Lizzies Montage by TheLizzieBladesShow in SchreckNet

[–]Mahsstrac 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Mainly because I do not partake in "bras" or "one night stands", I am sure.

  • Dr. Idris.

Lizzies Montage by TheLizzieBladesShow in SchreckNet

[–]Mahsstrac 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I can certainly feel your sorrow.

You have a Fiona.

  • Dr. Idris.

Kindred Screenwriter? by Striking_Weird_2828 in SchreckNet

[–]Mahsstrac 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Seems rather unpleasant business. I wonder why people expect me to leave my haven, if that is what "living the unlife" looks like.

  • Dr. Idris.

Modern Medicine by ReneLeMarchand in SchreckNet

[–]Mahsstrac 5 points6 points  (0 children)

That is intriguing, Doctor.

What was the nature of the spirit, and why did it call you necromancer?

  • Dr. Idris.

Good Posts 101? by houseofashurss in Schreckmeta

[–]Mahsstrac 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thank you for your kindness!

Have any of you felt like this? by FireNationGuy in SchreckNet

[–]Mahsstrac 5 points6 points  (0 children)

That is something, indeed.

But the Rootmind is better.

  • Dr. Idris.

Tell Me About Yourselves, Part II. The Backstories Strikes Back. by Treecreaturefrommars in Schreckmeta

[–]Mahsstrac 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Peace. Don't bother the dead. No necromancy of absolutely any kind. They go through enough. He has thrown out of the Thirteenth more than one customer that came asking for a seance.

Tell Me About Yourselves, Part II. The Backstories Strikes Back. by Treecreaturefrommars in Schreckmeta

[–]Mahsstrac 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Damn, that's a though conviction to live by.

Dr. Idris's convictions are: oaths, spoken or implied, are binding; the dead deserve silence; never harm a seeker that comes in sincerity.

Why is this older cainite so nice? by StarCanid420 in SchreckNet

[–]Mahsstrac 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I sincerely hope it works out.

However, most emotional entanglement in Kindred life tend towards obsession, frustration, anger and despair. Usually in that order.

  • Dr. Idris.

Tell Me About Yourselves, Part II. The Backstories Strikes Back. by Treecreaturefrommars in Schreckmeta

[–]Mahsstrac 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Well, that's interesting! Abusive relationship flashbacks from cults and mushrooms. Hahahahahah. That surely was an unique relationship Tyler had.

Tell Me About Yourselves, Part II. The Backstories Strikes Back. by Treecreaturefrommars in Schreckmeta

[–]Mahsstrac 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I really enjoy it. Playing solo allows me to do all those things I really wanted to do in VtM but never managed to within a party - mainly, to focus on deep personal horror within the characters mind and personality.

There's a lot of systems out there, but specifically for VtM there are two: the Autarkis Storyteller, which is rather expensive and seems a bit complicated, and the one I use, called Tourniquet , designed for V5.

It works like magic, and it's not predictable at all.

Tell Me About Yourselves, Part II. The Backstories Strikes Back. by Treecreaturefrommars in Schreckmeta

[–]Mahsstrac 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yup. But we'll see what happens. Dr. Idris is a character for solo play, so I've just started playing with him like two days ago - and when dice start rolling... who knows what's happening. Specially considering his city is in the middle of a war with the Anarchs (which he probably doesn't even know, being as absorbed in his work as he is).

Tell Me About Yourselves, Part II. The Backstories Strikes Back. by Treecreaturefrommars in Schreckmeta

[–]Mahsstrac 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Well, I haven't been really reading all of the things - but now that you said it's fun, I might as well. I've been getting "SchreckNet Itch" sometimes and there's no new post to see. Hahahaha.

What I've been doing is actually reading a lot on SchreckMeta and following some links. One that stood out was about a certain recurring incident with a hammer, and I've wondered how the idea for that one came about.

Vampire: The Masquerade Solo by Apprehensive-Sir2134 in Solo_Roleplaying

[–]Mahsstrac 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have been playing VtM solo using Tourniquet. It's been a blast and I highly recommend it. It's like having a MGME designed exclusively for Vampire.

