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[Salsacookies]

You can’t sleep. It started like that for all of us, back when we were garden variety insomniacs. Maybe you had nightmares (God knows we all do now), or maybe you just had problems that wouldn’t let you sleep. Hell, maybe you were just over-caffienated. But then something clicked.

That was when you took a long walk down the streets of the Mad City, stopped being a Sleeper, and started being Awake. But that click you heard wasn’t from the secret world snapping into place. It was the sound of the Nightmares flicking off the safety and pointing a gun at your head.

They can smell you. You’re chum in the water, my friend, and it’s time you got ready for it… before the clock chimes thirteen again. Now that you’re one of us, there’s just one simple rule left that must dominate your life.

Stay Awake. Don’t Rest Your Head.

Rulebook

Spoiler: Rules Summary (click to show/hide)

Once per roll, you may increase your exhaustion by one.

Any time you roll, you may add one to six dice of temporary madness to your roll.

To determine the degree of success, count the dice that show 1, 2, or 3.

To determine the strength of a pool, find the die of that colour showing the highest number.

If you meet or beat the GM’s degree, you succeed. Otherwise, you fail.

To determine what dominates, pick the pool with the highest strength.

If discipline dominates, things stay under control. You have the option to remove a response check-mark or decrease your exhaustion by one.

If exhaustion dominates, your resources are taxed. Increase exhaustion by one.

If madness dominates, things get more chaotic. Check off a response and behave accordingly.

If pain dominates, you pay a greater price. Pay a coin into the GM’s despair coffer.

If exhaustion is increased above 6, you crash.

If you must check off a response, but can’t, you snap.

If you crash, you fall asleep, or face some other serious defeat (like death).

If you snap, you go mad for a time, clear out your responses, lose one discipline, and gain one permanent madness.

If you lose all discipline, you become a Nightmare. You’re an enemy now.

To make minor use of an exhaustion talent, your exhaustion must be at least one. On the affected roll, your minimum number of successes is equal to your current level of exhaustion.

To make major use of an exhaustion talent, you must increase your exhaustion by one, and you may add your current level of exhaustion to the roll, as successes.

To make use of a madness talent, you must add one to six temporary madness dice to the roll, as determined by the GM for the potency of the effect.

The GM may spend one coin of despair to add or remove a 6 from any pool in play; the coin pays into hope. If this causes pain to dominate, no coin is paid into the despair coffer.

Any player may spend one coin of hope to remove one exhaustion, or to remove a check mark from fight or flight, or to add a 1 to the protagonist’s discipline pool.

Any player may spend five minus discipline in coins of hope to recover one point of discipline and remove one point of permanent madness.

Spoiler: Character Sheet (click to show/hide)

My name is...

And I am...

Who are you? What’s your job? A describing word often associated with you?

What’s been keeping me awake?

Has someone close to you been hurt? Do you feel as if you’re being hunted? Is that one level just bugging you too much?

What’s just happened to me?

What situation just happened? This is the situation you’ll be starting your tale with, so make it interesting.

What’s on the surface?

How do you present yourself to others? What’s your public face? How do you act in public, and how do you want people to see you?

What lies beneath?

What are you really like, in the privacy of your thoughts? What dark traits do you never let see the light of day?

What’s my path?

Where are you going? What goals do you want to achieve? What is your aim?
___________________________________________________________________________________
Discipline

Permanent Madness [ ] [ ] [ ]

Exhaustion [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

^None of these three can be changed in character creation, so ignore it.

Fight Responses

Flight Responses

[ ] [ ] [ ]

^You get three responses total, so split them up among Fight and Flight. You can have three of one, or two of one and one of the other.

Exhaustion Talent:

Your exhaustion talent is something mundane you're really good at, like shooting, driving, or parkour.

Madness Talent:

Your madness talent is something you've never been able to do before now, something supernatural, weird, and more frequently than not, horrifying. Let the twisted side of your imagination run rampart, but don't come up with something overpowered.

