So, in Klown: the Grinning, you play as a Klown, a shapeshifting magical (often monstrous) clown, who is a human merged with the essence of the Backstage, the realm where everything that has been dreamed goes when the dream is over.You play as one of five
breeds: Whiteface, Auguste, Pierrot, Hobo, or Grotesque, and as one of five
factions: The Lords of Misrule, The Cult of Whizbo, Are We Funny Yet?!?, The Union, and a fifth yet to be decided.
THE BREEDS
Whitefaces are persuaders, leaders… as much as anyone can lead Klowns -trying to wrangle so much as a single Troupe (player party) is like herding cats, if cats could slip banana peels under your heel while you were grabbing for their collar-. They tend to act like goofballs and hedonists, with the strongest sweet tooths of any Klown (mind you, that's saying something!)
Pierrots are poets, writers, famed for their sappy tragic love poetry and excessive moping; the archetypal Sad Clown. Don't underestimate them- while they're moping in the corner, they're keeping picture-perfect notes on everything you're letting slip, and they gossip.
Augustes are clumsy dopes, everyone knows that! Always tripping, whacking their heads on things, dropping bannanna peels everywhere. Kinda funny how, when they trip, it's always the people they get tangled up in who get hurt, while they never suffer a scratch. And isn't it odd how the only people who actually trip on their banana peels are the ones who were rude to an Aguste? …must be a coincidence.
Hobos are cousins to Augustes; the paints even look similar. Some folk even say a Hobo is just an Auguste who hit a bad patch and got glum. That's ignoring the huge muscles (the Unions makes them strong) and mean right hook, not to mention the Union politics and the secret Hobo language.
Grotesques are… well, ain't they a thing? Makeup that doesn't come out of any clowning manual I've read, some of them don't even HAVE makeup so much as clown masks FUSED to their faces! Scariest damn critters, Grotesques. Clawed hands, some of them, or long strong tongues. Any Klown can be a monster- most Grotesques can be Horrification made flesh. Also the local black coffee addicts.
THE FACTIONS
The Lords of Misrule are, well. If leading Klowns is like herding cats, the Lords of Misrule are happy to act as cat-herds. Don't worry, they won't pull out the shears and fleece yah! Drawing from medieval Court Jester ideals, and the British folk customs of the Feast of Fools (which were led by, you guessed it, the Lord of Misrule!), the Lords lead through example, persuasion, humor, and a willingness to say 'You know what? You'e right. This
isn't working!' and do the opposite. Thus, the Lords celebrate the Feast of Fools, where once a year (in some places, once a month) they spend a day with every task, even the positions of highest leadership, being swapped around randomly. You think you can lead this Circus better, Lil Miss Union Hobo? Well, here's the tophat and whip! Get crackin'!
The Cult of Whizbo is unusual for a religion: they
know their god isn't real… yet. Starting as a pre-internet in-joke, mutating into a meme during the days of Ceiling Cat the voyeuristic, He isn't actually real, and He won't be, u til His followers spread word far and hard enough for Him to have always been real. It's all very Postmodern, Chaos Magic, Aliester Crowley meets Terry Pratchett Power-of-Belief stuff, like if the Technephandic Heralds of Basilisk developed a real sense of humor. Whizbo is the God of Klowns, the great Trickster god. He's Prometheus in greasepaint, He's bald Coyote, He's even Clownthulhu if you ask the high-Nightmare cultists. He will arise, and He will tell the Final Joke, and He and His followers together will have the last laugh.
The Union is… look, it's a Union, ok, bub? It organizes Klowns, it guarantees good pay, OSHA adherence, medical coverage (and yeah, that includes dental, unless you're a Grotesque- nuttin' the docs can do about them fangs, bud; them's the breaks), and just generally looks out for the little guy. If you're a working class Klown, the Union has your back. Drawing from the rich history of Dust Bowl-era communist Union advocacy (think 'fighting for the 40-hour work break and weekends off, not Soviet Repression and gulags), the Union is not actually 100% Hobo. There're plenty of Agustes and Pierrots, a sizable minority of Whitefaces (albeit everyone else believes they're all young spoiled college-educated Bobos talking down to the hardworking working Klown).
Are We Funny Yet!?! (and, no. Punction's
not optional) are, basically, a postmodernist performance art collective. The devil, as always, is in the details. Namely,
you try imaging an art collective run by the unholy lovechild of the kind of art professors whose courses all involve the word 'postmodern' and who can't speak without namedropping Anna Halprin or Li Xinmo or Peter Rigly and uses words like 'flash mob' and 'reality phreaking' and Spontex (the political spontaneity thing, not the cleaning products) -whew, take a deep breath there- on the
one hand, and the freaking
Joker on the other. They're not all psychos. Really. I pinky promise.
Just most of 'em.
You draw upon the powers of emotion (gathered from trips Backstage, involving yourself in adventures with the various Figments that live there, or playing White Rabbit to the various human Alice's who have fallen out of their own heads into the Backstage) to power twin Klown powers, Hilarities and Horrifications, depending on whether you want to do funny joyous things or scary monster clown things.
You have a twin Karma meta, Laughter and Nightmare, which effect how much you can wield hilarities and horrifications.
A lot of the lore and most mechanics are up in the air at this point- really, I'm looking to workshop with other people who have ideas.
