Play logs, and commentary that the Players can see will go over here on my mental scrapbook:
http://community.livejournal.com/fateofeden/3584.html

Hope Springs was a branch we played through as Dogs. 180 years on it’s a town with little white picket fences down the homogenous suburbs and an impoverished industrial area. I’m going to talk a little bit about the setting history, but only because that makes sense chronologically. All the details dropped out of the monster, victim, slave and acolyte builds. I’ll just post the monster here, as it’s quite a lengthy post, but I’ll talk about the victim Mortimer Elroy, the now enSlaved Doctor Ahab Weiderganger and the deaf Acolyte Davey Bookman on other posts.

Twelve years ago Hope Springs was gripped by a series of horrific murders. Josiah Craw, whom the press dubbed The Grim Reaper, killed a spate of people with a variety of antique agricultural equipment. Veteran players may well have been part of the team that chased him to an out of town orphanage and then finished him off with the aid of the nuns who worked there.

Twelve years to the day that Craw committed his most brutal reaping and was shot dead by law enforcement, one of his surviving victims is decapitated by a scythe blow. The deceased, who was wheel-chair bound following Josiah’s attack, was being wheeled to the grave of her dead husband by her son (who is her full-time carer) to place a few flowers on her husbands grave. Her name can be Florence Delacroix, and her son, who survived this attack, is Sebastian Delacroix. Now an orphan, Seb is a prime target for a future victimisation, which is why the Doctor killed his mother in the first place, and to throw heat off the true Monsters trail. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The crime scene is a potential starting point for Veterans and Investigators, because it just so happens to be right next to the funeral. And Mortimer Elroy is a witness to the killing.

The funeral? Oh yeah, that’s for the parents of our starting victim, the aforementioned Mortimer Elroy who is now nine years of age. They died, by a genuine accident, in a car crash a few days ago. Since their death Mortimer has been victimised by two degrees, probably with the direct involvement of the Doctor. Without player intervention it’s inevitable that he’ll end up at the Eternal Care home for orphans and abandoned children, where Sister Nancy Piety will work her wicked ways. The funeral will be a good way to get Attached and Entangled Investigators involved. Otherwise we’ll work stuff out.

I’m making Mortimer a child because I know it will cross the players mind to kill victims off in order to prevent victimisation. If this becomes a problem in future I’m going to have a monster with power over the dead, so that killing the victim hands them to the monster on a plate. But for now I’ll play with the dramatic possibility of a party killing a child to save his soul from Sister Piety.

Without further ado, here’s the Monster, Sister Nancy Piety, nun, proprietor of the Eternal Care home, Abbess of the attached Magdalene Convent.

Sister Nancy Piety liked reading stories to the children as they fell asleep.

She becomes curious; can she read them a different story every night? Can she read to all of them, even the naughty ones, and make sure they listen?

She becomes jaded, the practice becomes baroque and ritualistic; the children have to be in bed at a certain time to hear her words, they have to fall asleep at a particular time during the story so that Sister Nancy is not wasting her voice. The naughty children, who have to sleep in a separate ‘naughty room’ are the easiest to control and observe. Especially if they are strapped to the bed. (Asside, it is at about this time that Sister Nancy confronts Doctor Ahab Weiderganger with the fact that she is carrying his child. She undergoes an involuntary abortion at his shaking hands.)

Progress to extremity and human harm; Sister Nancy institutes a policy that the ‘naughtiest child’ will always be punished, just to keep everyone on their toes. If there is no clear candidate, Sister Nancy will get a little arbitrary. This naughtiest child will be strapped down in the naughty room and gassed to unconsciousness at the right point in the story for them to fall asleep, just like Sister Nancy was gassed by Doctor Ahab.

