WickedCadrach

That's a good idea. Thanks! Looks like the links were duplicated in your post, so here are the skins: https://buriedwithoutceremony.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/reference-sheets-and-core-skins1.pdf

EDIT: putting out publisher's free links instead.

"Shit." Feeling certain they were spotted, Emily shifts forward. The bed of tentacles in the cockpit roils around her, slipping beneath her pants and shirt to more firmly secure her limbs as she moves to a forward leaning position akin to a hang-glider. She feels the sparking of more intense neural connections blooming across her body, her own vision fading to a thin translucence over the wide and deep perspective of Scylla's sensors and cameras. The pain Emily always carries with her lends a growling edge to Scylla's agitation as their sensations overlap, and Emily shivers as the cold, wet misery of Scylla's body makes her feel drenched, even in her relatively dry clothes. "Still don't see any guns. Do your paparazzi thing, girl." There is a pulsing, massaging rhythm to Scylla's tendrils around Emily's limbs as the BioFrame surges forward. Sharing intent and the image of Emily's maneuver in their linked mind, Scylla casts off a wave as she abandons stealth. Her ivory tentacles giving her speed, she launches toward the front of the habitation block where the convoy is accelerating toward cover. The idea is simple. Get close, running in a rainbow arc that hits its zenith at the entrance of the habitation, and blast the block and convoy with as many scans and sensor readings as we can. It's a smash-and-grab for information, before rushing back toward the sea to escape.

Sounds fun I didn't see anything in ToS, but how do we feel about my posting a GoogleDoc link to the MonsterHearts 2 pdf? (Definitely support the game dev if you can, but for people poking their head in and getting a feel for the game?)

//Pilot roll : -1, -1, -1, 0 + (+1 pilot) = -2 //

Whaaaaat? lol, no. You're great! Love what you're doing here.

I'm happy to go along with this, or if our MC has a town they want to put forward. I think too much town prep might bog us down, but there's no reason we can't tweak something premade if people have ideas (I assume? Hi, I'm new to this game) That makes a ton of sense. I would be down, either having a relationship established at the start or obsessing over the Hollow from a distance.

I also love this idea ❤ You're welcome to copy and use the GoogleSheet I linked earlier. Otherwise, I'd frame your char sheet something like this: Name: --- Fate Points: 3 / 3 High Concept: Social 'Engineer' with an Open Marriage Trouble: Symbiotic Disharmony 1st Adventure: Duel Processed Deprogrammer 2nd Adventure: 3rd Adventure: Gear Aspect 1: (Gear Aspects are were you can list qualities specific to your BioFrame - same style as your High Concept and Adventure Aspects) Gear Aspect 2: Gear Aspect 3: Gear Aspect 4: +4 Skills: (1 choice) +3 Skills: (2 choices) +2 Skills: (3 choices) +1 Skills: (4 choices) Empathy, Engineering, Pilot, and Sex sound like they might be priorities on your skill choices, but beyond that, I'd recommend looking at the list and mainly going on vibes. (Also, there has to be a pun in here somewhere about 'open source code' but I can't find it)

Not a problem from my end. I've been told I'm friendly

Is it lame if I kind of want to play The Mortal? I've always had a soft spot for characters who are underprepared and in over their heads.

