Oddball Pre-release

Description

++Luck, +Intelligence

“The inner machinations of my mind are an enigma.”

— — Patrick Star, Spongebob Squarepants

You are a good-natured misfit who marches to the sound of your own drum. You are as outlandishly strange as you are intelligent, inconveniencing foes rather than fighting and solving problems seemingly by accident.

Conduits designing a mission for you should remember to give you puzzles to mull over and an interesting social landscape to disrupt. You are almost entirely harmless and equally defenseless, so if the Conduit wants to really challenge you they could create vigilant threats who work to capture or detain rather than hurt you.

Grounded in the many off-the-wall eccentrics that populate pop culture and the brilliance, sincerity, and unintentional hilarity they are best known for.

Examples from history & pop culture include:

  • Tycho Brahe
  • Baron Münchhausen (The Adventures of Baron Münchhausen)
  • The Fool (King Lear)
  • Luna Lovegood (Harry Potter)
  • Pee-wee Herman (Pee-wee’s Playhouse)
  • Calvin (Calvin & Hobbes)
  • Beakman (Beakman’s World)

Challenge Level: High

Class by Rolf J. Erisman

Edition: Advent v1

Public: Yes

Signature Gear

Base Gear

Lost Marbles

Base

Small tokens.

Quantity
3x
  • Not brought onto the mission normally, instead scattered across the locale and found via Happenstance Pitches, with success scaling on the creativity of the proposed discovery location.
    • Whenever the owner is reunited with a marble, they receive a mission-relevant Insight of Low–High Impact, scaling on how many marbles they have already found.
  • You may Pitch your character accidentally losing all three found marbles, rescattering them as above, to restore a full Essence Threshold but forget all Insights gleaned from them.

Weirdness Coupons

Base

Slips of paper embellished with nonsensical “credentials”.

Quantity
3x
  • Display a coupon while doing something wildly eccentric (but clearly not malicious) to expend it, strongly compelling onlookers to not interfere or question that behavior for a Mid Duration.

Doohickey

Base

Odd gizmo, different every mission.

Uses
2–4x
  • Whenever this item first becomes relevant, choose another player (or the Conduit) to Pitch a completely new Reskin for this, reminiscent of a handheld daily object with an odd twist. (e.g. A hair dryer with a tiny propellor on top, a waffle iron with a speaker inside it, an umbrella made from window screen mesh, etc.)
    • You may Pitch a supernatural function with Low–Mid Impact for the item befitting its Reskin, with Uses scaling inversely with the Impact of this Pitch.

Elective Gear

Tinfoil Hat

Elective

Goofy, handmade head covering.

  • Provides a Mid Ward against enemy mental effects.
  • Deliver an impassioned rant decrying something seemingly innocuous (rye bread, neon lights, the local mailman) as harmful to gain a High Ward against it (Mid Cooldown).
    • Any other being who is convinced of its harmfulness also gains a Low Ward against it.

Mr. Sock

Elective

Sock puppet.

  • The owner’s voice may emit from this puppet’s mouth at will with a shifted pitch and timbre.
  • Happenstance Pitches directly involving this puppet have Mid Boosted Impact.
  • While the source character is not paying attention to it, this puppet becomes animate, speaking with its own voice and human intelligence, controlled primarily by the player.
    • Allies will instinctively understand that the puppet is a different person in this state.
    • May not speak to the source character, and becomes inanimate again as soon as they notice.

Broken Clock

Elective
Uses
2x
  • Set the time on this clock and smack it to instantly change the time of day within the locale to match, an incessant ticking sound pervading the area while this lasts.
    • Low–Mid Duration, scaling inversely with how drastic the change is from the actual time of day.
    • Locals are very unlikely to question this change, falling into behavior appropriate to the new time.

Abilities

Captain Obvious

Pitch a disproportionately simple solution to a problem.

Essence Cost
Mid–High
Cooldown
Mid

Paired Action: Propose the solution aloud, then either try it yourself or prompt someone else to do so.

  • Cost scales with the implausibility of the solution actually working (without the user bringing it up).
    • This Ability will fail outright if the problem is too complex or if the proposed solution isn’t actually tried.
  • If a being attempts the proposed solution unprompted, you may Pitch how their attempt goes wrong.
  • Any other player whose character is within earshot may, with your permission, activate this Ability themselves (spending their Essence), with their solution coming from your character’s mouth.

Non Sequitur

Interrupt a conversation with a completely unrelated topic, distracting the speakers and briefly causing them to forget what they were originally talking about.

Essence Cost
Low
Duration
Low
Cooldown
Low

Paired Action: Interject a wildly off-topic statement into a conversation.

  • Impact scales Low–Mid on how effectively the user interrupts the conversation.
  • The user is also affected by this Ability.

Head in the Clouds

Enter a heady ramble, losing track of your surroundings until you eventually snap back to reality with an answer from your Conduit to a prominent question.

Essence Cost
Mid
Max Duration
Low–Mid
Cooldown
Mid–High

Paired Action: Portray a Turning Point of lapsing into excited nonsense, babbling about memories, far-fetched theories, intrusive thoughts, or similar as an Altered State.

  • Boosts the user’s Happenstance Low–Mid, scaling on how committedly you portray the Paired Action and Altered State.
    • Your fellow players and Conduit may make Happenstance Pitches on your behalf while this Ability lasts, treated as separate from your own Happenstance Pitching for Limiter purposes.
  • If the user is significantly startled or interrupted, this Ability will end prematurely.
    • Answer Impact and Cooldown scale on how long the ramble lasted.
    • If interrupted before a Low Duration passes, the user receives no answer but Cooldown is reduced to Low.