Thursday, January 27, 2011

There's A Story There

Sometimes a chance encounter opens the door to adventure.  This is as true in the City as anywhere.  Truer, probably...

An odd decoration on the hat of an aging beauty in a downtown bar. Ten years ago--when this picture was taken--Etta Bly was an adventuress in her prime. That was before alcohol and fast living took its toll. She still wears a cocktail hat adorned with a gear that looks like orichalcum (but isn’t) from the soul machinery of Primus, God-Engine and First Cause of the Modrons. It was a gift from a “made man” in the Hell Syndicate when a young Etta was, briefly, his moll. Etta killed the two-timing gangster--wasting a number nine shell from her wonderbuss. She vowed to keep the hat even as she blew her wayward beau a kiss as he was sucked into the blackness of the void, and nonexistence.

But on Mechanus, the values of “revenge,” and “just cause,” have been calculated. In the ten years since, several iterations of hardened, extraplanar expeditionary units have been generated, and the invasion counter is decrementing. Either the soul cog will be returned, or a horde of implacable, improbable contraptions will lay ruin to the world.

A caged sprite in small curio shop. The sprite begs for freedom in a tiny, pitiful voice to anyone that will listen. She also likes sugarcubes like others like cocaine. She was smuggled in from Ealderde, an accidental addition to an illicit shipment of weaponized faerie from the Great War. She knows her warped bethren are loose in the City, imagining themselves behind enemy lines, and planning the commando raid they were shaped for.

A werewolf speeding down a dirt road on a motorcycle. A lonely desert ghost town, plays host to a gang of lycanthropic motorcycle enthusiasts, bored and looking for entertainment.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Great stuff as always. I've always had a soft spot for Modrons and I love seeing them connected to The City.

Lady Sakura said...

You should never mess with an adventuress! I like all three, especially the caged sprite in the curio shop. Also, werewolves and bikers go together like peanut butter and jelly. Great post!

Unknown said...

I may have found inspiration for this weekend's Buffy game. Thanks!

John Matthew Stater said...

Love the modrons - I call them polyhedroids in NOD to avoid copyright trouble (need to post those stats sometime ...). Anywho, I use them as the engineers and mechanics who dwell just behind the fabric of reality maintaining the clockwork universe for the Prime Mover.

C'nor (Outermost_Toe) said...

Is there any way to cure her sugar cube addiction?

Trey said...

@Booberry - Yeah, me too. This seemed the perfect place to use them.

@Lady Sakura - Not adventuresses armed with wunderbusses--or katanas, certainly.

@Risus - You're Welcome. :)

@Matt - I'd like to see the NOD version. I'll have to put some thought into how I might rethink them, if I ever chose to right 'em up in something.

@C'norr - Sprite addiction is a little studied phenomena. Maybe there are sober-houses in fairyland?

christian said...

Oh dear, I hope that the sprite takes care of her teeth. That's a lot of sugar for such a wee one.

Trey said...

Don't worry, Christian. I'm sure her teeth have faerie magic.