Alright. A little bit of context, and then the custom move. Don't worry about explaining every minute detail - trust that we'll piece it together.

Post your shit.

Death changed you. It took away your contemplative joy, it dulled your senses, and it left you impossibly hungry. That hunger is with you always, like a hum in your ears that swells and crescendos until you can't hear anything else. That hunger comes to dominate you when ignored.

There is a certain beauty to what you've become. Your gaunt body, its unnatural form - it draws people in. Your stark disinterest seems exotic. Underneath that disaffected presentation, though - the hunger, the hunger.

Look

gaunt, striking, thin, stiff, disfigured

hollow eyes, quiet eyes, calculating eyes, harsh eyes, hungry eyes

resurrected, constructed, disturbed, rejected, sent

Stats

Hot -1, Cold +2, Steady +0, Volatile -1, Dark +2
Hot +1, Cold +2, Steady +1, Volatile -1, Dark +0
Hot +0, Cold +2, Steady +1, Volatile -2, Dark +0
Hot +0, Cold +2, Steady +1, Volatile -1, Dark +1

Basic Moves

You get all of the basic moves

Ghoul Moves

You automatically get:

The Hunger
You have a hunger for (circle one):
flesh, chaos, power, secrets, fear
While the hunger is always there, sometimes it becomes all-consuming (circle one):
at night, erratically (MC discretion), when slighted, in quiet situations, in loud situations

When it is all-consuming, gain +1 when attempting to satiate your hunger. If you outright ignore your hunger, or avoid an opportunity to feed, you need to try to keep it together. On a miss, you become your Darkest Self.

In addition, choose two:

Short Rest for the Wicked
If you die, wait it out. You awaken 12 hours later, somewhere else (MC's discretion). Your hunger is all-consuming.

Cold Hard Desire
When you turn someone on, roll +cold instead of +hot.

What the Right Hand Wants
Your body was stitched together in parts and pieces. And those parts and pieces echo different histories, and want different things. Declare a second hunger (with its own all-consuming condition). Mark an experience whenever you satiate that second hunger.

Wanting is Needing
When someone stands in between you and your hunger, you can declare that your hunger is all-consuming. If you do, mark an experience.

Unearthly
Gain +1Dark (to a maximum of +3).

Watchful Golem
When you defend someone despite great personal risk, without ever letting them know, mark an experience or remove a String they hold against you.

Sex Move
When you have sex with someone, try to keep it together. On a miss, add "sex with [their name]" as an additional hunger. It becomes all-consuming when you are alone with them.

Darkest Self
Your hunger is all-consuming. You will maim, kill and destroy anything in between you and the nearest object of your hunger. To spare someone or something, you need to try to keep it together. When someone restrains you or fends you off for long enough for you to regain your senses and composure, you escape your Darkest Self.

"you pray for some grinning kid or veteran or just someone with a heartshocker and a hand with sutures and a 6-pack of morphine. And when that someone comes, that’s an angel."
-from the Angel description.

When I first saw the playbook for Angel, I scoffed. "That's a silly name for a class. And the picture looks like some scrawny punk kid." And then I read that description above, and it brought it all crashing home. It changed angel into the best class name ever, and it brought the vibe of Apocalypse World home so hard: you make do, because at least it's something.

"They’re the ones you should walk away from, eyes down, but you can’t. They’re the ones like the seductive blue crackling light, y’know? You mistake looking at them for falling in love, and you get too close and it’s a zillion volts and your wings burn off like paper.

Dangerous."
-from the Battlebabe description.

Pure fucking poetry.

"What they do in life is follow their parts around — their noses, their stomachs, their hearts, their clits & dicks, their guts, their ears, their inner children, their visions."
-From the Principle: Name Everyone and Make Them Human

If Vincent could just somehow let all the authors in the world hear this advice, I'd read more. It's what makes characters compelling.



Your turn. What moments in the text have grabbed hold and kept their grip tight?

An idea:

What if each Skin has a different place they can't enter, and trying to enter it requires that they Stay Calm?

So, Vampires can't enter direct sunlight, Mortals can't enter a monster's dwelling for the first time, Witches can't enter hospitals, etc.

To do so requires that you Stay Calm, and you run the risk of freaking out, attracting attention and giving yourself away. Oh, and the risk of sparkling, obviously.

