The World In The Aftermath (Formerly A World Less Magical)

Where in all of your character write ups will go.
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Davies
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Re: The World In The Aftermath (Formerly A World Less Magical)

Post by Davies »

Some more updates about the Cosmic Gems of interstellar legend, and those associated with them:

The Entropy Gem and Gedaugen:
Update 2022: The Entropy Gem was stolen from him by Billie Zane, who then used all of the Gems to cripple but not kill him. In the aftermath of the Anachronic Calamity, the Gem was returned to Gedaugen, who is contemplating the possibility of using it to seize control of Daath now that Abraxas and Ananke have disappeared. However, both the gem and his own abilities have changed in unknown ways due to changes in the nature of entropy as ruled by Teleute, who follows his activities with interest …
The Matter Gem and Yusei:
Update 2022: Billie Zane and Cerebron tricked the Star King into giving them the Matter Gem. In the aftermath of the Anachronic Calamity, it was returned to him by a time traveling Princess Kaguya, who also apprised him of its true nature. The rulers of the Yusei are currently considering ways to employ the Gem in defense of their world.
The Mind Gem and Irkalla:
Update 2022: It is now known that the Mind Gem was stolen from the computer complex at some point around two thousand years ago, but returned soon after, creating the vague memories of this interruption that Irkalla remembers. The Ascendant Mentor has contacted her about the possibility of transferring the denizens of the Underworld into a more lasting and pleasant virtual reality, but she distrusts the intentions of this stranger and fears change.
The Power Gem and the Lightsmiths:
Update 2022: The Lightsmiths recently discovered, to their horror, that their unique status as the only source of the Power Prisms has been compromised. They were distracted from their attempts to deal with this by the theft of the Power Gem itself by Billie Zane and Cerebron, but its return has allowed them to focus their efforts. For the first time in centuries, a group of Lightsmiths will soon be leaving Aperion to hunt down and destroy Victor Furtado for his crime against them.
The Time Gem:
Update 2022: The fragments of the Time Gem were gathered by Billie Zane and Cerebron and then reassembled into the Time Gem. In the aftermath of the Anachronic Calamity, the Time Gem has once again been fragmented, but only the whereabouts of that fragment which was once and is again part of the Pillars of Eternity is definitely known, with the rest scattered throughout time and space.
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Re: The World In The Aftermath (Formerly A World Less Magical)

Post by Commander Titan »

Not much to say in detail but I appreciate the setting updates. I appreciate and evolving setting and am all the more afraid of Billie Zane after these developments!
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King Arthur (Neutral)

Post by Davies »

Arthur, Dux Bellorum
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Were you expecting Clive Owen?

Even in his youth, when he believed that he was the illegitimate son of his foster father being kept close, he had dreams of becoming something greater, of somehow winning his way to a throne through the strength of his sword arm. When Hector and Morgan finally told him the truth of his lineage, with Morgan also revealing some of what that heritage would mean, those ambitions became greater yet. (There was no sword in a stone, no tournament to determine who had the right to draw it forth. Those were all imagined by storytellers of a later age who were, ultimately, telling stories about their own age, not his.)

Arthur (only rarely did he go by the Romanized Artorius) fought for the sake of those dreams and ambitions, not for any enlightened or romantic ideals. He intended to bring all of Britain under his rule, and rule well, but the notion of might in the service of right would have at best made him laugh. At his best, he sincerely believed in the ideals, Roman and Christian, that he had been passed down from his forefathers. At his worst, he believed in nothing but his own power. And there were far more days when he was at his worst than at his best.

Perhaps his greatest personal failing was how he reacted to the news that his youngest daughter was, remarkably, growing into a remarkable warrior. While he never seriously considered the notion that she might be a worthy successor, he was nonetheless interested enough to ride out to the estate where she lived under the guardianship of his foster brother and observe her training. Yet as soon as he laid eyes on her, something about Johanna aroused feelings of mortal terror unlike anything he had known. More than any foe, more than any battle, the sight of her filled him with an incomprehensible loathing, and he avoided her afterwards.

His sister offered him an explanation. He had been gifted with the power to draw the enchantments of others into himself, and strengthen himself thereby -- but this girlchild possessed an enchantment deeper and more subtle than he could affect, making her a potential danger that he might never be able to overcome. It sounded plausible to his ears, but he still wished that Morgan was available to confirm or deny it, for he could not help but wonder if her explanation was meant to strengthen the position of her son in his retinue. Well, Medraut had already earned his position by his own deeds, so it mattered not at all.

