Mel Mesmer

The Heir


Academics skill: Above Average
Sports skill: Above Average
Favourite Foods: Strawberries, apricots, sweet rice dumplings, stew, salt mackerel, yakitori, red tea
Blood Type: A
Animal: Boar
Age: 17
Arcs: Prophet 3/Child.of the Ash 0
Current Arc: Child of the Ash
Emotion XP: Awwwww XP

Playbook

Skills

Grace 2
Alertness 1
Crafts 1
Domestic Tasks 1
Sosunov Family Magic 2

The Bookishness of Destruction1 0
The Dance of Destruction2 0

Perks

Accessory: The Glass Diary of Melanie Malakh and the Floor-Length Mirror of Baalhermon3
Bond: Nightmare and delirium can drag me and the world around me into the Outside.
Affliction: I can leave a shard of magic glass in your dreams.

Quests and XP

Emotion XP: Awwwww XP

Basic Quest: Two Worlds
Lurid Card: Delinquent/Shrine Maiden

Otherworldly Quest 1: Changes(ing) into a Glass Dragon

  • Major Goals
    • you have a traumatic transformation or dissociation scene in play, where your reality gets weird because your true nature is changing or revealing itself.
    • you see a confusing vision, nightmare, or premonition of your or someone else’s death.
    • you meet and get the chance to help a mysterious child find their way.
  • Flavour
    • wrestling with/expressing nameless feelings of loss that make you act unnaturally
    • trying and failing to burn things, to light them on fire
    • getting confused about who and where you are
    • listening to stories about what happened when the first Glass Dragon shattered
    • talking with somebody about your destiny/nature and what it means
    • talking with somebody about why there’s such a thing as death
    • dealing with acne, braces, your period, ear infections, or other annoyingly intrusive elements of physicality.

Otherworldly Quest Miracle: Destroyed Secrets
Lurid Card: Awake and Present/Dreaming of Lost Aeons

Powers

Prophet 3

Estate: Destruction/Melanie Malakh
Enemies: Creation, Protection, Fortune, Recovery

Divine Guidance

1/chapter do one of the following (1-2x per book for 0MP, 1MP for the third+):

  • Either, 1-2x per book for 0MP, 1MP for the third+ make the intention “I listen for the subtle voice of Melanie Malakh’s and try to do what feels right”. The intention gains the following:
    • rises to Intention 4
    • may operate as if you were familiar with the motifs and metaphors of Destruction (demolitions work, breaking hearts, stress analysis, etc, you know something about all of it)
  • Or, for 2MP, gain the same benefits for any intention plus:
    • A Tool bonus 3
    • The ability to break and inflict backlash on Bleak miracles (after the first time, this also inflicts backlash on you and ends the intention)
    • You can say that it was what Melanie Malakh would have wanted, if you want to.

This power has 3 Strike.

Additionally, if you can sustain your Intention for an entire Chapter, it builds to a signature event or celebration of destruction: a meteor collision, a power plant exploding, the demolition of Horizon School, the slaying of a powerful kaiju, etc. Something big which will be talked about for at least a year (or maybe for as long as the world has left).

Materialization of Possibility

Okay, here’s the big one.

Once or twice per book, for 0 MP, you can ask Destruction to solve an immediate problem facing you… and it does so. Maybe it generates a miracle or a tool or an intention. You don’t get to choose, it’s up to the HG, though the whole table can make suggestions. It could do anything, even unleash a wish, but it’s almost certainly going to be one the following:

  • Some bit of Destruction becomes more likely or more powerful.
    • an elevator cable snaps keeping the thief from getting to safety
    • your crush’s phone with an embarrassing text on it suddenly and inexplicably bursts into flames.
  • Some act of Destruction just…happens. Destruction tends to operate through the motif of shattering.
    • an evil mirror shatters as if punched
    • a tv explodes
  • Or, some epic destructive event occurs… but the important bit was the effect and all the weird bits go away.
    • an enormous orb of death appears, replacing the sun, and a hand reaches out from it, so huge it casts the world in shadow, and unmakes your failing test grade with a touch. The next day, the hand isn’t really a thing that happened… but you still have that C!

That’s the first bit, the part you can’t control. But you can step in and change the world yourself, too.

For 0 MP 1-2x per chapter (and 1 MP the third or after), you can make an act of Destruction either 8x as likely to happen or 2x as effective. These are probably fairly subtle, but consequential effects. For instance:

  • You can make an old car breakdown.
  • Or cause a souffle to fall.
  • Or make a teenager sad. (Teenagers are probably at a 1/8 chance of just becoming sad at most times anyways)
  • You can hit a wall with a sledgehammer and do as much damage as hitting it twice in a row!
  • Or you can make breaking a mirror give 14 years bad luck!

Bump that up to 2 MP and you can make Destruction either 33,000x as likely or 100-200x more likely.

