The Coyote Den

Where in all of your character write ups will go.
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KorokoMystia
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Re: The Coyote Den

Post by KorokoMystia »

And then there's the thing in hindsight when you realize that..he was probably on the moon when it got blown up later.
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CoyoteUnion
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Re: The Coyote Den

Post by CoyoteUnion »

Should post the Pilaf gang in the next few days. Life's been a bit harder than normal and my interests ping-pong a lot, but this thread isn't dead.
Jabroniville
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Re: The Coyote Den

Post by Jabroniville »

CoyoteUnion wrote: Sat Dec 19, 2020 7:49 am Should post the Pilaf gang in the next few days. Life's been a bit harder than normal and my interests ping-pong a lot, but this thread isn't dead.
Sweet deal! Sorry things have been rough- pretty much all of 2020 has been dreadful. Hopefully things pick up for everyone.
Thorpocalypse
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Re: The Coyote Den

Post by Thorpocalypse »

Jabroniville wrote: Sat Dec 19, 2020 10:46 am
CoyoteUnion wrote: Sat Dec 19, 2020 7:49 am Should post the Pilaf gang in the next few days. Life's been a bit harder than normal and my interests ping-pong a lot, but this thread isn't dead.
Sweet deal! Sorry things have been rough- pretty much all of 2020 has been dreadful. Hopefully things pick up for everyone.
No doubt about that. Glad you're feeling better Coyote. I find your takes on the DBZ-verse interesting even though I've never gotten into that series.
Me fail English? That's unpossible. - Ralph Wiggum
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CoyoteUnion
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Pilaf Gang

Post by CoyoteUnion »

Image

Pilaf (PL 2, 46 PP)
Abilities (16 PP)
STR -1 STA -1 AGL 0 DEX 2 FGT 0
INT 6 AWA -1 PRE 2

Skills (7 PP)
Expertise 2 (Bluster) (+8)
Persuasion 2 (+4)
Sleight of Hand 4 (+6)
Technology 6 (+12)

Advantages (15 PP)
Benefit (Millionaire) [3]
Equipment - Headquarters (Huge, 10 Toughness, Computer, Deathtraps, Isolated, Living Space) [8]
Fascinate (Bluster)
Hide in Plain Sight
Inventor
Luck

Powers (8 PP)
Imp (Permanent Shrinking 4) [8]

Offense
Unarmed +0 (DC 14 Damage)
Throw +0 (DC 14 Damage)

Defense
Dodge 2, Parry 2, Fortitude -1, Toughness -1, Will -1

Complications
Appearance: Again, even in Dragon Ball no one else looks like him.
Moonshot: Pilaf reaches way, way too high with his plans. He's already rich, but that's not enough: he wants the world. He's not even snobby or sadistic, he just wants it.

Mai (PL 5, 55 PP)
Abilities (20 PP)
STR 1 STA 1 AGL 2 DEX 0 FGT 3
INT 2 AWA 0 PRE 1

Skills (12 PP)
Athletics 2 (+3)
Deception 4 (+5)
Expertise (Agent) 4 (+6)
Intimidation 4 (+5)
Perception 4 (+4)
Ranged Combat (Guns) 4 (+4)
Stealth 4 (+6)

Advantages (14 PP)
Equipment 3 (Light Pistol [Blast 6], Bulletproof Vest [Protection 2]) [3]
Quick Draw
Well Informed

Powers (0 PP)

Offense
Unarmed +3 (DC 16 Damage)
Throw +0 (DC 16 Damage)
Light Pistol +5 (DC 21 Damage)

Defense (9 PP)
Dodge 4, Parry 6, Fortitude 1, Toughness 3/1, Will 4

Complications
Responsibility - Pilaf for Life: For whatever reason, Mai won't leave Pilaf's command no matter how many times he screws up.

