Alice – "In the end, shrine maidens are two colors. Your power is only twenty-eight-point-five-seven-one-four percent as great as mine."
Marisa – "Wha? Using your brain for danmaku? Are you dumb or something? Danmaku's all about power.”
Alice – "Comments like that are exactly why people think you're an idiot. Danmaku is all about brains. That's just common sense."
ALICE MARGATROID
PL 10 (150)
Seven-Colored Puppeteer
OPL: 10; DPL: 10
Ability: Manipulation of dolls
Species: Youkai (Magician, Ex-Human)
Threat Level: Low
Human Friendship Level: High
Main Place of Activity: Anywhere (Forest of Magic)
Other Titles: Superficially Busy Youkai
Debut: TH05 ~ Mystic Square (Stage 3 Boss)
Other Roles: PCB (Boss 3), IaMP (fighter), IN (playable), StB (enemy), SWR (fighter), SA (support), UNL (fighter)
Songs: The Doll Maker of Bucuresti (Stage 3, PCB)
Doll Judgment ~ The Girl Who Played with People’s Shapes (Boss 3, PCB)
ABILITIES:
STRENGTH 0, AGILITY 3, FIGHTING 2, AWARENESS 3
STAMINA 2, DEXTERITY 6, INTELLECT 5, PRESENCE 0
SKILLS:
Expertise (Magic) 6 (+11), Expertise (Puppetry) 10 (+15), Insight 8 (+11), Investigation 2 (+7), Perception 4 (+7), Persuasion 4 (+4), Ranged Combat (Dolls) 4 (+10)
ADVANTAGES:
Artificer, Assessment, Benefit (use Puppetry for Artificer), Defensive Attack, Defensive Roll 3, Equipment, Move-By Action, Improved Defense, Power Attack, Ritualist
POWERS:
“Youkai Magician Traits”
Immunity 3: Aging, need for sleep, starvation and thirst [3]
“Doll Defense”
Enhanced Dodge 6, Parry 6 (Sustained +0) [12]
“Doll Multi-Tasking”
Quickness 2 (Limited to physical tasks -1) [1]
Feature 2: Work handled by dolls, dolls can speak simple sentences [2]
Doll Manipulation Array
“Goliath Doll”
Summon 9: Goliath Doll (Controlled +1, Heroic +2; Concentration -1) [36]
- AE: “Doll Phalanx”
Ranged Damage 6 (Accurate 2, Multiattack +1, Indirect 4) [1] - AE: “Doll Shield”
Deflect 15 - AE: “Artful Sacrifice”
Ranged Damage 10 (Burst Area +1 [30 ft.], Indirect 4) [1] - AE: “Trip Wire”
Ranged Affliction 10: resisted by Dodge and overcome by Damage/SoH, Hindered+Vulnerable/Immobile+Defenseless (Cumulative +1, Extra Condition +1, Indirect 4, Subtle; Limited Degree -1) [1]
Headquarters: “Alice’s House”
Size – S, Toughness – 6, Features – Laboratory, Library, Living Space, Workshop [4]
OFFENSE:
Unarmed +2 (Tough DC 15)
Doll Phalanx +14 (Tough DC 21), Trip Wire +10 (Dodge DC 20)
Artful Sacrifice (Dodge DC 20, Tough DC 25)
DEFENSES:
Dodge 13 (DC 23), Parry 10 (DC 20)
Toughness +2 (D.Roll +5), Fortitude +8, Will +10
Abilities 42 + Skills 19 + Advantages 12 + Powers 58 + Defenses 19 = 150
COMPLICATIONS:
Holding Back: Even if pushed to the edge of defeat, Alice may remain unwilling to use extra effort, power stunts etc. as she believes doing so would risk showing her hand, so to speak. She’ll use all the things in her standard array, though.
Motivation: The most notable goal of Alice’s research is to develop a truly autonomous doll.
Power Loss: Alice needs to be able to move her hands and fingers to effectively use her dolls in combat. She also needs to have the dolls themselves, obviously, though it seems she can conjure them out of thin air as long as she's crafted them beforehand.
Relationships: Alice has a friendly and working relationship with the other magicians of Gensokyo, mainly Marisa and Patchouli. She also has good relations with the Human Village, where she regularly puts on puppet shows for the people.