Ritual extremity, the threshold, the nightmarish resources; Sister Nancy is no Doctor. Eventually one of the children doesn’t wake up right from her administrations, and becomes locked in a stupor in which awake and asleep have no meaning. She becomes the perfect audience for Sister Nancy’s stories. Sister Nancy gains a weird persuasive power over the other nuns and carers, over the children who never seem to leave, over Doctor Weiderganger, who just happens to be the Social Security appointee for dealing with children. The whole orphanage starts to support, hide and reinforce Sister Nancy’s behaviour. It will be at this stage that the Sister worries about reading children the same parts of the story on multiple occasions, so she starts to scar the children with their story log. It’s not just the naughty children that get this treatment, the Sisters powers extend to paralysing the good children in their dorms so she can move from bed to bed with her scalpel. She’s everywhere her children are, all the time, moving through intervening space with a thought, bringing on sleep and wakefulness wherever it suits her.

The Becoming; Twelve years ago Sister Nancy was walking to the naughty room. Little did she know Josiah Craw was hiding by the kennels. He cut her up bad, but whatever evil was in him left him then, she took his scythe, and used her dying breaths to read a little of Mr Fox’s Garden to a nine year old boy. She left the gas on as she read, the boy should have died. She should have died. Instead, she became a monster. Not that you’d notice it, the police certainly didn’t when they interviewed her the next day for her part in Josiah’s downfall. The detectives noticed she was polite and modest, and ignored Josiah’s dying testimony that she was the devil itself come to walk abroad.

(Aside, I may have one of Josiah Craw’s former slaves in prison as a potential contact for the players to speak to about Sister Nancy.)

The Nightmare that she will make of the world; Sister Nancy can’t leave the orphanage, but where her influence goes bits of reality become parts of the orphanage. The nuns and staff have faded into apparitions of their former selves, and now she is ready to look outward, ready to expand her power. Her books on tape are just the start, she’s going to tear apart the very nature of the parent-child relationship, and first Hope Springs and then the world are going to become a hellish, unending, nightmare of fairy tales read in her soft, lullaby drawl.

“Sleep tight my child. Nighty night.”

Sister Nancy Piety is a middle aged, thin woman with a soft sleepy smile. Her eyes are often downcast and she tends to hold her hands in front of her when she walks. She is dedicated, quiet and pragmatic.

Stats:
Acuity: 3
Heart: 5
Body: 2
Will: 4

Traits:
Don’t take my babies from me (again), 2d4
Upstanding member of society, 1d6
I ain’t scared of the dark, 1d6
I am everywhere my children are, 1d8 +1d4
You are feeling sleepy, 1d10 +1d4
Apparitions serve me, 1d10 +1d4

Bonds:
I care for the dogs, 1d4
Lights out is at 8.00pm, 2d6
I always punish the naughtiest, 3d8
A different story every night, 1d10
I do not leave the place I died, (8/10)d10
Mortimer Elroy is mine now, 2d10
Sebastian Delacroix is mine now, (none yet)

Belongings
Dogs, 1d6
Scalpel, 2d6
Excellent filing system and public records, 2d6 +1d4
Davey Bookman’s deafening powerdrill, 1d6
The dark and twisted hallways of the orphanage, 1d8 + 1d4
The straps, the gas, ‘the naughty room’ 2d8 +1d4

Nb, I’m assuming Monsters aren’t restricted by the proviso that Bonds of Nightmare can only be d4. If I’m wrong in this then I think I’d houserule it in anyway. I want the PC’s to be attacking my Monster’s bonds, so I might as well make them juicy targets. I’m not even sure where I’d classify Piety’s Bonds in terms of tradition and nightmare. I’ll see if this works okay in play.

I’m handling the 10d10 issue like this. The Monster has 10d10 bond dice to invest in victims. Two of these must be invested in the starting victim, in this case Mortimer Elroy. These dice work like a relationship that is based on access. Whenever the Monsters relationship with the victim is threatened, ie, when the players try to cut off the access, the monster rolls whatever bond dice are invested. Whenever another victimisation occurs the Monster invests a bond dice, and when the fifth victimisation occurs the Monster gets the bond dice back and ‘levels up.’

