[Characters] [Psychobilly R.T.] Character Database

[FraterChad]

Howdy, folks! Let's get some characters brewing!

Character creation will be done in a few different parts. Each of you will pick your own Playbook and fill it out (details below), but stop at the Introductions/Connections section, as we'll handle that collaboratively. From there, we'll fill out the Team Playbook--either Always on the Road (for a more generic road trip game that takes place in many different places) or the Touring Band (which focuses on the group being part of a, well, touring band). I'll list those in the next post for ease of reference.

First, pick a Playbook! Here are The Maintenance [Person] and The Naturalist Playbooks, as mentioned before. Additionally, you can find pretty much all of the others here. Warning: the homebrew options are Reddit links (wanted credit given where it was due).

Second, you're going to want to open the Playbook and start a new post in this thread. You can copy/paste the template below to help get your character going. Each Playbook is similar but there are some differences, so that's about as generic of a template as I can get.

Third, start filling out your Character Template with the information provided by your Playbook. It should walk you through all of the steps. Stop when you get to the Introductions/Connections part. Note that the template may look a bit different than the Playbook design--you might need to scan around to find the connecting information (since some of the Playbooks got a modern redesign recently). We'll also handle the Team stuff together, so leave that section blank until it's tackled in subsequent posts.

Let's break down some parts of the Playbook/Template so we're all on the same page.

Name: pretty much what it says on the tin, sport.
Looks: pick a trait from each list, or make up your own.
Pronouns: he/him, she/her, they/them

Ratings: these are Monster of the Week's version of ability scores, ranging from -3 to +3. You add these to a 2d6 roll when appropriate. Charm is your measure of charisma and people-skills; Cool is your ability to stay level-headed under pressure; Sharp is intelligence and intellectual pursuits; Tough is for physical skills; and Weird is an all-encompassing supernatural stat. Each Playbook will have several "lines" of stats: Playbooks usually emphasize one or two primary stats, so each line is an example of different ways to build the Playbook. Choose one line and mark each stat on your template.

Starting and Playbook Move(s): each Playbook typically has one or more starting moves. Usually the Playbook will say something like "you get all the Basic Moves, plus three [Playbook] Moves. You get start with this one / these, and then pick [x number] of these." Mark these down on your template--copy/paste should work.

Weird Move: Every Playbook has a Weird Move, with the default being Use Magic (see Basic Move list below). The game will have supernatural elements, but you can choose how much access your character has to it with your Weird Move. You can choose to swap Use Magic for one of the following: Empath, Illuminated, No Limits, Past Lives, Sensitive, Spirit Pact*, Trust Your Gut, Telekinesis, or Weird Science. All of those can be found via this document, save for Spirit Pact which is custom and found below:

Spirit Pact
You have formed a pact with a particular spirit, entity, or monster. The pact could have been formed through a particular ritual, through a gamble or gambit, by friendship and comradery, or any other means; either way, you and the entity have a formalized working relationship. The spirit offers you a sliver of their power (and a spirit's might in their own domain tends to be more potent than a simple Use Magic roll, but at the cost of wider versatility) but you must follow certain rules to maintain the pact--restrictions to how you live, actions of self-denial such as fasting or celibacy, or provide other offerings or sacrifices. Create a spirit with the GM, including its nature and what it can accomplish--for instance, a fire elemental is good at destruction, flashes of light and other iterations of illumination, purification; but is not so great with things requiring a light or delicate touch. When you call upon the spirit to accomplish something in its domain, roll +Weird. On a 10+, the pact remains is untouched and the spirit heeds your call; on a 7-9, the spirit responds, but it expects payment, now; on a 6-, the pact is challenged.

What does the spirit want from you? even if you are on cordial terms with the entity, you still had to provide some element to formalize the Pact. Choose one from this list; you need this with each use:
☐ Magic words, ritual gestures
☐ An object of power which must be wielded
☐ An expendable component that is destroyed or scattered with each use
☐ Runes or symbols written on a surface
And choose one from this list; you need to provide this when the Pact is formed, and when challenged or resealed:
☐ Your Body: Flesh, blood, bone; the amount needed will vary by how challenged the Pact has become.
☐ Your Soul: Your soul is a complex weave of your mind, your morals, your memories, your dreams, your eternal essence, and the things that, together, make you you. The Pact requires some--or all, in time--of it, of you.
☐ Your Time: Time is a precious yet fleeting thing for mortals. The Pact requires yours.
☐ Your Love: in a most inopportune time, you will be required to reaffirm your devotion.

Notes: This is a smashed-together version of a few different Moves. It was inspired by the Spirit Friend weird move from the Bone Spear setting where spirits are much more commonplace and more likely to be neutral, or even friendly, to mortals. I wanted to take that move but make it a bit more gritty, specifically like the Devil Contracts in Chainsaw Man. They're pretty wildly powerful, but the implicit and explicit cost is much more than a simple Use Magic roll. I combined that with a Hex's Rote, which is like a specific spell that can be more easily/reliably called upon than having to Use Magic each time. I wanted the Spirit's effects to be more narrow in scope but more potent because of it. But, because of the nature of the Pact, I wanted to tack on something a bit heavier to propel the narrative in tense, interesting directions. I left the Pact formation/challenge list intentionally evocative and ambiguous to allow it to be molded to the character. It's definitely still rough around the edges, but I'm willing to edit it as needed if this looks remotely interesting.

