Voidus

I've been assuming that at least some characters will be worldhoppers, if not most, so cosmere planets are fine to use. I've been a bit occupied with IRL over the last week, had some family from out of town visiting, so I haven't been able to do as much worldbuilding as I'd want but I'll try to power through it and get something that you guys can use for character backgrounds for native characters shortly.

This is about the fourth time I've had to mention this, again I understand that having to wait can be irritating when you're excited for a character, but the solution is not to make other people irritated as well. Sometimes there will be delays, I have a lot of commitments and duties outside of the Alleyverse so even when I can login to the Shard I don't always have time for character approvals, other mods may be similarly limited or have IRL issues. Weekends in particular people are just going to be awkward for some people. Mod stuff can take up a lot of our time and we do this voluntarily, try not to have unreasonable expectations of response times.

But then the real horror hits you: No matter how dumb and irritating you RP them as being, no matter how many horror tropes they walk into, they keep surviving. And you have to RP the spoiled rich brat... FOREVER! :P

I think in the interests of keeping the bloat on this thread to a minimum character profiles for the horror setting should be posted on the Horror setting planning thread. Lizanne is definitely approved for use there. You can use existing characters if you'd like but keep in mind it'll be a low powered setting. Mac had already approved them they just hadn't been added to the list yet. I've added now so they should be good to go.

That's what the italicized section was meant to be implying, I couldn't think of a better way to state it without overly complicating things or a really long section.

Not 100% of the time, but sometimes the powers interfere, yeah.

That'd be the easiest way to justify it, yeah. Though in that case I'd be treating the extra abilities as Epic powers which means they'll be a pretty significant bump.

Sorry to drag conversation back but just to offer some opinions on potential nerfs for Hemalurgy: The DA may not have been around long and so has little to no knowledge of appropriate bindpoints for this world The consequences of Hemalurgy are more drastic here, limiting the number of spikes someone can have to one, maybe two. Presence of gods may be a deterrent if we want to have local gods here.

I'd suggest a weakness that isn't just his Epic weakness. I don't usually take a lot of points off for them unless they're really crippling.

Not if you still want perfect accuracy, that needs to be set at that level of skill. But it would let it come from the skill total not your magic total. I'd be uncomfortable with allowing the gun as written for less than 50 points. It's essentially multiple magic abilities disguised as tech. I also question the ability of anyone to build something like that with earth technology unless they were an absolute genius and had access to a lot of resources. Each of which would also have their own additions to the point total.

Preference is non-Invested individuals. Someone like Hellbent is very likely to be an early casualty if they were in the setting. Just going to state this again, if you want to be on the worldbuilding team and be the ones portraying the horror instead of experiencing it then you can't have a player character. Knowing what is going to happen completely diminishes the ability to actually experience the story as horror. RE: Cosmic horror, this kind of horror was really popularized by Lovecraft but society has changed since then, it's not as broadly accepted as horrifying as it was back then. The world at the time was riding on a wave of rationalism, believing that everything could be rationalized, quantified, understood and controlled. Lovecraft took that away from people by writing about incomprehensible beings that were uncontainable, unpredictable and impossible to understand. They destroyed the world and drove you made but not out of a desire to rule it, in fact people didn't know why they did it at all, or even what they were, that was the horrifying part. The world is a different place now so it's not as horrifying as it once was. So there will likely be at least some influence from cosmic horror stuff but unless a majority of people want to have that as a focus it'll probably be playing a supporting role to the main themes. Because if no one wanted to undergo the horror then no one would be able to enjoy causing the horror. And because in order to write good horror you have to enjoy good horror, which means experiencing it from the other side. You couldn't write good fantasy without reading fantasy. Understanding your audience is key with any form of storytelling. If you have never been horrified then how could you possibly hope to craft a convincingly horrifying scene?

