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Got the morbs.
✖ VICTORIA'S SECRET
Ⅰ. ARRIVAL & THE TEMPLE
You can read all about your character's arrival in the game lore.
The ferry pulls into port in the evening, when shadows are long and gas lamps burn through a veil of mist. Dozens of other ships are docked as well, with men unloading crates and boxes from their holds. Beyond the wet wood and lapping sound of the ocean, a city looms like a charcoal smudge on a purple sky. The air is smoggy and thick, and the river that flows from the sea into the city smells foul. Walk the cobbled streets and you will find that the city is crowded and filthy, but full of merchants, pubs, and theatres. Vast wealth and extreme poverty exist side by side.
In the center of the sprawling city is a temple with towering gothic spires and huge stained glass windows depicting all manner of beings that might be gods or angels or monsters. You could look for hours and still be finding new figures plucked straight from books of myth and religion. Inside, the main chamber has a grand vaulted ceiling, and dozens of pews line the aisle up to the altar, which is oddly anticlimactic compared to the lavish surroundings: just a plain stone table with a lit oil lamp in the centre. Two hallways branch off on either side of the room: one leads to private baths and a communal kitchen, the other to monastic style chambers with thin beds. Not the most comfortable place to stay, but it’ll do in a pinch!
Alternatively you can venture into the city and find yourself some other lodging - every Traveler has been supplied with some pocket money. Just be careful that it isn’t stolen by some street urchin. Travelers can also find an era-appropriate outfit that will fit them perfectly laid in the first sleeping chamber they visit.
Ⅱ. SEANCE
CW: grief, past trauma.
Perhaps you overhear talk of it at a pub, or maybe you’re handed a small card as you push your way through the crowded city streets. Maybe you just wander in by accident. However it happens, you find yourself being ushered into the parlour of one Miss Mary Price: Spiritualist.
You and several other people are instructed to sit at a round table in a very dark and musty room. The walls are covered in thick black curtains, and maybe you’re the type to suspect that there’s someone hiding behind them somewhere. Once everyone is seated, Mary Price herself enters the room. The lights are all extinguished save for a single candle.
Mary calls out to the spirits. They communicate through a series of knocks, or the movement of a Ouija board. Someone at the table is put in contact with a deceased aunt who reveals the location of a family heirloom. Someone else is able to say goodbye to a son.
Mary Price looks at you with eyes so dark they look black, and asks, “What haunts you?”
Maybe you answer honestly. Maybe you don’t answer at all, but that doesn’t matter because the spirit tapping around the room is more than happy to narc on you and tell the whole room what or who it is that you cannot forget.
You can deny it all you like, but the spirits don’t have a reason to lie. And if you try to mess up the seance, you will spend a month being hounded by an angry poltergeist.
Ⅲ. THE RIPPER
CW: murder, gore, violence.
You’re lost at night. Maybe you were in the pub too late, or maybe you were searching for more illicit fun - weren’t there opium dens around this time? - or maybe you just weren’t keeping an eye on the time. However it happened, you’re on the streets in the dark.
It’s very foggy; you can barely see a foot in front of you. The streetlamps look like dimly burning ghosts and when the odd person passes you they are felt more than seen, just a darker shadow in a world of shifting shades.
Very suddenly you hear a scream - short, and swallowed up quickly by the fog. Still, it’s enough to get you to turn and hurry down a narrow alleyway.
Sprawled on the ground amid a lake of blood is a body. It’s immediately apparent that this person is probably beyond help - their throat has been slashed ear to ear. Your appearance was not expected, however, and you can see that you’ve startled the killer: they’re running down the alley in the opposite direction.
You have a few choices: you can chase the killer and attempt to catch them, you can try to help the victim, you can get the authorities, or you can just walk away.
What will you do?
Ⅳ. RESURRECTION MEN
CW: dead bodies, grave robbing.
You’re not entirely clear on how you agreed to this. Maybe it was a barroom bet gone wrong. Maybe you’re broke enough that you need money fast. Or maybe you want to help some wannabe medical students. However it happened, you’re in the cemetery.
And you’ve got a shovel.
