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edited 11th Apr '18 6:31:51 PM by dRoy
Well, you might have painted yourself into a corner. Unless group three is just trolling for the purpose of causing chaos - which really only works with certain tones of work - you have to ask cui bono? They need to gain some kind of benefit. In the original roleplay, it was opportunity to do their resurrection. Now? They need to benefit somehow from distracting or weakening the main factions.
Well, it wasn't really the opportunity to resurrect that person — weakening the other groups made things easier, but their goal was to use the two groups to do the necessary dirty work for the resurrection, gathering all the necessary materials until they "accidentally" fell right into their hands.
I am aware that the third group needs benefits here, I'm just struggling to think of what benefits, exactly... unless... hmm... perhaps the Ancient Conspiracy is in the way, and even if they took them down they'd have to deal with the younger group first? Letting them fight one another to extinction would allow them to do as they pleased, without anymore wannabe heroes trying to stop them?
x... uh...
Times that much.
So, half plushy elf-monster, half fnaf robot? Okay, so, firstly, a lot of animatronics in fnaf are custom made for some purpose. The toys have face-scanning tech and can contact the cops, the funtimes are made for kidnapping, Lefty is special made for capturing the puppet, and the mimic has adaptive ai and can fit into just about any costume. So specialized "capture" technology or something? Secret tech they're not supposed to have, that is.
As for the Labubu
stuff... Well, I'm less equipped here, especially since they don't sound like they'd have explicit magical powers? It looks like it'd have a nasty bite, if nothing else. The fur might be wooly too, which would protect it from water.
From a more supernatural angle, they kinda remind me of the Icelandic Huldufólk, which would imply the ability to turn invisible at will. Perhaps the ability to move through rocks as if they were air? Or the ability to manipulate the earth? Supposedly elves once made it rain rocks in Iceland.
Read Otr of the Flame (She/Her)If I'm understanding correctly, the original idea was that the third group wanted to perform a spell (or similar action), but required certain necessities that were hard for them to gain themselves. So they arranged for two other groups to gain those necessities for them. A bit of a large-scale MacGuffin Delivery Service—I like it!
Now, in that original idea, the goal of this spell (or spell-like effect) is to resurrect a certain person, who is now being adapted out.
In which case, my first thought is to keep the spell, but change the effect. That changes the least, after all. (... And keeps the presence of a spell in the narrative, which I'm in favour of. :P)
At the most minimal, this might just be a matter of changing the person to be resurrected: could there be someone else that the third group might like to have alive again?
Otherwise, it's just a matter of what they could gain that might require magic:
At the most banal, money or power of one sort or another.
Maybe something more supernatural: access to immortality, or a truth or secret that is very important to them.
Maybe even a means of leaving their world for one that they deem better—or of bringing that world to Earth.
On a grander scale, what about some means of changing something about the world that they deem wrong or unjust...?
My Games and Asset PacksI'm wondering if the following method works well (or even at all) as a Secret Test of Character?
In Part 1 of my story, the main character's teenage romance with a vampire who has actively killed human citizens of his hometown has earned him the disgust and borderline wrath of the local werewolf pack, especially since there is some suspicion among them that he has even aided or at least watched the murders.
One of the other protagonists is the childhood friend of the main character, and being a werewolf, she is afraid of what the pack (and an increasingly radical splinter faction of it) will do to him if the suspicion on him is allowed to fester. So, she devises a way that she thinks will prove him innocent or guilty.
When she and the main character are hanging out in the woods while she is in wolf form (he's long since found out about the existence of werewolves) she unexpectedly attacks a nearby deer. She proceeds to kill it far more violently than necessary and then eat it right there in front of him, surprising and horrifying him with how bloody it is.
His mixture of shock, horror and disgust proves to her that he hasn't helped the vampire kill people, much less watched. Otherwise, he would be far more jaded and desensitized to such a brutal display or violence and consumption.
What I'm wondering is if this works as a secret test?
Edited by Swordofknowledge on Jun 19th 2025 at 3:55:54 PM
Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake. — Edgar WalllaceFirst thing that comes to mind is that it's a horribly flawed methodology. After all, It Never Gets Any Easier is a trope for a reason, not to mention that from what I can tell, she doesn't know what kind of situation the humans he may-or-may-not have seen die were in. Maybe the vampire tricked him into thinking the murder was justified, or a Mercy Kill. Something he could rationalize while still sympathizing with her. Or maybe he's just very fond of deer, and would be horrified even if he was used to murder.
In other words, it's exactly the kind of thing a teenager would come up with! Like, I personally find it believable a teenage girl would come up with this kind of plan and be convinced by it's results, though I'm unsure how the audience would react to the plan. Based on my current knowledge, I'd rank it... A weak C. I'm giving her it, but she really needs to improve her work if she doesn't want a drop to D.
Read Otr of the Flame (She/Her)
@ Marchen:
I'm glad it got a passing grade!
In all seriousness, this is pretty much what I hoped for, probably more than that actually. The plan isn't exactly intended to be ingenious; it was formed on a whim by someone who isn't really thinking clearly nor who has much experience with this sort of thing, despite a lifelong knowledge of the supernatural.
Plus, she is very biased and is more trying to confirm her own fervent belief that the boy she's known since they were literally infants hasn't become a cold-blooded servant of her kind's mortal enemy. So, in other words, the sloppy aspect of it seems all the more appropriate (as you noted) even though I hadn't really thought of it that way.
