Weird America -- Interest Check, Signup, Discussion
Even the most rational mind will, under the right circumstances, concede that there are some things man can simply not explain. What they concede on will vary from person to person, some might say they've seen strange lights in the sky, others will swear they saw a ghost once, still some will speak of strange creatures roaming the woodlands.
What our point is here, is that there are some things out there that are simply weird, and that is indeed the best name for it. The Weird is the force of all that is inexplicable, mysterious, or defiant of scientific explanation, and The Weird in everyone's lives is a little different. But there are two Weirds, the Little Weird, the personal. That is the ghost, the spaceship, and the yeti. But we should speak of the Big Weird, both a force and a place. The Big Weird does not content itself with strange lights or spooking noises, The Big Weird causes entire civilizations to materialize out of thin air, and vanish into the mist again days later. The Big Weird causes changes in the fundamental laws of the universe--cold fusion, perpetual motion--and undoes them in an instant. The Big Weird is also a place, America's shady, mysterious cousin, a darker, deeper America, where thousands of miles of untamed forest and scalding desert are dotted only rarely with the dim lights of civilization.
Sometimes, a Little Weird becomes big, and sometimes, a person is pulled into this dark America, by their oh-so-harmless Little Weird.
That, dear players, is you. You are someone much like your real-world selves, average American citizens, but cursed with a Little Weird, and on this day, you've been pulled from our surgically clean bright America into the dark undergrowth of The Big Weird.
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Character Sheet Template:
Name
Race (as in, Caucasian, African-American, etc., not Elf or Dwarf. Be as general or specific as you'd like.)
Age
Place of Residence
Weird: Weird Name -- Your weird is your personal Little Weird. Maybe you were abducted by aliens once--or multiple times--or maybe your house is haunted. Something strange is in your life, that is this.
Talent: Talent Name -- Weirds sharpen the minds and bodies of those they affect, and your Weird has led you to have these particular skills. They should be useful, and related to your Weird, if possible.
Backstory: Optional, a few lines will suffice for the most part.
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An example character sheet:
Rachel H. Pons
Caucasian (American, French descent)
22
The Big Weird, born in Reading, Pennsylvania
Weird: Mad Science -- Though never predisposed to tinkering herself, Rachel is related to Stanley Pons, one half of the legendary Pons-Fleischman duo who claimed to discover cold fusion. Not a close relative of Stanley, Rachel was nonetheless exposed to a wide variety of unconventional scientific theories since a young age, giving the largely athletically-oriented Rachel a distant interest in such theories.
Talent: Weird Guns -- Upon her arrival in the Weird, Rachel discovered she had become remarkably resourceful. Nearly any pile of junk she could turn into a decently effective firearm. After nearly two years in the Weird, she's become downright adept at it, and can even create "impossible" guns, like lasers, and most notably, "Pons Coils", plasma cannons that use her famous relative's cold fusion principles.
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That's about it! Feel free to sign up whenever you'd like.
Knowledge of American geography and folklore will help in this game, but is by no means a necessity.
Also, you will be getting periodic You Are Here updates, with the first being as soon as we start the game. More about those when the time comes.
Inspiration for the series comes primarily from the Weird U.S. book series, a series of by-state catalogues of strange bits of folklore.
What our point is here, is that there are some things out there that are simply weird, and that is indeed the best name for it. The Weird is the force of all that is inexplicable, mysterious, or defiant of scientific explanation, and The Weird in everyone's lives is a little different. But there are two Weirds, the Little Weird, the personal. That is the ghost, the spaceship, and the yeti. But we should speak of the Big Weird, both a force and a place. The Big Weird does not content itself with strange lights or spooking noises, The Big Weird causes entire civilizations to materialize out of thin air, and vanish into the mist again days later. The Big Weird causes changes in the fundamental laws of the universe--cold fusion, perpetual motion--and undoes them in an instant. The Big Weird is also a place, America's shady, mysterious cousin, a darker, deeper America, where thousands of miles of untamed forest and scalding desert are dotted only rarely with the dim lights of civilization.
Sometimes, a Little Weird becomes big, and sometimes, a person is pulled into this dark America, by their oh-so-harmless Little Weird.
That, dear players, is you. You are someone much like your real-world selves, average American citizens, but cursed with a Little Weird, and on this day, you've been pulled from our surgically clean bright America into the dark undergrowth of The Big Weird.
------
Character Sheet Template:
Name
Race (as in, Caucasian, African-American, etc., not Elf or Dwarf. Be as general or specific as you'd like.)
Age
Place of Residence
Weird: Weird Name -- Your weird is your personal Little Weird. Maybe you were abducted by aliens once--or multiple times--or maybe your house is haunted. Something strange is in your life, that is this.
