SchNGrBTwM

SpoilerShow

Alright, so.

I missed D1 of NaNo thanks to being on the road, away from typing devices, and so deep in sleep-debt I slept until 9am on a workday, so I'm already a day behind! Hopefully you fine readers can help me catch up, because I'm doing something vaguely suggestion-based???

I'm going to be writing a thing with a disparate cast of characters (hence the GrB in the title), but writing it from the limited perspective of one (unlike a GrB). So, having explained approximately half of my horseshit premise, I will not ask you loyal readers to...

Choose your character.

(To stop me from completely losing track of all the timelines, we'll stick with one character (unless I get dreadfully bored writing said character). As such, you'll have to pick your protagonist somewhat democratically, but I'll try tailor the narrative to individual selections a bit deeper into this shitshow. Just bear with me!)

The Pheral

SpoilerShow

Prefers solitude, but not opposed to pleasant company.
Of an imposing visage - durable and well-suited to combat.
Incurious about the affairs of those weaker than them, yet holds little regard for social hierarchies.
Has a narrow set of skills to overcome obstacles, though said skills are powerful (if tending toward overkill).
Holds a loosely-principled respect of life, but acts before deeply considering the issue.
Takes action against causes that are convincingly pitched as unjust to her.

The Sigilist

SpoilerShow

Insociable but capable of courtesy when it's worth their while to do so.
Sickly yet intimidating presence. Of cunning mind and alacrity in combat.
Pragmatic in the affairs of others. Takes no issue with being reviled and disliked provided all his enemies remain predictable in their dislike of him.
A formidable mage, capable of rending apart reality with the right tools.
Respects and protects animals/innocents over sophonts/the self-aware, but will kill any of the above if doing so furthers their goals.
Constantly takes action to advance their own agenda.

The Vampire - Choose this character.

SpoilerShow

Gregarious, companionable and prone to mischief when left unattended.
Only good at killing those appreciably weaker than it. Lacks discipline to take down more challenging opponents.
Prattlesome and hedonistic in all affairs.
An atrocious problem solver - brute-forces their way through solutions by trying everything.
A capricious view on the sanctity of life, and reflexively aggressive toward those who might enforce principles upon her.
Easily spurred to action via emotional appeals, but just as easily tires of any extended campaign.

The Deliveryman

SpoilerShow

Sociable but flighty - naturally individualistic.
Prefers flight over fight, and is physically and emotionally ill-suited to killing or even harming.
Happily assists the downtrodden or specific authority figures they deem to be "just", though rarely in an extended capacity. Curious and full of questions.
Runs away from problems, and is not especially proactive in their behaviour to pre-empt the formation of further problems down the track.
Feels more at peace in the company of animals. Objects to murder or harm on principle, even if their actions don't always align with such a philosophy.
Takes action if doing so sounds like fun, or will cause petty inconveniences for authorities.

The Gadgetfly

SpoilerShow

Brusque but not necessarily tacit. Dislikes needless chatter, and feels they don't get to talk enough in conversations.
Robust, agile, and confident, but small and delicate. Needs to rig the environment or trick their foes.
Highly inquisitive, but aims to figure things out themselves rather than asking for answers.
Carries specialist technology and would have an affinity for other tech, but does not have large-scale power.
Being exclusively carnivorous, is at uneasy peace with the violent nature of the world.
Takes action against causes when they feel doing so is just, or will bring about good.

The King Made of Light - Choose this character.

SpoilerShow

Of few words, but a fine listener. Has a seemingly intense curiosity for others' explanations.
Capable of great destruction, but unaware of their full physical capabilities. Still spells certain death for any who would try assault them.
Naive about obvious things, like a small child or alien, but possesses a great capacity for abstraction.
Power and knowledge on par with a Grandmaster, unrealised and possibly-willfully sealed away.
Understands death as a concept but feels detached from it, for reasons they do not quite understand.
Seemingly content to observe, learn, and assist in simple capacities until its understanding deepens.

(further information about your options is available on request).

The Vampire, on the grounds that they're the only extrovert

The King of Light sounds intriguing to me.

The Sigilist, who can rend apart reality, and as far as I know, The Deliveryman is part of reality.

Das Vampir

Pheral

[1]

You are Evangeline Morelock-Lanceblood.

Your last-known whereabouts were the Elemental Plane of Earth, which you and your cultly compatriots were going to forcibly liberate for fun and profit before you ended up... here.

