This was a playbook idea for Apocalypse World 2nd ed. that wormed its way into my head on my commute home. It was so insistent on coming into being I lost 4 hours of squinting at it just to get two pages written down. So, while far from finished, I’d at least like to introduce you to a fun concept, The Scratcher.
“I came up with the idea based on hobo signs, along with dystopian ‘information smugglers’. Hackers without computers, but with a crazy written language and the maelstrom. Part superspy, part infosmuggling, part psychofuckery.”
Should that playbook have a move for manipulating public opinion with a blatant, in your face scratch ?
Only scratchers can read scratches, it’s like a hidden code. So if you wanted to write a scratch that affected the public, that’d be more in the form of pulling in the maelstrom through augury with wards and sigils. You could do that. A big, bloody, nasty “don’t come this way” doom glyph, that gives people the creeps.
Think of it like a crazier form of hobo code: angelfire.com – Hobo Signs
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