Question 23

[Ataraxian Wist]

Hmm... So, two of my characters--Nate and Celia--may actually be able to resolve their arcs as that disaster goes down. Amanda can go MIA, though, due to her new abilities, it is quite unlikely she would actually die. Karabiner and the Fence are good to die, too.

If not, I can just kill off Celia and let THAT be Nate's resolution. He and Amanda are--for the exact same reason--basically invincible, but they can certainly go missing together after crap goes down and no questions asked.

Then, I can be off this RP for awhile to get some other stuff done until I have time again.

[Ashbringer]

@DrakeMarshall, how big of a cataclysm do you have in mind? And is there room for Ferocity to play a part?

[DrakeMarshall]

Well, I should have some time in the next couple days. Maybe I can do some of my plans for this.

I admit I'm unsure how much interest there is in starting things up again, but it doesn't cost much to try. It is possible that if people see activity resuming in this subforum it will draw in more people.

@kenod re: location. I'm fine with sticking with Edmonton or not. What I had in mind was keeping Edmonton as a setting but with some fairly big changes to the city, but whatever people want to do is cool. There are definitely some fun options for new settings.

@Ashbringer Biggish. I would love to work other people's characters into things if you have ideas. I will message you.

[breakingamber]

I'm still up for RPing, though I might need to rewrite a lot. Now that I've written more than ~fifty thousand words, I can't help but look back at what I've done in the RP and cringe.

[The Young Pyromancer]

Mhm, same. Like, I tried to make Blank mysterious, but then I got bored with him doing nothing, so I kept making him do things, ruining the 'mystery' part.

And Jacklyn.... was a concept I found interesting, just executed badly.

I think we can both just leave what we wrote. Too much effort to change it all .

[Comatose]

[Staff Voice]: We are re-configuring how we label RP subforums - it looks like we've had some serious turnover here since Reckoner RP leads were last identified.  Who would you guys say are the current leaders for this RP?  Once the list is figured out, a pinned RP leader topic that can be regularly updated is recommended.  Please tag me in responding to this question so I don't miss it.  Thanks!

 

Edit: For reference, previous leads were Twilight, Kobold King, Voidus, and Edgedancer.

[Voidus]

Not sure it's active enough lately to have leaders @Comatose, I've been on the verge of suggestion we finally move this to the inactive RPs section given the lack of revival.

[Comatose]

That would certainly work as well.  I will leave it to the group to decide.  

[kenod]

I think we have a couple of people (including me) trying to revive it, but we're kind of failing, I guess

[Ashbringer]

Yup 

[Voidus]

If we can get some activity back up by the end of the month then we can work out leadership, maybe some urgency will help us finally get some momentum but if we have another failed revival then maybe it's time to finally retire it. Nothing stopping it from being revived in the regular RP section.

[kenod]

Welp, I guess we'll probably start by pinging everyone who has expressed an interest in that case?

On that note, I guess we'll have the following points to address;

• The reboot: So I believe we already agreed we'd reboot stuff. The idea was to do so in Edmonton, but that kind of stalled. So, my question is if we want to continue with that concept, or pick a new city somewhere else, and sideline Edmonton for now. Personally, I'd like the idea of continuing with Edmonton, but in that case we need to get the meeting doc and @DrakeMarshall's ending up immediately, since otherwise it'll just continue stalling. If we don't continue with Edmonton, or create a second, nearby city, we'll need to start world building that.
• Characters. I already posted a concept of my own, and I'll post a few other concepts too (probably later today), but we'll need to tally both which old characters will remain and then make new ones. Even just everyone having a single character ready should go a long way.
• An actual plot. This one can wait to some degree, instead just getting people to rp again, but at some point we'll need to start talking about this again.
• Tallying how many people are still interested, and possibly trying to find more people

As for all the pings: @DrakeMarshall @Ashbringer @breakingamber (@winter devotion?)
Does anyone know anybody else to ping?

[the winter system]

We'd be interested, keeping Red for sure and maybe coming up with a new character.

[breakingamber]

I think that's the full list of people who are probably interested. 

I too like the idea of continuing in Edmonton. I believe we were planning to end the meeting by having Epoch trap everybody who arrived in the time bubble? We could go with that plus a timeskip, or we could just keep going? I don't think that would go that well, but I'd be up for trying it. I'd be up for almost anything at this point, to be honest.

As for me, I've got a character in one of my brainstorming docs I'd like to RP, so, yeah, I've got one. I've also got a couple more if that one doesn't work out.