Moving on, the Basic Moves can be found below the template. Feel free to either copy them into your own post, or just leave them here to reference.

Gear: your Playbook will give you a series of choices for your Gear. Those can be changed to better fit the story or character concept as needed, just let me know.
Luck and Luck Special: You can mark off a Luck box to either change a roll you just made to a 12, as if you had rolled that; or change a wound you have just taken to count as just 0-harm. If your Luck boxes all get filled, you've run out of good luck. Additionally, most Playbooks have a Luck Special that affects the narrative after a Luck point is used. Make sure to note that in your template, or let me know if there's no special listed so I can either find one or make one up.
Harm: When you suffer harm, mark of the number of boxes equal to harm suffered. When you reach four harm, tick “Unstable.”

Character Template:
(remove the * for coding)

[b*]Playbook:[/b]
[b*]Name:[/b]
[b*]Looks:[/b]
[b*]Pronouns:[/b]
[b*]Ratings:[/b] Charm: X; Cool: X; Sharp: X; Tough: X; Weird: X
[b*]Starting and Playbook Move(s):[/b]
[b*]Weird Move*:[/b]
[b*]Basic Moves:[/b]
[b*]Gear:[/b]
[b*]Luck:[/b] Total Luck Points used: 0 out of 7. Luck Special:
[b*]Harm:[/b] Total Harm: 0 out of 7. Unstable Status: [No]
[b*]Introductions/Connections:[/b]
[b*]Team Playbook:[/b]
[b*]Team Style and Improvement:[/b]
[b*]Team Enemy:[/b]
[b*]Team Move(s):[/b]
[b*]Team Asset(s):[/b]

List of Basic Moves
Everyone gets these[List][*] Act Under Pressure, used for any difficult or dangerous action that isn’t covered by another move. 2d6+Cool.[*] Help Out, used to help another hunter do something. If you succeed, you’ll give them a bonus on their task. 2d6+Cool[*] Investigate a Mystery, used to work out what kind of monster you are dealing with, what it can do, and what it’s planning. 2d6+Sharp[*] Kick Some Ass, used for fighting. Fighting monsters, mainly. 2d6+Tough.[*] Manipulate Someone, used to try and get someone to do something for you, after you give them some kind of reason. 2d6+Charm.[*] Protect Someone, used to save someone from danger. 2d6+Tough.[*] Read a Bad Situation, used to work out what dangers are immediately threatening you. For instance, if you think you are walking into a trap, or want to do some tactical analysis. 2d6+Sharp.[*] Use Magic (Weird Move), used to cast magic spells or use enchanted items. 2d6+Weird.[*] Use Big Magic, used to perform much more complex, powerful, and dangerous rituals that cover what Use Magic (and other Weird Moves) cannot do--but with higher costs and higher potential consequences. No roll is necessary after the GM-listed requirements are met.[List]

Also, for reference, here are the 50's character tropes and archetypes, with social warts and all:

• Greasers: clad in leather jackets and denim jeans, greasers were a popular subculture for the working and lower class folk, especially those of Italian and Latin descent (and, anachronistically, the Japanese). Greasers tend to have a love for hot rods and motor cycles, along with a growing disillusionment with popular culture. Grease that hair into a perfect pompadour, grab your pack of smokes, and turn up the rock n' roll: it's time to party.
• Socialites ("Socs"): Yup, the Wikipedia entry for "soc" (made famous by the Outsiders novel pitting the greasers against their rivals, the socs), redirects to Ivy League (clothes). Rivaling the greasers, the socialites were typically from the upper echelon of American society, typically hailing from and/or attending those most prestigious Ivy League schools and sporting a similar fashion: sport coats, blazers, oxford shirts, and the like. If that sounds like preppy clothing, then you'd be right: this was the predecessor of that style. Unlike greasers, the Socs were direct descendants of more traditional culture, though not nearly as stuck-up about it.
• Beatniks: Beatniks were the original hipsters, more or less. Black turtlenecks, berets, dark sunglasses: the look started here. Beat culture gave way to Hippie culture in the 60's.
• The All-American Boy or Girl (inverted as the Dirty Commie): gee whiz, mister! Baseball, love of the Country and Scouts (Boy or Girl), and plucky can-do attitudes are all staples of the All American. In essence, this is the most "normal" of the Archetypes (even if dialed up to 11). They may not be all that motivated by Moral Panics, but they always stay on the Good and Right side of them.
• The Housewife or Unwed Dolls/Dames (inverted as the Sex Symbol)
• Wrench Wenches and Working Women; Blue Collar Men (farmers, machinists, milk-men, gas station attendant, etc.)
• Scientist, of the Atomic or Mad varieties
• John Wayne Worshipers: Western films were a staple of the 50's, and their nostalgic (often stylized, anachronistic, and outright propaganda) take on the rumble-tumble culture of Wild West was ingrained in much popular culture of the time.
• Racial Enclaves and Foreign Culture Fetishists: This one is more prickly, but it's worth considering. I don't have to remind everyone that the 50's were a particularly difficult time for folks that weren't in the various privileged groups. The Civil Rights Movement was becoming more center-stage, but other marginalized groups also strived to obtain and maintain their own rights. Unfortunately, the 50's was a time where different racial groups came in two distinct flavors in trad culture: demonized or fetishized. Lovecraft Country does a good job of portraying the former, but Hawaii and other Pacific Island cultures were just exotic (and physically separated enough) to be safely interesting: Hawaiian shirts and Tiki drinks became (even more) popular in this era. I don't intend this to be its own, separate archetype but more of a cultural reference: if you're thinking of including these elements (along with the John Wayne one above), make sure to be particularly cautious.

