Originally shared by Topher Gerkey
The Minotaur is here!
Angry, lonely, and willing to be used if that’s what it takes for people to talk to him, he’s ready to join your Monsterhearts game and scare the dickens out of all those pencil-necked geeks. If you use him, please let me know how it went – I love getting feedback!
As always, my skins are free to download and share – don’t let anyone bully you into trading something for them! A big thank you to my Patreon patrons for continuing to make my skins possible – if you’d like to help to, check me out at www.patreon.com/topher !
As a side note, I have two more skins very close to done, and they will probably be released in January. Because of that, I’m going to hold off on releasing an updated Skins for the Skinless collection until I can include all twelve (!) skins in it. Please be patient! ^_^
Oh my grob this is great. Will have more to say post-coffee.
Alright, so, like I previously said, this is great. I really like the conceptual space it explores. Many of the questions I had were actually answered in the Playing the… section, so that’s awesome as well. I was wondering about the Hot stat at first, but reading back over I can see why it is applicable. Plus, it means that the Minotaur and the Sasquatch have overlapping conceptual space without actually stepping on each other’s toes. I bet they’d make great foils, actually. They’re both loners, but the Min has enough brute charisma to make people like them. The Sasquatch just wants to hide.
A Mortal who chooses the Sasquatch as their true love would be tragically fun.
I think Red Flag is really cool, because it creates a new context for a move anyone can use. I’m all about those kinds of moves. One of things I enjoyed about your Proxy and Tegu’s Sasquatch was that there were finally supernatural options for running away, which had always just kind of been hanging out.
One of the things I like about Monsterhearts is that it gives the opportunity to explore/play with/subvert gender roles and expectations. I was thinking about that while looking at the name and look selections here. A lot of things give off a masculine tone, but that’s less because of any essential properties and more because of ingrained societal assumptions about gender. This Skin makes me think of, like, that really tall girl from Hey Arnold, or the bellicose sisters in The Proud Family. Girl-type bullies are usually relegated to the bitchy princess role, using their looks and status to manipulate people, so it’s cool to get a way to portray them differently. Yay!
This Skin also makes me think of Don Gately. He basically gave Joelle the golden thread as soon as he laid eyes on her veil.
Does the modified Condition for Bully also apply to the 7-9 options for Hold Steady, or just on an outright miss?
AH! Typing that out I just got the wordplay going on! Genius!
How supernatural-ish are the Conditions in the Maze and Golden Thread supposed to be? Tribute reaffirms that they’re standard Conditions that can be given out by anyone, or at least in the Maze. Is Golden Thread the same way? It just feels weird that I can use my emotional leverage over someone to give them protection from this other guy.
Hmm. I think I may have had too much coffee. But, to sum up, again, I’m all about this one. Good job!
I love this skin.
Annoyingly I can’t access this from the computer I’m at at the moment, but I briefly saw a copy last night, and wanted to relate some of a conversation I had concerning the character. I would’ve loved to have been able to read the Skin properly, so apologies if these are actually addressed in them.
I played a game of Nobilis where, in playing a god-like character that symbolised riddles and secrets, in particular the idea of secrets we lock away inside ourselves, he took on the form of a Minotaur in a labyrinth. He was a monster that would ‘slay’ those fools who rushed in, so had a judgemental side to him, but was guarding answers in the centre of the maze that the worthy could find. And he was physically a monster, something that he was in some way ashamed of, tending to stick to the shadow, to lurk ominously in doorways and threaten people with his presence, trying to fight a more instinctive primal nature.
I know that the Minotaur Skin is, in the broadest brush strokes, a bully. I was wondering whether there was any sort of symbolic backstory, such as the character being ashamed of something, or in some way an outsider or ‘monster’, that threw up walls in self defence, that might be successfully navigated by someone genuinely seeking to find the person inside, but with the threat of the character lashing out in fear or anger if provoked. That maybe the character has a secret that it must keep from the world, that it always fears people are more interested in than genuine friendship. Admittedly, such a character could easily be a bully, but there’s scope for other character types… the gentle giant, the rich kid with a mysterious legacy, the creative prodigy who cannot relate easily to people. Someone that people are wary of, and try not to poke because they know it will get ugly, fast.
Just ideas. Just trying to map some of my own teenage angst/pop psychology onto the figure of the Minotaur, and wondering if those things already exist to some extent with the character (again, apologies if they ARE addressed already).