Eeee! I was feeling all stressed because I didn't have a good answer for today's question - Which RPG does the most with the least words - and I was feeling frustrated that I kept going back to previous years. I was getting already to revisit 2015 (Favourite Setting) and talk about Shadowrun again (can you tell I've got a yearning?) when I went over the the alternate questions just in case, and saw this topic - exactly the sort of thing I'd been hoping for and love talking about.
Which actually makes this really hard! Which story do I tell? I've shared so many already - do I retell a favourite, or find one you've not heard before? Ooooh, exciting decisions!
I'm sorely tempted to go to Aberrant the last time Chrissie saw her parents. It was a very intense scene I enjoyed a lot, but 'wonder'... not so sure. Staying with Chrissie, Mark Knight's comment on this post was wonderful, really made my day to read - but arose as a result of a game, not within it.
I've mentioned the Amazing World of Darkness game I played in at uni, and my Werewolf character, Plays in Shadows, was very good at seeing the wonder in everything. I joined the game when it was already in full swing - the rest of the group had played through from the Roman era, playing descendants in different time periods (to pair up with their Vampires, but everyone enjoyed being Werewolves more so it moved ahead faster: I joined modern day Werewolf and Dark Ages Vampire). My pack had been working together for a little while, and were all born to kinfolk families, either human or wolf, (apart from the metis). My first session, I created a Child of Gaia Theurge (to no one's surprise).
We started with me in the hippie camp I'd grown up in, living in a caravan with my mother, who'd given me the delightful name of 'Starlight Moonbeam Acorn Rainbow' (I enjoyed that). One evening, I wandered off by myself - and shifted for the first time! This was when the rest of the pack, who by some mighty coincidence happened to be near by, leapt into action. They ran with me as I tore around as an angry crinos, then stayed with me as I shifted back to a confused, naked human. They took me back to the werewolf camp and explained everything to me and helped me through it all.
One of the first orders of business was a spirit quest to find my tribe. They taught me to step sideways (and caught me playing by a pool in the Cairn, using the pool's surface to jump to the umbra and back, chasing shadows of the trees, earning her werewolf name "Plays with Shadows"), and away we went.
I don't remember the quest well (it was over a decade ago!), but there was a huge mountain that I was very excited to be climbing. It was all a bit... normal for the others, who'd grown up knowing about this sort of thing and who'd been through this sort of thing before, but for me it was all new, all thrilling - all wondrous!The others were (in character) starting to get irritated at my wide-eyed enthusiasm, and had all been through tough initiations with the totems of their tribes, so were looking forward to seeing me knocked down a bit.
Ah, but they forgot I was a Child of Gaia. Eventually, we found a cave with a fire, and there was Unicorn. We chatted for a bit, then Unicorn got me to stare into the fire. Any reason? The others asked, as I stared with complete concentration. I just wanted to shut her up for a bit, was the response. And that was my trial!
The pack's totem was Bear, with whom we all developed a close relationship, but especially me and the other Theurge, Mel's Black Fury. We played through the Apocalypse. Unicorn was killed - in fact, Starlight was the only known Child of Gaia to survive, as we were running around another dimension at the time. The horror she felt on returning to Earth and learning this was squashed to one side while they dealt with the Apocalypse, but it enhanced her bond with Bear, promoting Bear to Child of Gaia Tribe Totem.
The final scene had Mel's character and mine sat next to each other, the only ones of our pack to survive. Lunar approached and explained our work was done: she no longer needed her warriors. All surviving werewolves reverted to their birth form, except me - I'd spent so long in wolf form during the game, it seemed more natural to make me a wolf. So it was left with Mel and I sitting by a pool, and walking away, and a strange pact forming between the people of the village and the wolves who lived nearby, that lasted far beyond anyone remembering the two of us who had caused it.
That was pretty wonderful.
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RPGaDAY was started by Dave Chapman and is currently curated by RPG Brigade. To join in yourself, follow the questions in the graphic and blog, vlog, tweet, or otherwise share your responses with the hashtag RPGaDAY2017.
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