[FraterChad]

Team Playbooks

As previously discussed, we get to collaboratively fill out a Team Playbook. Here are the options for both that seemed appealing. Remember, we can only choose one, but we can still flavor them however we wish.

* * *

Always on the Road
You are a traveling monster hunting team. Every week is a new town with a new problem.

Style and Improvement
Pick one of these styles (and the associated improvement question):

• Family: You're all family, or as good as. At the end of each session, ask: "Did we talk about--or pointedly not talk about--something that was troubling a team member?"
• Vocation: Someone has to do it, and you happened to be able. At the end of each session, ask: "Did we save the people we went there to protect?"
• Excitement: Monster hunting sure is a new thrill every time. At the end of each session, ask: "Did we take any extremely dangerous risks?"
• Custom: What's your story? At the end of each session, as [something related]."

At the end of each session, answer the question. If yes, gain one improvement mark. If yes came up a lot, gain two improvement marks.

Improvement Marks: 0 out of 5.

When you fill in the improvement box, clear the improvement track and choose one of these:

• Gain a new team move.
• Gain a new team ally.
• Gain two new asset selections.
• Make the next mystery about your team enemy, giving you a chance to interfere in their plans.

Enemies
Choose your team's chief nemesis:

• Halphas, a demon who has it in for you.
• All the vampires.
• Dr. Crepuscle, who steals unnatural power from captured monsters.
• The King in Yellow, a god/force of corruption, decadence, and disease.
• A cabal of ghosts trying to secure the secret to returning to life.
• Something else: ___.

Team Allies
Choose your team allies from the list. You start with one ally:

• Detective Barnes, a police detective who you saved from a monster way back when. They'll help you out with some information now and then, and possibly more when you're on their turf.
• Bingo, an always-online researcher into strangeness. They can put you in touch with people who need help, coordinate communication, and help you with research.
• Sapphire, who has the ability to manipulate time in certain ways. You suspect that she may be very long-lived or even immortal. She is not always easy to contact, and can appear unexpectedly.
• Another group of traveling hunters, an ally team. They can back you up in monster hunting--you've helped each other out several times when things got tricky.
• Something else: _____.

Team Moves
Choose your team moves from the list. You start with one move. The first one is a good default choice:

• Home Away from Home: Whenever you arrive in a new town, you immediately find a motel and a café / malt-shop that are friendly and welcoming. One or the other will turn out to have a connection to the mystery that brought you here, even if just by having a bystander come by.
• Geniality: When you meet a new person in a town you haven't visited before, roll +Charm. On a 10+, they are well-disposed towards you. On a 7-9, they're still well-disposed but the GM chooses one: they're marked for trouble, or they conceal something from the hunters. Additionally, when you return to a town that you have already visited, you can always run into the people you befriended previously.
• Handy: You're all good at fixing stuff. Anything broken or messed up in the course of a mystery is repaired and ready to go before the next one. Gear or assets that would be described as "totally destroyed" still need to be replaced.
• No-stick: You've had yourselves removed from official and law-enforcement databases. You don't have to worry about misunderstandings from previous towns getting in the way of your hunts (unless someone got annoyed enough to make a personal vendetta).
• Monster Journals: When a mystery reminds you of something you've encountered before, consult your notes and tell the GM what you think is the same. The GM will say if you got it right. If you're correct, take a +1 forward to investigate a mystery. If you're wrong but had a good idea, take a +1 forward to read a bad situation. If you're totally off base, the GM holds 1 to put you in a tight spot.
• Something Different: Take a move from another team playbook.
• Change Team Style: Pick a new team style. You now use that one instead of the one you first chose.

Team Assets
Choose from these available assets (if there are two boxes, you need to mark both to earn that asset). You start with the Individual Transport, as well as one other box to choose from:

• ☑ Individual Transport (you start with this one): A regular car, motorbike, bicycle for every member of the team.
• ☐☐ Mobile Base: A truck or bus with bunks and mystery investigation supplies on board.
• ☐ Credentials: Real, or good-as-real, identification that gets you access to law-enforcement and other official contacts.
• ☐☐ Lair: A relatively secure space to use as a base. There's room for all your monster hunting gear and books, maybe even space to sleep and a kitchen.
• ☐ Hunter Roadhouses: A network of bars, diners, and motels where you can safely meet other monster hunters. Many are run by retired hunters.
• ☐ Tool Kit: One or two of your vehicles carry tool kits. You have most tools you'll need to repair or build something.
• ☐ Mystical Ingredients Cabinet: A box with a wide-range of frequently useful supplies for magical rituals.
• ☐ Slush Fund: The team has access to a bank account that can pay for their day-to-day needs while monster hunting, and stretches to a big purchase every now and again. Where did it come from?
• ☐ Armory: One of your cars has a well-stocked weapons chest. Each mystery, every hunter may take one extra regular weapon. Also, once per mystery, one hunter may ask the GM if the armory has a special weapon: if yes, you can take it; if no, take a +1 forward.
• ☐ Field Medics: You have enough supplies and training to treat one hunter per night as if they'd had a proper doctor or trip to the emergency room.
• ☐ Custom: _______.

