Helena Williams

The Lost Ward

Playbook

Skills

  • Athletics 4 - You have more trophies than anyone else in Town.
  • A Map in Your Head 2 - You know how to get where you're going.
  • Cinephile 1 - You’re fairly well acquainted with classic films.
  • Knife Skills 1 - You know how to handle a blade.
  • Punctuality 0 - You are not good at getting places on time.

Perks

  • Connection: The Magical Detective 3
    She is your best friend.
  • Affliction: Ogre Jaws (Indomitable)
    You are able to bite through anything with the awesome crushing power of your hidden fangs.
  • Accessory: The Key of Things Best Left Forgotten
    With this nondescript and battered house key, you can open a hole into the Maze in the Walls. You can banish one thing to the furthest recesses of the Maze once per book for 0MP or after that for 4MP.
  • Skill Perk: Superior Vitality 21
  • Connection: The Unfamiliar Familiar 1
    It was nice to have someone to talk to (even if they couldn't talk back) and sneak a treat to in the house.
  • Connection: The Admiral 1
    You always loved it when he came to Town… even if it was never as often or for as long as you'd like.
  • Connection: The Butler 1
    You and he don't get along, but you know how he thinks.

Quests and XP

Emotion XP: Impressed Whistle XP

Basic Quest: The Weight of it All
You’re the sort of person who carries the world on your shoulders. You’re strong enough… you can take it. Probably? Maybe? It is pretty heavy.

Once per scene, when things are getting hard, you can earn 1xp by holding up your sign that says “Totally Under Control”. Show that side to everyone but remember to read the back where the word “whyyyyyyyyy” is written.

Otherworldly Quest 1: Letting Go
Forsyth is dead. Forsyth is dead and that means you have to go to Forsyth Manor. You hate Forsyth Manor. But Forsyth is dead.

You knew it before you got the letter. You’d had a dream and he was there, and you knew immediately that he was dead. So you packed your things and you left your home in the Walking Fields to come to Horizon. You’re just staying for a little while, just long enough to pay your respects and sign anything that needs signing. You brought a friend along, the Magical Detective, for moral support.

But when you got here, it wasn’t how you remembered… No… that’s not right. In fact, it’s exactly how you remembered. But it doesn’t feel the same. It’s interesting. Mysterious. Weird things are happening in the night, weird dreams and surreal experiences, and they’re not frightening or troubling… they’re exciting.

The Magical Detective doesn’t see it. They’re scared and uncomfortable. They want to go home.

But you? You’re going to realize… You are home.

Major Goals

  • Someone else is genuinely terrified of something you’re enjoying
  • You temporarily lose your Companion
  • You receive a message or delivery addressed to the manor

Quest Flavor

  • 421853646784036864.png?v=1 421853556862222344.png?v=1 You hear the sound of voices coming from the walls
  • 421853646784036864.png?v=1 421853556862222344.png?v=1 You find mysterious gifts on waking
  • 421853556862222344.png?v=1 You discover a mark you left years ago
  • 421853623576952842.png?v=1 You talk about how much you hated Forsyth Manor
  • 421853597639245836.png?v=1 You dream about walking through endless hallways
  • 421853597639245836.png?v=1 You have a very good night’s sleep
  • 421853597639245836.png?v=1 You give an excuse why you can’t leave yet

When you complete this quest, you’ll have come to the decision that you’re not going back to the Walking Fields, that Forsyth Manor is your home. You’ll also gain a level 2 Connection Perk towards Forsyth Manor.

Side Quest: Helena vs the X Street Unfriendlies
Your return to Horizon has not gone unnoticed. The arrival of a new predator on these streets has aroused attention, specifically the attention of Brand Sanguine and her gang of monsters. You’re a threat to her, competition, so she’s going to show Horizon who is the baddest monster out there…

… and she’s going to do it on the Court.

Major Goals

  • A ball flies at your head from off-screen.
  • You arrange a competition at a specific time and place.
  • You discover a hidden place to practice

Quest Flavor

  • 421853623576952842.png?v=1 421853635346169866.png?v=1 you have a training montage with your teammates
  • 421853623576952842.png?v=1 421853610880532481.png?v=1 you invite someone to join your team
  • 421853646784036864.png?v=1 your opponents make you/a friend miserable off the court
  • 421853597639245836.png?v=1 you talk about giving up
  • 421853597639245836.png?v=1 you have a dream or vision about your opponents

Powers

Indomitable

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Curse: The Hunger
When you were a child, you ate an ogre. Ever since then, you’ve been filled with strength and need and hot blood. There is a monster within your flesh.

