Koloss17

Perses, Mistwarrens, abandoned building Where was that blasted fused? We were supposed to meet today to go over his progress. Perses used to be a patient man. Yet as the years in the Alleyverse warped him, he found that his interest in biding time waned more and more. He shall come, a voice said in his head. Belias, his captor turned master was ever present in Perses' mind. At times, he wished for true solace. Yet without Belias, Perses knew, other voices would fill his mind. Ones far less helpful, and far less sane. A loud boom sounded at a nearby district. While Perses had trained himself to expand his selective hearing to expand with his senses, some sounds could not simply be tuned out. Certainly not explosions. where did that come from? Perses asked Belias. It was not near one of my Alleyways, Belias said, which was code for "I don't know, figure it out." Grunting, Perses tapped his hearingmind, listening to nearby conversations. "What was that?" "storms if I know" -- "--ou didn't want to be hit, you wouldn't talk back!" -- "Chouta! Fresh Chouta!" -- "--ounded like that came from around Indigo Street!" There. "You sure? That's where you work, isn't it?" "Yeah, I'm positive. Lets go check it out." -- Perses pushed off a manhole, shooting into the air. He could never be positive that the words of one person were correct, but with the power to barrel across the city within a few minutes, it didn't hurt to check. As Perses neared, his senses confirmed the conversation he had overheard. Crouching on the roof of a nearby building, Perses oversaw the chaos. A massive crater, clearly the source of the explosion, glowed brightly in his steelsight. This was an investiture explosion, Perses thought, storing away steelsight to avoid the eyesore. Instead, he tapped his lifesensemind and hearingmind. "--y stole something from me. A long time ago," said a distinctly nonhuman voice, gently pulsing rhythms as they spoke. Ebon? thought Perses. This would certainly explain why he didn't show to the meeting. What did you get yourself into this time? @Hoid Slayer @KnightSkye Reforged @Ink and Embers

Perses, The Mistwarrens, Main Street Perses emerged from an Alleyway. He intended to meet an old friend in the warrens, but he would make a quick stop first. The Mistwarrens had changed significantly in a year’s time. While many of the streets were still crumbling with rotting, dilapidated buildings, there was something Perses was still getting used to permeating the streets of the warrens: construction was underway. The Mistwarrens had long existed as this group of separate slums operating on the edges of multiple districts across Alleycity. With a high Scadrian population, these slums were kept untouched by the nearby districts, allowing crime and delinquency to run rampant. Last year, Perses had worked to eliminate the main gangs preying on the warrens, and made sure that the districts knew that the Mistwarrens were not theirs anymore, not that they ever truly claimed responsibility for them. In the past year, the warrens were being claimed not by organized crime, but by entrepreneurs and capitalists, seizing this opportunity to build the Mistwarrens into a district in its own right, not a representation of all the failures of this chaotic city. Yet the people of the warrens resisted this change. The people that lived here, if it could be called that, were set in their ways. Crime still ran rampant, just not in anything organized. New gangs tried to form, but were afraid of following the gates of their predecessors. To this day, there was only one person that truly ruled the Mistwarrens, and that person was Perses. Perses slammed open the door to the mayor’s office, with his leather and bone mistcoat writhing behind him. The chatter of the room fell silent, and the members of the room gave Perses a wide berth. Partially this was to avoid the sharpened bone blades at the ends of the mistcoat’s tassels, but much of it was Perses himself. At this point, everyone knew not to get in the Prince of the Alleys’ way. The self proclaimed mayor of the Mistwarrens rose to his feet, lips trembling. “A-ah! P-P-Perses! What a p-p-pleasant surprise!” The man stammered, trying, and miserably failing, to put on a friendly affectation. “What brings—what brings you here?” The room was deathly silent, with an ordinary person hearing only the breathing of the people staring at Perses. Perses however was no ordinary person. With his hearingminds tapped, he heard not only the heartbeats of everyone in the room, and the sound of air filling and leaving their lungs, but also the movement of their bowels, and the sound of every subtle movement of their bodies as they swayed or adjusted their postures. It was frankly maddening. Instead, Perses stopped tapping his hearing and began tapping his bronzesense. There was a smoker in the building, but with a bit more effort, Perses broke through the cloud. Soon, a set of two rhythms washed over him. First, the rhythmic pulsing of the smoker, who was making Perses waste more of his bronzesense-mind. The second was emanating from the mayor, who was attempting to soothe Perses’ impatience. “Can you stop trying to mess with my emotions? You know that’s a stupid idea.” The mayor sucked in some air, and Perses felt the pulsing of brass dissipate. “S-sorry sir,” the man stammered. “Force of habit.” “As for your question,” Perses said, “I was simply checking in on your progress with the construction efforts. I’ve been noticing things haven’t been going as…quickly as I would have expected.” The mayor shakily went to adjust the cuffs on his suit, clearly a movement made to comfort himself. “We are working as efficiently as we can, lord. There have just been some c-complications. Nothing we can’t fix, though!” He added hastily. “Well, it seems you have everything under control, then!” Perses said with a fake grin. “Let me know if that changes. As you know, I’m here to help.” As he uttered the final word, Perses made a mock bow to the mayor. Such a gesture would have been beneath him a year ago, yet he had found that false subservience often ended up having a more powerful effect than simply standing there. the mayor bowed towards Perses, rather pitifully. “O-of course, lord,” he uttered, making sure to not lose eye contact with Perses’ spikes, gruesomely driven through his eyes. “We know where to find you.” With that, Perses turned around and left, dropping a coin and shooting into the air.