This is Quality over Speed, not First Come First Serve.
Cast:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Wait list:
The Rest

From what I've seen if this, it can get very tense and is quite strange and creepy. I'm planning to have this be like Silent Hill. This game is mostly character driven, with die rolls only for conflicts or power use. This is what I know of it, and this is my first time running the thing, so enjoy!

[Salsacookies]

Reserved.

[ATHATH]

Interesting...
PTW

Someone should report their powers to the military or something.

[Arcvasti]

PTW.

I might participate in this, once I get enough time to type up a character.

[Urist Arrhenius]

Ptw

[Arcvasti]

Spoiler: Putative Character Sheet (click to show/hide)

My name is... Wayne Hope

And I am... A male

Who are you? I am 25 years old. I am of average build with dark hair and eyes. I dress mainly in grey and black and top the ensemble off with a beret that belonged to my brother.

What’s your job? I work as a barman in a fairly popular place. It gets trashed pretty regularly and I barely make enough money to keep afloat.

A describing word often associated with you? Twitchy. I have multiple nervous tics and my hands are far from steady, especially in confrontations.

What’s been keeping me awake? A while back, someone tried to mug me in a back alley. I fought back. Lethally. I knew the authorities wouldn’t look kindly on my killing, so I chopped up the mugger and buried the body parts in my basement. Ever since, I’ve been bothered by an all-pervasive thumping sound which jars me out of wanting to sleep.

Has someone close to you been hurt? My older brother. He started asking questions, walking around late at night. One day he staggered home hurt bad. He’s comatose now, trapped in a vegetative state. He’s one of the few people I consider real.

Do you feel as if you’re being hunted? Yes. Even though no one knows my crime, every thump still sends a jolt of panic through me.

Is that one level just bugging you too much? No. I am comforted by the inevitability of entropy. I WILL overcome the level. After all, I am the player and it is the game. My will be done.

What’s just happened to me? My bar just got attacked by a one-armed man in black. I barely managed to escape with my life. Now I’m running down dark alleys pursued by SOMETHING.

What situation just happened? I was looking into similar cases to my brother, hoping to find fellow dreamers amongst the scenery, or maybe even a cure for him. I investigated multiple  similar disappearances and comas. Eventually my inquiries drew attention. The wrong kind of attention. They came near midnight, where I was just cleaning up the aftermath of a bad bar brawl. One of them, a one-armed man wearing all-concealing black, carried a gun. He almost got me and now I’m on the run with little more than the clothes on my back and a knife or two.

What’s on the surface? I look like almost anyone else. Like a coward. A sheep. It’s a thin veneer.

How do you present yourself to others? I present myself as a nervous, studiously polite man afraid of conflict and uninterested in sex or romance.

What’s your public face? How do you act in public, and how do you want people to see you? I am emotionally detached, but not TOO detached. Not enough to be concerning. I’ve learned to fake caring about others. And being harmless.

What lies beneath? I’m… different. Tormented by the thumping of the mangled remnants of my conscience. Trying to stay one step ahead of people who probably don’t even exist. Haunted by the knowledge that this is all my dream and its going horribly wrong.

What are you really like, in the privacy of your thoughts? A sociopathic solipsist. There is no reality but my reality. I don’t care about the concerns of others. As far as I’m concerned, the world is nothing but my fever dream.

What dark traits do you never let see the light of day? I derive an almost sexual satisfaction from breaking things. When I was mugged, I found out it applied to people too. As it is, I constantly disassemble small objects like pens and shred strips of paper.

What’s my path? I believe that the reality I currently inhabit, as a product of my mind, is slipping from dream to nightmare. I am trying to find the few who are dreaming with me and are not just figments of imagination.

Where are you going? Upwards. Once I collect my brother and the few other fellow solipsists, I believe we can return to the higher reality we are dreaming this one from and leave behind the troubles of this one. 

What goals do you want to achieve? I want to find a way to wake up my brother and find a way for us to leave this false reality and return to the real world. This place, shallow and false as it is, is dangerous.

