Day at the Fair - Divine Blood RPG: Demon Next Door - One-Shot Scenario

Jess Kara, as far as she knew, was a normal teenage girl. She knows she's adopted, the difference in hair color and complexion between her and her parents told her that easily enough. Waking up one morning with your pupils in the shape of a four-pointed star was a bit less easy to explain or understand. Her reaction was a bit over the top, but thank goodness they were back to normal before her parents came to see what's wrong. The fact of the matter is that Jess is a changeling, and her non-human DNA is starting to express itself. Actually, it's been expressing for weeks, she's just starting to notice it now and she is not reacting well.

Tuesday 22nd - Slot 2 - 12pm to 5pm - Day at the Fair - Divine Blood RPG (Fate-Based)

This is a low-powered scenario primarily meant to introduce the players and the characters to the existence of the supernatural in the Divine Blood setting. Of the 24 available characters 7 have actual supernatural abilities, all of whom are civilians rather than actual trained warriors or investigators. The storyline is meant to be non-lethal, slice of life type comedic conflicts. Characters in this scenario are normally assigned randomly.

Scenario

The characters are students at the same school and today is a fund-raising event where different classes, clubs and other groups put together booths to raise money for their various activities.  The characters are all working on the same booth.  To begin with, they will be deciding what sort of booth to create and assign tasks based on that. Note that in some cases the task for a character might be "slack off without hurting the team effort" even if the assignment he or she is given in-character is something else.

At the end of the scenario there is a chance for the booth to win one prize for each player in the scenario. Which is to say, that each player will get a chance to roll off for one of these last prizes with chances based on how well they've created and maintained the booth up to that point.

In the middle of all this there comes the complication that is Jess Kara who is going through her first puberty as a succubus. All of her powers of illusion, biokinesis and empathy are starting to come in, but since she's adopted and been raised as a human by people with no connection the supernatural. She is totally unprepared for dealing with what's coming and her emotional distress is causing some of her powers to develop faster than normal, since her body is reacting as if she is in danger, and this only makes things worse.

The challenge is to keep Jess from having a nervous breakdown that will result in a full episode, a case of psychic abilities going out of control of their owner. Keep the unethical reporter sniffing around from learning about Jess (or at least discrediting him or her so that no one will believe them).  And, above all, you must have the absolute BEST booth in the fair.

If possible, take some time enjoying the fair, flirting and otherwise being teenagers.

Characters

There are eight categories of characters, two sets of adults and six sets of kids.  Each category has three characters.  Only one of each category will be played as PCs, the unused characters will be kept as a pool of possible NPCs.  For example, if someone is playing Uriel Wisconsin, then the other two "artist" types will be left in the NPC pool.  Each category has one character that has some definite connection to the supernatural world though some of them, like Jess, are unaware of it.

There should be more teens than adults.  If there are only three players, there should be at most one adult. If there are five or six players, both adult categories are possible.

The standard method of character selection is to roll off with the winner getting first choice of category.  Then there would be cards or a die roll to determine which precise character they get (dice in this case).

Teachers

Elene Church - First year math teacher, eager and enthusiastic, but a little naive.
Greta Van Hout - History teacher and a 700 year old dryad.
Timon Brandon - Slacker track coach with a bit of personal history.

Reporters - One of these will be the antagonist

Adrian Rocha - An old standby weatherman with the local regional station.
Miki Kwan - An ambitious and snoopy young reporter.
Torben Belenos - A conspiracy theorist blogger who wants to prove that weird things exist.

Outcasts

Clint Faerbolg - A Half-Demon who is embarrassed that his Demon mother is a baker rather than a warrior.
Dima Zaman - A gothy gamer girl who thinks she knows all about the occult, but is way off.
Chei Green - A big brute of a young man with a hidden sense of honor and the desire to escape poverty.

Nerds

Krystal Osprey - A self-taught shaper who found an old book at a garage sale.
Elizabeth Audrey - A Straight A Mary who is aiming at college and doesn't concern herself with much else.
Alexei Kanst - A robotics geek who works as a mechanic part time and wants to design uprights.

Popular Girls

Jess Kara - The perfect girl next door and unknowingly a young succubus.
Chiko Sawatoru - A spoiled corporate daughter who is going through her own identity crisis.
Leah Killian - An activist cheerleader with an unfortunate tendency to see injustice where it doesn't exist.

Popular Boys

William Brasco - Charming half-kitsune young man with an eye towards business.
Yancy Marlow - Laid back rich kid who loves to party and rarely treats anything seriously.
Bruce Walters - Son of an important senator with an eye towards politics himself.

Artists

Uriel Wisconsin - A member of the jazz band who unknowingly possesses an empathic talent.
Quincey Haile - A shy young woman from an abusive home who finds shelter on the stage.
Piper Costas - An exhibitionist sculptor and something of an attention addict.

Athletes

Jennifer Summers - A lemurian swim team captain with something of a chip on her shoulder.
Forrest Mason - A recently injured high school sports star who is dealing with the change in his life.
Kevin Reardon - The newly popular star athlete who has never had anything denied him.

On characters and personalities

Of all the characters, the only truly terrible person will be whichever of the three reporters (or two left over reporters if one of them is a PC) that gets chosen as the antagonist. NPC characters will likely have their negative traits emphasized so that they're more bullies, damsels or well-meaning but misinformed experts.  Others might be used just for flavor.

PCs are expected to know each other before hand and be more or less friendly (even if one of the PCs is a reporter or teacher) to each other, though they might cover it with other attitudes. For example, if a PC has Greta Van Hout, she'd be the strict teacher that never the less is respected and trusted by this set of students.

