Alleyverse Character Discussion

[AonEne he/him]

4 hours ago, Voidus said:

Epic power is a little vague, hard for me to assign points on this one. Could use some more details or practical examples of what you mean here, is it basically just foresight of if an idea is pursued what would happen? Or just a vague 'this is a good idea, this is a bad idea'? 

...Voidus himself isn't in the DA next era... 

Closer to vague impressions, with a little more detail - ‘this has some potential to it but not much’, ‘this plan would almost never work’, ‘holy crap this would change the universe’, ‘this idea is close to being something big, but isn’t quite there as is’ type stuff. 

Forgot about that change, apologies. 

1 hour ago, 18th Shard said:

However, I can totally see him snapping Deteca up if she came to the Dark Alley, and as Head of Testing & Analysis he would probably be equipped to help train her, just not from personal experience. However, he would definitely be familiar with any mythology and/or stories of things like Voidmaking existing, and could help with that side of things. Maybe she started training with Mac (with Xanas on the analysis side of things), and then when he departed, Xanas helped her continue. 

That works for me.  

Altered sheet: 

Spoiler

Name: Deteca Nutvry

Appearance: Female. Thirty-eight. Very short hair, Iriali gold; could probably be mistaken for male if haircut alone was looked at. Tan skin, light blue eyes. Not especially strong muscles; very slim; slightly shorter than the average height for her age. Has a spike in the middle of her upper chest, just beneath her collarbone. 

Magic: Voidmaking; trained by Xanas, practices often. (I’m placing her ability at about 100, a seven on the scale of one to ten.) Spike granting the Epic ability to sense the potential of an idea. 

Skills: Intelligence - Intelligent: 30; Projectile Weapon Combat Training - Amateur: 30; Scholarship - Skilled: 30 

Equipment: Pistol, Alleycant pen 

Weaknesses: Her parents are a liability, and she would do a lot to keep them safe. If she is reminded of Akied, she can have a difficult time staying in the moment and will sometimes stop what she’s doing. Pagophobia. She has a mild fear of leaving the Alleycity, closer to “I’d like to not do that” than “Absolutely not”. 

Family: Deteca’s parents are, shockingly, both alive. Her mother was from Iri, but worldhopped out of Roshar the first chance she got and found her way to Alleycity. Her father had lived there most of his life, but is ethnically Elisian. She had a younger brother named Akied, who is deceased.

Home Planet: The Alleyverse. She was born and raised in the Alleycity, and hasn’t ever left. 

Backstory: Deteca was born and raised in the Alleycity, where her parents live. Akied was born seven years after her, but choked to death on an ice cube when he was six. His death caused Deteca to turn to the Dark Alley later in life in her grief; becoming a member gave her something to throw herself into, something to work toward, and she steadily grew to love the quiet guild’s studying and learning. She came to realize she was a Voidmaker and was mentored with Mac by Xanas on what they could figure out from testing and legends. At the same time as the Seven Day War, she gave herself the Epic power through a spike. 

Guild: The Dark Alley (Research and Development Department) 

Personality: Friendly, competitive, likes to make others laugh, loves to help explore and develop new ideas, loves most forms of sugar, extremely supportive of her guild after what they’ve done for her, occasionally finds the secretive ways of the DA annoying because she wants to go out and share all the awesome things they’re doing, feels lost without something to be working on. 

Fighting Style: Intimidate someone to get them to back off; if that doesn’t work, try not to kill them with Voidmaking. 

Theme Song: Hero by Tommee Profitt and Mike Mains 

 

[Voidus]

1 minute ago, AonEne said:

Closer to vague impressions, with a little more detail - ‘this has some potential to it but not much’, ‘this plan would almost never work’, ‘holy crap this would change the universe’, ‘this idea is close to being something big, but isn’t quite there as is’ type stuff. 

Forgot about that change, apologies. 

That works for me.  

Altered sheet: 

  Hide contents

Name: Deteca Nutvry

Appearance: Female. Thirty-eight. Very short hair, Iriali gold; could probably be mistaken for male if haircut alone was looked at. Tan skin, light blue eyes. Not especially strong muscles; very slim; slightly shorter than the average height for her age. Has a spike in the middle of her upper chest, just beneath her collarbone. 

