nomadzophiel

Added the tag and a bunch of notes on Post 4 with the thinking behind the game system stuff.

Glad you like it. That's also why I built a lot of his Logos around community ties, ties that can't stay the same as The King manifests. I'll give everything one more once over tonight. Should be ready for feedback tomorrow, I'll update Ira's thread when I get there. Also, it looks like we've got three "fates", Freyja, Morrigan and The King.

Misc notes: Ira is all about the tension between the work of the artist/activist and trying to maintain ties to the community. Losing any of the Logos roles is going to hurt Ira. They all suggest a Mythos version off themselves as The King In Yellow consumes and transforms Ira's life. Named for Ira Wendagoth from Critical Role because that is just about the coolest character name ever. Bonus character portrait. This one shows the look more clearly but the I think the original really captures the feel. Notes for feedback I'm feeling. . .ok about the tags but not super solid. Here's what's going on under the hood with each. If you have any suggestions for changes or best practices to make them play together better, I'd love to hear them. Shatter the fourth dimension is intended to have three prongs of usefulness - Influencing people towards a particular future and investigation through psychometry style visions of the past. Seeing the future, as a broad tag, can be anything from knowing to dodge an ambush up to "if you let this guy go now, a district will burn in a week" type prophecy. If this were swapped out with a Logos, it would be about believing in and seeing the best possible version of others. Street Tough Performer is mostly about social skills, persuasion and stopping fights before they start, with a side of stage tech. If The King In Yellow manifests through Ira's personal power, it'll probably be Subversion. Once you see the future, you can start moving the pieces around to create the one you want. Broadalbin Street is a working class community, which makes it an ideal rumor mill. Someone always knows someone who works in an invisible job near whatever's going on in town. They can open the loading docks, "lose" a couple of uniforms from the dry cleaners and the like. It's a safe home base and a thriving community. They look out for each other because no one else will, so it's a good place to go to ground when things get too hot. I'm picturing The Richmond in Streets Of Fire. Ira's roots are strong enough that Broadalbin could become a beachhead for Carcosa, The King In Yellow's domain. The Poison Arrows are Ira's ride-or-die crew. Brawn to his face. They're always there for him and vice versa. His confidence (also good for social stuff) and never say die attitude (courage and endurance) are a big part of what made him "mad" enough to be worthy of infection. They're peers, not a cult. . .yet and Ira wouldn't want them to be. The King may have other plans.

The spin is that xenophobic writers like Chambers and Lovecraft are unreliable narrators writing unreliable narrators. The King spreads "madness" but it's madness as defined by people who consider anything outside of turn of the century monied white New England/New York to be "blasphemous". What was the Bolshevik Revolution or paper money, monarchy or anarchy? They're ideas that spread like a disease until the "madness" became normal. What is The King In Yellow if not the personification of an idea from a book (the play of the same name) that spreads like a disease. Infectious ideas like that, they break down old systems, they cause people to break from their old patterns and behave in radically different, "mad" ways. They're dangerous if you have a stake in the status quo and liberating if the status quo is crushing you. Starting out, Jack's spin on "madness" is to take the way people see themselves or who they wanted to be before life beat their ideals out of them and force it back to the forefront. The world says you can't be an emperor or protect your neighborhood from the crime syndicates or help people instead of arresting them, but when Jack says you can, you know deep in your heart that it's the world that's wrong. No mob enforcer grew up thinking "when I grow up, I want to beat up people I've never met just to make rent." They just need a little supernatural reminder of what's actually important to them. Will his performance troupe become a cult? Can he control the spread? Or does he need to go bigger than one-on-one to really change The City? It's a more positive spin but it's still not entirely controllable. Even good ideas can lead to horrific things if taken too far. Just ask anyone from revolutionary France. Now I just have to translate that to game terms.