Shu (PL 6, 61 PP)
Abilities (6 PP)
STR 6/0 STA 0 AGL 0/4 DEX 2 FGT 0
INT 0 AWA 0 PRE 0

Skills (6 PP)
Acrobatics 4 (+8)
Expertise (Ninja) 4 (+4)

Advantages (2 PP)
Animal Empathy
Equipment 1 (Sword [+3 Strength-Based Damage, Improved Critical]) [1]

Powers (47 PP)
Battlesuit [32]
  • Enhanced Strength 6
  • Metal Frame (Protection 6)
  • Rocket Jets (Flight 5)
  • Rocket Launcher (Blast 8)
Dog Senses (Acute Smell, Tracking, Ultra-Hearing) [3]
Ninja Training (Enhanced Agility 4, Not in Battlesuit -1) [4]
Shibe (Permanent Shrinking 4) [8]

Offense
Unarmed +0 (DC 21 Damage)
Throw +0 (DC 21 Damage)
Rocket Launcher +2 (DC 23 Ranged Damage)

Defense
Dodge 6, Parry 2, Fortitude 0, Toughness 6/0, Will 0

Complications
Responsibility - Pilaf for Life: For whatever reason, Shu won't leave Pilaf's command no matter how many times he screws up.


The Pilaf Gang are the sort-of villains of this arc. I say sort of because in the anime we cut to their antics throughout the arc to build them up, but in the manga they only show up at the end. Pilaf is a tiny blue man who styles himself an Emperor even though he only has two subjects: Mai, secret agent and the group’s straight woman, and... the ninja dog. The manga calls him Soba, but the anime straight-up forgot he had a name and called him Shu, and that’s what most people know. Even though they both sound like badasses, neither one ever fights.

Pilaf thinks he’s a master villain and wants world domination with the Dragon Balls. The other two just kinda go along with it. Hey, here’s some fanfic bait: tell us how these numbnuts met.

I never noticed before, but their palace is actually pretty cool, like a high-tech Taj Mahal. Too bad it doesn’t last long.

By now, our heroes have six Dragon Balls, and they just need the last one so Bulma can wish for the perfect boyfriend (which she’s just telling them now). Unfortunately, the Pilaf Gang has it and Shu ambushes them in a robot suit we never see again this arc. Yamcha was also waiting to ambush, though, so he saves them when Shu destroys their car and takes all the balls besides Goku’s four-star. They get to Pilaf’s palace, this high-tech Taj Mahal that’s way too cool for these guys, and immediately fall for a “trap” that’s just “follow the arrows”. Even Pilaf can’t believe it.

Pilaf grabs Bulma and threatens to do something at least rape-adjacent to her if she doesn’t give up the four-star. Of course, he just blows a kiss, and because it’s thirty-five years ago Bulma actually roasts him for not molesting her, so he sleep-gasses them and takes the ball that way.

Unfortunately, that means dipstick here is about to literally rule the world, and for the first time all series things get tense. Yamcha can’t break through thick stone, but Goku Kamehamehas a hole just large enough for Oolong and Puar to turn into bats and fly out at the exact moment Pilaf summons Shenron the Eternal Dragon. And for once, it’s not a gag. Shenron looks AMAZING, and he gets enormous panels and full-page spreads to show off. Say what you want about the writing, but Toriyama is one of the best artists in manga.

Pilaf stares up in awe, ready to claim his prize. “I... I want--”

And then Oolong shouts panties and the wish goes to that. The Dragon Balls scatter across the world and become rocks for a year, and Goku loses his last memento from his grandpa. The translators scramble to censor it to "comfortable underwear", but they're already on the page, falling on Oolong's head. Absolute madlad.

Pilaf’s basically done after that. He transfers them to sweatbox torture, sure (I’ve only heard hotbox, but apparently that means something else these days, lol), but the rest is in the first post for this arc.

He does play villain one more time, though. It’s not too important, but we’ll get there when we get there.

Build-wise, I had to guess for Mai and Shu. I decided Shu is probably just for show, since he carries a sword but never uses it outside of video games. His battlesuit's got a rocket launcher on one hand, so I’m assuming it’s pretty tough (he's only PL 3 without it, PL 2 on offense), but it never fights either. Mai is the straight woman, though, and she uses her gun in Super. It was actually tough to tone her down; I based her off the Soldier archetype, but especially with my firearm houserule she was almost as tough as the main characters at first.