And as for plot... since a lot of the plot-driving people (so to speak) are no longer around, I'd like to try being more active in the overreaching plot as opposed to just playing around in your guys' sandbox. I've got a couple ideas, but I'd like to wait until we both have confirmation that the setting's what I think it'll be and until we have more people around.

[kenod]

For the meeting thing, maybe we should start a second Edmonton thread and leave what happened during the meeting as an unspecified catastrophe, at least until we get that sorted out, and use the ending to end said thread as well?

Also, my current character concepts (still wip):

Little Red (might need to change the name to avoid being murdered by the actual Red):

Spoiler

Name: Luna DeWitt

Epic Name: Little Red

Age: 15

Appearance: 4'7'', with long, white-blonde hair, blue eyes and a skin that's way too pale to be healthy Her face is rather small, and while pretty tends to be rather disturbing, because the way too pale skin gives it an inhuman quality. Normally wears a blood-red cloak with the hood up, a white dress with what seems to be dried blood on it, a red skirt, long socks and black boots. Normally carries a small basket with her that mostly contains various weapons like knives, guns and grenades.

Power(s): She can create a large (8') wolf that appears from her shadow, and is capable of acting automatically, including defending her. While dangerous, it can be killed or wounded, though its size means you generally need large swords or spears, heavy guns or explosives to do so. It is capable of healing by eating people, as well as retreating back into any large nearby shadows to return back to Red's shadow, where it can also recover from injuries, which generally takes a few hours. If it hasn't eaten anyone for over a week it will become weakened, its size changing down to only 5'. On the flip side, as it eats people it can gain temporary increases in its strength and speed, as well as the cutting/piercing ability of its fangs and claws. However, this charge will half with each day that passes, as well as each time it's summoned back into Red's shadow. Once it has a charge it'll start regenerating as well, though at a fairly slow rate.

Red is also capable of merging with the wolf, changing her appearance to be more werewolf-like. In this state she gains enhanced speed, strength and regen, based on the number of people the wolf had eaten up until that point, and the wolf's instincts will give her enhanced reflexes, but will also make her much more aggressive. She will also gain the ability to summon tooth-like knives, and the ability to travel through shadows to other nearby ones, though the shadows need to be large enough to cover her, and it tires her out a lot. The range on this increases with her kill count.

Weakness:

Spoiler

Being forced to acknowledge she's just a normal human, and that there isn't anything inherently special about her.

Personality: Can act somewhat childish at times, tends to be quite nice to people she considers friends. The issue is that she considers most people to just be people, and thus unimportant, considering them toys she can do with whatever she wants, and enjoys feeding them to her wolf. In these cases she tends to switch between total disinterest, utter sadism, and playful toying with them, sometimes multiple times in a single interaction.
She believes the world is somewhat similar to a story, and only "special people" actually matter, and everything else doesn't matter and is just there as a backdrop. Normally she considers Epics to be special people, though if a normal human manages to do something that particularly impresses her, like killing an Epic she might acknowledge them as well, since only a special person can kill another special person.
If she'd be forced to acknowledge everybody is normal and there's nothing special about people she'll probably break down, since it'd mean that all the people she killed were murders, not just her playing with some toys.
Considers her wolf to be her best friend, and tends to call it out just to cuddle or play with it.
Most of her motivations can be summed up with: "Because it amused me."

Backstory: When she was young she loved reading fairy tales, and was at an age where she still believed them to be true, and the fact that to her the people around her were incredibly boring she concluded that she must be the main character, and everyone else unimportant. While normally she'd have grown out of this after a few more years Calamity happened in this case, and her powers to her mind confirmed that she was indeed special. A few months later she let her wolf slaughter everyone around her out of boredom, and then disappeared, only showing up sporadically in different towns every so often, sometimes not doing much, other times hanging around for longer, making friends with local Epics before moving on again. During this time she also matured somewhat, growing out of her believe that she lived in a story to some degree, realizing it as childish, though she still kept her believe that normal humans don't matter, compared to special people like her. Eventually she ended moving up to Edmonton, having wanted to see Canada, and see if it had anything amusing.

Shade (Would probably function as another character's minion, sort of?):

Spoiler

Name: Shade

Age: 14

Gender: Female

Appearance: 4'8'', with light-brown hair. Her eyes have a milky-white look, lacking any pupils or iris, and she generally keeps them closed. She wears an old grey hoodie and slightly worn jeans.

