The Light Seeker

My fairly terrible Mignola-copying cover for a fictional Natalie Coutourier-starring Chuubo's comic called "Winter: Flowers in the Ice". I'm not done, but I don't know that I ever will be done so...

A pretty quick round of doodles of the four currently-released Chuubo's Main Characters.

A Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine Interlude by Rip van Mason

Over on RPG.net, I'm in a PbP game of the Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine (an RPG by jennamoran) campaign Glass Maker's Dragon (I play Natalie Coutourier, the Vampire Prodigy) [You'll need to have an RPG.net account to click that link].

The game is being HGed by the incredible Rip van Mason.  And, in between doing some damn good HGing, he's been peppering little "Interlude" fictions into the game and they are amazing.  Like the best bits of micro-fiction I've ever seen in an RPG.  And, with his permission, I'm reprinting them here (mostly so jennamoran can see them because they're great and I think she'll get a kick out of them!)

Interlude I of IX – Childe Rider to the Farthest Tree Came

Journey to the Outside - Characters

Prepare to go on a great quest to the ends of Creation and well, well beyond. Before you know what to pack for such a quest, though, you need to figure out just who you are! So, are you...

❀ The Light Seeker, Tripp Tanaka, if you want

✶ to be the sort of person who tends to fall headfirst into trouble

✶ to make friends out of enemies

✶ to be sort of naive and embarrassing

✶ to have a mission to find a great treasure

(or are you the Rider girl variant, Susan Numidia, instead?)

❀ The Peerless Spirit, Sonya Hou, if you want

✶ to be an impossibly skilled nature god

✶ to be a reluctant hero and a bit of a jerk

✶ to climb a ladder to heaven and face what doth dwell therein

(or are you the cyborg variant, SWk-2456, instead?)

❀ The Vice Magus, Roderick Titov, if you want

✶ to be something of a comic relief

✶ to use weird and scary magic to get what you want

✶ to decide the fate of whole worlds despite being wildly unqualified

(or are you the girl variant, Zoey Titova, instead? Or maybe you're Colbrand, the False Light?)

❀ The Granite Knight, Oboliu Waite, if you want

✶ to be steadfast even in the face of terrible things

✶ to labor under a terrible enchantment

✶ to get things done when your companions are always faffing about

✶ to be asked to sacrifice your life to remove a great darkness from the world

(or are you the boy variant, Dace Lillimut, instead?)

❀ The Servant Prince, Julian Lungren, if you want

✶ to change into a bunch of shapes but especially an enormous dragon!

✶ to quest to regain your honor and impress your family

✶ to put someone else's needs before your own

✶ I did mention becoming a dragon, right?

(or are you the girl variant, Yurian Lopez, instead?)

Or come and be . . .

❀ The HG, or "Hollyhock God," if you want

✶ to focus on describing the world rather than being attached to any particular character

✶ to play the game, and nobody else is being the HG, so you had better!

✶ to be able to just say that things happen and they do, and

✶ to help pull together a story from the things characters do,

Looking through some old stuff, I found this pile of adorable Yozis I doodled years ago.

Quick doodle of a Fortitude Rat wizard I'm considering finishing up for wizardbattles. Maybe. Or not. I think I'm out of practice drawing wizards.

Luke Skywalker in Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine

Today I was posting on a thread in RPG.net about using Canon Characters and Franchise Settings when, quite unexpectedly, I wrote this lengthy explanation of how Luke Skywalker would work as a Chuubo Main Character if Star Wars were a GMD-style campaign rather than a movie series.

I'm actually pretty happy with it, so I'm gonna put it here so I don't lose it.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Let's imagine Star Wars wasn't a movie but a game like Chuubo.  You'd get a character playbook that says:

"Your name is Luke Skywalker, you're an orphan farm boy with a grand destiny to become a Jedi Knight!  OR you could be:

Lulu Skywalker, an orphan farm GIRL with a grand destiny to become a Jedi Knight!

Lu'twach Skeewakka, an orphan wookie with a grand destiny to become a Jedi Knight!

Luke Amida, an orphan farm boy with a grand destiny to become an Ace Rebel Pilot!

Luke Skrontmeer, an orphan farm boy with a grand destiny that he's not sure of!

You'd get a list of generic but customizable starting Quests -- A Basic Quest that relates to being a farm boy out of your element; a Side Quest about befriending some droids, a Storyline Quest about being drawn off the farm and discovering a Wise Mentor.

You'd also get a generic Quest Set for someone on your Knightly path.  A very VERY quick Knight Arc Luke Quest set would be...

The Legendary Deeds of Luke Skywalker...