On Character Knowledge of the Supernatural

Dima Zaman believes in the supernatural and thinks it is all based in Arabic/Islamic myths. Almost everything she knows is wrong.

Clint Faerbolg knows about the politics between Gods and Demons through his mother, but he is not connected to the Community.

Greta Van Hout is around 700 years old and is old enough to remember the time period when succubi were believed to have gone extinct, however, she might not have ever met one.  She is part of the Community and knows about William Brasco and Jennifer Summers.

William Brasco and Jennifer Summers are both members of the Community and know about Ms Van Hout's history.

Torben Belenos knows about the supernatural, sort of, but he's never actually had a straight conversation with a psychic or non-human and has conspiracy theorists ideas about them.

Jess Kara and Uriel Wisconsin are both natural born psychics (Jess isn't even human), but neither really has ever thought of the supernatural and is entirely unaware of their own natures.

On Divine Blood Succubi

The reputation of succubi as sex demons is undeserved prejudice from the medieval days. They are an all female race who reproduce via biokinesis rather than exchange of fluids (making them potentially fertile with any sentient being including other females). Extremely emotional circumstances can sometimes boost their powers and sex is one such circumstance.

Each succubus latches onto a particular archetype or concept of what they consider feminine perfection and, as they grow up, slowly and subconsciously engineer their bodies to match the ideal of that archetype as sampled from the minds of people around them (such images are also subconsciously gathered.)  In Jess Kara's case, she has fixated on the concept of being "the girl next door."

Succubi are born looking almost entirely human (unless they have a non-human parent aside from the succubus or are raised among non-humans).  They appear to go through two puberties.  The first is a fake puberty that keeps them fitting in among humans and happens at the age it happens for humans. Their powers start to come in around this time and their minds are also developed to match similarly aged humans.  However, a succubus does not reach emotional or sexual maturity until the mid-twenties. They are prone to crushes and puppy love, however, usually based on whatever individual is popular with human girls her age.

Succubi are naturally bisexual (or maybe pansexual), but Jess is too young for this to be a factor.

Selected Lexicon

Underlined text is text only Clint Faerbolg would know. Italics is stuff that Greta Van Hout would definitely know. Clint Faerbolg, Jennifer Summers, and William Brasco might know about the stuff in italics.

Everything else is common knowledge to Clint, Jennifer, William and Greta.

Akira – Slang, derogatory. A psychic is either unaware of his gifts or else thinks that his gifts make him better than everybody else. The first meaning is less insulting since it is just a matter of ignorance. Jess Kara and Uriel Wisconsin are both akiras, but due to ignorance rather than attitude.

Changelings - Non-humans that appear to be human until they reach a certain age. Includes trolls, succubi and sidhe.

Channeling – Using raw Life-Force to create shields, blasts and to enhance the body. Anime-ish martial arts. There are no channellers in the characters.

Chi – Human Life-Force, green in colour.

The Compact – The truce between Gods and Demons. Or the mechanism enforcing the truth.

The Community – Capital letters. Grass roots “organization” of neighbourhoods including psychic humans, non-humans and mundane humans that know about them. Almost all of them are pure civilians and pretty harmless.

Cuckoo - Derogatory. A term for a changeling which they find offensive since it implies that their parents abandon them to be raised by someone else and that they are inherently harmful to their adopted families. Neither implication is generally true.

Deep One – Racial Slur. Refers to any psychic with aquatic powers. Especially lemurians. Used to be what they called themselves until Lovecraft's stories filled the word with offensive imagery. Call Jennifer this, I dare you.

Dryad – Someone who ate a dryad fruit and was transformed. Psychic ability is almost completely crippled
and physical ability is greatly limited but they do not age and they are beautiful. Mental ability is unaffected.

Essence – Succubus Life-Force, yellow in colour.

Life-Force – An energy produced primarily by sentient beings, powers psychic ability.

Magic – The practice of borrowing the Talents of other sentient beings. There are no magicians in the characters, but Krystal thinks that's what she does.

Manipulative – Telekinesis, healing of other people. Control of the physical world outside your body.

Metabolic – Shape-shifting, enhanced physical senses and abilities. Control of one's own body.

New Ager – Slang, Derogatory. Someone who believes in psychic powers and may believe they have some themselves but in reality know nothing about what they're talking about. Usually hype the mysticism over anything else. Dima is a stereotypical New Ager and Krystal is borderline given she actually knows real supernatural stuff but is mistaken on a couple of things.

Nirvana – The ancient homeland of the Gods. It exists extradimensionally. Almost paradise.

The Purges – A time period roughly two to three thousand years ago in which rogue Gods and Demons exterminated several species created by them. Succubi were one of the targeted species. Also refers specifically to the seven Gods and Demons that actually performed the genocides.

Sensitive – Telepathy, ghost whisperer, empathic reception and projection. Mental powers and non-physical senses.

Shaping – The ritualistic practice of shaping Life-Force into specific results. Krystal Osprey is a Shaper.

Sorcerer – Someone who is both a channeller and a shaper.

Talent – An inborn psychic ability.

Vigour – Lemurian Life-Force, pink in colour.

Vitae – Demon Life-Force, red in colour.

Witch – A psychic that misuses their skills and abilities to do harm. Dima Zaman and Krystal Osprey might self-identify as witches without knowing what it means to most psychics.

Yomi – The ancient homeland of the Demons. It exists extradimensionally. Overcrowded and undersized.