The bond dice that aren’t invested in victims all belong to a weird bond called: “I am in my lair.” or something like that. The Monster can roll these dice whenever the Players take her on directly in her lair. (Freddy would have the bond “You are dreaming,” the principle is the same.)

So, the players have a reason not to charge straight into the lair from the start, because the monster is sitting there with 8d10. They have a reason to find the other Victims, because every time a Victim is named the Monster has to invest some dice in those Victims. By contrast, the Monster has a reason to want to get those bond dice she’s invested back, and to do that she needs to invest more and more in order to reap the reward. After the fifth victimisation the Bond dice go back into “I am in my lair.” I’d probably rule that whoever introduces the Victim to the story gets to choose what level of victimisation there at, but I’ll decide that in play.

There’s a whole ‘nother game going on now. The players want to reveal Victims, because they want to get those Bond dice out of the Monster’s Lair. But the more Victims they have out in play the harder it will be to protect them all, so the easier for the Monster to Victimise again and again. And then, when the Victims sit on the cusp of that last victimisation, the Players have to choose. Protect the Victim from final damnation, or charge after the monster now she’s at her weakest. I’ll play it like that and see how it works, but in my head this is kicking ass.

Are you afraid? I’m afraid.

Wow!  That's an awsome monster!  I've definitely taken a few lessons from this for the next time I try to make one.

I just wanted to point out, though, that the 10d10 in Victimization isn't, according to Vincent, a "pool" to be used for victims, but represents actual victims part-way through their victimization that the PCs simply haven't encountered yet.  So when the players encounter one of the "current" victims that they haven't met before, one or more of that original 10d10 is assigned to him.  And if the monster were to start on a "new" victim that wasn't accounted for in that 10d10, she would get 11d10 and then 12d10 and so on as she victimized more people.    Your way might be better, I don't know.  That's just how it was described to me.  I suppose everybody would be interested to see how it works out for you.

Did I mention that was an awsome monster? :)

"I just wanted to point out, though, that the 10d10 in Victimization isn't, according to Vincent, a "pool" to be used for victims, but represents actual victims part-way through their victimization that the PCs simply haven't encountered yet."

Yeah, I'm cool with that. There are victims out there. I could call the bond "I have victims you do not know of." As and when the victims turn up in the narrative they may have been being victimised for months. (My goodness the English language needs more tenses for this!) The point is not that the characters want there to be more victims, it's that the players want more of the monster's assets uncovered, and I'm hoping that will make for a better game. I guess it's a pacing thing as much as anything. I'll tell you how it goes.

Yeah, I should make it super clear: "the monster starts with 10 dice' worth of victims" means that the monster has, as play begins, already victimized people who, all together, provide her with 10d10. Take this one victim you've created to introduce the first session - if she gains further access to him and victimizes him further, she gets the d10 for it, so now she's victimized people who, all together, provide her with 11d10.

Tim wrote:
As and when the victims turn up in the narrative they may have been being victimised for months. (My goodness the English language needs more tenses for this!) The point is not that the characters want there to be more victims, it's that the players want more of the monster's assets uncovered, and I'm hoping that will make for a better game.
[my emphasis]

Morning Vincent,

I think we've got the same idea of the 'story' Afraid play will create. I'll state what I'm thinking of explicitly so you can pull it apart as needs be. There's a Monster, the Characters have a reason to become aware of the Monster, and they will want to stop and destroy the creature. The Monster is frighteningly powerful in it's lair, but weaker and reliant on vulnerable assets outside the lair. The Monster wants more power, but also more autonomy, it wants to be powerful outside it's lair. The source of the Monsters power is Victims. Both the Players and the GM want Victims to be brought into the story on their own terms, so they can increase or decrease access. For the Characters to stand a chance, they need to find Victims and cut off the access. As the Monster is weakened the Characters can then go after the beast itself.