Talent: Talent Name -- Weirds sharpen the minds and bodies of those they affect, and your Weird has led you to have these particular skills. They should be useful, and related to your Weird, if possible.
Backstory: Optional, a few lines will suffice for the most part.
----
An example character sheet:
Rachel H. Pons
Caucasian (American, French descent)
22
The Big Weird, born in Reading, Pennsylvania
Weird: Mad Science -- Though never predisposed to tinkering herself, Rachel is related to Stanley Pons, one half of the legendary Pons-Fleischman duo who claimed to discover cold fusion. Not a close relative of Stanley, Rachel was nonetheless exposed to a wide variety of unconventional scientific theories since a young age, giving the largely athletically-oriented Rachel a distant interest in such theories.
Talent: Weird Guns -- Upon her arrival in the Weird, Rachel discovered she had become remarkably resourceful. Nearly any pile of junk she could turn into a decently effective firearm. After nearly two years in the Weird, she's become downright adept at it, and can even create "impossible" guns, like lasers, and most notably, "Pons Coils", plasma cannons that use her famous relative's cold fusion principles.
----------
That's about it! Feel free to sign up whenever you'd like.
Knowledge of American geography and folklore will help in this game, but is by no means a necessity.
Also, you will be getting periodic You Are Here updates, with the first being as soon as we start the game. More about those when the time comes.
Inspiration for the series comes primarily from the Weird U.S. book series, a series of by-state catalogues of strange bits of folklore.
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Comments
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Second Generation Caucasian (Italian, German, claimed "part Native American," who knows what else)
25
A small haunted house in New England
Weird: Him or Okim, Burn in Violet -- She is sure that she is just an ordinary witch selling potions, charms, and magical paraphernalia to passers-by in her small shop on a lonely road. She is sure the only people she knows are on the internet. She is sure that her non-stop nightmares about being a teen-aged boy who won't leave his bed are fake. Fake, but vivid: he watches the slow shifts of the pale, burning sunlight, his stomach rumbles, and shadowy, menacing figures push at the edge of his mind, shouting to be let in, but he won't let them, because he remembers the numbing cold they will flood his entire body with before he pushes them out with all of his strength. They say awful things that can't be true. They are the only things in this world other than himself. Gilly hates going to sleep because of these nightmares. She stays awake for as long as she can. She is always exhausted, it feels like. Sometimes, she can barely remember how to brew a potion.
Talent: Shmup-Colored Magic -- In real life, Gilly is every bit as agile as the magical anime girls in the danmaku games she likes. She feels that she will one day be able to fill her sight with her own magical projectiles, and then she can be a true danmaku witch. Yes.
Jacqueline Hélène Truman
White British (US citizen)
23
The Big Weird, Boston
Weird: Pendant of Sensation -- When she was 9 years old and living in her mother's home in Wiltshire, England, Jackie discovered a small, wooden pendant with an eye carved into it, which was wedged in a hollow in an old oak in Picket Wood. It was pretty, so she took it. She and her parents moved to her father's home city of Boston shortly afterwards. Jackie is aware that the pendant has certain unusual properties, but is unaware of how much it meant to its previous owner, nor that said vengeful owner has been searching blindly-but-furiously for it ever since. She's about to find out very soon, and she had best hope she has some cold iron on hand when that time comes...
Talent: Weirdness Detector -- The pendant carries an enchantment, the purpose of which is to provide sight, hearing and other senses to a creature who is deaf and blind without it. Jackie could not possibly be aware of this, but she has noticed that while wearing the pendant, she often encounters... odd things. Not usually dramatic things, but peculiar sensations. Sounds that nobody else hears. Strange marks on the sidewalk that nobody else seems to notice. Eyes that peer through windows after dark, only to vanish the moment you look a second time. Shadows belonging to people who aren't there...
Without the pendant she is perfectly normal, although prolonged exposure to it has left her slightly more observant than is average.
Witches work fine, but maybe approach it from a different angle?
I'm gonna put a link to the Weird U.S. site in the OP so people are more immediately familiar with the inspiration behind this game
here it is down here as well
http://www.weirdus.com/index.php
Also the characters are supposed to be ordinary people with something strange about them, your character seems to be like the inverse of that.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
The real owner of the pendant is an ancient creature who has been searching for it ever since Jackie made off with it and is now closing in. The only reason said creature hasn't found her yet is that without the pendant, said creature is deaf and blind, and its other senses aren't anything to write home about, either. The creature is probably some kind of fae, is most certainly violent, and is not at all forgiving. I'll let Mo decide the rest, assuming she goes ahead with this game.