Abilities:

• Primary Ability: Biokinesis
  She can alter the bodies of people she touches, both for healing but also for killing. While powerful her lack of biology knowledge (or formal schooling in general) limits how she can use the ability. She can't use this ability on herself.
• Secondary Ability: Lifesense
  She can sense living beings around her. This sense also includes their stance and appearance. She can also focus her sense on a specific area to get a more detailed look of it. This ability is sensitive enough that she can sense microbes to some extent, allowing her to get some idea of objects around her (walls, buildings) but finding smaller objects requires her to specifically focus on that area. Touching someone gives her a much better view of their body, allowing her to examine things like veins, nerves, muscle structures and even specific groups of cells.
• Primary Passive Ability: Enhanced Physiology
  She is faster than normal people her age, and has enhanced reflexes. She also has a limited amount of regeneration. Not enough to be useful in combat, but she can heal back from serious wounds within a few hours with proper care, as long as the wound doesn't initially kill her.
• Secondary Passive Ability: Lowered Presence
  It is difficult for other people to notice her, and they quickly forget about her once she's gone. She hasn't fully realized this ability exists yet, and isn't capable of controlling it. How much it affects people is based on how much she trusts them, if she trusts people the ability influences them less. The ability also influences people less when they spend more time around her.

Skills: She's skilled in surviving on the streets, as well as hiding. Has a very good sense of hearing and smell.

Weaknesses: She's blind. While she can use her abilities to compensate to some degree she has difficulty with certain other things. She can't use displays and monitors for example, or other devices that rely on light. She can read things because the letters stick out of the paper to some degree, but it's exhausting because of the concentration necessary to notice it. She also doesn't have a lot of schooling, which severely limits how she can use her abilities.

Epic Weakness:

  Hide contents

Being abandoned by people taking care of her.

This would also trigger if she thought it had happened, and would last for at least an hour with no powers, and her powers being weakened for a much longer period (so just weakened senses and stealth for example), with the effects also disappearing if someone came back for her.

Personality: She keeps to herself, and generally displays little emotion, especially when on a job. She prefers working for Epics, generally serving as a personal assassin instead of being the center of attention. She dislikes being around other people. Generally stays away from fights, instead preferring to ambush opponents by killing them before they notice she's a threat.

History: Born a few years before Calamity rose with a birth defect that left her blind. A few years after Calamity her parents were killed by an Epic, though she survived because she wasn't noticed, since her powers had appeared a few weeks before that. She ended up moving around a lot, sometimes being picked up by various groups of Maples who took pity on her, sometimes living on her own on the streets, begging or stealing. During this time she also slowly trained her lifesense, learning how to use it to replace her missing sight. Eventually she accidentally used her primary ability and a passing Epic took note of it. Taking her in they started training her as their personal assassin. The Epic got killed however, their empire overthrown, and she ended up wandering again, eventually ending up serving another Epic.

Maxwell:

Spoiler

Name: Karin Hunter

Epic Name: Maxwell

Gender: Female

Age: 23

Appearance: She's 5'6'' tall, with long black hair and grey eyes. She normally wears a t-shirt and jeans, but wears a white lab-coat over them.

Powers:
    Maxwell's Demon:

• Primary power: Separation of heat and cold. She can take heat from different substances, transferring it into something else. She can do this even when the substances are at thermal equilibrium, or when the substance she's taking heat from is colder than the substance she's transferring the heat to. This ability is much easier to use on gasses, with solids being the most difficult to use this ability on. The lowest temperature a substance can be brought to differs, but for air this is generally around -60°C (-76°F), and for other substances this lowest temperature is generally a lot warmer, with gasses being close to this temperature, fluids being close to -20°C (-4°F), and solids being around -5 °C (23°F), unless their phase will change while their temperature is being reduced, in which case either the lowest temperature for that phase or the current temperature will be the limit, whichever is lower. There isn't any real limit on the maximum heat that can be transferred to a substance, though gasses take less effort and are more useful. In order to transfer the energy the substance needs to be inside of 50 meters of her.
  Additional notes: When not using this ability on gasses some time is necessary to gather the focus to use the ability, and both extracting and adding the heat will take time (gasses take time as well, but this is fast enough to seem instant). This also means that this ability doesn't work as an instakill on living beings.

