General Meta Repository

Discussion in 'The Queen of Cups' started by Zin, Jul 6, 2016.

  1. Zin

    Zin Professional Lurker

    Things that should be on the record - keeping track of triggers, etc, and anything folks think we need to keep in mind in case they get lost.
     
  2. Lady Kianna

    Lady Kianna Seer of Void.

    If there will be image postings, please warn/spoiler for spiders.
     
    • Like x 1
  3. Lady Kianna

    Lady Kianna Seer of Void.

    [12:21:33 AM] Zin Karyuu: Everyone except Corrie and Elena are tied to Arcadia/Faerie in some way facepalm
     
    • Like x 2
  4. albedo

    albedo metasperg

    ... I mean, Elena does have a missing brother who's been involved in something supernatural. >>; There's a lot of wiggle-room there.
     
    • Like x 1
  5. OnnaStik

    OnnaStik Relatively nice for a bloodthirsty mercenary

    yeah, we don't know what she's tied to yet

    And really, Corrie's going to have reason to get mixed up in anything that's making ghosts so this is starting to look surprisingly not-hard-to-tie-together.
     
    • Like x 2
  6. albedo

    albedo metasperg

    Yeah. :D That's up to GM discretion.

    This is going to be an interesting metaplot.
     
    • Like x 3
  7. albedo

    albedo metasperg

    [7/14/16, 10:50:39 AM] Zin Karyuu: Got anything about the Mojave?>:3c
    [7/14/16, 10:52:32 AM] kanjoku: E:
    [7/14/16, 10:54:17 AM] kanjoku: Sure.
    [7/14/16, 10:55:05 AM] kanjoku: http://kstp.com/news/combat-trainin...-fort-irwin-national-training-center/4186436/ There's currently a major National Guard training exercise going on, and there's some other military history in the area because well, it's a good place to practice for desert fighting. Like this from WWII https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Training_Center
    [7/14/16, 10:55:11 AM] kanjoku: Most of the sites can be visited, but some are difficult to reach. In most cases the only things that remain at the camp sites are streets, sidewalks, building foundations, patterns of hand-laid rocks for various purposes and trash dumps.

    Monuments have been erected at some of the camp sites and there are areas within CAMA that are fenced off with danger signs warning of unexploded ordnance.
    [7/14/16, 10:55:30 AM] kanjoku: Potential accidental deaths, ruins, and unexploded bombs.
    [7/14/16, 10:57:29 AM] Zin Karyuu: Yesss
    [7/14/16, 10:57:30 AM] kanjoku: http://www.sbsun.com/environment-an...victory-for-mojave-desert-water-transfer-plan Today, a big company is going ahead with stealing tons of ancient Mojave groundwater for the benefit of San Bernardino. This is controversial and messy, and in WoD could be stirring up spirits, or a God-Machine/cultist plot to exploit leylines or geographic magic.
    [7/14/16, 10:58:09 AM] kanjoku: http://www.pe.com/articles/northwest-807993-injured-spent.html People just wander off into the desert, totally unprepared, for no apparent reason, and either end up dead or with head injuries that might reasonably cause memory loss.
    [7/14/16, 10:58:57 AM] kanjoku: http://www.native-languages.org/mojave-legends.htm Here's some historical Mojave tribe folklore; this might be particularly interesting.
    [7/14/16, 10:59:01 AM] kanjoku: Matevilya (also spelled Matevilye, Matavilya, Matyavela, Matevil, and other ways): The first creator god of Mojave myths. He created the earth and brought the people to it, then became the first death in the world when his daughter the frog used witchcraft to kill him
    [7/14/16, 11:00:47 AM] Zin Karyuu: gleeful binking
    [7/14/16, 11:05:51 AM] kanjoku: http://www.desertusa.com/desert-people/haunted-deserts.html Here's some ghost stories, though not specific to the Mojave. I find "The Lady in White" particularly interesting - a ghost waiting to be reunited with her husband, wearing white for love and mourning. Because she looks to me like a variant of La Llorona, but La Llorona is usually... uh, unfriendly at best. So maybe "The Lady in White" has some darker side to her story - like say, that she died before she found out that her faithless husband had left her for another woman, when he made it rich. /coughs.
    [7/14/16, 11:05:56 AM] kanjoku: ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Llorona )
    [7/14/16, 11:06:27 AM] kanjoku: ("Weeping woman in white, in the desert, walking and looking for her family forever", I mean.)
    [7/14/16, 11:06:51 AM] Zin Karyuu: Lady in white is fun, and I have la llorona as a hook for another story, hahaha
    [7/14/16, 11:06:55 AM] kanjoku: E:
    [7/14/16, 11:07:04 AM] Zin Karyuu: Need an excuse to use a baoban sith
    [7/14/16, 11:07:27 AM] kanjoku: http://www.dailybulletin.com/article/ZZ/20111030/NEWS/111039681 Here's some stories about California desert ghost towns, and their hauntings.
    [7/14/16, 11:08:24 AM] Zin Karyuu: <33333 :D
    [7/14/16, 11:08:26 AM] kanjoku: http://www.urbanghostsmedia.com/2010/06/desert-oddity-lost-aircraft-of-the-mojave/ And some military airplanes abandoned in the Mojave for no clear reason, now overrun by wildlife.
    [7/14/16, 11:08:39 AM] kanjoku: http://www.theroadwanderer.net/desert.htm Some more about California ghost towns.
    [7/14/16, 11:12:02 AM] kanjoku: http://www.sbsun.com/lifestyle/20150214/the-ghost-of-bagdad-lives-on-route-66-in-the-mojave-desert And a ghost town that died in the sixties, and no one knows why it was really abandoned. The graves are nameless but strangely well-tended, and the old site of the town is marked only by a tree, festooned with dozens shoes of all sorts and sizes. Perhaps people leave them as a memento, a mourning sign. Or perhaps they are the only thing left of the residents who once lived here, the drivers who vanished off the road, all the nameless deaths that the desert longs to claim.
     