Voidus tilted his head to one side until there was a satisfying popping sound and his vertebrae had realigned. The Stranger had begun circling opposite him, both of them waiting for the other to expose the slightest of openings. He began to twirl the kusarigama once more, letting the heavy weight build up momentum as he waited for a chance. The moment before he let the weight fly towards the Stranger, he had already begun moving. Seeming to almost vanish as he dashed forward even faster than before. Voidus barely managed to catch the point of the spike before it pierced through his shoulder, likely passing through a feruchemical bind point to try to rid Voidus of his iron feruchemy. There was a screech of metal against metal as the blade of the kama began to bend under the force. The ground beneath their feet began to crack from the weight as both of them tapped iron to gain more momentum. Giving off no sign, Voidus suddenly reversed the flow of Investiture to his metalmind, becoming lighter instead of heavier and allowing himself to be blown back by the force of the blow. As he landed he completed the final rotation of the weight on his kusarigama and let it fly out as the Stranger chased after him. This time the Stranger's spike began to warp under the force, the tip bending into a shape that would cause difficulty in finding a precision bind point. Voidus grinned at the Stranger for a moment, before noticing an identical grin on his opponents face as his free hand reached under their colliding weapons, aiming for one of Voidus' spikes. He began moving backwards, but not before the Strangers managed to just barely graze against the tip of the spike, this glancing blow alone was enough to send the spike shooting out of his heart and through his back and into the ground behind them. Well that could have been worse. Voidus mused, noting that he'd now lost the ability to alter his skin's texture. Someone's learned a few new tricks since we last sparred. "You always had a knack for piercing through to the root of a problem didn't you?" Voidus asked, still grinning. "If you start at the heart of an issue and work outwards I find it's usually faster." The Stranger replied, still mirroring his grin. Neither of them showed any reaction other than their grins but still the Stranger managed to duck out of the way as the Kama flew past where his neck had been moments before and into Voidus' outstretched hand. Whether he'd noticed it through tin enhancing his senses or simply through his millennia of experience wasn't clear. Voidus briefly glanced towards the Kusarigama, Soulcasting it to air and taking up an unarmed fighting stance instead. Time to shake things up a bit.

My issue with the gun is more the sci-fi elements. A gun that fires grenades is functionally not that different from a person throwing grenades, other than their range. And we'd let anyone who wanted to carry grenades. These ones though are closer to additional powers. A freeze ray or flame blast especially is something that as an Epic power I'd rate between 30-60 points each, depending on the strength of the power. Plasma bolts are functionally just bullets with extra fluff, more penetrating power, etc. so not much needed.

There are non-Hemalurgic alternatives for linking Identity to a location. Some kind of gigantic inversely functioning Aon comes to mind, where the use of Aonic symbols alters the landscape instead of the other way around. Or the use of Forgery. Anything from Sel is probably a safe bet. Or heck, invent a new magic system, I think including Cosmere magic is a good idea to give it a grounding in the Alleyverse but nothing to say you can't make new stuff on top of that. Just some personal thoughts, not sure if I'll have time to even play in this setting let alone worldbuild so feel free to ignore me. EDIT: If you're going with the 'landscape as a reflection of population' thing then the way they go about altering the landscape could also be a really good visual. So DA lands are peppered with spikes dotting the ground to establish their identity over the vicinity, when they invade a new town a giant spike is set up and the corruption slowly spreads from it. TUBA could set up underground bunkers that act as bakeries, the walls of which are peppered with Soulstamps or something, and then TUBA's influence rises up around them. So they tunnel underneath the earth and try to invade DA territory without them noticing.

People can enjoy parts of horror without enjoying all of it, and sometimes people have very specific triggers. Good horror rides a fine line of making people uncomfortable without actually traumatising them. If you're wanting to participate in a horror campaign then yes you should expect a level of uncomfortableness, but if there is something that is going to traumatise you then that is something we should avoid, and doesn't mean you should be forbidden from ever engaging in a genre that you otherwise enjoy. For me personally: I don't want to go into too much detail but I've had some really unpleasant and personal experiences with infant mortality, so I really would not want to play in a horror game that featured that as a heavy theme. It would take me beyond 'intriguingly uncomfortable and adrenaline fueled' straight to panic attacks and a serious depressive episode. But that doesn't mean I couldn't happily participate in an RP as long as it doesn't feature those themes, or even one that very lightly touched on it but didn't focus on it. I would want everyone to be welcome to participate in this as long as they like the genre. If someone said they were uncomfortable with all mental illness, blood of any kind, gruesome imagery, jump scares, monsters and cosmic horrors then I would definitely suggest that this is probably just not an appropriate RP, but if anyone has something specific that they want to avoid but believe that we could still have a game that everyone could experience without, then please do let me know. I don't need any justifications or reasons or anything if you don't want to share, just let me know anything that's off topic. Sorry to dampen the vibe a little, but this is a serious point that I want to make clear, we should respect people who want to avoid certain things and make room to allow them to still play where possible. *Takes mod hat back off again*

Ok, with that much of a delay the combat usefulness drastically decreases so that'll be down to a 40. I'll let other mods weigh in on the gun but the Epic powers come out to 130M or 50M + 80S if we want to take the aiming as a skill instead of a power.

