The setting is from Jasper Fforde's BookWorld or Thursday Next series, so it takes place within the world of fiction. The characters are taken from classical fiction and are playing Jurisfiction agents, basically the police of the BookWorld, and they have been sent to investigate a string of gory murders ...
Starring:
- Alice from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
- Arthur Hastings from random Agatha Christie Poirot novel
- Frankenstein's Monster from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, nicknamed "George"
- Gabriel Betteredge from Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone
- Hari Seldon from Isaac Asimov's Foundation series
...And one of the roleplayers even decided to play himself as an Outlander. What could possibly go wrong?
Courtesy of 4 December 2011's 1st Edition Jurisfiction adventure at Chimera.
“What book’s that from? The Book of Life.”
“Who are you playing?”
“Alice, from Alice in Wonderland, seven-year-old girl. I figure I can just about channel her.”
“Slot four – I don’t need to think, the book can do that for me.”
Outlander: “What’s the LOWEST I can physically put in Dexterity? It’s true, I’m not a graceful man.”
Player: “What are we counting Stamina as? Is that like your ability to keep running, climb up shit, your endurance …”
GM: “Yeah, that kind of thing.”
Player: “Brilliant. So that needs to be low.”
GM: “Or just, yeah, endurance.”
Player: “Still needs to be low. Look at me, I’m a tubby bastard.”
Player: “I was thinking about Mr Tumnus for a bit, but that’s just too close to Finn.”
GM: “Yeah, and if Finn was Mr Tumnus …”
Alice: “Well, seeing as I’m a seven-year-old girl …”
Finn: “Come with me, little girl! We’re gonna go and get WRECKED.”
Finn: “Me and Lucy gonna get fucked up in the woods. We’re gonna sit by a lamp post and drink Stella.”
“I’m Arthur Hastings; I still haven’t figured out that I’m IN a book.”
“It’s a World of Darkness Mortal character sheet I gave to her to then bastardise.”
“ADAPT is the word you’re looking for! Adapt!”
Outlander: “I’ve based this on me, haven’t I? Bollocks!”
“I have a machine gun!”
“That’s just so wrong.”
“Believe me, at half four in the morning, that was the funniest thing EVER.”
“Yeah, like ‘That’s not going on my blog. Fuck off … you bloody heathens’!”
Hastings: “There are books that don’t have murders in them?”
The Bellman: “The thing that REALLY caught our attention was Gudrun Brangwen, who was left in a pool of blood – so this is definitely murder - with a note saying ‘this woman is only ever in love with herself. She wouldn’t know real love if it hit her in the face. Death becomes her’.”
Player: “Now THAT’S a murder!”
The Bellman: “I suggest you start looking within Wuthering Heights, because ...”
Outlander (unenthusiastically): “Oh, REALLY?”
The Bellman: “…we have had threats made toward Hindley Earnshaw.”
Outlander: “I don’t particularly see an issue with this.”
Frankenstein’s Monster: “Nicely Gothic, Wuthering Heights. We’ll fit in well.”
Hastings: “Shame Poirot’s busy, this would’ve been right up his alley.”
Outlander: “Even Agatha Christie didn’t like Poirot.”
Hastings: “It’s not nice talking about people behind their back.”
Outlander: “I’ll talk to him to his face if he wants to be dead!”
“This is almost as confusing as a slot four game at a ChimeraCon.”
Hastings: “I remember seeing a Chinaman who had something similar.”
Frankenstein’s Monster: “That was jaundice.”
Hastings: “Yeah, that’s the one!”
Player: “I need a calculator.”
Frankenstein’s Monster: “A what?”
Hastings: “Huh?”
Outlander: “A device for putting together numbers.”
Hastings: “What, you mean an abacus?”
“We’d like a nice black carriage to get around in. Inconspicuously.”
Wemmick: “You know that you can only have stuff that you can carry, right?”
Frankenstein’s Monster: “I could carry a carriage.”
Wemmick: “What I’m saying is, it’s a bit big, and I can’t exactly hand it over the counter.”
Frankenstein’s Monster: “Oh, it doesn’t fit over the ... Perhaps you could break it down and we could put it back together.”
Wemmick: “This is not IKEA.”
Betteredge: “I simply require my copy of Robinson Crusoe, please.”
Wemmick: “Don’t you already carry that with you, sir?”
Betteredge: “… Yes.”
Hastings: “Can I have a magnifying glass as well, please?”
Player: “I actually thought you said manga fan-glasses. Hastings is a fan of Hentai.”
“I was actually going to get OUR Jaffa Cakes, but if you think I should steal someone else’s instead …”
“Hippos, giraffes, cannibals and trucks.”
“These are things you know about?”
Frankenstein’s Monster: “Don’t worry, man, I won’t eat you unless we run out of provisions.”
Alice: “I’m quite sure I shouldn’t like being eaten.”
Frankenstein’s Monster: “There is no response to that that I can give that would keep my moral character safe.”
Frankenstein’s Monster: “I do not eat people. I try to eat them and then I get chased by villagers. This is a recurring theme in my life.”
Hastings: “I think I remember shooting pygmies like you, but they were shorter.”
Frankenstein’s Monster: “Sir, you have called me a pygmy. I suggest you definitely revoke your status as detective.”
Player: “Casual racism for the win.”
Frankenstein’s Monster: “It was a different time.”
What the characters got up to within the pages of Wuthering Heights will be revealed next time we need a filler post. ;)