    • Like x 1
  8. albedo

    albedo metasperg

    Hit the character limit.

    [7/13/16, 1:25:27 PM] kanjoku: Unrelated to anything, just 'cause I don't wanna derail chat - did you know that Denver has the oldest continuously operated commercial district heating system in the world?
    [7/13/16, 1:25:50 PM] kanjoku: This means there are steam tunnels all over under the commercial district - and maybe old ones that are no longer used, lying empty.
    [7/13/16, 1:26:06 PM] Zin Karyuu: Oooooh
    [7/13/16, 1:26:18 PM] kanjoku: This is from my town, but kinda relevant... https://badgerherald.com/news/2015/...-our-feet-exploring-uws-underground-labrynth/
    [7/13/16, 1:26:29 PM] kanjoku: (He's real! I've seen him!)
    [7/13/16, 1:27:50 PM] kanjoku: 8D

    [7/13/16, 3:09:21 PM] kanjoku: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States#1960s -coughs-
    [7/13/16, 3:09:33 PM] kanjoku: 14-year-old Tennyson Beard, got into an argument with 15-year-old William Hachmeister, at Morey Junior High School, and wounded him. Another shot fatally struck 14-year-old Deborah Faith Humphrey.[131]
    [7/13/16, 3:09:52 PM] kanjoku: This actually is the school that Elena probably attends, if she lives near Cheesman Park.
    [7/13/16, 3:10:06 PM] kanjoku: And Deborah's ghost is supposed to haunt the hallway where she died.
    [7/13/16, 3:12:11 PM] kanjoku: And I suspect that the resonance of Columbine and Aurora did not exactly help, in the WoD version here. Lots of fear about shootings -> even more ghostiness and nasty spirits? >>;;
    [7/13/16, 3:12:44 PM] kanjoku: (Aurora is literally ten miles from there. So uh, it's entirely possible that there were students who would have been either injured or nearly injured.)
    [7/13/16, 3:14:16 PM] kanjoku: https://k12.niche.com/morey-middle-school-denver-co/ , for demographicy purposes, though obviously this kind of micro-level thing could be rather different in WoD.
    seriously wtf elena I SWEAR I'M NOT FUCKING PLANNING ALL THIS HAUNTING


    [7/15/16, 11:27:18 AM] kanjoku: http://www.channel3000.com/at-home/...es-major-headache-for-Baraboo-police/40717956 -shoves this at- >>;

    [7/19/16, 3:47:48 PM] kanjoku: Denver-based friend linked this.

    [7/30/16, 12:28:23 PM] kanjoku: Sidenote, and you are welcome to be misleading if it's spoilery... Are we going with the W:tF splat backstory for Denver, with "so a freaky superpowered idigam murdered most of the werewolf population a while back" ?
    [7/30/16, 12:30:51 PM] kanjoku: 'cause like... It does have sorta interesting parallels with the fact that the native wolf subspecies in the area is presumed-extinct, and you've got neighboring wolf subspecies slowly moving in and colonizing the territory.
    [7/30/16, 12:31:39 PM] kanjoku: (Mostly from the Yellowstone area; the northern rockies wolves are moving downwards. Which is why I'm using that for Elena's woofmode.)
    [7/30/16, 12:32:38 PM] kanjoku: Colorado is part of the gray wolf’s native range, but wolves were eradicated from the state by the 1940s. Over the past decade, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has restored gray wolves into Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico and Arizona, and some observers believe it's only a matter of time before wolves start migrating into Colorado from the north and south. http://cpw.state.co.us/wolves -coughs-
    [7/30/16, 12:58:33 PM] Zin Karyuu: Huh. I hadn't considered that, tbh.
    [7/30/16, 12:58:59 PM] Zin Karyuu: Though it's definitely worth considering.
    [7/30/16, 1:03:28 PM] kanjoku: Okay. :D -bounces-
    [7/30/16, 1:04:50 PM] kanjoku: tl;dr on that is that most of the local werewolves died a couple decades ago, so Denver is a mess, still rebuilding, with lots of opportunities for a new pack to stake a claim and carve out a territory for themselves.
    [7/30/16, 1:05:57 PM] kanjoku: (Mentioning that in sidechat because I wasn't sure if you wanted that to be a surprise. >>; But Denver is kinda the theme city for Werewolf, like Seattle is for Demon. So I think there's a lot of story hooks floating around; I haven't read all the Werewolf books yet.)
    [7/30/16, 1:06:16 PM] kanjoku: (Though obviously, welcome to ditch it if it's more fun too.)

