Character Challenge 2022 8: Captain Jossilyn "Broken Angel" Haglund

We had a 2-session game when the regular game master had some work conflicts. Using a microlite rule set and playing in the 1930's alternate world of Crimson Skies, I came up with Jossilyn. I based this on the map and world description: the People's Collective is a Mormon-based area of the country. For some reason when I play women of the earlier times, I always pick suffragists and the like. For Jossilyn, she did not want to be part of a polygamous marriage, so she escaped into the pirate haven of Colorado and then somehow made her way to the land of Dixie. She does not talk about those days, but, as per the 1978 Superman movie, part of her salary goes to people on the "underground railway" that moves women from the People's Collective to other places. While not nearly as tyrannical as slavery, I was going with not-quite forced marriages.

She still maintains her Mormon beliefs: no alcohol or caffeine are the only ones I really know about from co-workers in the past.

In World War 1. the Great War, she was a pilot. Now, years later, she is a member of the Banshee Squadron, an all-female squadron for the Dixie Air Force (I think, I was a little vague in completely getting the info dump from session 0). Her call name is Broken Angel.

She is an aviator, a pilot with great skills. Which came in handy for the session as she was piloting the bomber and between a stall-stop and barrel roll, managed to get the gunners lined up pretty well (and with my rolls, it took more than 1 try but we have jinks points in this game to allow us to re-roll or try extraordinary things. Each session I would deplete those points). 

A woman now in her 40s, the image was when she was in her prime back in the Great War.

The moxie skill is what I was driving most of her characteristics from: she is a strongly independent woman who is also very protective of those around her. Though she is having some second thoughts about May June's driving her car (yes, there are stories).

We only managed 2 sessions but hopefully will be able to return to this game at some point. I also looked up "traditional Mormon names" which is where her name originated from. The game master is also very, very good. He managed to make the dog fighting fun and visceral even though it was really based on a tactical game. And I have all these spaceship minis that could have proxied for the planes had we been at a table! I want to use my toys, darn it!

One thing about the current two groups I am in. The Monday group is a subset of the gaming club in Asheville. What with COVID, we've been unable to meet for over 2 years now. We're meeting via Skype, with no video which makes it a bit more difficult for me to associate players and characters. And while we do get to play longer games than we did with the 2 month/1 month split, we're rarely going back to existing games (though it looks like we will get back to Space Cat). Two of the group are retired and are in long running games, but for some reason the Monday night is "let's try something new" when the previous game runs out of steam. I am also hoping to run Traveller again, either continuing the previous game (the Big Wreck) or starting a new campain.

On the bright side, my Sunday group does meet face to face, and we are alternating between 2 games that use Fantasy Trip and are in the same world (we're alternating running the game). So, I do have that at least with one group. And the Monday group usually does come together really well: we create really fun characters that often are really heavily intertwined, very reminiscent of the more recent versions of Traveller that have contacts. My favorite grouping was the whole family thing we did for the Conan game.

Don't get me wrong - I do like to try new games. But I'd like to get good at one, both as a player and as a group, as I think that would make the gaming even more fun.

Or perhaps that is just a variation of the grass is always greener syndrome. I am lucky to be able to game with two really good groups, so no real complaints!

And finally, realized I've not linked to the other challenges out there this year. The main list can be found on Tardis Captain's blog here.