The Phoenixverse (A 2e OC 'verse; Red Ronin! Netsuko Nishimura! Rinako Saeki! Fujiko Yoshihara! Masaru Kido!)

Where in all of your character write ups will go.
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EternalPhoenix
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Re: The Phoenixverse (A 2e OC 'verse; Newest: Full Exiles & NPC Creator Commentary; Seawings Yas & Friends)

Post by EternalPhoenix »

greycrusader wrote: Mon Apr 11, 2022 3:53 am I'm going to be giving your thread a more thorough read pretty soon, and I'm sure I'll have a comment or three; I'm a bit overwhelmed with my day job and prepping a house for the next couple weeks, but as I've said, I DO find your characters of interest.

All my best.
Oh, good. After a month of no replies I was starting to get twitchy. I'm glad you're all here. Watching the view numbers go up is really cool and all, but there's nothing like a post to prove folks are paying attention.

In other news, significant additions to the Guide to the Phoenixverse regarding magical devices, divine artifacts, and the entire Technology descriptor that I somehow completely forgot the first time around. It's literally the second post in this thread. Some alterations under the Metahuman descriptor, as well because I uh, just managed to finalize how Psionics work. Heh.
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Re: The Phoenixverse (A 2e OC 'verse; Newest: Full Exiles & NPC Creator Commentary; Seawings Yas & Friends)

Post by Jabroniville »

EternalPhoenix wrote: Mon Apr 11, 2022 3:29 am Y'all know you can comment on old builds, right? It's not against the rules. I certainly don't care. Hell, I encourage you. Unless you're dying to tell me horribly negative, in which case I'd ask that you keep that one to yourself please.
Sorry on my end; I always mean to check out threads, but my time is limited (especially since I can NOT be caught on my phone at work anymore) and your bios are HUGE and there's 15 pages to go through. The lack of paragraph breaks also make them kinda hard for me to read- I lose my place often. Also many characters seem to be based off of anime I don't watch so I'll get a bit lost when you refer to them or make allusions to the work, lol. I will say that OC threads never get the attention other ones do, unfortunately.
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Re: The Phoenixverse (A 2e OC 'verse; Newest: Full Exiles & NPC Creator Commentary; Seawings Yas & Friends)

Post by EternalPhoenix »

Jabroniville wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 12:32 am
EternalPhoenix wrote: Mon Apr 11, 2022 3:29 am Y'all know you can comment on old builds, right? It's not against the rules. I certainly don't care. Hell, I encourage you. Unless you're dying to tell me horribly negative, in which case I'd ask that you keep that one to yourself please.
Sorry on my end; I always mean to check out threads, but my time is limited (especially since I can NOT be caught on my phone at work anymore) and your bios are HUGE and there's 15 pages to go through. The lack of paragraph breaks also make them kinda hard for me to read- I lose my place often. Also many characters seem to be based off of anime I don't watch so I'll get a bit lost when you refer to them or make allusions to the work, lol. I will say that OC threads never get the attention other ones do, unfortunately.
How should I do the paragraph breaks, then? I thought the dot space dot space thing was working fine combined with bolding the new section heading, but if that's no good I can change it. Also you specifically don't have anything to apologize for. I'm aware of your limited time. Though that implies I think the rest of you have something to apologize for and that's not true either.
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Re: The Phoenixverse (A 2e OC 'verse; Newest: Full Exiles & NPC Creator Commentary; Seawings Yas & Friends)

Post by EternalPhoenix »

Or, alternatively, (as I glance over some of the League of Seven) I can hire an editor to slap my fingers off the keyboard and yell at me to summarize harder. Oy, and the Strength Revolution is not any better. In fact, it's getting worse. Oh god, there's so many words. All right, I take it back. Look at the builds, by all means. Maybe drop a comment on a construction you liked. But sweet jeebus don't force yourself to read all my jabbering. you know, unless you think it's interesting and you want to.

