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[Harry Baldman]

CYBERDWARF

Abuse and Abasement

in a Far-Future Fortress

SALULREKSAS, 'SKINSIN' thrums and roars and glows, and goes on forever - or the closest thing to it. Within it you eke out a living on the edge of society, an unlogged speck outside the purview of the Great Houses of Commerce, the bookkeepers and owners of all that can be legally owned, and most of what can't be as well. Skinsin is a place of infinite possibility lurking down every tunnel, lit brighter than day, legendary in its pleasures and horrors alike, a once-fortress of untold wonder now harboring 20 million malcontents just like you.

You love Uptown for its spectacular engravings, pulsing and screaming seconds at a time with images of the finest cheese wheels, the most sumptuous kitchens, quick flashes of elves melting and dwarves laughing and vice versa, the descent and ascent and innumerable ignoble deaths of a thousand gods in the waning years of the Age of Myth burning themselves in your unconscious memory, overwhelming you with sensation. You hate them for the stores underneath, packed with the finest goods dwarfkind has ever produced at prices physically impossible for you to afford, and you hate them for the hammerers walking the streets, ready to slam you with a loitering charge for so much as stopping on a corner in the middle of the sweating, chattering hordes of uptowners, humans and goblins.

You love the Middle Layers for their clinics where you can score upper-class drugs and neural chips and sometimes implants that fell off the back of a cargo tram, all at half-price and affordable even for the scum of the earth, unacknowledged by the Great Houses despite being forever their best customer. You hate Midtown because there's not enough people to lose yourself in the crowd, and the security cameras are always watching and judging, waiting for you to tip security to turn them off. But more than that you hate Midtown's people, the assholes who make up Uptown's gawking crowds and who'd be the first to send security after you if your miserable state didn't make them feel so much better about themselves.

You love the Magma Quarter because for once nobody can see you because nobody's around, and nobody should be around - the smelters and workshops and everything that dwarves used to do themselves is now done by automated bronze machines helped along by the refined sorceries of the Great Houses. You love it because you can throw an inconvenient body into a magma flow and nobody will ask any questions, as it should be. But you hate the Magma Quarter because it reminds you of the fact that the only reason you are not obsolete is because you can consume, which is the only use for you that the Great Houses of Commerce will permit.

You hate Hell because the stench of the glowing pits is somehow newly horrible every day, the unknowable depths brimming not just with demonic horrors but also with centuries' worth of toxic waste, the whole of demonkind now reduced to retching at the excess of dwarves, the new masters of depravity. You love Hell because that's the only place that'll take you, a place for everyone like you - lost to the world and a menace to society as you know it - to live and flourish in the shit and horror of the deep. You love it also because it is better than outside, where enchanted forests have become petrified from the smoke of the underground factories where they haven't been leveled by the titanic clear-cutter machines, and skeletal unicorns roam the miles-long shoreside mermaid graveyards, a relic of one of the many great market crashes.

But most of all you love Hell because you need alcohol to get through the working day, and Death's Gate on the corner of Apethreat and Onyx is the place to get it. That is where our story begins...

Spoiler: The Game (click to show/hide)

As you may expect, this is an RTD. You probably know what the rules entail in that case - 1 is a critical failure, 6 is an overshoot, 5 is a perfect success and 2-4 are appropriate results in between. You play as a dwarf living in the colonized quarter of Hell beneath the mercantile dystopia of Skinsin looking to make it big by whatever means necessary.

The tone is comically violent, lightheartedly grim and transdwarfin where possible. The mechanics are going to be a lot like Our Salvation if you've read that, but with a bit more limb damage if I don't forget.

Oh, and if you miss five turns, you're out of the game and replaced with the next person.

Spoiler: Character Sheet (click to show/hide)

You play as a dwarf and you're on the lowest rung of society, the dregs of the dregs, and the rest is up to you. Sheets are first-come-first-served.

Your Name: something snappy, preferably.
Your Concept: you could be anything from a street axelord to a rockerdwarf to a would-be necromancer to a rogue soapmaker with a taste for pugilism. What's your deal?
Your Talent: you're not to be fucked with, even if you don't necessarily know it. Why is that?
Your Malfunction: but if you were really that good, you'd be out of here already. What holds you back from the big time?
Your Residence: you gotta sleep somewhere. Where do you live and what does your living space look like?