Questions Name and describe a place of interest in the City - La Decadance, a popular nightclub on Broadalbin. No one's really sure if the misspelling was originally deliberate or not. It's been there longer than Ira has been alive. It had a turn-of-the-century Parisian, Moulin Rogue-ish vibe when it first opened. The decor is still there but it's got decades of neglect piled on it. The drinks are cheap and the later it gets, the wilder La Decadance is. Give me the name and description of a local Contact. - Melissa aka Nightshade, a bartender with a bright blue undercut who works at La Decadance, a popular night spot on Broadalbin. Where do you go to unwind? - The Poison Arrows' rehearsal space, formerly the gym of the Metro Academy Of Art. What does this sprawling metropolis have in abundance - Punks who squat in abandoned buildings. What does it lack, or need more of - Freedom, equality What do you fear most about the world today - The great minds and hearts of the world wasting away in dead end jobs to make money for other people. What is a recent rumour that you've heard - Some big company is looking to clear out Broadalbin and turn the area into some sort of immersive "experience" complex for high end hipsters and tourists.

Ira - Background and Attachments "he had a gift. He would make you see how the world could be, in spite of the way that it is." -Hadestown Ira has always been a dreamer. He is one of those people who never accepts "that's just the way it is," to explain the injustices of the world. He grew up on Broadalbin St, a latchkey kid with two overworked, underpaid parents. Unlike most of his friends in the Poison Arrows, he was never a particularly gifted performer and didn't get into MAA. What he did have was passion and a talent for recruiting like-minded people to whatever project mattered to him at the moment. By the end of high school, this loose group of friends had solidified into the Poison Arrows. The group looks like a bunch of small time performers, destined to play for peanuts at local dives forever, never making a living at what they love. What people don't see is all of the work that goes on behind the scenes. Money from gigs buys food or pays rent for folks on Broadalbin who have been laid off. Individual Arrows teach local kids the arts and tutor them in school subjects as their time permits. They've even had to band together to run off street gangs that think they can muscle in on Broadalbin. In turn, the neighborhood is there for them when they need it. They work hard, they party hard, they're not afraid of a fight, everyone thinks they're destined to crash and burn any day now but somehow, the Poison Arrows just keep going. On a personal level, Ira has pretty much everything that he wants in life: good times, plenty of excitement, a creative outlet and friends to the end. That's never been enough for Ira, though. Sure, it's great that they can help out here and there but the problems with Broadalbin and the city as a whole run much deeper than local community aid can solve. Ira has always been able to see it, a true shining city where everyone's contribution is meaningful and everyone has enough. The big systemic problems can't be solved by a bunch of scrappy young adults doing local gigs. Busting up crime syndicates, reforming the police, taking power out of the hands of those who would abuse it, all of that requires something. . . more. The King and Awakening That hunger for change and refusal to bend to reality are probably why The King In Yellow chose Ira. Only the mad and the visionary would even think that they could make a dent in the world like that with no resources. The King came to him when Ira was facing looking down the barrel of a gun. It wasn't the first time he had been mugged outside the Broadalbin but this time something happened. His perception splintered, time seemed to stop and in that eternal moment he saw the life of the man holding the gun as a single whole, too complex for any one person to process. He saw fragments of the man's past and possible futures ranging from prison to dying in the street to becoming a priest and saving the others from going down the dangerous path that he had gone down as a young man. . .the young man facing down Ira at that exact moment. Ira's perceptions came back into regular time. He locked eyes with his assailant. When he opened his mouth, his voice carried an entire backup chorus repeating his words. "If you continue down this path," he said, stepping forward, "you will die in two years, one month and thirteen days, shot to death by your own gun over a twenty dollar bill." His hand reached out, wrapping around the gun, gently but firmly pushing it down. "Take your gun to Father McDowell at Haight St church. Ask him to forgive your sins and tell him the truth, all of it, and you will die an old man, surrounded