• Secondary power: Gas manipulation. She's capable of aerokinetic control of gasses, but with the peculiarity that this control takes more effort the closer the gasses are to thermal equilibrium compared to the gasses around them, with anything less than 10°C (18°F) difference from equilibrium being too close to manipulate, and a difference of 40°C (72°F) is necessary for full control, which generally gives the appearance of her manipulating freezing winds and flames/hot winds. Again, her control area for this ability is 50 meters. The controlled air can reach speeds of about 17 m/s, so enough to shake trees but not enough to toss larger/heavier things about, or create significant destruction. She can't compress the air, but are capable of stopping air from expanding or contracting from the sudden changes in heat, which means that if the air is hot enough she can actually use the additional pressure to knock people away, but at these temperatures they'd probably prefer that, since it's more survivable than being in the center of a fireball.

• Peculiarities: The amount of heat they can put in a hot area is fairly small in the beginning, unless they create a large cold area and then channel all the heat into a small area. However, when heat flows back into cold areas, or from warm areas into the surrounding air, they can use the energy generated during this to increase the amount of heat inside of their hot areas. The increased heat inside of these areas will increase the heat flow, which will also increase the amount of heat generated, creating a compounding effect. This still has limits though, since when the gas changes to plasma they'll lose control over it, causing all the heat to flood back into the general area, causing a large explosion. At the same time they need to watch out when disengaging their ability as the resultant explosion might injure or kill them otherwise. They can also release control over zones they control, causing implosions and explosions because of temperature differentials (they can also use this to create energy, but it is more difficult because of the speed, causing large efficiency losses, generally losing 90% of the heat stored in the zone. This is mainly a method for decreasing the amount of time it takes to build up their temperatures again). If they have a bit of time to focus they can also combine their hot and cold zones to generate energy faster, or manipulate the shape and force of the explosions, this is a more advanced usage that needs training, and can't be improvised.

Epic Weakness: 

Spoiler

Failing to meet a goal she set for herself, or that she accepted from someone else. When this happens her powers will immediately shut down, and the time it takes for them to work again will depend on the importance the goal held for her. This also works for goals she sets herself unconsciously, such as needing to defeat an enemy.
Warning: triggering this weakness is a bad idea when she has been using her powers for a while and you're in the vicinity, since at that point reality tends to reassert itself, which tends to have explosive results.

Personality: Tries to think things through, often loses control quickly, getting enraged or hot-blooded, especially when using her abilities. She doesn't use her abilities often though, or at strong levels, because of the dangers involved, meaning that the Corruption isn't as strong for her. Often sets goals for herself, despite her weakness, since it allows her to motivate herself.

Backstory: Originally went to an Princeton university where she studied physics, but relied on a scholarship, which meant that she always needed to push herself to reach various goals in order to keep it. When Calamity came she was in her third year, and after living in the Epic controlled town for a while she decided she had enough with it and got together with a few other Epics to take over themselves, but failed and ended up fleeing, finally arriving in Edmonton after a lot of travels.

Laplace:

Spoiler

Name: Alice Fisher

Epic Name: Laplace

Gender: Female

Age: 35

Appearance: She is about 5'4'' tall, though she seems taller to people. Has shorter light brown hair and dark green eyes that turn violet when she's using her powers. Generally looks rather serious and strict. Wears glasses. For clothing she normally wears a tweed suit.

Powers:
    Laplace's Demon:

• Primary power: Enhanced analytical abilities. This manifests in three different ways, Probability prediction, physics simulation, and pattern analysis.
  Probability prediction allows for the analysis of trends from small data sets, allowing for the prediction of possible actions of groups of people, assigning probabilities to each possible action they can take. This works better the larger the group is, and the more data there is available. Predicting the actions of a single individual is much more difficult, even with insight into their personality. Larger groups, on the other hand, tend to average out.
  Physics simulation allows for perfectly predicting the outcome of deterministic systems, such as the paths of a group of rocks falling down, or a roulette wheel. This ability requires knowledge of the rules behind the system to work though. Encountering an unknown phenomenon, or an non-deterministic one, makes usage of this ability impossible, and if she is only partially aware of the rules behind the system she can encounter errors in their analysis.
  Pattern analysis allows her to take a phenomenon, or a number of incidents, and analyze the pattern behind them, creating a prediction of the rules it is based on. This works in concert with probability prediction and physics simulation, allowing her to establish the necessary rules for these to be able to work. The main issue with this, however, is that the rules she deduces might not be the actual rules that apply to a phenomenon or pattern, which might throw of her predictions by some degree.
  This power is a semi-passive ability, with the power normally running subconsciously, with results manifesting as improved intuition, but she can also focus the ability on a specific task, which makes it much more effective, but requires her to consciously know what she's trying to analyze.
• Secondary power: Area scan. This is an active ability that allows her to perfectly know everything about a 50 meter area centered on her. The issue here is that it isn't possible for her to consciously comprehend all this information, so she's only capable of accessing the positions, motions, and appearances of objects in this region, although she can also access information more specific information like temperature, sound, or specific materials, but this requires her to actually focus on acquiring this information, and on the specific place she wants the information from.
  The interesting part about this ability, however, is that her first ability is also capable of making use of this information, but is capable of accessing the full breadth of information, granting what amounts to a pseudo danger sense, though limited to what information can be gathered from inside of the ability's active area (Note that threads don't have to be inside of this area to be noticed, but either this area or what can be perceived with their normal senses must contain the information necessary for the thread to be noticeable).