Maybe I can help. We've been a bit fast and loose with the setup It looks to me like we just need to firm up a couple details then your character could leap into the RP thread to answer the trouble the captain's calling about, perhaps? (Or we can get you another avenue into the story). I'm going to link a char sheet that might help, too, but if you want to just put the details in a thread post, I'm sure it's fine: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_d7XxS4sNusmGSexJTXmmzsirDj6HhModBph3AMGZDc/edit?usp=sharing So apart from basics like a name and appearance... to get started, you basically need 3 Aspects for your character and to pick Skills. 1) The first Aspect is called your character's High Concept. If we were playing DnD this is where you'd say something like "Orc Barbarian with a chip on her shoulder" - @WritesNaughtyStories suggested "Mech Mechanic with a Heart of Gold" earlier. You can make up the phrasing as long as it's a brief and captures the main thing they're about. My character's high concept is Silicon-hearted Mech Hacker. 2) Your second Aspect is called Trouble. This is some flaw or part of your character that causes them trouble. Could be something like a drinking/gambling problem or a duty that frequently interferes with what they'd rather do. You floated the Aspect "Symbiotic Disharmony" earlier, and that sounds like a cool Trouble to me, because it's evocative to your character but also shows that the schism in their mind can cause imbalance and obstacles for them despite the ways its helpful. My character's Trouble is Staying alive, one pill at a time. 3) Your third Aspect comes from your character's history. It's typically from some event that can be thought of as their 'first adventure'. The Aspect WNS suggested, "Twice As Nice", could work here since it implies the positive side of your character's union with their BioFrame. Something like "Two Heads are Better than One" could also work because you get that embedded BioFrame's perspective just like yours. Anything you want to evoke in your character works, really. For mine, I went with, These scars spell, 'never again' to try and imply their vengeful and traumatized past as well as the sort of paranoid vigilance they carry with them. Once you're there, the first post on this thread has a skill list. - Pick 4 skills to get a +1 bonus - Pick 3 skills to get a +2 bonus - Pick 2 skills to get a +3 bonus - Pick 1 skill to get a +4 bonus For now, (if you're looking at the char sheet) don't worry about the fields that say Stunts, Extras, or Consequences (those can get filled in by play). The Second Adventure and Third Adventure Aspect lines can also be left blank for now. The Stress fields are FATE's version of hit points and we'll explain them if they become relevant.

Not Guilty. The closest I've been is operating the lighting board in a theater auditorium. I worked lights, she worked the soundboard, and we shared many hours in a small dark room where we couldn't really talk beyond low whispers into our headsets (not connected to each other). A lot of 'not-at-all-PG' teasing and play ensued without going anywhere. The next person has been in a theatre performance.

I haven't played, but I've only heard good things. I would be interested to try it if someone wants to get a game going.

Emily bit her lip in a scowl of focus. It might just be workers coming in to finish whatever construction was still going on inside, or civilian staff to get the habitation block operational. There was still no guarantee it was a purely 'military' installation. Then again, this might be her chance to do real damage before this outpost became a threat. Feeling Scylla's restlessness, Emily took one of the dark tendrils in her cockpit in hand, gently stroking the slick tentacle and making a small hushing sound. "Hey. Easy, girl..." she said, projecting patience into the neurolink between them, and as she did, she slid the dark coil under her jacket, lifting the hem of her shirt and sliding the cool appendage against her rib and down toward her navel with a pleasant tremor that she shared with the BioFrame. They couldn't just sit here... the captain needed a report. "Ok. Easy ahead. Low and slow. Let them in. We're going to get in close and see if we can't figure out what they're unpacking in there." Emily guides Scylla forward slowly, trying to stay out of the convoy's line of sight while she approaches the habitation block. If it's as unguarded as it looks, she thinks she can get in close enough to scan through or around the buildings and walls without a confrontation.

Yeah, I think A ragtag band of rebels is a fair aspect for the LU. We certainly seem ragged here, lol

Point it where?

Dragon's Milk

100% Guilty. I get extremely claustrophobic in crowds. Even if it's just a group around a table, if I feel too much 'closeness', I'll get up and stand on the outside. The next person owns multiple copies of the same book.

Traveller has the most bonkers character creation. I have a friend who always brings up his character that died during character creation so he had to start over, lol

Guilty. I'm a ghostwriter irl, so I'm basically always working on a novel. And if I'm very lucky, it's even one of my own, lol. The next person has written an original song.

Not guilty. I probably still eat too much bread (baking is too much fun ), but I've been vegetarian for more than a decade and vegan the last few years. The next person has never read an erotic novel.

dragon fruit

I hadn't really thought about LU having much established territory for stuff like that, and you're right that the Hive's control definitely stops anything but the most mundane and conformity promoting 'art' (if any art at all is still allowed). In my head, Lizzie Al-Azhar and her band Scylla existed before the Hive took control. Their music is part of the remnant of old world art that the LU has managed to preserve and Emily just connected with it the most when she was detoxing from the emotion-blockers and started being shown 'everything we've lost' by her new LU compatriots. Just like Emily and the LU are fighting the Hive in the present, Lizzie and the protest artists of her day were trying to warn people and stop the Hive from gaining control in the first place. There may be a fragment of a record somewhere that shows Lizzie being arrested for an illegal garden—being used to circumvent the consumption of emotion-blockers in the food supply—or being rounded up during a protest turned riot when Hive policy started being enforced. Really, she's just a touchstone so I can let Emily be a bit of a furious metalhead when metal music has been illegal for a hundred years (or something; the timeline is vague and that's ok).

