Monsterhearts Skins

After writing The Mastermind, I spun off a new version of the same Skin called The Fallen as an exercise. They are two sides to the same coin. Both suffered tremendous perceived losses that define their relationship to the world. Both feel entitled to restoring their former glory. Both should be at their most powerful when suffering the indignity of being "put in their place"; all the better for a dramatic turn of the tables later on.

I was dissatisfied that the Mastermind was not a supernatural Skin. There's precedent for them: the Queen's fantasy elements are optional an incidental, as are the Mastermind's. In fact, while having an open-ended theme, the Mastermind's moves had distinct "evil genius" or "mad scientist" flavors to them, which are both easy cognitive leaps to make for a character who is scheming and manipulative. Also, someone whose anger propels them into preposterous schemes is already pretty monstrous. I still wanted an explicitly supernatural allegory for the Mastermind, which is where the Fallen (as in, fallen angel) sprouted from.

The intent was to replace the Mastermind with the fantasy-inspired Fallen. The differences between the two Skins actually became apparent really quickly. (If you want familiar points of reference as you read, use Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Warren is a Mastermind, and Anya is a Fallen. They both lust for power, they've both killed in its pursuit, and they are not the same.) Now let's take a look!

These are the starting Skin-defining moves. Master Plan, as an "evil genius" archetype move, would be out of place on the Fallen. Both it and Signs are about clawing back power and prestige, and they both tell a narrative through their use.

With Master Plan, the MC is in control of the success or failure of the player's elaborate schemings. With Signs, how well the character re-embodies their Former Glory is left to the player, while the risk factor is how much that Former Glory actually messes up their current life. Already, this makes the Mastermind's narrative arc more "all or nothing", pumping up its drama with a tense climax, rather than a steady progression.

The Mastermind does not have a gang advancement, to represent its isolation from and resentment of community. Instead, the Henchmen skill stands in for a gang, letting the player collect loyal servants one by one. Gaining Strings on each other fulfils the gang's requirement of making the player's life more complicated.

Dark Servants was originally just Henchmen without the "evil genius" flavor, but I opted to make it a gang after all. And now the skins are diverging slightly. Where Henchmen fosters discord and backstabbing by handing out Strings, Dark Servants maybe has multiple layers to it. "Servants" definitely implies subserviance, like henchmen. "Minister", though, implies a caring relationship to your gang. You're neither just a member of the gang, nor their boss: you're possibly their protector and support structure.

How does each Skin exert power over other characters? The Mastermind resorts to manipulation with Puppet Master and Empath, while the Fallen has real supernatural power at its hands with Temptation, Radiance, and Long Memory.

The fact is that Puppet Master and Empath were one of the few Mastermind moves that it could have shared with the Fallen without any changes, but I preferred to leave room for the Fallen to have real supernatural moves, since that was the point of the Skin to begin with.

Here's where the difference in the Skins' vibes come into focus: how does each Skin relate to community? Both the Fallen and the Mastermind obsess over their perceived injustice, possibly one perpetrated by the community they're currently a part of, but the Mastermind is consumed by it. The driving motivation of rage represented by Unhinged is believable on a resentful, single-minded person out for revenge.

But revenge isn't necessarily part of the Fallen's motivation. The Fallen's combination of Taste of Power and Dark Servants is what really sets it apart.

Taste of Power gives the Fallen the ability to empower other characters—possibly without their knowledge—until they decide to revoke that power by spending a String on the recipient, which is itself a show of power. The Fallen wants to let people know that you can be powerful by being in their good graces, but ultimately they call the shots.

Dark Servants, I already suggested, implies a complicated relationship that combines caring and support with explicit hierarchy of servitude.

Between these two, the Fallen is starting to feel positively, mm, paternal? In both good and bad ways. That's not surprising, because where the Mastermind held up a dark mirror to the Queen, the Fallen finds a way to mirror the hidden power of the Demi, written by Patrick Lickman, and published in Behind the Masc.

Now, after examining their motivations and moves, we can fully see how the Mastermind and Fallen are distinct. Despite both Skins obsessing over being on the top of the heap, the Mastermind is all about breaking into (or back into) an exclusive club they've been denied—and their anger reflects their denied sense of entitlement—while the Fallen is all about building a new heap for them to sit atop—a wistful exercise in recapturing an old memory. The flavor text faithfully reflects this.

The Fallen is still in development—there are several rough edges and holes that need patching—but the fact is that it shaped up to be its own Skin worthy of being fleshed out.