Skills: While she doesn't have any actual combat training she's a decent gun fighter and sharp shooter because of her abilities.

Epic weakness: 

Spoiler

Dice. These will create an aura of about 2 meters around them that isn't visible to her Area Scan ability, and actually touching them will also negate her primary ability.

Personality: She has a strict, calculating personality, with a firm believe that the mind is much more important than the body, and that she is more intelligent than anybody else, so doing any fighting herself would be demeaning. She tends to have a personal hatred against people who mess up her predictions, and believes that her primary ability is actually her own genius shining through, and not an Epic ability (she's wrong, which she does know to some degree, but doesn't acknowledge).

Backstory: Originally a professor in mathematics at Princeton teaching statistics. She had a reputation for being highly intelligent, but also for being extremely strict and an ego that was much too big. After Calamity she started manipulating the university and town from behind the scenes, officially working as strategist for the local ruler but eventually becoming the de facto ruler. Eventually one of the other Epics in town tried to oust the leader though, and attacked them. Somehow managing to defy her predictions they forced her to flee, and eventually she ended up in Edmonton after hearing bout the power vacuum.

Edited September 16, 2020 by kenod

[Ashbringer]

My Ferocity’s ready, although he’s more of a sleeper-agent-turning-imminent-threat type Epic. I can bring in Blockade and Roto as well for my more traditional Epics.

 

[kenod]

Sounds good, want to post their sheets?

Also, if anyone is interested, it would be nice if someone wants to take Laplace or Maxwell from me, since I figured the two would make a good duo, but in that case I don't want to play both of them. Also, if anyone needs a minion, Shade is available.

[Ashbringer]

Ferocity (Warning: Long):

Spoiler

Epic name: Ferocity

Former Epic Name: Statsplice

Real Name: Franklin Sareth

General Appearance: Largly unknown, and varies due to mind control / shapshifting / mind shifting, but his “real” appearance is:

A 5’6” man, skinny but mostly appears unathletic, pale skin, has a tight face with a relaxed smile, white hair, and scarlet eyes. Will exaggerate these traits to be intimidating if he deems it necessary. Generally wears white and red robes, or a set of light red leather armor. Wears wire-framed glasses, although he doesn’t really need them. He only uses this appearance as himself or his Acolytes.

 

Primary Power: Attribute Manipulation. Ferocity can absorb and redistribute human attributes on touch, between himself and any non-Epics. These fall into 4 groups with 5 subgroups apiece:

Senses: Sight, Hearing, Touch, Smell, Taste

Mental: Thought Speed, Instinct, Wisdom, Intelligence, Memory

Physical: Physical Speed, Strength, Stamina, Dexterity, Healing

Emotions: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, Compassion

Ferocity and his Acolytes can absorb up to 50% of each trait from any one person; his priests can absorb 30%, and his Ferals/Collectors can absorb 10%. If 10% or less of a trait is taken from a person, it will return within a week; otherwise it will take a very long time to recover. There is no upper limit to how much of one attribute that Ferocity or his manipulated individuals can have.

Secondary Power: Subjugation. Ferocity gains power over the individuals he manipulates (positively, by giving some attribute, not taking it), based on the categories and extent of the manipulation.

Senses - Sensory Projection: Ferocity can sense what his subjects sense, so long as they have enough Sense manipulations. The more manipulation, the clearer that Ferocity can sense from them.

Mental - Mind Control: Ferocity can control the minds and actions of his subjects, so long as they have enough Mental manipulations. The more manipulation, the more control Ferocity has, to the point of completely overwhelming the subject’s personality.

Physical - Shape Shift: Ferocity can alter the form of his subjects, so long as they have enough Physical manipulations. This can either be changing appearance (to match his own, or otherwise) or to transforming into a red, devil-like Feral. The more manipulation, the more drastic changes that can be made and the more devil-like the Feral form will be.