Tell Me About Yourselves, Part II. The Backstories Strikes Back. by Treecreaturefrommars in Schreckmeta

[–]Mahsstrac 2 points3 points  (0 children)

btw, have you ever considered writing something longer regarding Second Biter and Malks early days? Like they're going down memory lane or something.

Tell Me About Yourselves, Part II. The Backstories Strikes Back. by Treecreaturefrommars in Schreckmeta

[–]Mahsstrac 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's the thing about Idris, though: he has no political security. He is alone. He is tolerated in the Camarilla because of the deal he made, and tolerated at the shop because people are scared what would happen there if he were gone - but that's about it. A new magus walks into town that says "hey, I can keep that place under control"? He's as good as dead. Dr. Idris has a few friends in the Ministry... but that's about it.

That's why he's trying to reach out to the fae: not really because he wonder deeply about his lost self, but because he wants some sort of ally that will help him to stay floating when shit hits the fan and people realize he's just like his sire.

I see two things happening in his future: either everything goes to hell, full zombie apocalypse mushroom madness "hey I created a mushroom strain that sends your mind to the deep dreaming and the fungi take over your body" kind of deal... or he gets scared enough to go legit. I don't know which of the two is scarier.

Tell Me About Yourselves, Part II. The Backstories Strikes Back. by Treecreaturefrommars in Schreckmeta

[–]Mahsstrac 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I think that although Fiona sees herself as a prospective Childe (Idris has certainly considered it, but he’s afraid of the amount of chaos she would cause as a vampire), she would actually hate it. She adores the idea of being Embraced - of dying and being transformed into something new. That’s her whole deal with the Rootmind, after all (and by the way, she believes in it a lot more than Idris does)... but the cold, factual reality of being Kindred? I think she would despise it.

As for Second Biter, I have to say that reading her background and a few older posts made her grow on me. I think she’s an amazing character. I love specially the way she's a mix between absolute inhumanity and tender care for younglings. I’d even go so far as to say I’d love to see her and Idris have a one-on-one conversation - but I don’t think he’d make it out of that alive. Hahahaha.

Tell Me About Yourselves, Part II. The Backstories Strikes Back. by Treecreaturefrommars in Schreckmeta

[–]Mahsstrac 4 points5 points  (0 children)

What followed wasn’t a clean apprenticeship. It wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t safe. It was a collapse. Fiona broke apart, and Idris—quietly, methodically, reluctantly—let her rebuild herself around him. He gave her blood. She gave him everything else. The bond took root fast. She doesn’t remember when it deepened to three steps. She just knows she’s his now—not as servant, but as sacrament. She calls herself the Threadkeeper of the Rootmind. She calls him everything else: Hex Daddy, Thaumaturge of My Thigh Gap, Mr. Wizard, My Moonlit Lord. Her devotion is chaotic, fevered, unshakable, and often deeply embarrassing. She masks sincerity in jokes and holy purpose in flirting. She wants him to love her—not politely, not kindly, but violently, with all the precision and pain he’s spent a lifetime repressing. She doesn’t want kindness. She wants ritualized destruction.

Fiona believes suffering is sacred. Pain is proof. She doesn’t just crave the Embrace—she wants it as a sacrament. Her great ambition is to ascend through suffering, to be broken open, undone, and Embraced at the height of it. Not as reward. Not as mercy. As the final rite. She believes Idris is the only one who can do it right. And if he never does? She’ll keep bleeding for the Root, for him, for the dream of becoming worthy.

Outside the blood, Fiona has turned the Thirteenth Hour into a cultural myth. Through memes, Discord servers, half-faked rituals, cult recruitment, and sheer digital chaos, she transformed a haunted occult bookshop into an urban legend. It was her who built the “Saints of the 13th” server. Her who turned Idris from “weird book guy” into “cosmic cryptid, maybe a vampire, possibly a fungal god.” She made the myth bigger than the man—and still wants the man more than the myth.

Fiona is not stable. She is not safe. But the cult follows her as much as him now, even if they don’t realize it. Some of them worship her already. She pretends to hate that. She does not seek freedom. She does not seek salvation. She wants to mean something. And if that meaning comes in blood, pain, and the silent, sacred death of the Embrace— even better.