    [7/26/16, 1:33:42 PM] kanjoku: (As random meta sidenote, Elena knows a little bit of Hebrew and Yiddish, but basically just what she's picked up from her mom (and grandparents when they were alive). She hasn't had a bat mitzvah or been to Hebrew school, uh... Basically, her mom used to try to take them to the synagogue, but she always works on Saturdays, and the nearest synagogue is nice but it's not walking distance so she has to get a car and ... basically they just don't end up going much. So Elena has grown up identifying as Jewish, but not really a part of a particular Jewish community. She really should have been in Hebrew school this past year and gotten a bat mitzvah this year, traditionally, but... Things have been complicated.)
    [7/26/16, 1:34:00 PM] kanjoku: (And as a sidenote, this is probably the nearest synagogue if we're keeping her near Cheesman Park. http://www.emanueldenver.org/about-us/our-history )
    [7/26/16, 1:36:16 PM] kanjoku: (Worth noting that there was an old synagogue in the 1800s that was gutted by fire and never really used again. And that there's a chapel with a bunch of furnishings from a synagogue in Czechoslovakia, the congregation of which was mostly killed in the Holocaust. So uh, that latter in particular is probably a sensitive thing to touch on but. Elena why do you keep being associated with haunted places I don't plan this.)
    [7/26/16, 1:37:05 PM] kanjoku: Ahem. Sorry.
    [7/26/16, 1:38:20 PM] kanjoku: ( http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMA5XP_Temple_Emanuel_Denver_CO I guess this is what it's used for now. -cocks head-)
    [7/26/16, 1:38:26 PM] kanjoku: (The old synagogue, I mean.)
    [7/26/16, 2:06:14 PM] kanjoku: (... because yeah, I have tried, and I literally can't find anything on WHY THE FREAKING BUILDING BURNED.)
    [7/26/16, 2:06:17 PM] kanjoku: ahem. Yes.
    [7/26/16, 2:06:57 PM] Lady Kianna: someone burned it down? Vandalism?
    [7/26/16, 2:07:11 PM] kanjoku: Dunno, I literally can't find anything.
    [7/26/16, 2:07:25 PM] kanjoku: I mean, obviously there are various things it could be, but ... no news articles, no writeups, zilch. :\
    [7/26/16, 2:07:31 PM] kanjoku: Might look more later out of curiosity.
    [7/26/16, 2:18:27 PM] Nick: weird
    [7/26/16, 2:25:44 PM] Lady Kianna: Yeah. It was probably just something likea candle knocked over if its nothing of note

    [7/21/16, 10:28:01 AM] kanjoku: (as... a sidenote, normally the cutoff for colorado schools is that you must be 5 on or before October 1 of the year you start school, but per Denver Board of Education policy, children with exceptional academic need (e.g., really advanced kids) whose birthdays are between October 2 and December 31 can be admitted if given an assessment.)
    [7/21/16, 10:28:59 AM] kanjoku: (so elena probably falls into that if she's in 7th grade at age 12, and won't be 13 until October. Which means she is small for her age, and especially small for her class because she's probably the youngest kid there.)
    [7/21/16, 10:29:15 AM] kanjoku: why do i look this stuff up

    [7/13/16, 8:21:04 AM] kanjoku: i dunno if we're actually going with denver but
    [7/13/16, 8:21:15 AM] kanjoku: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheesman_Park,_Denver shoves this at
    [7/13/16, 8:22:56 AM] kanjoku: Looks like this is basically right outside "Oldtown", so to speak - the built-up, dense, fairly rich part of town. It also used to be a cemetery, and people were ordered to remove the bodies so it could become a park, around 1900.
    [7/13/16, 8:23:00 AM] kanjoku: and ah
    [7/13/16, 8:23:24 AM] kanjoku: Several years went by while the city waited for citizens to remove the remains of their families, but few did. Most of the people buried in the cemetery were vagrants, criminals, and paupers, which probably had a lot do to with why the majority of bodies, more than 5,000, remained unclaimed. In 1893 The City of Denver then awarded a contract to undertaker E.P. McGovern to remove the remains. McGovern was to provide a "fresh" coffin for each body and then transfer it to the Riverside Cemetery at a cost of $1.90 each. The macabre work began on March 14, 1893, while an assorted audience of curiosity-seekers and reporters came and went. For the first few days, the transfer was orderly. However, the unscrupulous McGovern soon found a way to make an even larger profit on the contract. Rather than utilizing full-size coffins for adults, he used child-sized caskets that were just one foot by 3½ feet long. One source claims this was done at least partially because of a coffin shortage caused by a mining accident in Utah.[4] Hacking the bodies up, McGovern sometimes used as many as three caskets for just one body. In their haste, body parts and bones were literally strewn everywhere in a disorganized mess. Their haste also allowed souvenir hunters and onlookers to help themselves to items from the caskets.
    [7/13/16, 8:23:28 AM] kanjoku: -coughs-
    [7/13/16, 8:23:59 AM] kanjoku: So it's supposed to be haunted.
    [7/13/16, 8:24:23 AM] kanjoku: (Also full of gay, apparently, go figure. Pride parade and aids march also are there.)
    [7/13/16, 8:29:28 AM] kanjoku: because okay how do i not
     
