BETRAYAL AT THE HOUSE ON THE GAME TOWER - SESSION 1

[opening_act]

Who: Exael and the rest of you lot
When: To be inserted into the timeline after completion
Where: Betrayal at the House on the Game Tower

[ The GAME ALERT and map show on the screen of your phones— idols, you know what to do!

The Game Tower elevator doors are open to receive, and close once they have you in their confines and the broadcast monitors click on. You can keep an eye on the city further and further below you, as watch with your host's introduction to today's game.

At the very least it's not Mukuro's face on the screen this time. Instead it's Exael again, pigtails bouncing as she hops up from a grand low bow— it looks like they cut part of her broadcast spiel for you guys. With a showman's flair, she twirls and splays her arms as the camera zooms out to focus on a grand mansion, more Hollywood glamor than anything belonging in Tokyo.

"Summer has come to Tokyo, and so has the season's specialty: The Trial of Courage! Step right up, and charge right in because waiting won't help you at all! Here is a place even angels fear to tread! Azzy's very own, The House of Mirth and Betrayal! This place has a sordid past that casts a shadow as long as the valley of death, and soon our Idols will be adding their own pages to the tale!"

The elevator stops atop the central tower of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building and then lurches unpleasantly, wrenching itself out of where elevators ought to go. The sudden movement jolts you, and when the doors open you spill out into into a room.

Hopefully, with not too much time missing. ]

Comments

INSTRUCTIONS

[opening_act]

IC INSTRUCTIONS:

[ Still have your minds? Try to hold onto those, as long as you can! As long as you're safe and sane, the goal is to explore as many rooms of the house as you can-- first come, first serve! Only the first person to explore a room gets the points for it.

If you lose your mind, you'll turn traitor to those around you, and you won't be able to help but try to do what the house wants you to do. With the house pushing upon you, both physical and mental distress are a danger to your sanity. Take care.

And take heart, too, even if you do turn traitor! It's another goal, and if you're doing badly at the other, this is a way to win! You haven't lost it all yet! Especially since the traitor goals are worth more points with the audience. ]

OOC Instructions:

Each team will have their traitor goal provided in a locked post of their starting room. Do not share your goal OOC, though do pay attention to other players' Do Not Wants when violence does occur.

Each room will be described with one paragraph of flavor text, which you can use to interact with each other but does not mechanically do anything or have dice rolls. Following the flavor text, the exits/entrances to the room will be listed, with one additional paragraph listing any other effects the room may have attached. Interacting with specific aspects listed after the entrances may give you stat bonuses, or stat detriments. Be aware of that! Flavor text from the first paragraph has no stat stuff attached.

Ping the runner the first time you enter a room, so we can get the description up for you.

The first time a room is entered, the first post will be descriptive. The second comment beneath that will be an event/item, unless the room does not have one attached, which would be noted in the first comment. Please wait for the second comment before responding to top-levels if you are the first person in a room.

If you are not the first person to go through a room, you can just comment beneath the top-level, there will not be another event/item for it.

Make rolls in the Discord roll channel as necessary. Rolls are made with 3 sided dice, minus the number of dice you're rolling, so zero is possible. Use the command .roll Xd3-X in the #dicebot channel on Discord, with X being the number of dice you're rolling.

If your character loses all of one stat, they lose the battle of the wills to the House. All their personal morals and concerns are overridden. If it helps, think of it as being possessed by a vengeful spirit. Those who have turned traitor do not get points for exploring rooms. The possessed do not need to reveal their status OOC to other players, as many Traitor goals need to be performed in certain areas-- it is up to player preference if you are going to overpower another PC and drag them there, or trick them to going somewhere with you. All traitor characters know the whole map. The insanity effect is temporary, and lasts only as long as the game does. Characters turn traitor on an individual basis; if a character hits a sanity break, it will not also impact their unitmates.

Stat sheet changes and traitor status both carry over into a new session. If your character ended a session with +2 might and -1 speed from their starting positions, they will start their next session with +2 might and -1 speed from their starting positions. If they turn traitor, they will remain a traitor until endgame.

