Kira Magrann – Powered by the Apocalypse G+ Archives

They live on a salt marsh by the sea, have two cows two sheep, and cut wood from the marsh forests, get fish and seals from the sea, and trade milk when they can. They have some artifacts they raided from Ireland: a tapestry of wild Irish Wolf Hounds, a broken cross, and north Umbrian Bishop’s robes.

There’s an arranged marriage (inspired by Jason Morningstar’s one-shot scenario). Gyda’s brother Olaf, the local Godi, has arranged for Ivar to marry Thora, daughter and sheild maiden of Sigurd the Beserk, raiders to the north in the fjords whom they’re trying to make peace with. The game begins the day before the marriage, and everything must be perfect. Ivar takes Ulf to trade wood for mead with their neighbor the one-eyed Yngvar, a fisherman by the sea. On the way a ship drifts to land, and aboard it is Ali. There’s many religious debates, and Ali ends up praying to Thor after defeat in a footrace with Ivar, but later Ivar must pray to Allah after loss in a debate. Ivar’s manliness is questioned, how could a farmer like him marry a shield maiden like Thora? To prove himself they must wrestle before the wedding tomorrow. Olaf has a bad feeling about the wedding, and there are many bad omens: Ali arrives on a ship of dead men that they burn, a cod flops out of the sea and dies, a grease fire starts in the house. When they return back to the house the all have dinner with the family, the Godi Olaf is there. After dinner Ivar insults Asgerd (his shield maiden cousin) and she beats him in a wrestling match. She seems angry at him, but no-one can figure out why! Then, after one too many slanderous remarks from Olaf to Ulf, Ulf freaks out and attacks and kills Olaf outside and no-one sees it! The Godi is dead the night before the wedding, but the only evidence is a smear of blood and a missing Ulf. This bodes terribly for the family, and they fear for the failure of the wedding tomorrow.

Gyda reads the runes (after she advances she chooses a Seidkona move!) and sees the future: Thora is crawling into bed with her niece, Asgerd, after the wedding! In order to secure the marriage, Gyda talks to Asgerd, and says as long as she allows the marriage of Thora and Ivar to go through, she is welcome to visit her house in the night. They agree it’s the best for everyone. Outside, Ivar and Ali and Ulf are searching for Olaf, and a boat arrives on shore. Sigurd and Thora have arrived early. CLIFFHANGER.

It was the first session and there was a bit of a learning curve with all the moves people could use, but about halfway through we were all really, really excited to use them and we all got the hang of it pretty quick. I’m thinking the God in play here is Odin, and the threat is obviously the beserkers. The Man gained the move Expansion from this session, and we’re thinking he might become the Godi, while the Woman might become either the Matriarch or the Seidkona.

Last night, on Monsterhearts.

Rowan’s (selkie) bad luck continues, as he’s acquired a charm somehow that keeps inflicting horrible things on him. He gets bitten by a rabid dog in the parkinglot. Cassidy (werewolf) walks him to the nurse’s office, where he gets healed, and the two of them bump into Jackson (chosen) and Victoria (queen) on the way out. Rowan and Cassidy are still pissed at Jackson for stabbing everyone last session, so treat him pretty poorly. Jackson gets some healin for his condition “snake bites all over my body” also from last session.

As they’re leaving, Rowan and Cassidy are talking about spending some time together. Since they slept together last session, Cassidy has been pretty possessive of Rowan. She suggests they hang out tonight, and Rowan suggests his beach house. Victoria overhears them, and says “Oh, there’s a beach party tonight?” Victorian and Cassidy have a bitchy staredown, Cassidy accuses her of being a fake punk rock band because she doesn’t know any of the punk kids, but when Victoria says she’ll bring weed Rowan ends up inviting everyone over. It’s not even Rowan’s house, he’s just squatting there.

Before the party Jackson and Victoria have a scene where Victoria offers the weed to Jackson, telling him to give it to Cassidy to get back on her good side. They’re both getting dressed in swimwear, but Jackson is still smooth like a ken doll since the mermaid stole his junk! He backs his trunks hastily with toilet paper, hoping no one will notice.

