[OOC] Worlds of Fire

[Totem]

Originally Posted by Talosian

One request that I would have is if I could roll Seann's awe check for myself (I'm not sure why it was rolled, as it wasn't vital for moving forward). If you'd rather leave it, I'll live, but Seann's temperament/TL should still be counted in (and should probably be around +3, like Mark). Let me know your opinions (no rush, it'll be awhile before I get to write Seann through two or so pages).

The awe roll was more trying to make a point about how overwhelming the whole thing was; it's a world-building thing. I'd have discounted any serious long-term effects, though the quirk doesn't sound that bad considering that Seann has (I believe) one quirk listed as "TBD".

Regarding the modifiers though, I could have come up with a plausible case for Seann having anything from the -5 to the +5, and chose to go average on it. Reroll if you would prefer to do so.

Originally Posted by Talosian

As for Ginnungagap's character, I'd vote for the living weapon idea (Stress Atavism should be interesting to play with).

Just remember that it could well be Seann standing next to him when he goes feral with spines and claws. Particularly since that kind of test subject could end up with a low WILL making self control rolls a tricky prospect.

[Ginnungagap]

I was actually summarizing most of those. The swordsman actually has more story behind him than I had let on. I thought it tact to not go on an extended spiel for each character.
And technically, the immortal character required 140 points for his thing. Unkillable 2 (100), Unaging (15), and Regular-level Regeneration (25). From 0 health, he recovers to full health in less than half a day. It was designed and statted out when the limit was 220+50. As were most of the rest, except the swordsman.

I'll be working on finishing out Jacobson then, just have to destroy the annoying plot holes in his history, and give him 30 more points for his sheet.

Originally Posted by Totem

Just remember that it could well be Seann standing next to him when he goes feral with spines and claws. Particularly since that kind of test subject could end up with a low WILL making self control rolls a tricky prospect.

Especially if the mental disadvantage associated with the stress atavism is berserk. It's not an unintelligent character, really. It's not mentally deficient in the design, it's simply known for breaking down to an animalistic state.

[Lamech]

So I was thinking for extra points
1) ignore totem's warning about not having a good strength score, figure the biggest danger their is a grapple and instead hope a high active defense works, and put all those points into magic instead.
2) These spells will be: Memorize, and Detect Magic from knowledge. Steal energy, and Steal Vitality from necromancy. Purify Air, and Create Air from air. In addition teleport is a gate spell which conveniently gives me two different spells from ten colleges so I can buy bless as well. Also add a shield spell, and and a point it haste. Then 2 levels of magery (which is 12 points). That finally comes to 21 points (the twenty+the gun permit).
2b) Upgrade my standard defensive buff cake to missile shield, haste at 2 points, and shield at 1 point.
3) Convert the reputation into a SoD to party members.
4) Bless the party and hope an NPC can come along and bless me. (Perhaps a blessing swap?) Seriously that's an amazing spell.
5) Hope I don't get grappled.

[Frosty]

Lucie Bertrand

Basic Attributes [120]:

ST - 10 [0]
DX - 12 [40]
IQ - 13 [60]
HT - 12 [20]

Secondary Characteristics [5]:

Damage (Thrust/Swing): 1d-2/1d
Basic Lift: 20 lbs.

HP - 11 [2]
Will - 13 [0]
Per - 13 [0]
FP - 13 [3]

Basic Speed: 6 [0]
Dodge: 9
Basic Move: 6 [0]

Build [0]:

5′4″, 120 lbs. (SM 0).

Age and Beauty [4]:

Age: 33 years old
Physical Appearance: Attractive [4]

Social Background [21]:

Technology Level: 8 [0]
Culture: Arabic [1];
South Asian [1];
Sub-Saharan African [1];
Western European [0]
Language: English (Native) [4];
French (Native) [0];
German (Native) [4];
Italian (Native) [4];
Maghrebi Arabic (Accented) [2];
Singhalese (Accented) [2];
Swahili (Accented) [2]

Wealth and Influence [0]:

Wealth: Average [0]
Reputation: 0 [0]
Importance: Status 0 [0]

Advantages [20]:

Jumper (Time) [0]
Jumper (World) [0]
Language Talent [10]
Resistant to Disease (+8) [5]
Social Regard +1 (Respected) [5]

Perks [5]:

Accessory (Personal Poison Snooper) [0]
Autotrance [1]
Deep Sleeper [1]
Honest Face [1]
License (Medical) [1]
No Hangover [1]