What is your aim? To escape. My guilt, my hunters and my dream.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Discipline
o   
o   
o   


Permanent Madness [ ] [ ] [ ]

Exhaustion [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

^None of these three can be changed in character creation, so ignore it.

Fight Responses: X

Flight Responses: X X

[ ] [ ] [ ]

^You get three responses total, so split them up among Fight and Flight. You can have three of one, or two of one and one of the other.

Exhaustion Talent:
Hiding. After learning for so long to blend into the crowd, as a queen amongst pawns, I can fade into the background extremely well.

Madness Talent:
Feel no pain: Through the utter irrational disbelief in the reality I find myself in, I can ignore pain. Its an almost ecstatic experience and it accentuates my usual twitchiness into laughing, jittering mania

Please note that I wasn't quite sure what kind of answer to give to some of the questions. If any of my answers require further elaboration or are irrelevant to what you were trying to ask, please notify me and I will expand/change them.

[kj1225]

Spoiler: Eh, I'm interested (click to show/hide)

My name is...  Kyle Johnson

And I am... Male

Who are you?
I've got shaved bald head, a large muscled build, and a southern accent. I tend to dress in a way that doesn't really clue people in on my gentle nature. Also, I've got a bit of a gut.

What’s your job?
I'm a councilor in a school in the bad part of town.

A describing word often associated with you?
Frightening

What’s been keeping me awake?
A while back while walking home I saw one of the students almost get... eugh, can't even say it. I chased the one that was trying to perpetrate it off and took the student home but... I just can't shake it.

What’s just happened to me?


What’s on the surface?

How do you present yourself to others? What’s your public face? How do you act in public, and how do you want people to see you?

What lies beneath?

What are you really like, in the privacy of your thoughts? What dark traits do you never let see the light of day?

What’s my path?

Where are you going? What goals do you want to achieve? What is your aim?
___________________________________________________________________________________
Discipline


Permanent Madness [ ] [ ] [ ]

Exhaustion [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

^None of these three can be changed in character creation, so ignore it.

Fight Responses

Flight Responses

[fight] [flight] [flight]

^You get three responses total, so split them up among Fight and Flight. You can have three of one, or two of one and one of the other.

Exhaustion Talent:

Your exhaustion talent is something mundane you're really good at, like shooting, driving, or parkour.

Madness Talent:

Your madness talent is something you've never been able to do before now, something supernatural, weird, and more frequently than not, horrifying. Let the twisted side of your imagination run rampart, but don't come up with something overpowered.

[Salsacookies]

These are good, but you kinda went overboard with the questions. There were only 5, the other questions were just nudges and hints to put you in the right train of thought, though I could have done something to show that better.

Ignore this, they are good

[Salsacookies]

Here's the book

[SOLDIER First]

Spoiler: Woo, this should be fun. (click to show/hide)

My name is Stacy Emile, and I am a woman.

I'm a 22-year-old, fresh out of college with a bachelor's in business administration. I am probably 5'8, not including heels (which I never wear. Too breakable.) with light brown hair to my upper back and bright eyes. I don't have a weight issue in either direction, thankfully, but I'm a little thin for my height. I have a temporary internship with a local company to get experience for higher-level business jobs. I'll decide exactly what kind of business job when the time comes, don't worry. Seriously. People often call me high-strung. I stress a lot and it's not too hard to send me over the edge, into a fit of yelling or threats or curses. Or all three, occasionally. It's probably from all the coffee...

I have been drinking entirely too much coffee for a long time. It started near the end of my last year at college; there were lots of exams and I stayed up late when I had the time, cramming. I had a bunch of coffee to keep myself awake longer. I think I formed a dependency or something, because whenever I don't have coffee I want it, and when I have coffee it's somehow not enough. I probably drink three full cups a day. I used to twitch a lot from it, but that stopped three weeks ago. It's kind of concerning, to be honest. I haven't gotten even six full hours of sleep in weeks, and recently none at all, but I can't help it.