Magic: Voidmaking; trained by Xanas, practices often. (I’m placing her ability at about 100, a seven on the scale of one to ten.) Spike granting the Epic ability to sense the potential of an idea. 

Skills: Intelligence - Intelligent: 30; Projectile Weapon Combat Training - Amateur: 30; Scholarship - Skilled: 30 

Equipment: Pistol, Alleycant pen 

Weaknesses: Her parents are a liability, and she would do a lot to keep them safe. If she is reminded of Akied, she can have a difficult time staying in the moment and will sometimes stop what she’s doing. Pagophobia. She has a mild fear of leaving the Alleycity, closer to “I’d like to not do that” than “Absolutely not”. 

Family: Deteca’s parents are, shockingly, both alive. Her mother was from Iri, but worldhopped out of Roshar the first chance she got and found her way to Alleycity. Her father had lived there most of his life, but is ethnically Elisian. She had a younger brother named Akied, who is deceased.

Home Planet: The Alleyverse. She was born and raised in the Alleycity, and hasn’t ever left. 

Backstory: Deteca was born and raised in the Alleycity, where her parents live. Akied was born seven years after her, but choked to death on an ice cube when he was six. His death caused Deteca to turn to the Dark Alley later in life in her grief; becoming a member gave her something to throw herself into, something to work toward, and she steadily grew to love the quiet guild’s studying and learning. She came to realize she was a Voidmaker and was mentored with Mac by Xanas on what they could figure out from testing and legends. At the same time as the Seven Day War, she gave herself the Epic power through a spike. 

Guild: The Dark Alley (Research and Development Department) 

Personality: Friendly, competitive, likes to make others laugh, loves to help explore and develop new ideas, loves most forms of sugar, extremely supportive of her guild after what they’ve done for her, occasionally finds the secretive ways of the DA annoying because she wants to go out and share all the awesome things they’re doing, feels lost without something to be working on. 

Fighting Style: Intimidate someone to get them to back off; if that doesn’t work, try not to kill them with Voidmaking. 

Theme Song: Hero by Tommee Profitt and Mike Mains 

 

Voidmaking: 100
Epic power: 20
Weaknesses: -30

Total: 120 (M) + 90 (S) - 30 (W) = 180

Fair bit over the point cap, but if the 'try not to kill them with Voidmaking' part of the Fighting style implies pacifism then that's another -30 of weaknesses which would bring her in line.

[AonEne he/him]

1 minute ago, Voidus said:

Voidmaking: 100
Epic power: 20
Weaknesses: -30

Total: 120 (M) + 90 (S) - 30 (W) = 180

Fair bit over the point cap, but if the 'try not to kill them with Voidmaking' part of the Fighting style implies pacifism then that's another -30 of weaknesses which would bring her in line.

Yep! Thanks. 

[mathiau he/him]

13 hours ago, 18th Shard said:

The Dark Alley is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be... unnatural. 

On a less joking side of things, I think he could just use some handwavium here and say due to some Epic attack from his Earth or an Epic-like ability, it accelerated the effects of his aluminum burning, causing savanthood without the aforementioned feeding tube of aluminum. Plus, in a team of Epics, I would definitely be burning aluminum all the time if possible.

As for how it works, you could just say that part of being an aluminum savant is the ability to extend the "burst" time of the aluminum being burned - and Nullblade is far enough gone down that path that he burns it at a rate more like a normal metal.

Or you could just have him look like Bane and have feeding tubes constantly pumping aluminum into him, but I don't think that was the route mathiau was planning on. 

Yes, I'm just gonna handwave that he have an epic power that make A-aluminium work the way I want^^

[Rosharan A.C. he/him]

I have a question. I’m considering a character with limited skill in Forgery. Technically this investiture weakens the farther one gets from MaiPon, so would that still apply in the Allyverse? Or would forgery work like normal?

[mathiau he/him]

Just now, Rosharan A.C. said:

I have a question. I’m considering a character with limited skill in Forgery. Technically this investiture weakens the farther one gets from MaiPon, so would that still apply in the Allyverse? Or would forgery work like normal?