Any team that completes a traitor goal is automatically a winner. If less than half the units complete their traitor goals, then the remaining winning units will be those who explored the most rooms.

SESSION 1 LINKS

[opening_act]

Stat cards reference reference sheet
This session's stat card page - PLEASE DO THIS FIRST BEFORE YOU START PLAYING.
This session's map - to be updated as rooms are unlocked.

UNIT ROOMS

[opening_act]

sensitIV
Taisho Roman Revolution
BAD END=DEAD END
future is now
WILD CITY
☆ZRAEL
Heart Soldier Senshi
AlcheME!
avante en garde

CHARRED ROOM

[opening_act]

[ You enter the Charred Room. It's near-impossible to tell what this room was before— the furniture had all been gathered to a bonfire pile in the center of the room, and it smells strongly of kerosene. There's a recognizable table-leg, a twisted metal lamp ruined by the blaze, melted plastic that once belonged to something electronic— a speaker system, you think. Somehow, the speakers still work, a low bass beat reverberating through the room and it still will not stop. Static cuts through every now and then, with voices you can almost recognize.

There are entrances to the North, East, and South. ]

MISTS FROM THE WALLS

[opening_act]

[ Mists pour out from the walls. There are faces in the mist, human and. . . inhuman.

Each character in the basement must attempt a sanity roll:
4+ The faces are tricks of light and shadow. All is well.
1-3: Take 1 die of mental damage (and 1 additional die of damage if in the Underground Lake, the Crypt, or the Vault)
0: Take 1 die of mental damage (and 2 additional dice of damage if in the Underground Lake, the Crypt, or the Vault) ]

CHASM

[idolpro]

[ You enter the Chasm. As if an earthquake ran through the mansion years and years ago, the earth splits in two, pushed apart completely - if you want to cross, you'll have to jump. You could not cross, of course, but that means turning back and trying another way . . . If there is another way to go . . . !? Peeking over this cliff yields to seeing - nothing but darkness. That's really bad. Don't fall in-- who knows how deep in the Game Tower this goes.

You can go West or East. If you choose to go the direction you came from, you can leave freely; however, if you choose to go in the direction you were initially headed to, then you must roll for 3+ speed. If you fail, you will be able to get to the other side of the chasm, but you will lose 1 speed. ]

CREEPY CRAWLIES - EVENT

[idolpro]

A thousand bugs spill out on your skin, under your clohtes, and in your hair.

You must attempt a sanity roll:
5+: You blink and they're gone. Gain 1 sanity.
1-4: Lose 1 sanity
0: Lose 2 sanity.

FURNACE ROOM

[idolpro]

[ You enter the Furnace Room. Despite the rest of the mansion being rather lifeless, this room is still active, fires burning in the furnace so powerfully it's hard to believe it could possibly be tamed to be used for man's devices; the fires themselves seem to agree, since the flames keep shooting out of the furnace to spit out stray bits of soot and ash - it's not terribly harmful, but anything that hot is still going to burn. If this is your character's first time in this room for this session, take 1 point of physical damage.

You can hurry in two directions: South, or East. ]

HIDEOUS SHRIEK

[idolpro]

It starts like a whisper, but ends in a soul-rending shriek.

Attempt a Sanity roll:
4+: You resist the sound.
1-3: Take 1 die of mental damage.
0: Take 2 dice of mental damage.

GARDENS

[idolpro]

[ You enter the Gardens. Wrought-iron gates divide it from the edge of the skyscraper, imposing points silhouetted against the dark sky, lit from beneath by motion activated lights in the soil that glow as you walk past them— announcing your presence to everyone out here. An apple tree dominates the center of the garden, roots buckling the paths and littering its fruit— all perfect, unblemished where it has fallen, all throughout the garden. Small sprouts spike from the ground, pale and strangled imitations of the central tree, none of them thriving.