Dusk is falling over Suuuhnuhsomethingorother, you had other stuff on your mind when what'shiswhatever gave you the whistestop tour. It's a forest. You guess. But. You'd almost reckon someone let Nanda read another page from that fucking book, turning it to whichever page will pick three random elemental planes and shoehorn them together into your own special horseshit hell.

Eh, ok. You're catastrophising. It's certainly damper than the Elemental Planes which you've experienced, which makes it your kind of destination. You're on a boardwalk*, snaking through a forest**, and the forest floor is several feet of silty water instead of leaves and twigs and junk.***

Your companions - Tiliwo, Nanda, Zed, Klein - are nowhere to be seen. Thinking back, they weren't in that weird nonspace, with the thing****, and those dudes*****, either.

A pair of eyes, black and liquid, stare at you from a couple trees away, associated face half-submerged in the water. Above them, a shock of white hair, dripping water and quickly re-adopting a spikier profile, sticks out clearer than anything else in the evening gloom.

You've got your sword, your leather armor, a rapidly-healing broken arm, a dozen vials of sewer-water, a supply-stocked pack bearing a Rune of Explosive Recall, and no fucking clue.

Let's do this shit.

*wide enough for that bird-guy and his horse, at a stretch.

**The canopy forms a grey-green roof, points of light wavering across it like a ceiling above a pool of water.
The slicked trunks grow black in the fading light, roots sticking out at stalar angles - both gmighty and ctitey. It's cavernous***.

***Cavernous, as in, like a cavern, not the other way. Honestly, it's kind of cozy.

****He said you six have to fight, which implies the other cultists aren't part of this.
You'll confess to being too disoriented to pay real attention, but he hammered home the number six a lot. Also, fighting. Something something to the death? Man on man? Outing dukes? You've no fondness for noblemen and other establishment types, as your Mark of Oblivion attests, but you're not going to judge what folks get up to in the bedroom. Being judgemental about who or what you enjoy doing is Ult's shtick, and you quit that racket just in time.

***** Ugh, do you have to list them all right now? You were kind of distracted - you'll totally recognise 'em if you spot 'em.

[/1]

>Appraise face
>Take the plunge

---

Notes

SpoilerShow

Ok! I am bz tomorrow again so wanted to put something together tonight, so allow me to introduce The Vampire (who was first to two votes).

Suggestions (which can either be suggestions for what characters do, or more general plot beats) should add a [x] to their post, to indicate where we're following on from. I'm going to attempt to take every suggestion, so branching paths are inevitable.

Also because I'm going to attempt to take every suggestion, I will be writing up a post like the above for the other characters who have been selected. Note that this "character selection" may* produce different narrative outcomes from making the suggestion "Be XYZ" (which should be available, eventually. Maybe.)

*I say "may" not because I haven't decided how my story works, and more because the jury's out on whether I'll be able to write that far for that many different protagonists.

[1] See what's up with the hair-face-eyes combo (and if it comes with a snack attached).

[1] I think our best defensive maneuver is obvious with but a moment of observation and two brain cells to rub together. If their eyes are made of liquid, they won't be able to follow us for very far if WE go underwater without blinding themselves in a fit of dissolvation!

[1] See what's up with the hair-face-eyes combo (and if it comes with a snack attached).

[2]

"Uh, hey," you venture.

The whatevertheshit blinks, and bares its teeth at you. The rest of it rises from the mire, and you balk at not having made the connection until you see the flutter of gills at its jade-slick throat.

A merfolk. Great*. Awesome.

The mer is thoroughly swaddled up in sea-green brocade**, enveloping them from throat to whatever's going on at the ambulating end. (You'd guess legs just based on how they're standing, but there's too much cloth going on to really figure things out.)

Apparently done with telescoping out of the water, they finally stand tall enough to cut quite the imposing figure if a) you weren't a freak beanpole of a vampire yourself and b) your boardwalk didn't give you an extra foot or so of elevation on Meir slimy Majesty.

"Don't y' ahey at me, y' grotty legger," quite un-royally says the mer. "Ah'm Crown Princess Pepperstrelle an' nominal ruler o' these waters and the above-bits like what you're begriming with your slimy grey legger-feet."

You gesture at your "legger-feet", conspicuously less damp than everything else in this swamp (thanks, boots!). The princess waves a dismissive fin-arm-thing before crossing her arms.

"Listen, legger. Yeh'r in my surf, and that means yeh'r in my surface. Service! I meant service. F'shore, yeh may be 'bout as good to me as a gule in a gyre if yeh don't have some dry to prance on, but ah'm sure I'll find a use for yeh."

