Alyssa (Here There Be Monsters)

Hack Guidelines>Characters>Iconics>Alyssa

All Profile Abilities Vocations Milestones Notes

Alyssa

Distinctions

d4 (+1 PP)

Investigative Journalist

Surprisingly Capable

Must Know The Truth

Tier

Competent

Plot Points

Aptitudes

Violence

Finesse

Smarts

Psyche

Awareness

Vocations

Journalist

Metropolitan

Survivor

Stress

Body

Ego

Assets

Credentials: d6

Press credentials

Photography: d8

High-end photography gear

Ruger LCP .380: d6

Tiny purse pistol

Ability Sets

Plucky Reporter

Luck: d6

Persuasion: d6

Willpower: d4

Vocations

Standard Exploits

Exploit: Augment Dice Pool Result: for a dice pool result that inludes your Vocation trait die, you may either keep an extra die for your total or step up the effect die.
Exploit: Create a Asset: a Asset is a temporary d6 trait that represents a professional contact, a piece of equipment, or some kind of useful knowledge related to your Vocation. The Asset lasts until it is removed by someone or because it becomes no longer relevant to the narrative. Write down [Name of the Asset]: d6; you may add it as an additional die whenever the Asset is relevant to an action or reaction. How long it may take to create a particular Asset, and whether it can be done as part of an Action Scene or must be done in a Transition Scene is left to common sense and GM's discretion.
Exploit: Affect Complications: if there is a Complication that your Vocation pertains to, you can step it down or remove it from play by describing how your expertise allows you to overcome the Complication. If the Complication is a d6 eliminate it, if it is d8 or higher step it down. Alternately, if you can justify how your Vocation applies, you may create a d6 Complication and put it into play or step up an existing Complication.

Journalist [ ][ ]

The Journalist Vocation allows the following special Exploits:

Exploit: Recall useful information regarding a news story you might reasonably have learned a little something about in the past (GM's discretion applies).
Exploit: You may gain access to a place or person by using your press credentials (GM's discretion applies).
Exploit: You may elicit a new clue or piece of information regarding something or someone you are investigating from a non-significant NPC (GM's discretion applies).
Signature Exploit: During a Transition Scene you can create a knowledge related d8 Asset if you are able to cram information on that subject.
Signature Exploit: Avoid being discovered eavesdropping.

Metropolitan [ ]

The Metropolitan Vocation allows the following special Exploits:

Exploit: During a Transition Scene you may find a place in the city for you and a small group to hang out in relative safety without unwanted attention...for a while.
Exploit: When offered multiple options to proceed while traversing a city or urban neighborhood, you can get a clue as to which one you should take to accomplish your current intent.
Exploit: Avoid being lost while in an urban area.

Survivor [ ][ ]

The Survivor Vocation allows the following special Exploits:

Exploit: You may step up and double Awareness when taking an action or reaction related to not being surprised.
Exploit: You may step up and double Finesse on reactions to avoid detection or harm; if you do you may include an additional die in your total.
Exploit: If you are attempting to hide from something potentially harmful and fail a roll to avoid detection, you may reroll.

The Truth Is Out There

You know some kind of shadowy conspiracy bent upon covering up some kind of dark secret exists...and you are determined to prove it!

Goal

Reward

The first time in a session you uncover a clue suggesting a supernatural explanation for something.

gain a Exploit invocation

The first time in a session you get in over your head during an investigation and are forced to flee a Scene.

+1 Plot Point, gain a Exploit invocation

When you finally have hard evidence of something significantly supernatural...and realize you can't report on it.

gain two (2) Advances, then retire this Milestone Set and choose another one

No Need For Violence

You are an investigator not an action heroine! You seek social and investigative resolution and avoid or prevent physical conflict when at all possible.

Goal

Reward

The first time in a session when you defuse an argument or distract people away from a sensitive topic.

gain a Exploit invocation

When a scene is about to get violent and you successfully intervene to prevent combat from breaking out.

gain one (1) Advance

If you find a non-violent compromise or solution to a serious situation where conflict between two or more antagonistic parties seemed inevitable.

gain two (2) Advances, then retire this Milestone Set and choose another one

Alyssa is Nancy Drew at age 30-something, raised by a tough but fair police detective who died on the job. As a young girl Alyssa played at being a sleuth and dreamed of following in her father's footsteps, but her mother forbade it. So instead she did the next best thing and became an investigative reporter. Unfortunately, print media was in its death throes and there was no great demand for her services when she graduated college. So, much to her chagrin Alyssa found herself scraping the bottom of the barrel and working freelance for the National Incredulist and similar rags.

Alyssa cranked out her share of fake celebrity scandals and other such pap, but had no interest in it...she eventually found herself drawn to writing "bizarre spectacle" type stories out of boredom where she could at least inject a sense of versimilitude with her Edward R Murrow style of old-school journalism...and they turned out to be a bit of a hit. As a result, she started getting assignments from the various rags to see what she could make of specific hooks and leads.

At first she went through the motions of investigating such absurd tales just enough to provide her some grist for her writing process...but pretty soon she began to be able to discern between total bullshit and hey wait a second something doesn't add up here. Her next step was to actually go out into the field and directly investigate some of the more compelling stories...and this eventually put her on the trail of a small group of mysterious individuals who seemed to show up places where rumors of odd things were percolating, leaving a trail of covered up collateral damage and a cessation of strange rumors in their wake.

She had stumbled across the spoor of assorted Monster Hunters, though she has not yet discovered their true purpose or nature. She began to track their movements, and to connect the dots. Over the course of several years she began to piece together a distorted awareness of the existence of the supernatural, and her stories have come increasingly closer to uncomforable hidden truths. She is determined to discover what is really going on...and though she doesn't know it yet her efforts have not gone without notice.

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