So, the (gamers) /tg/ board of 4chan was discussing
a tri-stat Magical Girl game inspired by Lyrical
Nanoha; much of /tg/ isn't anime fans, but they
wanted to "play the little girl", and came up with
their own setting:
a Dickensian Steampunk pseudo-Victorian mega-London
stalked by demonically influenced necromancer Gothic Lolitas.
The deus ex machina is simply a demon-type who targets
a vulnerable child by possessing a doll and becoming
her advisor, teaching her black magic and encouraging
her to use it. (Adults can't do the same because they
don't have the incomplete soul that allows the demon
access.) Children are routinely crippled or worked to
death in the factories, so they have reason to seek
power by any means available; typically, a necro-loli
proceeds by killing people and devouring their souls.
The sacrifices also power a condition of eternal youth -
the demon doesn't want his meal ticket to grow up
and lose contact, so he prevents her from aging.
This setting follows pretty much directly from the
memetic principle that RPG characters shouldn't
be "chosen one" special uber-haxors, since that
encourages ego-maniacal play. If your character
is a more-or-less ordinary little girl fighting for
her life as a usual thing, that's a fairly GRIMDARK
setting; it implies that there isn't any Good authority
with both the power and the will to protect them.
(Dennou Coil could have worked as a setting,
but these gamers mostly aren't anime fans.)
You might be thinking "Blood+", but no, the necro-
lolis are little girls and don't have the physical
abilities to be effective in direct combat - it's
more like Negima's Evangeline MacDowel.
These links are not child-safe!:
Part 1: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/1730833/
Part 2: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/1738232/
Part 3 and 4 to follow; these links are to the discussion
and not the game, which is still being formalized.
Of course, this isn't the first time Westerners have
re-invented the magical girl - Lillith from 1100 AD,
Hans Christen Andersen's Little Mermaid, the Little
Matchstick Girl, Joan of Arc, Lewis Caroll's Sylvie
and Bruno, Ozma of Oz, ... I got nothing.
I had a thought when I started this, but it vanished,
and now I must return to work.
-Galen
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