Bounty hunters of the apocalypse (reboot)

THIS IS NOT THE RIGHT THREAD ANYMORE. IF YOU HAVE SOMEHOW FOUND YOUR WAY HERE, YOU NEED TO GO HERE INSTEAD.

edited 16th Feb '14 2:24:34 AM by FirockFinion

I'm going to make a new character for this. Kintra got a bit lost in translation in the previous run.

Name: Unknown

Alias: Tank

Gender/Age: 37 Male

Appearance: 5'3 and very muscular. Has black hair and dark gray eyes. Likes to wear a leather jacket laced with metal in a way that makes him biteproof to zombies. He carries a sledgehammer and a double-barreled shotgun in a strap across his back.

Personality: Reckless, angry and violent. Hates undead of all descriptions.

Backstory: Spent the first year of the apocalypse in prison for unarmed assault. Released with a few of his prison friends on grounds that he would use his violent streak to fight off the hordes. After losing his friends in a lich attack he made a vow to destroy every undead he came across, that vow has never once been broken.

Equipment: Any items mentioned in the appearance and backpack containing the following: a few days food/water, a roll of bandage, a small bottle of holy water and a notebook full of assorted rituals most of which are incomplete. About 5 spare shots are carried in a pocket on his jacket.

Skills: Very good at brawler style combat and one swing from his sledgehammer will shatter bone. Not that good a shot but the wide spread of his shotgun makes up for it. No medical experience, the bandage is there for emergencies with the hope someone else will know what to do. Fairly skilled with the few rituals he knows. He knows the following rituals:

• Create Light; a fairly useful ritual that causes a small ball of light to appear between his hands. The light will stay floating until he stops chanting or removes his hands.

• Nightvision; seems useful in theory but in practice it makes everything so bright that any light-source appears blindingly bright. the ritual takes about 10 minutes and lasts about 3 hours.

• Animate Dead; it's unknown why someone would actually want to do this but this ritual allows you to animate a corpse. The ritual takes about 15 minutes and can animate any corpse (not just human ones) as a Walker.

Ps: Firock you put a small typo in the skills section. Oh and is it ok to add a new section labeled Known Rituals? I'm not sure which section they would go in and adding a new section is an easy fix for this.

edited 16th Oct '12 7:43:43 PM by gbrngfol

Okay, I'm interested. Is there a magic research program going on? I'm not planning a charactter around that, I'm just curious.

@Gbrn: Well Firefox's auto-correction isn't pointing anything out so I'd assume it's a word spelled correctly but not used correctly then? I'm still not seeing it though.

For adding the new section, probably not. I'd worry that'd accidentally give people the impression that all characters should know some magic, which is not the case. Since you bring it up though, I'll try editing the skills explanation to make it more clear, and add that that's where known rituals would go.

As for your character, Tank, he's good to go; he could even carry more ammo for the shotgun than that if you can think of anywhere else he'd also carry some. If you could just make an edit to include the rituals he knows so I can take a look over that, that'd be great. (Also, is his double barrel shotgun full length, or sawnoff?)

@Tricksterson: Oh, certainly plenty of them. Most of the governments still functioning probably have magical research groups. These would most likely be under high security and monitoring, lest any of the researchers go mad with power and start trying to summon a major demon.

Oh god, I hate you. Give me a bit to make up a character sheet. Little busy right now.

EDIT: Normally I would attempt to play as a vampire Femme Fatale or some other half human hybrid (like perhaps a wendigo, although rationalizing the craving for flesh would be tricky) but I see that probably won't fly here. What about pets? Is it possible to "tame" some of the more animalistic species if you raise them from birth, or is hatred of humans encoded in their genes (which would be rather odd, but hey, your verse, your rules)?

edited 15th Oct '12 5:47:17 PM by KSPAM

@KSPAM: If you missed the hottip in the first post, I should mention again that the whole "half-Human" thing isn't really referring to hybrids; it's referring to people that turned into monsters that didn't lose their minds and turn evil in the process. (So in this case, "half Human" would mean their body's a monster, but their mind is Human.)

You can still try for playing one if you want, but I make no guarantees. I certainly wouldn't recommend a vampire though, since sunlight is lethal to them in this setting.

As for taming monsters from birth into 'pets'? Well, in-character, pretty much nobody knows, since it's only been five years and people are mostly concentrating on killing them. Out of character, it's impossible with most monsters due to either intangible Demonic influence or not being 'born' in the typical fashion, thus not allowing for any chance of taming in the first place. (Or for some, especially the actual Demons, both.)

The only ones I can think of off the top of my head that would be tamable are the housepets-turned-feral and unintelligent nature spirits, the former of which aren't really monsters and the latter would still be nigh impossible unless you took a plant with you everywhere.

edited 15th Oct '12 9:06:26 PM by FirockFinion

Ah. I was just assuming werewolves were more animal, less people. Anyway, as for a vampire's weakness to sunlight, for someone who was smart and not incredibly arrogant and self-absorbed like most stereotypical vampires, couldn't this problem be addressed with a full body jumpsuit and face mask (UV resistant, if it's the radiation and not just sunlight in general that hurts them in this setting)?

That would work, though it wouldn't be subtle plus the vampire would have to take special care not to let it get damaged in combat.

Also, here's the info post on vampires from the old discussion thread, since I'm still using the same vampires. This may help you decide, plus fill in information I haven't mentioned yet.

What I will say right away is that if I do approve a vampire character, it will probably be under the condition that the ability to control unintelligent monsters is removed. (Since that would be pretty OP for a player character.)