...I'm just having fun telling mini stories with each new entry. Maybe I'll spread the postings out more. Methion's definitely going to need some breathing room. Again, oy. :|
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Re: Yasmine Sakaguchi (Guild Version)

Post by Jabroniville »

EternalPhoenix wrote: Sun Jan 30, 2022 7:52 am Yasmine Sakaguchi
Okay, checking out this one- I see she's a Skillmonkey/Diplomat type. What... is an "adventurer" in the context of the Seawings, anyways? Do they just fly around doing stuff or do they fight bad guys? You mentioned fighting a monster.

Ah, I see her bio indicates she's a treasure-hunter- kind of a thrill-seeker or was it the money?

I can see the "Final Fantasy" aspects in her bio- the "Summons" that are really just Blasts/Status things, haha. Where's the Buff-related stuff you mentioned? I don't see it in her bio.
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Re: The Phoenixverse (A 2e OC 'verse; Newest: Full Exiles & NPC Creator Commentary; Seawings Yas & Friends)

Post by Jabroniville »

EternalPhoenix wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 1:09 am How should I do the paragraph breaks, then? I thought the dot space dot space thing was working fine combined with bolding the new section heading, but if that's no good I can change it. Also you specifically don't have anything to apologize for. I'm aware of your limited time. Though that implies I think the rest of you have something to apologize for and that's not true either.
Well in the case of stuff like this:

Things just got out of hand. But rewind. I was a big Final Fantasy buff, back in the day. Not so much anymore, as Square’s priorities have hella changed from 15-20 years ago. Anyway, I played basically every one released for Playstation and PS2. Including FFX and FFX-2. The Gullwings kind of ruled, from a storytelling standpoint. Spira is a relatively unexplored world. They’ve got their own transporation, skilled combatants to deal with monsters, and an inciting incident to go searching though said world having adventures. Also I loved the dynamic between Yuna, Rikku, and Paine. So naturally I filed the serial numbers off the girls and their airship dwelling teammates and shoved them into the Phoenixverse. I mean, Lara Croft meets Charlie’s Angels? Sign me right the fuck up. I knew I wasn’t getting away with taking the dressphere system, and honestly I didn’t want to. Too complicated and versatile outside of video game limitations. So the new Yasmine Sakaguchi (seriously, I even took Hironobu’s surname for her how has nobody noticed before?) kept her default Gunner abilities combined with her original curative White Magic. Rebecca Heskett (I have a book with an author named Heskett, or at least I did at the time; I’ve moved twice it could’ve disappeared) got Rikku’s Thief abilities combined with her original engineering bent plus a lil bit of speed because yanno rogues be quick. And the Dark Sword Portia was stuck with just being a Warrior. But just a weapon master would’ve been boring and they would’ve lacked a big hitter, so she got a demonic atavism (I was reading something at the time that was using a genetic atavism to explain a character’s powers, and boy that sounded cool so you know STOLEN) that made her physically superhuman and a sword she couldn’t lose. With my trio of knockoffs assembled, and a name given to them (Gullwings, Seagull, Seawings) it was time to go adventuring. After a while I was like yeah okay let’s give Yas back her summoning, starting with the big bad dragon because Bahamut is always awesome. I mean, I had a dragon king in mothballs in my notes ready to go. And they should probably finish up their FFX-2 adventures so they can go on new ones. So Tidus-I mean, Tobias showed up with Coyote. Now Coyote was something new and definitely not FF related. My knowledge of Native American mythology is still kind of piecemeal today and it was worse then. But even I had heard of the great trickster and honestly I just thought it’d be cool and fun to have Coyote of all beings over in East Asia/Oceania just hangin’ out. You know, banging Portia and fighting monsters with the girls.