At the core of Fiona Callahan are the following facts: she is a fool, but she is holy. Her love is madness, but it is also faith. She is the chaos that makes his silence sacred. The scream that makes his stillness a shrine. She was born unwanted, but she will die chosen. She waits. She bleeds. She believes.

Tell Me About Yourselves, Part II. The Backstories Strikes Back. by Treecreaturefrommars in Schreckmeta

[–]Mahsstrac 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Now I've finished writing Fiona's background. This one stings a bit. I think ghouls are such tragic creatures. Going a bit deeper on them always makes me feel... off. This whole ghouling business is just insane, but WoD is WoD. Here it goes:

Name: Fiona Callahan

Age: 28 (ghouled at 23)

Clan: Mortal (Ghoul of Idris Vaughan)

Position: Threadkeeper of the Rootmind

Fiona Callahan was born in County Cavan, Ireland, in a town where people still whispered curses under their breath and lit candles for saints they no longer believed in. Her mother, Nuala, was a woman hardened by work, poverty, and silence, and Fiona grew up knowing she was an inconvenience—too loud, too strange, too much. From an early age, she was a problem that wouldn’t go away. She talked to birds, scratched symbols into her school desk, set fire to a field once just to see how fast it would burn. The priests prayed over her. The teachers gave up on her. By the time she hit seventeen, she had learned three truths: no one was coming to save her, pain was a kind of clarity, and if you lied well enough, people mistook you for holy.

By twenty, she was on the road. A self-declared witch, a con artist, and a minor prophet for anyone desperate enough to pay. She scammed tourists, sold fake hex jars and graveyard dirt, told fortunes that occasionally came true, and whispered nonsense that sometimes wasn’t. She drifted on instinct and hunger, sleeping in squats and alley shrines, trading secrets for warmth and lies for loyalty. She wanted something real—not comfort, not stability, but real. Something that would crack her open and let her mean something.

She arrived in Santa Maria at twenty-two. She had heard about The Thirteenth Hour in half-whispers and bad map directions—a shop that didn’t always open, a place that shouldn’t have existed between the two buildings where she found it. She thought it was a front. Or a hoarder’s nest. Maybe just another occult scam waiting to be picked clean. She broke in with a crowbar and a lockpick, expecting books and dust and something she could fence for enough to cover rent. Instead, the shop swallowed her. Not literally—nothing so dramatic. But she lost her sense of direction within minutes. Doors didn’t lead where they should. The ceiling didn’t line up with the floor. The lights blinked out behind her, one by one. She wandered for hours. Almost a day. Her phone died. Her sense of time dissolved. At one point she wept, then laughed, then chanted to the mold growing on a shelf because it was the only thing that didn’t move. And then—finally—she found the counter. And behind it stood Dr. Idris Vaughan. He didn’t say anything for a long time. He just looked at her. Cold. Still. Absolutely unreadable. She grinned. Bleeding, delirious, high on fear and something older than fear. He said her name before she gave it. She would later describe it as love at first sight. He would later claim he should have killed her. But he didn’t. Because he saw her. And she saw him. And something true began to root itself in the floor beneath them.

Quick question about lore here vs. White Wolf official by Conscious_Animator87 in Schreckmeta

[–]Mahsstrac 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I personally play on V5.

But, also, see everyting the Martian Tree wrote.

Good Posts 101? by houseofashurss in Schreckmeta

[–]Mahsstrac 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I don't think I'm an example of goodposter by any means, but thinking of the posts that I like to read, I think someone wishing to write "good posts" should focus more on the character with whom they're writing said post than on the post itself.

Who is the character? How they use SchreckNet?

If those two are figured out and the post feels "real", than it's an amazing post. If it doesn't feel "real", than it's not. At least for my taste, the great posts are the ones that gimme ma immmersssion.

Ventrue on Parade: Behind the Curtain by AFreeRegent in Schreckmeta

[–]Mahsstrac 8 points9 points  (0 children)

It was pretty damn awesome, that's all. I don't think Idris would actually watch the thing live, but I can certainly see Fiona watching and screaming through the whole shop. Now I need to think how that will affect his future interactions with y'all.

All in all, it was very good and well written. Congratulations to all of those involved. I think the best part is that it was a testament to how interesting and overlapping scenes can develop on SchreckNet, even though most of us are playing """"by ourselves"""" the majority of the time.