Only a partial update today, not a full episode – I’m
hitting writer’s block trying to come up with the full plot for this episode,
and I’ll need to figure it out. For now, hope you like Faith and St. Mary’s, I
like that bit of worldbuilding.
I spent some of today talking with friends about the
game-side of the world and episode generators. These work great as writing
prompts, but turning them into a game or systematized collaborative
storytelling, that’s harder. I’ll probably be throwing some effort at the world
builder especially, aimed at optimizing it for tabletop players building the
world they’ll play in. The episode builder will likely be optimized for
tabletop players to build out those “first few adventures” that happened
offscreen, so you aren’t just starting a campaign the first time your
characters meet.
That said – I’m open to feedback on this stuff. If you think
there’s a use case that matches something different, let me know, I’m
interested to know! As always, the world builder is here, and the episode
builder is here.
--
New NPC: Faith. Faith is genderqueer and presents as
androgynous. When episode 3 begins, Addison is part of Faith’s crew. Faith hangs
out at the Sky’s Eye and they noticed the kinds of stuff that Savanna gets
into, eventually tailing her and seeing one of the elementals in action. They
were entranced, eventually deciding that if something like that existed, they needed
to get their hands on it – to control it, to experience it, to serve it,
whatever. What matters to them is that here’s this thing that’s edge as hell,
and if they’ve tumbled this far, they want to go deep on it.
To that end, they’re gathering like-minded folks to
hyper-analyze everything they have on the elementals and the Chasers. It’s not
a lot of info, but then again, the Chasers aren’t really hiding their battles –
it’s just that coincidentally no one’s outside when they happen, so no one
learns about them. (Yes, this is a trope with no logical explanation.) Faith’s
group is pinning grainy security-cam footage on the walls, they’re tracing
known battle locations, obsessives run amok in Saint Mary's Server Farm and
Congregarium. They got their hands on fragments of the activity logs from a few
computers infected by Garrison’s calculation, not enough to run it themselves,
but enough to understand there’s a heavy-duty calculation going on that’s tied
to the elementals. Faith’s brash enough to think that they can just reverse-engineer
parts of the calculation and just see what happens.
When this episode begins, Addison is part of Faith’s group,
trying to figure out what happened to Plasma. Plasma had been a handle, Addison
had only known her through local forums; whoever Plasma was, Addison had looked
up to her, despite Plasma being domineering and pushy. Plasma had been talking
about some esoteric computations she’d heard about, something that might really
push the limits of the possible. She’d gone silent shortly thereafter, and when
Addison heard that Faith was looking into some kind of supernatural
calculation, she joined the group as muscle, as some defense in case they were
attacked. Addison’s a bulky and tall person, and unlike the rest of the main
characters, her fashion isn’t cyberpunk – she’s got a simple zipper jacket
without emphasized lapels, with the collar half-popped. I’m using Angel from
Deadpool as the visual cue, albeit with more of a gentle-giant demeanor than
the smirking-badass that Angel is. Addison is with Faith because she’s looking
to learn more, but she also knows it’s dangerous going from a pushy
relationship with Plasma to following a hothead like Faith.
Episode 3 opens with a shot of Faith in St. Mary’s, giving
a speech to the fellow hackers in there. This is their chance to stop being
sheep and really matter. Grab data, fit it on the wall and draw conclusions,
interrupt yourself for a conversation with your neighbor, fall in love and
screw and fall out, because this is our summer vacation and anything’s possible.
Let the y’allpacas move like glass, we’re living like lightning. Addison is in
the background, out of place but not uncomfortable, just a bit distant. When
the hackers break into working groups, she sits by the door, keeping an eye
outside and on security cam footage.
Faith comes over and wants to talk, convince Addison to get
more emotionally invested in this project. They talk about the elementals, and
Plasma’s disappearing act comes up, and we realize that Faith doesn’t just want
to know about the elementals, they want to be as involved with this as they can
be, without really thinking about the consequences. If they could run the
calculation just to see what would happen, they probably would, confident that
they could handle anything that went wrong. (Not malicious, just
tech-libertarian.) Addison is guarded, mind clearly not made up, and when the
session ends, she grabs her backpack and heads out.
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