When it all fell apart, it happened only by accident. He was leading raids on the continent when news came that Medraut had declared himself king. There were claims that he had received a false report that Arthur had fallen in one of those stupid little battles. Once again, it mattered not at all -- the boy he had hoped might be his heir had grown up to be just as ambitious as he himself, and there was only one way that it could be answered. And so, at the great strife at Camlann, Arthur and Medraut fell, and there was great mortality in Britain and Ireland. And that was the end of the story. Claims that he would one day come again were just stories that people told because they needed hope, nothing more.

Or perhaps not, for another has lately appeared with similar gifts and a similar reaction to the sight of Prydwen, as Johanna now calls herself.

Arthur -- PL 11

Abilities:
STR
7/3 | STA 6/3 | AGL 4/1 | DEX 2 | FGT 9/5 | INT 2 | AWE 2 | PRE 5

Powers:
Magic Absorption: Array (45 points)
  • Aura: Enhanced Advantages 7 (Defensive Attack, Evasion, Improved Defense, Improved Disarm, Move-by Action, Power Attack, Uncanny Dodge); Enhanced Agility 3; Enhanced Fighting 4; Enhanced Stamina 3; Enhanced Strength 4; Impervious Will 7 - 1 point
  • Void: Burst Area Nullify Magic 9, Broad, Close Range, Concentration, Simultaneous - 45 points
Magic Resistance: Immunity 10 (magic effects), Reflect - 20 points
Sword of Promised Victory: Strength-based Damage 3, Improved Critical, Affects Insubstantial 2; Easily Removable (-2 points) - 4 points

Advantages:
Benefit (dux), Defensive Attack, Equipment, Evasion,, Fearless, Improved Defense, Improved Disarm, Leadership, Move-by Action, Power Attack, Uncanny Dodge.

Equipment:
Armor (Protection 3).

Skills:
Athletics 5 (+12/+8), Close Combat: Sword 3 (+12/+8), Expertise: Warfare 8 (+10), Insight 6 (+8), Intimidation 6 (+11), Perception 7 (+9), Persuasion 3 (+8).

Offense:
Initiative +8/+5
Unarmed +9/+5 (Close Damage 7/3)
Sword +12/+8 (Close Damage 10/6)

Defense:
Dodge 10/6, Parry 12/8, Fortitude 8/5, Toughness 9/6, Will 7

Totals:
Abilities 46 + Powers 70 + Advantages 4 + Skills 19 + Defenses 15 = 184 points

Offensive PL: 11
Defensive PL: 11
Resistance PL: 8
Skill PL: 7

Complications:
Ambition--Motivation. Fame. Fear/Hatred (Johanna.)

Note: These stats represent Arthur during the height of his powers, around the time of Badon. By Camlann, when he was in his fifties, subtract two ranks from each physical attribute and FGT, but increase INT and AWE by one rank each.
Last edited by Davies on Mon Feb 27, 2023 8:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The World In The Aftermath (Formerly A World Less Magical)

Post by EternalPhoenix »

Huh. I swear, sometimes we're on the same wavelength. You'll understand after you read Keaira's entry later on.
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Beowulf (Neutral, Deceased)

Post by Davies »

Beowulf
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While the business with first Grendel and then what he took for his mother was probably his greatest adventure, it was hardly his only one. By the time that Hrothgar began having his troubles, he had already gained something of a reputation for killing monsters. Most of them were just animals unfamiliar to those who witnessed them, but removing the threat eased the worries of those folk. Playing up the threat that the creatures had posed, after they were gone, did no real harm, and spread his fame, so that others would know that they could turn to him for help. And that was a good thing, right?

And Grendel was every bit as terrifying as the stories said, and his mother even worse, and he never spoke of the other strangeness he witnessed in their lair beneath the lake. Those eggs, and the spider-like things inside of them, and the way that their home looked less carved from stone than forged from ... something. Not metal, not as he knew it. Beowulf crushed all the eggs, he hoped, and left that part out of the tale. The notion that there might be more of that breed would ease no one, and there was nothing heroic about killing creatures that had yet to be born.

There were other battles against men and "monsters", and some ten years after the business at Heorot, he found himself drawn into a war greater than anything he had ever imagined, alongside men and women from places he knew nothing about, among them the future, of all things. In the process, he learned what that future held for him. While they tried to make him forget that, and everything else that he had seen, his naturally hard head (and a bit of the annoyance that their presumption made him feel) kept their tricks from working on him.