Obviously, Pilaf isn’t much in a fight, but his castle’s a pretty dangerous headquarters for low-powered characters, equipped with mechanical arms, sliding walls and sleep gas sprayers at least. The anime adds an Indiana Jones-style boulder trap and some torture devices to punish the other two. His Expertise (Bluster) only works for his Fascinate feat; he can dump a load of BS so big and obvious it’s amazing.
Jabroniville
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Re: The Coyote Den

Post by Jabroniville »

Awesome- was looking forward to these goofs.

Pilaf and his agents were pretty funny, as Mai was way too smart for these goofs, and Pilaf was a low-rent idiot with limitless resources, thus still proving to be somewhat dangerous. I mean, of all the DB/DBZ villains, he might have been the closest to actually succeeding at what he wanted- if Oolong had been a second to late, that would have been it.

I hadn't realized Pilaf was largely written out after the story, as were his agents. It makes more sense given what we know about Toriyama after the fact (ie. he tends to forget characters and laughs it off when people bring up "Whatever happened to _____"), but it's funny since he's technically our Big Bad. Alas, once the heroes aren't blundering doofuses to such a high level, Pilaf just wouldn't be a threat anymore. Eventually, the show needed badass warriors in charge.

The builds are great. And also provoke some thoughts about the nature of low-tier PLs in the system, where even a rank or two here and there can totally shift someone's talents, because a PL 5 is greater than a PL 4 compared to say, a PL 12 is to a PL 11. So making these guys even halfway competent can make them level up way over most of the protagonists, when they're really just speedbumps who need a big trap to win.
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KorokoMystia
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Re: The Coyote Den

Post by KorokoMystia »

Didn't all three of them have robot suits that could combine together?
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CoyoteUnion
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Re: The Coyote Den

Post by CoyoteUnion »

KorokoMystia wrote: Tue Dec 22, 2020 11:17 pm Didn't all three of them have robot suits that could combine together?
Shh, don't spoil the fun... :D
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CoyoteUnion
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Dragon Ball Part 2: 21st Tournament

Post by CoyoteUnion »

The 21st Tournament

With only one plot thread left after Pilaf, namely Roshi's promise to train Goku, Dragon Ball turned into a martial arts manga to keep going. Goku gets Roshi's training, but also a best friend, Krillin. Instead of learning how to fight, they go through wax-on, wax-off turned up to a hundred. Delivering milk across miles of deserts, mountains and rivers, plowing whole fields with their bare hands, working the best construction on the road, swimming a shark-infested lake ten times, dodging bees tied to a tree, actual education for Goku... all in the first day! Even Goku barely makes it, and then Roshi says they'll be doing it every day wearing 45-pound turtle shells! Roshi won't teach them how to fight until they can move a boulder; when Goku can already move it, he picks a way bigger one to say no without saying no.

I'd forgotten how much I like this training arc. Even though it covers an eight-month training period in just a few chapters, it feels very full because the first day tells you exactly what the rest of the training was like. It's also the first thing all series to really kick Goku's ass. Even though he's stronger than Krillin, he's just as bad off at the end of Day 1.

That morning, we also find out about the Tenkaichi Budokai (lit. Strongest Under the Heavens Tournament, usually called World Martial Arts Tournament). Every five years (changed to three after this tournament), martial artists go to an arena and get split into eight backstage brackets. The winner of each bracket becomes a quarterfinalist in a public tournament, and the winner is the world's best fighter. The fandom tends to treat the Tournament like a famous event because of the last one we see (in the Buu Arc), but the stands are tiny and there are no cameras, so probably only a couple hundred people see each one. It might even be an open secret for all we know, with no advertising.

Roshi wants Goku and Krillin to join the 21st Tournament when it happens in eight months, so they can see what seasoned fighters are like. He's not sure they'll get past the brackets, but by seven months in they can move the huge rock. It turns out Roshi's training doesn't have fighting techniques, because their newly sharp minds and bodies are all they need. Of course, that means they just spend the last month with 90-pound turtle shells instead.

