Awake(working title) - The Sign-up Thread

[phil_]

I think I'll take your advice as to where my folks are, but I'm-a wait 'til tomorrow to write something. I'm beat from work right now.

[Bard The 5th LW]

So what you're saying is, I should be at the high school?

What about those roof things mentioned, where are those?

[phil_]

The rooftops are on top of the buildings, silly. Perhaps some more setting info should be dumped for those who don't have the books, Overcast. I mean, we've stuck with you through all this, one more info dump can't hurt.

[Overcast]

Alright then.

INFO DUMP

Today's Topic: People and places in the Mad City everyone is aware of.

The Bizaare Bazaar: Welcome to the shop boys. Around here is the general Market for the Mad City where the common currency is that of the Wax King(wax coins minted by the man...wouldn't suggest counterfeiting.) but currency isn't often traded here. Rather they like to barter, and seeing as the primary sale is in intangible goods(while services are sold this typically means emotions, memories, sensations, ect) you can expect that they may want something intangible from you in return for something they happen to have. The place is chaotic, and while nightmares frequent they aren't typically the ones that will take your soul by force like the Tacks Man or Officer Tock, but rather would enjoy swindling it out from under your nose(so pay attention to what you are trading, because it may just be worth far too much). Along with the other awakened it makes something of a haven. It isn't perfect, but you can't really expect anywhere in the Mad City to be perfect.

Visit if you will, more often than not the start of something will be bought or sold here.

District 13: This place at one time existed in the City Slumbering. Though long ago a push by the Tacks Man and other nightmares swallowed the area whole, and it fell into the Mad City. Of course back home it was explained away as some great fire. People built over it. People forgot. But you don't want to forget this place when you are here. It is the center of law enforcement and order. Though this is order by the ideals of two batshit crazy Nightmares so you can already figure that it isn't quite order as usual. The laws are an every shifting bureaucratic wet dream that only those who live there long enough to be part of it could possibly have the instinct to keep up with. If you happen to be lucky enough to obey the laws properly you have nothing to fear here, and in fact it may even be considered relatively safe. But really no one Awake ever really is. Once you break a law you are subpoena'd by Officer Tock to show up to court and prove your case. Don't expect a fair trial if you do show, you'll lose, be thrown in prison and live a life of terrible misery until you finally tun nightmare when everything in you snaps. The little clockwork gears showing you another minion of Officer Tock. But skip it and they come for you, and then prison is the last worry as you notice the blood stain on Officer Tock's clock hand shaped billy club.

To explain the two Nightmares in charge are Officer Tock and the Tacks Man.

Officer Tock lives to try to maintain order, if you catch him at his weakest he might be take able(pain 6) but catch him in District 13(+2) at the 13th Hour(+2) and he has a warrant for your arrest(+2) and you'll be begging he gets distracted(pain 12). Which may happen. His obsession with order is most prevalent in keeping time (Pretty typical for a man with a clock for a face) and if he sees a calender off, or a watch, or a cell phone, really anything just wrong time wise he may completely blow off his duty just to take care of it. Consider it your last shot on getting away, because when it comes down to it he is the reason order maintains in District 13.

Assistants: Clockwork Lieutenants(pain 1): Police officers powered by windkey.
Deputized Locals(pain ?): Anyone blackmailed into working under the circumstances.

The Tacks Man is the leader of the bureaucratic side of things in District 13. If anyone is to blame for the laws here it is this plastic push pin headed jerk. He will not often be seen around and prefers to stay back and maintain business as is his way. If you see him and he is coming for you it is because you have something he wants. And he only really needs to get close to get it. With his pin tipped fingers he just takes one out and tacks you to the wall, or tacks the memory of your daughter being born to the floor. He doesn't work very fast, preferring to kill by degrees. More money in that. He is a tough fight(pain 8) but if you are running the most you'll have to deal with is not getting stuck by his fingers(pain 5) not easy, but better than fighting the creep.

Assistants: Pin Heads(Pain 3): Reporters with pins for heads bent on getting the good news to the Tacks Man. Even if it means changing what actually happened.
Needle Noses(Pain 3 fighting 5 tracking): Hounds with needles for heads and a thread to hold you down with and get you taken down by whatever took it out for a walk that day(pain 4 to escape form Needle Nose "stitch down" technique).

The High School: The Finishing School from Hell. Here little boys and girls that end up in The Mad city are taken to get their education. Either when one pops up by some odd orphanage or if District 13 refers them this way. Once you are here you are schooled to assist Mother When, the headmistress and rumored personification of Death(Pain 12). Boys are not known to pass these trials, as of yet we have no idea why, but it just never happens. All that eventually come out are the Sisters in Hating, and all you might get a chance to see are the Promising Students.