by the lives that you have changed for the better. The choice is yours." The visions have not been as clear, the conviction not as ironclad since then but Ira has leaned into his new role as a force for change unrestrained by what other consider "sane." Appearance Ira is tall and lean with long hair. He dresses well but in a notably theatrical style. He looks sharp from a distance but up close, the wear and tear on his punk-tailored thrift store finds become more apparent. A hastily stitched tear in a hard to spot place, elbow pad patches that are practical instead of cosmetic and a fresh coat of polish on top of cracked leather boots all reveal his working class budget. He usually seems a bit distracted by whatever is going on in his head but when he does focus, he has an infection passion and intimidating intensity. Ira carries a stack of index cards in his pocket for writing down ideas so he doesn't forget them. The King In Yellow - The Crawling Chaos, Contagious Madness, Lord Of Lost Carcosa, The King To Whom Even Emperors Must Bow. The King In Yellow is the very idea of uncontrollable revolutionary change. He rips the mask off the world and shows people that there's nothing underneath. He pushes them to fill that void with the world of their own imagination. Want to be Emperor Of America? It worked for Norton once he embraced The King. He died surrounded by people who believed in him, paying his bills with his own Norton Dollars. It didn't work so well for Hildred Castaigne but only because he trusted the wrong people. The King shows people the "mad" possibilities that society rejects and pushes them towards realizing those possibilities. Ira wants to use that power to open up new possibilities for the broken and oppressed of The City. Will The King settle for that? Can Ira control the spread of "madness" and keep the changes that he sets in motion from becoming a bloodbath? Will The King let him? The Poison Arrows know something has changed in Ira. His visions of a better future have started happening in small scale ways, often due to actions that made no sense at the time. A few of the Arrows have even asked to see their possible futures and how to make them real. He's careful not to push them towards any particular future but will help them figure out how to get to the one they want. Broadalbin Street - is a short connector street that was laid out long ago. It's narrow enough to be more of an alley now. Cars going in opposite directions have to slow down to pass each other. At some time in the past, it was a happening, artistic neighborhood. Now, it's dotted with abandoned buildings and decaying mixed-use high rises. The residents are mostly working poor but there is a thriving community of struggling artists, punks who squat in the abandoned buildings and other folks who exist on the fringes of society by necessity or choice. There's not much money going in or out but there is a lot of heart and the locals look out for each other. At one end, there is a T intersection that holds old Metro Academy of the Arts. It closed during the last economic downturn and the Poison Arrows moved in to the abandoned building to use as a rehearsal area and occasional crash space. Secret Pain My only value as a person is what I can do for others.

Ira Walker Rift of The King In Yellow Name: Ira Nicknames: Fearless Leader, The Repair Man Of Broadalbin Age: Early 30s but looks like he could be anywhere from late 20s to early 40s. Gender: Male. . .ish Occupation: Nightclub performer/MC Height: Just short of 6' Build: Lean and hungry Demeanor: Ira usually seems somewhat distracted but incredibly intense when he does focus. Logos concept: Struggling Artist, community builder Mythos concept: The divine madness, the crawling chaos, the king to whom even emperors must bow. Logos Logos Ira has always been a dreamer. He wants to see the best in people. He imagines a future where people lead richer, fuller lives than working 10 hours a day on something that nobody cares about just to make enough to eat and pay rent. He's not a trained entertainer but his way of seeing the world gives him a passion and presence that translates well on stage. He's gathered a small crew of sideshow performers, fire spinners and dancers together and they perform in small clubs nights and weekends. No one can afford to do it full time but they pride themselves on their punk rock, anti-authoritarian, make it work ethos. Artists have a sensitive temperament and are always prime targets for infecting the world with ideas that go against the establishment's idea of "sane". Now, not only can he see the best and worse in people, he can get them to act on it. Mythos Mythos Some say The King In Yellow is an aspect of Dionysus. Others know him as a character in a play that drives anyone who reads it mad. He is the spearhead of an alternate