Goku and Krillin are scared when they get to the tournament. Even though Krillin acts all worldly, he hasn't actually seen much more than Goku, and now they're on a plane, landing in front of all the world's fighters. The anime expands on these character scenes and shows us what the other top fighters are like out of the ring. Roshi feels more like a dad than almost any other trainer I've seen, especially in the anime, and it's really sweet.

However, the two boys beat their brackets and become quarterfinalists. I'll let the character bios take it from there...
Jabroniville
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Re: The Coyote Den

Post by Jabroniville »

Neat! I recall the big twist in this one, but I've forgotten a lot of the twists, since I've only read about this one.
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CoyoteUnion
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Re: The Coyote Den

Post by CoyoteUnion »

Goku (21st Tournament) (PL 8, 116 PP)
Image
Abilities (50 PP)
STR: 8 STA: 6 AGL: 5 DEX: 1 FGT: 6
INT: 0 AWA: -1 PRE: 0

Skills (12 PP)
Acrobatics 4 (+9)
Athletics 6 (+14)
Close Combat (Unarmed) 2 (+8)
Perception 8 (+7)
Ranged Combat (Kamehameha) 3 (+4)

Advantages (9 PP)
Agile Feint
Beginners Luck
Defensive Attack
Diehard
Great Endurance
Improved Initiative 1
Improved Grab
Takedown 1
Teamwork
Tracking

Powers (35 PP)
Afterimage (Reaction Teleport 1 (imminent attack), Concentration) [3]
Forest Senses (Accurate Smell) [2]
Kamehameha (Blast 9) [18]
Monkey Tail (Extra Limbs 1) [1]
Power Pole (Ranged modifier on Strength 6, Easily Removable) [5]
Wild Resilience (Protection 3) [3]

Offense
Initiative +9
Unarmed +8 (DC 23 Damage)
Throw +1 (DC 23 Damage)
Kamehameha +4 (DC 24 Ranged Damage)

Defense (10 PP)
Dodge 5, Parry 7, Fortitude 8, Toughness 9, Will 6

Complications
Monkey... Peasant?: Not only does Goku have a clearly visible tail, if anyone grabs it he goes limp.
Naive: Goku has no idea how to function in modern society without someone to help him, and he'll believe anything.

This is basically my previous Goku build buffed to PL 8. He gets a lot of new feats, and his Kamehameha is actually useful in a fight now. His Close Combat goes from the Power Pole to Unarmed, since he's only been training unarmed. He's also got his iconic Turtle School duds, which he'll have in some form until the end of Z minus a short scene from ten years later. He even gets retconned from 14 years old to 12 in the best way possible: he didn't know how to count until Roshi taught him. Bruh.

Goku gets two new powers to help him out. We learn his tail grows back in times of danger, making him stronger (he's PL 7 without it). In other words, he's literally pulling a powerup out his ass. He also copies Roshi's afterimage technique after only seeing it once. It's a Concentration Reaction, which might be against the rules. If Goku takes a standard action to "activate" Afterimage, he can teleport out of the way of any attack he knows is coming until his next turn.

He also uses the Tornado technique, where he spins around so fast anyone who touches him gets hurt, a Concentration Reaction Damage effect. It dazes him next turn, but he eventually gets over this. However, he only uses it a couple times all series and it never wins a battle, so I'm calling it a stunt.

All of Goku's story this arc will be in other people's bios.

Fun fact: I found the picture on an article about some guy named Carlos Sanchez who wanted a million Facebook likes to convince his wife to name their son Goku. Whether or not that's true, there were at least fifty Gokus from 2016-2019, and he's not even the most popular Dragon Ball character. At least Goku's a semi-real name, but can you imagine being named after a kids' anime character named after broccoli? That's reality for sixty-seven Brolys born in 2019 alone, thanks to his movie.

