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xyzzysqrlLast time, Ashe explored a haunted mansion. Or rather, I did.
Here's the thing about Ocean House, or ... really any haunted level in an RPG: It doesn't work in-character. The ghosts may be scary to the character, but it doesn't matter, because they're TARGETING the player with those scares. If you're scared and your character isn't, it creates a disconnected gap in immersion. If you're NOT scared and your character IS... same thing. I didn't feel like I was playing a character as I went through Ocean House. I felt like I personally was (in a gaming sense) being run through a creepy gauntlet. There wasn't a lot of room for character-based interaction with the murderous poltergeist that throws knick-knacks at you, y'know?
Not that this matters or means anything, because it's an awesome level, but it got me thinking about the layers of character/player seperation and mimesis required to build a successful fictional world, even for a PC game. There's room for a deeper article or examination there that I don't feel qualified to write.
Anyway let's get back to the Asylum.
A quick splooshy slog through the sewers later, we're back at the dance club. However, it's not Therese waiting for me. It's Jeanette. She instantly takes notice of the pendant Ashe has and pulls puppy-dog eyes and crocodile tears, trying to get it from us. She's been belittled all her life! That's quite sad, but you can't have this pendant. Her sister doesn't care about her! Which does suck, but you can't have this pendant. Oh, woe and sadness is the life of Jeanette! And I have all the sympathy possible, but you are NOT getting this pendant.
She snaps out of tears-and-sadness mode when she sees Ashe is srsbnsnss, and does a quick 180 snap revert to perky goth. Hey, would I do something for -her-? Y'know, the 'feud' is with the Voerman SISTERS... well, I haven't run all over the ENTIRE city yet. I'm sure there's some buildings I haven't entered. What do you want, Jeanette?
She passes Ashe a knife (aw, damn, free knife) and tells her to go slash up some paintings and steal a charity box. Wait wait wait what. ...Oh. As it turns out, the paintings are from a rival vampire trying to muscle in on their turf, and the charity box goes straight into said vampire's pockets. This isn't random vandalism and petty theft, it's sending a deliberate political message and also petty theft.
Ashe deliberates this. Sending a clear message to one's rivals is important. She'll take the job.
"Great! Oh there was something special about the paintings -- Eh I can't remember. Have fun, duckling!" chirps Jeanette, and bounces away. Duckling? I'm sorry, does this LOOK like Princess Tutu to you? (...actually, those lyrics...)
Sigh. So I head down to the bar to leave, and what do you know? There's Knox, also known as LOUD GHOUL MAN. He is still loud. Apparently some Asian vampire's been FREAKING HIM OUT like WHOA and his MASTER who by the way is BERTRAM TUNG has him INVESTIGATING THIS GUY but he's SO FREAKED OUT MAAAAN hey could I do it instead? He passes me a driver's license.
Knox, do you come with a VOLUME KNOB? ... sigh. Still, maybe this will be a nice end run around slashing up paintings. I decide to check this out first. The only place I can think of to look up a driver's license is down at the bail bond place. Which tells me that the person I'm looking for (Crumb, V) is "deceased", and his remains are being held in the morgue down at the local clinic. Oh, you mean the clinic where I mind-wiped the guard and now have the keys? That clinic?
THAT LINE IS NEVER GONNA GET OLD, YOU KNOW.
So it's off to the local clinic -again-. Ashe is real familiar with getting in there by now, and even knows where the morgue is located without stumbling around lost. As I head in, there's a body on the slab. I carefully turn my back to it, then whip around. Still there. I check the body's personal effects: A ring and a "Foxy Boxes" card to the local storage facility. I whip around. Body's still there. Not attacking me or anything. I turn and leave. ... body just lays there.
Huh. Oh well. In the Foxy Boxes storage facility (their logo is adorable) I stumble on a laptop marked "Cainite Observation Logs". Blah blah agent, blah blah vampires here are disorganized, blah blah some nosferatu has dispatched a mortal to follow him, blah blah surprisingly resourceful agent of the Prince has followed me to my lair and I must dispatch her ...
... wait, shit, that's Ashe.
The last message is a note that this city is "ripe for the conquest" as the vampires here will pose "no threat". Aw balls, that sounds really really bad. I could explore deeper... or I could go sprinting back to Knox and tell him all about this. ... What the hell is KNOX gonna do? This situation needs a princessly blade applied to it. Ashe preps up and explores deeper into the storage area. At the end of a row of boxes, my target appears. He bows. And then he attacks.
