DrakeMarshall

There is one character up. Very sorry about this, but Quietus is pretty much a massive slontze... My current working idea on that is monophobia, which is described in Epoch's character sheet. If you have an interesting alternative I am all ears, though. First Nations.

Four Days Ago - ERA Penitentiary A little bit of instability, a little bit of weakness, and these people thought they could start a rebellion? Idiots. Another finger joint came off with a satisfying chop. The rebel screamed. It was a raw, agonized sound. "You can't... I'll never tell you anything..." "Okay," Quietus replied cheerfully. "Fine by me!" CHOP. Another visceral scream, a shade softer than the last. "You- You don't want to know about the others?" the rebel wheezed. "What?" Quietus gave the rebel a funny look. "Sparks no. Is that what you thought this was?" He smirked. "I was just killing time while we wait for Lethe to arrive." Priceless. The look on the rebel's face was positively priceless. Quietus couldn't help but chuckle a bit at that. The soft laughter carried on, filling the room as everything else around them went deadly quiet. The rebel panicked, struggling to get free, but the movements were sluggish under the pressure of Quietus' power. He squeezed the trigger of his C1 submachine gun, and three silent flashes were followed by three blots of deep crimson blooming on the rebel's shirt. The pitiful struggling began to subside. The laughter faded into the air, leaving an unnatural stillness in its place. Suddenly, sound reasserted itself, manifest in the rebel's whimpering and gurgling demise. Extraction worked better with a fresh kill, but Epoch insisted that he kill people a little before Lethe got here. Apparently, she was more comfortable with that. Stupid. Now - Plypow Industrial Epoch's voice came over the mobile. "The other team just mopped up Lee Ridge, and it was practically deserted. I can see everybody else in Plypow. This should be the last of Firebrand's coup, holed up just outside the border." Quietus only nodded. He knew Epoch was watching. Annoying. They should have reported about Lee Ridge to Quietus before going to Epoch. "Oh, and Quietus? Everyone in that building is now valid." Quietus grinned slightly at that. It had been too long since they'd had a good rebellion. He could see the building, now. A squat thing, with two targets loitering outside. He activated his power as he headed straight towards the pair, reaching for his gun. They had noticed something was amiss just in time for the one on the right to be cut down by a well-placed burst. The other was obviously reaching for a concealed weapon, shouting silently, only to fall to one of the small team of enforcers following behind Quietus. He stepped into the building, and began making hand gestures to communicate a request to Epoch. Then he signaled to Clapper, and she clapped her hands. The lights exploded. Everything went dark. It took a second for Quietus' eyes to adjust, before he could see again. Those behind him, glowing softly with body heat, looked somewhat more disoriented. Quietus didn't bother waiting for them. He ran down the hallway, not bothering to be stealthy, since he couldn't have made a sound if he had tried. The next valid he encountered was more prepared, visibly carrying a rifle of some kind. The rebel got off two shots at Quietus before he could finish it. In a fair fight, the rebel would have won, but fighting fair was stupid. The shot that was on target struck Quietus at a fraction of the speed, bouncing off him harmlessly. Quietus returned fire, and it tore through the regular human target like it was designed to do. He noticed that his vision was starting to tunnel, the foreground growing oddly focused and sharp, while the peripherals grew more and more indistinct. Epoch was responding to his request. The tunnel vision was no problem. There was a reason why predators had vertical pupils: only prey needed to see all of their surroundings at once. He returned the C1 to his back. Quietus burst through a door, blindsiding another rebel with a knife just below the ear, letting them fall in slow motion. The room contained three more prey. In the dark, with no sound and no peripheral vision, they hadn't even noticed. He ripped through the next one, and the next one, their struggling slower than normal, his own movements faster than normal, fed by their resistance. The last one cried out silently as Quietus charged, firing a pistol only a foot away from him. That one actually hurt. That would leave a bruise the next day. Quietus hamstrung his opponent, then delivered two stabs to the gut, ensuring a slow and painful death. He pressed forward, making sure to step on his dying opponent, towards the light flickering dimly in the distance. Towards the approximate center of the building. His associates would be following behind, doing a more thorough job of taking apart the insurgents. He was more interested in the leader. He silently kicked down the door. He saw three people standing in a large room, wreathed in globes of fire. He flicked his gun to fully automatic and strafed across all three of the occupants. The one that didn't collapse and die had to be Firebrand. Firebrand created and controlled the globes of fire that filled the room. Kind of a waste, really. If