So they'll be three branches of play. The research and bringing Victims and facts about the Monster into play arc. The cutting off access versus further victimisation arc. (I see a lot of night time stake outs of the Victim's houses here. As Newt says 'The monsters mostly come at night. Mostly.') And then the destroy the Monster once and for all arc, with either the Characters getting brave enough to take the Monster on in its lair or the Monster getting brave enough to come out of its lair and kill off the characters.

And these branches will mostly happen in that order, although they will repeat from the start a couple of times in the course of the game.

I reckon I've been thinking myself in circles with the interplay between the bond dice from victims and the monster's bond with its lair. Actually, it was pretty cheeky of me to suggest a rules change for a playtest game without even playing with the written rules. Wrist slap. We'll go with the existing rules plus the proviso that the bond dice are only available in the Monster's lair.

There are four elements of play that I'm not quite comfortable with from the text as written. (I don't know if comfortable is the right word. I mean there are things that I want to watch carefully in play to make sure they are working.) The first is that there is sufficent reason for the Players to be introducing Victims into the story. This will work fine if the Players realise that its much worse for the Monster to be introducing Victims to the story as part of Victimisation conflicts where all the Players have got is their acuity. The 'cutting off access' conflict also needs to be handled closely, so that it's clear that if the Players are setting these up then they have the edge. I'm going to tell the Players outright that this is the best way to weaken the Monster, and then leave it up to them.

The second is research conflicts, just because these are pretty weird and 'out there'. Stake setting for a research conflict is going to be really hard, because "Do you find out about such and such?" is a naff stake. "Where do we go and investigate next?" where the the Players have a good idea where to go and just want their Characters to have an excuse to go there might work, as the GM can always hit them with "You go straight to the Monster's lair to dust for prints." if they loose. The other, perhaps better option, is to focus on research being an arena and have stakes like, "The acoloyte victimises the next, as yet unamed, victim." (Stakes implicit in declaration of outcome, what's at stake is access to the Victim.) Then the conflict is all about whether the characters work it out in time. Horror as a genre is full of conflicts like that, you get a shot of the acolyte climbing in the window, and then you cut to a scene where the characters mark out the previous victims' houses on a map, and suddenly there's a pattern where it's obvious that the next Victim will live on South Street. "Wait a minute, doesn't little orphan Mitch live on South Street?" Then we get a shot of Little Orphan Mitch asleep in bed, and there's the acolyte in the background getting closer and closer. Then we're back to the characters driving across town getting chased by the Police, then we're back to the acoloyte, who's got a knife and is right over poor Mitch. Then the characters are breaking down the door and we're all really, really psyched. So yeah, I think these will work fine as long as the players, between them, can think of any reason 'how' they'd be able to go from research to intervention. If they're stumped then they loose, and they deserve it, but damn it won't be fun. (It just came to me, there is a near direct parallel here between "The acolyte is climbing into the bedroom of some guy you've never heard of, roll acuity, what are you going to do?" and "The possessed person sticks an axe in your head while you sleep." from Dogs. They are both unfair conflicts to begin with, but the characters have four arenas to escalate through, and that's four free blocks in Afraid, so the outcome is far from certain.)

Third, I'm kind of curious over the last level of Victimisation. It needs to be a definite victory for the Monster, and yet she's loosing 4d10 from her bonds and giving the characters a Reflection fall out each. She gets a bucket of dice when she levels up, so maybe it's pretty even. It seems like the main edge the fifth victimisation gives is autonomy and security. The Monster no longer needs to worry about that particular Victim, they aren't coming back, and furthermore their new power isn't tied to their lair, so the Monster can now go wandering. I don't know, only play will reveal how well this feeds back into the story.