* * *

Touring Band

[Kaigen]

Playbook: The Monstrous
Name: Artie Waller
Looks: Almost human, unnerving aura, tailored clothes
Pronouns: he/him
Ratings: Charm: -1; Cool: +1; Sharp: +1; Tough: =0; Weird: +3
Starting and Playbook Move(s):

• Curse: Vulnerability: Pick a substance [Mercury]. You suffer +1 harm when you suffer harm from it. If you are bound or surrounded by it, you must act under pressure to use your powers.
• Natural Attack: Base: life-drain (1-harm intimate life-drain); Extra: Add ignore-armour to base.
• Immortal: You do not age or sicken, and whenever you suffer harm you suffer 1-harm less.
• Unquechable Vitality: When you have taken harm, you can heal yourself. Roll +Cool. On a 10+, heal 2-harm and stabilise your injuries. On a 7-9, heal 1-harm and stabilise your injuries. On a miss, your injuries worsen.

Weird Move: No Limits: When you push your physical body past its limits, roll +Weird:

• On a 10 or more, your body obeys your will, to the limits of physical possibility, for a moment.
• On a 7-9, you do it but choose one consequence: suffer 1-harm, take –1 forward, or you need to rest right now.
• On a miss, something goes
  horribly wrong.

Basic Moves: Act Under Pressure (+Cool); Help Out (+Cool); Investigate a Mystery (+Sharp); Kick Some Ass (+Tough); Manipulate Someone (+Charm); Protect Someone (+Tough); Read a Bad Situation (+Sharp); No Limits (+Weird)
Gear: Shotgun (3-harm close messy)
Luck: Total Luck Points used: 0 out of 7. Luck Special:When you spend a point of Luck, your monster side gains power: your Curse may become stronger, or another Breed disadvantage may manifest
Harm: Total Harm: 0 out of 7. Unstable Status: [No]
Introductions/Connections:

• Kitty tried to slay Artie, but he proved he was on the side of good.
• Charles saved Artie from another hunter who was prepared to kill him.
• Susie and Artie fought together against the odds and prevailed.
• Tony is a close relation of one of Artie's old mob buddies.

Team Playbook: Always on the Road
Team Style and Improvement: Vocation
Team Enemy: Dr. Crepuscule
Team Move(s): Home Away From Home
Team Asset(s): Hunter Roadhouses, Slush Fund

 

He looks like he's in his twenties, but he talks like your grandpa. He never gets sick, shrugs off most hits, and heals ridiculously fast. He carries around a short-barrelled shotgun; he calls it a "trench gun" and says his pop brought it home from "The Great War." He likes jazz and sometimes starts singing in French, and he has a penchant for three piece suits. He can put on an alias for brief periods, but he always reverts back to calling himself Artie. Those fluorescent lights that are all the rage give him bad headaches, and he never eats seafood, claims he's allergic.

 

His birth name was Arthur Wojtowicz, but he started calling himself "Artie Waller" because nobody wanted to hear a Pole sing jazz. Nobody wanted to hear Artie sing jazz either, so he fell in with a rum-running family called the Valentis. Unfortunately, the Valentis had the disadvantage of being human in a city where the other gangs were run by monsters; when they sent Artie out on a series of desperate raids to claw back some territory, he kept tripping over the damn things. Ended up starting a lot of fires, because more often than not, that worked when buckshot didn't, so people starting calling his team "The Valenti Burn Squad."

Saying "things went bad" implies that things were ever going well, but things went worse. Artie got captured and brought before an ageless little boy who was pulling the strings on the whole thing. When he refused to sell out the rest of the squad, the boy made him immortal, just like him, so he could keep him around longer to torture. Time went fuzzy after that. After a while, the boy seemed to forget about him. A while after that, Artie finally got free, only to find that he'd been out of circulation for three decades. His parents were dead, and he couldn't risk anyone from the old days recognizing him, so he skipped town, tried to find something to do with himself, because if he didn't, he'd be tempted to look up old faces and ask pointed questions.

But it turns out you can find monsters just about anywhere, and Artie still knows a thing or two about killing them, even if he probably is one now. He doesn't know much about what that kid did to him, but he knows he can't make a false identity stick, and he knows that mercury hurts like acid. That kid was twisted as hell, but maybe he was always like that. Maybe Artie doesn't have to worry about what living too long will do to him.

[Aethera]

Playbook: The Maintenance Gal
Name: Katherine "Kitty" Ingraham
Looks: Adult wearing t-shirt and jeans and a crazy toolbelt (definition of Wrench Wench)
Pronouns: she/her
Ratings: Charm: +0; Cool: +0; Sharp: +1; Tough: +0; Weird: +2
Starting and Playbook Move(s):

I work here: When wearing your regular uniform, you can blend in as “maintenance” just about anywhere. People won’t pay much attention to you as you move around a building alone. But stay cautious — linger too long or talk to the wrong person and you might get caught.

Engineering: When you need to quickly fix (or break) a complicated gadget, roll +Sharp. On a 10+, it’s fixed (or broken) just like you wanted. On a 7-9 you need more time to study it: choose to fix (or break) it now with unknown side-effects, or take more time. On a miss, you do the worst thing possible to the gadget, which usually involves an explosion.

Blue-Collar Charm: You know how to talk to your fellow industrymen. Take +1 ongoing while dealing with another blue-collar worker. If you offer to help them with a job or task, they’ll help you in return, as if you’d roll a 10+ to Manipulate them. If you’re helpful enough, they may become your ally for the remainder of the mystery.