  • You can make any technology just break down
  • Cause a relationship to fall apart before your very eyes
  • Make Rube Goldberg-esque traps simply fall into place
  • Knockdown a wall with a hammer
  • Make a painfully loud noise pop eardrums and shatter glass

Finally, for 4MP you can just make Destruction happen. This usually takes the form of a seemingly causeless shattering (even of unshatterable things, like clouds or mud) but it can be more than that. Pointing your finger and going “pew pew” and having your targets explode is probably at this level of effect.

Inspiration

Once or twice per scene for 0 MP, 3+ times per scene for 1 MP, or 2 MP for as many times during a scene as necessary, you can perform an inspired feat , by expressing Destruction through your the medium of Dance or Reading. An inspired feat is an action that is powered by the energies of Destruction, even if it does not actually support that Principle. The intention level rises to a rating of 4 and you can waive level 1-2 skill penalties (like Obstacles or Edge).

If you are in a location where destruction is at least nominally present, you can channel its power to make your inspired skill behave as a level 1 Superior skill - something somewhat subtly unnatural. If there is no Destruction where you are, you can’t perform an inspired feat at all. Luckily for you, entropy is the natural state of this fallen world. If you ever get sucked into a realm of Platonic and endless perfection, you’re going to have trouble dancing your way out of that mess. Here are some examples:

  • make onlookers begin to tap their feet and clap their hands in time to the rhythm during a dance battle
  • find a forbidden book in the mouldering stacks of the abandoned West Library
  • press a magic flower in a handy book to bind and contain its power

If you are somewhere where there is a consecrated space of Destruction — an abandoned demolition site or the Archive of Hideo Hayashi — or in the presence of some thing or things redolent with Destruction — the glass diary of Melanie Malakh or a shard of the Glass Dragon are obvious examples — or even at some holiday or event consecrated to Destruction — is there a Glass Dragon Day or a Sunfall Festival? If so, those would be perfect places — anyways, if you are in a place like that, your inspired skill can function as a Superior Skill 2. For instance:

  • you can speed read a pile of books with a glance in the Hayashi Archives
  • you read from the Glass Diary of Melanie Malakh and unleash a spell which turns vanilla ice cream into chocolate
  • you perform a dance in the sanctioned breakdance garden which knocks people down with waves of choreographed telekinetic force

Finally, if you use an unwieldy artifact of Destruction or a lengthy and complicated ritual/consecrated space/historical moment, your inspired skill can act as a Superior Skill 3. For instance:

  • you roll the Mirror of Baalhermon into your classroom and unleash a haka of untold power to transform people into your mind-controlled dance partner minions
  • you dance in front of the mirror and pull your reflection from the mirror to aid you in bringing it
  • By reading through the owner’s manual, you can use Hideo Hayashi’s Glass Vespa to drive over the surface of Big Lake

By spending an extra 2 MP, you can make an inspired action of any level perfect, which means no mundane opposition can defeat it.

Hallow

Over the course of several years for 0 MP or (more reasonably) instantly for 4 MP, you can consecrate a space to Destruction, making it useful for Divine Inspiration and turning it into a Bleak realm. This creates the Region Property “This is a Far and Sunless Land”.

Illumination

Offer someone struggling with Destruction advice and take a Foreshadowing Action or Sympathetic Action and gain a point of Mystery. Your advice turns out to be good advice that helps them with their problems.

If the person is a PC, you don’t get the point of Mystery, but they can take a Shock action gain a point of Calling.

Vestments

A free perk slot to hold the Accessory Perk representing the Glass Diary of Melanie Malakh and the Mirror of Baalhermon.

Elation

Once per session, when your heart is singing with, or at least in alignment with, Destruction, you may regain 2 MP, up to a maximum of 6. This power is invoked but does not require an action.

Regretful Warning

When someone has betrayed Destruction — they put something very broken back together or, perhaps, stopped a glass dragon from unmaking Fortitude — you can curse them for 2MP. Some Materialization of Possibility-esque curse will befall them if they do not repent and make amends with Destruction before the beginning of the next Story. If you want to speed it up, you can activate this power again to cut the time down to 0-3 Chapters. Example curses include:

  • The Shattering Hex, where the target begins falling to pieces
  • The World-Breaker’s Touch, where everything the target touches begins falling apart before their very eyes
  • The Curse of Bleak Vision, where the target’s eyes become night and falling stars and show only destruction

Child of the Ash 0

Element: “the storm of shards”
Kaiju Form: A Glass Dragon
Field: Reflection / Distortion

Set the Mood
“Look, and you will see the truth about yourself” / “Look, and you will see your misconceptions writ large”
[Mood]-Splosion
Wicked Mode
Kaiju Form
Mortal Form

Current Status

  • Health Levels
    • 2/2 Normal
    • 1/1 Tough
    • 3/3 Divine
  • Resources
    • 8/8 Will
    • 5/5MP
  • Issues
  • Progress
    • Active Arc: Otherworldly 0/72xp
    • Quests
      • WWMD - 0/9xp
      • Changes(ing) into a Glass Dragon - 0/21xp
      • Destroyed Secrets - 0/9xp
    • Unspent XP: 0xp
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