Dresden Dolls (esp. Sex Changes, Half Jack, Backstabber, Necessary Evil)
Bright Eyes (esp. Lover I Don't Have To Love, The Calendar Hung Itself)
City and Colour (esp. Save Your Scissors)
Mass Undergoe (esp. The Flesh Parade, All The Knives In The World, Baby!)
Jack Off Jill (esp. Strawberry Gashes)
Evanescence (I don't know. I don't listen to Evanescence and never have.)
Jackalope

I am laughing so hard right now. Rad.
Join in with more suggestions?

At the edges of this world, just beyond the veil, there are colours that few might even dream of. Beauty enough to shatter any heart. The fae live and breathe at the edges of this world. They keep a dusting of that magic tucked behind their ears, just in case.

And the fae are willing to share. They're nothing if not generous, asking for only one thing in return. A promise. Break it, and feel the wrath of faery vengeance.

Look

dainty, girlish, gaunt, mysterious, disheveled

quick eyes, lyrical eyes, mesmerizing eyes, laughing eyes, piercing eyes

fae born, fae blooded, adopted, touched with the gift, stole the gift

Stats

[Not that far along in the hack yet.]

Basic Moves

You get all the basic moves.

Fae Moves

You automatically get:

Faery Contract
If someone breaks or abandons a promise or contract made to you, they suffer 1 harm.

Also, choose 2:

The Constant Bargain
Whenever someone asks you to do something for them, and you do it, roll +[stat]. On a 10+, they lose one string on you, and you gain one on them. On a 7-9, choose one or the other. On a miss, you've proven that they can walk all over you, and they take another string on you.

The Wild Hunt
When you draw upon your most feral manner, perhaps echoing the movements of a cat or the voracity of a wolf, add +1 to your seduce roll.

Beyond The Veil
When you gaze into the abyss, you may also choose to: commune with the faery king; find a hidden String against someone.

Lure
Whenever someone makes a promise to you, they mark experience. Whenever someone breaks a promise to you, and you seek vengeance, mark experience.

Sex Move
When you lie naked with another, you can ask for a promise. If they refuse it, take 2 Strings against them.

Darkest Self
Everything you say is a promise. Everything you hear is a promise. If a promise is broken, justice must be wrought in blood. To let a promise slide counts as Acting Under Fire. To escape your Darkest Self, you must make a grim sacrifice in the name of faery.

So, I scrapped the Style+Type way of generating characters. Everyone picks their skin (Mortal, Vampire, Witch, etc) and that's that.

Skins have: descriptors, stats, special moves, a sex move, and a darkest self.
While you select your descriptors, stats & moves (just like in AW), each skin has exactly one sex move and one darkest self.

Here's what the Darkest Self is - it's a dark and awful thing that you can become. Not just a monstrous teenager, but a true monster. The worst possible fate for your kind.

While you are your Darkest Self, you are locked into a set of instincts and impulses. To do otherwise is Acting Under Fire.

There's an escape clause: something that gets you back into normal mode. Maybe it's hurting a loved one, sacrificing strings, isolating yourself, going too far, confronting your past, etc, etc. Something that brings you face-to-face with what you want least.

For example, when a Werewolf is its Darkest Self, maybe it can only interact with others if it Seizes By Force or Threatens (Goes Aggro). Like all Darkest Selves, you can Act Under Fire to try to momentarily bypass this rule. To escape your Darkest Self, you must isolate yourself until the sun rises once again.

Here's why I thought of this, and why I merged style+class:
The Mortal's sex move is to trigger their partner's Darkest Self. OMG, right?!

Questions:

1. Does this sound fun?
2. Is this too prescriptive?
3. Does this emulate the whole "you thought I was a monster before, but now I'm a REAL monster!" plot point that seems to rear its head in this genre?
4. What are some possible Darkest Selves for different Skins?

Skins are like: Mortal, Witch, Werewolf, Vampire, Fae, etc.

What should the skins list include?

Maybe...
Mortal, Chosen, Angel, Demon, Witch, Werewolf, Vampire, Fae, Lich, Monster, Homunculus, Alien, Elemental, Sorcerer, Possessed, Ghoul, Wraith, Ghost