Lastly, I am really interested in how killing Victims is going to work. I like the suggestion that they become Slaves, but I don't think it's Sister Piety's way of doing things. This is a really tricky issue, as killing the Victim needs to be a loss all round, both the Characters and the Monster need good reasons not to want to kill the Victims off, and getting the system to support this is going to be tricky. For now I'm just going to let the Monster keep any bond dice invested in a dead victim unless the characters do something (like free the victims ghost somehow) to justify them evaporating. With Sister Nancy I'm not too worried about wanting to kill Victims, the thought just wouldn't cross her caring and compassionate mind.

Hey Vincent, assuming that I get a game in a week on sunday, is there anything you want me to look out for especially from the playtest or that you want me to make certain comes up so it can be tested? I'll be posting the profiles for the Victim, Slave and an Acolyte before then.

I was planning on posting these as seperate threads, but actually that's going to get messy. Here's the starting slave. A lot of the "someones" haven't been fleshed out yet, I'll put more and more people in as I get info from the Players.

Dr Ahab Weiderganger, the local Head of Child Social Security, a qualified medical psychiatrist and lawyer. A short, earnest man with a thinly veiled sentimentality. Dr Weiderganger trained as a paediatrician, but felt like stitching kids back together again was curing the symptom and not the root of their suffering, so he got a legal qualification in Child Protection. A workaholic, he’s a figure with a lot of authority, a lot of people respect him and his work, and he’s got bright crispness to him that hides the fact he goes home at night and pours boiling water down his body.

Acuity, 4d6
Heart, 3d6
Body, 2d6
Will, 2d6

I’m taking this seriously: Research 1d8, Talking 2d6, Murdering 1d4
Expertise: Research 2d10, Talking 2d6, Physical 2d8, Murdering 1d10
(Doctor, Lawyer, Manipulator, 50’s rock)
My life depends on this: Physical 1d8, Fighting 1d6, Murdering 2d4,
I’m fighting for someone I love: Talking 1d10, Fighting 2d6,

Bonds
the wheat shall look not on the face of the reaper, 2d4 (Wears a mask to do killing)
I always punish myself, 1d10

Relationships
Sister Nancy Piety, 2d10
Sebastian Delacroix, 2d4
Mortimer Elroy, 2d6
Unnamed staff member 1d6
Non-specific vulnerable children 2d6

Belongings:
The Scythe, 2d8 + 1d4
Bureaucratic network, 1d8
Leather fetish mask, 1d6
Letters from former patients, 2d8
Drugs, (chloroform) 1d8

Some human damage. Once he lost a patient to murderous neglect. Now Dr Ahab fights a loosing battle to save every child he comes across.

Well, that’s okay human damage, but I want heart wrenching and morally murky, so let’s turn these people against each other.

More Human damage. Dr Weiderganger had intimate relations with Sister Piety about fifteen years ago. They agreed to keep this affair hidden for the sake of both their social standings. When Sister Piety announced she was pregnant Dr Weiderganger tried to persuade her to terminate the child. He was at a really delicate point in terms of his career, and wasn’t thinking straight. When Sister Piety refused to be reasoned with Ahab drugged her and aborted the foetus regardless. He has never, ever gotten over what he did, and as he watched Sister Piety get cruel and arbitrary he blamed himself.

Someone loves the Slave despite the same, (some human damage), Sebastian Delacroix lost his father twelve years ago, and his mother was incapacitated in a savage attack by Josiah Craw. Through Ahab’s continued guidance and steady hand Seb has dealt with everything life threw at him, even applying and gaining carer status for his mother and allowing her to finally come home. Seb is a really together guy, and he realises Dr W had a hand in it.

Someone sees an opportunity to exploit the Slave, (more human damage) Sheriff Lucas, who knows that Dr W aborted his own child and uses this to get expert legal aid whenever he needs it. (One of the characters is bound to have police connections!)

Someone is related to the slave by blood, tbc

Someone has suffered at the hands of the Slave, (more human damage) Sister Nancy Piety, see above

Someone has the Slave’s best interests at heart, tbc

I’ll pad these out as and when the characters get written.