What follows is a beat-down dodge-and-thrust knife versus sword fight all up and down the ranks of storage boxes. In the end, I have two hit-points, maybe a drizzle of blood left, and I have discovered that "Dominate - Sleep" does not appear to WORK on vampires, which is a hell of a thing to discover when one is backflipping over a stack of crates at you like Sanguine Sentai Vampiranger.
I do however WIN, and to the victor goes a cheap mass-production katana and a sleek looking one-shot crossbow. Yeah, I didn't think I was gonna pull HANZO STEEL off a mook... but I'm proud of myself. I've cut their scout off and proven that we're more dangerous here in LA than the "Temple of Golden Virtue" THINK we are. GO TEAM ASHE. Ow ow ow ow *limp away*
Back at the club Knox is REALLY GRATEFUL MAN AW YEAH. He can only explain that his boss told him that "THOSE GUYS ARE WHAT THEY HAVE IN CHINA INSTEAD OF VAMPIRES!" and they're "REALLY DANGEROUS". He can't thank me enough, or ... pay me at all. Sigh. I end up wandering out back, finding some guy peeing in an alleyway, and nomming on him to replace my blood reserves. The glamour of vampirism is total bullshit, y'know.
Oh well, time to destroy some art! As I approach the Gallery Noir, trying to figure out how I'm going to break in, a security guard stops me for loitering on the private property of the gallery. Ashe hits him with the Royal Canterlot Voice and he's all too happy to unlock the door and usher me inside. So ... having a guard was actually -less effective- than just... leaving the street-facing door unguarded, because then I would have had to try to lockpick it without getting the cops called on me. Nice going, guys.
As I stroll on it, there's four paintings, that tell a little story: Caine killing Abel, Caine Cursed By God, Caine Meeting Lillith, Caine Spurning Lillith. So... that's the order I slice them in, because I figure that's probably what Jeanette was going to warn me about and playfully oops-forgot. Doing this causes enormous streams of blood to SHOOT OUT OF THE PAINTINGS, twisty-straw around the room, and converge in the center to form a Blood Guardian, which I sadly cannot defeat by going "slurpslurpslurp". Ashe takes her katana to the bastard and, armed with Fortitude Rank 2 (which I bumped up just now) wins that duel handily as well.
Okay can I just ask WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG with vampire society? Thank you.
I grab the cash box and leave. Ashe gotta get paid. This ball gown she died in is feeling less and less like acceptable scrapperwear. I check the pawn shop to see if Ricky Retail or whatever his name is happens to have a bulletproof SWAT vest in stock. No. No he does not.
But we ARE up to about $850 in our pocket, so holla holla get vampire dolla we can afford to pick up some more Emergency Use Blood Packs down at the blood bank. I haven't broken into our supply of those yet. Saving up for real emergencies. A couple of those get bought and we're down to $500, which I save in case we need to pay off a senator or in case I find someone who CAN sell us bulletproof panties.
Oh well. Back to the Asylum, upstairs, and Therese is Very, Very Upset. You see, that was HER art exhibit. She should kill me RIGHT NOW.
... ahahaha oh uhm gee...
Therese sighs, and I pass her the pendant. She gives me her NEXT request: Go find her sister and bring her back. There were Words exchanged, and Things were said, and now Jeanette's off at the Diner and won't come back. They really do WANT to get along... really. Will I go do this for them?
Being magnanimous at these two is getting DIFFICULT, but Ashe puckers up, smooches butt, and claims she will do anything to assist the sisters in their ... whatever they do. Because damnit I need to get Tung access because I need to LOOK GOOD so I can get PROMOTIONS.
Ashe is so busy considering her rise up the social charts, she doesn't actually realize the diner is a trap until after she's walked into it. Four gang members, one with a shotgun that hurts like fuck, one with a pistol, two with weapons they don't even get to use as Ashe's "Gaijin Smash" katana form hurls them into the booths where they flail awkwardly until she comes back to feed on them. Now we have a shotgun, ho ho ho.
Naturally the phone at the end of the counter rings, and naturally it's Therese. She apologizes. This is all her sister's fault. She has her sister right here. We should all get together and put an end to this. I drop some XP into Scholarship for more free book skill points later and head back to the Asylum -- Where Therese has herself at gunpoint.
Yes, Therese and Jeanette are two sides of the same coin, the "Serious/Passionate" split snapped down the middle due to an abusive father and also psychology and also Malkavian blood, which puts the "Loops" in Fruit Loops.