So he was supposed to die a king, fighting a dragon, eh? Well, there were worse fates. So he accepted what came his way, took the kingship when it lay open to him, and welcomed Wiglaf in the knowledge that his nephew would follow after him. Then the dragon came, and he fought it alone save for Wiglaf, and was amazed to find himself still standing at the end. Well, perhaps then the fates could be challenged after all, he thought, just before he felt the sword in his back. Wiglaf was tired of waiting to be king, it seemed.

Dying, he learned one last lesson -- legends leave out important details. But that sword cut both ways, for he lasted long enough to hear his "heir" hypocritically lambasting the Geats for their cowardice ... long enough to let out a groan to let them know he still lived ... and long enough to fix Wiglaf with one last glare. For the rest of his life, Wiglaf lived in mortal terror that somehow, Beowulf would fight his way back from the grave, and so he ruled their people with that caution in mind. So passed the king most gracious and fair-minded, kindest to his people and keenest to win fame.

Beowulf -- PL 10

Abilities:
STR
6 | STA 5 | AGL 2 | DEX 3 | FGT 9 | INT 1 | AWE 2 | PRE 3

Powers:
Fierce Will: Sustained Immunity 20 (mental effects), Limited to half effect - 10 points
Intimidating Presence: Perception Range Affliction 7 (Resisted by Will; Impaired, Disabled), Concentration, Limited Degree - 21 points

Advantages:
All-out Attack, Assessment, Chokehold, Connected, Defensive Attack, Diehard, Equipment 6, Fast Grab, Fearless, Great Endurance, Improved Defense, Improved Hold, Improved Initiative, Power Attack, Prone Fighting, Seize Initiative, Takedown, Tracking, Uncanny Dodge.

Equipment:
Sword (Strength-based Damage 3, Improved Critical), armor (protection 3), and a ship.

Skills:
Athletics 7 (+13), Close Combat: Sword 2 (+11), Expertise: Mariner 6 (+7), Expertise: Warfare 8 (+9), Insight 8 (+10), Intimidation 9 (+12), Perception 8 (+10), Persuasion 6 (+9), Stealth 6 (+8).

Offense:
Initiative +6
Unarmed +9 (Close Damage 6)
Sword +11 (Close Damage 9)

Defense:
Dodge 10, Parry 12, Fortitude 6, Toughness 8/5, Will 6.

Totals:
Abilities 62 + Powers 31 + Advantages 25 + Skills 30 + Defenses 16 = 163 points

Offensive PL: 10
Defensive PL: 10
Resistance PL: 6
Skill PL: 8

Complications:
Fame--Motivation. Reputation (monster hunter.) Responsibility (kin and kind.)

Note: Beowulf's tendency to break his sword is not a complication, but a consequence of running into a lot of monsters who have Improved Smash and Weapon Break.
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Princess Kaguya (Neutral, Deceased)

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Princess Kaguya
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Much of the story, notably the end, has already been told. And yet there is still more to tell. There always is.

Gaigoyan -- to use the Albadine version of her name, which her adoptive parents thought similar to the Japanese word for 'shining', Kaguya -- came to Earth almost by accident. Born just as the various Albadine dominions were disintegrating, she was charged by the ruler who had ordered her quickening (but whom she never once thought of as a mother) to seek out all the remaining Albadine colonies throughout charted space and bid them travel to her home world to build the basis of an empire. She found many, and died a bit inside each time the people she had found refused that bidding, for she had other orders for what to do if that happened. Throughout her life, she dreamed of drowning in the green blood she had shed.

There were old accounts of the people visiting the Sol system, and she followed those accounts there. After conducting an orbital survey that revealed no traces of her people on the third planet, she was preparing to depart when her vessel came under attack by robotic vessels from the first planet. She barely survived that clash and the shipwreck that followed it, which brought her down in the land that she would come to know as Nihon. Part of the reason that her eventual "rescue" took so long was her reluctance to call for help, out of fear that her attackers might come again.

Another part, of course, was that she was happy there, for perhaps the first time in her life. She knew that it could never last, that she could never truly be one of these people. Yet she loved them all the same. Not romantically; she had been designed not to know such desires, since the geneforging that had created her people was still unstable, then, and the children born to them were as often Gargun as Albadine, which would never do for the children of the Empress. So her refusal of the suits paid to her by many of the noteworthy of Nihon was sincere, if not perhaps wholly honest.

