Got the morbs.

[polymods]

✖ 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.

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.

Sometimes I can still hear his voice...

Network · Logs · OOC · Memes · Plurk

Comments

[howlett]

He doesn't need to smell the nervousness that besets them to spot the way the younger ones fidget anxiously amongst themselves as their seniors look Malcolm and Logan up and down.

"Why would any man want to involve himself in a mess like this?" one asks suspiciously.

Logan juts his thumb towards the little church on the corner. "The clergy tip him out to keep the street tidy before Sunday," he says with all the ease of a practiced con man. "This is Whitechapel. It's hard enough to sell faith around here without..." he doffs his caps and points it towards the body.

The officers exchange glances and whispers. "Clean it up," one finally concedes. "She's bound for the morgue before noon."

[prodigalmess]

Malcolm's suit is pretty nice. He probably doesn't look like someone who cleans the street. Fortunately, the cops are freaked out enough that they're happy to let Malcolm and Logan take care of the body. The office with the mop shoves it into Malcolm's hands as the group of them wander off.

"Thanks," Malcolm says quietly. "Have you ever analyzed a crime scene before?"

Logan's put himself into this now, so hopefully Malcolm can count on a bit more help.

[howlett]

Logan shrugs and smiles apologetically like he knows his lies were wearing a little thin, but so long as the officers are distracted enough to let someone who's lived in the 20th century or beyond take a crack at things, he's happy.

"Don't mention it. This guy's getting bold. Comin' after travellers too," he says. "Place needs a real cop for a change— err.. is that what you are? Some kinda cop?"

That noncommittal bobble of his head looks like he's reluctant to say exactly. "Not officially," he offers. "Analyze is a... formal sorta word. But I seen my fair share of crime scenes. And I know how to follow a lead."

[prodigalmess]

"I consult with the NYPD and I worked for the FBI," Malcolm replies, then glances up at Logan. "He's attacking Travelers?" This is the first he's heard of it, and he agrees that it signifies a big problem.

"Okay," he says. He can work with that. The two men squat down over the body, taking in the pallid face and dead eyes, lids half closed. "That cut is very clean..."

Malcolm pulls a pair of leather gloves out of his inside jacket pocket and puts them on. They're not sterile by any means, but they're better than nothing. "Do you have gloves?" he asks.

[howlett]

He smiles like he expected nothing less. "Yep. Two folks I know said they tangled with him— or at least someone who fits the description."

"Mhm. Didn't have time to mangle her though?"

He raises his chin and snuffs at the air. The scent of blood is strong and metallic here. Almost matched in potency by the strong smells that waft through the streets of Whitechapel. It's not an easy place to track a scent but blood might travel a couple of blocks before it wears thin.

"Gloves? Nah. Won't touch nothin' though, if you're worried about prints."

[prodigalmess]

"We definitely need to apprehend this guy," Malcolm says. Finally, a case! He probably shouldn't be this excited, but it's been so long since he's gotten to work a murder that he can't wait to sink his teeth into this, so to speak.

"Do you have some kind of... heightened sense of smell?" Malcolm asks after he watches Logan sniff the air. It's a weird power to have, but it might be useful right now.

He squats down next to the woman's body, moving it slightly in order to try to determine lividity and rigor mortis. It won't be a perfect time of death, since he's not an ME, but at least it will be something to work with.

[howlett]

Logan chuckles dryly. It takes a particular kind of nerd or workoholic to be as eager about a serial murderer as this guy is, but that probably bodes well for getting their would-be ripper off the street.

"Yeah, some kind," he nods and rises to his feet.

"She ain't been dead so long that anything's gone sour, I'll tell you that. Her blood heads South East of here. I can follow it a ways, but in a town like this, it ain't likely to lead us more than a couple of blocks. Too many other fresh scents."

[prodigalmess]

With the amount of blood on the scene, the killer definitely would have gotten some on his clothing. His blood might be mixed in a well. Malcolm takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabs along the victim's wounded throat. It's an imperfect means of collecting evidence, and he might not be able to do much with it anyway, but he's got to try.

"I'm going to look for any other evidence around, then we'll clean up the scene and see where the scent goes - if that's okay with you." Malcolm doesn't want to use Logan like a bloodhound, but his gift is too good to waste.

He putters around the area, checking up and down a few alleys, searching the cobblestones for anything that stands out. Malcolm finds a piece of glass with some blood on it, as well as some wood shavings and a bit of shoe leather. Are they clues or trash? It's hard to tell at the moment. He'll examine them when he gets back to his room.

When workers from the morgue arrive and remove the body, Malcolm and Logan mop up the blood on the street. The crowds are starting to thin now, the excitement over. Malcolm's about to toss the bloody mop when he finishes, then thinks the better of it and slings it over his shoulder.

"Lead the way," he says.

[howlett]

He nods curtly, all too happy to make himself useful and stroll around the square until he can pick up the trail.

"Hang on a sec," he says, as the ambulance boys pile her onto a gurney. He checks her over a long moment, trying to decide what part of her dress he's liable to have manhandled the most.

"Where'd you think he'd have grabbed her to cut her like that?" he asks, glancing at Malcolm for a theory. "Depends if he's a south paw or not I guess..."

Upon deciding he tears away a bit of her apron. It earns him an uncomfortable look from the workers. "Holds a scent," he mumbles his explanation to his company, the only one here to whom he cares to justify himself.

"His scent comes from that way. Towards the workhouse," he points to one side of the square. "Then it leaves with her blood that way. Towards the Ten Bells Pub. Once it gets in amongst the brewers yeast and barely it breaks up. Too thin to follow from there."

[prodigalmess]

"A throat is almost always cut from behind," Malcolm tells him. He mimics the motion in the air as he examines the victim's body, his head tilted to the side. "They are a lefty. That's rather unusual in this time period." Presuming that this is, indeed, some version of the Victorian Era.

Malcolm blinks at Logan. "You got all that just from that piece of cloth?" he asks, thinking that they would have to follow the trail like a bloodhound. He's also impressed by how much Logan knows about the area. Knowing the names of pubs and specific places is really helpful.

[howlett]

"Oh yeah?" he seems to consider that little fact with a thoughtful frown, as if quietly comparing it to something in his own experience.

"Not all the lefties had it beat out of us," he smiles dryly. "Just made some of us handy with either."

"The cloth. The street. The brand of tobacco someone smokes. Her or him, I dunno which," he nods plainly. "Been here here before too. As in the place and the time." He's definitely presuming a lot of similarities with the real place and time too.

"So. What odds you give us on catchin' this guy?"

[prodigalmess]

"Ambidextrous?" he asks with a smile. "Starting in about the 1980s, it became more acceptable for children to write with their left hands. Before that, they would always try to make them switch to their right."

Malcolm shrugs. "I just thought you'd have to see it, or follow a trail at least. You've been here before?" For whatever reason, Malcolm wasn't expecting that, though it would explain why he's so familiar with the area. "What year are you from?"

Taking the cloth from Logan, Malcolm puts it carefully in his pocket. It still contains blood evidence that they might find useful. "I can't give exact odds of course," Malcolm replies. "It depends on if I can find some suspects and either get a suspect to confess or find some other irrefutable proof."

Forensics is practically non-existent in this time period.