. . But we’ve reached that point. You know the one by now. I lost all my notes, and they entered stasis. Until I decided to do the big update and uh, things just got out of hand. Yas & Friends was easy enough, just bring in the rest of the FFX main cast why not, and hand Rikki her own boyfriend finally in a character at loose ends in The Desert (now Pacific) Stranger. The Truman Home is uh, where things started getting out of hand. There was supposed to be 12 builds total. It ended up being 16. Rumble Hearts was supposed to be somewhere from 5 to 8. There’s 10. Even the NuGen were supposed to be only 5…but they ended with 7, and specifically because I put my foot down with myself. It was, uh, a very long project to say the least. Fortunately, I was watching Black Clover at the time, and it gave me plenty of motivation. And no, I didn’t steal anyone from it.

. . No, the actual idea behind the update was basically turning the Seawings as they were into the Fairy Tail guild from the eponymous manga and anime. Fairy Tail isn’t what I’d call unequivocally good, but what it does well it does very well. The spark for this was an old idea, as I’ll get into in Truman Home entries. Before this, I didn’t know what to do with the Seawings at all. Quite empty of ideas, in fact. Initially I thought of a more moderate expansion, like NPC Investigations. But that 1) sounded boring because I just did that and 2) I’m gonna cram a half dozen more people on that airship? No. So I reached for ideas and remember that Nathaniel Truman and his not really named (I couldn’t remember after the loss of my notes, not that it ended up mattering) Soulblade wielding ward weren’t doing anything. And that was the start of everything getting out of hand. I mean, hell, originally Team Rumble Hearts wasn’t even separate from the Truman Home. But concepts finalized, and they didn’t fit anymore. So the numbers had to be made up, and I kept having cool build ideas. Everything just got out of hand. But ultimately it worked out, I think. Eventually.
I feel like the full line breaks would be a BIG help, but some paragraphs are still a bit large. That they're written in-character of sorts and also take a bit to get to the point makes it trickier for me to figure out the deal with anyone- my trademark ADD kind of makes me flit about and I forget information quickly in cases like that, so I often have to reread things 2-3 times to "get" them. but maybe that's just me preferring a "Here's the team- this is what they are about" and a linear history. I'm not sure. You should write however you wanna write, lol.

And I'm glad you weren't frustrated with me specifically, haha. But I do take it seriously to kind of... read and help out other threads when I can- the survival of Echoes is important to me and I know how much people like feedback.
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Re: The Phoenixverse (A 2e OC 'verse; Newest: Full Exiles & NPC Creator Commentary; Seawings Yas & Friends)

Post by EternalPhoenix »

Jabroniville wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 1:30 am
I feel like the full line breaks would be a BIG help, but some paragraphs are still a bit large. That they're written in-character of sorts and also take a bit to get to the point makes it trickier for me to figure out the deal with anyone- my trademark ADD kind of makes me flit about and I forget information quickly in cases like that, so I often have to reread things 2-3 times to "get" them. but maybe that's just me preferring a "Here's the team- this is what they are about" and a linear history. I'm not sure. You should write however you wanna write, lol.

And I'm glad you weren't frustrated with me specifically, haha. But I do take it seriously to kind of... read and help out other threads when I can- the survival of Echoes is important to me and I know how much people like feedback.
Okay, I'll go back through the actual entries do the line breaks. It was a style thing not doing them, but it's clearly no good for readability so le shrug. Ditched. I have ADHD too, so I know how daunting walls of text can be. The Commentaries themselves are just my out of universe personal ramblings. Emphasis on the ramblings. Therefore I'm more comfortable not getting to the point as fast as possible. Think of it like we're having a conversation about the characters, or something like that. As opposed to official entries that would be seen in a book. The "Here's the team-this is what they're about" stuff is what I post prior to their entries. The Overviews, which I'm gonna have to add the line breaks too, as well, A creator's work is never done, heh.
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Re: Yasmine Sakaguchi (Guild Version)

Post by EternalPhoenix »

Jabroniville wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 1:25 am
EternalPhoenix wrote: Sun Jan 30, 2022 7:52 am Yasmine Sakaguchi
Okay, checking out this one- I see she's a Skillmonkey/Diplomat type. What... is an "adventurer" in the context of the Seawings, anyways? Do they just fly around doing stuff or do they fight bad guys? You mentioned fighting a monster.

