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In Dark Alleys

Up to my neck in secrets

Secrets of the Heroes

If you remember, Heroes were our lovable semi-insane vigilantes who had either animal familiars, Generic Occult Powers or High Tech Devices that helped them DO BATTLE WITH EVIL. This section basically tells us that they are literally serial killers who are just more picky about their victims.

quote:

Familiar: These Heroes have come across a partially awakened animal. This is a servant of humanity from before human souls were trapped in this reality. Like human souls, these servants are more-or-less immortal and are kept prisoner by the powers-from-beyond in the bodies of animals. Due to some supernatural or h-tech accident the animal became partially awakened and regained some of its powers and intelligence. It cannot remember its life before this world, nor can it escape from the body it has been placed in, but it was able to find its former master.

Wait what? Kult? What are you doing here? What did Brian do to you?! Way to jack Kult's setting and make it even worse, jackass.

Their end-of-section note is a stained piece of paper from a Hero detailing his HEROIC EXPLOITS. First he kills some drug dealers, then he kills a prostitute, then he murders some "gangbangers & family members." After every killing he obsessively washes his hands and notes for how long. Finally he kills a supernatural creature that begs for mercy and tells him it's just taking revenge for MEAN OLD HUMANITY that used to have its kind as slaves back when we were powerful! (hello again Kult) He then scrubs his hands until he can see muscle and tendons.

The Hero NPC is... something.

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Richard was born to a working-class Black family. He was a sensitive, shy boy. His father left when he was seven and this sent him into a spiral of isolation, self-hatred and loneliness that left him friendless during his adolescent years. He entertained himself with fantasies of violence, of him slaughtering armies of racists, terrorists, mafioso, etc. Soon he was living more in his fantasies than in the real world. After high school he had a series of demeaning customer service and manual labor jobs that barely paid the rent. He was poor, lonely and desperate.

One evening blood started to drip from his ceiling. He called the cops but nobody came. He went to check on his neighbor and found his neighbor hanging from his neck, pierced with a dozen kitchen knives and masturbating. There was an explosion and a knife cut his hand. Moths started flying from the wound until Richard bound the wound up.

The wound would not heal and continued to expel moths whenever unbound. Richard decided the moths were either a curse or a gift from god, and that he was responsible for using them to smite sinners. He trained and equipped himself as a vigilante. Over the next 30 years he killed more than 100 drug dealers, as well as pimps, rapists, abortion doctors, convenience store robbers, carjackers, child molesters, serial killers, innocent people who he mistakenly thought were committing crimes and innocent people who were hit by stray bullets.

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His most intense relationships are imaginary relationships with the people he saves. There are a number of terrified young women who he harasses with anonymous letters and phone calls. Richard has a black and white view of morality: anyone who kills or rapes deserves to die.

So basically we have a wannabe-tough guy with a hand that shoots moths. How the fuck does this guy manage to rack up over 100 kills including shitloads of supernatural things without getting his head taken off? The moths will "fly out and bite people," but all it does is create distracting pain and briefly blind them with the swarm, not actually doing any damage. This guy has no concept of subtlety, so why hasn't a Professional offed him by now? Why hasn't some random goon with a shotgun offed him? Why, in fact, haven't the fucking COPS done something about this guy who runs around on the streets in riot-armor dual-wielding silenced pistols? MOTH HAAAAANDS isn't exactly subtle or an ability that lets you evade a manhunt.

Unlike most of the other NPC's, I guess at least he's functional as an opponent because he has no truly bullshit/unbeatable powers, and the PC's have reasons to find him(and the ability to do so) and murder his eerie, fuckfaced self.

Secrets of the Lost

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There have been Lost as long as humans have had souls. Becoming Lost was frightening and dangerous: an aboriginal person who got Lost would most likely wind up in the camp of some group who spoke a different language and would kill a stranger.

Yes, because those horrible savages would murder anyone who looked different on sight! This is only mentioned in relation to this, apparently all other eras have Lost bungling into only CIVILIZED COMPANY that accepts them as friends.

