My first skin: Vermin Lord

Hey, so 4 sessions in to a game of Monsterhearts, I decided I may as well make a skin. I dropped it along to my GM for us to use next season (when we introduce new students to the population), and he's totes for it. Of course, he's about as new to Monsterhearts as I am (he's watched a series of streams of people playing it though), so before we end up using it I figured I'd pass it along through you guys, who have played a lot more Monsterhearts than us, to give me some feedback for the skin (most notably I'd like to flesh out the Playing as the Vermin Lord section more)

SEX MOVE

If the sex meant something to you, your partner gets a string on you. As long as you are in a relationship with your partner, you are immune to going into your darkest self. However, if your relationship ends for any reason, your partner gets another string on you and you engage your darkest self.

DARKEST SELF

You've been holding back, trying to keep a lid on what you are, just for the sake of others. What do they mean to you? Why are you holding back? They're nothing, and you're a lord! It's time to take your rightful place at the throne, overseeing a legion of vermin. Everyone will know who you are, and they'll be sorry for ignoring you, for treating you like nothing.

To escape your darkest self, you must be humbled by an act of kindness, or confronted by someone who has never ignored or belittled you.

ADVANCEMENT

? - Take another Vermin Lord move
? - Take another Vermin Lord move
? - Take a move from another skin
? - Take a move from another skin
? - You attract the attention of a few meta-corporeal Vermin Demiurges
? - Add 1 to Hot (max 3)
? - Add 1 to Cold (max 3)
? - Add 1 to Volatile (max 3)
? - Add 1 to Dark (max 3)


STATS
Add one to these
Hot -1 Cold -1 Volatile 1 Dark 1

PLAYING AS THE VERMIN LORD

You are the small, scrawny kid who nobody notices or cares about. You struggle to make yourself stand out, but your outcast nature and social awkwardness means few people know your name. To them, you're as small and insignificant as the vermin you command. The central themes to the Vermin Lord are a conflict between their desire to be popular and stand out, and their desire to hide and be ashamed of their powers and command over vermin. The other is their lack of control over their vermin minions, who do what they believe is best, rather than what you actually want them to do. Vermin lord powers can be destructive, but come with the downside of building up lots of strings against you, especially if your nature is found out. As a player you have lots of incentive to keep your skin secret at all costs.

With low hot and cold, the vermin lord has a hard time manipulating others, but you can take advantage of Pig in Man's Clothing to make a few friends with fellow outcasts and nerds, who may have skillsets that you can use to your advantage.


VERMIN LORD MOVES

You get this one and choose one more.

? Vermin's Boon
You may have no more and no less than 2 vermin boons marked at any point in time. They will activate when conditions are met, whether you want it to or not. You can only change which boons are marked when one activates.

? Pig in Man's Clothing
When interacting with a character who has the condition "Insignificant," or "Weak,"  or any condition of that nature, you can roll with dark instead of hot and add one to your roll to manipulate them or turn them on.

? Unseen Eyes
Your vermin can watch an area by your command and relay what happened there to you in vague detail, so long as you instruct them to do so ahead of time. On a 7-9, choose two of the following. On a 10+ choose only one of the following
   -Their descriptions are vague, no names or physical descriptions are tied to the participants of the scene, unless you described a specific person to your spies.
   -They must have been given preemptive instruction to do this. If you don't choose this option, it was a spontaneous act on the vermin's part.
   -Your vermin are not well hidden. If this option is chosen, at least one participant will notice your vermin. They gain a string on the vermin, which transfers to you if they know of your nature.

? Lordly Lament
When a boon activates, you may roll with cold to delay it. On a 7-9, it will not activate that scene, and will instead activate at the next oppurtune time. On a 10+, you may also choose to deactivate it, but you take one harm. If you are your darkest self, you have more control over your boons and do not have to roll anything to delay or deactivate your boons and you do not take harm for doing so.

? Scaled Prince
When you are your darkest self, you gain control over a talking Sewer Gator with the attributes Volatile 3, Cold 3, Hot -3, Dark -3. It will be absolutely loyal to you, but you must commune with it in person. If it dies, you will get a new one the next day.