Time to rob some graves! You’ve convinced yourself somehow that this isn’t morally reprehensible, and so you and your partner are just going to get down to business! What corpse should you unearth? You feel like a kid in a candy store!
The problem comes once you’ve unearthed the body because it seems terribly familiar. Which is… creepy. Creepier still when it starts talking.
Maybe it’s a family member, or an old friend. Maybe an ex partner. Whoever it is, they immediately start telling your fellow grave robber about some incident from your past that you just. Can’t. Let. Go. Of. And even if you whack it with a shovel it won’t stop. Bad corpse! BAD Corpse!
Which of course is exactly what you have to try and do if you want this chatty Cathy of a corpse to shut the hell up.
Sometimes I can still hear his voice...
You can read all about your character's arrival in the game lore.
The ferry pulls into port in the evening, when shadows are long and gas lamps burn through a veil of mist. Dozens of other ships are docked as well, with men unloading crates and boxes from their holds. Beyond the wet wood and lapping sound of the ocean, a city looms like a charcoal smudge on a purple sky. The air is smoggy and thick, and the river that flows from the sea into the city smells foul. Walk the cobbled streets and you will find that the city is crowded and filthy, but full of merchants, pubs, and theatres. Vast wealth and extreme poverty exist side by side.
In the center of the sprawling city is a temple with towering gothic spires and huge stained glass windows depicting all manner of beings that might be gods or angels or monsters. You could look for hours and still be finding new figures plucked straight from books of myth and religion. Inside, the main chamber has a grand vaulted ceiling, and dozens of pews line the aisle up to the altar, which is oddly anticlimactic compared to the lavish surroundings: just a plain stone table with a lit oil lamp in the centre. Two hallways branch off on either side of the room: one leads to private baths and a communal kitchen, the other to monastic style chambers with thin beds. Not the most comfortable place to stay, but it’ll do in a pinch!Alternatively you can venture into the city and find yourself some other lodging - every Traveler has been supplied with some pocket money. Just be careful that it isn’t stolen by some street urchin. Travelers can also find an era-appropriate outfit that will fit them perfectly laid in the first sleeping chamber they visit.
Notes:
1. Unless this is your character’s first island, the High Temple and anything you may have stored there is off-limits this month.
2. Please remember to mark threads appropriately with Content Warnings when necessary.
3. The city greatly resembles Victorian London, and the technology and general way of life is all of that era. Feel free to explore the city! These prompts are a jumping off point - how they affect your character and their development is up to you.
4. Most food is safe to eat, and is consumable by non-human entities. Most. Some of it’s going to be pretty gross or cooked improperly, so be careful.
5. The people in the city are normal humans unless otherwise indicated. Killing them is possible and will affect the colour grading of your Scrywatch depending on the situation.
6. Have fun!
Ⅱ. SEANCE
CW: grief, past trauma.
Perhaps you overhear talk of it at a pub, or maybe you’re handed a small card as you push your way through the crowded city streets. Maybe you just wander in by accident. However it happens, you find yourself being ushered into the parlour of one Miss Mary Price: Spiritualist.
You and several other people are instructed to sit at a round table in a very dark and musty room. The walls are covered in thick black curtains, and maybe you’re the type to suspect that there’s someone hiding behind them somewhere. Once everyone is seated, Mary Price herself enters the room. The lights are all extinguished save for a single candle.Mary calls out to the spirits. They communicate through a series of knocks, or the movement of a Ouija board. Someone at the table is put in contact with a deceased aunt who reveals the location of a family heirloom. Someone else is able to say goodbye to a son.
Mary Price looks at you with eyes so dark they look black, and asks, “What haunts you?”
Maybe you answer honestly. Maybe you don’t answer at all, but that doesn’t matter because the spirit tapping around the room is more than happy to narc on you and tell the whole room what or who it is that you cannot forget.
You can deny it all you like, but the spirits don’t have a reason to lie. And if you try to mess up the seance, you will spend a month being hounded by an angry poltergeist.
Notes:
1. The spirit can communicate through knocks, the Ouija, actually vocalising through the medium, or via ectoplasm.
2. What haunts your character does not have to be the memory of a dead person. It can be an event - maybe they’ve never gotten over losing that science fair in grade three. It is the feeling of being haunted that is important.