Mother When: Looks like a pleasant country schoolmarm, but has black-within-black eyes. Wields a yardstick. Pain 12. Run if possible.

Ladies in Hating(Pain 1-2): Graduates from the High School.Teach there. Made of Spite, Malice, and Jealousy particularly of youth. Keen on eating children. Blood changes young girls into them, or kills them

Promising Students(Pain ?): Those terrifying local girls that actually want to be a Lady in Hating

Rooftops: Everything about the Mad City is unusually crowded. All the buildings are typically close enough together you can go from one to the next without even jumping that hard. Anything that doesn't have a place at the bottom goes to the top. This crowds neartly every inch f space with doorways, windows, and nightmare maws disguised as such. If you know away around(like the Paper Boys) it can get you just about anywhere fast, but if you don't...well the risk may just be worth it if you really have to get out.

In there is the Air Fort where every plane that comes into the Mad City decides to crash. None explode though, but just slam into the architecture and become part of it. The end result is a mess of wings, cockpits, and so on that tend to hold within them Roof Rats, little bullies keen on taking the lunch money of the significantly more dangerous Paper Boys.

Paper Boys(Pain 2): Little boys made like oragami who deliver and print the news of The Mad City. Trouble lies not in ever facing them, but if they take an interest in you and decide to write a story about you. For better or worse that story tends to come true, even if completely false(Pain 10 to try to make them wrong).
Roof Rats(Pain ?): Groups stuck as 12 year old bullies. Incessantly bully the Paper Boys when they can. Somehow are still alive.

The Warrens: Under the streets of the Mad City lie a network of tunnels that lead to a thousand nowheres and the Kingdom of Wax. The Kingdom lies at the center of it all, where the Wax King sits on his throne watching his wax slowly flowing out to anywhere it can reach. If it gets to you it will start crawling up your legs, until soon enough it covers your face and you become one of his. Needless to say some resist this transformation, and these neighboring kingdoms(known as nowheres) try to keep themselves apart from the Kingdom.

The Wax King(Pain 10): Lord of the kingdom he is not so keen to direct attack and prefers to use people in long Xanatos Gambits built up through favors you owe him for not whipping your ass. More important than petty squabbles is his eventual victory.

Blind Knights(Pain 4 +2 for each additional rather than multiplying): Wax covered individuals with candles for eyes which unlike their name tend to wear clothes from just about any period. Enforcers for the King.

Smothered Folk(Pain 1): Serfs of the kingdom, faceless servitors that make the coins from wax and memories and whatever other work need be done.

Nowheres: Everyone is trying to not be part of the Wax Kingdom because it really seems to be a bit of a buzzkill. Nowheres are everywhere else in the Warrens that happen to still lack wax shells. Included are The Nightly Revealer, a Paper Boy branch that gets by publishing many stories about the death of the Wax King, which he typically has to try very hard to make untrue before they become true and all that circular logic. Most Puissant Black Wind's nowhere which has constant winds that keep the Blind Knights out(note these are particularly hard gales, do not try blowing out a Blind Knight's eyes yourself. You will get hurt.) And the land of The Mad Howler, where all the warriors of the past and present who have been forgotten fall to and let out all their senseless rage, collected by the pipes to help keep the place too hot for wax to do anything but melt.

Apologies if it is a bit confusing but I have wanted desperately to go to sleep since I started it and I wrote it all in my own words(as usual) to avoid the good ol' copyright infringement. So yeah, tired and own words may have caused serious issues.

[phil_]

That's a pretty good info dump, man. It should at least get people started on the right track, or, as right a track exists in the Mad City.

[Bard The 5th LW]

Thinkin' up a post now. Edmund will probably be waltzing 'round the roofs with nothing to do.

[Arcanum]

Thanks for the info dump! I'll have a post up either tonight or tomorrow hopefully. The Halo Reach and StarCraft 2 betas have been consuming my life since last Friday.

[Bard The 5th LW]

OK, since I flopped on my last promis, I will try my best to post tonight.

[Arcanum]

Something's better than nothing right? I plan on writing a bit about Greg exploring the Mad City, but I figured that I'd post that introduction bit first instead of waiting till i wrote the whole thing. I'll edit in his explorations later if nobody else posts.

[Overcast]

It seemed a bit like an invitation when I read across it, but if you would like to maintain control over where in the Mad City he ends up that is fine by me. I do hope this helps to build a bit of momentum though. I'd like to see how all these characters look in practice.