All Selish powers work normally in the Alleyverse, it's an effect of the Worldspike

[Rosharan A.C. he/him]

Ah I see. Thank you! That’s good news.

[Voidus]

9 hours ago, mathiau said:

Yes, I'm just gonna handwave that he have an epic power that make A-aluminium work the way I want^^

I think you can get away with it by just not calling them a Savant, you can be really experienced with a metal without Savantism. Even putting aside the issues of obtaining enough metal I don't think aluminium savantism is possible because you'd be cleansing yourself of the harmful effects from overburning as fast as you can accumulate them.

[Rosharan A.C. he/him]

So I’ve mostly made the character I mentioned earlier, but there are a couple things I’m still working out. I thought it would be cool if he kept soulstamps that he could use to change pieces of gear on his person. I’ve come up with things like changing his sword to a crowbar, his shoes to boots, and his pocketknife to a lock pit, but I was wondering if anyone else had some ideas.

[+ZincAboutIt she/her]

@18th Shard and @Rosharan A.C. If you want to continue the character discussion in the AV Character thread, come on over here. We like to save the Characters thread for only submissions and mod approval/requests.  

[Rosharan A.C. he/him]

Just now, ZincAboutIt said:

@18th Shard and @Rosharan A.C. If you want to continue the character discussion in the AV Character thread, come on over here. We like to save the Characters thread for only submissions and mod approval/requests.  

Right, right. 

[18th Shard he/him]

I always forget which thread I am in between those two.  

1 hour ago, Rosharan A.C. said:

That’s a good idea! Maybe throughout all of his training there was one essence mark that he worked on little by little, at direction from his master.

That sounds good - what kind of essence mark do you think he would make?

[Rosharan A.C. he/him]

1 hour ago, 18th Shard said:

I always forget which thread I am in between those two.  

That sounds good - what kind of essence mark do you think he would make?

Well the first that comes to mind is one that simply gives him physical strength, sort of like what Shai used in The Emporer's Soul. Or, it could could make him much smarter and knowledgeable. However, those are both a little basic, and I think if he had worked on just one essence mark during his training, it would be more personal. I’ll have to think on that. A basic one (or two) might be the most useful, in the long run. 

[Ashbringer he/him]

Hey everyone! I finally decided to start my Alleyverse journey and create some characters. I have 2 locked down on where I want them, but I have one I want to ask about power level feasibility before I post it to the character thread.

I'm thinking of making a Cadmium Savant - one who can make time bubbles with much greater control than normal, ie slowing time to a greater degree, or having the bubble active with only a miniscule change in the speed of time. Also, carrying the bubble with him (which I think a WoB says is feasible for a savant) as opposed to locked in space.

Does this sound balanced? This seems to be something not on the character guidelines page, since savants are so... wacky. I also can't really think of a good savant-induced weakness besides suffering from not burning cadmium. 

[AonEne he/him]

First, welcome to the Alleyverse, and the Shard! We’re happy to have you.  If you ever want Tyrian to have a chat with my Voidmaker character, we can arrange that.  Your characters look cool. (And I’ll forever love the name Cassie. High five?) 

As for savants, in most cases they fit into the point limit if that’s the only Investiture you’re giving them, and it isn’t required that your weaknesses directly relate to your powers, it can just lead to some good writing if so. I think you’re probably fine, though I can’t judge their score in the end, not being a mod myself. 

@Ashbringer 

[+ZincAboutIt she/her]

3 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

I also can't really think of a good savant-induced weakness besides suffering from not burning cadmium. 

Cadmium is a seriously toxic substance, and while Allomancy technically burns off all the metal, I could see savantism leading to some symptoms of cadmium poisoning that slowly, slowly, worsen over time. A nasty business. Another possible weakness/downside could be some difficulty forming attachments with others. If you're always slightly fast-forwarding time, you might not be able to make a "here and now" connection with others, always slightly disjointed from real time, always looking to the next thing since you can make life speed up through the boring bits. A somewhat lonely, socially bizarre mindset could work in this case. Being present-but-absent all the time.