Spoiler: Best Practices For Players (click to show/hide)

Skinsin is as much the fortress-city of the players as it is my own setting - don't ask where something is, tell me where you find it and what you did when you went there last. Don't ask me who's around, tell me who you see and how you intend to make them help you. Make up the bits of setting that you'd find interesting and I'll roll to see how well they play into your hands. Remember that anything is possible in Skinsin, and that Skinsin never sleeps. Embrace the madness. Give me your ideas without reservation.

Bold your actions. Don't bold your RP. If I forget to tell you about something, consider it as free license to fill in details. I'll certainly do the same for you.

Furthermore, use lines of dialogue only as lead-ins and follow with a bolded line stating your intent for the conversation. It slows the game down to do speaking line-by-line unless you're talking to another player, and even then it's kind of a crapshoot.

[Harry Baldman]

The Dwarfed

• Jalormis, Extremely Undead Guy! (ATHATH)
• Enir Nazush, Vampire Barmaid! (Fniff)
• Urist mac Slughterfiend, Violent Miner! (crazyabe)
• Cazin Crundle-Smasher, Sharp Bookkeeper! (Coolrune206)

The Waiting

• Sarkamar, Con Artiste! (wertyzerty)
• Cog, Riggerdwarf! (Whisperling)

The Ruined

Sadly none yet.

[ATHATH]

IN!

Reading OP...

[ATHATH]

Your Name: Jalormis
Your Concept: Vampire Necromancer
Your Talent: Necromancy
Your Malfunction: Is a vampire
Your Residence: A small camp in a mausoleum in the Graveyard District (of Hell). Imagine a Boy Scout campsite (for one), but in a mausoleum. That's basically Jalormis's house. Also, he probably isn't allowed to be living here, but not enough people give enough of a !@#$ to kick him out. Plus, he'll sometimes take corpses that need to be buried, and that saves work for the gravediggers. He's mostly kept his vampirism secret, only nibbling on hobos and such (which are in large supply here in Hell).

[Fniff]

Your Name: Enir Nazush
Your Concept: Vampire barmaid. While her brothers and sisters of the night infiltrated the nobility, she ended up in a bar in Hell.
Your Talent: Well, Enir’s a vampire. She’s charismatic, beguiling you with her stare, making you feel like the most important dwarf in the world...
Your Malfunction: … Then she says “Goddamn, you're ugly. When you were born, did your parents leave you for the afterbirth?” , because Enir is a snarky son of a bitch and can't let an insult slip by.
Your Residence: Depends. Usually the residence of whatever drunkard is dumb enough to take her home despite the rumors. If not, she sleeps in the ale cellar between the barrels.

[Harry Baldman]

Is an elf

No. It's literally one of the two things I specified.

[Fniff]

Hrm. Does being a nightcreature also not work?

[Harry Baldman]

Hrm. Does being a nightcreature also not work?

I go with the World of Darkness philosophy of treating vampirism as a template applied over being a dwarf, so it's technically all right.

[crazyabe]

Spoiler: Sheet (click to show/hide)

Your Name: Urist mac slughterfriend
Your Concept: A violent Miner that doesn't really care anymore
Your Talent: He spent thirty years in a goblin pit, and came out a master miner without digg'in a single foot. (Raised by goblins, Rescued a bit late, Killed lots of people with a pick)
Your Malfunction: He... owes some people quite a bit. and with the interest rate, that bit is bigger then you might expect.
Your Residence: A hole in the wall of the sewer he carved himself.

[ATHATH]

Is an elf

No. It's literally one of the two things I specified.

Changed my sheet.

[ATHATH]

Vampire

Oh.

[Harry Baldman]

It's good though! If there's one thing you could never get used to in Hell, it's all the damn vampires.

[Coolrune206]

Your Name: Cazin Crundle-Smasher
Your Concept: Retired Miner, current bookkeeper
Your Talent: Deduction skills beyond that of what should be reasonably possible
Your Malfunction: Refusal to accept that the surface exists
Your Residence: Some actually quite nice quarters behind his office in Midtown. There is the slight problem that his bedchambers are hooked up to the lava disposal system of olde, once used to eliminate nobles; now not in use, but there is a danger that it might give out at any point.