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Psychogeography was created in 1958 but didn’t really become popular until the 1980s. It was popularized by the Situationists, a group that was influenced by the Surrealists and Existentialists. Psychogeography is the art of wandering a city at random and mapping how different parts of the city made one feel. Some of the psychogeographers became Lost.

This is apparently a real thing. But judging by a quick browse, he's simplifying it to the point of aggressively missing some of the point. Then we get BLAH BLAH MORE KULT RIP-OFF, THE BODY IS A PRISON FOR THE SOUL. YOU CAN TOTALLY BE FREE OF THE "TYRANNY OF SPACE" IF YOU FIGURE THIS OUT.

Killer Lost sidebar posted:

Although very few Lost have ever thought to do so, it is possible for very powerful Lost to use the Grab Bag skill to kill people by remote. They need a body with a large hole in it. They can then reach in and pull out the internal organs of an enemy. The Grab Bag skill requires that the person not know what’s in the container, so the Lost can’t know that the body they are reaching into doesn’t contain the organs of their enemies, which means they can’t know whose body it is they are reaching into. This skill is therefore extremely difficult to use. Yet when done correctly it allows a Lost to kill an enemy anywhere in the world and the enemy doesn’t have any means of defense.

Welcome to a sidebar which, while kind of cool, is basically useless for the game. If an enemy has this, the PC's will just keel over dead, missing vital organs, with no defenses, no way of tracking him down. If the PC's do this, they trivialize any fight against any human opponent as long as they have access to a morgue or can find and kill someone whose intestines they do not know in detail.

Revelations posted:

The Lost doesn’t experience revelations by being told things but by seeing things. The Lost have the ability to wander out of this reality, to see the subconscious, the land of the dead, the deserted city, the citadel and the machinery of this reality. A member of the Lost may even find the sleeping body of his or her true self. Whether the Lost has any idea what it is they are seeing is another matter.

Metropolis? The Citadels? What sort of ass-tastic ripoff is this turning out to be? I mean seriously, we've yet to reach the fluff on these parts, but so far it's REALLY sounding like they're just ganking Kult fluff left and right.

The Lost NPC is a brain-damaged old Mexican who has maxed levels in all the Lost abilities(Grab Bag, Get Lost, Homing), he has brain damage to the level of Kender/Fishmalk ADHD, no concept of morality and practically no ability to remember things past the last few minutes. If anything pisses him off he'll instantly whip Grab Bag'd submachineguns out of the nearest container and hose the party down with bullets.

So basically: He's got powers the PC's will never be able to beat, he can always avoid them or kill them and is untrackable, making him an awful choice for an enemy. And his brain damage means that he's completely useless as an info NPC. He couldn't even be used as a pre-made PC because of a combination of his power level and brain damage.

Secrets of the Outcasts

IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS, EVERYONE BELIEVED THAT THE CRAZY SCHIZOPHRENICS HAD INSIGHT. THEN WE LOST THIS CLEVERNESS AND THOUGHT THEY WERE CRAZY, AND LOCKED THEM UP, OH WOE IS OUR LACK OF WISDOM. NOW THEY ARE WANDERING ARMIES OF CRAZY HOBOS WHO HAVE CULTURE WARS ABOUT WHETHER THE MIND WORMS ARE DEMONS OR ALIENS.

The explanation for their SEEING SHIT is basically that they have SOOOOOOUL EEEEEEEYES like what Cannibals get when they pluck theirs out, but most people are, and I quote, "too lazy to see the truth." Not blinded by metaphysical bullshit or physical limitations, just too LAZY.

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They may discover that this world is a machine: storks bring souls to human fetuses, wrigglers plague us with problems to make sure our lives are not easy and when we die reapers take our souls away.

My mind is full of WHAT THE FUCK? Are we talking ghost storks? Spirit storks? Is everyone born without a visiting physical stork some sort of soulless machine?

Nothing noteworthy about the Outcast NPC or End Text, except that the Outcast NPC is actually kind of useful. He's not overpowered or cripplingly insane. He's in charge of a bunch of crazies at an institution, meaning he has a group of minions that could technically cause trouble for the PC's without instakilling them, and he Sees Shit like any other Outcast, so he could be a good info NPC.

~PurpleXVI

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