At the beach party before everyone arrives Rowan and Cassidy have an intimate chat. She finds out Rowan has slept with most of the group, and it’s all been guy on guy. “So, all the guys I’ve slept with recently are gay?” Cass asks, and Rowan says “I dunno, does that count?” It ends with Cassidy asking “So, like, are we dating now?” but everyone arrives and the question is left unanswered. Victoria brings her “punk band” called Twatrocket to hang out with everyone. Jackson delivers Cassidy the weed, and they exchange intimacies to gain strings on each other (a homebrew move). Meanwhile, Victoria and Rowan and the band are going skinny dipping, but its mostly awkward. Victoria hits on Jackson, but then promptly turns him down “Get in the van, take off your pants, get out of the van!” While Rowan is skinny dipping, Cassidy steals Rowan’s pelt and hides it in the trunk of Victoria’s car. Rowan turns Cage on while he’s further down the beach with Jade (npc chosen). Jackson gets stoned with Cassidy because he can’t hook up with Victoria, and Cassidy just gets more and more angsty about Rowan. The three of them pass out in the beach house.

Cage heads back to his house, into his basement, and begins to labor over a table with his empty sister on it. His father’s tools and pocketwatch lie there, useless and silent.

In the morning they’re confronted by the real owners of the house. There’s a brief conflict and Jackson stands in the way of Cassidy’s lash out, taking two harm. They all head to school late. On the way, Graham (npc werewolf in Cassidy’s pack) drives by on a motorcycle and says they need to talk. Rowan hates this dude, and tries to shut him down. Fails horribly, he just laughs at Rowan, and Cassidy takes the ride to school. Victoria catches up with Rowan and Jackson, and offers Rowan to come over to her place and hang out, cause if Cassidy’s hanging out with other people, why can’t he? They skip school.

Graham tells Cassidy the Order is in town, so she needs to lay low. Asks why they never hung out, offers to take her on a date, they get to school and Cassidy turns him on (she wants him wrapped around her finger, but in order to do it she has to best him in physical combat, which they make a “date” for later). Cassidy runs into Cage and Jackson in the school parkinglot, all arriving late. Jackson stops them both, forcing the three of them to actually talk. Cassidy confronts Cage, telling him to stay away from her and Rowan. Things escalate, he calls her on her shit, she lashes out, he takes two harm. They go to school.

Victoria all day has been plying Rowan with drinks and smokes for no other discernible reason than to shake things up or assert her scheming dominance over the group. Her band invites everyone over to her house for a garage party. We all go (PCs) and Cassidy walks in to see Rowan draped over Victoria. Cassidy sits, stewing, gets into a convo with Rowan about where they’re at in their relationship, and due to a failed turn on roll both Cassidy and Rowan jump to the wrong conclusions: Rowan thinks they’re open to sleep with anyone, Cassidy thinks they’re exclusive. Cage and one of the band members start flirting on Cassidy and Rowan’s couch, Cassidy pulls Cage aside to tell him to stay away from them one more time. Brings up they’re really awkward forest sex last session, then goes on to accuse him of having sex with Rowan and Gail. She tries to call him out on his shit, but fails, so the move reverses on her. Victoria grins at the havok she’s caused. Cage runs away, and Cassidy’s phone rings, and it’s Graham (npc werewolf from her pack) sounding dead or dying and he says “You have to get out of here,” and Jade comes on the line saying “You’re next bitch.” The PCs can’t see this, but the camera pans away and Jackson is standing beside Jade.

Last night on Monsterhearts…

Last night on Monsterhearts…

We ended with a bit of a cliffhanger previous session. Gail (fae) had taken Cage’s (ghoul) doll-like sister for safe keeping back to his newly discovered fae family who live in a fae abandoned hospital. The characters tracked Gail and the sister down. The problem was, Gail wasn’t allowed to let us in, it was the only rule his fae family had set down. But we needed to get Cage’s sister, so we went in anyway. Cue crazy scenes in fae-land.

The fun part about this is that we were both playing two characters. (so far, whenever one character has NPCs in a gang, we all get to play one of the NPCs. The same was true of the faeries.) So the players were able to poke at the other player characters with the NPCs. Our group does this a bunch in various games, and it’s pretty fun.