Disadvantages [-45]:

Bad Sight (Nearsighted; Mitigator, Glasses, -60%) [-10]
Code of Honor (Professional; Hippocratic Oath) [-5]
Mundane Background [-10]
Sense of Duty (Small Group; Party) [-5]
Vow (Great Vow; Never refuse any request for aid) [-15]

Quirks [-5]:

Alcohol Intolerance [-1]
Congenial [-1]
Humble [-1]
Incompetence (Guns) [-1]
Responsive [-1]

Skills [125]:

Biology/TL8 (Earthlike; Biochemistry) (IQ/Very Hard) +3 [20]
Boating/TL8 (Motorboat) (DX/Average) -1 [1]
Boating/TL8 (Unpowered) (DX/Average) -1 [1]
Carousing (HT/Easy) +0 [1]
Cooking (IQ/Average) -1 [1]
Diagnosis/TL8 (Human) (IQ/Hard) +3 [16]
Diplomacy (IQ/Hard) -2 [1]
Driving/TL8 (IQ/Average) (Automobile) -1 [1]
Electronics Operation/TL8 (Medical) (IQ/Average) +3 [12]
Electronics Repair/TL8 (Medical) (IQ/Average) -1 [1]
Expert Skill (Political Science) (IQ/Hard) -1 [2]
First Aid/TL8 (Human) (IQ/Easy) +3 [8]
Mechanic/TL8 (Automobile) (IQ/Average) -1 [1]
Naturalist (Earthlike) (IQ/Hard) -2 [1]
Pharmacy/TL8 (Herbal) (IQ/Hard) -2 [1]
Physician/TL8 (Human) (IQ/Hard) +3 [16]
Physiology/TL8 (Human) (IQ/Hard) +3 [16]
Poisons/TL8 (IQ/Hard) -2 [1]
Scrounging (Per/Easy) +0 [1]
Surgery/TL8 (Human) (IQ/Very Hard) +3 [20]
Survival (Per/Average) (Earth; Desert) -1 [1]
Survival (Per/Average) (Earth; Jungle) -1 [1]
Survival (Per/Average) (Earth; Plains) -1 [1]

Summary:

[120] + [5] + [4] + [21] + [20] + [5] + [-45] + [-5] + [125] = 250

[Frosty]

Equipment and background coming soon, I just want to get this out there for Totem to have a look at.

[Totem]

Originally Posted by Ginnungagap

I was actually summarizing most of those.

Once you pick one write it up and let me know.

Originally Posted by Lamech

So I was thinking for extra points
1) ignore totem's warning about not having a good strength score, figure the biggest danger their is a grapple and instead hope a high active defense works, and put all those points into magic instead.
2) These spells will be: Memorize, and Detect Magic from knowledge. Steal energy, and Steal Vitality from necromancy. Purify Air, and Create Air from air. In addition teleport is a gate spell which conveniently gives me two different spells from ten colleges so I can buy bless as well. Also add a shield spell, and and a point it haste. Then 2 levels of magery (which is 12 points). That finally comes to 21 points (the twenty+the gun permit).
2b) Upgrade my standard defensive buff cake to missile shield, haste at 2 points, and shield at 1 point.
3) Convert the reputation into a SoD to party members.
4) Bless the party and hope an NPC can come along and bless me. (Perhaps a blessing swap?) Seriously that's an amazing spell.
5) Hope I don't get grappled.

1) Current active defence (before magic) is still 8 which is standard.
2) I'll check this out in the near future.
3) Makes sense.
4) It's certainly impressive. And seeing John get together 40 FP to Bless everyone is going to be interesting as well. I'm going to think on this; I may rule the "indefinite" time to not be entirely indefinite (it certainly won't last entirely indefinitely, but John won't need to be recasting it every day). I'll recheck the way it fails and then decide.
5) While I'm obviously the last person you should give ideas like that to...

Originally Posted by Frosty

Jumper (Time) [0]
Jumper (World) [0]


Mundane Background [-10]

With those two advantages I'd suggest that the Mundane Background wouldn't be appropriate. Otherwise it looks good so far. I'll judge based on the backstory though.



At this time it looks like Mark has departed: the upgrade to Sentinel V would raise his point cost beyond the limit of this game by quite some way, and at present it is uncertain whether Pathfinder will be providing a new character.