There are two entrances: one to the east and one to the west. ]

A Little Party Never Killed Nobody

[idolpro]

A woman wearing a flapper dress beckons to you, a highball glass in hand. You fall into a trance.

You must attempt a Knowledge roll. If the results is 5 or more you break out of the trance and gain 1 Knowledge, otherwise roll 3 dice to see where the Lose one leads you:
6: The entrance hall
4-5: The upper landing
2-3: Randomized room on an upper floor room
0-1: Randomized room in the basement.
Your character comes out of the trance with a bottle of booze held tight in one hand.

UNDERGROUND LAKE

[idolpro]

[ You enter the Underground Lake. Aren't you supposed to be in the Game Tower? What on earth is this lake doing here!? It looks like a slice of the ocean, trapped and with a deep pulling tide. You could be irresponsible and take a swim, and check where the current would drag you out to but that's certainly not the wise thing to do. There's a shovel nearby.

You can go West or North. ]

GRAVEDIRT

[idolpro]

This room is covered in a thick layer of dirt. You cough as it gets on your skin, and in your lungs.

You must attempt a Might roll:
4+ You shake it off. Gain 1 might.
0-3: Something is wrong. Keep this effect. Take 1 point of physical damage each time you change rooms. Discard this card if an item card increases one of your traits, or if you find the Balcony, Gardens, Graveyard, Gynamsium, Larder, Patio, or Tower.

LIBRARY

[idolpro]

[ You enter the Library. Shelves form labyrinth corridors of books, between which are heaped precarious piles of paperbacks. Leather wing-back chairs provide privacy around the crackling fireplace at the back— if someone was sitting in one, you'd never be able to tell until you circled the full way around to the front to see. Expensive looking paintings line the walls, and you'd expect the shelves to be laden with rare editions. However, there's hardly any hardbacks at all, most everything is cheap spy novels and erotica. No accounting for taste, really.

There are entrances to the West and South.

There is one library shelf set apart from the others— a display case with a glass front and a thick book bound with tattooed hide inside. Cracks radiate outward, where it seems like someone smashed their fist through the glass to gain access. Do you want to read it? ]

CLOSET DOOR

[idolpro]

That closet door is open . . . just a crack. There must be something inside.

The Closet is now established to be in this room for all further rounds.
Once during a character's turn, that character can roll 2 dice to open the Closet:
4: Draw an item card
2-3: Draw an event card.
0-1: Draw an event card and remove the Closet token.

BLOODY ROOM

[idolpro]

[ You enter the Bloody Room. How . . . how appropriately named. It looks like it used to be someone's bedroom - a child's, perhaps, from how the walls have bright colors and animal print, although the colors have long since faded and the animal print is peeling. Now it looks creepy with all of the blood - and there is a lot. Did a murder happen here? Did two? Three? No matter the number, it seems like it's not enough to explain the numerous bloody handprints that claw up all four walls, reaching even the ceiling, and after a certain point below it seems like the whole room was flooded with blood, matching mid-waist on average. That's really concerning!

Aside from . . . all the blood, there is a twin sized bed - the mystery, really, is how this bed ended up not being so bloody; although there are stains against the wood that indicate handprints, the sheets themselves are mostly clean and white except for one handprint on the corner. It's also entirely too big for a child, sized for an adult; across it, there is a vanity and several full-length mirrors aligned to allow someone to look at themself in every angle. Sitting on the vanity is a white veil, flowery and sheer; hanging on one of the mirrors is one near-perfectly intact bridal dress, completely in white - except for the bloody handprint square against the chest.

There is only one entrance and exit: the Furnace to the West. ]

Lucky Stone

[idolpro]

A smooth, ordinary-looking rock. You sense it will bring you good fortune.

"After you attempt a roll of any kind, you can rub the stone once to reroll any number of those dice.
Discard this item after you use it."

BEDROOM

[idolpro]

[ You enter the Bedroom. The decor reeks of sleaze— black floors polished to a mirror shine reflect you from below, the walls leather panelled, set with studs and mounted with sturdy rings. Leather straps and braided cord hangs from the coat hanger, and the bed is rumpled, unmade. An ornate side-table is topped off with expensive bottles of booze, more half-emptied than full. A dresser drawer is open, everything inside looking to be made entirely of black lace.

