Living Prism
Living Prism, Hebdomad Press, 2013
Living Prism is a modern-day game of supernatural conspiracies. You'll find a lot that's familiar here - a hidden society and low-end supernatural power in the depths of a city's underbelly - so I'm going to focus on what makes it different.
The name of the game refers to your character's ability to split themselves into multiple "facets", presumably because "rays" sounded a little weird. (I, personally, can split myself into Ray Stantz and Ray Terrill, so that's pretty awesome.) Each facet has only a fraction of your abilities and being, which doesn't sound great until you find out that you get to define which specific fractions. You can make a facet that holds your tangibility for you, letting you pass through solid matter. You can create a facet that doesn't have your sense of pain so that it can fight for you. Really, they're all you, so you're the one fighting for you, but you generally just play a gestalt self rather than individual facets. Re-merging your facets requires physical contact.
Living Prism is a Fate derivative, which I think is a great choice of system. It uses Aspects to handle the many different ways you might assemble a facet. The game encourages you to be creative but stick to low-level powers. Tucking all of your weight into a facet will not give you the ability to fly, but you might float on the wind. However, giving away the fact that you reflect light in order to become jet-black and hide in the shadows is perfectly ok. It's very much driven by GM-party consensus. Skills include Exploration, Investigation, Subterfuge, and Athletics.
Your society revolves around a strange pool of light found deep within the hidden subway tunnels of Amsterdam. The first Living Prisms were unhoused people and urban explorers some forty years ago who found the pool and were changed by it. Since then, they've worked their way into all kinds of strange situations, discovering ghosts, angels, demons, mole-men, dimensional shifters, and my personal favorite, naturally-evolved AI-like organisms that live in communications networks.
There are several factions to belong to, each with a strong central thesis that guides their actions. One of the weaknesses of the setting is that there's no good reason for these factions to work together unless it's a "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" kind of way.
Living Prism went through several incarnations before becoming what it is now. It started as WoD netbook "Digger: the Invisible", shifted drastically into modern-day Battlelords-inspired "Matrix Runner" (well before the Maze Runner books), settled back toward urban fantasy as the homebrewed "Urban Light", and finally became the Fate adaptation it is now. It's a wild journey. If you have copies of any of the earlier versions, send them my way - I'd love to review Matrix Runner, but all I have right now is memories of a long-gone tattered copy that somehow found its way into the public library.
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probably time for this story i guess but when i was a kid there was a summer that my brother was really into making smoothies and milkshakes. part of this was that we didn't have AC and couldn't afford to run fans all day so it was kind of important to get good at making Cool Down Concoctions.
we also had a patch of mint, and he had two impressionable little sisters who had the attitude of "fuck it, might as well."
at one point, for fun, this 16 year old boy with a dream in his eye and scientific fervor in heart just wanted to see how far one could push the idea of "vanilla mint smoothie". how much vanilla extract and how much mint can go into a blender before it truly is inedible.
the answer is 3 cups of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk alternative, and about 50 sprigs (not leaves, whole spring) of mint. add ice and the courage of a child. idk, it was summer and we were bored.
the word i would use to describe the feeling of drinking it would maybe be "violent" or perhaps, like. "triangular." my nose felt pristine. inhaling following the first sip was like trying to sculpt a new face. i was ensconced in a mesh of horror. it was something beyond taste. for years after, i assumed those commercials that said "this is how it feels to chew five gum" were referencing the exact experience of this singular viscous smoothie.
what's worse is that we knew our mother would hate that we wasted so much vanilla extract. so we had to make it worth it. we had to actually finish the drink. it wasn't "wasting" it if we actually drank it, right? we huddled around outside in the blistering sun, gagging and passing around a single green potion, shivering with disgust. each sip was transcendent, but in a sort of non-euclidean way. i think this is where i lost my binary gender. it eroded certain parts of me in an acidic gut ecology collapse.
here's the thing about love and trust: the next day my brother made a different shake, and i drank it without complaint. it's been like 15 years. he's now a genuinely skilled cook. sometimes one of the three of us will fuck up in the kitchen or find something horrible or make a terrible smoothie mistake and then we pass it to each other, single potion bottle, and we say try it it's delicious. it always smells disgusting. and then, cerimonious, we drink it together. because that's what family does.
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Prompt 249
Danny tilts his head. The masked figure across the roof tilts their head back, a gold similar to Tucker’s eyes shimmering, though he knew it wasn’t him. He lets out a curious chirp, inaudible to the living, and the masked figure stills, as silent as a corpse for several moments before letting out two clicks.
A greeting in turn.
Danny smiles, letting green bleed into his eyes and scurrying over with a croon from his core. I’m here, I’m here, their own core clatters like metal against bone as his responds with the drone of a blackhole. I see you, I see you. I’m HereHereHere.