Ah, I see her bio indicates she's a treasure-hunter- kind of a thrill-seeker or was it the money?

I can see the "Final Fantasy" aspects in her bio- the "Summons" that are really just Blasts/Status things, haha. Where's the Buff-related stuff you mentioned? I don't see it in her bio.
Adventurer in the uh...have you read Marvel bios? A lot of X-Men or Avengers without known day jobs get the Occupation: Adventurer line instead of how like Spider-Man who would get Occupation: Photographer or High School Teacher. Or how Daredevil would get Occupation: Lawyer. And so on. That's the first part. The second part is the Guild thing. Adventurer Guilds are a staple of some types of fantasy settings. So it's Adventurer in the sense that they can explore unknown places, find lost things, hunt for treasure, or just go fight some monsters/bad guys. A questing/knight errant kind of thing. It's purposefully broad, and I like the tie back to how Marvel categorizes some of the heroes' occupations.

The Buff spells are potential power stunts. I always list potential power stunts at the end of their Tactics, right before Personality starts. The Commentaries kind of rely on the reader having already read the entry they're commenting on. Echoes don't have the sweatdrop face emoji, so you can just imagine it.
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Re: Rebecca Heskett (Guild Version)

Post by Jabroniville »

EternalPhoenix wrote: Sun Jan 30, 2022 7:54 am Rebecca Heskett
Man, I keep forgetting these are in 2e, lol. I remember the old Probability Control! And I remember trying to make sense of the "Container" rules- I forget what "Passive" means, lol.

Looks like a tech-smart, low-Wisdom character, but with a LOT of thief-related things. Area Attacks for the grenades, a Variable thing for assorted gadgets, and daggers for DPS.

While I mentioned having issues reading other bios, this one was an easy read- succinct and descriptive. I'll have to read on for Ting!

Re: the Missing "Buff" things- I missed the notes about power stunts. I'd read the entry and then her bio, going back to see what I'd missed. I think the stunt bit was what I was unsure about- if you were counting those among her stunts or not.
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Re: Rebecca Heskett (Guild Version)

Post by EternalPhoenix »

Jabroniville wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 2:20 am
EternalPhoenix wrote: Sun Jan 30, 2022 7:54 am Rebecca Heskett
Man, I keep forgetting these are in 2e, lol. I remember the old Probability Control! And I remember trying to make sense of the "Container" rules- I forget what "Passive" means, lol.

Looks like a tech-smart, low-Wisdom character, but with a LOT of thief-related things. Area Attacks for the grenades, a Variable thing for assorted gadgets, and daggers for DPS.

While I mentioned having issues reading other bios, this one was an easy read- succinct and descriptive. I'll have to read on for Ting!

Re: the Missing "Buff" things- I missed the notes about power stunts. I'd read the entry and then her bio, going back to see what I'd missed. I think the stunt bit was what I was unsure about- if you were counting those among her stunts or not.
A Container is just something that holds a collection of powers with a similar descriptor together. Active Containers have can be turned on and off, and have a sustained duration. Meaning the character can be stunned and it'll turn off. Passive Containers can't be turned off, as they're permanent duration. The weird part is how the powers inside the Container don't have to match it's duration. Like Iron Man's Battlesuit is a Passive Container with the Hard to Lose Flaw. Removable in 3E speak. Though HeroLab calls those Devices in 2e. Obviously, Rikki's Speed Advantage isn't Hard To Lose. :)
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Re: The Phoenixverse (A 2e OC 'verse; Newest: Full Exiles & NPC Creator Commentary; Seawings Yas & Friends)

Post by EternalPhoenix »

Whew. Crawled through the League of Seven, BLACK, and all of the Seawings adding those full line breaks where necessary. That ought to be more readable. I'll do NPC Investigations tomorrow, and slide through the Exiles though few of them should need it. Man, I wish someone had mentioned that particular readability issue sooner. I'd have fixed it sooner. Echoes, again, does not have the sweatdropping face emoji so please imagine it here.

