WritesNaughtyStories

I've both run and played Monsterhearts at other play by post sites, but I don't know second edition. I'd be interested in playing, as I can't imagine there's a big difference between editions.

The air in the foot hills was not as cold as the higher elevations had been, but it was still cool enough that Scylla couldn't warm up completely. Picking their way through the rocks, scrub trees and broken ground that afforded them cover to make their way to the water, Emily could feel Scylla's growing frustration and misery. By the time they climbed down the last, western facing escarpment Scylla wanted badly to kill something. Mercifully the water was warmer, soothing the stealthy BioFrame's jangled nerves as she sunk comfortably into the briny waves. She was happier swimming and the progress much easier. Within only a few hours of entering the bay, Scylla was making her way up the river. Then it started to get shallow. Silt and sand bars threatened to force her above the surface. From here her senses reveal that there is a caravan coming from the nearest Hive arcology. They're not near enough for her to get detailed scans, and from here, they'll be inside the confines of the outpost's narrow streets before she can get one. What do you do? Back at the firebase, Magda swore under her breath. She knew Patune's mass driver was misfeeding but there wasn't a mechanic, and CENTCOM seemed not to be answering her requests for one. Patune was almost as miserable in this air as Scylla and Magda had hoped to cheer him up by getting his loading mechanism adjusted. She sent another, urgent message to S1, requesting a permanent mechanic and headed to the paddock, She called to Patune who raised his head slowly and swung his alien gaze on her. He didn't get up and Magda shook her head before jogging across the field to him. With him laying down she could climb under the intricate armor of his chest to reach the orifice that opened into her cockpit. She pushed through the muscular flesh as Patune relaxed for her, and shed her fatigues before slipped into her pilot sling. Patune let the nerve tendrils that would connect them extend, wrapping over the human's bare flesh. Pale, pink-gray bundles of nerves spread across her scalp, arms, torso and legs. She felt him at the edge of her mind and invited him in. 'Do you want more?' It was hard to tell who asked, but Magda answered. 'Yes.' She could feel his nerve tendrils coil up her legs, over her shoulder and down her belly, seeking sensitive nerve endings of hers. She welcomed him, happy to distract them both as the cold night air closed in.

@DreamsnThings, twice as nice drives at you carrying a double personality. When the mechanic is in charge, she can invoke the aspect to get her old BioFrame to help her with something they'd be good at or understand (what does this injured/enraged/catatonic BioFrame want or need, maybe) but I can compel the aspect is there's something the mechanic is trying to do or wants that the BioFrame personality doesn't. @WickedCadrach, thanks for clearing that up. Do the Liberation Union is a ragtag band of rebels?

I have my old three book boxed set of Traveller that I bought in England a million years ago. I absolutely love that first generation Life Path Character Creation system. Sure, maybe you die. Probably too weak to succeed anyway... Remains one of my favorite games, but I'm not as enamored of the canon setting as I once was.

@WickedCadrach, I'm really curious about this Lizzie Al-Azhar. I feel like she must not be from the Hive - their meds and compliant society certainly don't breed chainsaw guitars and growled vocals. So, is there some kind of broader civilian Liberation Union society? I had thought there would be, but how extensive is it? Is Lizzie a professional musician who makes records that get sold at stores or are her and her band recording in an improvised studio after their shirt at the munitions plant?

Half and half - half guilty? But only in black tea. Next poster uses French dressing on salad.

Guilty. Several times. Next poster loves olives. Pimento, garlic, whatever.

(What does it look like when Emily hooks into Scylla? I imagine Scylla shivers with pleasure as she feels her partner connect, enjoying the vicarious warmth her cockpit provides Emily and the way Emily 's pain fades into the background as her senses fill with Scylla 's input and feedback) As the pair clambered nimbly through the mountains both knew they were the only BioFrame who could come this way. Patune's mass would crumble half the rocks Scylla slithered over easily. By spreading her tentacles across a larger area Scylla spreads her weight and as much flows across the escarpents as climbs. In the pass, even higher up the mountain it is colder, and the warmth Scylla felt through Emily leeched into the cold air, settling an unpleasant chill on the BioFrame that seemed through the interface to Emily as well. Once through the pass the decent was steep and treacherous (make a piloting roll or you can fail, making the trip down take 6 hours and leaving you both with the Aspect chilled to the core for several hours after and take a Fate point) As Scylla neared the base of the mountain, her sophisticated sensor array can make out the construction site. It is a surprisingly complete, and, from this distance , utterly undefended habitation block. The sea is to the South, on your left, the construction site in front of you, to the west. The river delta lays farther to the west and south, and will allow you to access to the river, where the reconnaissance point is. You can easily swim through the ocean to avoid detection and reach the delta. Meanwhile, back at base, Payarkoon is looking for a mechanic.

Guilty, though I feel like I do have people I can go to - which I am immensely thankful for. Next poster needs more solitude.

Not guilty, but only because a large portion of my weekend is committed to BS I don't want to do. Next poster plants a flowers but doesn't bother with vegetables.

The point she indicated to surveil from is probably the best, there are a couple of others that are almost as good that might be better to ambush a convoy from, but the best spot to ambush a convoy from offers much worse surveillance of the site itself. It's hard to resist ambushing that convoy though - despite Payarkoon's orders. Do you accept a these scars say 'never again' compel to move to the lousy recon, but good ambush, location? Or do you follow orders?