Firebrand's powers had been given to one of Epoch's citizens that wasn't an idiot like this one was, they could have actually done something useful. Instead of rallying an uprising at an inconvenient time. Firebrand said something. Quietus couldn't hear him, and didn't really care what he wanted to say. When we talk, it'll be on my terms. He emptied the last of the submachine gun's clip on Firebrand's face, then threw the gun to one side, and lunged to the other side. A torrent of fireballs struck where he had just been standing. Firebrand yelled something. Only a few globes of fire remained around Firebrand, but a new one ignited from thin air as he watched. Quietus charged, trying to get in close. Firebrand attacked again, directing more fire as he retreated. A single orb this time, so he was probably trying to conserve them. The fireball slowed as it got closer to Quietus, and Quietus could feel himself speeding up slightly from the stolen energy, giving him the edge he needed to sidestep it and continue forward. He was close, now, close enough for Firebrand to fall in his range, leaving his quarry too slow to run away. Quietus couldn't seriously hurt Firebrand, not directly at least. Firebrand was easy to injure, but really hard to put down. Something about being tougher and tougher the deeper you got under his skin. He could see his power beginning to work its way on Firebrand. Not only were his target's movements slow, but they were becoming less coordinated. It wouldn't be fast enough, though. Firebrand directed two of the flaming spheres, and one of them scorched by, narrowly missing his head, singing his shoulder. The next fire could easily do more damage. Need to take a risk. He tackled Firebrand, pinning him to the ground after a brief struggle. Sure enough, Quietus wasn't immolated by a rain of fire. Epoch had been right. Firebrand wasn't fireproof, and now he couldn't hurt Quietus without hurting himself as well. Perfect. Quietus' powers were having much more of an effect at this range, but he began to choke Firebrand to speed it along. A look of terror filled Firebrand's eyes. The globes of fire surrounding the pair winked out of existence. Firebrand had passed out. . . . Firebrand cracked his eyes open. It was dark, and his vision was still horribly tunneled. He tried to remember how he had gotten here... Oh. He remembered the fight with that epic. Being knocked unconscious, passing in and out of consciousness for an indeterminate time after that. A crushing pain in his legs. He was lying facedown on a concrete floor. His legs were crushed underneath a mass of heavy crates stacked five high, only the most durable core of his legs still intact. Two pairs of handcuffs held his arms behind his back. Click. A screen flicked on in front of him. Thanks to the tunnel vision, it stood out in brazenly sharp detail. Quietus' face. "Hi!" Quietus greeted him gleefully. "You!" Firebrand roared, sending a fireball at the screen. Quietus' image did not react. Probably just a recording. The screen did not look damaged, either. "We apologize for the inconvenience, but your rebellion is toast. Not pulling your leg on this one, hehe. Since I have all the time in the world, I figured we could find an interesting way to do this. Epoch is humoring me, since it makes an example of you or some rubbish. Anyway, as you have hopefully noticed, you're pretty stuck in here. In a couple days, I expect you'll be getting thirsty. To help you out, I left a bottle of water at the top of all those crates that are stacked up on your legs right now!" The display switched to Quietus taking a selfie at the top of the crate pile, smiling next to a solitary bottle of water with droplets of condensation running off it. "Good luck!" he said smugly. Click. "Hi!" "We apologize for the inconvenience, but your rebellion is toast," Quietus looped in the exact same excited voice. No. "Not pulling your leg on this one, hehe. Since I have all the time in the world, I figured we could find an interesting way to do this." "Stop!" Firebrand yelled, shooting a volley of fire at the display. It kept playing. "Epoch is humoring me, since it makes an example of you or some rubbish. Anyway, as you have hopefully noticed, you're pretty stuck in here. In a couple days, I expect you'll be getting thirsty." Have to keep calm, Firebrand told himself. "To help you out, I left a bottle of water at the top of all these crates that are stacked up on your legs right now! Good luck!" Click. "Hi!" "We apologize for the inconvenience, but your rebellion is toast. Not pulling your leg on this one, hehe..." . . . A slight blur streaked away from the building and resolved into Quietus, looking smug as he stepped out of the fast zone. A small cadre of enforcers behind him materialized one by one in the same way. He turned to face the building from outside the fast zone. He watched as it degraded before his eyes, ravaged by the passage of time. The metal started to rust, the concrete started to crumble, and the people started to decay. Part of the roof caved, and then the walls collapsed completely, leaving only rubble. As he expected, Firebrand didn't make it out. He would have lasted only a few days in there, tops. The two who had been guarding the warehouse were now reduced to skeletons. That would do, for an example.