Reaching the paddock, Emily began to sing, her voice approximating a metal growl as she gave a half-attentive rendition of Lizzie Al-Azhar's vocals on Broken Crown. It was a habit she'd developed since some of the more 'feral' BioFrames got skittish if someone snuck up on them. As Scylla sensed her approaching, the white-shelled BioFrame had cracked open from her tight curl the barest fraction, requiring Emily to give a few insistent slaps on her steel-wrapped hip before her tentacles uncurled enough to reveal the round port the small of her back, like a submarine hatch. Pulling herself along the narrow tube, Emily would reach the cockpit in the center of Scylla's chest. A wrap of black tentacles, some as thick as her forearms, others as thin as hairs, help her into a seated position, taking the burden off her limbs and coiling along her legs and arms to support her. With a sigh, Emily jerks her head left and right, cracking out the stiffness as she nods and says, "Alright. Give me the goo." Immediately after, the black tentacles begin to secrete a chill, viscous fluid that they smear at the base of Emily's skull and across her temples. The shared sensation of the synch makes Emily hitch, straining just a moment against the tentacled embrace. She's still in half-aware state, not having fully left her own body and keeping some of the pain she's been dealing with from Scylla as much as Scylla keeps a portion of the uniquely uncomfortable cold from her. There is a phantom sensation shared between them as Emily's finger strokes one of the black tendrils at her wrist, as gentle a greeting as she gives anyone, and Scylla returns the gesture with the simulated sensation of being nuzzled against the palm of her hand. Right now they're both still warming up, but Emily knows if things get more intense on this recon run, Scylla can quickly attach more tentacles in more places for a deeper level of synch. Taking it carefully through the mountains, each of them eager to find what the Hive is up to but reluctant to tangle with any feral kaiju, Scylla and Emily approach the descent carefully, backtracking a few times as Scylla's sensors trip on phantom movements and other vague signals that leave Emily uneasy. It takes them much longer than Emily originally thought and both of them Chilled to the bone (accepted fail and Fate point). Taking in the scans, Emily frowns inside the cockpit. Her eyes narrow and the sensors housed in Scylla's dome-like skull ping the new construction looking for any signs of life. "Built. Empty. And undefended. Why go to all the trouble if you're just walking away?" With a click of her tongue, Emily shifts in her living seat, her body guiding Scylla like a rider guiding a horse by the gentle pressure of their knees on the flanks. "Let's take a swim. I want to see if something happening under there, and we can come around the other side, through the delta."

Inoria swallowed, paling a shade at Fel's quick rundown of all the more mundane threats the jungles could pose. "I hadn't thought of the insects," she said thoughtfully, looking down at her pack. "But I did bring travel clothes. I wore my robes to be more befitting of the home of a great lady of Baldur's Gate, but after we arrive in Port Nyanzaru, I will change into something more trail appropriate. Perhaps the locals will have a recommendation against the insects as well?" she added hopefully. "In the temple, we learned a decoction of lime and lemon peel that could be mixed with oil and rubbed into the skin to ward off insects. It was rarely used, though. Not much call for it close to the mountains. And it was expensive with the lemon needing to come by ship from the south. I imagine there, where such things grow close at hand, it will be easier to make such a treatment." Feeling a bit better about how she would handle the stinging and biting insects of Chult, Inoria's thoughts went back to Fel's comments on the grasping thorns and toxic leaves of the local flora. Inoria was familiar with poison ivy, though Fel's assertion that there would be plants 'hundreds of times' more dangerous sent a flutter through her stomach that made her feel like she'd eaten something sour. Still, there was nothing for it. She must go, and so she was determined to go boldly. "Thank you," she said earnestly to Felaris before giving a somewhat weaker smile to Grom. "I'm certain between the three of us, we'll find solutions to any challenges the jungle may hold. And I have some coin still, so if we need to stock up on trail rations before our venture, I'm sure we can purchase some in Port Nyanzaru."