Alpine Academy, Session 3, Scene 1
Alpine Academy, Session 3, Scene 1
So, I ran our third session of Masks the other night, and things went pretty well. Two of the characters were absent, but they were actually split from the party so we’re just going to run their scene another time. For now, I’ll explain that we started with Wispy. She’s a pink haired hetrochromic girl who has connections to the Fae, she’s basically a magical-hero in the vein of Doctor Strange, but her focus is mental magic. She uses telepathy and illusions and such. Last session she was hinting at the fact that she was being followed, so we started with that. She takes the bus home from the Hero school she attends (which pretends to be a regular private school and is mostly cloaked). When she arrives at the outskirts of the city, she notices strange noises coming from nearby. A group of goblins appear to be following her, magical creatures that only she can see. She detects them, but everyone else thinks she stares at air. She uses an illusion to give them the slip and moves around the back of her house. The goblins appear to be weakened and slightly blinded by the sunlight, so they don’t see her.
When she finds her mom in the kitchen cooking, she tells her about the goblins out in the front doorway, which is hanging open. It was made known that Wispy’s mother has red hair and her eyes are gold, whereas Wispy only has one golden eye. Wispy’s mom plays along, knowing about her daughter’s supernatural gifts, and pretends to scare away the goblins with her iron cooking pan. It actually works and they skitter away. Wispy goes to her room.
Scene 2
We see the anti-hero Dancing Shadow work out her stress from her previous battles in her own way. She shows off her ‘costume’ for the first time. She wears a black ballerina leotard (no tutu) and an old halloween costume that makes her look like a hooded phantom. She returns to the scene of her previous battle with some villain henchmen at night. As a consequence of the battle, a building was destroyed and there is debris everywhere. Shadow uses her mental powers (which mostly influence fear and darkness, but she also has telekinesis) to scare some kids who are poking around the site. Her powers come out almost too potent, because she has little control over them. A tornado of dust and rocks soon forms around the children and all the nearby PCs come to see what is happening.
Ninfu, (a modern alchemist/magical scientist) and Specter (an adrogenous ghost-mutant who works as a pizza boy) arrive on the scene. Wispy also teleports there, able to see the dust from her house.
Scene 3
Wispy reads Shadow’s mind and determines that something is wrong with her. Her powers are controlled by some dark force within her mind, and the fae becomes determined to discover it. She pulls the nearby heroes into an astral space within Shadow’s mind, much to the annoyance of Specter and even Shadow herself. Specter was in the middle of a job, and in his astral form he appears as a more feminine boy with different features in a sci-fi outfit. Ninfu glows with radiant light in the astral world. Wispy represents a more insectoid fae form, with curled legs and fairy wings.
Scene 4
For the first time, the teen heroes have a leader outside of their normal teacher’s aid in Wispy. She does her best to organize and unify the group, but Shadow refuses to help directly and warns them to leave. As they ignore her and enter the darkness, their fears come to life.
Ninfu’s power stems from the fact that she creates magical formula. One in particular involves using unicorn horn powder to preserve herself as a childish (loli) girl. She is extremely worried that if others found out about the formula they would hunt down unicorns to extinction. The fear manifests itself directly and the party is now in a forest illusion where poachers hunt unicorns in the backdrop. Arrows fly overhead.
Specter attempts to catch the arrow, but finds that the illusions cause real pain. His transparent form begins leaking blood. Ninfu manifests a magical philosopher’s stone within the mental space that allows her to focus her mental energy. She uses this mental energy to urge Specter to heal.
Scene 5
After the poachers fade away, Specter feels dejected because of the pain and stress and strangeness of the situation. His fear of being a burden and being mocked socially come into play. He sees illusions of his comrades mocking him (the PCs didn’t really jump in to act things out, so i just described that he was being treated badly) and he is isolated by the darkness.
Meanwhile, Wispy’s fear (which is not directly shown) begins to swallow her up as well. Ninfu reacts quickly and shoves the magical stone into the cocoon of darkness. The shell is destroyed and the darkness is forced back. Everyone is shunted out of Shadow’s mind.
Scene 6
Back in the real world, Specter and Shadow flee to return to their lives. They fall apart from the group and are unhappy with Wispy’s choice to invade the astral space. Ninfu, by contrast, grows closer to Wispy due to the battle and decides to go home with her. We end on sort of a bookend, with Ninfu being introduced to Wispy’s mother and sleeping over for the night. Wispy is happy she has somehow made a new (abnormal) friend.