Take all the time you need and then some. I think we’re all pretty excited to start but I don’t want this to stress Comatose at all either.

I was thinking more along the lines of forcing another person to experience their own perception of time more literally. But anything goes. I just enjoy throwing out possible ways for a power to work *shrug. For example, it could also be a healing power gone wrong, if it tried to “heal” Titan back to their normal size and killed them in the process.

That’s a lot of time-y powers in one city, you know. But if it isn’t too mindscrewy I have an idea for regulations: Maybe the power is connected to perception of time? Like, what if you could literally make time fly when you were having fun. Since the dreamstorm basically destroys all perception of the passage of time (because you lose short-term memory), the power kicks you outside of time for a little while before you eventually re-appear, functionally acting like banishment. In this case the power isn’t normally even that noteworthy (although still pretty useful), but with the dreamstorm it gets more dangerous, capable of temporarily banishing people from existence.

I don’t even want to try to compare Worm and the Cosmere books because they’re both so good Yeah, a lot of Worm powers would be pretty amazing in the Reckonersverse. I am possibly drawing on some of Worm’s powers for inspiration but I am also trying to make my epics original (a difficult task, that).

I am not usually following the discord, but this sounds like a great project.

So everybody knows who is “it” in our superpowered version of tag

Either could lead to some extremely entertaining and chaotic situations. Given that abilities are conventionally tied to the hosts cells, I presume that this would also result in a permanent power swap? Also, I will be traveling for the next twelve hours or so and probably won’t be reachable. I might spend a fraction of that time writing character intros, though.

Lorri is not immune to Armageddon’s powers, but she would not have followed him if she didn’t basically already agree that humanity completely sucks. Armageddon’s influence over her is comparable to that of a soother/rioter. (or is Armageddon’s powers working more binary than that?) Edit: I just thought of an amusing meta epic. Name: Tag Primary Power: Permanently trades powers with any epic they touch. Secondary Power: No tagbacks.

I have a number of roughly defined plans for character interactions. Here are some of them: For one, the thing Pyromancer mentioned. Also, Quietus would possibly directly attack certain other factions. And might occasionally have reason to request Lethe's services. Epoch may also be reaching out for allies and recruits. He may also eventually hatch a plan that might possibly escalate the conflict. Taya will at some point be surveilling other epics. She may in particular be keeping an eye on Peregrine. I kind of hope the South Commoners cross paths with the Circle of the Shield at some point in the RP. Blindside would very likely be aligning herself with one or more other newcomer epics in the hopes of securing a place in the city.

Granted. The Nightwatcher listens patiently as you wish for wishes ad infinitum. She continues to listen patiently as you grow old doing this and die. She shrugs and walks away, reflecting upon the impermanence of mortals. I wish for a mango smoothie.

Granted. You are now holding a pet Larkin in your hands. It has these great big wide silver eyes, that are staring up at you... Hungrily? Unfortunately, the only real source of investiture on Earth is the spark of life, so that is what this Larkin is adapted to feed on. Starting with yours. I wish for a lark.

Good luck crafting an introduction. I will be traveling tomorrow but in any case I look forwards to it starting. I’ve sketched out one or two intro scenes.

Yes, Typhon should definitely be public knowledge. I wasn't sure how much detail to go in, but I actually have thought about how the other epics would have dealt with something like Typhon. So far, a lot of evidence hints at Typhon being essentially mindless, keeping to the general area where it first appeared and only killing epics that come to close. While Typhon is obviously a significant concern, it isn't exactly a major player in terms of the city politics, and you could very well take over the rest of the city and leave that particular monster's den undisturbed. Epoch definitely considered slowing the area or at least walling it off. He considered it too risky because it might not work, since Typhon's particular brand of intangibility seems to let it ignore or resist certain epic powers. And if it didn't work, provoking Typhon like that could be deadly. Ultimately, it wasn't worth the risk, especially since Typhon never leaves its territory. Hopefully I've addressed some of the things brought up. That was a pretty long post XD.

Right, so I should explain this. The South Common thing was in reference to a different faction idea I've been thinking about for a while now. It doesn't really matter if they occupy South Common or anywhere else though, that was just a place I randomly picked on the map, and it could literally be anywhere. The explanation is kind of lengthy. I was hoping to unfold this properly as a story but I am getting the vibe I ought to give details here sooner than later (it is spoilered though, so don't read it unless you want to know things that your characters would not know about). It is starting to seem very similar to something else, because of it involving an optical illusion gifter. Although, I suspect this might be a somewhat different take on the concept. Whatever. I don't know if this even works or not, but this is what I've been thinking up: Ummm it could go wherever. Off the top of my head... Somewhere in the vicinity of Belvedere?

This is glorious. Inconceivably so. Anyways, Steel, you put on a most excellent game. You should be proud. I joined in the middle and died shortly thereafter, but it was a blast anyways. Well played, elims.