Seriously, though, if you want a laugh go to https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/limits.html, download their national name list and scroll to the middle (rarest female names) or bottom (rarest male names). There's some really dumb stuff in there. Even some of the common ones are ridiculous (over 7,000 Jaxons?).
Last edited by CoyoteUnion on Mon Dec 28, 2020 9:55 pm, edited 5 times in total.
slade the sniper
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Re: The Coyote Den

Post by slade the sniper »

So, I thought I didn't know anything about DBZ other than it was some chibi's in a fighting game-like universe looking for magic balls. Even that limited information has now been proven wrong. Is it possible to know less than zero about something? If so, I know less than nothing about Dragon Ball :(

-STS
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CoyoteUnion
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Re: The Coyote Den

Post by CoyoteUnion »

slade the sniper wrote: Mon Dec 28, 2020 5:45 am So, I thought I didn't know anything about DBZ other than it was some chibi's in a fighting game-like universe looking for magic balls. Even that limited information has now been proven wrong. Is it possible to know less than zero about something? If so, I know less than nothing about Dragon Ball :(

-STS
I mean, Goku's a chibi for now, it gets more fighting-gamey later, and they're looking for magic Dragon Balls sometimes. So not that far off!
Jabroniville
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Re: The Coyote Den

Post by Jabroniville »

Nice PL 8 Goku- when he was powerful, but before he got INSANE. Kamehameha Waves are pretty mighty at points- causing environmental (or even planetary) destruction over a vast distance, but back then, his was like... a standard-issue Blast, lol.
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CoyoteUnion
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Krillin (first appearance)

Post by CoyoteUnion »

Krillin (PL 5, 66 PP)
Image
Abilities (42 PP)
STR: 5 STA: 4 AGL: 2 DEX: 2 FGT: 6
INT: 1 AWA: 0 PRE: 1

Skills (11 PP)
Acrobatics 4 (+6)
Deception 6 (+7)
Insight 4 (+4)
Perception 4 (+4)
Persuasion 2 (+3)
Stealth 2 (+4)

Advantages (5 PP)
Defensive Attack
Evasion
Hide in Plain Sight
Improved Trip
Taunt

Powers (2 PP)
No Nose (Immunity 2 [scent-based attacks]) (2)

Offense
Initiative +2
Unarmed +5 (DC 20 Damage)
Throw +2 (DC 20 Damage)

Defense (6 PP)
Dodge 6, Parry 6, Fortitude 4, Toughness 4, Will 2

Complications
Little Chestnut: Krillin doubts himself, and he might freeze up if he doesn’t think he can win, even against a weaker opponent.

I come and go, I come and go...

A lot of Dragon Ball characters went from villains to heroes, but Krillin probably acts the most different from start to finish. He sails to Roshi’s island, bribes him with a porno mag, makes fun of Goku, and says he only wants martial arts to get girls all in six pages! He hides when Goku saves Launch, and when Roshi throws a stone in the forest and tells them to find it, he cheats. And of course, Goku wins easy in a fair fight. In other words, he’s a skeezy little 13-year-old, and a good opposite for Goku.

He sees the light pretty soon, though. It turns out he was bullied for being weak in the Shaolin Temple pastiche where he grew up, and once he’s in a supportive place with Goku and Roshi, he lightens up a lot. By the Tournament, Krillin is open with Goku about how nervous he is. In return, Goku’s his cheerleader, and he gets him through two hard fights. It's one of those rare anime friendships where they actually act like friends out of a fight. We won't get that too often going forward, so savor it while you can, lol.

I can’t wait to get to the later stuff, honestly. Not that I don’t like the early story, but with so few powers and low PLs it’s really hard to make the builds feel different. Maybe it’s just me. I gave Krillin some “tricky” feats, though he’s not too good with them because of his low skill ranks.

Krillin's food pun is chestnut ("kuri" in Japanese). His name should probably be written "Kuririn", but they messed up in the 90's and everyone's been using it so long it'll never change.
Last edited by CoyoteUnion on Mon Feb 22, 2021 9:38 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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