Every time a child loses their innocence, this is where it goes…
The House of Innocence is a wonderful land where the innocence lost by children resides. The land itself is an infinitely large sweeping meadow covered with everything children love such as play grounds, mysterious forests and ice cream shops. Every so often an enormous house breaks up the landscape. Every child has their own bedroom in one of these houses. They eat in the giant dining rooms and sit around and watch Disney movies in the tv rooms.
The weather is always perfect in this land and extremely varied. A child can swim in a lake in the warm summer weather, then jump on their bike and ride to a snowy field within minutes. Day and night follow regular cycles with children often staying up late to explore the forests or camp outside.
There are no adults in the House of Innocence, in fact the average age of the children here seems to be around five to eight. There are exceptions but they are rare. Very occasionally a baby or toddler will be seen. All of the inhabitants are extremely happy. They are children who have never been exposed to violence, sex or anything else un-childlike. They have no concept of these things.
Every person in the world who has lost their innocence has a presence here.
Whenever a child loses their innocence, or takes that first step from childhood to adulthood, the part of them that was innocent is lost forever. The spirit of their innocence winds up here where it lives forever in the pure joy of childhood.
People entering the House of Innocence must make a Soul check for each day they are there. The first time they succeed this check they gain a soul skill called Innocence at a value equal to the tens value of their current soul skill. Each day thereafter they make another soul check with a success adding the same amount to their Innocence skill.
I.e. Sandra has a soul stat of 62. The first time she succeeds this check she gains the innocence skill at 6%. Each time she succeeds the check from here on the skill increases by another 6%.
Every time the character sees children playing they must make a significant Innocence skill check. Complete success forces the character to join in with the children’s game. Partial success means the character can make a Mind check to resist the urge. Also, every time the character is faced with something that would cost a child their innocence (sex, violence, drugs…) they must make another significant check. Complete success has the same effect as failing a madness check and will give them a failed Self notch. Partial success will force them to try to leave the current situation. Every time this type of check is made the character loses half of the skill (rounded down). Once the skill reaches 10% or lower it is lost for good.
If this skill ever reaches their soul stat the person is trapped in the Otherspace forever. The representation of their own innocence will appear to them, take their hand and lead them away.
Getting out of the Otherspace requires you anger the land and force it to spit you out. This can either be achieved by performing a grown-up act (having sex, shooting up) in front of some children, or doing something extremely perverse (massive orgy, ritual murder) in private.
This is an Otherspace designed for a short scenario I have written which is based around the 2nd trade paperback of the ‘Crossing Midnight’ series. The scenario involves a child prostitution ring and a revenant who has declared himself ‘protector of innocence’.
I haven’t actually used it yet so I’d really like to hear your thoughts.
Interesting. Some questions and then some thoughts:
Question 1: The representation of the child’s innocence is at the age that the innocence is lost, right?
Question 2: How do you enter this Otherspace?
Question 3: It is said that there are infants and toddlers here. Who takes care of them? The Children four and above can feasibly take care of themselves assuming things like food are automatically provided, but those really young ones need care.
Thought 1: Interestingly, people with a low soul can last longer then people with high soul. I feel it should be the other way around.
Thought 2: You say that there are no adults, yet clearly the PCs are going to be adults. Might I suggest the PCs de-aging? It doesn’t have to be to their age of lost innocence, but it would be an interesting source of unnatural checks.
Thought 3: Again, People with a high soul skill are vulnerable to the compulsions of Innocence. It should be that a low soul skill is vulnerable.
Question 1: Yes, that was my intention
Question 2: Hadn’t thought of that yet. Possibly by performing a ritual in a place designed specifically for children, like a play ground
Question 3: Wups, forgot to include that bit. I was thinking that the children didn’t actually need to eat. They could eat if they wanted to but it would only be for pleasure.
Thought 1: I deliberately designed it that way. My idea was that people with a higher soul score would be more in tune with and connected to the feelings of childish innocence and therefore more susceptible to it.
Thought 2: I had considered making them de-age each time their Innocence skill increased. My concern with that idea is that it makes it a lot more obvious that staying there is a bad idea.
