The Moon (linears)

Every quarter-moon (which in this setting always exactly lines up with Saturday), the veils between worlds get thin, and major problems happen.

You are a community of supernatural creatures, affiliated with the Cambridge Lunatic Society (CLS), who have agreed with each other to go out and fix them.

The current moon phase will be the icon for the Discord server. Remember: holding a stick up against the half-moon, “b” for birth is rising and “d” for death is falling.

After game start, the moon will start slipping between phases unpredictably each week. This is extremely worrying and possibly a sign of the end times.

The rising moon, full moon, falling moon, and dark moon each cause their own problems, and the Cambridge Lunatic Society knows the general gist pretty well by now:

Rising Moon

The rising moon is associated with Vampires - IC, Vampire characters will be expected to take the lead on putting together a linear party for this type of linear.

At the rising moon, the dead sometimes climb out of the ground and must be put back to rest before the human world notices.

This can be done temporarily via violence, but to fix it more permanently CLS talks to them and sorts out the unfinished business anchoring them to this world.

Rising moon linears will be medium combat with feelings and mystery plot.

It will be possible to opt for a lower-combat or non-combat option on rising moon in-person linears by carrying bells. The risen dead are scared of bells. If you are ringing one bell in one hand, they will not attack you unprovoked, although they will retaliate. If you are ringing two bells in two hands, they will flee from you, and you can use this to herd them around to help other party members.

Full Moon

The rising moon is associated with Shifters - IC, Shifter characters will be expected to take the lead on putting together a linear party for this type of linear.

The full moon calls shifters to their destiny. For some groups of shifters, this is carrying out grand plans that would lead to huge issues if not stopped. CLS monitors suspicious activity, and goes out to thwart the plans of any shifter groups looking to threaten valuable things about Cambridge.

Full Moon linears will be medium combat with grandstanding and heist plot.

Falling Moon

The rising moon is associated with Changelings - IC, Changeling characters will be expected to take the lead on putting together a linear party for this type of linear.

When the moon wanes, portals to the fae world open, and the faeries like to steal humans away through them. At the falling moon, CLS looks through the missing persons’ reports, and organises an expedition through a portal to the fae world to barter for their safe return.

Falling moon linears will be lower combat, with puzzles and performance and fae negotiation and trickery. However, it is possible to put your own soul on the line as a negotiating chip, and they can be very very risky if you do that.

Dark Moon

Most people at Cambridge Lunatic Society hate the dark moon.

At the dark moon, the infinite maw of darkness between worlds seeps through the cracks in the veil into monstrous forms members of CLS call moonshadows. This actually happens at all other quarter-moon phases as well, but at the dark moon it gets really really bad. Also it’s been getting worse lately and nobody knows why.

CLS sends a crack team of “volunteers” on an expedition all around town to destroy the moonshadows before they coalesce into bigger moonshadows that can cause serious emotional harm to the human residents of Cambridge and physical danger to the supernaturals. Everyone not on the expedition gets locked into a well-warded but too small panic room for safety and complains a lot about the smell, which does help in sourcing the “volunteers”.

Luckily, non-supernaturals can’t see moonshadows or magic, so all the humans see is the Cambridge Lunatic Society dressing up in a bizarre array of costumes and what surely must be prosthetic makeup, running around in the night, swinging weapons around and yelling at thin air.

The fact that this happens every new moon is one of those charming quirks about Cambridge that has been going on for so long that nobody questions it or knows how it started. Humans who think it looks like great fun and want to join in sometimes turn up at CLS meetings and end up as someone’s Touchstone. They probably regret that.

Dark moon in-person linears will be combat, combat, and more combat. There will be very few or no non-combat encounters, and there will be a system of communicating monster stats to players via coloured sashes to ensure fights are challenging but fair. Don your finest murder robes and have at it.

Dark moon tabletop linears will have no safe place to rest and recover stat damage, which means they have the potential to be much more deadly than any other tabletop linear.