The Monster has made the Slave a promise she’s not going to fulfil. She’ll forgive him for what he did to her,

The Monster has given the Slave something he doesn’t want. Josiah Craw’s Scythe. This is the weapon that Craw used to kill his last three victims. It’s a curious weapon, thirsts for blood, seems to be easily overlooked in spite of being obvious, seems to spill little blood on its wielder, and seems to be easy to use in cramped conditions in spite of being a scythe.

Dr Weiderganger is clearly very useful to the Monster for increasing access. His job is strictly about upping access and making more orphans, and not about taking on the Characters or protecting the Monster.

Acolytes are not required for play, but I had a cool concept and wanted to try the rules. Plus I’ve five players to contend with, so having NPC’s on hand I can slap them with seems ideal.

Davey Bookman is the proprietor of a local bookstore. He also runs the recording studio which produces Sister Piety’s books on tape. He’s twenty-something, reasonably handsome, and a former child in the care of the orphanage. He’s deaf, makes ample use of signs around the shop, and although he can lip read and talk with a slight impediment, he comes across as a little shy. In the service of the Monster Davey is remorseless and cold, but in his spare time he is a sadistic and confused little freak. (I sincerely hope the party kill him before he becomes a Monster.)

Davey was living in the orphanage during Sister Piety’s transformation. He witnessed the hideous debacle of her gradually corrupting care. Something in him made him stronger than the others, perhaps his true love, Elizabeth. He and Liz both suffered at Sister Piety’s hands, both endured the scalpel and the paralysis, but unlike the others who seemed entranced and bound, Davey and Elizabeth decided to escape. Davey’s first attempt finished with the Convent dogs, (a pack of large lurchers,) bringing him down and dragging him back. He and Elizabeth realised that they were to be sent to the naughty room for their punishment, and also seemed to realise that it was the Monster’s stories that bound them to her. So Elizabeth suggested the extreme measure that they deliberately deafen themselves in order to deny the Monster her victory. They made it to the tool shed, and Elizabeth helped Davey put a powerdrill through his eardrums. (See the Monster’s belongings.) Before he could return the favour Sister Piety and her apparitions burst in and realised what was happening.

Sister Piety made it very obvious that the naughtiest child was going to suffer more terribly that night than ever before. And she asked Davey to choose which of the two of them he thought that was. Something snapped inside him, and he dragged Elizabeth to the naughty room, strapped her down, and then spent the rest of the night sleeping in the kennels with the dogs licking his bleeding ears. He didn’t hear Elizabeth screaming, and he didn’t feel any remorse.

It’s been nearly a decade, Davey has left the Orphanage, but some things haven’t changed at all.

Acuity: 3d6
Heart: 3d6
Body: 4d6
Will: 4d6

I’m taking this seriously: talking 2d6, physical 1d10, fighting 2d8, murdering 1d8
Expertise: research 3d6, physical 2d10, fighting 1d6,
(Sound engineer, stealth, animal handling)
My life depends on this: talking 2d4, fighting 1d10, murdering 1d4,
I killed the only person I ever loved: 2d6,

Relationships
The Monster 4d10
Dogs (The animal, not the mormon gunslingers ; >) 2d6

Belongings
Recording equipment, 2d6
Handgun, 1d6
Well-stocked bookshop with backroom, 1d8

Bonds
I sleep in a kennel, for I am an animal, 1d6
Lights out is at 8.00pm 1d6
I know not my parents name 1d6
To me, there are no screams 1d6
I always punish… something, 2d8
I take a new story into me every night, 2d10

That last bond? Davey eats a book, or a tape, or something everyday. This isn’t supernatural, it’s painful, it’s really painful.

Notes: Bookman was not Davey’s birth surname, the truth about his name is hidden in the orphanage records as per Sister Piety’s policy that people should severe all links to their past. I’ve replaced the trait, ‘I’m fighting for someone I love’ with the above, but I could just as easily have left this line blank and put it in Elizabeth as a relationship.

