Category: Monsterhearts: AP

Had a great first session of my new 4-parter, The Manic Kingdom. It’s part of my continuing quest to find alternative set ups to the classroom. Previously, I’d used the funeral of a close friend. This time the set up involved us constructing a bottom tier theme park, naming some notable attractions in the areas of the park, creating some employees of the park, and establishing why each of our teens is their every day (the group collectively went with being summer break employees).

The cast includes Micah the Werewolf, Yvonne the Ice Queen, Red the Giant, Lucia the Witch, and Selene the Fae. We established some interesting NPCs: Willard Dokie (founder of the park), Brucie Dokie (his coke-addled loser nephew), Gretchen (former beauty queen now playing a fairy princess), Cancer Mom (a woman using her son’s illness to scam perks off the park), and some more interesting ones. My personal favorite is Okie Dokie, the sloth mascot, whom no one has ever seen out of his costume. I have some unsettling plans for him in the future sessions.

We had a few establishing scenes after a pretty lengthy world building discussion. Micah and Lucia arrived at work only to encounter creepy stage magician Mercutio who kept asking about their weekend plans. They successfully blew him off before reporting for duty at El Dorado Taco in the Aztec Kingdom area of the park. Micah failed to impress Lucia and he tried to make her jealous with college co-ed Shelly which seemed to work a bit. 

Red was donning his Jolly Red Giant costume to work in the fantastically over-sized area of the park, Bigburg. Selene noticed he was down and made it her goal to make his day better. However, they encountered the irate Cancer Mom trying to use her kid to pass a long queue for a ride and things got bad. Red attempted to lift the boy and carry him above the line but broke the child’s leg instead. Selene stepped in and escorted the woman to customer service. On the way, they ran into Yvonne who was arguing with security about letting a woman in who was carrying her husband’s ashes in an urn. Yvonne blew it and the urn ended up spilled across the entrance and, when she attempted to run away, she knocked the sick boy out of his wheelchair, breaking his other leg. Selene finally got the mother to coke-addled Brucie who tossed some drink tokens to the woman while medical wheeled her child away.

It was a great first session that let the players test drive the characters and firmly establish the world. Such a great experience, playing with such respectful, thoughtful players who are working on all cylinders to develop a rich story. Can’t wait for session 2 on Saturday.

Here is the map for our park: Happytown with accompanying notes.

Play Report for Monsterhearts: Distortion Parts 1 through 4.

All the trouble in Panhandle, USA began with the death of a young man, Grant. He was hit by a car while chasing after his girlfriend, Luna the Calaca. At the funeral tensions were high and Anastasia the Ice Queen watched from a distance before heading home. On her doorstep she found a video cassette that contained footage of Grant’s death as filmed by a figure in the bushes by the side of the road. Ana was naturally disturbed by this and sought out Luna.

Luna was spending time with her friend Delia at the local Applebee’s, while at a nearby booth Cassi the Queen held court with Aster the Minotaur and Hugh the Mortal in tow. Hugh was dating Madison, one of Cassi’s clique but pined for Aster secretly. Cassi lorded her position over the group’s poor put upon waiter, AJ. Luna was reaching out to the abyss at one moment and spied images of AJ practice voodoo as a result of years of bullying at Cassi’s hands but was called away by Ana. After her departure, Madison excused herself to the bathroom where she was brutally murdered by an unseen figure using garrote. 

Ana shared the video with Luna and the two realized they needed to do further investigation. Ana was on her way to spend the night at Luna’s house when they encountered Ana’s creepy father who made a sexual pass at Luna. The next morning the two girls attended Luna’s church in the hopes of coercing Luna’s abuela into giving them access to the home of Ryan, the young man who staged the party where Grant was murdered. Aster was at home dealing with ongoing abuse from her stepfather Manny and fled to her secret hideaway in a crypt at the cemetery. Hugh followed her there and they gave in to their passions, convenient now that Madison was dead. This awakened something in Aster and she charged home and began to brutalize her stepfather almost to the point of death before Hugh talked sense into her. Back at the church, Ana lost control of her Ice Queen powers and Luna’s grandmother began to freeze internally and had to be rushed away.