Well, I lost the post I was working on, but: The two newcomers I believe would be capable of killing Doubletake are Blindside and Voidgaze. Although, neither of them seem the type to kill Doubletake unless they were provoked in some way. That works for leaking Epoch's weakness. Would any player character like to be the one who actually leaks it? For alliances and such... The way I see it, most of the people who were already in Edmonton more or less worked for Doubletake. Doubletake just died. They aren't fighting each other (yet), but the different players have always been rivals, and they are swiftly moving towards a succession war. The newcomers haven't really made their alignments and agendas known yet, and I suspect that is going to be part of what goes on at the start of the RP as they make entrances and meet other epics and such. We could either let this play out, or decide in advance how things will formulate. Realistically, any epic whose agenda is to take over the city would not engage in long-term alliances with anybody equally or more powerful than them. For others, it depends on what their agenda is. Epoch would probably keep strict borders. Lets say southeast Edmonton, bounded along highway 216, highway 14, and 91 St NW.

Hiya everybody. I've been otherwise occupied for the day, but I think there are some things I should comment on. I approve of this. Nicely done. Once I give it another look over, I will be explaining an idea I've been working on, which would be relevant to the state of the city if it were accepted. Random thought for creating tension at the start of the story. What if one of the newcomer epics killed Doubletake? This creates instant tension between the newcomers and the old guard. The old guard could even call a big meeting about it. But it probably wouldn't be productive because they would be swiftly becoming rivals with each other. In her statue form, she wouldn't starve. More to the point, her statue is trapped in possibly the most intense slow zone in the entire city. To her, it hasn't even been a full minute yet. She isn't going to starve in that timeframe. 1. She remains able to think as a statue. Otherwise, as you say, she couldn't transform back (unless the ability worked by setting a time in advance, but that's not how the ability works, it has to be consciously controled). 2. She would go completely insane in the situation you are describing, yep (or at least she would get much more insane, epics are already on shaky mental ground). But like I said, time is passing for her very slowly at the moment, so she really hasn't had anywhere near enough time to suffer the effects of insanity. 3. Incidentally, she could die from old age in the statue form. Her body doesn't change, but like I said, her mind is still running, and so it still ages. Even in a younger body, her mind would eventually get old and die. That said, I don't really think starvation applies the same way, because: We have multiple epics that can make food appear, which is certainly countering starvation. Compared to aging, starvation is a relatively simple biological problem. Her body is incapable of doing anything that would burn calories. I forget who said Eon, but sure, lets do something like that. Actually, lets make it an acronym, because why not. Eon was difficult to find one for, but something similar: Edmonton Reclaimation Accord. ERA for short.

What happens if two different people administer half doses to the same target?

It is probably good to be faster than a glacier, yep. I imagine the GM will make the post. Was that going to be Edgedancer or am I misremembering things? Edit: Actually, Comatose is working on the prologue, so maybe Comatose will make the thread.

It's funny, come to think, of it I'm pretty sure I remember somebody said that about last friday We're not particularly in a rush though, so it doesn't really matter.

Yes, true. I believe Comatose said they were working on a first draft prologue. There is a map thing I might have for South Edmonton Common but I might need to talk to the GM before going ahead on it. Yesss join us. If nothing else comes of this RP then at least there are more Worm readers Well, at least we know that if we can get the RP properly off the ground with some people missing, it’ll be even better when everybody gets back

What other kinds of meta Epics are there? Imo gifting is kind of a meta power, but I know the Reckonersverse doesn't really consider it as such. Also, Archetype's powerset can adapt over long periods of time, which is kind of a meta ability And this, yeah. Kind of an information power, but it is meta information. (incidentally, one of the characters I haven't quite introduced yet has a rather limited form of this) Edit: Speaking of the abundance of meta epics, I've decided to scrap my epic "Scavenger" to cut down the numbers of meta epics. I was going to have them eventually start claiming trophies from each fallen epic and destroying the bodies, so that they could cycle through a handful of different powers (one at a time) by wearing armor with epic skulls on it or something. But I've decided I have enough characters, and I don't want meta epics to become what teleporters used to be.

Perhaps symbiosis is a poor choice of word, on my part. More generally, you give something up, and you get something in return. You will always get something out of the bond but whether it is worth it depends a lot on your priorities. You visit the nightwatcher, you get a boon, and a bane to go with it. A surgebinder swears to strict conducts, and get powers in exchange. A nahel spren gains the ability to change, but also the ability to die. You indugle in the thrill, you become a better fighter, at the cost of some of your free will. You become a Regal, you gain powers at the cost of even more free will. You become a Fused, you gain even more power, at the cost of death (or maybe not, given how the fused were once spirits of the dead). Fabrials don’t work like this, but I still think that’s because they are artificial. Everything else basically follows that pattern.