Reposted for neatness,

Mortimer is a nine year old boy. He has a much bigger sister who moved out about year ago. He’s quiet, polite, possessed of an astute empathy and normally he worries that his hair is untidy. His favourite game is hide and seek in the woods, and his favourite dinosaur is the ankylosaurus.

Acuity: 5d6
Heart: 3d6
Body: 2d6
Will: 5d6

I’m taking this seriously, research 1d8, physical 2d6,
This falls within my expertise (playground lore, the woods, dinosaurs,)
research, 2d6 talking 2d8 , physical 2d6, fighting 1d4,
My life depends on this, physical 1d10,
Fighting for someone I love, murdering 1d4

Bond of tradition, I say my prayers at night and before meals. (Mommy and Daddy can hear me, even if God can’t.) 1d8 + 1d4

Relationships, (to be finalised):

Lisa Steinman
Lance Steinman
Debbie Blythe
The Monster: 2d10

Master Mortimer Elroy is an orphan. This is the quality that attracts Sister Piety to her victims.

I’ll fill out the list of someone’s as the players start to give me ideas, but for now:
Someone loves the victim for the same: Reverend William Hoagie, the man who’ll be burying his parents, realises poor Mort will need help.
Someone loves the victim despite the same: Lisa Steinman, Mort’s big sister. She’s an orphan too now, but she’s married and Sister Piety considers her out of bounds. Lisa is really shaken up by her parent’s death, there were a lot of issues they never resolved, (like her marriage) and she hasn’t been looking out for her brother well
Someone depends upon the victim for strength, hope or happiness: Debbie Blythe, a friend a school.
Someone sees the victim every day: Dr Ahab Weiderganger,
Someone’s related to the victim by blood: Lisa Steinman,

Someone cares about the victim on the basis of a shared relationship: Lance Steinman is Mort’s brother in law. He’s a bit of a rebel, but he loves his wife and he’ll gladly look after his ‘little bro.’

Someone has a professional interest in the victim: Dr Ahab Weiderganger. Sucks to be Mortimer.

Victimisation is characterised by:-

First Victimisation:
Access, Victim is identified by Sister Piety as being in her prayers. This is communicated to the Victim somehow and some token of the same is left with the victim. An example, Sister Piety slaps someone hard, and tells them she’ll pray for their soul. The bruise doesn’t go down, the Victim starts slapping their own face when no one is looking to keep the mark real. This would be first level access, and it is removed when the token is removed. In this case, Dr Ahab had a conversation with Mort in which he asked who was going to look after him now. He mentioned that Sister Piety would gladly have him at the orphanage, and then confessed he had mentioned Mort to her, and that she had given him a card expressing her heartfelt condolences. Mort has hidden the card in his drawer. It’s the only card he’s had that’s been addressed just to him and not to him and his sister, and for some reason that makes it very special to him, so he deliberately hasn’t told anyone. Now he’s forgotten about it.

Nightmarish behaviours and mood changes, the victim can not sleep except by listening to a story at bedtime. Furthermore they can not wake up or fall asleep properly unless they are abiding by the Orphanage’s rigid timetable. They become tired, irritable, objectionable, restless, slovenly, prone to bouts of catatonia and childish tantrums. Concentrating on anything becomes impossible for them. In this case, Elroy hasn’t been sleeping properly, (but he’s been sleeping better since Dr Weiderganger left him the tapes). He’s been driving his already fractious sister to distraction. (She’s had to move back home for now to look after things.) Elroy’s relatives think it’s just grief, only the Reverend is suspicious of supernatural involvement.

Second Victimisation:
Access: The Victim must hear a different story read by Sister Piety every night as they fall asleep. In this case, Elroy was pestering his sister to read to him, and Dr Weiderganger kindly leant her some books on tape read by the Monster. That was all it took. The tape boxes are not correct, they show that the tapes are some relaxing instrumental music.

