"What in hell is wrong with you!?" - A collection of quirks, flaws, and obsessions

[Magnum Opus]

So I was thinking about how to present the otherness of the Created through roleplaying after my last chronicle ended. Players often forget that mechanics cannot do all the work for them, and so they were confused by the idea of losing their powers (yes, again) in exchange for mortality.

So I thought that having a collection of quirks, flaws, obsessions and whatnot for players to skim through would allow for a better understanding of the alien nature of Prometheans, and their quest for mortality. Feel free to add your owns.

-An unreasonable hatred of flowers, they'll sometimes wreck a garden for seemingly no reason or break flower pots on impulse
-Always tries to hold someone's hand
-Takes random polaroid pictures all the time. Even during stealth missions or important meetings
-Explains their emotions or impulses when having them. It gets weird when Torment rises or when they start to feel love (or lust) towards strangers
-Eats uncooked food only, including meat
-Tries new haircut about once a week (always done by themselves and they have no clue how to use scissors)
-Inflicts self-harm after what they consider a sin. Usually on the spot and immediately

[Vent0]

-Hates mirrors and smashes them.
-Dislikes being touched. At all. Violently.
-Agrees verbally with whatever someone says. Always, regardless of prior or future actions, and will agree with an opposing statement said right after.
-Can't refer to themselves in the first person in crowds larger than 2.

[blackhatmatt]

-Exaggerated /s/ and /z/ sounds in speech (trying lingering on those sounds for a full second).
-Unable to understand that commercials don't depict real situations
-Licking dogs (hey, they do it to us)

[Vent0]

-Unable to understand that commercials don't depict real situations

-Complete lack of understanding rhetorical or metaphorical speech (saying "I'm broke" may cause them to try and fix you, and let's not get into what happens when you exclaim "well, F me sideways" in frustration over something).

[Cinder]

- Has its pockets filled with plastic soldiers. When idle or at rest, it carefully scatters them all over the place.
- Draws eyes and mouths over its skin with a pen. Once they fade, it draws new ones, always different
- Thinks that sleeping bodies are empty and that a person is only "there" when awake.

[Master Aquatosic]

- Has its pockets filled with plastic soldiers. When idle or at rest, it carefully scatters them all over the place.
- Draws eyes and mouths over its skin with a pen. Once they fade, it draws new ones, always different
- Thinks that sleeping bodies are empty and that a person is only "there" when awake.

First two are adorable, last one could end in nauseating tragehorror

[Master Aquatosic]

Here's the thing I think needs to be taken into account though. Prometheans awaken with less understanding than a baby outside of how to walk and (I think) talk and whatever basic life info the Azathotic Memory gives them. Their quirks come from their attempts to understand and imitate human behaviors we barely even notice, as well as not realizing what behaviors are unacceptable. So any quirk is less something inherent and more connected to something they don't understand about the world or some mistaken attempt to imitate humans.

Some of these quirks make sense in that context, but not all of them do

[Magnum Opus]

Some of these quirks make sense in that context, but not all of them do

I don't agree. A lot of them make sense if they experienced something to trigger their obsession. An encounter with someone, a trauma or simply a bad explanation of human social rituals can be triggers to their obsessions. Let's go over a few of the "weirder" ones.

-Break mirrors wherever it goes, ok so it hates it's own reflection because it forces it to see that it's still just a monster
-Draws eyes and mouths over its skin, they probably saw a teenager bored and passing time by doodling over themselves with a sharpie, and took it as inspiration for themselves.
-Always agrees verbally with people's oppinions. It wants to make friends and has a very basic understanding that shared experience or oppinions is a way to make friends
-Takes random polaroid pictures all the time, talked with a photograph who told them that photography allows them to capture a vision of the world and share that vision with others. Not understanding that the vision was more akin to the vision of a poet or that of a painter, they started photographing everything
-Struggles with S and Z, they are not easy letters to speak when your body is not your own

Also, because that intro gave me inspiration
-Sees human social rituals as legitimate rituals. Not sure what they're protecting from or calling forth

[Master Aquatosic]

those ones do make sense.

[Vent0]

those ones do make sense.

So which don't, in your opinion? And why?

[Cinder]

Because I turned on the TV and a certain thing was on

-Carries a voice recorder around all the time, recording thoughts, ideas and comments about pretty much everything. Treats the recorder as the voice of another person and has actual conversations with it.

[blackhatmatt]

Problems with object permanence.

Now, people in general have this problem (it's what allows our brains to be like "ARRGH" instead of "Wait, what?" when the monster in Cloverfield sneaks up on Hud in the last scene, despite being big enough to decapitate Lady Liberty). Horror movies use this all the time; if you're not seeing it, it may as well not exist. Babies, of course, are amazed when you cover your face up and the pull off the blanket. Daddy's a wizard! (Hours of nonstop entertainment.)

But take that same concept, and make it slightly less intense than a baby's and more intense than an adults and apply it to a Promethean, and you've got someone who is fucking baffled by the notion of telephones. I can't see you, but you're talking to me so you clearly exist. And so on.

[SunlessNick]

Can only use "we" in an inclusive sense, and gets flustered when the context calls for an exclusive use. Or vice-versa. (For those who don't know, this refers to whether the person being addressed is included in the "we" referred to by the speaker).

Compulsively examines people's reflections, looking for differences between them and the genuine articles.

[Phaolan]

To a point made above: Yes, ALL of these demand context, but some more than others. I mean, as one moves through the Refinement of Gold, for example, problems with understanding how humans interact with each other will diminish within some circumstances but not in ALL. After all, Aurum doesn't tell one how issues of dominance works all the time...

Compulsively examines people's reflections, looking for differences between them and the genuine articles.

I like this one!

- Worries that ALL eggs hide baby birds inside them... Until proven otherwise. Especially problematic around Easter.
- Upset (be it confused, angry, or simply worried) when children tell adults what to do.
- Expecting symbols on maps to actually appear at the spots described by the map – played to varying degrees depending on Refinement and Role.
- Difficulty recognising and/or using the different terms for pets, offspring, and livestock (great for a Tammuz or an Osiran).

[SunlessNick]

Always reads aloud whatever they write, and gets anxious when they don't have the means to write down what they're saying when they speak.

Has trouble parsing communication that takes place out of their presence (ie, that two people can share information when the Promethean isn't around).

A morbid fear of touching anyone (a more specific fear might be that doing so could burn them with the Divine Fire).

Always - or never - prefers to eat the type of food they last saw a human eating.