I don't have any real problems right now, besides my coffee dependency. And this load of paperwork... and that asshole Richard who works in the cubicle next to mine. He's an enormous prick, good God.

Speaking of Richard, the shithead just got me fired. ...Well, by proxy. I told him, like every day, to stop asking me what I had in my thermos, like he does ever day, because it's always coffee. Always. Hasn't once been anything else. But he looked me straight in the face and did it again, so I blew up on him. Probably should have waited until my boss was out of earshot, but of course I didn't. So I'm currently extremely pissed off, jobless, income-less, and walking in the allies next to my ex-job.

I try to seem hardworking, which I am. My blowups aren't super common, so I don't talk about them much. I've usually got either a smile, a concentrated frown, or a look of boredom on my face.
Hopefully I look pretty enough, because I don't spend too much time on my makeup or hair or anything in the morning. I just brush it, sometimes put it in a ponytail. Depends.

What people don't know is I am always, always stressed. Maybe it's the backlog of shit I have to do, or the bills I'm almost late to paying, or whether I was actually an incompetent moron when I said "You too" to the waiter at the diner yesterday, or whether I'm slowly dying from caffeine poisoning and I have no idea, or or or... You get the idea.

I want to get myself a great business position in a fancy, famous company. Maybe Head of Accounting, maybe Head of Business or whatever alternative they have... Probably not CEO, though. I can't really run a large thing by myself.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Discipline


Permanent Madness [ ] [ ] [ ]

Exhaustion [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

Fight Responses [ ] [ ]

Flight Responses [ ]

Exhaustion Talent:

Calculations. Useful in the business world, the normal finance stuff has been extended to velocity calculations, size and weight measurements and such. The only drawback is that I need to do the thing in midair with my finger (You know the one.), but it still takes a lot less time than it should.

Madness Talent:

I'm... I'm not sure how to explain it. It's like... Some times I'm able to... Create this... force. It's all black and.. flowing? That's how I'd describe it. Like water, or oil. It comes out of me, from my chest. I can control it, and kind of shape it, but I can only use it when I'm really stressed about something, like the waiter thing. And it's not easy. Once or twice it started to go off on its own, but I calmed down and soon it went.. back inside. I haven't told anybody about it. Am I going insane?

[FallacyofUrist]

Ahem.

Spoiler: Bio (click to show/hide)

My name is Cain. My last name is of no concern to you.

who am I? I suppose you mean my profession, so... eh. I don't have a job at the moment, but I used to be a martial arts trainer.

to go further into myself... you know, I really was one of the best in my profession- until... well...

Why, yes, I have been having trouble sleeping. That accursed fox. That accursed fox. I can never see it, but I hear the whimpering it makes and I can feel its tail against my leg quite often.

It's... complicated. That blasted fox... I got pushed a bit too far, and... well... I woke up with several dead bodies around me. I think my martial arts abilities may have been released in a manner I never want to happen.

On the surface... In general, I don't go out in public much except for my martial arts training. But when I go out, I try to appear a model of discipline and knowledge.

What lies beneath... Rage. Lots of it. If anyone reads this diary except for me, that somebody is going to get hurt. A lot.

and what's my path? I really don't know. To start with, getting out of this mess, but eventually... wealth? Power? I just want to rest and let my anger simmer.

Spoiler: Skills (click to show/hide)

0
0
0


Permanent Madness [ ] [ ] [ ]

Exhaustion [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]


Fight Responses X X X

Flight Responses

[ ] [ ] [ ]

Exhaustion Talent: I'm a martial artist, and that's what I do.

Madness Talent: I... the claw marks on those bodies... it looks as though something inhuman attacked them. (fox-shifting)

[Salsacookies]

Got another group on another forum for the same game. Might try to kinda have both of you interact, in a way. Make it a cross forum MMO PBP . Going to remove the character limit, there's very little dice rolling as is, and it's mostly roleplay anyway.

[SOLDIER First]

Sounds good.

[SOLDIER First]

Boop?

[FallacyofUrist]

Beep.