Her Odyssey with Owen and Finnley
Previously on: Owen takes the group on a tour around town since he is the one who grew up there. But so much has changed since he's been away. While they're at the beach, mysterious space jellyfish appear overhead. They cause Owen to pass out in surprise, and then they send visions into his dreams. When he awakes, he realizes that the visions are telling him that the community needs to leave the past behind and create a new world. He freaks out about this because he does not have the confidence to do so himself.
What game I'm playing: Her Odyssey
In this game, you use a pack of playing cards to determine hazards and then make stat checks with dice to determine your character's experience.
What character I'm playing: Owen (he/him) but actually I'll be writing about all the characters. The stat checks though will be made for Owen. Below are the results of the “creating your wanderer” part of the game, using Owen as my wanderer.
Stat Points: Total of 11 points.
Vitality: A principle of fire. Bodily strength, the force of one's presence.
Owen is an athlete so it makes sense for this stat to be high. I'll give him a 5.
Quickness: A principle of air. A cunning wit, a deft and dexterous body.
Owen is not very clever, but he can move fast. I'll give him a 4.
Fortitude: A principle of earth. Calm, steadfastness, self-belief.
He is definitely not calm and his self-belief is lacking these days, so I'll give him a 2.
Who is your wanderer?
Name: Owen
Pronouns: He/Him/His
What does your wanderer seek? He seeks a way to rekindle his rivalry with his old volleyball team and return to the way things used to be like when he was in high school.
What has your wanderer left behind? He left his hometown and a lot has changed since then.
Was your wanderer well prepared to set off on the road? Heck no, he actually did very little research and did not understand what he was signing up for.
There is someone or something that your wanderer loves and has lost. What is it? He lost rivalry, the only sense of companionship he's ever had.
There is a shadow that follows your wanderer and haunts his steps. What is it? He knows that he signed up to volunteer for selfish reasons and that he is very under-prepared, but he doesn't want to admit it out loud.
Drawing a card to determine how difficult the day will be and what kind of hazard your wanderer will face.
Card drawn: 5 of Diamonds
Omen score = 5
Hazard: Mistrust
And so the journey begins where we left off...
“Could the aliens have picked any worse?” Finnley sighed in exasperation. The mechanical bird flew around above his head. Owen stopped babbling in his fear as the bird started making noises at him. Not only did the other man look like he didn't trust Owen to be a good leader, the bird sounded like he didn't trust Owen either. Owen didn't blame them. Did he even trust himself? If he was in fact going to be a leader in this now unfamiliar city, he had to find some fortitude.
Rolling dice to make a stat check
Fortitude = 2
Dice rolls = 3 and 3
Highest number = 3
Partial success: You get what you want, but things get complicated
Owen decided to close his eyes and take a moment to pretend no one was there. He could still hear the bird, but otherwise closing his eyes helped him focus on the important task in front of him. He was assigned the leader of this group. He was also the one who received the messages from the space jellyfish. Clearly, the universe had decided to make him a main character when he really just wanted to be a rival. So, how could he handle this? How would he approach this if it was a volleyball game instead?
He visualized himself becoming captain of his volleyball team. The thought actually terrified him. His rival had been the team captain in high school. All the responsibility of leadership had rested on his shoulders, while Owen had taken advantage of freedom to just focus on scoring more points than him whenever he could. With responsibility, Owen had to give up some of his freedom. In this volunteer project, he no longer had freedom to just fundraise more money than everyone else. He now had to help this team clean up and rebuild this place into something new. It was a daunting ask, but maybe he could do it. But first, he somehow had to gain the trust of his new team.
Trust? He had never considered that before. At least outside of volleyball. If he thought about it in terms of volleyball, he supposed that he always trusted the setter to set up the perfect spikes for him to hit. He was the person he always relied on to help him score points.
“He's still breathing, at least,” Roan said to break the awkward silence.
Owen opened one eye, and for the first time considered all of these strangers sitting or standing around him. There was Roan with the adorable freckles and constantly concerned expression. Finnley and his seemingly permanent frown. And Gwyn, who said and emoted nothing. When Owen pictured himself with this group on this adventure, all he could picture was a million question marks above his head. He sighed and stood up.
“Well, whether we like it or not, we're stuck together now,” he said. He stood with his hands on his hips and his elbows sticking out and tried to make his face look determined. “All we have is each other, so we might as well make the best of it.”
Finnley still looked unimpressed, but Roan stood up next to him and clapped.
“That sounds like a good place to start. Right?” He looked at Finnley and Gwyn. Gwyn patiently waited for Finnley's reaction first.
“I know you don't trust me,” Owen continued. “I hardly trust me either. But maybe it's not about me.”
“Are you trying to avoid responsibility now?” Finnley asked.
“No,” Owen snapped. He really didn't like this guy. “Rule number one. Don't put words in my mouth.”
“Oh, so there's rules now? About you?” Finnley threw his hands up in exasperation and turned as if he was going to leave.
“Wait!” Owen called out. “That wasn't what I meant!”
Finnley did stop, but he didn't turn back around.
“If you could just stop being so... so... antagonistic towards me, maybe we can get somewhere,” Owen finally said after struggling to figure out what to say.
Finnley turned around again. “Antagonistic?”
“Yes! It's like you have nothing but expectations of ill intent about me.”
Finnley scoffed. “I can feel the ill intent radiating from you.”
Owen wasn't sure what to say to that, because part of him knew he was guilty of this. But didn't the other half count for anything?
Roan was slowly edging toward Owen, like he was siding with him, while Gwyn always stayed by Finnley's side. Owen didn't like the look of this. Was he splitting the group up? That only made sense if they were going to be two teams playing against each other.
That's it!
“All right, all right, hold on,” Owen held his hands up in the shape of a T to signal for time out. “We need a team building and trust exercise.”
Finnley snorted.
“I'm serious!” Owen continued. “What do you say to a friendly game of beach volleyball? Let's be on the same team, you and I. I'll show you that I can be trustworthy.”
“What does any of this,” Finnley gestured to the wrecked world around them, “have to do with volleyball?”
Owen remembered the volleyball net posts in his vision. “To be honest, maybe everything.”
Owen finally had a glint in his eye as he stared down his new teammate. Maybe this time they wouldn't be rivals, but judging from Finnley's glare, they had a long way to go towards becoming friends. This was complicated, but maybe, just maybe, not too complicated for him to handle.
Thanks for reading! Maybe next time we'll play a game to reveal Finnley's backstory!