In time, she took the people she loved most away from that world, and led them to a new one, which she hoped would be far enough away from the madness that the Empress was unleashing. Even after she left Yusei, she never returned to her homeworld, but continued to explore this region of the galaxy. She visited Hasham, and played a role in the formation of the mystic order, but ultimately departed when she could not accept the dualism that they insisted upon. Gaigoyan the Green knew better than most that great good and great evil could exist in the same soul.

When the Albadine came at last to the Imperium, she was waiting, and was embraced by them as a pioneer, honored and kept safe. Some few centuries later, she would become drawn into the Anachronic Calamity, which astounded her. Surely, an ancient wreck such as herself could be of no help in saving reality? Besides, if it was the fate of reality to end in this way, then should this not be accepted without fear or -- and then they told her of how the one called Billie Zane had obtained the Matter Gem.

"If you had claimed it in battle, I would weep but do nothing," she said to the Mind Eater when they met. "If you had stolen it in stealth, I would weep but do nothing. But you tricked my children to think that you were I ... and I shall not weep. Even if the Source forgives you, I will not. Greetings. My parents named me Kaguya-hime. Prepare to die." And with the mightiest blow imaginable, she cut the Matter Gem and the hand that was holding it from her foe. She might have done more, but reclaiming the treasure took priority.

The ending of her tale has already been told. Or has it? For although there was no great angel waiting in the gloom for her soul, her end did not go as unwitnessed as some accounts have claimed. And perhaps, one whose life was given to love will yet be called upon in dark hours to come.

Princess Kaguya -- PL 12

Abilities:
STR
11/6 | STA 11/6 | AGL 6 | DEX 4 | FGT 8 | INT 6 | AWE 5 | PRE 5

Powers:
Basic Telepathy: Mental Communication 2 (1 mile)- 8 points
Bonded Starsword: Damage 6, Penetrating 6, Accurate; Easily Removable (-4 points) - 9 points
Longevity: Immunity 1 (aging); Immunity 2 (disease, poison), Limited to Half-effect - 2 points
Mental Powers: Array (31 points)
  • Hypnosis: Perception Range Cumulative Affliction 10 (Resisted by Will; Dazed, Compelled, Controlled), Insidious, Vision Dependent - 30 points
  • Physical Enhancement: Enhanced Stamina 5; Enhanced Strength 5; Sustained Impervious Toughness 6; Sustained Regeneration 5 - 1 point
  • Psychic Probe: Cumulative Mind-Reading 10, Subtle - 1 point
  • Psychokinesis: Perception Range Move Object 10 (200 tons), Subtle - 1 point
Shielded Mind: Impervious Will 10, Limited to Mental effects - 5 points

Rarely Used Power Stunt:
Focused Physical Enhancement: Enhanced Damage 15, Penetrating 15.


Advantages:
Assessment, Attractive, Defensive Attack, Evasion, Fearless, Improved Defense, Improved Initiative, Leadership, Power Attack, Teamwork, Trance, Uncanny Dodge.

Skills:
Close Combat: Sword 4 (+12), Deception 6 (+11), Expertise: Galactic 8 (+14), Insight 10 (+15), Intimidation 8 (+13), Perception 8 (+13), Persuasion 8 (+13), Treatment 6 (+12).

Offense:
Initiative +10
Unarmed +8 (Close Damage 11/6)
Starsword +14 (Close Damage 6)
Hypnosis -- (Perception Range Will 10)

Defense:
Dodge 10, Parry 12, Fortitude 11/6, Toughness 11/6, Will 13.

Totals:
Abilities 92 + Powers 58 + Advantages 12 + Skills 29 + Defenses 16 = 207 points

Offensive PL: 10
Defensive PL: 12
Resistance PL: 12
Skill PL: 10

Complications:
Responsibility--Motivation. Falls In (Non-romantic) Love Easily.


"Where is it that we were together? Who were you that I lived with? The brother. The friend. Darkness, light. Strife and love. Are they the workings of one mind? The features of the same face? Oh, my soul. Let me be in you now. Look out through my eyes. Look out at the things you made. All things shining."
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Re: The World In The Aftermath (Formerly A World Less Magical)

Post by Commander Titan »

I had an awful time reading Beowulf in college, which is a shame because it's a great story. However, for better or worse, I'd seen the 2007 CGI version with Ray Winstone as Beowulf, so I love the tale (even in that altered form).