3. If you choose to trash the seance, the spirit will follow you for the rest of the month. It can range from annoying to actually dangerous.
Ⅲ. THE RIPPER
CW: murder, gore, violence.
You’re lost at night. Maybe you were in the pub too late, or maybe you were searching for more illicit fun - weren’t there opium dens around this time? - or maybe you just weren’t keeping an eye on the time. However it happened, you’re on the streets in the dark.
It’s very foggy; you can barely see a foot in front of you. The streetlamps look like dimly burning ghosts and when the odd person passes you they are felt more than seen, just a darker shadow in a world of shifting shades.
Very suddenly you hear a scream - short, and swallowed up quickly by the fog. Still, it’s enough to get you to turn and hurry down a narrow alleyway.
Sprawled on the ground amid a lake of blood is a body. It’s immediately apparent that this person is probably beyond help - their throat has been slashed ear to ear. Your appearance was not expected, however, and you can see that you’ve startled the killer: they’re running down the alley in the opposite direction.You have a few choices: you can chase the killer and attempt to catch them, you can try to help the victim, you can get the authorities, or you can just walk away.
What will you do?
Notes:
1. The inspiration for this prompt is Jack the Ripper but you do not have to use that case as a basis for your killer.
2. You can get as involved with this as you would like. You can have your character catch the killer in a chase, or form your very own detective squad and hunt them down that way.
3. Naturally, walking away from a potential serial killer might not be great for your Scrywatch grading!
Ⅳ. RESURRECTION MEN
CW: dead bodies, grave robbing.
You’re not entirely clear on how you agreed to this. Maybe it was a barroom bet gone wrong. Maybe you’re broke enough that you need money fast. Or maybe you want to help some wannabe medical students. However it happened, you’re in the cemetery.
And you’ve got a shovel.
Time to rob some graves! You’ve convinced yourself somehow that this isn’t morally reprehensible, and so you and your partner are just going to get down to business! What corpse should you unearth? You feel like a kid in a candy store! The problem comes once you’ve unearthed the body because it seems terribly familiar. Which is… creepy. Creepier still when it starts talking.
Maybe it’s a family member, or an old friend. Maybe an ex partner. Whoever it is, they immediately start telling your fellow grave robber about some incident from your past that you just. Can’t. Let. Go. Of. And even if you whack it with a shovel it won’t stop. Bad corpse! BAD Corpse!
Which of course is exactly what you have to try and do if you want this chatty Cathy of a corpse to shut the hell up.
Notes:
1. If you do NOT let go of this past event, the corpse will follow you the rest of the night singing Henry the Eighth I am, I am.
II
Maybe he's trying to impress Chloe a little, but Malcolm isn't paying much attention to the séance as it goes on. He's looking for hidden strings, false walls, anything that might be used to fake supernatural occurrences. It isn't until the spiritualist turns to Chloe that Malcolm realizes that something really weird is going on.
He's holding Chloe's hand as part of the séance and can feel her grip tighten in his when the medium starts speaking. It's clear that Chloe's heard these words before. They're part of a memory, and not a pleasant one.
"Hey," he says to the medium. "Stop. Now."
cw: mention of gun use
"Destroy this machine and I'll tell you all I know. Or spare it, if you feel its alive..."
Chloe's chair makes a screeching sound across the floor as she pushes herself up from it. The android looks like she doesn't know if she's going to burst into tears, slap the medium across the face or both. All she knows is that she has to stand now because she didn't then.
"What you did..." Her voice trembles. "All your reasons... All your excuses... If I were human, it would be a crime." Seeming to snap partially back to reality, she turns to Malcolm, eyes filled with desperate confusion. "It would be a crime to get someone to put a gun to someone's head and tell them to shoot, wouldn't it? You can't do that if someone's human, can you?"
no subject
His eyes flick back and forth between Chloe and the medium. "Yes. It would be a crime." He settles on Chloe. "Come on. We don't need to stay here."