All-ternatively, an' lemme make it clear for yeh I ain't got high hopes yeh can, but y'pay yeh tolls an' clear outta my jurisdictings."

She shrugs. "Yeh'r clearly not from around here, 'n by that dint ah'd be doin' yeh a disservice to jes' send yeh off to yew wouldn' have the first clue where. Ah mean, if yeh'r that despritt to make yehself Kat-fodder then traipse to yeh heart's content. Or!"

With a swish and a splash, she's leapt upon a tree branch, a good nine feet up with no running start. She plucks a glossy green fruit, tosses it down***, and picks another for herself.

"Y' stand aroun' me, look pretty and all menace-like with yeh sword there, an' I'll make sure yeh know m'Gulespoor like the back of yeh fin!"

*For more information, check out Vagrants in Transit - Chapter 2, Evangeline Exploits, Iconoclasm Publishing House

**Richly detailed in metallic threads and shining silks, marsh-water falls off it like grimy pearls, leaving the cloth spotless.

***"tha's poisonous," she warns, as you go to take a bite out of it.
[/2]

>Eat the fruit
>Go fish

[2] Eat the fruit. You're a vampire, what's a little poison going to do to you? Negotiations will go more smoothly if you send the message she can't intimidate you.

[/2] ROLL TO CATCH FISH

[1] I think our best defensive maneuver [...] WE go underwater [...]!

[3]

Being a vampire, this is actually pretty sensible.

Sure, your master never got round to actually teaching you how to doing all the really cool vampire stunts like turning incorporeal in sufficiently large bodies of water, or, for that matter, telling you much about how to vampire at all. Sure, you learnt the basics. Rest daily in your waters of origin, carry waters of origin to seed resting pools when you're travelling, don't get salt in open wounds.

Dumping your sword boots pack and armor on the boardwalk, you figure whatever didn't come up in your tragically-truncated childerhood should be the sort of things that comes naturally.

You stride confidently off the boardwalk, and into shin-deep mud. A glowing feeling* in the three-fifths of leg that is submerged in water instead of silt is your finely-attuned vampire senses warning you this is brackish water.

The black-eyed pipsqueak is nowhere to be seen. Something kicks you in the back of the leg, knocking you off-balance and face-first into the swamp.

Probably-the-same-something, you know, at a wild guess, sticks a knee in your back and shoves your head further into the muck.

You struggle with your assailant for a good five minutes, limbs failing to find purchase or momentum enough to land a blow. Their punching you in the head isn't helping matters any, and you're so deep in mud that you probably couldn't do the dissolve-y thing even if you knew how.

It's another two minutes of this nonsense before you figure an easier resolution; you do some suitably-theatric last-gasp struggling before falling limp. You get punched in the head a couple more times for good measure, and the weight eases off your back experimentally.

You let them spring clean away before hauling yourself from the mire; it's sluggish going and by the time you've dragged yourself out and faced the right direction the little prick (a merfolk, because of course it's a goddamn merfolk) is already trying your boots on. It looks more offended than you, no mean feat even if you are caked in swamp.

"When did you leggers start breathin' dirt?"

The only reasonable response is to spit out a chunk of mud. The merjerk is an ambiguous mass of richly-embroidered robe, the sleeves pushed back to its shoulders in voluminous plumes of pale-green and gold. Their limbs (a cooler, duller green against the bright notes of their garb) are splashed with mud, but their clothes are improbably clean considering your little bout.

You lunge at the thief, but the slippery bastard snatches up your sword and pack and leaps froglike onto a low branch. They're up in the canopy and well out of reach with a series of hops and scrambles, their ridiculous robes clearly no impediment.

You snatch up your armor and try pursue them on foot down the boardwalk, managing to keep pace with them until they notice what you're doing and go brachiating off at right-angles to your walkway. Fucker.

Weeeeelp. With your pack goes all your supplies of sewer water, which means you've got about half a day to either make it back to the Vrance Keep sewers (wherever the fuck that is relative to you), track down that asshole mer, or steadily and inexorably wither away due to not maintaining basic vampiric hygiene.

Also, you've got a splinter in your toe. Maybe two. Awesome. Great.

*It's like if you'd just eaten something very mildly spicy, with the full knowledge that capsaicin gives you really bad acid reflux.**

**Alternatively, it's like basking in a campfire at a comfortable distance, but the campfire is really unsubtle about how much it hates you.
[/3]

[2] [...] [...]!!!

[2] Eat the fruit. You're a vampire, what's a little poison going to do to you? Negotiations will go more smoothly if you send the message she can't intimidate you.