I'm appreciating the Calamity given you a chance to focus on some pre-modern characters in the WITA!

And good for the Princess, cutting of Zane's hand.
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Re: The World In The Aftermath (Formerly A World Less Magical)

Post by Davies »

Commander Titan wrote: Thu Mar 02, 2023 3:00 am I'm appreciating the Calamity given you a chance to focus on some pre-modern characters in the WITA!
Thank you! The next two will be characters who passed more recently, though.
Commander Titan wrote: Thu Mar 02, 2023 3:00 am And good for the Princess, cutting of Zane's hand.
Well, it was one of the few Star Wars tropes I hadn't used yet. :lol:
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Re: The World In The Aftermath (Formerly A World Less Magical)

Post by greycrusader »

Commander Titan wrote: Thu Mar 02, 2023 3:00 am I had an awful time reading Beowulf in college, which is a shame because it's a great story. However, for better or worse, I'd seen the 2007 CGI version with Ray Winstone as Beowulf, so I love the tale (even in that altered form).

I'm appreciating the Calamity given you a chance to focus on some pre-modern characters in the WITA!

And good for the Princess, cutting of Zane's hand.
I too struggled with reading the saga, and appreciated the movie, after which I got a bit more into reading about the character and associated legend. For whatever reasons, Beowulf somehow stands apart for me from similar folkloric and mythological figures. Maybe it is because he always seems to have a certain dignity, which Davies also conveyed.

All my best.
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Re: The World In The Aftermath (Formerly A World Less Magical)

Post by Commander Titan »

I think my professor was too-laser focused on the vagaries of the Old English in the poem, so much so that our class wasn't able to see the forest for the trees. As a result, I've always had a softer spot for The Saga of Grettir the Strong, which I read a fully translated version of.

But agreed that Davies portrayed Beowulf well. And I'm curious as always who the next possibly familiar faces will be!
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Johnny Wasted (Hero, Deceased)

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Johnny Wasted
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Before 1977, if anyone had told twenty-one year old John Schneider that he would one day be a hero ... he would have been thrilled. However, his idea of a hero was largely shaped by his favorite movie, Easy Rider, which he had first snuck into a theatre to see when he was fifteen, and then actually paid to watch whenever he had the opportunity. Idolizing its lead character, "Captain Courage", he hoped to one day ride across America on a motorcycle. (That the journey of Captain Courage apparently ends in his violent death did not really register to him.)

Unfortunately (for him at least) that dream was still far out of reach for him, with the problem of obtaining a motorcycle and holding onto it yet unsolved, when his life went off on a completely different path. Struck down by a large dose of the mutating fallout from the final battle of Alphatron and El Imán, he lay as one dead for four days, with the coroner concluding that the mutations he had suffered had been too severe for him to survive. As he was being buried in the potter's field, however, he regained consciousness within the coffin and blasted his way out of it with the first use of the energy beam he could now project from his left eye.

In addition to that strange talent, which he had to keep his eye closed to avoid using, he found himself largely without the various weaknesses of the flesh. That had its upsides and a few downsides. The biggest downside, from his own perspective, was that he was no longer affected, at all, by recreational drugs. Without that, what was the point of his grand dreams of following in the path of Captain Courage? (He also soon found out that while he was hard to injure, he could only heal from those injuries he did suffer by eating raw meat. Fortunately, it could be any sort of raw meat, instead of ... well, you know, people.)

This might have been the birth of a supervillain, not a hero, if not for two factors. The first was that Johnny Wasted, as he soon started calling himself, lacked both the imagination and the initiative to engage in serious crimes now that his ability to enjoy the proceeds of them was greatly diminished. (He often commented that he was still kind of "brain dead", and his eventual allies often noted that he suffered from frequent memory lapses.) The other factor was the friendship he struck up with Red Rachel, a partially robotic entity who appeared in Denver after the explosion. They bonded over their mutual inhumanity, but Rachel strove to act as a protector and dragged Johnny into that scene as well.

The two of them helped to form the Mile High Marauders in 1983, and remained with the team right up until it broke up in 1991. While their personal relationship went through many ups and downs during that time, they chose to remain together as they rode away from Denver in a motorcycle and sidecar. Rumors claimed that they had been captured by the Pythons soon after their departure, but if so it seems likely that they escaped captivity some time after the fall of Delphi and went into hiding.