    • Like x 1
  9. albedo

    albedo metasperg

    [7/13/16, 9:36:45 AM] kanjoku: @onna, potentially relevant to your interests, the most common ways for people to die while skiing are:
    [7/13/16, 9:38:15 AM] kanjoku: 1) Going head-first into a tree well. Y'know how conifers are thick enough to keep some snow off them, so you get a circle of dry ground surrounded by snow? Tree wells are what happens when you get conifers + six feet of snow. They're like ant lion dens - slippery-sloped cones with a tree at the center. And if you fall into one, it'll probably be head-first, and you will probably drown if you don't get help within a couple minutes.
    [7/13/16, 9:39:22 AM] kanjoku: 2) Hitting something hard. Like a tree. Or a rock. Or falling down a cliff. Or hitting a rock, "tripping", and falling. All of these will fucking kill you at 40-70mph. And yeah, we go that fast, with what amounts to a bike helmet as our only protection, while dodging as close to trees as possible. Because it's fun.
    [7/13/16, 9:39:37 AM] kanjoku: 3) Avalanches. Avalanches will fuck you up. Drowning in snow again.
    [7/13/16, 9:40:01 AM] Onna Stik: /makes mental notes
    [7/13/16, 9:41:07 AM] kanjoku: Mooost of the deaths that happen in the mountains are "back country" skiiers - people who drive or hitchhike up a mountain road, then go down the hill to the next bend of road, and try it again. Or people who hike up a mountainside to go down. They do it for the challenge, and because fresh snow that no one else has skiied on is a rare commodity at ski parks. (And park tickets are expensive.)
    [7/13/16, 9:41:32 AM] kanjoku: If you're driving in winter in ski country, this is super common - there will be clusters of hitchhikers at every bend, waiting for someone to pick them up and take them up the hill.
    [7/13/16, 9:42:10 AM] kanjoku: The downside is that in the "back country", there's no ski patrol, nobody to help you, and even 911 may be iffy at best. So if your friends - and we hope you brought friends - can't rescue you before you drown, or get help before your fractured skull kills you... Welp.
    [7/13/16, 9:42:27 AM] kanjoku: Most people who ski back country seem to have at least a few dead friends. But they keep doing it.
    [7/13/16, 9:42:55 AM] kanjoku: (People do die at resorts too, and get fucked up. It's a dangerous sport. But back country is def dangerous, and I think it would resonate with Corrie's death. >>;)
    [7/13/16, 9:42:57 AM] kanjoku: /coughs.
    [7/13/16, 9:42:59 AM] kanjoku: /sits here.
    [7/13/16, 9:43:00 AM] Nick: Huh
    [7/13/16, 9:43:18 AM] Nick: Autocorrect makes the fucking weirdest substitutions
    [7/13/16, 9:43:21 AM] Nick: I give up
    [7/13/16, 9:44:56 AM] kanjoku: You may also find it interesting that they leave tracks in the snow that are actually not dissimilar to the tracks of a snake in sand. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/BackcountryDownhill.JPG
    [7/13/16, 9:47:28 AM] kanjoku: (This is usually where everyone goes "... ... so this is what you do for fun, huh. 8|" ... and then I go "... I mean, I know the odds are that I'll break bones and rip tendons, with a small risk of death or paralyzation, but it's _fun_..."
    [7/13/16, 9:47:28 AM] kanjoku: )
    [7/13/16, 9:48:17 AM] Nick: Blue called it
    [7/13/16, 9:48:23 AM] Nick: Corrie dying I mean
    [7/13/16, 9:48:29 AM] Onna Stik: XD
    [7/13/16, 9:49:06 AM] kanjoku: (While also noting that my other hobbies include setting shit on fire.)
    [7/13/16, 9:49:10 AM] kanjoku: (-coughs-)
    [7/13/16, 9:49:25 AM] Onna Stik: I am lagging like a bitch here. :/
    [7/13/16, 9:50:30 AM] kanjoku: ( https://www.larimercountysar.org/NewsArticles/backcountry_ski_deaths_mount.htm )
    [7/13/16, 9:50:45 AM] Zin Karyuu: Tag corrie
    [7/13/16, 9:51:34 AM] Zin Karyuu: Can you get me more details on slow death by exposure? I need it for research. Have a fellow who kicks it after falling off a cliff and shattering a lot of bones... not a hot climate, kind of moderate to chilly
    [7/13/16, 9:51:43 AM] Zin Karyuu: Mica y u so cute i feel bad
    [7/13/16, 9:51:47 AM] kanjoku: ooo, what did blue call?
    [7/13/16, 9:52:06 AM] kanjoku: hee. Yes. DEATH.
    [7/13/16, 9:52:08 AM] kanjoku: /pats onna.
    [7/13/16, 9:52:13 AM] kanjoku: i... i hope this rambling is amusing.
    [7/13/16, 9:52:20 AM] Zin Karyuu: Well i did tag it character death!
    [7/13/16, 9:52:36 AM] Zin Karyuu: The game in that thread is WHO DIES AND HOW
    [7/13/16, 9:52:39 AM] Onna Stik: It is, and I would tell you so if my connection would LET ME
    [7/13/16, 9:52:56 AM] Zin Karyuu: And also is Zi evil enough to have Lee have something terrible happen while corrie is away
    [7/13/16, 9:53:13 AM] kanjoku: (I personally haven't broken anything yet! Just lots of scrapes, bruises, and strains, and a fucked up tendon last winter that made it hard to walk for a few weeks. Dad's cousin Duffy broke his ribs three times in one winter though. /rolls eyes. Damnit, Duffy.)
    [7/13/16, 9:53:24 AM] kanjoku: (tbf one of those was on a motorcycle BUT THE REST WERE SKIING.)
    [7/13/16, 9:54:10 AM] kanjoku: /done. >>;
    [7/13/16, 9:59:13 AM] kanjoku: (... ... I mean the fire is... It's dangerous, ten foot walls of flames usually are. But it's very well-planned and potential danger is well-mitigated! Plans filed with the DNR, humidity and windspeed checks every hour, weather meticulously analyzed. And we all have to get training to avoid shit like that one time when nineteen firefighters died in Arizona three years back. ._. Or those people who died a few years back because they didn't know that fires go faster uphill.)
    [7/13/16, 9:59:21 AM] kanjoku: ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yarnell_Hill_Fire , btw, for our geisty friends.)