Please, if anyone's having trouble understanding the entries and has a suggestion on how to improve the readability, you have my attention. S'not like I know what I'm doing, ya know. Once again, please imagine the sweatdropping face emoji.
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Re: The Phoenixverse (A 2e OC 'verse; Newest: Full Exiles & NPC Creator Commentary; Seawings Yas & Friends)

Post by Davies »

:sweat_smile:

That one?
"I'm sorry. I love you. I'm not sorry I love you."
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Re: The Phoenixverse (A 2e OC 'verse; Newest: Full Exiles & NPC Creator Commentary; Seawings Yas & Friends)

Post by EternalPhoenix »

Davies wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 6:01 am :sweat_smile:

That one?
sweat_smile, eh? I'll try and remember that. Because it is that one, yes.
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Re: The Phoenixverse (A 2e OC 'verse; Newest: Full Exiles & NPC Creator Commentary; Seawings Yas & Friends)

Post by EternalPhoenix »

EternalPhoenix wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 5:32 am Whew. Crawled through the League of Seven, BLACK, and all of the Seawings adding those full line breaks where necessary. That ought to be more readable. I'll do NPC Investigations tomorrow, and slide through the Exiles though few of them should need it. Man, I wish someone had mentioned that particular readability issue sooner. I'd have fixed it sooner.:sweat_smile:

Please, if anyone's having trouble understanding the entries and has a suggestion on how to improve the readability, you have my attention. S'not like I know what I'm doing, ya know. :sweat_smile:
All right so I think I'm done with this. If there's any further readability issues, please for the love of the deity of your choice...let me know. :|
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Seawings Commentary: Truman Home For Dimensionally Displaced Girls

Post by EternalPhoenix »

Individual Build Commentary: Truman Home For Dimensionally Displaced Girls

Additonal Personal Comments: If you’re an anime fan, you have a waifu. Or several. Unless you’re weird like me, I guess. Anyway, that’s kind of the point of the Truman Home. Anime waifus knockoffs, existing in the Phoenixverse. Hell, Rule 63 one of the guys; it doesn’t matter. The listed Truman Girls are a fraction of the total number in the Guild. At least, that was the original point anyway. Like I said, everything just got out of hand and the waifoolery got sidelined by Black Clover style badassery and “ooh, I can do alternate history riffs”. They’re tiered into groups of three, excepting Nate. First set of three (Samorn, Emiko, and Skye) is kinda vague, but the rest are pretty unified. PL 10 180PP, PL 10 150PP, PL 9 135PP, and PL 8 120PP to wrap. If their names are weird in any way, blame the baby name websites I nicked them from. And maybe me a little for putting them together.

Nathaniel Truman: Herein lies another tale. Mostly about how I played Half Life 2 and wanted my own Gordan Freeman. Incredibly badass science guy with a supersuit and cool weapons, yeehaw. Naturally, I made him a technopath so his gear could outperform its normal limits on demand. And because I can’t just make one solo hero, I made him Samorn’s (with her then using a name I’ve since forgotten) father figure. Nice set up, yeah? Well, I didn’t know what else to do with it. So they sat. Until I was updating the Seawings. If we want to be technical, I first thought of them when doing NPC Investigations’s big update along with Agent Zero and Immortia. But they wouldn’t have fit well there. Nate isn’t really a detective and Miss Soulblade certainly wasn’t. But I do want to bring them back, as they’ve been left adrift for too long. So, when I decided to make the Seawings an Adventurer Guild with a big ol bunch of heroes in it, Nate was a natural choice to den father the second group full of new characters. After all, he already had one adopted daughter, no reason there couldn’t be more. Characters I’d built before ended with Coyote, so Nate’s got no prior versions. But he is a technopath, check. Supersuit, check. Cool ass gun, check. If it looks familiar, it’s because I liked some of the effects in Immortia’s rifle and dragged them back. I think he’s a reasonably effective character, and hell on wheels against the usual PL 5 mook battalions his “benefactor” sets him against.