reality slowly infecting the real world. What is madness, though, but breaking the chains put on you by people with power? Theme Cards Divination Shattering The Fourth Dimension Mystery:Every Mythos theme has a question, called a Mystery, which defines what your character wishes to discover about their Mythos. What sort of future are my visions creating? There is no linear time to The King. There is no single future. There are only the decisions that created the present and create the future. Attention: {_} {_} {_} Fade:When your character's Mystery calls to them, but they ignore it, mark one Fade. If your character continues to ignore their Mythos and marks the third Fade box, you replace the theme with a new Logos theme. {_} {_} {_} POWER TAGSWhen you take action using one of the Core Moves, each power tag you have (and that is relevant to your action) adds one point of Power to your move. This improves your chances of succeeding and increases the effectiveness of your action. Each theme starts with 3 power tags. You must answer the first power tag question in your Themebook. Then answer two more of your choice. For each theme, you can only have one broad power tag. A broad power tag is one that would be useful in many different situations. Power Tag Questions Answer the first question (A) from your chosen Themebook, and then choose two more questions from the following list to answer. Your answer should be a short description no more than a few words long. Each answer becomes a power tag. A) What allows you to know things you wouldn't normally know? Flashes of possible futures. (Broad) B) What other type of knowledge can you access with your powers? See the past that led a person/object to this point. F) What advantage does your divination give you in a fight? Predict a foe's next move. I) How can you affect others with your power? Tempt them with visions of their future. WEAKNESS TAGSWeakness Tags depower your moves but earn you Attention. They always describe something limiting (ask yourself: what actions would this weakness tag impede?). Each theme starts with 1 weakness tag. You can answer any weakness tag question in your Themebook. Extra tags! In one theme of your choice, you may add one additional power tag and one additional weakness tag. A) What happens when your divination overwhelms you? Disturbing flashes of coming horror. C) What is beyond the reach of your divination? The status quo and how to maintain it. Training Street Tough Performer Identity:Every Logos theme has a statement, called an Identity, which describes some aspect of your character that they believe about themselves. "Get ready because tonight, you are going to see some wild shit!" Ira is the organizer and MC of the Poison Arrows. The stage of hard knocks has given him a quick, if rough, course in how to bend an audience to see the show the way he sees it. Attention: {_} {_} {_} Crack:You mark Crack when your character's Identity demands something of them, but they fail to deliver. If your character continues to ignore their Identity and marks the third Crack box, you replace the theme with a new Mythos theme instead. {_} {_} {_} POWER TAGSWhen you take action using one of the Core Moves, each power tag you have (and that is relevant to your action) adds one point of Power to your move. This improves your chances of succeeding and increases the effectiveness of your action. Each theme starts with 3 power tags. You must answer the first power tag question in your Themebook. Then answer two more of your choice. For each theme, you can only have one broad power tag. A broad power tag is one that would be useful in many different situations. Power Tag Questions Answer the first question (A) from your chosen Themebook, and then choose two more questions from the following list to answer. Your answer should be a short description no more than a few words long. Each answer becomes a power tag. A) What do you do or know best? Managing the operation D) What trick did you pick up during your training? influencing the audience J) What unusual new application of your training are you exploring? intimidating troublemakers WEAKNESS TAGSWeakness Tags depower your moves but earn you Attention. They always describe something limiting (ask yourself: what actions would this weakness tag impede?). Each theme starts with 1 weakness tag. You can answer any weakness tag question in your Themebook. Extra tags! In one theme of your choice, you may add one additional power tag and one additional weakness tag. C) Who is after you due to your prominence in the field? Another local group that competes for the same venues. Turf Boradalbin Street Identity:Every Logos theme has a statement, called an Identity, which describes some aspect of your character that they believe about themselves. "We look out for each other." Broadalbin is a poor