    [7/12/16, 9:23:35 PM] Zin Karyuu: Nebulous Northern Area
    [7/12/16, 9:23:48 PM] Zin Karyuu: I've already got a game in Minnesota right now, I'm not sure where it should be precisely.
    [7/12/16, 9:23:49 PM] Onna Stik: All we know is that it gets snowy. Voting for someplace in Colorado, personally.
    [7/12/16, 9:24:00 PM] Zin Karyuu: Voting is absolutely A-OK
    [7/12/16, 9:24:00 PM] Nick: i don't care where, i just have to know
    [7/12/16, 9:24:10 PM] M: I vote mars
    [7/12/16, 9:24:15 PM] Nick: i don't know shit about colorado
    [7/12/16, 9:24:17 PM] Nick: mek no
    [7/12/16, 9:24:20 PM] M: mek yes
    [7/12/16, 9:24:25 PM] Zin Karyuu: Mek, it doesn't snow on Mars.
    [7/12/16, 9:24:32 PM] Zin Karyuu: Katters can be on a Mars colony though, sure.
    [7/12/16, 9:24:32 PM] M: It could
    [7/12/16, 9:24:34 PM] M: You don't know
    [7/12/16, 9:24:42 PM] Zin Karyuu: Katters now lives on Mars *nod*
    [7/12/16, 9:24:46 PM] Nick: heh
    [7/12/16, 9:25:01 PM] Zin Karyuu: I don't know shit about Colorado either tbh
    [7/12/16, 9:25:10 PM] M: M adds that to the snowiki: Snowtown, the Martian city
    [7/12/16, 9:25:29 PM] Nick: @onna benefits of colorado?
    [7/12/16, 9:25:33 PM] M: weed
    [7/12/16, 9:25:37 PM] Nick: oh
    [7/12/16, 9:25:41 PM] Onna Stik: I know very little about it either honestly but I know it's great for the outdoorsy types.
    [7/12/16, 9:25:53 PM] Onna Stik: And there's definitely snow, at least at elevation.
    [7/12/16, 9:26:01 PM] Onna Stik: Which most of it is.
    [7/12/16, 9:26:05 PM] Nick: hm
    [7/12/16, 9:26:19 PM] M: Things I know about Colorado: Ski resorts, trees, weed, apparently they hate Californians
    [7/12/16, 9:26:31 PM] Nick: it's just that lucas point blank asked where he is
    [7/12/16, 9:26:40 PM] Nick: and i have no fucking clue but mica should know this
    [7/12/16, 9:26:51 PM] Onna Stik: Oh right, that's where the weed is, isn't it? Well, that's another bonus :P
    [7/12/16, 9:27:11 PM] M: That's where the legal weed is, anyway
    [7/12/16, 9:27:19 PM] M: Pretty sure weed's everywhere. It's like a weed
    [7/12/16, 9:29:28 PM] Zin Karyuu: but yeah
    [7/12/16, 9:29:31 PM] Zin Karyuu: COLORADO FOR NOW
    [7/12/16, 9:29:38 PM] kanjoku: put it in 'sconsin E:
    [7/12/16, 9:29:42 PM] kanjoku: hee colorado works.
    [7/12/16, 9:29:44 PM] Zin Karyuu: where's colorado?
    [7/12/16, 9:29:50 PM] M: Kind of middle-ish
    [7/12/16, 9:30:01 PM] kanjoku: Mountains.
    [7/12/16, 9:30:04 PM] Zin Karyuu: I work in mapping. :D
    [7/12/16, 9:30:06 PM] Onna Stik: Slightly west of Midwest?
    [7/12/16, 9:30:29 PM] kanjoku: ... are you joking, Zin, or asking things? /cocks head.
    [7/12/16, 9:30:36 PM] kanjoku: This sounds like maybe a joke but I'm autistic.
    [7/12/16, 9:30:43 PM] M: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...s.svg/800px-Colorado_in_United_States.svg.png
    [7/12/16, 9:30:58 PM] Nick: wait it's lower than i thought
    [7/12/16, 9:31:18 PM] Zin Karyuu: It is slightly a joke, I did need to check the map
    [7/12/16, 9:31:36 PM] Zin Karyuu: I don't actually have a strong grasp on the layout of America in the middle.
    [7/12/16, 9:31:43 PM] Zin Karyuu: Hmm. It's lower than I thought, too
    [7/12/16, 9:31:51 PM] M: I don't have a strong grasp of the layout of America, period
    [7/12/16, 9:31:59 PM] Zin Karyuu: *nod*
    [7/12/16, 9:32:58 PM] Zin Karyuu: Ok, yes that looks good
    [7/12/16, 9:33:07 PM] Onna Stik: http://www.movoto.com/guide/co/moving-to-colorado/ Research!
    [7/12/16, 9:33:08 PM] Zin Karyuu: http://icons.wxug.com/hurricane/chrisburt/yuki2.jpg
    [7/12/16, 9:33:15 PM] Nick: so, colorado?
    [7/12/16, 9:33:38 PM] M: "Colorado is the only U.S. state that lies entirely above 1000 meters elevation."
    Neat