[Ashbringer he/him]

9 hours ago, AonEne said:

First, welcome to the Alleyverse, and the Shard! We’re happy to have you.  If you ever want Tyrian to have a chat with my Voidmaker character, we can arrange that.  Your characters look cool. (And I’ll forever love the name Cassie. High five?) 

As for savants, in most cases they fit into the point limit if that’s the only Investiture you’re giving them, and it isn’t required that your weaknesses directly relate to your powers, it can just lead to some good writing if so. I think you’re probably fine, though I can’t judge their score in the end, not being a mod myself. 

@Ashbringer 

Thank you! Unfortunately, Tyrian got a little sidetracked in the alleys due to being trapped in the OP Character Filter. Cassie's on her way though.

9 hours ago, ZincAboutIt said:

Cadmium is a seriously toxic substance, and while Allomancy technically burns off all the metal, I could see savantism leading to some symptoms of cadmium poisoning that slowly, slowly, worsen over time. A nasty business. Another possible weakness/downside could be some difficulty forming attachments with others. If you're always slightly fast-forwarding time, you might not be able to make a "here and now" connection with others, always slightly disjointed from real time, always looking to the next thing since you can make life speed up through the boring bits. A somewhat lonely, socially bizarre mindset could work in this case. Being present-but-absent all the time.

Thanks! I was actually considering making this guy a Durralumin Ferring at one point, but decided to just stick with savantism. I think he'll be a little disjointed from everyone just from his personality, but I like that as a side affect.

*Googles Cadmium poisoning* *gags* I think he'll also have to burn it constantly to avoid his liver falling out. Which has its own downsides.

I'll put a post for him out now. Now he needs a name...

[kenod]

Something I'm wondering about, if he's a Cadmium Savant, how old would he be? I figure you'd be skipping through a lot of stuff if you want to become a savant.

[Ashbringer he/him]

1 hour ago, kenod said:

Something I'm wondering about, if he's a Cadmium Savant, how old would he be? I figure you'd be skipping through a lot of stuff if you want to become a savant.

About 15 biologically, a few hundred years realtime. He tends to go around at 3/4 to 9/10 real time, and sometimes hyper flares to skip by years of war or to throw off his trail. All 3 of my current characters are from Catacendre Scadrial; Cassie and Tyrian used time-warp alleys/handwavium to get to here over the time gap, Byron (the savant) mainly just skipped over it.

[kenod]

1 minute ago, Ashbringer said:

About 15 biologically, a few hundred years realtime. He tends to go around at 3/4 to 9/10 real time, and sometimes hyper flares to skip by years of war or to throw off his trail. All 3 of my current characters are from Catacendre Scadrial; Cassie and Tyrian used time-warp alleys/handwavium to get to here over the time gap, Byron (the savant) mainly just skipped over it.

Huh, neat.

[+Sorana she/her]

@SingingMosaic

Sorry again, that it took me a bit. The start of Era 5 ate up a lot of my time and I really wanted to think him over. I think that it should be rather easy to transfer him to the AV, although Empathy will definitely need some discussion and clear rules how it might work.

As usual, my comments below in green.

Spoiler

General feeling: I think that is easily transfered to our setting. There are various possibilities for a character to be this crazy scientist, be it as a part of the DA or not. Overall it should be easy to capture the mood, and also the typical jack thing "I am the universalist, I can do a lot of things".

Character name: Dot

I am a weird jack who radiates vitality.

Skills:
Understanding Numenera 2 Scholarship Investiture
Navigation 1 unneccessary
Perception 1 unneccessary
Intellect defense 1 unneccessary
Inabilities:
Inability with heavy weapons not transferable, we consider every character inable with a weapon unless the skill is bought
Pleasant social interactions classical weakness