Emotional - Life Sense/Gifting: Ferocity can sense his subject’s exact locations and use them to manipulate attributes, so long as they have enough Emotional manipulations. The more manipulation, the more accurate the location sense is and the more manipulation can be done.

Tertiary Ability: Ferocity’s consiousness is de-linked from his body - if his original body is killed or incapacitated, Ferocity can act through his other subjects, even to the point of turning an Acolyte into “him”.

 

PAPEL: Essentially unlimited attributes for any athletic activity or otherwise, world domination, etc.

MO: Keeps himself and most of his Acolytes hidden in bunkers within uninhabited/uninhabitable wastelands. Sends an Acolyte to a city he wants, where he will attempt to set up his Church of Collection (Cult), where subjects will go out into the public and preach/do service for their fufillment (they spread the Cult and allow Ferocity to sustainably gather attributes in exchange for manipulation granting joy/compassion). If Ferocity can set up a stable system, he leaves the city under control of his Cult; otherwise (if the population or local Epics resist too strongly) he will flatten the city with an invasion of Feral monsters and the powers of his Acolyte.

Has an additional motive: keeps tabs on the Epics within most cities, seeing which ones have useful abilities or dangerous ones. More interested in lesser Epics. He can’t manipulate Epics, but anyone he’s previously manipulated who becomes an Epic keeps their manipulations, and the associated Subjugation affects (except letting Ferocity use them to manipulate their own attributes).

Acolytes: have a very large set of manipulations in multiple sets/subsets, act as city-based Cult leaders, under Ferocity’s complete control. Priests: have a large set of Mental/Emotional manipulations, generally Wisdom and Compassion; organize recieving attributes from Collectors and either giving them to the Acolyte or redistributing them, mosly under Ferocity’s control. Collectors: people in the Church/Cult of Collection, have some standing manipulations and Joy-based Emotional manipulations; allow Ferocity to gather attributes weekly from large amounts of a city’s population and route them to his Priests/Acolytes. Ferals: have large Physcial manipulations and some Mental/Emotional ones, generally hightened Instinct and Anger; act as a hidden army within a population that Ferocity can transform and control.

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Backstory: Will wait, as it depends on other Epics I may create. Franklin was once a “good” Epic known as Statsplice, but corruption got to him and he is now a complete psychopath.

 

Weakness: Fear (itself). Each of Ferocity’s “subjects” has a fear that will act like an Epic weakness, causing a primal fear and begin reverting any attribute manipulation affects on the individual (whether positive or negative) fairly rapidly. This renders them immune to any further manipulations until the fear wears off. In subjects who are also Epics, this fear is their weakness. Generally Ferocity will force any Epic subjects or Acolytes to flee before their weakness can ruin their attributes and free them, but Ferals and Collectors will revert almost instantly.

[OOC: due to Ferals and Collectors’ strength-in-numbers, I probably won’t give them weaknesses to trigger unless the success of one specific Feral/Collector becomes plot important. Acolytes will have their own weaknesses.]

For Ferocity himself, losing control (if he thinks he has control) over a situation is what will generally make him feel enough fear to be affected, which will cause subjects in the immediate vicinity to start losing manipulations. He is generally very careful about taking any real risks.

A fear-manipulating Epic could also trigger this weakness, and Ferocity will be very invested in not letting that happen.

Err... Attribute Manipulation/Mind Control Epic. Will probably be affecting things "behind the scenes" as he prefers to go all or nothing, although if there's a power vacuum he'll gladly try and raise a group to fill it. Otherwise can send Ferals to attack characters and generally destabilize cities.

 

Roto:

Spoiler

Epic name: Roto

Real Name: Reginald Jenners, nicknames "Reggie", "Regiment"

General Appearance: A 6'3" man with a blond buzz cut and dark brown eyes, about 30 years old, British. Wears a plain T-shirt and ripped jeans, as well as a pilot's helmet and goggles. On his back he has a foldable, extendable triple-bladed rotor (three blades pointing straight down, which turn to three blades that center on a rod between his shoulder blades), with smaller, similar ones on his wrists and ankles, Epic-made to be very durable. Carries a lot of small throwing stars and throwing razors, and ball bearings. Lots of ball bearings.

 

Primary Power: Torque manipulation. Roto can make anything spin by applying (or stopping) a torque value to it, making it spin around its center of mass or other point on an object. This can spin in any direction or orientation, whether slightly spinning bullets to force them away from their intended trajectory to keeping a disk floating in the air flying with his helicopter rotor. He can do this subconsciously on a low level, and the more he concentrates/focuses the more torque he can apply. He can flip a person onto their head (literally), or get a large bolder to move, but he generally can't move against the inertia/friction of anything bigger than a car (well, he can move the car by rotating the wheels easily, but he can't flip a car over by rotating it).

