Excellent day to play Changeling!
Coworker K has returned from vacation, so we are not quite as short-handed. However, boss T is leaving soon, as the new overboss (metaboss? hyperboss?) makes changes to return the larger organization to what it was before new people came in and made their changes. Business, manne. It’s a scam from top to bottom.
Read (manga): FAIL. Tomorrow for sure, since I have to commute.
Played (Changeling the Lost): Berkeley 94.After surviving a night in the Grotto, the changelings split up to try to find some more information on this Queen Salome of Winter. Thessaly, Gretchen, and Everett head up into the Berkeley Hills to try to find the Cypress Yard where Salome buried something. Up in the actual hills, above the eccentric but mundane Berkeley architecture, they find an ancient stone wall ending in a spiral that is definitely a gate into the Hedge, but they have not managed to open it when Everett spots a black dog sneaking up on them. Remembering Black Shuck, the anti-gate-usage terrorist activist they met immediately after returning from Faerie, he gets everyone out of there, but Black Shuck intercepts them further down. Luckily he does not feel the need to punish them for messing about with gates, but he does warn them off the gate, which is particularly dangerous today because a hunting party came through it. Then he recruits the three of them to help him get one of the hunters. Meanwhile, Siddy and Theophania have snuck into the UC Berkeley library through the steam tunnels to see if they can find out what became of Salome. Before they can find very much, though, some of the scaly faerie cops invade the library, with dogs and also a picture of Theophania. Theo and Siddy combine their magic powers to get a senior librarian to throw the lizard-pigs out for not having a warrant, but it’s time to beat feet. They meet the fabled white alligator of the steam tunnels (his name is Sir Hiss, he’s kind of nosy but a fellow nerd) who tries to help them escape, but everywhere they see the outside, those damn lizard-pigs are there.
I got to try to turn people on to The Ancient Magus’ Bride, because it has a church grim, so that was good.
Written (game design): 222:
If there’s a curse associated with being able to spend magic points,
then it needs to bother bystanders; if only affects the adept, then
there’s no incentive for The Man to not forcibly initiate an army of
adepts (need a better name here) and just let them suffer between doing
40-person raids on dungeons or whatever. It should probably also get
worse the more there are hanging around together, so they don’t go off
and form their own miserable cursed society away from everyone else. But
what is the curse? It has to be pretty generic, maybe just attracting
monsters and meddling deities.
If large groups can’t form, though, that makes it hard to have dark
academia wizard schools/temples, though, so maybe fixed locations can be
warded. They’re also a known place people can come and bother you if
they need help, though.
Speaking of meddling, in Kala Mandala the PCs aren’t members
of an adventurers’ guild or anything like that, they belong to the
Bawan Meddling Association. Should adepts be treated like
tricksters/holy fools? That’s probably too much setting for the game
itself, but could go in a default setting (equivalent of Forgotten
Realms, but again we’re way beyond any feasible planning horizon).