[Lamech]

Originally Posted by Totem

1) Current active defence (before magic) is still 8 which is standard.
2) I'll check this out in the near future.
3) Makes sense.
4) It's certainly impressive. And seeing John get together 40 FP to Bless everyone is going to be interesting as well. I'm going to think on this; I may rule the "indefinite" time to not be entirely indefinite (it certainly won't last entirely indefinitely, but John won't need to be recasting it every day). I'll recheck the way it fails and then decide.
5) While I'm obviously the last person you should give ideas like that to...

Excellent points all
1) If I'm without magic I'm in trouble, but if I mathed right, haste can be maintained at 2 and shield at 1 for free indenfinitly. Which bumps it up to 11, and then retreat should bump it all the way up to 14 (13?), finally, the spell phase should be at 16, and that can block just about anything. But yes, sans magic I'm squishy as hell and with it one shot and I'm down. (As we've already seen.) If I had a few more points I would look into alertness and keen senses as well.
2)kk
3)Yup.
4) With the recover energy spell it takes 20? minutes to recharge 10FP, and another 10 minutes to cast it. That's two hours for 4 people. So defenitly not something you want to be doing daily or when the enemies are breaking down the door, but when you have a bit of down time its doable. Changing the duration is fine, the most painful change would be to make it qualify as an "on" spell for the purposes of casting other spells. Right now it doesn't since its lasting.
5) That is an excellent point.

[Frosty]

Originally Posted by Totem

With those two advantages I'd suggest that the Mundane Background wouldn't be appropriate. Otherwise it looks good so far. I'll judge based on the backstory though.

The Mundane Background disadvantage was supposed to represent her inexperience with magic and psionics, not mention universes and entire races other than her own.

Lucie Bertrand was born to a wealthy, aristocratic Parisian family who afforded her the luxury of an education at the Lycée Janson de Sailly and the benefits of multilingualism. After graduating from Janson with a Baccalauréat, Lucie travelled to Switzerland and enrolled in the University of Zurich. She studied medicine for six years, earning a Bachelor's degree and a Master's degree upon graduation. Lucie had originally planned to return to France to practice medicine, but while she was at a convention in Geneva she heard about the Médecins Sans Frontières, a humanitarian-aid organisation that provided medical aid to war-torn regions and developing countries facing diseases.

Lucie joined MSF and ended up travelling the world helping people throughout Africa and Asia. One day, after returning from a mission in Libya, Lucie heard about "The Fight" against "The Blazen". Naturally, she volunteered and was drafted into The Front Line. She had no idea of what she was getting in to.

There is more to come, mainly equipment.

[Totem]

Originally Posted by Frosty

The Mundane Background disadvantage was supposed to represent her inexperience with magic and psionics, not mention universes and entire races other than her own.

I agree that this makes sense, and I have two issues:

1. RAW state that "When you first enter play, you can only have mundane skills and equipment."
2. Characters aren't simply thrown into the fray; between Chu'dam being dealt with and the next mission starting there's a month for the existing characters (all of whom are world-jumpers - or in John's case a mage - and so somewhat used to the idea of things being weird). For a character who was completely unused to such things, things would need to be really desperate before they would be sent into the field unprepared.

I'd accept Mundane Background as a quirk-level inexperience (looking for a 'reasonable' explanation rather than just accepting that something is psi for instance). But she wouldn't be on active duty if she wasn't ready to be sent into the field alongside non-Humans, psis, and the like.

See below for mor thoughts.

Originally Posted by Frosty

Lucie joined MSF and ended up travelling the world helping people throughout Africa and Asia. One day, after returning from a mission in Libya, Lucie heard about "The Fight" against "The Blazen". Naturally, she volunteered and was drafted into The Front Line. She had no idea of what she was getting in to.

There is more to come, mainly equipment.

Sounds okay. Recruited into the service for her skills. Medical skills are all based on Humans (there may be penalties for treating those from other worlds with slightly different physiologies); she'd be fielded alongside Humans primarily.

From the description I'm guessing that her world was invaded by the Blazen and the invasion was stopped by someone; someone from the Western Harbour must have been involved in order to recruit her, but beyond that they may not actually have been involved. Since she was recruited she wouldn't need the two Jumper abilities since she would have been transported back by the team who found her. She could pick those up later, but if she got them at the Western Harbour she would have had training as well.

Anyone joining up gets the basic briefing at least, so she might have arrived not knowing what was going on, but after that she would have been able to find out. She might have something for "information overload", or the quirk level version mentioned above, but I don't think that I could justify Mundane Background.