    [7/12/16, 9:40:36 PM] Zin Karyuu: tag elena
    [7/12/16, 9:45:27 PM] kanjoku: Colorado is rather nice, substantially more liberal than Nebraska, especially in the Denver area and other metropolitan areas. High enough in the mountains to make you sick and headachey if you're not used to it, and to make you drink much more than in the lowlands. Also tends to be quite windy, and wind socks on the highway so you have a visual guide to the level of wind are fairly common in the foothills, though not as common as in Nebraska. A lot of the state is low-population and isolated, especially in winter; it's difficult and slow to drive in snowstorms, and the plows take a while to get to rural areas, even on the highway. Much of the Denver economy is based around skiing, and it's common for fast food joints and gas stations to have promotions in winter for ski tickets; the ski season also means a substantial tourist trade in winter, which is largely absent in summer. Skiiers tend to be either very rich and preppy, or poor hippies and "ski bums" who work in trades like construction for nine months while saving up for their next ski trip. People ski pretty much every mountain face, even if it's not part of a ski park, and people do die on a pretty regular basis. Denver is also very conscious of school shootings and gun violence, between the Columbine School Shooting in 1999 (?), and the Aurora theater shooting a few years back. Rent is very high, and I believe there's some tech stuff going on that's also raising rents. The weed is moderately visible; there are certainly stores around that sell it, and the ones I've seen tend to be kind of kitschy, with names like "Sergeant Greenleaf", lots of varieties that come in mini M&M sorts of bottles or chocolate bars, and rather high prices compared to the unregulated trade.
    [7/12/16, 9:45:36 PM] kanjoku: Uh, not sure if that's helpful, but that's my recollection. >>;
    [7/12/16, 9:45:40 PM] kanjoku: Yay!
     
    • Like x 1
  10. albedo

    albedo metasperg

    And some more stuff...

    Sourcing off the wiki...
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado#History

    So the area loosely around Denver was a major trade/migration route for like thirteen thousand years; it's been inhabited transiently for a long time. And given that it's a mountainous and snowy area, it's probably also been dangerous for a long time, especially for people who are new to the area.

    Weirdass caves and mines are a common theme.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ances...A0.E2.80.93_Pueblo_complexes_and_Great_Houses
    You may be familiar with the Pueblo Indians who lived in houses carved into cliff-faces - they were mostly a little southwest of Denver proper, but def a thing. Those were big cities for the period, and they were designed heavily along defensive lines. (So... defending against what? Just other tribes, or... well, there's room to get all WoD about it. Also, if you live in a cliff, it's entirely possible that a whole town could be destroyed in a landslide.)