The only entrance to this room is to the west. It's a dead-end. ]

Burning Man

[idolpro]

A man on fire runs through the room. His skin bubbles and cracks, falling away from him and leaving a fiery skull that clatters to the ground, bounces, rolls, and disappears.

"You must attempt a sanity Roll:
4+ You feel a little hot under the collar, but otherwise fine. Gain 1 Sanity.
2-3: Out, out, you must get out. You run straight back to your starting room, without pause.
0-1: You burst into flames! Take 1 die of physical damage. Then take 1 die of mental damage as you put out the flames."

PATIO

[idolpro]

[ You enter the Patio. It stretches between the house and the gardens, an interstice between the two lit by the bright flicker of flames. What should be comfortable sunken seating area has a fire crackling in the firepit. It is made less comfortable by the stagnant pool that's formed at the bottom, at least three inches deep and smelling of a noxious mixture of booze, blood and motor oil. Besides it, there's a cooler of booze with bloody fingerprints on the latch sitting open, ice melting away in the summer night.

You can enter the house (east), or continue to the gardens (west). ]

Hanged Men

[idolpro]

A breeze chills the room. Before you three men hang from grayed ropes. They stare at you with cold, dead eyes. The trio swing silently, then fade into dust that falls to the ground. You start to choke.

"You must attempt a roll for each trait:
2+: that Trait is unaffected
0-1: Lose 1 from that trait
If you roll a 2+ on all 4 rolls, gain 1 additional point in a trait of your choice."

Basement Landing

[idolpro]

[ You enter the Basement Landing. Aside from piles and piles of coal here in this room, there's not really much else . . . It's really just coal, soot and dust coating everything. Your footprints leave dark tracks as you walk through it, on ground in ashes. What on earth are they burning down here, to need this much coal? How large must the furnace be?

You may go North, East, South, or West. However, you may not climb up the Coal Chute.

There are no menaces or advantages in this room ]

Re: Basement Landing

[bevoted]

[ sadly he has not lost enough sanity to try climbing up the coal chute yet.

heading west. ]

Servant's Quarters

[idolpro]

[ You enter the Servant's Quarters. Beds are crammed in close together, stacked in two-tall bunks set into cabinets-- capsule hotel-like. The spaces between rows are narrow and hard to navigate, labyrinthine with corners that are designed so you can't see who's coming around the next hall. It affords privacy, at those cost of peace of mind-- you can hear footsteps but now know how close they are, you know surely there must be an exit close but be unable to find it easily through the maze.

You may go North, East, South, or West. ]

DEBRIS

[idolpro]

Plaster falls from the walls and ceiling.

"You must attempt a Speed roll:
3+ You dodge the plaster. Gain 1 Speed
1-2: You're buried in debris. Take 1 die of physical damage.
0 You're burried in debris. Take 2 die of physical damage
Burried characters can either get someone else to try and free them (4+ for a success) or free themselves, at the cost of 2 might."

BALLROOM

[idolpro]

[ You enter the Ballroom. In the center lies a marble slab dance floor meant for many bodies -- perhaps literally. Crime-scene outlines are traced in tape across the dance floor. Above, the avante garde scrap metal chandelier glimmers like knives, and the ballroom speakers pump a low thrum of bass into the room like a heartbeat you can feel in your ears, throat, and all through you.

There are entrances to the West, North, and East. ]

The Image in the Mirror

[idolpro]

"There is an old mirror in this room. Your frightened reflection moves on its own. You realize it is you from another time. You need to help your reflection, so you write on the mirror: THIS WILL HELP
You then hand an item through the mirror."

"If you don't have any item card, this event affects the nearest explorer with an item card.

Choose one of your item cards, and discard. Gain 1 Knowledge."