Samorn: Originally she was a white girl. I thought her divine parent would be a Germanic version of Thor, but I got older and found out Germanic Thor is just regular Thor. The Soulblade is actually me riffing on the Witchblade. It got an anime which is surprisingly good (if not particularly concerned with fidelity to the source material), and I got inspired to have one of my very own. And then, because teenage girls without parents still shouldn’t live alone, I moved her in with Nathaniel Truman. And what a pair they made. But as I said, I didn’t know what to do with them, really, so they sat for a while. Then I remembered them. Miss Soulblade changed divine parents, becoming Thai and gaining a new name. The Seawings are set in Southeast Asia and Oceania, so I figured a local deity was best. One wiki-walk later, Mani Mekkhala said hi, I’m your new mommy kid. Then I just…built her. Demigod stuff makes her physically superhuman, ageless, and able to sling lightning. Soulblade does all the really cool shit from the anime plus some extras because I had the points and why the hell not. If I’d known about the Slavic deity Perun a decade ago he’d be her dad and we wouldn’t be having this convo. Life’s weird like that.

Emiko Fujiwara: She exists because oh god do I hate Shinji Ikari. I don’t think there’s ever been a more worthless and useless sack of shit ever presented as an anime protagonist. Because, of course, I’m talking about original Neon Genesis Evangalion anime Shinji. I hear the newer movies feature a better version of him, but he’s just too tainted to me. Don’t wanna see ‘em. Though it must be said, my visceral reaction to Shinji is because I’d been in his shoes. A depressed, miserable teenager with a father who’s always working and a mother who’s presence had been reduced from full to part time by her own actions. But before God, if someone had offered me a chance to pilot a giant robot and fight to save the world I’d have been thrilled to my toes. Especially if two gorgeous girls were going to help, and never mind if one was basically a robot and the other was kind of a bitch on the outside. I mean, I’d still have fucked it up just as bad if not worse, but I wouldn’t have been such a goddamn wimp about it. Anyway, Emiko is the Shinji of my own NGE thing, because of course I thought I could do better. At least to me. I forgot her name (it was in my notes, but you know I lost ‘em all), so the other year I gave her another one. Actually originally recreated her as a Tenra Bansho Zero PC, but when I needed someone who’d been around for a while to kick off the Truman Girls that weren’t Samorn, Emiko was elected. She’s got excellent tech skills, her Totally Not An Eva Unit, and some godhood on the side she can’t really use very well in this world. I think her original name was Esther, maybe? I dunno.

Skye Walker: One of the very first things I ever built was inspired by Miracle of Sound’s song Dream of the Sky. Skye herself isn’t inspired by that song, but by that build. It was confused and messy, in my opinion, and with the help of Power Profiles I believed I could do better and I certainly did. Her backstory reads like she’s from some anime, and that’s intentional even though she’s entirely original. Her name’s just a fun lil reference to Star Wars, because I am a nerd. I actually had quite a bit of fun putting her Dream Array together, as it was a power set I’d never worked with before at the time. Telepaths are a dime a dozen in comics, but dream controllers are vanishingly rare. I don’t actually know what the other four’s powers would be based on. I’ve tried out a couple of esoteric idea builds, but they just don’t gel as well as hers did. Ah, well.

Oliana Kameāloha : The first, but not the last time I took one of my own random builds and made it into a full character. I did it while riffing on my friggin’ self. The build was a Powerhouse, but balanced on attack and defense and full of the skills and feats a Martial Artist would have instead of Super Strength, Leaping, and full Impervious Toughness. Slapped 30 more PP in to fill it out, tracked down an appropriate name (which took longer than you might think), and done. I’m kidding, I also had to figure out she was Alternate Cory’s kid. The Black Clover style badassery started here, whoops.