working neighborhood on the edge of the Theater District. Ira and the arrows are unofficial "fixers", helping out their neighbors and holding the community together. Attention: {_} {_} {_} Crack:You mark Crack when your character's Identity demands something of them, but they fail to deliver. If your character continues to ignore their Identity and marks the third Crack box, you replace the theme with a new Mythos theme instead. {_} {_} {_} POWER TAGSWhen you take action using one of the Core Moves, each power tag you have (and that is relevant to your action) adds one point of Power to your move. This improves your chances of succeeding and increases the effectiveness of your action. Each theme starts with 3 power tags. You must answer the first power tag question in your Themebook. Then answer two more of your choice. For each theme, you can only have one broad power tag. A broad power tag is one that would be useful in many different situations. Power Tag Questions Answer the first question (A) from your chosen Themebook, and then choose two more questions from the following list to answer. Your answer should be a short description no more than a few words long. Each answer becomes a power tag. A) What area or domain do you control? Broadalbin Street C) What do you know best about your turf? Who's who. J) What advantage do you have over your competition in your home turf? Sympathetic residents. WEAKNESS TAGSWeakness Tags depower your moves but earn you Attention. They always describe something limiting (ask yourself: what actions would this weakness tag impede?). Each theme starts with 1 weakness tag. You can answer any weakness tag question in your Themebook. Extra tags! In one theme of your choice, you may add one additional power tag and one additional weakness tag. A) What kind of trouble typically haunts your turf? Low Wages Defining Relationship The Poison Arrows Identity: "Together, we can do the impossible." The poison arrows are a street tough, performing crew with a punk ethos. They're not making a lot of money at it but they've got heart. Attention: {_} {_} {_} Crack:You mark Crack when your character's Identity demands something of them, but they fail to deliver. If your character continues to ignore their Identity and marks the third Crack box, you replace the theme with a new Mythos theme instead. {_} {_} {_} POWER TAGSWhen you take action using one of the Core Moves, each power tag you have (and that is relevant to your action) adds one point of Power to your move. This improves your chances of succeeding and increases the effectiveness of your action. Each theme starts with 3 power tags. You must answer the first power tag question in your Themebook. Then answer two more of your choice. For each theme, you can only have one broad power tag. A broad power tag is one that would be useful in many different situations. Power Tag Questions Answer the first question (A) from your chosen Themebook, and then choose two more questions from the following list to answer. Your answer should be a short description no more than a few words long. Each answer becomes a power tag. A) Why is this relationship important so to you? My backup and closest friends D) Being around this team has made you. . . supremely self-confident. G) To deal with them you need to be. . . willing to go all the way. WEAKNESS TAGSWeakness Tags depower your moves but earn you Attention. They always describe something limiting (ask yourself: what actions would this weakness tag impede?). Each theme starts with 1 weakness tag. You can answer any weakness tag question in your Themebook. Extra tags! In one theme of your choice, you may add one additional power tag and one additional weakness tag. A) How can they be hurt or impeded? Financial troubles. Crew Crew A list of your crew members, and the Hurt and Help points you have for each. Name Help Hurt Rift - - Rift - - Rift - - Rift - - Story Tags & Nemeses Story Tags A space for other permanent tags you might acquire during the game. Nemeses A list of the Nemeses you gained by replacing themes. Character Progression Development A track of your overall character growth. When it's full, you reset it and choose a Moment of Evolution. {_} {_} {_} {_} {_} Moments of Evolution to choose from: {_} Choose another broad power tag {_} Gain an extra theme: Ally {_} Gain an extra theme: Base of Operations {_} Gain an extra theme: Ride {_} Get closure from your Nemeses {_} Go through a transformation {_} Leave the City {_} Make one Core Move permanently Dynamite! {_} Make one Core Move permanently Dynamite! {_} Make one Core Move permanently Dynamite! {_} See through the Mist

Hi all, Working up a character based on Orphic Dionysus The King In Yellow (same basic idea either way). I've got all of the CoM books, just never had a chance to play locally, so I'm excited for the possibilities.