I make no excuses for it. I love Jenny Everywhere.
I love the character, I love the concept, and I love how and why she was created, and just all of it really. Today is the day we celebrate Jenny in all her multitudes. And we celebrate by contributing to her lore.
First and foremost, I must include her license. I don't do this because I have too, I do because it is also part of what I love about her.
"The character of Jenny Everywhere is available for use by anyone, with only one condition. This paragraph must be included in any publication involving Jenny Everywhere, in order that others may use this property as they wish. All rights reversed."
I felt like it was also a great day to finally introduce Jenny, the Shifter, to NIGHT SHIFT. I mean, really. A multi-genre game system needs equally multi-genre NPCs. Jenny can be in every Night World, every Solar Frontier, and by both her own logic and the logic of the Dreaming Age, Jenny was found in the Wasted Lands.
Jenny in Jackson, IL
Jenny: "This town is so weird, and so much more dangerous than any of you know. Seriously, you should all move out, like, now. You are all absolutely bonkers for staying here. But I can’t help it. I love it here."
Larina: "That...is not very reassuring."
Of course, Jenny would end up here eventually. Her "eventually" and our "eventually" are not really the same thing at all, but that is fine. I imagine the characters see her reflection in the glass of Paula's Bookstore one day. She is waving at them, but they can't see her standing inside the store or behind them. She walks through the glass and stands out on the sidewalk. She knows the characters and some of their details, but they are also out of order. Some details are from the future; others may deal with other versions of the characters. So questions like "wow, when did you start wearing glasses?" to characters who have always worn glasses, and so on.
She will exclaim with much pride that today is her birthday and that she was born on this day in 2002. Or will be. Hard to keep timelines straight when you are a Shifter.
Here is how I am planning to use her. Jenny is not a fighter. She is not a harbinger. She is not a warning or even a cautionary tale. Jenny is just fun. Now that doesn't mean something weird isn't happening. But her appearance should feel like the first episode after Sweeps Week or a slightly silly Monster of the Week one. BUT she can be used to move the adventure forward or provide some clues.
For example. In Jackson, the "Big Bad" is the Hollow King. He is trying to absorb special items and then people to fill the emptiness, sorry, Emptiness, inside. His ultimate targets are Candy and Denise. Why? They are "mirror shards," and while they seem to be just two party girls, they actually have connections to all their alternate universe selves. Candy even says all the time, "I contain multitudes." She says it because she thinks it makes her sound cool and deep. But in reality? She could not be more correct. She and Denise have enough to make the Hollow King whole again. And that is bad. Not just "in bringing back a very powerful Necromancer" bad (where the most powerful witch right now is only 2nd level), but because two very sweet and mostly innocent girls would be dead.
 |
| Jenny: "Yeah, the data plan is great, but I have to wait 35 more years for decent 5G." |
Jenny is like a shard as well. But Jenny is aware of all her "shards," and they are aware of her. The Hollow King could no more consume her than I could eat all of the food in Chicago right now. It would destroy him. BUT Jenny knows the importance of Denise and Candy. She knows their other shards.
Now...she might not know why they are important to what is going on in THIS Jackson right now. And she might not even know they are part of the larger seasonal arc; she just knows they are important.
The Shifter4th level Sage, Human (mostly)
Background: Multiversal traveler.
Base Abilities
Strength: 11 (+0)
Agility: 13 (+1)
Toughness: 16 (+2)
Intelligence: 17 (+2) A
Wits: 13 (+1) N
Persona: 16 (+2) N
Vit: 22 (1d6)
DV: 7 (leather jacket)
Fate Points: 1d6
Check Bonus (A/N/D): +3/+2/+0
Attack bonus (base): +0
Melee bonus: +0 Ranged bonus: +1
Languages: All
Skills: A little bit of everything
Saves: +3 to spells and magic-based saves
Sage Abilities
Survivor Skills, Mesmerize ("Fast Talk"), Lore, Languages, Spells
Survivor Skills
Open Locks: 25%
Bypass Traps: 20%
Sleight of Hand: 30%
Move Silently: 30%
Hide in Shadows: 20%
Read Languages: 20%
Spells*
First-level: Bless ("Motivation Speech"), Command
Second-level: Knock
*Note about spells: Jenny doesn't actually cast spells. Her 'magic' allows certain disruptions of the local reality. She can talk to give someone an emotional boost ("Bless") or get them to do something else ("Command"). She also has an affinity for locks...or more to the point, she has an affinity for getting into places she really shouldn't, and locked doors are not going to be an obstacle ("Knock").
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Height: 5'1"
Weight: 101 lbs
Archetype: The Shifter
Quote: "I’m not lost. I’m just taking the scenic route through reality."
Quirks: Travels the multiverse or "shifts" to different realities.
Theme song: She tells everyone it is "867-5309/Jenny" by Tommy Tutone, because she loves seeing people's reactions. (I have to admit I always think it is "Donna Everywhere" by Too Much Joy, but she doesn't fit the girl in the song at all.)