Weird Science: (+Weird)

 

When you want to create or adapt a device to analyze or deal with a strange phenomenon, say what it will do and roll +Weird. On a 10 or more, you pick one requirement. On a 7-9, you pick one requirement and the Keeper picks another. On a 6 or less, something goes horribly wrong.

Weird Science requirements:

• It needs a rare and/or weird material.
• It won’t be very reliable.
• It requires huge amounts of power or fuel.
• It will take a long time to get it working.
• It won’t work exactly as intended.
• You’ll need help (beyond the hunters on your team) to finish it.

Advanced Weird Science: When you advance your Weird Science move, add this:

• On a 12 or more, you gain + 1 ongoing when operating this device.

Basic Moves:

• Act Under Pressure, used for any difficult or dangerous action that isn’t covered by another move. 2d6+Cool.
• Help Out, used to help another hunter do something. If you succeed, you’ll give them a bonus on their task. 2d6+Cool
• Investigate a Mystery, used to work out what kind of monster you are dealing with, what it can do, and what it’s planning. 2d6+Sharp
• Kick Some Ass, used for fighting. Fighting monsters, mainly. 2d6+Tough.
• Manipulate Someone, used to try and get someone to do something for you, after you give them some kind of reason. 2d6+Charm.
• Protect Someone, used to save someone from danger. 2d6+Tough.
• Read a Bad Situation, used to work out what dangers are immediately threatening you. For instance, if you think you are walking into a trap, or want to do some tactical analysis. 2d6+Sharp.
• Use Magic (Weird Move), used to cast magic spells or use enchanted items. 2d6+Weird.
• Use Big Magic, used to perform much more complex, powerful, and dangerous rituals that cover what Use Magic (and other Weird Moves) cannot do—but with higher costs and higher potential consequences. No roll is necessary after the GM-listed requirements are met.

Gear: Regular Uniform, consisting of a mechanic's jumpsuit and a pair of +1 harm when fighting without a weaponsteel-toed boots.
Maintenance Weapon, 1-harm hand magic innocuous quick usefulThe Wrench. Backup Weapon, 2-harm close loud9mm.
Luck: Okay □□□□□□□ Doomed
Luck Special: Your Weird Science weapon or a tool you’ve created through Weird Science gives itself an unexpected upgrade. Pick two tags and replace them with two new ones. You pick one, the Keeper picks the other.
Harm: Okay □□□|□□□□ Dying
Unstable Status: [No]
Experience: □□□□□

Introductions/Connections:

• I tried to slay Artie, but he proved he was on the side of good. What convinced me?

  I might be a mechanic, but I know there's no reason for someone to leap as though he had a fright and start reacting to spilled liquid mercury from a broken thermometer. When I saw that, I tried to kill the young man, because something was clearly amiss, and I feared for my life. (The Agency may have spun up the importance of killing all Monsters in our occasional encounters.) Fortunately, I'm a mechanic, not an assassin, and Artie was able to explain himself and assist me with [...?], convincing me he was at least a Monster doing Good. Trust somewhat followed.

• An old rivalry with Tony has turned into a tight friendship.

  Kitty and Tony met when she had just finished road repairs to a high end Ford. She packed up her tools and returned to her car, only to find some dumb Greaser trying to start the car without properly using the clutch. Not only was the kid trying to steal her car, but he didn't know how to drive it in the first place. I reported him, he got away with it somehow. Took a few years of occasionally running into one another before we got past that stumbling block.

• I pulled Charles and maybe his team out of a terrible FUBARed mission.

  I'd had sporadic contact with a group only calling themselves "The Agency" when I'd had some more unusual mechanical results from my tinkering, but they didn't usually call on me to do anything, it was more their oversight of what I was working on. That changed one late night when I got a phone call from someone who didn't give his name over the phone but said the Agency had given him my phone number because he was in a bit of a bind, his getaway car had broken down. I was his next getaway option.

• Susie is my cousin, but since she left home and came to stay with me, she's been keeping me at a distance emotionally.

---

Team Playbook: Always on the Road
Team Style and Improvement: Vocation
Team Enemy: Dr. Crepuscule
Team Move(s): Home Away From Home
Team Asset(s): Hunter Roadhouses, Slush Fund (old mob money via Artie, Kitty's patents, etc.)

[SevenStones]

Playbook: The Spooky
Name: Mary Sue Quentin (aka Susie)
Looks: Adult, shadowed eyes, neat clothes.
Pronouns: She/her
Ratings: Charm: +1; Cool: 0; Sharp: +1; Tough: -1; Weird: +2
Starting and Playbook Move(s):
The Sight: You can see the invisible, especially spirits and magical influences. You may communicate with (maybe even make deals with) the spirits you see, and they give you more opportunities to spot clues when you investigate a mystery.

Hunches: When something bad is happening (or just about to happen) somewhere that you aren't, roll +Sharp. On a 10+ you knew where you needed to go, just in time to get there. On a 7-9, you get there late -- in time to intervene, but not prevent it altogether. On a miss, you get there just in time to be in trouble yourself.