Tricks of the trade and focus abilities:
*Fleet of Foot: Move short distance as part of another action. Move long distance as entire action for a turn. If you apply a level of Effort, can move long distance and make an attack as entire action for a turn. I can see this as a typical feruchemical skill. Store and withdraw speed.
*Late Inspiration: Retry a task failed within past one minute, using same difficulty/modifiers, except this time you have an asset. unneccessary
*A sense for the weird. At GM's discretion, weird things relating to numenera or effects call out to you. Can sense them from long range, can sense whether it is overtly dangerous. will be hard to really transfer this, given that we rarely have a gm
*Encouraging Presence: Allies in short range gain an asset on defense rolls. unneccessary
*Extra Recovery. Biomorphic field grants an additional 1 action recovery each day. unneccessary
*Augment cypher: Raise an activated cypher's level by 1. +1 per level of effort. unneccessary, as we don't have item levels

*Recharge cypher: Recharge cypher used in last 10 minutes. Need to touch cypher, spend 1 xp, and make an understanding Numenera roll equal to its level. unneccessary
*Empathy: Pulse a living creature within short range that I know is there, or pulse and hope I picked the right spot. Learn their level and surface thoughts for up to 1 minute. If it becomes aware, it can escape through mental effort or moving out of range. Action to initiate Sooo.... this skill is really, really hard. It can be replaced by an epic skill, but I can basically tell you right here and now, that it most likely won't be approved. We try to avoid the classical 'mind reading' abilities a little, as it will grant you a lot of power over a different character. With the 'can escape through mental effort' part, there might be a way to make it, especially if the skill is reduced a little in its effectiveness. There is a lot of godmodding danger here, and experience shows, that often people tend to have their characters overcome influence of any sorts (also emotional allomancy) rather quickly, or pull out an aluinum lined cap, as most don't want anybody to toy and influence their characters. I'm not saying it's not possible, but that we would need to discuss in detail what is possible, and also, that it might be neccessary to dicuss potential insights your character gains with the other player as well. The last part really depends on how strong it is, because 'surface thoughts' also has a lot of room of interpretation.
Equipment and Accessories: 
Clothing: tough, nondescript clothing, dark greys, greens, black, close-fitting but cut well so as not to impede movement, an array of pockets on the pants, light boots.
Weapons: short sword and bow of some type
Armor: Light leather armor subtly etched with odd opposite spirals at the shoulders and on the forward part of the forearms, with stitching the color of garnet.
A variety of light tools, explorer's equipment and survival equipment.

All equipment is easily possible.

Background, Connection, and Advancement:
*Personal Background: 
Member of a guild of explorers who specialize in uncovering ancient mysteries.
*Origin of power: born lucky
You seem to be better than most people because you are. Your ancestors were part of a genetic experiment, and your genes are superior to those of the average human. You're smarter, stronger, more dexterous, and able to learn mental and physical skills more quickly. Folks might call you charismatic, blessed, divinely gifted, or just plain lucky. They probably said the same thing about your parents, their parents, and so on. Some of your genetic advantage might even grant you low-level psychic abilities that greatly resemble the "miracles" performed by Nanos.
Advancement: 
You might be a superhuman, but you're still limited by what you learn and experience. Therefore, you must continue to train and study. Practice is the key--it just comes easier for you than it does for others. When you improve, it's because you have honed your natural abilities or unlocked heretofore unknown genetic traits.
*Physical description: Small, barely over five feet in height. Compact, powerful build. Strikingly dark skin,nearly the same shade as his black hair. Dark eyes that faintly gleam peer intently out of an angular face. Quick, scarred hands, long-fingered and capable. With his build and a runner's legs and arms, no space is wasted in his figure. With his square face and flattened nose and ears, he looks unfinished, or like someone who has been smashed into walls more than a few too many times. A dark silver-colored, flesh and blood eye in a tarnished-looking metal ring can rise from a space inset into the top of his head and zoom around him at very close range.
*Backstory: He was a dustbin baby, the various people who tried to take him in always seemed to meet strange ends. Finally, in his teens, he was adopted by a wiry nano with quick, flashing hands, zir stubborn resourcefulness gave zem the resilience required to resist the trend. Ze is still alive, somewhere. Occasionally he gets cryptic letters or packets from zem containing seemingly useless knicknacks, odd-looking rocks or bits of shell or tufts of metal fur, little tarnished pieces of metal or strips of iridescent fabric, etc. Ze introduced him to his guild and gave him the name he uses now, saying, "You're so small you're just a dark dot if you stand still," despite the fact that there are plenty people smaller technically. Now, fifteen years later, the trend of people around him to be unlucky at least seems to have been broken.