BOONS

? Infestation
If this boon is marked, then it activates when someone deals harm to you. The next time they are alone, you must roll with Dark to deal harm to them by proxy using a small number of rats, cockroaches, or pigeons. They may not harm you in retaliation no matter the roll, but on a 7-9 they get a string against your vermin which transfers to you if they know of your nature.

? Stolen
If this boon is marked, it activates when you fail to turn someone on, or if someone turns you on then rejects you. The next time both you and your target are alone, you must roll with volatile. On a 7-9, they can roll to hold steady, but if they fail or you roll a 10+, they will be whisked off to your current location by your loyal minions.

? Sabotage
If this boon is marked, then it activates when someone ignores or is rude to you. At some point in the future, you must roll with Dark to shut them down by proxy. One of your minions will befoul something in that scene  (e.g a backpack, or their bed at home). If you choose the 7-9 "Give each other a condition" option, they do not get to give you a condition, but they get a string on your vermin that transfers to you if they know of your nature.

? Rats with Wings
If this boon is marked, then it activates when you appear to be in danger, whether or not you are. Roll with Volatile. No matter your roll you will be whisked away from the scene and taken somewhere safe. On a 6 or less, you make a big scene being taken away. On a 7-9, you are whisked away relatively unseen, but one person in the scene gets a string on your vermin that transfers to you if they know of your nature.

This is great.  A lot of Fan skins by players new to MH have the "powerful supernatural creature" part but skip the "dysfunctional teenager" part.  Yours, on the other hand, has heaps of both.

I love vermin's boon & the boons.  It's a great idea, wonderfully executed.

I'd ditch the bit where strings go to the vermin and transfer to the vermin lord only when their nature is discovered.  It's finicky. And also, it's high school--the other characters will blame that weirdo kid for the rats, even if they don't know he's an actual Vermin Lord.

Only PCs can roll steady, so stolen needs something for the 7-9 result when an NPC is the target.

Moves should have some kind of fictional trigger (even if it's as simple as "when you try to do this move").  Unseen eyes doesn't have one.  What about:

"When you send your vermin to spy on a person or place for you, roll with dark.  On a hit, they report back the details.  On a 10+, choose 2, on a 7-9 choose 1:
-They identify the people involved
-They also report back details of a second person or place
-They were not seen"

I'm also confused by the gang option.  What do are Meta-corporeal vermin demiurges supposed to be?

hey thanks for all the advice and kind words.

I guess I could have the strings go straight onto the Vermin Lord, though the finicky alternative feels a bit more realistic. Ultimately I figure it's up to the PC and the GM to decide whether or not the character immediately blames the Vermin Lord or not. I'll change it.

I actually wasn't aware that only PCs could roll steady, and in fact over our past few sessions we've been having PCs roll steady at times. I'm not sure what should happen on a 7-9 (They act at an advantage over you during the scene?), but I'll leave it the way it is for our personal copy.

Yeah, I like your Unseen Eyes a bit more. I did want there to be the possibility of the vermin doing it independently, but that's a bit meta-gamey. I'll change it.

Finally, as for the Vermin Demiurges, I really just meant like, spirits. I put that in there because I forgot my initial idea, which were vermin worshiping cultists.

EDIT: I apparently can't edit my original post...

Yeah, as a general rule, only player characters have attributes and roll for moves in Monsterhearts and other AW hacks.  NPCs just succeed or fail as governed by the results of player moves and their own natures.  Given that, you might want to think about how scaled prince works, too (It could work similar to the way animal companions work in Dungeon World--They have stats).

I like your vermin cultist idea better than demiurges.  I think a key to coming up with a good gang is to find supernatural versions of what the gang would look like if the character wasn't literally a monster.  I see the Vermin lord as the kind of guy who hangs out in his mom's basement with a few friends playing D&D--and it's not to hard to re-envision that as hanging out with a couple of fellow cultists in the sewers making sacrifices to the great horned rat.