Now there's a few options here. I could:
-- Have Therese kill Jeanette and run the Asylum alone. Therese, however, is a social climber. She -wants- power. She's -competent-. She's -smart-. She knows what she's doing. Having her alone in charge? Not so good for Ashe's prospects. Particularly since Therese doesn't like Ashe much.
-- Try to get the girls back together as a cohesive team. Obviously the "good" option, but does it benefit me? Even with the girls at each other's throats (so to speak) they've managed to become a Force enough to make someone -I- need go into hiding. Having the two of them as a focused unit? Bad.
-- Have Jeanette kill Therese. Jeanette's shown little sign of being really -good- at what she does, unless what she does is... well, seduce, manipulate... Which she IS good at. Really good at. That said... Jeanette seems to LIKE me much more than Therese does, given that Therese admits to trying to have me killed and blaming it on her sister as soon as I walk in the door.
In the end I ride Jeanette's side of the argument, backing her up. When the 'sisters' struggle for the gun, only Jeanette comes up alive. She's grateful for the support, tells me where Tung is, and invites me back any time I care to visit.
With the knowledge of where Tung is, Ashe strolls out of the Asylum. ... Probably not going back THERE again. It's full of crazy people.
Next time: We go find Bert Tung.
Here's the thing about Ocean House, or ... really any haunted level in an RPG: It doesn't work in-character. The ghosts may be scary to the character, but it doesn't matter, because they're TARGETING the player with those scares. If you're scared and your character isn't, it creates a disconnected gap in immersion. If you're NOT scared and your character IS... same thing. I didn't feel like I was playing a character as I went through Ocean House. I felt like I personally was (in a gaming sense) being run through a creepy gauntlet. There wasn't a lot of room for character-based interaction with the murderous poltergeist that throws knick-knacks at you, y'know?
Not that this matters or means anything, because it's an awesome level, but it got me thinking about the layers of character/player seperation and mimesis required to build a successful fictional world, even for a PC game. There's room for a deeper article or examination there that I don't feel qualified to write.
Anyway let's get back to the Asylum.
A quick splooshy slog through the sewers later, we're back at the dance club. However, it's not Therese waiting for me. It's Jeanette. She instantly takes notice of the pendant Ashe has and pulls puppy-dog eyes and crocodile tears, trying to get it from us. She's been belittled all her life! That's quite sad, but you can't have this pendant. Her sister doesn't care about her! Which does suck, but you can't have this pendant. Oh, woe and sadness is the life of Jeanette! And I have all the sympathy possible, but you are NOT getting this pendant.
She snaps out of tears-and-sadness mode when she sees Ashe is srsbnsnss, and does a quick 180 snap revert to perky goth. Hey, would I do something for -her-? Y'know, the 'feud' is with the Voerman SISTERS... well, I haven't run all over the ENTIRE city yet. I'm sure there's some buildings I haven't entered. What do you want, Jeanette?
She passes Ashe a knife (aw, damn, free knife) and tells her to go slash up some paintings and steal a charity box. Wait wait wait what. ...Oh. As it turns out, the paintings are from a rival vampire trying to muscle in on their turf, and the charity box goes straight into said vampire's pockets. This isn't random vandalism and petty theft, it's sending a deliberate political message and also petty theft.
Ashe deliberates this. Sending a clear message to one's rivals is important. She'll take the job.
"Great! Oh there was something special about the paintings -- Eh I can't remember. Have fun, duckling!" chirps Jeanette, and bounces away. Duckling? I'm sorry, does this LOOK like Princess Tutu to you? (...actually, those lyrics...)
Sigh. So I head down to the bar to leave, and what do you know? There's Knox, also known as LOUD GHOUL MAN. He is still loud. Apparently some Asian vampire's been FREAKING HIM OUT like WHOA and his MASTER who by the way is BERTRAM TUNG has him INVESTIGATING THIS GUY but he's SO FREAKED OUT MAAAAN hey could I do it instead? He passes me a driver's license.
Knox, do you come with a VOLUME KNOB? ... sigh. Still, maybe this will be a nice end run around slashing up paintings. I decide to check this out first. The only place I can think of to look up a driver's license is down at the bail bond place. Which tells me that the person I'm looking for (Crumb, V) is "deceased", and his remains are being held in the morgue down at the local clinic. Oh, you mean the clinic where I mind-wiped the guard and now have the keys? That clinic?
