machine is able to...
Timeless and terrible, they shaped the void with thought and gave it order through song. Where their voices harmonized, land rose from the deep. Where their wills diverged, seas churned and the stars cracked. And when they had made a world fit for beauty and pain alike, they wove beings from golden light and named them the High Men.
These radiant children were not like the lesser beasts. They were given form eternal, bodies immune to time, and minds sharp as the storm’s edge. For thousands of years, the High Men built cities of living marble and floating stone, where music never ceased and sorrow was but a word in ancient texts. They learned to speak to fire and command the tides, and they dwelt close to the gods, basking in divine favor.
But nothing perfect lasts.
No one remembers precisely what shattered the age of glory. Some say the gods quarreled and turned their faces from the world. Others claim a great wrong was done by one of the High Men—a theft, or a murder, or a forbidden love. Whatever the truth, the Cataclysm came. Mountains split. Rivers turned to acid. The sky wept ash for a hundred years. And immortality cracked like fragile glass.
The High Men died in droves. Their shining cities fell into the sea or were swallowed by the earth. Some of the survivors pleaded with the gods for mercy. None answered. In desperation, a few turned elsewhere—to older powers, darker names carved into the bones of the world. They drank blood. They swore oaths. They became Vampires, no longer truly alive, but no longer dying. They fed on others’ lifeforce to survive, trading sunlight for eternity.
A cure was eventually discovered. It burned the curse from their veins—but not without cost. Those who took it became known as the Primeval, their skin forever marked with a bluish hue, their hunger undiminished, though no longer for blood. Their bodies healed fast, sometimes too fast. They were changed, and their children were born changed too. Neither god nor man would claim them. So they claimed nothing—and no one.
In the thousand years since, the world has shifted again. The High Men, though fewer and mortal now, have rebuilt some of their ancient halls. The Vampires brood in hidden places, fractured into cults and courts. The Primeval wander or form enclaves where the wild grows thick. And outside these crumbling legacies, the world keeps birthing the strange.
The Barbarians of the far west, unmarked by old glories, have come raiding, wielding iron and prophecy. The Aberrations, born of warped magic and cataclysmic exposure, slither in the forgotten reaches of the world—each one a living riddle. And the Witches, those rare few who have found power not from gods or curses, but from within—walk the line between reverence and exile, their fingers stained with the threads of fate.
