The Roleplaying Game Round-Robin Quiz!

I agree; nothing beats a real table with real dice and papers and pencils and miniatures and snacks and stuff getting thrown around. I hung with a short-lived gamer group in Dallas for a while, but they were cliquish and the host (who was usually the GM) was kind of creepy and demanding. There's a game shop over in Tyler, though; as soon as I get my finances in order, I'm thinking of becoming a regular over there. Maybe someone's running an Old World of Darkness campaign or something....

There's still no beating our old pool table in the second floor Day Room, though. I wish I hadn't been such a butthead to Screech on those random occasions when I was. At least he nailed his crowning moment of awesome when he jousted that old Duke Henrich Eowuld--a Fighter ten levels higher than him--and beat him in the first three tilts out of five. And he made it look easy, too. His dice were hot that day, huh?

I should see if I can dig up his old phone number. I am so going to rag him out for getting married and forgetting all about us....

*pokes darkscholar...hard*

Yo. Speak up.

The House of Ainsley wrote:

(Yeah, I kind of miss our old Marvel Supervillains campaign back in Montana.  It's not too often that a pack of lowbie supervillains gets to sabotage the Avengers' appearance at an Independence Day parade and get away with it...or at least most of them did.  Screech, wherever you are out there, good job taking out Iron Man, but going toe to toe with Captain America and Thor at the same time isn't really the best course of action, even if you do have four arms.  Even a heavy-hitter like Ultron would blanch at the prospect.  At least your insane invention skills broke you out of jail immediately after, though.  Now accept my invitation and register with these forums, damn it....   )

Ah, memory lane.  Remember when I said this?  Remember how it came to pass about a year or two later?  Life is good to us sometimes.  

'Sup, Tiger?  I see you lurking there.  

I finally got a day off work, so naturally I spent most of it doing all the housework and home improvement that I couldn't do on the other six days of the week.  Phooey.

But for the odd minute here and there, I've been setting up my Creativity Corner and reading my old game books, including Wraith: The Oblivion (one of my faves from the Classic World of Darkness).  And I got to thinking that it's neat how, just as the powers of the Disciplines in Vampire: The Masquerade are largely inspired by actual folklore on vampires (...mesmerizing people with a spoken word or a gaze, taking to the skies in the form of mist, grasping and striking with the strength of ten men, et al), so are the powers of the Arcanoi in Wraith: The Oblivion.

So match the ghost story with the Arcanos which, in terms of Wraith's gameplay, is most likely responsible for the occurrence.  Yes, there are more Arcanoi than there are ghost stories, so not every Arcanos is going to be the answer to a question.  That's just me trying to trip you up a little.    

(Go Go Gadget, Creative Writing Class!   )


1)  Lilandra had spent the better part of the day settling into her dorm room, the first day of the four years that she had planned to spend at Loring University.  No sooner had she unpacked her second box of clothes than a lilting ringtone began chirping on her hip, heralding a call from an unknown number.  Choking down her wariness, she reluctantly answered the cell phone, then was relieved — and pleasantly surprised — by a familiar voice on the other end of the line : her father.

"Listen, pumpkin," he began, greeting her with the old nickname by which he had long known her, "I'm sorry if I haven't talked to you for a while.  But this is your first day of college, and it's a very big step in your life.  So I wanted to be here for you...."

Minutes turned into an hour, which soon became two.  And in that time, Lilandra and her father had much catching up to do, and so they did.  Dad's visit to Hong Kong, Lilandra totaling her Subaru after sliding off the road, their dog Max running away...these and more did they talk about.  And in that time, the tension fell away from both their voices.  So happy was Lilandra to finally hear from her father again.

But then, the time came for them to part.  "You're going to do fine, pumpkin," he appraised.  "Don't be scared.  No matter what, just remember that Daddy is always here for you."

"Thanks.  Goodbye, Dad.  I love you."

Feeling warm inside, she slowly ended the call and returned the little phone to its holster.  Only after she had done thus did the realization hit her, and the warmth turned quailing and cold.

"My God," she whispered.  "That was my Dad on the phone.  That was my Dad."

