{"id":1752,"date":"2013-06-14T07:35:53","date_gmt":"2013-06-14T14:35:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/?p=1752"},"modified":"2013-06-14T07:35:53","modified_gmt":"2013-06-14T14:35:53","slug":"better-angels-story-seed-it-should-be-wunderkind-dammit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/2013\/06\/better-angels-story-seed-it-should-be-wunderkind-dammit\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Better Angels’ Story Seed: It Should Be ‘WunderKIND,’ Dammit!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Better-Angels-cover-v4-front-612px\"<\/a>Written by Greg Stolze<\/em><\/p>\n

A sinister story seed lays the groundwork\u2014genesis, exodus, and a shocking revelation\u2014for an evening of fun and corruption in Better Angels<\/a>. The GM should draw up stats for one or two crucial NPCs as needed based on the abilities and attitudes of the player characters. Put the Hellbinders and their Screwtapes into the mix and watch what happens.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If there\u2019s anything more irritating than a superhero cramping your demon\u2019s style, it\u2019s angelic interference. This means the superhero \u2018WonderKid\u2019 annoys you coming and going. He\u2019s a superhero and<\/i>\u00a0host for an angel, so not only does he ruin diabolical schemes left and right, he does it while looking like a cherub from a Valentines\u2019 day card.<\/p>\n

Genesis<\/h2>\n

Introduce WonderKid as a complication to the Hellbinders\u2019 own plans. As angels go, he\u2019s not all that strong\u2014he has the powers Circle of Abjuration and Righteous Arm, but his only aspect is Wings. He\u2019s persistent though, and the media loves<\/i> him.<\/p>\n

What he\u2019s not<\/i> good at is covering his tracks. Nor is he particularly crafty or sneaky when it comes to concealing his secret identity. That\u2019s because he\u2019s seven years old.<\/p>\n

Exodus<\/h2>\n

Chet Moorehouse has been having a great time. Lots of kids have imaginary friends, but his<\/i> not only gives him good advice and reminds him to clean up his stuff, it also makes him great at skateboarding and helps him study. When he found out his angel pal could let him fly<\/i> and wanted him to fight crime<\/i>, well! He thought he\u2019d died and gone to heaven!<\/p>\n

Chet is doing fine in school, he\u2019s comfortably middle class, and he adores his kindly older sister Margaret. His parents, Jill and Bill, are having some money problems and have had to borrow money from Bill\u2019s mom to get the roof replaced. (Grandma Terry spoils Chet rotten, but she and Jill have always rubbed one another the wrong way, to Bill\u2019s enduring discomfort.)<\/p>\n

Revelation<\/h2>\n

Getting rid of WonderKid isn\u2019t that hard, if you\u2019re willing to be a real dick about it. Some options include\u2026<\/p>\n

1) Trashing His Family.<\/b> Bill and Jill, despite the rhyming names, aren\u2019t the world\u2019s best match. They have to work hard<\/i> to stay in love and remain married. Bill\u2019s tendency towards sarcastic carping and Jill\u2019s passive aggression leave either one of them vulnerable to a few Corruption<\/i> rolls. It would be a short step from an affair to a divorce, and that\u2019s going to send happy young Chet into a spiral of misery. Ditto with murdering his sister, or just threatening her. He simply is not at all equipped to handle an ethical conundrum as weighty as \u201cGive up doing the right thing or risk someone you love.\u201d<\/p>\n

2) Trashing His Little Body.<\/b> Without his \u2018invisible friend\u2019 invoked, Chet\u2019s just a little boy. Even with an MD to add to his attempts to dodge and block, he does not have a lot of body mass, and he\u2019s not completely developed (meaning, clumsy). A supervillain who is willing to murder a child, can. But (speaking of ethical weight) surely there\u2019s a less extreme solution\u2026?<\/p>\n

3) Bewildering Him.<\/b> Chet\u2019s great vulnerability is his immature attitude and na\u00efvet\u00e9. It\u2019s not hard to present right as wrong to him\u2014especially when his angel isn\u2019t invoked and the adult raising the difficult issues is someone his parents respect, or is someone like a doctor or a teacher. Questioning the motives of a celestial power that uses him<\/i> as a tool seems reasonable, doesn\u2019t it? Especially in the light of option #1, or the threat thereof.<\/p>\n

As with many well-raised children, the simplest solution is to rat him out to his parents. If he\u2019s persuaded to swear off crime-fighting with his angel active, the bind is pretty tight: He can\u2019t use his powers without breaking his word, and breaking his word is unacceptable to the source of his powers.<\/p>\n

Written by Greg Stolze, \u00a9 2013<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Greg Stolze A sinister story seed lays the groundwork\u2014genesis, exodus, and a shocking revelation\u2014for an evening of fun and corruption<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[144],"tags":[11,246],"class_list":["post-1752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-better-angels","tag-greg-stolze","tag-story-seed"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Better-Angels-villain-in-the-park.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1wrNI-sg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1752"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1754,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1752\/revisions\/1754"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}