Jinx: You can encourage coincidences to occur the way you want. When you jinx a target, roll +Weird. On a 10+ hold 2 and on a 7-9 hold 1. On a miss, the Keeper holds 2 over you to be used in the same way. Spend your hold to:

• Interfere with a hunter, giving them -1 forward.
• Help a hunter, giving them +1 forward by interfering with their enemy.
• Interfere with what a monster, minion or bystander is trying to do.
• Inflict 1-harm on the target due to an accident.
• The target finds something you left for them.
• The target loses something you will soon find.

Weird Move*: Sensitive: When you open up your brain to the psychic environment, roll +Weird.

• On a 10 or more, you gain a definite impression (vision, tangible aura, overheard thought, etc.) about something important.
• On a 7-9, you gain a hazy impression.
• On a miss, your brain makes contact with something dangerous.

Basic Moves:

• Act Under Pressure: used for any difficult or dangerous action that isn’t covered by another move. 2d6+Cool.
• Help Out: used to help another hunter do something. If you succeed, you’ll give them a bonus on their task. 2d6+Cool
• Investigate a Mystery: used to work out what kind of monster you are dealing with, what it can do, and what it’s planning. 2d6+Sharp
• Kick Some Ass: used for fighting. Fighting monsters, mainly. 2d6+Tough.
• Manipulate Someone: used to try and get someone to do something for you, after you give them some kind of reason. 2d6+Charm.
• Protect Someone: used to save someone from danger. 2d6+Tough.
• Read a Bad Situation: used to work out what dangers are immediately threatening you. For instance, if you think you are walking into a trap, or want to do some tactical analysis. 2d6+Sharp.
• Sensitive, see above.

Gear: .38 revolver (2-harm close reload loud), hunting rifle (2-harm far loud)
Luck: Total Luck Points used: 0 out of 7. Luck Special: As you mark off Luck boxes, your dark side's needs (see below) will get nastier.
Harm: Total Harm: 0 out of 7. Unstable Status: [No]
Introductions/Connections:
Charles: You used your powers on him one time. Decide if it was for selfish reasons and tell him if he found out about it.

Charles and Susie crossed paths on a mission some time ago. Susie, who doesn't trust most people, didn't trust Charles at first either. She tried to Jinx him to scare him away, but it naturally didn't work. He found out, leading him to convince her they needed to work together. She's still not sure she trusts him, but she recognizes that might be her own hangup.

Tony: They saw you use your powers for selfish or vindictive reasons. Ask them who the victim was, and then tell them what you did.

Tony walked in on the tail end of an argument between Susie and Kitty. As Kitty walked away, he saw her use her Jinx power to push an old toolbox off an overhead shelf. It would have landed right on Kitty's head and done some serious damage, but he moved Kitty out of the way in time for the toolbox to crash to the floor instead.

Artie: Custom connection.

Surprised and afraid of Artie's sudden appearance one morning at Kitty's workshop -- Artie had crashed there the night before -- Susie explodes a fluorescent bulb with a Jinx, revealing Artie's weakness to mercury.

Kitty: You’ve known each other some time, but since your powers manifested, you keep them at a distance emotionally.

Susie and Kitty are cousins. She's always looked up to Kitty as an example of a woman who isn't bound by traditional expectations like Susie has been, and when she left home, Kitty's place was where she ended up. But she kept her powers a secret for fear of hurting her cousin, until it came out that she and Kitty both knew Charles. Their unwillingness to trust one another with their secrets has led to emotional distance and weirdness (with a lower-case w) that continues to persist, occasionally manifesting in yelling matches, silent treatment, and other such tension.

Team Playbook: Always on the Road
Team Style and Improvement: Vocation
Team Enemy: Dr. Crepuscule
Team Move(s): Home Away From Home
Team Asset(s): Hunter Roadhouses, Slush Fund

 

Your powers have an unsavory source, and sometimes you get tempted to do things you shouldn’t. These could be orders from whatever granted your power, or urges that bubble up from your subconscious. Something like that. Whatever it is, it’s unsettling.

Pick three tags for your dark side: Guilt, Rage, Addiction

The Keeper can ask you to do nasty things (in accordance with the tags), when your powers need you to. If you do whatever is asked, mark experience. If you don’t do it, then your powers are unavailable until the end of the mystery (or until you cave). As you mark off Luck boxes, these requests will get bigger and nastier.

 

Mary Sue Quentin, or Susie to everyone but her mother, comes from a working-class Catholic family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The second-youngest of seven and the only daughter, Susie was doted on by her father and amiably teased by her six brothers, getting more attention than her mother ever did from any of them. It made for a tense relationship between the two Quentin women, though Susie didn't really understand why until much later in life. She grew up a good Catholic girl, sang in the choir, attended Mass regularly, and fully expected to get married soon after high school and start raising a family of her own. That was the dream, the expectation, the Thing Good Girls Do.

It was early on in high school when... things started happening. The time Mary Kate O'Connor fell off the chair while trying to put up decorations for the bake sale not two shakes of a lamb's tail after Susie had thought how deliciously marvelous it would be if the meanest girl in the school had an accident. Mary Kate broke her arm that time. Predisposed to feel guilty about all sorts of things that weren't really her fault, Susie walked around with a twisting in her stomach for weeks. She couldn't eat, had awful nightmares where Mary Kate didn't just break her arm, she broke her neck and died, then her reanimated corpse... no, let's not talk about that.