ENTRANCE HALL

[idolpro]

[ You enter the Entrance Hall. High ceilings, marble floor, red carpet, imposing chandelier dripping black matte crystals and columns inscribed with strange glyphs lit with bright red LEDs that hurt your eyes to look at directly— it's the tackiest intersection between lifestyles of the rich and famous and haunted house you've ever seen.

There are entrances to the North, East, and West. To the South lies the front door— and a sheer drop off the skyscraper. Probably don't go that way.

The room itself offers no particular dangers or advantages. ]

Re: ENTRANCE HALL

[grandschemed]

[ stopping here, panting hard ]

I'm already done ... with this shit.

ORGAN ROOM

[idolpro]

[ You enter the Organ Room. The eponymous pipe organ unfurls against two walls, a grand parabola of pipes and excess. It squats just short of scraping the ceiling, golden devils adorning the alcoves of the thing, standing proudly atop pipes with spears held aloft and scaling the sides with spears held in their teeth. A mural of defeated angels adorns the floor, with there little choice but to trod on their defeated number to cross the room, so numerous are their painted numbers.

There is an entrance to the south, and to the west. ]

Skeletons

[idolpro]

Mother and child, still embracing.

"Put the Skeletons token in this room. Take 1 die of mental damage.
Each character can attempt a sanity roll once, to search the Skeletons:
5+ Draw an item card. Remove the Skeletons from the room.
0-4: You dig around, but find nothing. Take 1 die of mental damage."

DINING ROOM

[opening_act]

[ You enter the Dining Room. A wall of incandescent lights burn against one wall, the other three nothing but mirrors set into steel frames like windows— all of them opening to reveal booze behind them. There's no banquet table, but smaller tables and champagne cube, each with leather chairs with leather cuffs and chains at the feet and wrists clustered around in groups of three to five. Red curtains drop down from the ceiling, ready to be pulled around to create a small intimate private setting. None of the tables are laid with food— at least, not much of it. This one has a spread that's more than half rocks and jewelry, a few pieces of chocolate scattered throughout, this one has a chunk of raw meat, three slices carefully carved, then the main mass stabbed through with nine knives and two forks.

There are two entrances, one to the North and one to the West. ]

Phone Call

[idolpro]

A phone rings in the room. You feel compelled to answer it.

"Roll 2 dice. A sweet little granny voice says:
4: ""Tea and cakes! Tea and Cakes! You were always my favorite!"" Gain 1 Sanity.
3: ""I'm always here for you, Pattycakes. watching..."" Gain 1 knowledge.
1-2: ""I'm here, Sweetums! Give us a kiss!"" Take 1 die of mental damage.
0 ""Bad little children must be punished"" Take 2 dice of physical damage."

Creaky Hallway

[idolpro]

[ You enter the Creaky Hallway. The door behind you squeaks so loud when you close it, and the floorboards protest beneath your weight. You would surely hear if someone were to approach you here.

The room is a cross-shaped intersection, doors in each of the cardinal directions.

The room itself offers no particular dangers or advantages. ]

Re: Creaky Hallway

[grandschemed]

[ geez that's loud, kind of peering his head to try and check out the other directions but it's not like he can see much ]

Any particular preference?

Coal Chute

[idolpro]

[ You enter the Coal Chute. It's a coal chute. You know what those are? It's just like, a slide from a higher floor to a lower floor. So.

You're sliding down the chute as a brief but exciting ride down to the bottomless pits of hell - or, uh, the end of this chute.

You exit the Coal Chute, now blackened with soot and ash. ]

Chapel

[idolpro]

[ You enter the Chapel. Dazzling chandeliers hang from the high ceilings, the rows of pews draped with gold-embroidered cloth; the candle holders look as if they could go on the market for hundreds of dollars. Such decadence for a place of God.

At the front of the Chapel's hall there is an altar with wilted flowers on the corner of either side that crumble into fine dust if touched. A holy book sits in the center of the altar - it's hard to read, but there's something that can barely be read: "...God did not spare angels ... but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment…"


There is only one entrance, and consequently, one exit: to the East, back to the Organ Room.

