OOC: Delilah Rolls Strength + Brawl minus 5 with the following results:

0 Successes: Shawn artfully moves out of the way, dodging Delilah completely

1 Success: Delilah shoves Shawn and he takes a step backwards (no damage)

2+ Successes: Delilah shoves Shawn and he falls on his butt (no damage)

Is that minus 6 for being unskilled in Brawl?

Yes. It should be. Let's do it like that for this roll. However, I have to 're-look' the Innocents rules for defense after this roll. Expect a future ruling in the OOC. Proceed as outlined for the remainder of the current thread, that would be -6
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:04, Fri 23 Mar 2018.

19:33, Today: Delilah Gray rolled 1 success using 1d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD, Clan Weakness system with a target of 8 ((9)).

That's a Fail. I meant to click Chance Die.

Delilah snorted and shoved her arms out and met with empty air.

Shawn managed to step to the side out of the way of Delilah; his evasion was more of a surprise to him than it was to her! "You just don't want me to warn Penny about the real monsters!"

"You're the real monster!"

"I'm not the one who pushes people!"

"You're the one who lies! You're the one who's a phony! And you'll sell everybody out and leave 'em flat when the monsters come!"

Delilah was red-faced. Her fists were balled up, tight and quaking. She wiped her nose with the back of one hand, but she didn't take her eyes off her target.

"I'm trying to warn you about the monsters, Delilah." Shawn also seemed upset - though not nearly as much as Delilah was. And when he met her gaze, there was a moment of sincerity in his eyes, like he really was trying to warn her.

"Oh yeah? Try harder. Maybe it will make up for all the times you never tried."

Delilah's words were venom.

Shawn rolled his eyes at the comment, dismissing Delilah's venom. Instead, he turned toward Penny and the others. "He's called the Gristler. He used to be a vice principal at our school a long time ago. He was cruel - he punished kids for every bad thing they did, even the stuff that was an accident, or didn't really hurt anybody." It had been a while since Shawn had done a monologue, but he was finding it was a lot like riding a bike.

"One day, he hit a kid with his belt so hard that the buckle broke, and the pieces of it messed up his eyes! The children thought they were safe, because now the Gristler couldn't see them do bad stuff, so he couldn't punish them. But they were wrong..." He lowered his voice a little here, so the other kids would have to come closer to listen. "He hated kids so much that he sold his soul to the Devil. He asked for the power to sniff out the bad deeds a kid does, and big grindy teeth so he can chew them up into paste! And his wish was granted."

"The Gristler ate up a dozen kids before he realised how the Devil tricked him! He could only sniff out the bad things that kids do! If a kid wrote down the bad things he did on a piece of paper, the Gristler couldn't tell the difference between the paper and the kid. And from then on, kids in this neighbourhood knew that if the Gristler was in town, you have to write down a bad thing you did and leave it on your windowsill. And if you wake up in the morning and it's gone, you know that's why you didn't get eaten."

"And how do you know all this? How do I know you're not working for it again? Or maybe The Gristler is really just you."
This message was last edited by the player at 00:23, Sat 24 Mar 2018.

"The Gristler...." Bobby repeated, mouth wide open, eyes wide with fascination and horror at the same time.

Shawn knew that Ralph had been through 'the works' as Dad might have said. But the fat chubby kid was still just that: a kid. And although Ralph had more experience in the kinds of things that kept Shawn and other kids up at night, he still was quite young.

"Does....does that...mm..mmm..mmmm..mean we have to write down......bbbb.....bbbb...bad things that we do?" Ralph asked, with the voice of someone who was willing to do something hard and difficult, even though it might scare him.

"I dunno." Penny replied, sounding first as if she was responding to Ralph. And then, it became clear that she wasn't entirely convinced of Shawn's story, perhaps taking Delilah's side, or perhaps not.

"That's a pretty crazy story.  Hee--hawwww!" She snorted with laughter. But it was a nervous laughter. The kind of laughter someone makes when they don't know how else to respond.

"Well...how do we know what bad things count? I mean, I'm not gonna do something bad and risk getting in trouble if it doesn't count. Before we moved, my parents got so mad at me one night, that I got in trouble twenty-one times in a row. During the same night." Penelope explained, not explaining what it 'meant' to get in trouble, or what she did to warrant her parents' displeasure.

"Just stop fighting, OK?" Tiffany pleaded with Delilah and Shawn. "We're not breaking or doing anything bad. It's just a story." Tiffany said, voice filled with confidence like she had taken control. But the impact was spoiled by the fact that she was younger than Shawn and Delilah.

Plus, Delilah had already seen Tiffany cry in front of her.

"I don't know what stuff really counts as bad. I guessed it was anything that my parents might yell at me for." Shawn looked at Penny, seeing that she seemed to be wavering. He tried to convey sincerity and certainty, leaving no room for Penny to think Shawn might be joking. "What I do, is I write it down, fold it up, open the window, and then close it on the paper so there's just a little bit sticking out outside. I did that once, when I broke a glass and cleaned it up before my Mom noticed, and it was gone the next morning."

Penelope moved her head from one side to the other, fluffy blonde hair thrashing this way and that as she tried to decide if Delilah's point of view was valid or if it was Shawn that was telling the truth.

"He's telling the truth." She said finally.

"WHAT!!??" Tiffany said, outraged. "I thought we were just talking about a story. Nothing about leaving a note in a window, or having a monster eat the bad things that you do makes any sense at all. The whole thing seems like some kind of bad fairy tale. It isn't scary at all, it's just dumb."

"What makes you think that he's warning us about monsters? How do you know he just isn't scared because he watched a story on TV or read a bad comic book." Tiffany was indirectly making accusations at Shawn now, though she was addressing everything at Penelope.

"What possible reason is logical for any of that?"

Penelope shrugged. "He's good looking."

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!" Tiffany yelled at Penelope.

"Hee-hawwww!!" Penelope laughed. "Look at you, you're all mad!" She slapped her thighs with both hands doubling over with laughter before she regained her composure

Shawn nodded earnestly at Penny, not openly questioning her reasons even if he did find them really silly. He'd been told that he was good looking before - by casting agents and other actors and the people who did his makeup. But they weren't usually this...open about it. "I mean, maybe it's just a story, but my note didn't disappear on its own, did it?"

"Tiffany's right. It is stupid. Just as retarded as Shawn's face."

She turned back to Shawn. "It didn't disappear because it never happened. It's all garbage. Just like you. Go away! And take your monster with you!"

Chubby Ralph was just coming to his senses, sweat dripping down his face from the long run over to join the group. But when he heard Delilah say that to Shawn, the young kid straightened up his posture.

"Y...y.....you're garbage!" He yelled at Delilah, jabbing the air with one thick finger, spit flecking from his mouth. "It's true. A...a...a..a..all of it." He stammered.

He glanced over at Shawn with a look that suggested that Ralph was about to go much further than Shawn had in his explanation of the supernatural.

"You...y...y..y...y...ou...you know that...there's evil Clowns and..and..and..and a Circus! And the..the..the..the Master Maker! And..and..and..and Hogwash Carnie! And..And..and..Malinda! The m...m...m..m..monster just works or the Order and the Circus" He stammered, stuttering the whole time during his explanation and his defense of Shawn.

"Shawn's telling the..the..the...tr..tr..truth!" He proclaimed.