[Ginnungagap]

Okay, I think I’ve gotten down my biography stuff for Jacobson, and I’ve put it in three little parts.
What the Spiral Court is:

Spoiler:  

In all of human understanding, the Spiral is a thing unique to a single unstable plot of potential spacetime. The closest it can be represented with Euclidean geometry is the eponymous spiral (though in this case, it spirals infinitely towards its center, and infinitely outwards), and in three dimensions, it is more accurately described by a conical helix (similarly infinite in nature, but also infinite in height and depth). It is on this understanding by those who have perceived it, that it is called the Spiral.
The Spiral in and of itself, creates an attractive force (most strongly, it pulls on itself), and bends space severely. But it is just as much a psychic force, reaching deep into the very minds and bodies of those few sentient beings inhabiting its personal corner of the understandable multiverse, and in turn, they connect to it, creating a unique branch of psionics. In all of that universe’s history, only one civilization has ever even vaguely understood the Spiral, and they’re the ones who caused the whole problem on Earth-7Y0.
The Spiral Court is an organization that rose up in the absence of civilization. It was the hierarchy that was in charge in Jacobson‘s youth, and still is. They searched for powerful psychics among Earth-7Y0‘s limited population, and they found them, and brought them together as a singular group. From there, they attempted to utilize the combined energies to stabilize the collapsing world around them.
That‘s when they found the Gauntlets. And with that ancient technology, they managed to hold together their little tiny chunk of rock. Barely, just barely, but the world was stable enough.

I really need a new name for this because it’s been used in this thread before, but it is literally a gauntlet, here’s a bit more data on the Gauntlet:

Spoiler:  

The Gauntlet is not a modern invention. It‘s a forgotten thing, and for good reasons. Namely, the people that created the things is the aforementioned civilization that sent their whole world into a death spiral, and predecessor to Jacobson Brennan‘s. The Gauntlets are poorly understood by Jacobson and the Spiral Court, except for what they clearly do: they allow a user more direct and controlled access to the Spiral, and more effective usage of their limited power (only those who already have access to the Spiral can properly use one), and by their very nature, they warp space around them, even while inactive.
The end of prior civilization on Earth-7Y0 can be directly linked to the widening usage of the Gauntlets, but so far, this is something that has been ignored by the current inhabitants.

And now for Jacobson’s personal file. This concludes the first spoiler as well.

Spoiler:  

Jacobson Brennan, 31, homo sapiens sapiens, former devout of the Spiral Court, native of Earth-7Y0. Wanted for gross negligence and ~1,000,000 counts of manslaughter.
Jacobson was born in a world quite literally torn apart at the seams, the only remnants of humanity living on a single tectonic plate, the largest remaining piece of their Earth. The only thing that held the atmosphere together was the Spiral‘s attractive force, and even then, it was slowly draining away, a slow death assured within a few generations, for all remaining life. Jacobson was recruited into the Spiral Court as a latent psychic, and through a rigorous training, they brought out his capacity to bend the space around him. When they gave him a Gauntlet, and it was an eventuality, like with so many others, he worked with so many others, and as they gave all they could, the atmosphere was forced to remain with their little chunk of rock, bringing the loss of air down to something negligible, something that would keep humanity alive for centuries. Up until one of their best psychics disappeared.
Jacobson’s simple prowess with the Gauntlet allowed him to warp spacetime in the local area, and it changed him from just an inept user of the Spiral, into an outright Jumper. He pushed his capacities farther than he should have, and he opened the first hole away from his own universe. And in going through it, he committed perhaps the greatest act of manslaughter in all history. His acts might not have killed anyone yet, but his refusal to go back to his world HAS. Many followed after his example, most to pursue him, while others tried to evacuate their world, to save their people. And with every human that left the universe, the faster the air ran out. Over a million died before they could be saved by those who had learned to jump. And all of it, is the fault of Jacobson Brennan.
This man is to be executed. At least, that is how the Spiral Court sees it.

Of course, Jacobson believes that his calling is for a higher purpose. 1 universe is little compared to 90% of all possible humanity, after all. However, his employment is infinitely aided by the fact that he doesn’t put the fact that he doomed his home on his resume.

I think I'm likely to run the power of the Spiral closer to being a Cosmic ability, but with requirements to keep the focus to properly access it. I'm getting two things out of warping space here: Jumper, and Payload. For now. I might find a few things later, but those two are the defining non-mundane traits of Jacobson.