Heroic Touchstones
1st Level: Psychic Power: Tele-empathic link (to other selves)
3rd Level: Aura Sense/Sight (Mirror Shard Awareness)
The Mirror Shard: Mirror Shard Awareness
Jenny Everywhere does not see the future. Not exactly. She sees versions.
She has made the acquaintance of people before they were born and after they were dead. She has been in worlds where they are famous and in ones where no one remembers them; worlds where they made every wrong move and, impossibly, where they got it right. Jenny does not always have the wherewithal to tell which version is from which reality or which of her memories will be of use. But she will remember a face, a name, and the particular shape a soul has when you run into it more than once.
Jenny calls it her sight. I call this Mirror Shard Awareness.
It is not mind-reading, nor is it prophecy. Call it a multiversal memory. When she comes across someone of consequence, she might well recognize another version of them. Some days this makes her helpful, some days funny, and on occasion it makes her exceedingly careful.
In the course of play, this awareness lets Jenny know things about a character that she ought not to. A nickname that has yet to be used. A scar this world has not put on him. A debt, a rescue, a funeral, or a betrayal that never took place here. Her asides will sound like jokes or mistakes, but there is nothing random about them.
Take Larina Nichols in Jackson. Jenny will notice the glasses first. Many Larinas don’t wear them, but the one in Jackson does. And the one for the Mage RPG does. Jenny puts two and two together: the ones with the glasses are usually the sort who have seen too much and found a way to live with it. The magic they see all the time is just too much.
Or when she calls Faye "Fey." The rest of the room won’t catch it, but Faye will. It will land wrong, or perhaps too right. Jenny isn’t mispronouncing Faye Thorne's name; she is recalling a version of her for whom the name was something older.
The immortal Valerie will get a smile and an inquiry as to where the ten dollars she owes her are, even though Valerie has no recollection of owing Jenny a thing.
"Not yet," Jenny will say, unbothered.
When she sees Candy and Denise are together, Jenny goes quiet.
"Oh," she’ll say in a low voice. "There they are." She doesn't know why they are important, just that they are.
That is the awareness at work. Jenny has known Jacksons without them. Jacksons where only one of the pair made it, or where they never met, and the town was all the colder for the absence of two ordinary, impossible girls. She knows their futures. The daughter Denise adopts. The Hope Center that Denise and Candy built/will build in the 2010s to help families in need.
People's pasts and futures are in her head, but they do not always belong to this world. This is one of the reasons she can't be trusted as an oracle. She is telling the truth; the problem is you can never be sure which truth applies here. She isn't psychic (normally); she just has a lot of incomplete histories and futures.
Game Use
A scene may warrant a comment from Jenny about an important NPC or PC by way of Mirror Shard Awareness. Let the GM make of it what they will: a clue, a warning, an emotional complication, or a jest. It should hint at a possible truth without writing the character’s future for them.
Examples:
"Still here. Good. That matters."
"You wrote the song already? No? My mistake."
"Wait, the scar isn’t there yet? Good. You want to stay off the gym roof in November."
"You are so much harder to convince in this version."
The GM is free to decide if such remarks are true, partly true, true in another timeline or merely symbolic. Jenny is not lying. She is just carrying around too many maps.
Limit: Too Many Truths
Jenny has trouble separating one world’s truth from another. If the players put her on the spot for a straight answer on the future, the GM can rule one of three ways: it is true here, it is true in another world, or it is true only if the characters make it so. Jenny is aware of this and would rather be irritating than put words to a possibility and turn it into a cage.
Edited to Add: This past weekend, I ran a "Next Generation" game in Jackson to see if the setting works outside of the 1980s time frame. It does, but I like the 1980s vibe better. But it does give me a new idea for when I use Jenny later on.
Jenny: "Oh! And say hi to Taryn for me!
Larina: "Who is Taryn?"
Jenny: "Oh. Sorry. Spoilers. Say hi to her in 2012."
Special Limit: Larina's Mirror
You will not catch Jenny looking in Larina's mirror. Not safely.
While she has passed through a train window, or a comic panel, even a particularly judgmental snow globe to cross universes, Larina’s mirror is different. It doesn’t just show you alternate worlds; it throws back too many shards of Larina Nichols at once: the Witch Queen, the librarian, the schoolgirl, the red-headed girl with the black fingernails and a notebook, the woman with blood on her hands, the psychic storm that still uses her name.
If forced to look, she must save vs. magic (or equivalent). Fail, and she is stunned for 1d6 rounds, unable to shift and unsure of which Jackson she is in. Succeed, and she still sees one impossible Larina with too much clarity and will have nothing more to do with it.
"Nope. Uhn-uh. Absolutely not. That is a Larina-shaped traffic accident across twelve dimensions."
And if she is feeling less flippant:
"That thing doesn’t show you who you are. It shows you who you might be mistaken for. All of them."
She will describe this as akin to multi-versal feedback. Jenny can already see more than most people; she avoids objects that allow others to do what she can do naturally.
Links
- Her page at Public Domain Super Heroes
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