 

[18th Shard he/him]

Maybe for the "sense for the weird", you go with an Aviar like Sak? One of the "you see yourself dead from nearby danger" ones?

[SingingMosaic]

Honestly we could probably scrap empathy, I would be really hesitant with it so it would rarely appear anyway because I wouldn't want to bust into everyone else's RP, just interact with it.

Taking that out and expanding the weird could be fun. I was going to approach DA people soon, depending on the Nnimm update, to ask about their potential involvement, because someone said something along the lines of you know you're allowed to say hey the DA messed me up, and it just got stuck in my head. But would there be anything wrong with having more than one character in that environment? Future characters would inevitably branch out to other areas, I try not to put myself in one environment too much because I gotta compromise with distractable brain. lol

The reason I was thinking DA Dot in response to your post was because A: he could keep the eye, I mean, who knows how he got it, with all the messing with parts of existence people really shouldn't have been able to mess with who knows what would happen to you, and the eye is fun. Coming up with how he got it would also be fun. And B, there's a lot of potential outlet for the weird quality there, even if it isn't mechanical.

Also I kind of want to get rid of his blade, and leave him with some type of small bow or other projectile weapon, enhanced mainly through normal modifications. Not an instant kill by any means, if he got in a fight his entire strategy would be get the high ground as fast as possible and shoot.

His eye can't go very far from him and I imagine it's very vulnerable. It can go around corners, if he's close to the corner, so he would usually use it to scoot along a ceiling and slide around a corner and look ahead of him, or to zoom in closer to something he's messing with or look at it from a different angle.

So we have the eye, his bow which mainly has better balanced arrows/bolts, his scholarship investiture, his general handiwork I can fix/break/improvise random stuff type skill, his steel feruchemy or the way I'm thinking more likely spiked steel feruchemy and possibly an aviar? I like that idea. Someone who's always sticking their nose around corners and into nooks and crannies and messing with things would live longer if there was a creature able to mentally go hey don't do that, you'll die. I'm going to start messing with his backstory but first I hope to find some cool DA people to figure out if they want Dot, what kind of background he could have there, how to make him more interesting using their ideas and experience and that mental section I wrote in the post above. Which I'll stick in a spoiler here for easy reference.

@Sorana

@18th Shard

And anyone else who wants to chime in, thoughts?

For weaknesses I kind of want to put a twist on that one, since it's so common, so I'm chewing on it, and thinking of some more.

 To me, he's a cross between a mad scientist and an explorer. He's a lost wanderer, belonging to no place and no time. He's ageless. His eyes are ancient but he's like a child, even when doing things most think of as terrible, because his context is so unstuck from time. He's weary but curious, full of energy but tired, full of purpose yet spontaneous. In the face of eternity, we are all children, and part of why he is how he is is because he is acutely aware of it. He has seen so much but he is always looking up, and it's possibly because he has seen so much, rather than in spite of it. He regularly does things that seem either horrible or reckless to many, yet he doesn't care any less for people, or his own life. His emotions are there, and they're intense, but they're familiar and alien, a contradiction that walks too close to itself to be separate or opposed. Perhaps the most telling part, to me, is that I can write all of this and still feel like I don't understand him.

[Ashbringer he/him]

If you want to "centralize" his powers so to speak, making Dot an artifabrian (a fabrial maker) could work well. The Alerter fabrial can act as a detector for people and (i think) different types of Investiture or other traits, and many fabrials allow for tricks that can emulate different skills: manipulating gravity, attracting certain substances, and probably* any power that's realistic for an ability with no real fuel source. And I already got the concept (if not execution) of a fabrial crossbow approved.

Soother or Rioter also seems to fit with his personality, although that can be hard to RP.

* I have no idea what the limits are for fabrials. But it seems capable of doing most of the skills you want, and fits the mad scientist archetype. 

[+ZincAboutIt she/her]

Emotional Allomancy is super fun to RP but it does require a level of trust between you and whoever you’re writing with to work well.