That sort of thing continued throughout high school. The visions. She learned quickly to not say anything about the specters she would see loitering about the school, near the church, outside her parents' bedroom. She wasn't crazy. She wasn't! Of course, she threw herself into trying to be as normal as possible. She tried a little bit of rebellion. Went to a couple of parties she knew she shouldn't be at, with some friends her mother certainly did not approve of. Had a little bit to drink. She was just about to have her first kiss when she developed a sudden splitting headache and saw very clearly one of the friends she'd come with in a very dangerous situation with a boy who must have been in college. She ran up to the room where she just knew they'd be -- don't ask her how -- just in time to see him pin her friend to the bed. She picked up a nearby lamp and clubbed him over the head with it. Knocked him right out. And then she threw up. Maybe she'd had more than a little bit to drink.

It became a cycle for Susie. Periods of quiet, normal, middle-class American life punctuated with self-destructive episodes brought on by visions she didn't understand and couldn't control. When her father died during her last year of high school and her brothers had almost all gone off to their own lives, she only had her mother and little brother Francis. She had a strong suspicion that her mother knew about her visions. She would have liked to talk to her about them, but too much time had passed. Too much recrimination. After graduating from high school, she moved to Chicago. Fell into the same cycle. She moved to Indianapolis. St. Louis. Kansas City. She couldn't stay anywhere for very long without feeling haunted by the spirits. She's learned to communicate with them a little to get them to leave her alone, learned to avoid wishing ill on people since it would too often come to pass, learned to pay attention to her hunches about bad things about to happen, but there's rarely a day goes by that she doesn't wish it would all just go away. Or that she could at least find more control.

Most of the time, she's the epitome of a polite, proper young woman in her mid-twenties whose eyes have seen too many things for someone as straight-laced and young as she is, but is nonetheless pleasant and cheerful and a joy to be around. When the darkness seeps in, though, she turns to the triple play: alcohol, deep-seated guilt and self-destruction.

[BloodShadow]

Playbook: The Professional
Name: Charles Richardson
Looks: Determined face, tailored suit
Pronouns: He/him
Ratings: Charm: 0; Cool: 2; Sharp: 2; Tough: -1; Weird: -1
Agency: Occult and Monster Investigation and Neutralization (OMIN)

• Resources: Official pull, Support teams
• Red Tape: Secretive hierarchy, Take no prisoners policy

Starting and Playbook Move(s):

• Battlefield Awareness: You always know what’s happening around you, and what to watch out for. Take +1 armour (max 2-armour) on top of whatever you get from your gear.
• Leave No One Behind: In combat, when you help someone escape, roll +Sharp. On a 10+ you get them out clean. On a 7-9, you can either get them out or suffer no harm, you choose. On a miss, you fail to get them out and you’ve attracted hostile attention.
• Medic: You have a full first aid kit, and the training to heal people. When you do first aid, roll +Cool. On a 10+ the patient is stabilized and healed of 2 harm. On a 7-9 choose one: heal 2 harm or stabilize the injury. On a miss, you cause an extra 1 harm. This move takes the place of regular first aid.
• When you deal with the Agency, requesting help or gear, or making excuses for a failure, roll +Sharp. On a 10+, you’re good—your request for gear or personnel is okayed, or your slip-up goes unnoticed. On a 7-9, things aren’t so great. You might get chewed out by your superiors and there’ll be fallout, but you get what you need for the job. On a miss, you screwed up: you might be suspended or under investigation, or just in the doghouse. You certainly aren’t going to get any help until you sort it all out.

Weird Move*: Trust Your Gut. When you consult your instincts about what to do next, roll +Weird:

• On a 10 or more, the Keeper will tell where you should go. Wherever that is, it will be important. You get +1 ongoing on the way to this place.
• On a 7-9, the Keeper will tell you a general direction to go. Take +1 forward as you explore that.
• On a miss, your instincts lead you into danger.

Basic Moves:

• Act Under Pressure, used for any difficult or dangerous action that isn’t covered by another move. 2d6+Cool.
• Help Out, used to help another hunter do something. If you succeed, you’ll give them a bonus on their task. 2d6+Cool.
• Investigate a Mystery, used to work out what kind of monster you are dealing with, what it can do, and what it’s planning. 2d6+Sharp.
• Kick Some Ass, used for fighting. Fighting monsters, mainly. 2d6+Tough.
• Manipulate Someone, used to try and get someone to do something for you, after you give them some kind of reason. 2d6+Charm.
• Protect Someone, used to save someone from danger. 2d6+Tough.
• Read a Bad Situation, used to work out what dangers are immediately threatening you. For instance, if you think you are walking into a trap, or want to do some tactical analysis. 2d6+Sharp.
• Trust Your Gut*, 2d6+Weird.
• Use Big Magic, used to perform much more complex, powerful, and dangerous rituals that cover what Use Magic cannot do--but with higher costs and higher potential consequences. No roll is necessary after the GM-listed requirements are met.

Gear: Flak vest (1-armour hidden), M1A1 CarbineAssault rifle (3-harm far area loud reload, Browning Hi-Power9mm (2-harm close loud), M4 bayonetBig knife (1-harm hand)
Luck: Total Luck Points used: ☐☐☐☐☐☐☐ Luck Special: When you spend a point of Luck, your next mission from the Agency comes with lots of Red Tape. Lots.
Harm: Total Harm: ☐☐☐☐☐☐☐ Unstable Status: [No]
Introductions/Connections:

• Tony, The Spell-Slinger: They’re on the Agency’s watch list, and you’ve been keeping an eye on them.
  