Yet another twitters in turn, clicking echoing across the city from shadow to shadow until it’s as though the city itself has a heartbeat. Click-click. Click-click. Click-click. I’m here, I’m here, not alone, I’m Here.
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part 2!!!! [read part one here]
transcript below the cut arranged into stanzas to help show where the rhymes are:
“that’s why they brought gem in? as a failsafe?” as a pawn.
we were told to point her at whoever we need gone
“gem won’t hurt her allies. …yet.” the curse she carries will
it’s had its eye on her since she lost the other eye
she was specially selected for her hunting skill
it’s quite the high honor. “wow. how generous.” we try
think about it: why does almost no one fight the curse?
“given how fast scott killed skizz last season, i can guess.”
[“any pain you spare your friends, you’ll have to suffer worse”?]
it’s designed to shut down higher reasoning with stress
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Can we talk more about the fact that both of Valerie's dates for the school dance dumped her to go to the dance with someone else? 🥺
I mean...
Valerie: Which, by the way, is my answer, unless something happens in the next five minutes that makes me dateless.
Kwan: You'll never guess what happened! Donna said she'd go to the dance with me, so you're dateless! (Walks away.)
Think about it. You have gotten a date to the school dance. Then your date tells that he is going with someone else (you were just the second option in case the other person said no).
Hurts, but thankfully you have a new date who is really excited to go with you.
You have bought a nice dress, gotten your hair and make-up done. And then you wait for your date. He is late.
How long does it take for you to realize that he is not coming? He went with someone else (just like Kwan).
Do your friends notice that you are not at the dance or are they too busy with their own dates? Do you go to the dance alone? Or do you stay at home? Do you cry yourself to sleep and then next day tell everyone that you were the one who canceled, because your pride doesn't let you admit the truth?
---
Are there any fics about this?? If there are send me links to them!
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Dp x Dc prompt 7
(most likely a limital!amity park)
a feud between Amity Park residents and the Justice League but it's one sided.
any time an Amity Parker goes out of town and ends up in a location where the Justice League gets called or any member gets called, an Amity Parker Will Take Care Of It.
Amity Parkers have dropped-kicked Lex Luther, ganged up on the Joker, punted Mister Mind, and more.
The Justice League and Villains are desperately trying to find out What Their Problem Is for different reasons.
When confronted, the answers vary but a concerning consistency is "If our dead teenage superhero can take care of world-ending threats by himself, we can take care of the little things."
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The one where Bruce is the asshole (again)
So! We have a typical story where the JLA finds out about the Situation in Amity.
Whichever way they find out doesn't matter, but either way they end up sending Batman to do a threat analysis and review of whether this requires their attention.
And while there, he runs into a Kid who obviously needs to be saved from his Abusive Home. Look at him, he's far too thin, his grades are horrible, he has many unexcused absences, and he has bruises hidden under his clothes.
Even after figuring out that Danny is Phantom the local Hero, he thinks Danny needs to be saved from his Parents.
I mean, it's plain to see! They Hates Ghosts with a Passion, negelct their son very often, shoot at him nearly every day, and are probably the ones who killed him in the first place!
So, with no input from Danny himself, Bruce calls CPS on the Fentons and uses his Wealth to expedite the process and avoid the actual Investigation. (I mean, why would you even need one? It's so obviously a bad home!)
The Fenton's are arrested, and Bruce reveals that Danny is Phantom to convince the Courts that they are horrible people for shooting at their own son, and that they should be locked up (ignoring the horrified looks on their faces, probably cause they were living with a Ghost for so long, thats probably why).
He immediately offers to adopt Danny, even when Danny vehemently refuses his offer. He knows that Danny will come around to it, he's doing this for his own good. He still thinks his Parents were good people, and not thr Villains they really were.
Meanwhile Danny's life has been completely uprooted thanks to the self-righteous machinations of an Adoption Crazed Fruitloop! And not even the usual one!
Sure his parents were often busy with their work, but they Always set aside time to hang out with their kids and make sure they were okay. They never abused him, the neglect was only for like a month or two when the portal before they got their act together and apologized for it, and (most importantly) THEY DIDN'T KNOW he was a Halfa when they shot at him! They only found out when the ASSHOLE revealed his Identity in Court!
And Danny is Extra enraged by that part. The Adoption Crazed Fruitloop had revealed his secret identity for the ENTIRE WORLD TO HEAR!
He would never be able to live a normal life anymore, even if he managed to get away from the Moron who caused all this!
Bruce Wayne was a Villain in his eyes.
He ripped him from his home and from his family (basically kidnapped), revealed his identity to the world so he was forced to stay with him for fear of the GIW, and spun the whole story so that it looked like he was the Good Guy in this!?
It was official. Danny Hates Bruce Wayne, possibly more than anyone else in the World.
And that's a High Bar.
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