Out of guilt, Ana fled to the cemetery where she witnessed AJ exhuming Grant’s corpse and then Aster and Hugh bringing the dying Manny to be hid away in the crypt. Ana pressured Aster into aiding her investigation over Grant’s murder and Hugh didn’t seem to like this. The lovers had a tiff and Hugh stormed off threatening to tell the authorities about what Aster did. Aster, Ana, and Luna all joined up and headed to Ryan’s house to question him about the party. They encountered Cassi and Aster turned coward seeing her leader, stating that Ana and Luna were responsible for some missing drugs. Ana and Luna forced Cassi to back down and cut ties with Aster. 

Gazing into the abyss, Luna saw an evil had emerged from the lake behind Cassi and Ryan’s homes, a black oily sludgy thing. Ana saw a terrible vision of her own, a fellow classmate entering Ryan’s home and being bludgeoned to death by a skulking figure that retreated into the cavernous home. The girls decided to call the authorities and Detective Jones, AJ’s father showed up and entered the home. Meanwhile, Aster sought her own guidance from the darkness and a voice from the ether led her to AJ’s home on the literal wrong side of the tracks. After muscling past AJ’s demented grandmere, Aster ends up in the dank basement where Grant is lying on a slab. AJ emerges with a large blade ready for some grisly act and ends up fighting Aster. AJ is battered and beaten and Aster removes his reproductive parts before finishing him off. Now she sets it in her sights to kill Hugh as she continues down this terrible path.

Ana and Luna hear gunshots inside Ryan’s house and Detective Jones emerges with a bullet wound in his gut. Ana takes him to safety outside and Luna ascends the stairs to check on Ryan. She finds Ryan also shot who is able to tell her that the Detective had been keeping him imprisoned and shot himself to look like he’d been legitimately hurt. Detective Jones turns on Ana who hits him with some of her ice powers and he backs off, retreating to his car and pulling away. Ana and Luna come back together and think they should call the police again to report what happened. Before, they can communicate fully to the 911 operator she says she’ll send Jones who is in the area. He reappears and wounds Luna in the back. Ana snaps and uses her ice golem to overturn Jones’ car. The weather in Panhandle begins to grow cloudy and light snow begins falling as Ana takes Luna and Ryan to the hospital.

Across town, Aster encountered Cassi again and showed she was no longer following orders. Madison was injured and Cassi fled. Aster went from being the muscle to giving orders and recruited some recently arrested fellow members of the high school wrestling team. A standoff with Cassi occurred at a gas station and Aster was shot and detained. Due to being a Calaca, Luna was declared dead even though she was simply unconscious and place in the hospital morgue. She got out and the hospital staff thought this had been a major error on their part. Luna managed to slip away but was quickly followed by AJ who was reanimated by the strange black oil that Ana glimpsed was a part of what was torturing Ryan. Luna and Ana were reunited and began searching the hospital for AJ, who Ana glimpsed was wandering the halls now. AJ finds his way to the recovery room where Luna’s grandmother was with Luna’s father and mother. The audience doesn’t see what happens until Luna arrives at the room and finds them slaughtered while AJ attempts to escape the hospital. Ana heads him off and she ends up tearing apart his torso while Luna douses him with gasoline from a nearby station and they ignite the villain. They embrace as the fire rages.

Our final scene finds Aster restrained in her hospital bed by the police and gazing into the abyss over her lost lover Hugh. She sees he is in the police station having ratted on her when the near dead Detective Jones shows up, kills the officer watching over Hugh, infects Hugh with a familiar black oil, and subsequently kills himself. Hugh simply grins, lips stained with the black slime. Aster is visited in her room by the now recovered Manny, her step-father. You see, Aster is so formidable because her step-father was testing his company’s human growth hormone on her for years. He tells her he will get revenge for the savage beating she gave him by locking her up in a deep dark hole and dissecting her slowly over the next few years. Aster uses her last ounce of strength to strangle herself with the restraints and passes away, depriving her cruel step-father of his sick revenge and torture.

We’ll return to Panhandle in late November with a 4 parter entitled The Manic Kingdom centered around a nearby theme park with lots of dark secrets.