• Susie, The Spooky: You met on a mission and worked together unofficially. And successfully.
  
• Kitty, The Maintenance Gal: They pulled you (and maybe your team) out of a terrible FUBARed mission.
  
• Artie, The Monstrous: You got sent to “deal with them” as a hazard to the Agency’s policies one time. Tell them how you resolved this.

Team Playbook: Always on the Road
Team Style and Improvement: Vocation
Team Enemy: Dr. Crepuscule
Team Move(s): Home Away From Home
Team Asset(s): Hunter Roadhouses, Slush Fund
Individual Transport: Studebaker Starlight

Character Summary: Charles is a former medic and paratrooper of the 326th Airborne Medical Company. He had his first encounters with monsters during the war, resulting in significant casualties. After the end of the war. He was recruited into OMIN where he received supplementary training for his new profession.

[Strangemund]

Playbook: The Spell-Slinger
Name: Antonio Del Santiago, or Tony, for his friends.
Looks: Greaser clothes, one magically scarred eye, short king
Pronouns: he/him
Ratings: Charm: -1; Cool: +1; Sharp: +1; Tough: +0; Weird: +2
Old Ties: Cult of the Stygian Wyrm

Starting and Playbook Move(s):

Combat Magic: You have a few attack spells you can use as weapons. When you use these spells to kick some ass, roll +Weird instead of +Tough. Sometimes the situation may require you to act under pressure to cast your spell without problems. Your combat spells can combine any of your base spells with any of your effects.

• Combat Magic: Blast (Base.) 2 harm magic. Close. Obvious. Loud.
• Combat Magic: Fire (Effects.) Add ‘+2 harm’ to a base. If you get a +10 on a combat magic roll, the fire won’t spread.
• Combat Magic: Necromantic (Effect.) Add ‘life drain’ to a base.

Tools and Techniques: To use your combat magic effectively, you rely on a collection of tools and techniques.

• Foci: You need wands, staves, and other obvious props to focus. If you don’t have what you need, your combat does 1 less harm.
• Gestures: You need to wave your hands around to use combat magic. If you’re restrained, take -1 ongoing for combat magic.
• Incantations: You must speak in an arcane language to control your magic. If you use combat magic without speaking, Act Under Pressure to avoid scrambling your thoughts.

Enchanted Clothing (Greaser Jacket): Pick an article of every-day clothing –it’s enchanted without any change in appearance. Take -1 harm from any source that tries to get at you through the garment.

Could’ve Been Worse: When you miss a use magic roll you can choose one of the following options instead of losing control of the magic:

• Fizzle: The preparations and materials for the spell are ruined. You’ll have to start over from scratch with the prep time doubled.
• This Is Gonna Suck: The effect happens, but you trigger all of the listed glitches but one. You pick the one you avoid.

Go Big or Go Home: When you must use magic as a requirement for Big Magic, take +1 ongoing to those use magic rolls.

Weird Move: Use Magic. When you use magic, say what you’re trying to achieve and how you do the spell, then roll +Weird.
On a 10+, the magic works without issues: choose your effect.
On a 7-9, it works imperfectly: choose your effect and a glitch. The Keeper will decide what effect the glitch has. advanced:
On a 12+ the Keeper will offer you some added benefit.

 

Effects
• Inflict harm (1-harm ignore armour magic obvious).
• Enchant a weapon. It gets +1 harm
and +magic.
• Do one thing that is beyond human
limitations.
• Bar a place or portal to a specific
person or a type of creature.
• Trap a specific person, minion, or
monster.
• Banish a spirit or curse from the
person, object, or place it inhabits.
• Summon a monster into the world.
• Communicate with something that
you do not share a language with.
• Observe another place or time.
• Heal 1-harm from an injury, or
cure a disease, or neutralize a
poison.

Glitches
• The effect is weakened.
• The effect is of short duration.
• You take 1-harm ignore-armour.
• The magic draws immediate,
unwelcome attention.
• It has a problematic side effect.

Basic Moves:

• Act Under Pressure: used for any difficult or dangerous action that isn’t covered by another move. 2d6+Cool.
• Help Out: used to help another hunter do something. If you succeed, you’ll give them a bonus on their task. 2d6+Cool
• Investigate a Mystery: used to work out what kind of monster you are dealing with, what it can do, and what it’s planning. 2d6+Sharp
• Kick Some Ass: used for fighting. Fighting monsters, mainly. 2d6+Tough.
• Manipulate Someone: used to try and get someone to do something for you, after you give them some kind of reason. 2d6+Charm.
• Protect Someone: used to save someone from danger. 2d6+Tough.
• Read a Bad Situation: used to work out what dangers are immediately threatening you. For instance, if you think you are walking into a trap, or want to do some tactical analysis. 2d6+Sharp.

Gear: Ritual knife (1 harm. Hand.) Arcane Tome (Reflavored Stave. Foci Tool.)
Luck: Total Luck Points used: 0 out of 7. Luck Special:
Harm: Total Harm: 0 out of 7. Unstable Status: [No]
Introductions/Connections:

Team Playbook: Always on the Road
Team Style and Improvement: Vocation
Team Enemy: Dr. Crepuscule
Team Ally: Bingo
Team Move(s): Home Away From Home
Team Asset(s): Hunter Roadhouses and Slush Funds

Connections and History:

Susie & Tony

Charles & Tony

Artie & Tony

Kitty & Tony