Description:
Unlike Patchouli, who was born a youkai magician, Alice is a human who used magic to become one. She specializes in crafting dolls, which she controls through magical strings attached to her fingers. Their movements are extremely lifelike, she can control more than ten at a time and you might not even notice she’s doing it, but it is in fact entirely manual, even if she sometimes enjoys talking to her dolls and acting like they're alive.
Alice isn't very talkative but still friendly towards humans, having only recently become a youkai herself, and will allow them to stay in her house if they get lost in the Forest of Magic. Though not generally violent, she’s surprisingly eager to duel, and has a very tactical approach to combat. Every single doll is crafted by hand, and with various specifications depending on their purpose in combat (giant, explosive, spear, shield etc.). She prefers to never show all her tricks, even if it means losing, because “if she lost at full strength, she’d have nothing more left”.
In the 3rd stage of PCB, Alice is encountered out in the wilderness (for no reason in particular), and seems to know something about the incident but isn't interested in sharing it without a duel. After losing, she points the heroines in the right direction and tells them that the cherry blossoms they've been collecting along the way are the secret to all this.
Build Comments:
Alice is one of those few characters returning from the PC-98 era, where she was a child living in the demon world of Makai, but doesn’t seem to have anything common with her previous incarnation besides her name, appearance and the book she’s often shown with. Fans like to try and connect them somehow, but the only canon hint is a mention that Reimu and Marisa have already met her somewhere before PCB, which is easily explained in other ways.
Doll control itself sounds pretty limited, but decently versatile in combat, allowing her to attack from a variety of directions at once and surprise the enemy with special dolls. The Goliath Doll is a pretty rare technique, but at the top of her array due to being the most expensive. A bit like Patchouli, she's quite a glass cannon, highly reliant on her dolls for defense.
Fanon tends to exaggerate her relationship with Marisa, but they’re definitely on good terms, teaming up in both IN and SA. Their banter features a lot of snark on both sides, but that just makes it even better.
And no, nobody knows how the hell she’s supposed to be “seven-colored”.
---GOLIATH DOLL (Image)
OPL: 9; DPL: 9
ABILITIES:
STRENGTH 10, AGILITY 2, FIGHTING 8, AWARENESS 0
STAMINA -, DEXTERITY 0, INTELLECT -, PRESENCE -
SKILLS:
Intimidation 4 (+10), Stealth (-4)
ADVANTAGES:
All-Out Attack, Daze (Intimidation), Diehard, Interpose, Power Attack, Set-Up, Startle
POWERS:
“Doll Traits”
Immunity 35: Fortitude effects, sensory effects [35] (also immune to mental and interaction effects)
Protection 12 (Impervious 11) [23]
“Marionette Flight”
Flight 1 (Subtle) [3]
"Massive Size"
Growth 6: +6 STR/Toughness, +6 Intimidation, -3 active defenses, -6 Stealth (Innate, Permanent +0) [13]
"Massive Dual Swords"
STR-based Damage 3 (Improved Critical 2, Reach, Split) [7]
OFFENSE:
Massive Dual Swords +5 (Tough DC 28)
DEFENSES:
Dodge 5 (DC 15), Parry 5 (DC 15)
Toughness +13 (Imp. 11), Fortitude -, Will -
Abilities -2 + Skills 2 + Advantages 7 + Powers 76 + Defenses 6 = 94
COMPLICATIONS:
Puppet: As an advanced marionette rather than an actual living creature, the Goliath Doll lacks senses of its own, depending on Alice's instead. Any penalty on Alice's senses afflicts the Goliath as well.
Weakness: Being made of wood, the Goliath Doll takes an additional degree of failure against fire effects or other attacks especially effective against wood.
The Goliath Doll is Alice's ace-in-the-hole, an experimental giant. Very strong but not very versatile. Also, using it takes a lot of concentration on Alice's part, leaving her unable to do much beyond basic defense with her other dolls.
You may also have noticed that I’m building people’s regular houses as Headquarters, which of course is generally unnecessary. However, relatively few characters actually have established homes, so I personally think it’s worth noting on those who do, especially if it has any worthwhile features.