    (The 1920 Haiyuan earthquake is a good example of the destruction major landslides can cause especially without modern communication. And while the geography of the Colorado Plateau where the Pueblo mostly lived isn't the same, there are loess plateaus in neighboring areas. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Distribution_of_loess_in_North_America.gif )
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920_Haiyuan_earthquake
    https://books.google.com/books?id=G... national geographic gansu earthquake&f=false (National Geographic)

    And we have no fucking idea what happened to the Pueblo, or why they abandoned their cities.

    Other Native American groups in the general area include the Ute, Apache, and Comanche, and sometimes the Arapaho and Cheyenne. Obviously those are all extant groups which makes things complicated, but I'll probably poke into folktales and ghost stories from those cultures at some point.

    Later on, Colorado was disputed between Spain and the US, and Zebulon Pike led an expedition to be all like LOL HI THIS IS OURS NOW and the Spanish were like LOL NO WE'RE GOING TO PUT YOU ON TRIAL IN MEXICO.
    Honestly, I think he's mostly interesting because he published his memoirs, which I should read at some point.
    http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43774

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikes_Peak
    Pike's Peak is a fairly famous mountain named after him. A mountain that was formed by the earth forming a spear of crystalized magma, deep underground, and stabbing it through the fucking crust. Fucking badass. It's also known as "Sun Mountain" by the Ute, who lived there for like fourteen hundred years before bullshit colonialism messed things up, and whose folklore says they were created on Pike's Peak.

    And the Spanish called it "El Capitan", "The Leader" - so like, what, because it was hella tall, or did they have freaky reasons for that?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manitou_Incline
    Also, just gonna note this trail which is called Spirit Incline, is extremely dangerous, and is an abandoned rail line that is literally described as "a scar on the land" ( http://www.inclineclub.com/incline_gt.htm ).

    And people do die on it semi-regularly ( http://gazette.com/manitou-incline-barr-trail-take-a-toll-on-those-who-hike-them/article/1554721 )

    And the original summit house burned down in 1914.



    So yeah. More history later, when I have more brain.
     
    • Like x 1
  11. albedo

    albedo metasperg

    Requisite backstory: Ben had a twin sister, they had a telepathic twin bond.


    Sidenote, his sister was... a jerk but a jerk in the self-involved teenaged way. Ben was clinically, untreatedly depressed by the time he hit high school, and spending a lot of time in his room. And she was bored and frustrated that he wasn't doing anything. Come on, what the fuck, you're so boring.

    She was... a loud, bright person. So she'd just loudly broadcast, like, SO HERE'S MY HIKE, THIS IS HOW IT FEELS WHEN THE SUN HITS MY SKIN, THIS IS THE BURN OF HAPPY MUSCLES, LOOK, I'M RAPPELLING!! ... Like, nonstop stream of here is my sensory experience and narrative, why isn't this convincing you to come and do cool stuff with me, come ON.

    ... Hannah was not a subtle person. Possibly also hyperactive-type ADHD, loved being out and moving.

    And given that Ben had like, fairly major, untreated psychological problems, this was... nice to experience by proxy so he didn't shut it off. But it was also surrounded by come on come on i'm bored guilt-tripping, which did not help.

    So by the time they went to college, they had grown apart because of the weight of frustration between them. And Hannah decided to go off to school halfway across the country, kinda hoping it would break or weaken the telepathic twin-bond so they could get some space. And Ben... let her, because by then he kind of wanted some space too.

    It didn't work. But they didn't talk much in college. And Hannah was always a little bit of a risk-taker, and she was having some trouble paying attention in classes.

    (They were probably cribbing off each other's notes like 24/7, honestly, without even thinking about it. Which is much less easy when you're not in the same classes.)

    So basically on a whim, she decided to go for a hike for a few days along the Appalachian trail, get out and do things. Catch a bus home at the end, stay in hostels and cabins along the way.

    (God, she was getting like Ben, being a boring shut-in all the time, doing nothing but studying. And she's not Ben, she's not good at it like Ben, and he won't help her with her homework, and fuck.)

    But it had been an unseasonably warm fall, and then the weather turned. Fast. And she got lost.

    (And then she was totally a jerk when she was dying, because people say shitty things when they're that desperate and scared, and honestly she always half-expected Ben to come and bail her out of things, because he was always the steady one, and he was always there.)

    So. Then she died. And Ben had given up on getting outside help, getting a search party or something to find her, come on, try harder.

    He'd rented a car, and started driving, halfway across the country, as fast as he could.

    And then she died, and he felt it, he felt her ghost rip through him and tear out part of him, he felt her fear and pain and then that link between them... snapped. He was driving down a country highway at the time, had a seizure and hit a tree. Was in a coma for three days from massive bloodloss, leg broken in three places. He was really lucky that he didn't die too.

    (He was under observation for a while, but one seizure can just... happen, sometimes. He wasn't allowed to drive for a long time, hasn't driven since then. He largely remembers how, but... ... Ben driving is not a sight anyone wants to see.)