Raymi Humala Sumire: She started as a vague idea for a portal user. You know, like Marvel’s Blink. But getting the build to come together was an endeavor. First she had to be a gadgeteer, and then PP was an exceptionally harsh mistress this time. Cut me a break, love. But I got something workable, and an actual character emerged. The writing took a long ass time, too, because I was pulling it all from my own head instead of reworking something else. Like I said above, her world was where “ooh, I can do alternate history riffs” leaped up and slapped me in the face. So, you know. Obviously I had to flip the modern world’s origin on its head. So much research, good lord. For plausibility reasons, naturally.

Madeline Blackwood: I was raised non denominational Christian. So yeah I know about the Rapture and the time of suffering because Hell on earth for a bit before Jesus boots all their demonic asses back to Hell forever and rules a perfect kingdom. Or something like that, it’s been a decade plus since I was a regular churchgoer. And there was also this videogame I heard about back in the day but never played. Hellgate London. So on one hand there’s the whole post Rapture world, and on the other Hellgate London’s badasses battling the legions of Hell to protect their world. Because I had a build just sitting around that I’d made after seeing some fanart of Iron Man as Ghost Rider, and by God I wanted to use it here. Shove 30 more PP into said build, and Madeline was born. I picked New Zealand specifically because it’s like a two hour flight away from its closest neighbor Australia, and spectacularly further away from anywhere else. Invercargill is the furthest away city from the rest of NZ, and Bluff is hanging of the southern edge of NZ, far far away from anything not in NZ. So if I was plotting revolution against the world’s overwhelming overlords, they’re perfect places to hide. Del was both Black Clover style badassery and “ooh, I can do alternate history riffs” together, heh. Oh, and uh…try not to think too hard about the theological implications of children being born after the Rapture. <.<>.>

Almira Quincy: But fragments of the original waifoolery plan remained. Mirajane Strauss, from Fairy Tail. Well, with some rather dramatic alterations to her. Because I have absolutely no idea how Takeover Magic would work in M&M mechanics as demonstrated in that series. Instead I devised a kind of permanent Mimic/Battlesuit-Without-A-Device effect that she can acquire new versions off safely offscreen. I know nested arrays aren’t technically allowed, but I didn’t know how else to pull this one off, so fuck it. I’m the GM here, and I’m allowing it. I had been reading up on the American Civil War again around the time I was working on her. Part of the Gods and Generals historical fiction series. General Winfield Scott Hancock had a wife named Mira. Almira was her full name. I’m…honestly not sure anymore where I got Quincy from. Thought it was Almira Hancock’s maiden name, but no that was Russell. Eh, the good lord only knows.

Fiona McTavish: So…this is another build from the vast collection, just retuned to fit what I wanted out of it. It didn’t used to fly. Now, Fiona’s whole background is where I really got lost wiki-walking and creating an alternate timeline. It’s glaringly obvious, as it’s extra long and barely about her at all. A Danish friend of mine was getting really into the new edition of Scion at this time, and dragged me along for the ride. Thus, Brigid. I think history is fascinating. You change one thing, and a ripple effect warps all history afterward. On Fiona’s world, the Justice League/Avengers counterpart has a history that spans millennia. S’pretty rad, I think, to have a character who can point back a hundred generations and find a recognizable ancestor holding the line in the same organization. Anyway, the point of her build was to have a sword master without the physical sword. She can do a few other things (plasma control’s not a one note power set by any means), but that’s really it.

Yumiko Amano: Another build from the vast collection, reworked slightly but not very much. I actually used this one as a semi-villanous NPC once. And when I was doing the big update, I remembered her and made her (plus slightly altered backstory) Phoenixverse canon. The general idea is that she paints things into reality with her magic paints and brush foci. So she’s artist and chemist, as well as magician. And since she didn’t have a last name originally, I gave her the surname of an artist I respect, Yoshitaka Amano. If you don’t know, he was the artist behind the original character designs of Final Fantasy 1-6, as well as 9 among a pretty large body of work.