They were next seen in New Orleans during the attack by Cerebron, which they helped to resist. Unfortunately, Rachel suffered damage that left her inoperative, and while Johnny insisted that she would be fine, he was apparently unable to find anyone who could repair her systems. When Gideon Gold sought him out in 2005, Johnny was living outside Krotz Springs, Louisiana, not far from where the climax of Easy Rider was shot, and tending to what he referred to as her grave. He agreed to help Gold to establish a new Grim Brigade, but stated that he would not stick around for too long.

That truer than he knew, for he was, like the rest of his team, killed during the coup attempt less than a year later. After an extended period to make sure that he would not be coming back a third time, he was buried beside the grave in Krotz Springs. A small memorial was eventually established, though it has frequently been defaced by local youth who neither know nor care about those who lie here. For reasons she declines to explain, Liz Leeds of Heroic Enterprises spends a day each month cleaning the site up.

Johnny Wasted -- PL 9

Abilities:
STR
5 | STA -- | AGL 2 | DEX 2 | FGT 6 | INT -1 | AWE 2 | PRE 3

Powers:
Eyebeam: Ranged Attack 9, Accurate 4 - 22 points
Walking Corpse: Immunity 50 (Fortitude effects, mental effects); Impervious Protection 8; Regeneration 2, Source (raw meat) - 67 points

Advantages:
Fast Grab, Improved Grab, Improved Hold, Power Attack, Takedown Attack.

Skills:
Athletics 6 (+11), Close Combat: Unarmed 4 (+10), Expertise: Streetwise 8 (+7), Intimidation 6 (+9), Stealth 6 (+8), Vehicles 6 (+8).

Offense:
Initiative +2
Unarmed +10 (Close Damage 5)
Eyebeam +9 (Ranged Damage 9)

Defense:
Dodge 8, Parry 10, Fortitude Immune, Toughness 8, Will 6

Totals:
Abilities 28 + Powers 89 + Advantages 5 + Skills 18 + Defenses 14 = 154 points

Offensive PL: 9
Defensive PL: 9
Resistance PL: 6
Skill PL: 5

Complications:
Thrills--Motivation. Brain Dead (difficulty retaining "new" information.) Hideous Appearance. Poor Depth Perception.
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Tiankui (Hero, Deceased)

Post by Davies »

Tiankui/天魁
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Tiankui is one of the names for the star known as Alpha Ursae Majoris in western astronomy. In the Chinese classic known as Water Margin, the 108 stars associated with that constellation were associated with an identical number of the bandits of Mount Liang, said to be the reborn forms of 36 Heavenly Spirits and 72 Earthly Fiends. Tiankui was associated with their eventual leader, Song Jiang, portrayed in the text as an honest magistrate forced into banditry by corrupt opponents. While he was victorious and eventually redeemed, his enemies put him in a position where he was forced to drink poison or become a traitor once again. He chose the former.

All this was well known to Song Meng, who had studied the classics and annals since he was a child. If anyone had suggested that his family name meant that he had some connection to this legendary rebel, he would have chuckled, shook his head, and perhaps tried to educate the poor fool about the difference between verifiable history and historical romance. The Song family was immense and ancient, and his branch could only trace its 6,history back less than five hundred years. As for his personal inclinations, Meng was content to use his abilities -- both his sharp intellect and the extraordinary talents he had discovered in his early adolescence -- to help people quietly, without drawing attention to himself.

Alas, contentment was not to be his lot. Forced into action during the events of 2006, Meng managed to keep his identity secret while still protecting other superpowers and civilians from the forces of Saturn. In the aftermath, he spent a nervous week wondering whether his precautions had failed before the government announced its new policy of toleration for independent superpower agents, at which point he let out a sigh of relief ... that died in his lungs as he realized the trap that was being built.

These new superheroes would be tolerated just long enough for the state to learn enough about their weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and then those traits would be exploited to the fullest. Organization was going to be needed. And so he began to create the Sīfa Zhuānjiā, embracing his connection to Song Jiang under the alias Tiankui. (At least, that is the story he usually told. Once, however, when asked why he had been so sure about the intentions of the state, he remarked that he had received an unmistakable warning about them, but declined to elaborate what he meant by that.)