THAT LINE IS NEVER GONNA GET OLD, YOU KNOW.
So it's off to the local clinic -again-. Ashe is real familiar with getting in there by now, and even knows where the morgue is located without stumbling around lost. As I head in, there's a body on the slab. I carefully turn my back to it, then whip around. Still there. I check the body's personal effects: A ring and a "Foxy Boxes" card to the local storage facility. I whip around. Body's still there. Not attacking me or anything. I turn and leave. ... body just lays there.
Huh. Oh well. In the Foxy Boxes storage facility (their logo is adorable) I stumble on a laptop marked "Cainite Observation Logs". Blah blah agent, blah blah vampires here are disorganized, blah blah some nosferatu has dispatched a mortal to follow him, blah blah surprisingly resourceful agent of the Prince has followed me to my lair and I must dispatch her ...
... wait, shit, that's Ashe.
The last message is a note that this city is "ripe for the conquest" as the vampires here will pose "no threat". Aw balls, that sounds really really bad. I could explore deeper... or I could go sprinting back to Knox and tell him all about this. ... What the hell is KNOX gonna do? This situation needs a princessly blade applied to it. Ashe preps up and explores deeper into the storage area. At the end of a row of boxes, my target appears. He bows. And then he attacks.
What follows is a beat-down dodge-and-thrust knife versus sword fight all up and down the ranks of storage boxes. In the end, I have two hit-points, maybe a drizzle of blood left, and I have discovered that "Dominate - Sleep" does not appear to WORK on vampires, which is a hell of a thing to discover when one is backflipping over a stack of crates at you like Sanguine Sentai Vampiranger.
I do however WIN, and to the victor goes a cheap mass-production katana and a sleek looking one-shot crossbow. Yeah, I didn't think I was gonna pull HANZO STEEL off a mook... but I'm proud of myself. I've cut their scout off and proven that we're more dangerous here in LA than the "Temple of Golden Virtue" THINK we are. GO TEAM ASHE. Ow ow ow ow *limp away*
Back at the club Knox is REALLY GRATEFUL MAN AW YEAH. He can only explain that his boss told him that "THOSE GUYS ARE WHAT THEY HAVE IN CHINA INSTEAD OF VAMPIRES!" and they're "REALLY DANGEROUS". He can't thank me enough, or ... pay me at all. Sigh. I end up wandering out back, finding some guy peeing in an alleyway, and nomming on him to replace my blood reserves. The glamour of vampirism is total bullshit, y'know.
Oh well, time to destroy some art! As I approach the Gallery Noir, trying to figure out how I'm going to break in, a security guard stops me for loitering on the private property of the gallery. Ashe hits him with the Royal Canterlot Voice and he's all too happy to unlock the door and usher me inside. So ... having a guard was actually -less effective- than just... leaving the street-facing door unguarded, because then I would have had to try to lockpick it without getting the cops called on me. Nice going, guys.
As I stroll on it, there's four paintings, that tell a little story: Caine killing Abel, Caine Cursed By God, Caine Meeting Lillith, Caine Spurning Lillith. So... that's the order I slice them in, because I figure that's probably what Jeanette was going to warn me about and playfully oops-forgot. Doing this causes enormous streams of blood to SHOOT OUT OF THE PAINTINGS, twisty-straw around the room, and converge in the center to form a Blood Guardian, which I sadly cannot defeat by going "slurpslurpslurp". Ashe takes her katana to the bastard and, armed with Fortitude Rank 2 (which I bumped up just now) wins that duel handily as well.
Okay can I just ask WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG with vampire society? Thank you.
I grab the cash box and leave. Ashe gotta get paid. This ball gown she died in is feeling less and less like acceptable scrapperwear. I check the pawn shop to see if Ricky Retail or whatever his name is happens to have a bulletproof SWAT vest in stock. No. No he does not.
But we ARE up to about $850 in our pocket, so holla holla get vampire dolla we can afford to pick up some more Emergency Use Blood Packs down at the blood bank. I haven't broken into our supply of those yet. Saving up for real emergencies. A couple of those get bought and we're down to $500, which I save in case we need to pay off a senator or in case I find someone who CAN sell us bulletproof panties.
Oh well. Back to the Asylum, upstairs, and Therese is Very, Very Upset. You see, that was HER art exhibit. She should kill me RIGHT NOW.
... ahahaha oh uhm gee...