[4]
You give the mermaid your best confident glare, and shove the entire fruit in your mouth. More offputting than the actual immediate flavour is the response from your unliving digestive systems, which have a habit of projectile-rejecting anything that isn't liquid.

One of the few downsides of vampirism, if you had to count 'em- oh no wait ok you spoke too soon, you just bit down on this thing and good gods this is awful. Princess Pepperstrelle watches you attempt to chew an egg-sized flavour explosion with awe.

"Yeh coulda jes' said you're immune teh poisons. I could use that, y'know."

"Gnuhm-"

"Ew! Don' say it now, you're with royalty! Mind yer damn manners."

At least half of the fruit's mass is fine, sticky seeds, with a resinous coat that sticks to your teeth and makes your gums and tongue itch something fierce. You spit out however many of those you can, and the mer nods in approval at your pinpoint seed-spitting accuracy. Mouth sufficiently vacated, you fake a swallow and gesture like "now what."

"Y'done?" You nod. She opens her own mouth wide and sticks out her bright green tongue, flashing the underside. "Gruhwhy?"

You nod, a little more stubbornly. Pepperstrelle barks a short laugh, and leaps from her perch. "Awrigh'! Yeh'r offishly my Gross Grey Knight and resident poison-tester. Yeh're weird, like, I can't tell if yeh'r a seakin into leggery or one of the new gods' uglier critters, but I think we can work with that."

She hoists up her many, many layers of skirt, throws a few trains of fabric over a shoulder, and marches off down the boardwalk. You take her turned back as an opportunity to spit out the rest of the fruit, though the sensation of bugs crawling in your mouth persists.

"What's yer name, by the bye? 'zit as grotty as your face is?"

[/4]

>"Evangeline Morelock-Lanceblood."
> "Princess Pepperstrelle."
> Literally any other suggestion of Chwoka's
> "What was that about new gods?"

SpoilerShow

Oh you're really askin' for it, aren't you...

[4] Reciprocal Orbison
[4] Dollar Sines Sins
[4] Holla Holla Washington
[4] Orange Utange
[4] 1985: The Person
[4] Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Pfbtbtbtbtbtbtqqqqqqx
[4] The Man With No Name. That's really what it says on my birth certificate! You can call me "The" for short.
[4] ¢u
[4] Ümulatte
[4] Robotrippin' B. Semicolonoscopatternabloubberlystonson
[4] Smorgasbord Schmorgasbord
[4] Fuck
[4] Vampo The Wonder Clown
[4] Hot Dogs For Free
[4] Little Litigation Lily
[4] The. You can call me "The Man With No Name" for short
[4] Tony Shalhoub, Famous Actor Renowned For Roles Such As TV's "Monk"
[4] Shemp & His Singing Sheep
[4] Moon Zero XM
[4] I don't have a name but don't you DARE call me "The Man With No Name"
[4] Flint Beefgrit
[4] Desperate 4
[4] Lyddy B. Bedwetter
[4] Buddo
[4] Buddang
[4] Mr. Methane, the man who can't stop farting
[4] Them's Fightin' Words
[4] eENGT
[4] ( )

edit: [4] Evangeline Morelock-Lanceblood
[4] Princess Pepperstrelle
[1] Adopt a suave, cocky, intimidating stance. "Princess Pepperstrelle, I presume?"

[/2] ROLL TO CATCH FISH

5
You briefly consider tackling and overpowering this ingratiating well-embroidered sack of shit, but: she's currently sitting a pretty couple feet above your comfortable jumping height, your arm's still broken, you can't see her legs, and the longer you look at her robes the more convinced you are that the damn things have a life of their own.

Also also, mers are decent meals in a pinch but a tad salty. This one seems a touch more amphibious though, maybe she'd be be palatable?

You drop the prospect of dropkicking this smug frog, your powerful vampire senses instead noticing a movement below the boardwalk.

Fish!

With speed that makes her Royal Highness flinch, you almost fully dunk your head and both shoulders as you drive an arm into the water. You nearly overbalance and fall in, but after a bunch of flailing pitch yourself back upright again.

Digging your fingers into its filigree gills was inadvisable, but all those sharp bits are hooking into your hand good enough to give you a solid grip.