The registration papers on the floor flicked and drifted, unsettled by the gust of her settling soundly to the floor.

"Dad's been dead for two years."


2)  "We shouldn't have come in here, guys.  I'm feeling really, really bad about this!"

"Don't be such a baby, Bobby!" Ty admonished after a nasal scoff.  "Old Man Bickford had a freakin' fortune when he died, and I bet it's hidden in here somewhere!  As old as he was, it's pro'lly gold coins from the Civil War...."

The breath of winter began seeping through the walls around them as they delved further into the time-worn house, stirring the tiny hairs on their skin to stand erect in their gooseflesh moorings.  But none of the boys noticed.

"What if it's gems?" Brad chimed in, turning his eyes to a large, dusty portrait hanged crookedly on bent nails.  "I heard that Bickford was a murderer!  Didn't he kill some old lady and take her jewelry years ago?"

The ambient temperature in the corridor had descended to such a depth that ice crystals began to form in the woodgrain across the sagging ceiling, and the soft crackling of expanding hoarfrost began to murmur all around.  But again, they didn't notice.

"He killed a bunch of ladies, I heard.  The cops found body parts in Old Man Bickford's freezers after he died, cut up like firewood."  The beam of Ty's flashlight drifted up the staircase before them, catching the glint of a grandfather clock's brass pendulum looming atop the flight.  The pendulum hung silent and still, its clockwork energy spent to aught eight winters past.  Resolute on venturing upstairs, Ty set foot on the first step.

"Guys?  Please.  Can we just leave?  This house feels...it feels wrong."

"Shut it, Bobby!"

The icicles, newly sprouted from the ceiling, slowly shifted to a scarlet tone, then began to drip...drip...drip.  The droplets of blood, chilled to sluggishness, fell from the hoary stalactites and pattered against the hardwood planks, even falling within a finger's breadth from Aaron's shoulder and Brad's nose.  And again, in the darkness and distracted by their surroundings, the boys did not notice.

And the boys began to ascend the stairs, their rays of light drifting from the old grandfather clock, then back again.  Clomp.  Clomp.  Clomp.  Rivulets of blood dribbled down the stairs and coursed past their booted feet, yet all the same, they did not notice.

"Please!  Can't we at least come back when the sun's up?"

"So half the neighborhood can catch us breaking in here?  That's stupid, Bobby!"

The clock's redwood frame shone with a thousand miniscule shards of ice in the piercing light, and the hoary creaking and crackling murmured on.  Yet they did not notice.

The top of the staircase beckoned them nearer.  Behind the refracted brightness, the clock's pendulum chamber filled with something not unlike a bloody slush, pressing bitterly and languidly against the glass.  And yet, even on reaching the next floor, the boys still did not notice.

But when the great clock's door burst open with an ear-piercing GONG, vomiting from that shallow chamber a veritable geyser of horridly cold blood — enough blood to fill several meat freezers to overflowing — and threatening to hurl the four red-drenched boys back down the stairs beneath the driving horror of the gory onslaught...

...they noticed.


3)  "WOOOOIEE!  There she goes, boys!  Get 'er!"

The breath burned in Amber's lungs.  Her desperate eyes, flushed and streaked with tears, sought escape from the human wolves dogging her flight.  Only one path was left.  Throwing the battered door open with both trembling hands, she raced into the winding alley behind.  She had been a fool to come to East End after dark.  She had been a fool to come to East End at all.

"Come back here, sweet thing!  We want a taste of that sweet meat!"

Something thin and yellow clung to her face and broke against her charging body.  In her flight, she had almost no time to identify the yellow police tape — and even less time to read it — as she burst through.  The rapists would not be far behind.  High ahead of her, a weak, flickering light seemed to welcome her...to call to her.

"McDougal's Gym.  Rear entrance."  Her hammering heart fluttered with hope.  Lamentably, that hope died as she seized the doorknob and yanked with a twist, but to no avail.  Undisturbed lines of rust tracing the contours of the deadbolt hinted quite strongly that the door had not been opened in years.  No one was there.  No one would come to her aid when she needed it most.