There's a confessional in here, in the far corner. Confess? Each character can do this once per game. ]

SECRET STAIRS

[idolpro]

A horrible creaking sound echoes around you. You've discovered a secret stairwell.

The Secret Stairs connect the room discovered to the nearest room on the map on another floor. If the character decides to follow the stairs, they recieve another event card in the new connecting room.

VAULT

[idolpro]

[ You enter the Vault. A blockade of reflective steel rises to meet you, stretching to the ceiling and blocking off all future progress. Set into this is a large circular bank vault, riddled with indents that look like they're from bullets-- that did not prevail. They sunk in or ricocheted, but the vault looks none the weakened for all that. Nearby there is a numerical keypad and fingerprint lock.

There is only one entrance, to the West.

Once per person, you may try to enter in a passcode and put your finger on the lock. ]

Revolving Wall

[idolpro]

The wall spins to another place

On a wall lacking an exit, the wall switch connects this room to another room it was not previously connected to. A character in either room can attempt a knowledge roll to use the Wall Switch.

3+ The character finds the hidden switch and goes through.
0-2: That explorer can't find the hidden switch and can't go through."

STOREROOM

[idolpro]

[ You enter the Storeroom - although for a storeroom, it's surprisingly barren. Inside are three tall metal shelves in a row, some rolled-up rugs shoved up against one wall, an extra champagne cube with one ottoman missing, and really not much else. It might have been emptied out for the latest party, or else maybe the people in this house just left all their shit strewn around whatever room it happened to end up in and barely used this place because of it.

There is only one entrance, to the South. ]

Revolver

[idolpro]

WEAPON: An old potent-looking weapon.

"You can use the Revolver to attack with speed instead of Might. (Opponents also defend with speed, and take physical damage)
Roll 1 additional die on your speed attack roll (max 8 dice)
With the revolver, you can attack anyone in the same room or through line of sight: through an uninterrupted straight line of doors. If you attack someone in another room and lose, you don't take damage.
You can't use another weapon while you're using this one."

RESEARCH LAB

[idolpro]

[ You enter the Research Laboratory. The rest of the place is party, party, party but the laboratory is stark white: business. It almost glows off through sheer force of cleanliness alone, never mind the dim lighting. The only color comes from dye stains on sample slides and petri-dishes, little medical caps in orange prescription bottles. The labels are. . . not helpful. "Toxoplasma abomination bullshit", "Belhor's, do not return under any circumstances", "massive sleep dep in a bottle", and "ingest if feeling lucky". Probably don't take any.

The only way out is a door to the South, other than the secret stairs to the chapel just recently discovered. ]

Webs

[idolpro]

Casually you reach up to brush some webs aside... but they won't brush away. They cling.

"You must attempt a might roll:
4+ You break free. Gain 1 might.
0-3: You're stuck.
Stuck characters can either get someone else to try and free them (4+ for a success) or free themselves, at the cost of 2 speed."

Catacombs

[idolpro]

[ You enter the catacombs. It is what it is: a massive underground graveyard, and a mass graveyard. Both! There are several offshoots that presumably lead to coffins, tight niches in the wall like drawers meant to shut away human corpses; but far more distracting is the wall of skulls directly in front of you. Countless skulls, all human in various stages of fossilization, some of them broken or cracked or split completely in half while others are intact, but regardless . . . . it's creepy. It's too creepy. Are the skulls following your gaze? No way. . . . there's no way. Skulls don't have eyes in those empty sockets. Just remember, there's no way.

You can go North or South. If you choose to go the direction you came from, you can leave freely; however, if you choose to go in the direction you were initially headed to, then you must roll for 6+ sanity. If you fail, you lose 1 point of sanity to the overwhelming creepiness of the catacombs, and the general spooky vibe to the entire place. ]

Whoops!

[idolpro]

You feel a body under your foot. Before you can leap away from it, you're knocked over. A giggling voice runs away from you.

Assign numbers to all your items, and roll a die to find which will be affected, and discard the chosen item.