This follows physics where T=I*alpha (Torque=[moment of inertia] x [rotational acceleration]) - he can apply up to a set torque value, meaning he can make an object start spinning faster the less the moment of inertia is, which is set by a few things, namely mass, closeness of rotation point to center of mass, and how far out the object extends from the center of mass. I'm not going to quantify it in particular, so the more massive + more oblong + farther from center of mass + the less mass perpendicular to the center of rotation = the harder it is to spin and the longer it will take to reach a certain speed. There's probably a better way to explain it but that's about as much as I know myself.

Secondary Power: General strength and durability enhancements, especially against any adverse affects from spinning (like motion sickness). Not indestructible, but can overpower most non-Epics in unarmed combat.

 

PAPEL: Can automatically power any vehicle by rotating the motor, or just the wheels/rotors. Is also a portable miniature helicopter. Plus the ability to move almost anything by rotating it properly, giving him a pseudo-telekinesis.

MO: Serves Blockade as a messenger, "bodyguard", and general enforcer for him. Doesn't have enough power to control a large territory, but can keep a population under wraps. Also acts as a general due to military experience.

Personality: Sees almost everything as a military operation: he is a general over a conquered city or in an army of conscripted soldiers. He has a deep respect for Blockade, who he sees as his commander, but refuses to take any nonsense or slight from anyone else. Has a respect to anyone else who's managed to hold onto territory, and any opponents he may have he deems worthy. However, he can be completely ruthless to anyone who fails to obey a direct order or resists Blockade's rule. In general, he's gruff but knows what hardships Vanillas experience in the trials of war, and fights the corruption with decent success in "peace-times".

Backstory: Reginald Jenners was a colonel in the British RAF, and a former helicopter pilot, who greatly missed flying in the sky but understood the value and honor of his position. After a severe error that killed a pilot in a training exercise, Reginald was held responsible, discharged, and nearly court-martialed before it was discovered there was a defect in the crashed plane that exonerated him. He was offered his position back, but he refused after seeing his world turn upside down and moved to America. When Calamity came, Reginald surprised the pre-Regalia Epic of New York by organizing a somewhat effective resistance and predicting his movements, to the point where he accepted the man's surrender and asked him to work for him.

Reginald gained his powers about the same time as Regalia took over, and left with the joy of retaking the skies over Regalia's seas. He flew across the country, trying and failing to lead any group of Epics or Vanillas or take any land, although he did leave a long line of dead Epics who thought they were invincible because of their abilities. He met with Blockade on his way to Bend and accompanied him around the Midwest, and has come to the new target of Blockade's.

Weakness: Execution, either in fact or in symbolism. The sight of a gallows, firing squad, guillotine, or other implement of execution will greatly lower the torque he can generate, and almost nullify it if it's used against him (even if not as a real execution, i.e. someone launching a guillotine blade at him). Being confronted with death while helpless or after imprisonment will also disable his powers.

Rotation (torque) Epic. Loyal to Blockade. A military man. Mostly a traditional Epic although he tends to fight corruption a bit more.  

 

Blockade isn't quite done, as one of his early powers was going to be a Power Cancelation ability (which is against the rules). He's keeping a general Force Field + Kinetic power focus, but I want him to be a bit stronger.

 

Edit: they're also in the Pug Treats-character-thread-thing, along with proto-Blockade and my others.

And hi Pyro! I was wondering if I should tag you...

Edited September 16, 2020 by Ashbringer

[The Young Pyromancer]

I'm still here...

[kenod]

By the way, @Ashbringer, we have a discord server too we use sometimes for additional communications. Here's an invite link: https://discord.gg/sfv5Zf

[breakingamber]

I've also got a couple of character concepts. I've imported one of them from the misc. Epic thread and also changed him up a bit.

Downfall

Spoiler

Name: Mason Filmore

Appearance: 30-ish looking white male with brown hair. About 6 feet tall with a long somewhat gangly body. Wears a 'cool' looking cowboy hat, biker jacket, and blue jeans. He has a semi-automatic pistol holstered at his side.

Epic Name: Downfall

Primary Ability: He can swap two equally-sized portions of space that he can perceive, either through sight or through his secondary ability, as long as they don't contain living things. If he tries, the swap just warps around them and he gets a vague headache. These things preserve their momentum and shape. (so he's technically not a teleporter.) Mover/Shaker, in Worm terms.