So right now Perses is working on expanding his and Belias’ influence, pushing into the Sphere and Mistkeep. He has his own reasons for doing so, but would likely not share those with even a business partner. Perhaps Ebon could work on getting his teeth in the Sphere’s underground?

I’m open to some sort of partnership being established. What would Ebon be doing that would be of benefit to Perses?

Cool cool! Once you decide on the timeframe of this era in relation to the previous one, Perses will make an appearance.

Mind if I establish some connections between him and Perses? At this point Perses has expanded to more lofty things, but he still likes keeping the Mistwarrens under his thumb, and would have likely indirectly set up this guy with his current power.

@Akimikoisthecutest do you have particular plans for the mayor character? I’m thinking of adding some background lore to the establishment of a mayoral position in the Mistwarrens (as the Mistwarrens were up until this era not an official “district” more than a collection of slums across the edges of some districts), and its relation to Perses’ efforts. But I wouldn’t want to trample on anything you might have planned for that character.

Then if they’ve been approved before, they’re approved now!

Are there any differences from the last era?

Uses for lurchers: -excellent pickpocketing abilities -disarming capabilities if there’s metal involved -deflect coinshotted coins (as mentioned) -being able to dropkick people in armor -do the spider-man thing where you hide on the ceiling in a flash -become extra sturdy in a fight so long as there’s metal flooring (can’t be pushed over easily) -lurcher locks, as mentioned. -breaking metal locks -being able to pull open a door from the other side of the room, like a badass -being able to strafe if there’s metal on the walls -generally just wreak havoc indoors in ways coinshots can’t

I’d say this is good enough to do some RPing with. The biggest thing I want is a clear idea of personality, and making the character feel real. So long as you got that down, you’re good. Approved.

Looks good! Approved!

And yeah, this is totally good. Approved. Approved! I’m slightly worried about the interaction between a steelrunner and a skybreaker, but so long as it’s RPed well, it should be fine. Approved! Looks good.

Yeah, I haven’t been on the shard all that much. However, with the recent efforts to re-revive the Alleyverse, I’m around a bit more.