Therese sighs, and I pass her the pendant. She gives me her NEXT request: Go find her sister and bring her back. There were Words exchanged, and Things were said, and now Jeanette's off at the Diner and won't come back. They really do WANT to get along... really. Will I go do this for them?
Being magnanimous at these two is getting DIFFICULT, but Ashe puckers up, smooches butt, and claims she will do anything to assist the sisters in their ... whatever they do. Because damnit I need to get Tung access because I need to LOOK GOOD so I can get PROMOTIONS.
Ashe is so busy considering her rise up the social charts, she doesn't actually realize the diner is a trap until after she's walked into it. Four gang members, one with a shotgun that hurts like fuck, one with a pistol, two with weapons they don't even get to use as Ashe's "Gaijin Smash" katana form hurls them into the booths where they flail awkwardly until she comes back to feed on them. Now we have a shotgun, ho ho ho.
Naturally the phone at the end of the counter rings, and naturally it's Therese. She apologizes. This is all her sister's fault. She has her sister right here. We should all get together and put an end to this. I drop some XP into Scholarship for more free book skill points later and head back to the Asylum -- Where Therese has herself at gunpoint.
Yes, Therese and Jeanette are two sides of the same coin, the "Serious/Passionate" split snapped down the middle due to an abusive father and also psychology and also Malkavian blood, which puts the "Loops" in Fruit Loops.
Now there's a few options here. I could:
-- Have Therese kill Jeanette and run the Asylum alone. Therese, however, is a social climber. She -wants- power. She's -competent-. She's -smart-. She knows what she's doing. Having her alone in charge? Not so good for Ashe's prospects. Particularly since Therese doesn't like Ashe much.
-- Try to get the girls back together as a cohesive team. Obviously the "good" option, but does it benefit me? Even with the girls at each other's throats (so to speak) they've managed to become a Force enough to make someone -I- need go into hiding. Having the two of them as a focused unit? Bad.
-- Have Jeanette kill Therese. Jeanette's shown little sign of being really -good- at what she does, unless what she does is... well, seduce, manipulate... Which she IS good at. Really good at. That said... Jeanette seems to LIKE me much more than Therese does, given that Therese admits to trying to have me killed and blaming it on her sister as soon as I walk in the door.
In the end I ride Jeanette's side of the argument, backing her up. When the 'sisters' struggle for the gun, only Jeanette comes up alive. She's grateful for the support, tells me where Tung is, and invites me back any time I care to visit.
With the knowledge of where Tung is, Ashe strolls out of the Asylum. ... Probably not going back THERE again. It's full of crazy people.
Next time: We go find Bert Tung.
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no subject
Date: 2013-12-02 06:53 am (UTC)That is a big explanation. However, in this specific case?
Okay, so we start with Caine. Eldest son of Adam and Eve, elder brother to Able. Vampires believe that Caine is the first vampire, cursed by God for killing Abel, for lying about it, and for not apologizing afterwards. The vampires even have a Bible equivalent, The Book of Nod, which describes this in great detail. Anyway, Caine fled out of Eden and into Nod where he met a host of characters, most prominent of which being Lilith, first wife of Adam.
Yeah, so some early real-world Abrahamic (Jewish/Christian/Muslim) groups believed that God made Man and Woman simultaneously, instead of creating Man and then going back and creating Woman. This first woman was Lilith, who was cast out of the Garden of Eden almost immediatly because after he created them God said "Woman, you will be subserviant to Man" and Lilith said "Screw that! We were created at the same time, so he's not better than me!". She left the Garden to find her own way through life, and God embarked on his rib-borrowing backup plan. I am given to understand that a few liberties aside (Like the whole Caine-being-a-vampire thang) this most closely resembles the Gnostic Heresy, which some of the developers at White Wolf seem to be fascinated with.
So, back in the World of Darkness, Caine was marked, cursed and exiled for his crime, and went to wander in the Lands of Nod, which is everywhere not-Eden.He wanders in darkness and eventually finds his Dad's first wife, who has since become a master of magic and is attended by a multitude of nightmarish beasties that she has created. He lived with her for a long time and she taught him how to turn the power of his curse to his benefit, leading him to create the Disciplines used by his childer to this very day.
There's a lot more; a LOT more. But this explains what happened in the paintings you slashed and perhaps why someone would magically trap those paintings. (Though I must admit I don't know how they were trapped and what created the Blood Servant)
no subject
Date: 2013-12-02 02:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-03 02:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-03 02:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-03 03:27 am (UTC)