[Harry Baldman]

... and we're off!

Your Name: Jalormis
Your Concept: Vampire Necromancer
Your Talent: Necromancy
Your Malfunction: Is a vampire
Your Residence: A small camp in a mausoleum in the Graveyard District (of Hell). Imagine a Boy Scout campsite (for one), but in a mausoleum. That's basically Jalormis's house. Also, he probably isn't allowed to be living here, but not enough people give enough of a !@#$ to kick him out. Plus, he'll sometimes take corpses that need to be buried, and that saves work for the gravediggers. He's mostly kept his vampirism secret, only nibbling on hobos and such (which are in large supply here in Hell).

Ever since that incident with night creature blood getting into the water supply a ways down Apethreat the vampire population has sadly boomed in Hell, and you've sure had a hell of a time staying ahead of the menace eradication agencies with your double whammy of being a foul bloodsucker and a grave defiler as well.

[At Death's Gate: 6]

Naturally you're welcome at any time in Death's Gate. The management recognizes that your situation warrants getting especially blasted out of your skull at all hours. Having a necromancer about helps the place's reputation, you know, keeps it the kind of rough-and-tumble place that keeps the rubes turning up.

You crack open a dwarven wino with alcohol poisoning (gotta love happy hour) in Dark Corner #6 of the establishment while enjoying tonight's musical performance, the acclaimed dwarven found noise artist known in artistic circles as Yeller, to his friends as Bear and to his creditors as Mr. Lovegod. Suffice it to say, you and Mr. Lovegod have some unfinished business. He seems to be sweating a little as he glances in your direction, though maybe that's just from the bright white floodlight that's giving him a distinctly beatific look as he shouts profanities over industrial machinery while seemingly having a seizure on stage.

Your Name: Enir Nazush
Your Concept: Vampire barmaid. While her brothers and sisters of the night infiltrated the nobility, she ended up in a bar in Hell.
Your Talent: Well, Enir’s a vampire. She’s charismatic, beguiling you with her stare, making you feel like the most important dwarf in the world...
Your Malfunction: … Then she says “Goddamn, you're ugly. When you were born, did your parents leave you for the afterbirth?” , because Enir is a snarky son of a bitch and can't let an insult slip by.
Your Residence: Depends. Usually the residence of whatever drunkard is dumb enough to take her home despite the rumors. If not, she sleeps in the ale cellar between the barrels.

There's a raging asshole within every vampire's heart, you've heard, but yours just isn't so much raging as outright berserk. Your personal therapy assistant (specifically assigned by the Hell Synergy Committee after their complaints file on you got too heavy to easily carry singlehandedly) says you may have some unresolved issues with people in your life. You don't correct it on that last bit, it never learns anyway.

[At Death's Gate: 1]

Though you do believe you'll be having a heart-to-heart with it later tonight, as you A) just got fired from the Asylum not fifteen minutes ago, B) found out from management over here that they don't even hire barmaids around here, they've got a special mechanism for that (it even sings! can you sing? of course you can't) and C) despite your better judgment are still wearing your former work uniform, a shitty schoolgirl-dominatrix outfit, on account of having no change of clothes handy because of an unfortunate artery puncture last night on a would-be human customer.

But that's not all, because in the last five minutes you've also established that D) Dark Corners #1 through #8 are packed, as are Incongruous Opera Boxes #2 through #5 (#1 is closed for bad luck), which can only mean that it's Vampire Night and you're basically gonna get no action here even as a patron.  Though E) Bear seems like he's landed a gig here, which means he'll have some money by the end of tonight, but F) you can't actually remember if he owes you any money or not.

You stroke your naturally silky black beard thoughtfully as you listen to the sweet tunes Bear's putting out. You bet all these fucking vampires have no appreciation for this fire he's putting out. There's definitely a way to turn this night around. But what is it?