(roll it)

Very cool. So your partner is really present for you, but it blurs the lines of where each of your personalities begins and ends. Do they remember their name, from before you were combined? What do the physical parts of them that are embedded in your body look like? Is it tissue, circuits some of both? I think this story suggests you're twice as nice. Are Granite and Flora part of this squad or was that long enough ago that you've been transferred? Do you ever wonder what Granite is doing now?

Magda shook her head at her subordinate, though insubordinate might be more accurate, and closed the door. "I would think those nicstix cause at least as much inflammation as your cybers." She said, unlocking the data slate with a micro abraded DNA sample. The squad commander spun the map to face Patches, "Hive's up to some kind of bullshit." She pointed at a low, open expanse between the mountains and a broad bay "They're building something right here." The data slate lit a point near the apex of the bay. "It's kaiju-fucking- central. Which wouldn't be a problem, except that there's no weapons systems or reinforcement. No walls." The commander panned the map, "River runs here - too far from the construction site to be directly useful, but it bends upriver and gets within 100 meters of the road. Just sit and watch. Inventory any military hardware you see. If they're baiting us, I want to know where that ambush is coming from." "There's another, smaller pass a few klicks south of here. Patune and the other Frames can't get through it, but Scylla can. Just keep south, close to the mountains and head to the bay. Easy enough to swim to the river and head upstream." Payarkoon took a small box out of her desk and slid it across the table to Emily. "Here. Don't ask me how I got them. Scylla isn't disposable and neither are you. That's not how we do things, one day I hope you'll understand that," the captain tapped Emily's chest with two fingers, "in here." "Hopefully it'll get you through until supply gets an official refill." It was only three pills, but skuttlebut was that Gamma quadrant had taken out a Hive base camp with a major hospital. Soon, right - food, meds some fucking coats.... "The injector is a one shot. It'll block pain in your brain and leave you completely lucid. But you won't feel shit for about an hour. Like, cut off your leg and not feel it. Capisce?"

Captain Payarkoon's long, lean build gave her the appearance of someone taller than her actual 170cm height, Like the rest of the Liberation Union's military, she wore no uniform, just the mismatched clothes that wold keep the chill of the mountain air off. Her only rank insignia was an armband tied around her left bicep. She closed the reconnaissance report and shut down the data slate. what was the Hive up to now? She ran her hand over her shave head, trying to massage clarity into her brain without much success. With a sigh she stood up and walked the sort distance from the table that served as her operations center to the barrack at the front of the portable shelter. "Where's Kehrer?" she asked looking around. Spying the dark haired young pilot, the older, "Patches - I need you and Scylla to go do some recon. Can you two please not turn it into a shooting contest? I just need eyes - what the recon reports are saying don't make a bit of sense." She turned to the rest of the squad. "You fuckers all get prepped - just in case Scylla can't keep Patches from trying to kill herself." She tugged the younger woman towards her office. "Come on, time for your briefing."

The Liberation Union is still recruiting. We have sex and mechs and mech sex and nutrional paste shaped like cookies! Come, help us fight the Hive!!

Would it be fair to think of the pair as cranky?

How does Scylla feel about thee cool, dry air this far up the mountain side?

I'm going to try to get a starting post for the game up today. @WickedCadrach, can you tell us about the barracks the pilots live in? Oh, and what's your BioFrame's name and what are they like? @DreamsnThings, can you tell us about the first time you liberated a Hive BioFrame? And what is that BioFrame's name and what were they like? Does it have a pilot now?

O had given this some thought. Maybe Hive Frames are manufactured identically - like clone troopers - but once they're freed, they begin to develop distinct personalities depending on their experiences and the pilot they bond with. Does that cause physical changes or do they adopt new weapons, paint jobs and tattoos (that's a lot of ink for the record) I hadn't thought of this quite so broadly, but I love the idea of a feathered BioFrame or some gorgeous, iridescent insect.

AI and I are still fighting about this, I feel it as ickier more meat stretching over robotics, but this is headed the right direction. Needs more Giger and Clive Barker. OK, I don't know who saw that, but the more I look at it the more I hate it. I've gotten a couple of image that are less dog shit, but nothing I'm happy with. Where I am stylistically is somewhere between Giger's Biomechanics and the grisliness of Hellraiser's cenobites and a 40K servitor, with less goth, more sleek sexiness. Does that allow anyone to imagine an frighteningly beautiful biomech? One thing I've been thinking about - I think all the frames are distinct and have names and personalities. What does everyone else think.

I like the idea of her having a Frame personality that lives in her head - kind of a multiple personality. Let's work out what that looks like by first figuring out what BioFrames are. I'd been thinking they are carefully grown cyborgs. Muscle tissue augmented with technology, nerves to interface with weapon systems and pilots. Armor plating grafted over it all. I think the Frames' own, limited intellect, is primarily housed in their brains. Their senses are probably augmented - targeting computers, ultra violet spectrum etc. Could those electronics could be how your mechanic got the personality stuck in her brain? I think she has some kind of a chip of her own, something to help her diagnose the Frames' cybernetics.