For seven years, Tiankui led the Sīfa to the best of his ability, aided by his ability to cloak himself and others from other attempts at psychic surveillance. But no luck endures forever, and he was finally put in a position where he had to choose between his own ability to escape and that of his people. He did not hesitate and was placed under arrest, brought to a secret facility inside the Beijing null field. There he was given another choice -- he could either accept psychic surgery to turn him into a loyal servant of the government or, in honor of his legacy, drink poison. Here, he hesitated, but chose the poison.

"That was the wrong choice," said his interrogator, drawing a pistol "You're supposed to arrange for 'Li Kui' to die with you, remember?" Before he could answer that there was no 'Li Kui'-equivalent in the Sīfa, the gun went off, and Song Meng died with a vague sense of amusement that people assumed he was following the classics so closely.

Tiankui -- PL 11

Abilities:
STR
2 | STA 3 | AGL 2 | DEX 3 | FGT 4 | INT 7 | AWE 5 | PRE 5

Powers:
呼保義/"Protector of Righteousness": Selective Burst Area 3 Affects Others and Self Concealment 2 (mental senses) - 14 points
Shielded Mind: Impervious Will 12, Limited to mental effects - 6 points
Telepathic Communication and Probe: Selective Area Mental Communication 3 (regional); Cumulative Mind Reading 11 - 41 points
Telepathic Defenses: Enhanced Advantages 14 (Close Attack 3, Defensive Roll 2, Evasion 2, Improved Defense, Improved Initiative 2, Seize Initiative, Uncanny Dodge), Limited, Only against sapient opponents without Immunity to Mental Effects or Impervious Will 12; Enhanced Defenses 16 (Dodge 8, Parry 8), Limited, Only against sapient opponents without Immunity to Mental Effects or Impervious Will 12; Senses 2 (acute psychic awareness) - 17 points

Advantages:
Assessment, Close Attack 3, Contacts, Defensive Roll 2, Evasion 2, Fascinate (Persuasion), Improved Defense, Improved Initiative 2, Inspire 2, Jack-of-all-trades, Leadership, Seize Initiative, Uncanny Dodge, Well-informed.

Skills:
Deception 6 (+11), Expertise: Civics 6 (+13), Expertise: History 5 (+12), Insight 8 (+13), Investigation 5 (+12), Perception 6 (+11), Persuasion 8 (+13), Treatment 4 (+11).

Offense:
Initiative +10/+2
Unarmed +7/+4 (Close Damage 2)

Defense:
Dodge 14/6, Parry 14/6, Fortitude 5, Toughness 8/3, Will 15

Totals:
Abilities 62 + Powers 78 + Advantages 8 + Skills 24 + Skills 18 = 190 points

Offensive PL: 11
Defensive PL: 11
Resistance PL: 10
Skill PL: 8

Complications:
Responsibility--Motivation. Hunted by Authorities. Secret Identity.
"I'm sorry. I love you. I'm not sorry I love you."
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EternalPhoenix
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Re: The World In The Aftermath (Formerly A World Less Magical)

Post by EternalPhoenix »

Would that "unmistakable warning", by chance, have come from a distant cousin who identified herself only as Qiaolian? 😁
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Davies
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Re: The World In The Aftermath (Formerly A World Less Magical)

Post by Davies »

EternalPhoenix wrote: Fri Mar 03, 2023 11:32 pm Would that "unmistakable warning", by chance, have come from a distant cousin who identified herself only as Qiaolian? 😁
No comment. 8-)
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Commander Titan
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Re: Johnny Wasted (Hero, Deceased)

Post by Commander Titan »

I quite like Johnny Wasted. A superhero zombie is a fun idea!
Davies wrote: Fri Mar 03, 2023 2:44 am This might have been the birth of a supervillain, not a hero, if not for two factors. The first was that Johnny Wasted, as he soon started calling himself, lacked both the imagination and the initiative to engage in serious crimes now that his ability to enjoy the proceeds of them was greatly diminished. (He often commented that he was still kind of "brain dead", and his eventual allies often noted that he suffered from frequent memory lapses.) The other factor was the friendship he struck up with Red Rachel, a partially robotic entity who appeared in Denver after the explosion. They bonded over their mutual inhumanity, but Rachel strove to act as a protector and dragged Johnny into that scene as well.
A lot of supervillains are "I lacked the imagination to become a world-changing inventor with my freeze ray" or whatever, too small-minded to be altruistic. I like a superhero too unmaginative to be a villain! And of course it shows the importance of a good influence.
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