One of the fae is a Master Duellist. She challenges Cassidy (werewolf) to a duel of course (the most intimidating physical character there) and the two of them exchange some awful blows, the duellist wielding a silver sword. The duellist nearly dead, Cassidy uses her Mercy move, but the duellist fills up all four of the werewolf’s harm regardless, pushing Cassidy into her darkest self. A raging blackfurred beast stalks the halls.

Another fae is a beautiful Princess. A romantic, she becomes obsessed with the “hero from the sea”, our (selkie) Rowan. Rowan just wants to find Cage’s sister, and says she looks like a doll, and so the Princess takes her to her dollhouse, where row after row of dolls with the faces of people Rowan knows at school are lined. The Princess proceeds to distract Rowan as much as possible, taking him to a ball, saying “just one more dance” to keep him distracted.

The third fae, a Barrow Wight, speaks to the dead, and so of course hones in on Cage (ghoul). They exchange witty remarks about how dead they both are, but the Barrow Wight pokes at Cage. He’s searching for his sister, and when he turns to go the fae presents him with ten exits. “What do you really desire, in that empty shell you inhabit” the fae asks. Cage responds “I dunno, I guess, I don’t know who I am”. The fae tosses him a coin and says “Choose a direction.”

Finally, Jackson (chosen) is confronted with a giant Snake fae. This fae just wants to eat him. Jackson fails an attack role, and jumps to the worst possible conclusion, Gail tricked them all into coming into the fae realm so they could all be destroyed. The snake bit him nearly to death, but in the end made Gail appear before them all. Jackson proceeds to attack Gail, thinking he’s the enemy. The head of the household, a woman with a beehive hairdo, enters the scene and rolls out a contract before Gail. “I hate to do this, but you broke your promise.” And Gail disappears (he retires his character).

All the characters are outside, but the action isn’t over yet! Cassidy is still in her darkest self, and rips into Cage (it was funny, we all rolled for who of the PCs would be attacked, and everyone was so excited to get the highest number! So emo). She has a homebrewed power called Unrepentant Rage (or something I can’t remember) where she can’t help but do two damage when she lashes out physically. Cage flies across the graveyard, but Cassidy doesn’t stop here (she doesn’t care for Cage anymore!!) and the werewolf drooling and mad turns on Rowan. Rowan points at the moon saying “It’s not even full Cassidy!” but Cassidy just sees his hand and jumps on him, ravaging his arm. Jackson stabs the werewolf, but it’s Cages words the help sedate the beast. He calls her on her shit, saying “Cassidy this is bullshit, how you just lash out and hurt the people you care about. Get over yourself”. The werewolf sees how much she hurt Cage and Rowan, and comes out of her rage, shaking and naked, and Rowan, with savaged arm, proceeds to comfort her.

Meanwhile, the condition Cage gets for calling her on her shit is “heartless”. The player takes this literally, and where Cage’s heart used to be before the werewolf encounter is a hole. The other PCs proceed home with Cage’s sister, but Cage stays to satiate his hunger. Cassidy proceeds to look for his heart in the ravine nearby, which leads to an uncomfortable sex scene with the two characters (because Cassidy can still satiate Cage’s hunger, but she doesn’t remember having sex with him). He’s in his darkest self, but Cassidy’s turned on, and she gives herself to him feeling pretty guilty about tearing his heart out when she was a werewolf. Sex moves are exchanged (Cassidy now has Cage back on her possessive list, Cassidy remains a way Cage can satiate his hunger). All kinds of angst. And what, these two can’t escape each other.

The next day at school there’s a new character Victoria (queen). She has a bad luck amulet that’s causing all sorts of havok. Cage’s “girlfriend” Jade meets up with him and wants to know if he got her sexts, he relents to a date with her. Cassidy and Rowan meet up after school in the drug van, wallow in misery, cigarettes, and vodka, and have misery hook up sex. They feel marginally better afterwards and sex moves are exchanged (Cassidy has Rowan and Cage on her possessive list now, and Rowan has strings on Cage). Jackson flirts with the new girl Victoria, and has a date lined up. Hope she doesn’t notice his junk is missing (still stolen from the mermaid/man, still unresolved til next time!).