Knight 1:  Greater Things (Where you find a Mentor and are exposed to a new problem)

Knight 2:  The Dark Side (Where you discover your flaw and stumble because of it)

Knight 3:  Losing Things (Where you lose a mentor/lose faith/lose a hand)

And then the two optional:

Knight 4:  Get Back on the Horse (Where you get back into the path of Destiny)

Knight 5:  Balance (Where you face an Unbalanced Rival (a Walker in Darkness; like you but failing in their Vice) and defeat/befriend/mitigate them by your own control of your Vice)

Finally, you'd get some glimpses as to how this Quest Set can be arranged into Arcs that can be built into a campaign:

The Balance Arcs

Arc 1:  Luke Skywalker, A New Hope (Where the Jedi Knight finds that he is the only hope to keep the Rebellion from collapsing to the Evil Empire)

Arc 2:  Luke Skywalker, Among the Clouds (Where the Jedi Knight is Betrayed and Learns a Secret About His Past)

Arc 3:  Luke Skywalker, A Very Personal War (Where the Jedi Knight Must Find a Way to Bring a Star-Spanning War to a Close)

Arc 4+5:  Luke Skywalker, the Extended Universe (Where Other Things Happen - because I don't know the EU and can't really figure another whole Luke-centric Knight Arc out of the original trilogy)

So, if you lived in a world where Star Wars didn't exist but the Chuubo Star Wars game did, you could (By combining the Jedi Knight with the Smuggler, the Machine Conscience, the Rebel Noble, and (heck, maybe) the Treacherous Prince) approximate the entire plot of Star Wars just by going through those Arcs...  but you could also end up somewhere else entirely!  You'd have a general road map to a type of story without ever actually revealing more than a few landmarks of the story underneath.

Why do I do this?  There's no particular reason....

"An Unreliable Narrative" - A Prototype Welcome to Night Vale Quest Set for Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine (Part 2)

Alright, so.  I should talk about what this Quest Set is “About” before I start making it, I think.

Since it’s the Cecil Quest Set, it’s going to be, primarily, about Strange Happenings and Emotional Reactions.  It’ll be about mildly dealing with the strange and terrible, being filled with apprehension or worry or passion, about facing off against the dark monsters around you, and about finding a new boyfriend, or finding out about your own weird past or finding that maybe, just maybe, you were wrong about someone… who was still a total jerk.  

Who else, other than Cecil might be on “An Unreliable Narrative” Arc?  Fox Mulder is probably on either the Bindings or Otherworldly version of this Arc.  Of the other characters of Night Vale, only Old Woman Josie seems to be on the the Cecil Arc*… probably a Shepherd or Mystic version of it.  I’m not sure who else off the top of my head.  

Anyways, quest by quest for the Cecil version of the set.

Storyteller 1:

This Quest is about simply dealing with strange happenstance.  Weird stuff is going on, but that doesn’t mean you need to get all bent out of shape about it!  Do what you’re doing.  Talk about the weird stuff.  You’ve got a job to do and you can’t let strange stuff get in the way.  Sounds like a Work-and-Study Quest to me.  Perhaps something like…

Stoic Witness

20 or 25 XP Quest

You’ve got a job to do.

The news won’t report itself.  The bagels won’t bake themselves.  There are strange things going on and you take note.  You watch them.  You talk about them.  But you don’t let them side track you.

After all.  People are counting on you.

✿ Stoic Witness (25 XP)

Major Goals

The HG can award you 5 XP towards this quest when:

You maintain your composure even as something world-changing and terrifying is happening just off screen.

You give up an opportunity for wealth, power, or happiness, because you have other duties to attend to.

You can earn each bonus once, for a total of up to 10 XP.

Quest Flavor

1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest when you:

✿ go about your work day as usual

✿ take pride in a job well done

✿ spend time admiring something simple (a flower, a cup of coffee, a stray cat)

✿ describe something strange you witnessed to another person

✿✿ give a monologue of seemingly nonsensical gibberish, ostensibly about the nature of reality, but with deep metaphorical relations to current events

✿✿ give a monologue of seemingly nonsensical gibberish, ostensibly about the nature of reality, but apropos of nothing

✿ pretend that what you’re doing is more important than it is

Or, the shorter version....

✿ Stoic Witness(Simplified) (20 XP)

Major Goals

The HG can award you 5 XP towards this quest when:

You maintain your composure even as something world-changing and terrifying is happening just off screen.

You narrate the events of a phantasmagoric dream state as they occur.

You can earn each bonus once, for a total of up to 10 XP.

Quest Flavor

1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest when you:

✿ talk about what’s going on around you

✿✿ talk about what’s going on with your everyday life

✿ spend time admiring something simple (a flower, a cup of coffee, a stray cat)

✿ describe something strange you witnessed to another person

✿ find yourself surrounded by water, snow, or strange mute children

✿✿ talk about things you cannot possibly know

✿ worry that you might be missing out on something because of work

Annoyingly, I didn't realize Tumblr wouldn't keep my coloring.  Anyway....

One Quest down.  I’m going to take another break…  this was the first thing I did when I woke up!

* I thought, with its themes, some of the other Night Vale characters might fit… but really, Carlos is on a Scientific Adventure.  The Apache Tracker was on a Heartwarming, Heart-rending Coming-of-Age Story Arc.  Tamika Flynn is on a Secret History, and The Man in the Tan Jacket and The Faceless Old Woman Who Lives in Your House seem to be on Numinous Gardens Arcs.  Intern Dana is probably on a Heartwarming, Heart-rending Coming-of-Age Story, too.  

I guess this is the first nonsense I’ve ever reblogged.

I want to know how big the Tumblr Chuubo’s and Nobilis fandom is!

If you like Nobilis or Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine, like this post. If you generate content for them, reblog this post.

(Re what counts as “generate content”: posting an occasional character sheet every so often is plenty. There isn’t a “you must post this frequently to count” bar.)