Your Name: Urist mac slughterfriend
Your Concept: A violent Miner that doesn't really care anymore
Your Talent: He spent thirty years in a goblin pit, and came out a master miner without digg'in a single foot. (Raised by goblins, Rescued a bit late, Killed lots of people with a pick)
Your Malfunction: He... owes some people quite a bit. and with the interest rate, that bit is bigger then you might expect.
Your Residence: A hole in the wall of the sewer he carved himself.

Scion of the honored mac Slughterfiend clan, separated at birth from his noble lineage, reunited after a while and then tragically separated once more by several dwarfslaughter charges and a summary disowning! They did let you inherit the debts at least, which was awfully nice of them on reflection.

[At Death's Gate: 2]

Nursing your pint of whisky, you examine the room around you and ponder your line of credit. By your count there is exactly one person here that you don't owe any money, and that's the dude on stage having a horrific mental breakdown set to a horrific mechanical breakdown of the soundsystem. You have no idea if this is supposed to be happening, but you figure he'll either be paid for this marvelous display of auditory obliteration or will be entitled to claim restitution from the establishment - in either case he's the only dwarf in this bar who's not out to bleed you dry, which if you consider that by now you are altogether too drunk to easily walk out of the bar, makes him also the only person in the world who may stave off your demise by, say, a week.

All you need to do is gain his attention somehow. If only you knew the fucker's name, or were at all able to read it on that sign next to the stage.

Your Name: Cazin Crundle-Smasher
Your Concept: Retired Miner, current bookkeeper
Your Talent: Deduction skills beyond that of what should be reasonably possible
Your Malfunction: Refusal to accept that the surface exists
Your Residence: Some actually quite nice quarters behind his office in Midtown. There is the slight problem that his bedchambers are hooked up to the lava disposal system of olde, once used to eliminate nobles; now not in use, but there is a danger that it might give out at any point.

Ah, Hell. Always good to come back down here to remind yourself of your roots. And your history! And of all the poor bastard dwarves who couldn't cut it in night school and experience your degree of infinitesimal upward mobility. Look, you've got a business card and everything! Just you watch, you'll be on top of the heap and running the House of Leaves in no time at all!

[At Death's Gate: 4]

Part of this indubitably is your sideline as manager to a lineup of horrid little malcontents like one Mr. B. "Yeller" Lovegod over there on the stage playing his strange popping rock music or whatever it is these dwarf kids do these days. You're the money dwarf (not that there is much, this is more of a diversification thing - diversifying your portfolio is good, you've heard), not the manager. Mr. Lovegod insists that he is his own manager. To be fair, he does appear to understand his own appeal - whatever this hellish soundscape is supposed to represent, the local vampire population is loving it. You suspect they're being ironic, but these being vampires, further proof is likely needed.

You have a nip at your beer and look at the catastrophe on stage. Mr. Lovegod better not keel over from the stress of performing, you stand to actually get reasonably paid from this gig! And you do need the money, the rent on your Midtown office has recently upgraded from merely atrocious to fucking ludicrous, apparently due to high demand.

You can't help but shake a very bad feeling, however. Mr. Lovegod really isn't the sort of impressive artiste to fill out even a place like Death's Gate, acclaimed though his reclaimed noise may be. You're pretty sure this crowd's here for some other reason, and you're damn sure you're not going to like what that turns out to be.

Spoiler: Status (click to show/hide)

Jalormis, Extremely Undead Guy
Alternatively Souled: Vampire
Death's Gate: Guest of Honor
Money: 2
Old Yeller: A Horrific Debt

Enir Nazush, Barmaid of the Night
Alternatively Souled: Vampire
Outfit: Awful Schoolgirl-Dominatrix Uniform
Death's Gate: Too Many Vampires
Old Yeller: Found Noise Appreciator
Money: Flat Broke

Urist mac Slughterfiend, Miner on the Edge
Money: Flat Broke
Gruesome Insolvency: Surreal Debts

Cazin Crundle-Smasher, Uncanny Bookkeeper
Money: 1
Old Yeller: Carefully Money-Dwarfed

[wertyzerty]

Your Name: Sarkamar
Your Concept: A con-man with a conscience...
Your Talent: Disappearing. And disappearances...
Your Malfunction: I need revenge from the guy who betrayed me.
Your Residence: Whoever I can con into letting me in...