    ... so then he ended up dropping out of school, getting a series of shitty jobs before he got into programming. And as the agoraphobia ramped up, that was a really good thing, because it's harder and harder for him to leave the house as things go on.
    [​IMG]
     
    • Like x 2
  12. albedo

    albedo metasperg

    Things I was thinking about while heading home:

    - If Ben does end up with his sister as his geist, she's pretty much going to drag him into Celebrant archetype.

    Hannah: "So how've you been?"
    Ben: "... uh..." -pushes angst of last five years at-
    Hannah: OH HELL NO. I HAVE LITERALLY BEEN DEAD. PLEASE FEEL HOW MUCH BEING DEAD FUCKING SUCKS.
    Ben: ... ... okay that is fair, I will try harder to be happy and go outside.
    Hannah: WE'RE GOING HIKING, MOTHERFUCKER.

    - It's going to be really weird, because while Ben is five years older, more mature, sadder... Hannah isn't. And she never will be. She's just going to stay twenty years old, forever, still half in and half out of her selfish teen phase, right on the cusp of adulthood. And Ben doesn't quite know how to deal with that, except by gathering her close and trying to protect her.

    - Hannah is absolutely going to want to run the body, and go running, and hiking, anddefinitely date. Date someone who's all intensity and fire and hunger, who would probably terrify or exhaust Ben. This is going to be awkward as fuck.

    Hannah says, I've been fucking dead, do you know how much I've missed touching and doing and life?
     
    • Like x 1
  13. Evelyn Browne

    Evelyn Browne I burn for you

    Hi, you rang?
     
    • Like x 3
  14. albedo

    albedo metasperg

    ... I mean. -chinhands loudly-
     
    • Like x 2
  15. Benjamin Halverson

    Benjamin Halverson The gales of November come early

    Explanation of the sin/virtue thing.

    For one thing, amusingly, nwod does not actually use the standard virtues and sins, they shifted the list around. Probably because they didn't want to get into the weird theology, and to make it work better in context. But hey, let's be nerds.


    Ben - charity/despair

    That's theological charity. Generosity, self-sacrifice, love, freely given with no expectation of reward. Working to make people happy and safe, because that's the most fulfilling thing in the world. Even if it costs him. Even if it means his death, at the worst, he'll die fulfilled because he's protecting what he loves.

    (This works amusingly with Martin's gluttony, obviously, because Ben is so happy to be giving, and Martin is so happy to be getting.)

    (And yes, Ben absolutely got all his willpower points back when redacted. Dumbass.)

    And, mm... The sin gets into theology pretty deep. There's been loooong theological debates about whether despair is the greatest of all sins, Aquinas was really into the discussion. Because despair means failing to trust in God's grace and love, believing the world is dark and terrible and awful.

    Technically, Ben's issues would fall into sloth more than anything, if we're going with the traditional seven deadlies. But really, it's despair. It's not apathy, it's not laziness, despite the fact that he falls deeper and deeper into comfortable ruts. It's nothing can ever be good again. It's there is nothing I can do that will ever be okay again; the world is empty, my life is over, there's no way out. Not an absence of love, but an absence of hope. Withdrawing and giving up and giving in, because he can't see a light at the end of the tunnel.

    Dude's all love, and no hope. And well. You see where it gets him.


    Elena - chastity/pride

    I know, I laughed too. But theologically? It's chastity.

    Not in the sexual sense, really. Theological chastity is... purity, basically. The ability to stand on principle, even when it hurts, to be honest, to better yourself.

    Elena will shatter before she bends. Not on the morality of any particular act, but she believes absolutely and without doubt in protecting Her People. No matter how bad she gets hurt, how much she has to fight, she will never, ever give up. She will forge herself into a perfect steel knife, inch by inch, shining clear and bright.

    You break her ability to be a protector, or convince her that Her People as a whole don't value her, and she shatters.

    That's what her brother's been doing. And that's why she's not okay.

    If we wanna go White Wolf, that's probably... ehn, Justice? Fortitude? I just don't think that resonates as well, because Elena's personal ethical code is weird, and Justice is all about principle, not relentlessness or self-betterment. And Elena's relentlessness isn't general, it's specifically principle-related; if she's not keeping a promise to her people, or protecting them, then she's ... just a stubborn kid.


    Wrath sounds right on a surface level for Elena, but it's not quite her. She loves violence, but it's not revenge or blood for their own sake that she's seeking.

    Elena's defining flaw is that she bases all her self-worth and identity on protecting, on being useful. It does not matter if someone else could do it better. It doesn't matter if she'll get hurt, or risk someone else getting hurt. She has to be in the thick of it, and if she's not held back, she won't even think twice. She wants to fulfill her self-image, even when it's a lie.

    Or to put it another way, her defining flaw is selfishness. She prioritizes her own desires and view of the world above what's best for other people, to the point where she blinds herself.

    So. Pride.


    Sound about right?
     
    • Like x 2
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