Nightmarish physical symptoms: They collapse into waking paralysis based on the cycles of Sister Piety’s regime. If they hear her tell a story then their body will add a scar log detailing the title of the book and the pages read in neat little scalpel cuts. These will be mostly healed, (a week old) by morning, but the sheets will be stained with blood. In this case: Elroy knows the tapes are evil, but he doesn’t know who to talk to about this. He also knows that they help him rest when nothing else will. His scar log is four lines long:

the child in the wheatfield, 1 - 20
the iron man, 16 - 28
the child in the wheatfield, 21 – 34
where birds nest, 1 – 12

I’ll be interested to see how this plays out as a research conflict. The Victim may manifest other injuries as dramatically significant.

Third Victimisation:
Access: The stuff of the orphanage. The victim must eat food prepared in the Orphanages canteen, or sleep in sheets pressed at the convent laundry. There are also clothes and toys that are approved and marked as the property of the Orphanage, these will do at a push. In this case, Dr Ahab is going to so a home visit and try and sort something out.

Nightmarish changes in environment, electrical devices start to broadcast her stories of their own accord in a harsh crackle. Lights turn on and off in accordance with the orphanage time table. If left alone the Victim may find aspects of the Orphanage invading his space, the carpets and walls change colour, the smell of the disinfectant and lye soap, the crying of the other children. In extreme cases Sister Piety can even manifest to the Victim at this stage.

Fourth Victimisation:
Access: Sleeps a whole night in the orphanage dormitory. If we’ve got to a case where the above manifestations are unopposed for long enough then it may be that the Victims own room becomes a part of the Orphanage at a distance, but the mundane reality of Sister Piety gaining care provision is just as dangerous.

Disturbing, inexplicable, nightmarish experiences: These are perpetual and without recourse, the victim sees and is tormented by the apparitions wherever they go and wherever they are. Reasoning with them becomes increasingly difficult, and they slip further and further from lucidity.

Fifth Victimisation:
The Victim is found to have been the naughtiest, and spends that night in the naughty room. They are gassed into oblivion. There will be naught but the barking of the hounds to mark their passage into deathless, restless hell.

In terms of how these influences are destroying Elroy’s life, I’ll fill these in, as well as who is being blamed in each case, when it becomes clear who the PC’s are.

Notes: Check out the supernatural +1d4 on that bond. Mommy and Daddy really can hear Mortimer! I’m not going to push the players that way at all but it would be nice if they explored that avenue and found some real support.

So... I think the rules are working so far, don't you?

I'm afraid.

-Vincent

P.S.
> The other, perhaps better option, is to focus on research
> being an arena and have stakes like, "The acoloyte
> victimises the next, as yet unamed, victim." (Stakes
> implicit in declaration of outcome, what's at stake is
> access to the Victim.) Then the conflict is all about
> whether the characters work it out in time. Horror as a
> genre is full of conflicts like that...

Bingo!

Hey, Tim.

How do you plan on running these research conflicts?  It sounds really good, but I'm having trouble understanding how the Challenges and Answers would go.  "Taking the Blow" and "Giving" are simple enough, but how would you justify "Block/Dodge" or "Reverse" since the opponents don't really interact?

"So... I think the rules are working so far, don't you?"
Hot damn yes.

I'll post in the playtest forum on monday with what's gone down. If you don't mind, Ludanto, I'll hold off answering your question until then as well. I have some half-baked ideas in my head about how it would work, and some half-formed questions in my head about how the flow of information is supposed to work, because the mantra "reveal the town in play" doesn't feel quite right, but I'm going to wait until after we play, because I have this weird feeling that when we're actually sat down all these things are just going to be obvious.

(Well, compared to cold selling a group of old school White Wolf players the entire notion of scene framing it's got to be easy.)

Oh and Vince, I think it's only fair that we give you reasonable warning. Ludanto and I are really excited about this game. We'd just like you to know that if we don't see progress on Afraid in the near future, we're going to come over there and steal your lego.