Paralyzing Fear
Miraculous Action;

Keen Nose
Miraculous Action;

Vitality Bonus
Special;

Inhuman Strength
Miraculous Action; Strike +2;

Tribulation
Miraculous Action; Bleak; [XP Action];
Your unnatural hunger is contagious. You can infect others with it, warping them into monstrous forms. Alternately, you can fill their minds with need, causing their desires and wants to become overpowering.

Inconspicuous Form
Miraculous Action;
When you dream, you often dream that you are a mouse, chewing your way through mazes, and cages, and walls, and even dreams. You can take the form of a small brown mouse with golden eyes.

Called Away

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Estate: Being Lost
You have power over the Estate of Being Lost, the pure reified, physicalized substance of Lostness and Confusion. Mostly, your Estate isn’t actually Being Lost, the base concept, but the expression of it as things: The Lost People and Things.

Realm: The Maze in the Walls
There is a hidden maze of tunnels and doorways inside the walls of Forsyth Manor. If they were put in there intentionally, it must have been by a mad architect practicing a cursed and heretical form of drafting. Those who know the secret of it can use these paths to travel the enormous manor, accessing most every room and several places on the grounds. Those who wander too far from the known and beaten path, find themselves lost in endless and impossible hallways, covering impossible distances within the seemingly finite interior of the manor. This is the Maze, a space of confusion and disorientation.

It is a liminal place, a space between spaces. Those who map and study it can forge paths and uncover hidden locations. Hidden vaults, abandoned attics, ancient catacombs, the things the Maze can show you to are uncountable. Lost things gravitate to the Maze - lost objects, lost magics, lost people. A traveller might find themselves travelling through a hall of clean-yet-unmatched socks or a forgotten portrait gallery; they might discover a hidden society of intelligent geckos or awaken a slumbering and unnamed evil from some bygone age.

The Properties of the Maze in the Walls are:

  • You are disoriented.
  • You are confused.
  • There are subtle contradictions in the world around you.
  • There are things that you can’t explain
  • The sun is distorted and strange.
  • You can see. You can hear. You are in possession of your senses.
  • The Maze recedes and a normal world returns in the paths and places you know well.

Shadow: The Minotaur
There is something in here with you. As you go deeper into the maze, you’ll find scratches and claw marks, paths blocked by rubble, broken walls and ceilings. Sometimes you will hear a roaring in the distance or echoing footsteps. The creatures of the maze — the geckos and the domovoy and the hippo — they hide in their lairs for fear of its approach. There is a Minotaur loose in the Maze.

But all is not as it seems. The Minotaur isn’t just a dangerous and destructive monster, there’s more to it than that. It’s a person, someone connected to you, someone you might think of as kin.

And it doesn’t just live in the Maze.

Who Is the Minotaur?
This is supposed to start off as something of a mystery, but I think it's pretty clear that the “kin-like” person tied to a realm of being lost is, in fact, the Magical Detective. Or, rather, it’s a version of the Magical Detective. Maybe it’s the girl who you left in the orphanage, the one who was replaced by a changeling and abandoned. Maybe it’s a bit of that girl that was pulled out and discarded by the orphanage. Maybe that girl never even existed, a fairy tale concocted by the disoriented young elf trying to fit in, and the minotaur is a thing which she is when no one else is looking.

There are other options: Imogen Forsyth aka Impious, who was always Helena's rival in the manor; or Sedlec Forsyth, the Forgotten Son, who Forsyth looked down on for his seeming weakness.

But I think it's probably Edony.

In their Shadow
Bond 2;

Spirit Walking
Imperial Miracle;
Your spirit can spirit walk into the presence of anyone on the grounds of Forsyth House or who is currently lost, literally or figuratively.

Into the Mittelmarches
Miraculous Action;

Traveler’s Blessing
Miraculous Action;

Break the Boundaries
Miraculous Action; [Imperial Miracle for 8MP];

Catalytic
Miraculous Action;
You can infect others with the manna of Lostness. This takes the form of the first level of the Issue In Over Your Head.

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