You've acquired one (1) SWAMP PISCINE. You give the still-wriggling thing a quick shake to shut it up, then fling it underarm at the mer. Your swing's a bit short, but she scrambles along a branch and launches into empty space to grab it. She's still somehow attached to the branch by several folds of fabric, which may or may not have a pair of powerful legs doing the actual gripping. Man, this chick is weird. Pepperstrelle pulls out a dagger, wincing a bit as she adjusts her grip on it, then deftly guts the fish in midair. With a scant few slices, it's two perfect steaks.

"Heads or tails?" she asks you, slipping the knife back into her robes. "Trick question."

She tosses you the piece of fish with neither of those aforementioned parts attached. You try lick the blood off it, and taste scales and fishbones and the sort of silty fish-flavour you associate with the flesh of bottom-feeders. The mer watches you, having already swallowed her half whole.

"Yeh'r no seakin," she declares, spitting out fish-scales between words. "I han't ever seen a seakin with fin-gers like yours, but there's nothin' leggerways as slimy as you are."

"Gods agreed, too, to quit messin' and addin' in the water. So what in Solber's menagerie are you?"

/5

[4] What was that about new gods?

[4] What was that about new gods?

what kind of name is that

Anything in this post, prior to the edit

6
You bleat out a garbled string of what or may not have been words. The mermaid rolls her eyes, or at least, you think that's what she's doing. No pupils or irises or whatever to clarify the movement.

"Tackergule in't the kind of toxic to mess with yeh head, y'weird legger. If we find ourselves some mospertail, though, we can see if that affects yeh any better."

/6

>Go back, try a better suggestion

[6] You're right, let's go with a more intelligible nom de plume. Just call me SchNGrBTwM

What was that about new gods?

7
"Eh, y'know. Wait, I guess y'don't. Maybe yeh are one of those weird backwater Seakins after all? Anyway. Gods make a world, gods wreck a world, seakin survive by retreatin' backwater, toward the Wellspring, things eventually stop dying up top once Praeter runs dry of things good at dyin'. Gods know well enough they fucked up, and apologise to the Empress personal and agree to leave the only unfucked bit of the world alone."

She looks at you, probably staring at a stray Tackergule seed stuck to your teeth. "This is preeetty basic stuff."

"Ok, yeah, no,"

"Shut up! So some new gods show uppins one day, y'know, Wootz, lady Rem - you gotta know Rem if you're from backwater-ways - and the old guard just... vanishes. New buggers keep poppin' up, and every other pissy critter with some divinity to flaunt's j's has t'have a bunch of worshippers to feel worth somethin'."

"They've got rules or somethin' amongst 'emselves, nottaway those rules say a damn about leavin' us lot well alone. Heck, yeh'r probable some fresh beast o' theirs, no figgerin' what yeh deal is yet or who even made yeh. Five flatters yeh'r LamPrey's leavin's if yeh're wakin' up in the Gulespoor, yeh poor bastard. Good thing yeh've got me, huh?"

Pepperstrelle bounds ahead before you can answer, or clarify, or anything much really. It's actually gotten brighter as you've walked, and what you thought was a westward path toward a presumed setting sun is bringing you closer to some kind of settlement. On the left side of the boardwalk, intermittent wooden structures clump around trees, far off your path with no clear access.

"Thattaway's Roosteries, brightest fake sun in Sonneratia! We en't goin' there justaways, though." The merfolk executes a clean dive off the boardwalk, cruising a good fifty metres like a weird, frilly, textile manta before surfacing.

"My palace is nearest these boardways! If yeh've really no fins t'speak of, well, I en't carrying you. Hurry up, weirdo!"
/7

>Yeah, nah

[7] Bah, let's ditch 'em, get a better tour guide. It's not like we can parse that accent anyhow.

Evangeline Morelock-Lanceblood

8

"Well, 'ent that a mouthful and then some. Did yeh pick all that verberage out yehself?"

"Well, actually-"

"Whaaaaaaaaatever. Mah palace lies yonder!"

The princess spins about and gestures out into yet more nondescript mangrove forest. The evening sun, you finally notice, can't possibly be that as it's gone unchanged in intensity for the past however-long of walking. If anything, it's gotten a little brighter?

"I'd have a boardwalk leadin' up, but ah don't normally suffer leggers in my liegeries. Yeh can slog through some mud or climb a tree or ah d'n care, but y'clearly en't up to knightin' snuff if a bit of mud bugs yeh."

If there's one thing you hate, it's mud. No, wait. My bad. Mud's not that bad. If there's one thing you hate, it's being told you're incompetent. Yeah! What would a princess know about your knightly prowess?

And more importantly, how are you going to show it off?

/8

[8] Show off your vampiric superpowers in the most ostentatiously impressive fashion.