Second part of The Bleed Trilogy ready for a run

[cranebump]

Yes...there will be weird cameos. Like this one.

 

Test Notes:

• Tested with a L41  Staff/ninj scrapper (an Acrobattle alt, with very few IOs), a L50 Incarnate AR/TA Blaster (KR Devil), and a L30 Elec/Nrgy blaster (Whipsmart, the one above, who is a slow-play Long Rider toon, and so would be considered "underpowered").  All of them handled things fine (makes sense, since this arc doesn't feature a ton of EB's and the like).

 

Design Notes:

• Still using IP folks: Cheng, Aurora Scott. Also dropped in an off-screen cameo from another well-known IP stalwart. And did some more development of Bocor.
• Features history of something of a precursor to the Midnighters (though I think of my own group as kind of Turn-of-the-century Supernatural).
• Title may not be linguistically accurate (Google translate). Apologies, if that is the case (same for the German speaking NPCs later in the arc).
• I claim no real accuracy in my depiction of Loa spirits. I'm bending them to the fiction. I can do that, 'cuz writing. You know...like how Littlefinger could seemingly teleport all over Westeros:-)
• Still experimenting with window dressing. It all seemed to work. ON THAT: If the behavior of the various "Spectral Tears/Fissures/Portals" seems random and weird, I refer you to the in-arc description of the spirits using them (which is referred to as capricious more than once). Ditto for the Possessed who may sometimes shoot other Possessed, likely because they're not quite possessed, or they're possessed by a douche bag spirit that likes to shoot other spirits. That's my rationalization for all that, anyway.:-) [but really, alignments and placements sometimes work in strange ways].
• The backstory info that is dropped in through the various mishes is also delivered in one chunk in an End Mission Clue after the finale. I don't think the basic story is super confusing, but better safe than completely confused. Or partially. Hell, sometimes I forget what I'm trying to say. (...okay where were we?)
• Arc title is cribbed from Ray Bradbury collection of stories in his "fix-up" novel of the same name (From the Dust Returned). Novel features a family of ghosts and monsters called The Elliots. Mission titles are either directly quoted, or paraphrased from this excerpt: And what are you, or we, or us?  Can it be named?  Is there a shape?  What ambience is there?  Are we kin to autumn rains?  Do we rise in mists from wetland moors?  Do twilight fogs seem similar?  Do we prowl or run or lope?  Are we shadows on a ruined wall?  Are we dusts shaken in sneezes from angel tombstones with broken wings?  Do we hover or fly or writhe in October ectoplasms?  Are we footsteps heard to waken us and bump our skulls on nailed-shut lids? 

 

Feedback and Comments welcome!

 

Thanks in advance,

Crane

Edited February 7, 2022 by cranebump