"Gotcha, bitch!"

A rough, sinewy hand lunged in from behind, clutching her by her ample golden hair and hurling her to the alley floor.  The glint of a steel blade flashed somewhere in the wan light over her, somewhere among the three salacious ruffians who towered over her where she lay prone.  And somewhere all too near, another pair of unyielding hands turned monstrous, grasping at her skirt and pulling it free with rough fingers.  Her own wail of panic excited her predators further.

"I wanna go first!"

"Hold her down, Bee Dee!"

"Best you just lie down and take it, girl, or we'll cut you up real bad!"

But she would not lie down...could not lie down, even if she herself would have ever yielded.  The fear welling inside her exploded into a whirlwind of strife and contrary numbness.  The entire world seemed to swirl and roil around her, as if she were but a passenger in her own mind.  And in that flurry of violence and emotion, her attackers began to sway and teeter and thrash around, and where their leering lips and tongues had barked with predatory glee not long before, they now howled with shock, suffering and dismay.  And then, their newly born cries of panic and desperation swiftly succumbed to pained whimpers and the silence of perfect unconsciousness.

The world stopped spinning around her, and a tense calm returned as she snapped back to full awareness and control of herself.  Her would-be defilers lay helpless around her, either crumpled into fetal balls or sprawled limply across the unforgiving asphalt.  And she became suddenly aware of a stinging in her hands, astonished to find that her throbbing knuckles had become raw and smeared with fresh blood, none of it her own.

Spent in body and bewildered in resolve, Amber settled against the wall to recover her breath.  Her gaze drifted from her bloodied knuckles to the four broken criminals, then back again.  She never knew that she had it in her.

Or had she had it in her at all?

She could not stay here forever.  Deciding on her next move, she pushed herself away from the brickwork and returned to her feet, never once heeding the crude graffiti shrine — a shrine of weathered brick, faded spray paint and a toppled, cracked flower vase with its contents long disappeared — against which she had rested:


Amber was not at all sure of what had just happened.  She never could be sure.  And she never would be sure.

...not in this lifetime.


4)  


5)  


A)  Argos
B)  Castigate
C)  Embody
D)  Fatalism
E)  Flux
F)  Inhabit
G)  Intimation
H)  Keening
I)  Lifeweb
J)  Mnemosynis
K)  Moliate
L)  Outrage
M)  Pandemonium
N)  Phantasm
O)  Puppetry
P)  Usury

The House of Ainsley wrote:

**Wall of text**

Uh, wut?

Interesting shorts, as always I applaud your creative writing skills. But I got no clue.

GoldenDrakon wrote:

The House of Ainsley wrote:

**Wall of text**

Uh, wut?

Interesting shorts, as always I applaud your creative writing skills. But I got no clue.

Aw, I love you too.  

Oh, snap!  I forgot to finish these ghost stories (including a few paraphrased old stories; don't worry, a rehashed telling of "The Phantom Hitchhiker" is a-comin', and #1 is a retreaded version of a well-known urban legend too).

But hey, I did toss in that link, right?  I have faith in you, sir!  You're down with Vampire, right?  Just think of Wraith as Vampire with ghosts instead of vampires, and instead of biting people and feeding on their blood, they hang around people and bask in their emotions.  And instead of the Inner Circle coming up with the Masquerade to deter them from revealing themselves to mortals, Charon (the First Ferryman) laid down the Dictum Mortuum to deter them from tampering with the lives and destinies of mortals.  And instead of the Camarilla, the Sabbat and the Inconnu, your factions include the Hierarchy, the Renegades and the Heretics (plus a fourth faction in the form of Oblivion, but you do not want to join that team; Oblivion's closest Vampire equivalent would be "Hey, the Antediluvians are awake, and these are the Kindred who are enthralled to the Antediluvians and feeding all the other Kindred (from all the other factions) to the Antediluvians in hopes of buying themselves some more time before the Antediluvians inevitably turn on them and devour them too").  The rest is easy peasy.  

But daggit, I really need to finish this quizzie thing up first....