Malcolm stands up and straightens his waistcoat before reaching for his jacket.
no subject
no subject
"You were getting upset," Malcolm replies. "I-I thought you might want to leave." It's what any friend would do for another one. "I never said anything about you not being a person."
He knows that this change of emotions in her has to do with the memory that the medium has conjured up.
no subject
This isn't home. This isn't even really Elijah speaking. It's the island doing what the island does. A fact Chloe silently repeats to herself.
Grabbing his hand, she tugs Malcolm away from the seance, out of the parlour and out into the street. Crossing the threshold, leaving it behind, it helps. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to speak to you like that. You didn't deserve it. I'm sorry." With the way the words spill out, Chloe really isn't as calm as she'd like to portray.
no subject
"W-What was that? What was she saying? Someone was trying to kill you?"
Someone was trying to determine whether or not androids had feelings like real humans. From what Malcolm has seen of Chloe, they absolutely do. Hurting her would be like hurting a flesh and blood person to him.
cw: mention of gun use, emotional abuse
Partly talking to herself, she adds, "I can tell you about it." A pause. Tiny, but noticeable. "The Kamski Test." Words she doesn't say out loud. Words she does her best to never even voice within her own mind. Arms wrapping around herself, she glances around. She could just back out. Or lie. But what's the point? Her outbursts have revealed enough already.
Spying a nearby bench, she nods over to it. Once they're both seated, she looks down at the ground as she speaks."
"Back in Detroit, androids were breaking their programming. It's known as deviancy... I'm sorry, it's a little lengthy and there's context and..." She shakes her head - the warning is only an excuse to not continue. "A police lieutenant and his android partner were investigating the deviancy case. They came to the man who made me in search of information." She keeps her voice as measured as she can. Tries to keep as factual as she can. "My creator wanted to know if that android was also a deviant." Another pause. "Thus he conducted the Kamski Test. He would provide information if the android demonstrated they had no empathy. He would provide information if the android was able to shoot me in the head."
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"Which he didn't," Malcolm surmises, "but that's still awful. You were afraid."
Clearly Kamski, who created these androids, does not expect them to have emotions or opinions. They're just supposed to blindly follow whatever their human overlords say.
no subject
“Yes,” is the simple response that eventually comes. “And no. The fear was the easy part, really.” The entire situation is peeling back rotten layer after rotten layer. Her eyes meet Malcolm’s, silently questioning whether he wants to continue. Warning him that it would be advisable if he didn’t.
But that isn’t just for his sake. He chose to be friends with her. To view her in a positive light. She’d like to keep it that way.
no subject
"If you want to tell me, it's okay," Malcolm says. "You can trust me."
There's not much that Chloe can say that would make Malcolm not want to be friends with her anymore. It's not like he's a perfect person by any means. Who is he to judge people?
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It all boils down to Chloe not wanting to think certain things about herself. Things she knows are true. She never has been just an assistant to the genius creator and to think of it now makes her prickle. She rubs her hands over her arms, like it'll stop her skin from crawling.
"You're very kind, Malcolm. I appreciate you listening. And your understanding." But it seems like it might be as far as she's willing to go right now.
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"Of course," he replies. "You're my friend, Chloe. I'll always listen."
He means that. She won't drive him away, regardless of what she tells him. In his mind, this is more about his reaction rather than the fact that she might be uncomfortable telling him her story.
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“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “It isn’t you. I know people say that, but it really isn’t. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
To salvage things, she smiles a tiny, appreciative smile. “Thank you for getting me out of there. You could have just left after I was so rude to you.” When emotions are running high, sometimes she still forgets what an empathetic response is like. It’s a case of several months of good friends versus seventeen years of… not that.
no subject
Malcolm looks up at her and sees... tears? He didn't realize that androids could cry. Reaching over, he squeezes her hand. "We all get upset about things sometimes, and our pasts.... well, I don't think any of us here has a past that's squeaky clean."
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"I've never really had friends like this. I haven't really... been in the world much at all for what feels like a long time. It's all..." She meets his gaze, imploring him to understand. "I don't want to lose any of you. I don't want to be the creepy robot any more than I might already inherently be."
no subject
She was the first friend that he made here, and he's grateful to her for that. It's earned her his trust.