EDIT: Upon further thought, I think I may actually have someone point these flaws out to her when she tries to argue his case. So thank you for also providing an idea for a scene.
Edited by Swordofknowledge on Jun 19th 2025 at 8:32:16 AM
Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake. — Edgar WalllaceSo, I found a way out of that corner, as suggested by this thread (thank you). Now, what I'm struggling to think is how to juggle several characters at once.
See, to adapt this roleplay into a novelized form, I essentially have to spend the entire first Story Arc constantly introducing new characters, some of whom will be one-shot, but without really staying with the newly introduced characters until the end of the Story Arc. Whilst I have found a way around this by giving some characters more scenes as in-betweens to the introduction of the new characters, I am afraid that the constant bouncing from characters to characters may turn readers off.
Mind you, this applies to the follow ups of the roleplay as well, since they feature large casts whose most important and developed members are only crystallized by the halfway point. Whilst follow ups will be simpler to handle, as I have more room to spend with the characters by introducing them, I am afraid the same issue will pop up.
Perhaps a bookworm, or even a bookwyrm? Living books are a great option too. Perhaps some characters are breaking free from the books, especially the bad guys? So, like, a swarm/pack of illustration-like big bad wolves, for example? Or the words themselves could be breaking free from the pages and attacking. Like, either a swarm of letters (not necessarily just the letter B, but that could actually be kinda funny), or maybe in a more eel-like fashion?
I've given some thought to a library dungeon myself, and two concepts stand out as potentially useful to you. First, trivia and/or logic puzzle. Libraries are places filled with knowledge, so why not prove your knowledge to proceed?
Second, the Dewey Decimal system. Or more precisely, some library books have been misplaced, and must be returned to their rightful shelf. Perhaps returning the book triggers a mechanism, causing the whole shelf to slide to the side or rotate like in Scooby Doo, allowing further navigation, or all books must be correctly placed to unlock the path forward.
Also, you know those sliding ladders some libraries apparently have? Maybe you have to get on top of the shelves and navigate the library three-dimensionally?
Read Otr of the Flame (She/Her)And for Library monsters, how about "Bookmark Flatworms"?
They look like bookmarks, but try sleeping next to the book their in or try steal one of the books with one in it, and you're about to find out how being attacked by an invasive endo-parasite with razor-sharp hooks for teeth feels like.
Painless when they get in.
Insanely painful to try and pull back out.
And they'll suck your blood all the while regardless if you try leave them be or pull them out or do surgery to try and cut them out.
Not to mention how they have enough reasoning power to go "Big Book = Big food" and "Bigger Book = MORE FOOD!"
To them a human being is basically just another "big book" once they actually sense you through the sensory organs in the back half of their bodies, that make them resemble a bookmark.
They embody the rule of "Do NOT sleep in the Library."
"If there's problems, there's simple solutions."So, I asked this question once before but it went unanswered likely because I made it overly complicated. My fault, so I'll try to make it a bit simpler.
TLDR: Does going along with an evil plan to save someone he loves make it seem like the hero-turned-villain was always evil, even before he became a full villain?
More Detailed Explanation: In Part 2 of my story, two of my protagonists (the main character and his childhood-friend-turned-love-interest) are in a pretty dire situation. The villain is threatening to kill the main character's friend if he does not use his Story-Breaker Power to to aid the villain's plan of world domination.
Although he agonizes over it, the main character eventually accepts the "deal" (although he has no actual way of bringing out his power at the moment), despite knowing that this will result in the enslavement of both humanity and the werewolves, although to different degrees, all under this would-be tyrant.
Even though the threatened friend tells him she is willing to die if it means averting this grim outcome, he persists in accepting his role in the plan since he is unwilling to let anyone he cares about die, regardless of how many others must suffer.
Ultimately this situation resolves itself, but it is intended to show how if pushed into a corner, the main character will discard all morality and care for the wider world and focus on protecting his close circle of loved ones. And it of course foreshadows his eventual descent into apocalyptic madness due to a similar situation.
What I do wonder is if this makes it seem like he was Evil All Along? I'm very much trying to avoid that; in fact the tragedy of his character is that he was very much not an evil person. He was pushed and tugged along his path by a number of events, his own decisions and those of others making him into a monster.
Edited by Swordofknowledge on Jun 22nd 2025 at 11:25:18 AM
Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake. — Edgar Walllace@GearFriedTheKnight: You could always de-emphasise some characters, having them act in the narrative without being given point-of-view scenes.
Alternatively, you could perhaps composite some characters to produce a leaner cast.
Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Jun 22nd 2025 at 6:29:20 PM
My Games and Asset PacksWell, then, my suggestion to composite some of them stands.
Alternatively, you could split them up into CastHerds.
My Games and Asset Packs![]()
I think I'll side with
, but I feel like the information provided isn't enough for me to feel confident judging how I'd feel about it. It could come across as a step so far it irrevocably corrupts my image of him, or it could be an understandable decision. Who knows, it's not like I've read it.

However, both groups have Moles inside of them working for the third group I mentioned: the reveal, later, is that the Moles leaked informations between the groups to escalate hostilities, else the two groups would've never noticed one another's existence. The third group also doesn't want to destroy The Masquerade or take control of it for themselves... which is why I'm struggling to figure out why the third group would manipulate the other two into open conflict.
Edited by GearFriedTheKnight on Jun 19th 2025 at 11:22:55 AM
''There's no magic in tuning; yet, it's something that tends to escape from any logic."