Getting back in the rhythm: The Ascendancy

During the days leading up to the merger of the three playerbases, I did something I hadn't done in a long time:

I enjoyed myself.

I've been rather removed from the games for a while. Part of the reason for consolidating was to re-engage myself in them.

It started on OtherSpace: The Farthest Star, with an event that called for people hoping to "ascend" as powerful Kamir to help heal the catastrophic space-time rifts that threatened to rip reality apart.

A handful of actual players participated in this event. Each of them had to get inside a glass coffin for three days. During that time, I ran scenes for individual players. I didn't get to run scenes for everybody involved, which was unfortunate, but it couldn't be helped due to the holidays and everything else going on.

But here's a rundown of the Kamir candidate events and my musings on them:

Tim in a Box

The first victim was Aadzrian, whose +sheet includes a phobia fault. The phobia? Tight spaces. So, that scene practically wrote itself. It was all about being hemmed in, closed, suffocated. It didn't last terribly long, but it got the point across.

I owe an apology to Aadzrian, though. After the rest of these trials, I felt like this one lacked oomf!

Curiosity Kills

Sourisan came next. His +sheet mentioned excessive curiosity as a fault. I decided to test it by sticking him in a white room with nothing in it but a door that had a shiny gold handle. He was warned not to open it. He opened it anyway. A Nall leapt out and gutted him. He then found himself wounded, in the wastes of Nocturn, about a half mile from a cave he might use for shelter. Inside the cave, he found a pond. He was warned not to drink from the pond. He drank from it. His wounds were healed.

I felt this was a solid scene.

The Hero's Journey

With Ace, I was dealing with a character who has always been a bit larger than life, ready for action, and in a hurry to be seen as the hero. This was also a character who had history with the Kamir - she had been offered the chance to ascend before, but had refused. AND she was the only humanoid - an Ungstiri - in the bunch. The rest were Timonae and Mystics. So, she came to the table as a sort of space opera everywoman. That got me thinking.

I put her into the middle of the action, hovering in the vacuum above Nocturn, trying to save Hancock Station and tens of thousands of refugees from the Orion Arm bound for Comorro Station in Hiverspace. She had already become a Kamir. Everything was going great! And then Morden'kamir told her it had all been a mistake. He stripped her of her powers, leaving her in danger of freezing and suffocation. Another Kamir shielded her from harm, but she could do nothing as she watched Hancock Station tear apart from the stress.

And as soon as this was over, I knew exactly how I wanted things to play out during the main event!

The Path Changes

Taeren's event was next. I looked over his bio, submitted years ago, and found something in his important life-changing incident information: His family's freighter had suffered problems after the defeat of the Hivers in 2650. So, I stuck Taeren back on that freighter with his family, only now his uncle had gone nuts, killed half of Taeren's relatives and showed up on the bridge to finish them off. Taeren had to watch his own father die. Then he had to choose whether to kill his uncle or spare him. The point was made moot by the appearance of a human pirate and his Zangali compatriot, known only as "Tka." Taeren's uncle was killed and Taeren was taken prisoner to be sold as a slave. His ship was appropriated by the pirates.

I had fun with that scene. I'll never confirm or deny if that guy with "Tka" was supposed to be Falkenberg.

Modern Problems

The last Ascendancy event focused on Eucharius, a Mystic. Except in his trial he was in a psychologist's office on Earth in the year 2009 and he learned, eventually, that he was supposedly REALLY a failed securities broker with a penchant for silver wigs and brownish-green makeup. Apparently, he had taken on the identity of Eucharius after suffering a psychotic break due to killing his brother in a drunk-driving accident.

I had fun with this one because it allowed me to show a Mystic what it's like to be VERY human.

Conclusion

What I really enjoyed about these scenes is that although we were in the midst of an epic universe-shattering storyline - the sort that players bitch about when it's happening but often moan about missing when it gets quiet (TOO quiet) - we took a few days to breathe and aim a magnifying glass at a handful of players for personalized character-driven stories. And events like that are precisely the sort of thing we want to do more of.