Thought 3: Same as what I said for Thought 1
There are a lot of negative and even downright evil reasons to have a high Soul stat. I doubt that Avatars of The Dark Stalker are likely to be in touch with their inner child. It’s better to keep it simple, with high being good and low being bad. That said, the constant of the ten bad checks makes some sense. I’d change it so that failures on the check lead to the skill increase.
If there was de-aging going on in there, this could easily be the source of the rumors of The Fountain of Youth.
Anyway, great stuff.
It occurs to me, as occult people generally have had hard lives, that the average age of PCs in this plan would be a fair bit lower then the norm.
But still, 11 succesful soul checks and your gone? Doesn’t make too much sense to me. I agree with Anon, making a high stat a bad thing is just bad form. Make it that failed checks get you the skill. It’s really up to the people who decide to implement it I suppose.
As for entrance, I think it should be a ritual that goes something like this:
Chariot of Innocence:
Cost: 11 minor charges
Ritual Effect: This ritual allows you to travel to a House of Innocence.
Ritual Action: First, find a child who has not yet lost their innocence. An Infant is preferred, as there’s a lower chance the innocence would of been lost beforehand. Second, find a childish location that is similar to a portal, like a sandbox, crib, or jungle gym, that has not been used for this ritual before, or similarly desecrated with adult activities in the presence of children. After these two things are acquired, you must prepare the child by performing a ritual bath, composed of equal parts afterbirth fluid, breastmilk, and rainwater. This is another reason that infants are preferred, as they don’t resist nearly as hard. Then while the child is still wet from the bath, and when near the ritual location, the ritualist performs an adult act in front of the child, masturbation is preferred, and then within three minutes and thirty three seconds of the act’s completion have a fertile lactating woman place a diaper made from cotton on the ritualist and then breastfeed them, completing the ritual by then going head-first into the ritual portal (dive into the sandbox/crib, going through a hole in the jungle gym, etc)
The Ritualist can take others with him, but the last two steps must be taken by everyone coming with.
What do you think? I tried to make the ritual symbolism clear. By taking away the innocence of a child, the otherspace can be entered. But, doing so makes the ritualist abhorrent to the otherspace. Thus, you must fool the otherspace into thinking you are innocent (thus the diaper and breastfeeding), but that takes time. The purifying bath makes it so that the innocence takes a bit longer to leave, giving the ritualist time to prepare. some of the particulars of the ritual (like the bath ingredients, or the exact act that purifies the ritualist) could be changed, but I like how it turned out.
Also, I would think that there would be caretakers, even if it’s just some ghostly women. Even if their role is just to be affectionate to the children, it makes no sense for there to be no one.
You could make them be incredibly sinister, perhaps having them implore them to stay and be taken care of, or have the caretakers be people who got overcome by their innocence, or for comedic effect having them be unable to distinguish between a person and their representation of their innocence, or even make them think that anyone who entered from the ritual mentioned is an infant who needs to be taken care of.
Come to think of it, some people would probably think that last one could be quite sinister, if it were difficult to stop the caretakers from treating them like infants, by making them ludicrously strong or something.
I’m pretty sure that I have good compromise between high soul being in-tune with their inner child and low soul being vulnerable to the effects of the otherspace. What do you think:
“While in the House of Innocence, you must make a soul check every day. Failue gives you an Innocence skill equal to one-tenth of your soul, rounded down. The GM can assign negative shifts of up to 30% depending on how often you play with the children, or how child-like you act in the plane. Rolling below your innocence skill also counts as a failure.”
The thing is, people with high soul can indeed bond with the children easier, but he can also do that without losing himself to the influence of his surroundings.
Finally, I think that the Innocence skill should come with an upside. Something that doesn’t make it a complete lodestone. The de-aging idea would probably be it, nearly everyone would like a little extra youth. Perhaps it could be used as a charm or lie skill when appropriate? Such as when your trying to convince someone you didn’t do something bad, or befriending a child? In fact, a plot hook about an occultist using this plane to help convince a jury that he didn’t kill a guy seems reasonable.
Ooh, I like that. In retrospect I agree with all your comments about the skill checks. It does seem of bad form to make somebody lose out because they chose to put their points into Soul.
Requiem_Jeer, I love both the idea of the negative shift and the positive application of the Innocence skill. The ritual is cool as well. In my scenario I plan on having the characters dragged into this Otherspace by a revenant. I’ll be posting it soon.