Secondary Ability: He has short-range clairvoyance, up to about 20 feet in every direction. He can only perceive objects, not sounds, colour, smell, etc. 

Tertiary Ability: He has enhanced reflexes, enough to react to a bullet being fired at him at point blank range. This grants him a form of prime invincibility, as he can perceive threats coming from all directions, and can react to them in time to swap them or block them.

MO: He's petty, cruel, confrontational and always looking for an excuse to fight. This makes him pretty reckless when it comes to antagonizing other Epics, and really terrible for the wellbeing of nearby vanillas. He doesn't think much of them and will kill them if they or something else irritate him, sometimes by switching the ground that's underneath them to be on top of them or by switching something heavy on top of their head and snapping their spine, or just encasing them in solid rock. However, he hates Epics who can actually harm him or pose a danger to him more, as he's really kind of a coward at heart. He'll put on a big blustery bravado, but, in the end, however, if he's actually in danger of dying, he tends to bail.

Backstory: He was about 19 when Calamity first rose and he get his powers. He'd just arrived at his biology class when he had his Rending, where he left a pile of suspiciously rectangular rubble behind. As time passed, he practiced more and gained more control over his ability and was able to make more specific shapes. Travelling some of the most Epic-filled cities, he left behind a trail of murder and cruel and unusual deaths before he would always inevitably be forced to flee for his life, having drawn the ire of the local Epic overlord. He's been heading north for some time now, and figured he might as well visit Edmonton while he's in the area; maybe he'd even try claiming some territory. How hard could it be?

Weakness: Just about any living thing or something can't be blocked or penetrated can kill him. Something like Phytomagnet's trees, most invulnerable Epics, most incorporeal Epics. Essentially, he's Manton-limited in the harshest way possible.

Spoiler

The Friend Computer icon, or obvious Friend Computer quotes. Before becoming an Epic, he was a shy, timid, and Paranoid bookworm, and he hates being reminded of that time.

 

Shane Liu (not an Epic):

Spoiler

Name: Shane Liu

Appearance: About average height, athletically bulky around the waist and shoulders. Black hair, kind of a scrunchy face - typical Asian, sumo wrestler but without the fat. Typically wears a large sweater and jeans.

Personality: Brusque, but caring. Kind of a stereotype, but what can you do? He's not particularly altruistic, but he'd go to hell and back for the people that are 'his', so to speak. He enjoys football and drawing. Good at thinking on his feet, but not amazing at long-term planning. Is kind of a jerk jock, except with less jerk nowadays. He's not particularly welcome to 'outsiders', but if he feels like he knows someone he'll treat them like family.

Backstory: He used to wrestle pre-Calamity and was kind of a stereotypical jock, with the bullying and everything. When Calamity came, an Epic razed the school, causing Edmonton to fall into chaos. He responded to this by taking all of his friends from wrestling, as well as as many of their siblings and parents as possible, his own little brother included (his parents died in the initial Epic takeovers) and running for the last vestige of government around: the Albertan one. They didn't quite have the resources to take care of him and all of his people, so he's been working constantly to keep them alive, doing some extremely basic farming, looting, rationing, bartering, etc. People have died, he's lost a couple to the Storm and Epoch, but he's done a surprisingly good job of keeping them all alive and mostly healthy. 

Skills: He's got pretty good stats all around. His dump(s) are probably INT and WIS, but even then they're slightly above average. He's particularly good at hand to hand combat.

I imagine he gets involved in 'plot', so to speak, when he finds a random motivator on the corpse of the other character I played, takes it back, and someone realizes who it is and how valuable it is, at which point he tries to sell it. That goes spectacularly.

 

[Negative_Null]

I'd join, but I'm already in a ton of campaigns, so I think I'd have to play a pretty minor role. I do have a fun epic character though.

[kenod]

Alright, so what do we do with the current city? Make a new thread for the reboot, and let the meeting end the previous thread? That way we don't need to have the meeting finished up before starting to rp again.

[Comatose]

Depending on how many characters you want to port over, you could either do a reboot with a new thread and short time jump to help with the reset?  The only thing to keep in mind is that the Edmonton RP is set three weeks AFTER Steelheart's death in Book 1, so you would want to be careful not to run up against the events of the other books.  

If you are going to pick it up again from where it's left off, the same thread might be easier, but either could work.

[kenod]

Um, true. How long after that point do Firefight and Calamity take place again?