how do you do, fellow gays? I'm mildly sick

So. Right now we're getting back into the AV, or at least trying to. I'll be around, and will be acting as a moderator/advisor, but not as the main driver of the plot and keeping people on task. That'll be @Ookla the Cutest's job, and anyone who wishes to step up and take on some extra responsibility. That said, how are y'all feeling for the era? Things haven't been planned out yet, and we kinda left on a bummer with a large scale plot planned, and the main driver of it having to drop out due to life getting in the way. So we'll still need to figure out how to move past that. Probably what would be best would be to say that UFO (the previous 'bad guy' group from the last era) was caught at their schemes and their plan failed. However, that's not set in stone at all. Would we want something big an unifying, or would we want a smaller scale plot like in Era 7? Era 7 was where Perses was a pain in the butt and was causing problems, but nothing major was happening across Alleycity. I have been setting up Belias, a powerful alleybeing that is manipulating and controlling Perses, to make his play on influencing Alleycity at large, but I dunno if that's something we would want for this era or future eras. And besides, I was more intending for Perses to be a bit more of a background character, popping in to serve as a side antagonist for whoever needs a bad guy to fight. But next semester I'm taking fewer classes, two of which are writing based (poetry and creative writing), so I can use AV as an experimenting grounds and as an excuse for supplemental writing stuffs. So I'm open to whatever, really. Anybody have ideas? We have quite a few Radiants currently in the mix. Perhaps something oriented in the Sphere?

looks amazing! Approved!

the thing to keep in mind about the merits system is that its a guide to ensure that people aren't accidentally building overpowered characters. The main issue with having overpowered characters is that its really hard to play them without making other players feel kind of worthless. If someone was roleplaying a thieving crew, for example, and you had a seeker, a coppercloud, a coinshot, and a mistborn, there would be a slight imbalance in who is going to be sent to do what. And if there was ever a physical confrontation that occurred, like if one member of the crew was secretly a mole for another crew, then they would feel a bit restricted by the fact that they're up against a mistborn. We want to make it feel like folks are on a relatively even playing field, as while some amount of variance in that isn't an issue, and it is completely okay to have an intentionally overpowered character (see my character, Perses), it requires a lot more effort to properly RP power differences. In this case, a returned elsecaller is not going to be too out of place in comparison to a fourth ideal skybreaker, a fused, and an A-Tin F-Chromium super sleuth. Perses, who has been around for a few eras now, is overpowered. However, I have about four years of Alleyverse experience, and am planning on using Perses as more of a helping role to move the plot along than a central role (unless it becomes otherwise needed that he is to be a big bad). I'm paying close attention to Perses' power as I roleplay, and am going to ensure that all interactions I have with people will make it so that they don't feel as though they are being backed into a corner, RP-wise. Thats a skill that comes with time, and something that I'm not going to assume that every newcomer to the Alleyverse has, as that can cause problems with things such as god modding and poor sportsmanship. Sorry for the long winded response . Hopefully my point got across, at least somewhat?

yes, that is largely correct. However, being a returned isn't really a major merit, and is more of a normal merit at best. Like it gives you a bunch of small buffs (agelessness, immunity to poison/sickness, up to 5th heightening), but doesn't actually impact your abilities in major ways, in comparison to something like a steelrunner. yes, on the condition that you are able to handle twice the responsibilities. Two characters mean that you can be involved in two separate scenes, but that means that you need to actually be active and present for both scenes. The more characters you have, the more you need to be involved and push forward the plot. I'd usually recommend starting with one character, see how you are doing with that, and then maybe add another character if you think you can handle it. That's what the collaboration thread is for! and is probably something to figure out once @Ookla the Cutest has an idea on how they want era 9 to operate in comparison to era 8. As for the character, I assume he is intended to be an antagonist of sorts? Also, does he currently have only strength spikes? Three is a very dangerous number, as it takes four spikes to turn into a Koloss. Does Saitaku know this, and does he appear koloss-esque in any way? As for Chay Shan, I am slightly hesitant to approve that, as we really don't know all that much about the mechanics of it. And plus, the whole location thing isn't much of an issue, if you have read TLM (which you probably should if you're doing this RP, as all cosmere spoilers in regards to magic systems are allowed) you know why.

Seems interesting! and no, returned+elsecaller isn't too overpowered. My main wondering is his personality, but if this is a threadhopper, I assume you've created a solid personality for him. The only thing I'd consider is how his abilities and experiences flow into merits and flaws. However, I trust your character is fleshed out enough, so I'll go ahead and approve him.

cool cool! then you're double approved.

I wouldn't say that he would end up knowing the alleyways like the back of his hand, as the Alleys are ever changing and highly unstable, so truly understanding the layout is impossible, but having an idea of how to navigate it is fairly possible. That's a @Ookla the Cutest question, as they're currently trying to take the lead on that (as I currently understand), but I would expect that it would be unlikely for the era to actually start until the new year.