Palila Nui : I have a paperback collection of short stories. Chicks Kick Butt, I believe it’s called. Subtle title, ain’t it? I’m not going to pretend it’s high literature or anything, but it’s perfectly readable. One of the stories features a character who bears the title of Stormwarden. She’s got a whole book series about her and her adventures magical and romantic, apparently. It’s a perfectly fine story, and I enjoyed it. But what stuck with me was the Stormwarden title, because it’s cool as hell. It was tough to figure out where to put the vague concept, as I didn’t want to outshine the Exiles’ Stormy. Obviously, I ended up slotting it into the back half of the Truman Girls. Then I thought that I hadn’t brought in elements of the wider Phoenixverse in a while, so I ended up doing a twofer. She’s a half Fae/Elf like the Exiles’ Opera, and has active ties to Faerie like Sonya and Sofia Harmon of NPC Investigations. But unlike them, her ties are to a different Court and they’re relatively friendly. Also, you know. Magical weather controller. Neato. Her powers are nothing like the woman in the story; I just liked the name. Stretching the concept a little, maybe, as she’s a native to our world. But I think Faerie qualifies as an alternate dimension, don’t you? And voluntarily displaced is still displaced.

Octavia Fiammetta: This one’s a touch complicated. One of my favorite anime of the last few years has been Violet Evergarden. So I thought I’d bring in a version of Violet for the Truman Girls. Except that felt bad, wrong, and contrary to the story the anime was trying to tell. So I left Violet in peace. Meanwhile, I pulled another build out of the collection and cut it down. She needed a little something extra to get her over the top into being an actual character, though. So she got several bits of Violet. The build itself is not Violet at all. She used more or less mundane weaponry, not Hellfire and enchanted devices. But the backstory and personality is roughly 50% Violet. Violet Evergarden may have gotten her happy ending, but Octavia Fiammetta is still waiting.

Claire Gainsborough: There isn’t any point trying to hide it. I named her Gainsborough for heaven’s sake. She’s the daughter of Cloud and Aerith from an entirely Rule 63’d Final Fantasy VII. Like, straight up. That’s her character. The build was a little more complicated. She’s roughly based on a character I played for a little while, Chronia (Kendra Farron). Obviously, Kendra was a chronomancer. So I thought it be neat to basically repeat the build but in a different way. If that makes any sense at all. Of course, I had to cut 45 PP and raise the PL by 1, but eh. Wasn’t room for everything, but it worked out. And unlike the rest of the Truman Girls, she actually has a theme/inspiration song. Miracle of Sound’s When Forever Comes.

Neith: I just wanted to do a String Controller. It’s a fairly common archetype in battle anime, but you almost never see it in superhero comics. Strings can be deadly weapons for those who know what they’re doing. And then she got tangled up with Nero from Black Clover. As a result she got deeply inbedded within Seawings/Phoenixverse lore and played an initially quite outsized role for her PL. She’s got one of the oldest names in the world. I googled.

Elena Laskaris : Honestly, I blame Monster Musume. The first girl of that anime was a lamia, and I hadn’t seen one animated since shitty 90s Hercules/Xena CGI. MM is “how close can we get to the hentai line without crossing over or showing nudity”: the anime, but the world building is actually kind of clever when the author can keep his pants zipped up. Multiple species and subspecies, what they eat, how their physiologies and societies work, the adaptations and special equipment required for them to live in human society, etc. It’s very well thought out. And in the spirit of that (and not the pervy elements of the show) I made a lamia. Did some research to figure out what part of the world a “real” lamia would be from and look like. Meaning where the myths say they come from and not just randomly making her Greek, because I like to go the extra mile.

Phylia: Same as Elena, honestly. Monster Musume had a slime girl, too. But I didn’t want to use her more…generic abilities and went digging around the internet for something different. She’s not bad for a final entry. I’m usually bored as hell by the last one in a group and quality can suffer. In my opinion, anyway. Pairing a Snare Aura with Insub 1 can just completely disable anyone without any energy attacks if they’re not strong enough to tear their way free.
The Phoenixverse (A 2e OC 'verse!)
The Archetype Blendarama!
You, Dear Reader, may comment on any build at any time. I will be happy regardless.
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