idolpro | Gloom: LiliS

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Gloom: LiliS

[The old-fashioned writing desk in the center of the room carries several blank pieces of paper, a fine wooden pen, and a piece of parchment covered in writing. When you take a look, you find the following epigraph in a vibrant scrawl:]

Congratulations, future wordsmiths, and welcome to your first exercise in the creation of a true masterwork of tale-telling. This evening you'll be penning a terrific tragedy, starring the family of unsympathetic ne'er-do-wells provided to you.

Your goal? Why, to construct the best story your mind can conceive, of course - and make their lives as entertainingly miserable as possible before writing one of them directly into an early grave.

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[On the screen of your phone, you can find the rules:]

YOUR GOAL

Your task is to inflict as much suffering as possible on your family, by playing unfortunate events on them ranging from minor inconveniences to fatal experiences. Once any team plays a death card on a character, the game ends.

YOUR CARDS

Your hand consists of three cards. Each card contains an unfortunate event, assigned a number of points ranging from -10 to -30. The lower the point value, the more delightfully tragic the event. By playing a card on one of your family members, they will experience that misfortune and earn you points.

Some cards include an even more unfortunate death. While they earn no points, playing a death on a family member will not only end their life, but end the game. Hopefully you've brought your family's arcs to a satisfying climax by that point...

Each round, you may play up to two cards on your family. Cards may be piled on one family member, or played on different members as you see fit. You must play at least one card each round--you might find your own story has an unfortunate ending if you do not.

At the end of each round, you will be granted enough new cards to get your hand back up to three.

Once per game, you may swap out your cards for an entirely new hand.

YOUR STORYTELLING

Now, don't get too bogged down with talk of cards and points. At its heart, this game is about creating a compelling narrative.

Every time you play a card, you must narrate how the event comes to pass, under the STORYTELLING heading below. And of course the story must be a coherent narrative--if during round one, your family's patriarch is ravaged by raccoons while in round two they are lost at sea, your creative narrative skills must explain how that character got from the raccoon enclosure to the deck of the pirate ship that they sadly do not know how to steer.

Use your imagination and have fun with it! I certainly will.

YOUR VICTORY

The game will end after the first round in which a unit writes one of their family members to a fatal end via an unfortunate death card.

At that point, all of the negative points from all events played will be tallied. All you need to do is be one of the units with the lowest score, and you will be victorious!

Of course, any tale worth telling is about the journey, not just the destination. Victory will also go to one team for constructing the most enthralling tale.

Edited 2020-06-12 04:13 (UTC)

Edited 2020-06-12 04:28 (UTC)

Starved in a storm
-20
Unfortunately, you DIDN'T leave the cake out in the rain.

Was galled by gangrene
-15
Who likes to lose a limb?

Was pestered by poltergeists
-20
They're baaaaack!

Was galled by gangrene
-15
Who likes to lose a limb?

Was menaced by mice
-15
Perhaps the elephants know something we don't.

Was betrayed by the butler
-25
Oh, like you're surprised.

Was trampled on a train
-20
All stops lead to a bloody death.

Was galled by gangrene
-15
Who likes to lose a limb?

Death: Was eaten by bears
Because bears have to eat, too.

You may swap out your hand: once

Starved in a storm -20
on Angel

Was pestered by poltergeists -20
on Cousin Mordecai

For many years now, Angel had been searching for true love. She never really thought she'd find it out in the country, but she tried anyway - after all, there were still many boys out there, so perhaps one of them would be the one.

It was not to be. Every single one of them let her down. Some were too uncultured, some were abusive, yet others simply bored her. And so, she killed each one, using her family's farm equipment.

It was all going fine for her, with no one suspecting that she might be a killer, but one day her deeds came back to haunt her in the most literal way possible. The ghosts of her numerous victims appeared, whispering in the night, moving furniture, writing disturbing messages on the walls. Each night the ghosts kept doing this, and there was nothing Angel could do to stop them.

For the first time in her life, she felt guilty for what she'd done.

The ghosts coming after Angel had another unseen consequence. The family, thinking at first that they were the victims of robbers or pranksters, started locking their doors. Of course, this would have normally been fine - it's what most people do anyway, after all. However, it meant that poor Cousin Mordecai was left out in the storm.

He'd always been an outsider in the family, a stepchild loved by no one. Whenever there was a chore no one wanted to do, it was hoisted on him. Most notably, he was the one tasked with going out to the woods to forage for berries and mushrooms whenever there was a bad harvest and food was scarce. As the woods were dark and pathless, and Mordecai was not particularly adept at finding his way through them despite his experience, he would often get lost and only find his way back home late in the night when everyone else was already asleep.

This was the case once again, but this time when he came home he found the doors locked. As no one had bothered to tell him about the reason why this had happened, and this time he had found no food, he assumed he was being punished. Perhaps he would be allowed back home if he went back to the woods and found something? And so he returned to the dark forest, even as a terrible storm broke out.

He kept on wandering the woods, lost and alone, hungry and hopeless, as the thunder rumbled all around him.