So another question for players, the general theme seems to be that people aren't wanting a thriller. So how comfortable are people with varying levels of horror? If anyone has anything that they specifically want to avoid let us know, if you'd rather keep something private feel free to PM me. Things to consider: Comfortability with gore /Gross things/ uncomfortable visuals - This is a bit limited on the Shard anyway but it would be nice to know everyone's comfortability. Comfortability with psychological horror including themes of insanity and mental illness Any particular triggers that you really don't want the RP to touch on.

A teleporter needing to be hit by something doesn't really leave a lot of room for it to be particularly likely that their weakness would impact them, so at most it'd be a -5 for the weakness. A weakness is a requirement for all Epics so it's taken into account by their initial score. Last question for the portals is how long it takes to open one?

Yeah I concur on Snip's assessment of this one, assuming reasonable limits to the amount of chalk that can be created (eg. they can't summon a building made out of chalk and crush people with it, etc.) then it comes out to 25 with the synergy with rithmatics. Though to clarify I usually don't subtract much if any points for Epic weaknesses, as they're an intrinsic part of the power. If it's particularly common or uncommon I may add or subtract some more points. This one's relatively easy to trigger so there's a little extra taken off. Approved Epic powers Portals: Can make a small rift in space to create a one way gateway between two points within eyesight that he can see. It sends any object that goes in to the other one on a side of his choosing. Objects maintain momentum and come out at the same point that they went in at the corresponding portal. Portals cannot close if there is something moving through them. Need a little more clarification on this, mainly: How long do the portals last, can he travel away from them while maintaining them? What size can he make them? How quickly do they appear? Teleportation: Can focus on a certain point within eyesight and travel to that point with a one second lag time from the point where he disappears and when he reappears. When he is gone for the short period, a faint smoke will appear in the area that he will return. 40 M Perfect aim: If he looks at something and shoots at it, if his power is activated, his hand will automatically point nightsoul (See equipment)l toward the spot at which he was looking. 80 M This is over the limit for magic points even without the portaling power, now I'm going to leave the decision to other mods as to whether or not we're willing to take the perfect aim as contributing as skill points instead given that they're an exact copy of a skill. Just a heads up though, this is highly unlikely to come out within limits without further weaknesses. I don't see the portals as being likely to come out below a 60 at the lowest and the equipment is likely to be at least a 50 unless you're assuming significant difficulties in using it and switching modes.

It's kind of Alleyverse adjacent, if possible I'd prefer to keep to a simplified setting since that's part of the point of all this, an easier place for people to start with. And while 40K has some horrifying stuff in it, it's not exactly horror stuff if that makes sense. Creepy and weird, sure but yeah it's more action-thriller-psycopath. I will likely borrow pretty heavily from D&D both consciously and unconsciously and the Shadowfell is one of my favourite planes The exact setup for how it fits in cosmologically with the Alleyverse will hopefully be easier to decide once we've got everyone's input. Sure! That would be the preference I think, that if you're on the planning team then you don't have any player characters in the thread. I'll PM you.

I was leaving it up to whoever wants to head those projects, but yes separate threads would be preferable so we don't get cross-talk confusing things as multiple plans are made simultaneously.

Sci-Fi definitely pulled ahead with enough votes to justify it, the wild west has less votes but I'd say that's enough people interested in it to justify creation.

This sounds like something I need to read and immerse myself in ASAP. I love messing with players Well, as long as they're aware that it's that kind of game anyway, I have sat down at tables before where the DM straight up did a bait-and-switch and pretended they were going to run a straightforward hack-and-slash heroes quest RPG and ended up murdering all of the characters in an increasingly grim, dark and horrifying world. So yes, forewarning to all I do enjoy messing with players, but at the same time my highest priority is always that players ultimately enjoy the experience, hence why I think it's important that everyone gets their expectations out on the table. Thanks everyone for the input so far.