• Name: Cranston Adler
• Age: 40
• Gender: Male
• Appearance: 6'1", slender but wiry build, Sandy hair in a pony tail, ice blue eyes, trim moustache, usually dressed either in abusiness suit or in camo appropriate to the environment
• Personality: Cool, acerbic, arrogant and precise.
• Background: A former Marine Sergeant Major Scout Sniper. Resigned shortly after the crisi began because he saw more potential profit as a bounty hunter.
• Equipment: Sniper rifle, with varying ammo loads (regular, silver, hollow point with blessed earth infused with garlic, cold iron etc), Desert Eagle automatic, likewise loaded, backpack with basic supplies (rations, water, first aid kit, salt tablets, extra ammo, etc), silver edged Bowie Knife, notebook.
• Skills: Experienced sniper and tracker, trained to live off the land, basic first aid knowledge. No magic skill but has studied the habits, strengths and weaknesses of the major supernatural races intensely.

edited 16th Oct '12 11:19:46 AM by tricksterson

• Name: Sanders ("Father Sanders" to some, exactly why is unknown)
• Age: Unknown, assumed to be in his thirties or forties
• Gender: Male
• Appearance: If this doesn't scream five kinds of crazy to you, you may just be as nuts as him.
• Personality: Gleefully sociopathic, sadistic, violent, and witty. Clearly enjoys what he does, and he does it well. Generally hostile to all forms of monster life, viewing them as little more than animals to be hunted rather than intelligent creatures, or even former humans. Will not hesitate to put down someone who's turned.
• Background: The few people who know it ain't telling. Some say he used to be a priest before the apocalypse…
• Equipment:
  • Silver katanas: Primarily used for decapitating vampires and other beasties, as well as exploiting the weakness to silver shown by many monsters. Occasionally sees use for the reasons he had them commissioned (i.e. certain Shinto spirits and demons), but mostly just used for the above. Also carries a flask of holy water on his hip (thought I'd mention this, but didn't want to give it its own paragraph).
  • Guns: Keeps it classic with two 9mm handguns as his primary go to guns. Carries an assault rifle on his back, and has a few mags worth of ammo stashed throughout his coat for all three (probably three refills for the assault rifle, and two additional mags each for the handguns)
  • His "armor": Actually a sort of pseudo body armor/combat suit cobbled together from bits and pieces he picked up, tinkered with over the years. Initially it started out as a simple Kevlar vest, leather jacket, and ski mask, but over time, it… evolved. Not in the literal sense of course, but by modifying it ever so slightly from time to time over the years, it's reached its current state, where the leather is embedded with silver and crosses, and the mask is actually a functional HUD, equipped with things like thermal vision and sonar pings. These functions serve primarily to aid him in hunting creatures who possess skills in stealth, or who can exert influence with eyesight, which the HUD often renders irrelevant (although fighting without it is still a detriment).
  • Duffel bag: One duffel bag that he does not bring on missions, but carries certain items that he may remove and take with him depending on the situation:
    • "Trophies": Sanders often keeps the most dangerous parts of the things he kills (like basilisk and werewolf fangs, or the head of a Gorgon) as trophies. Waste not, want not after all. He can't bring all of these with him into the field, but you can find most of them stashed in his duffel bag for… special occasions.
    • Food and water: Sanders doesn't carry much of these, and most of what you will find are strictly emergency rations. Most of his food he either buys from vendors at each town he stops in, or he just cooks off of whatever he kills (provided it's edible)
• Skills:
  • Holy sacraments: Good at things like exorcisms, and is well acquainted with a number of magic rituals dealing with spirits or undead.
  • Combat: He likes to fight at extended range, and the closest he's comfortable getting to his prey before it's dead is the length of his katana. Due to little hand to hand skills and the unwieldily natural of katanas at extremely close range, Sanders is likely to suffer in fisticuffs, or if he's tackled.
  • Batshit crazy: He is.

Let me know if any of this contradicts the rules.

@Tricksterson: "Sniper rifle" is a little too vague, seeing as there's tons of different kinds. Getting an exact model would be good but at the very least a few things need to be known, like: Is it magazine loaded, or bolt-action single shot? If magazine loaded, semi-auto or still bolt-action? Is it an anti-personnel lower caliber, or a big ass fifty cal?

And two things about the ammo: One, you didn't mention how much ammo he carries with him. Two, all that special ammo you mentioned will not be refilled for free, so keep that in mind.

@KSPAM: Like with Tricksterson, "assault rifle" is a little vague, though not as bad as with sniper rifles since assault rifles are a bit more uniform in function and relative calibers. Still, at least a bit of narrowing down would be great.

As for rule breaking, I'd say you're going into the territory of being too contrived. First the swords: Acquiring two real katanas, as in ones that won't break after two swings, would already be hard enough in this setting. Plus, being made entirely out of silver wouldn't work; silver's too soft of a metal. Steel coated in silver could work, but getting swords that specialized would be nigh impossible.

Next, the HUD: Thermal vision? Difficult to get a hold of, but plausible. Sonar pings? Not really. Completely negating the effects of monsters that influence eyesight? No way, though it would negate monsters that need to make eye contact for certain abilities, so long as his eyes are actually hidden.

edited 16th Oct '12 4:55:37 PM by FirockFinion

Yeah, I felt that way about the katanas too, but I wanted to try and stay somewhat true to the picture. Anyway, I can see that being a reasonable complaint (also, thanks for pointing out the silver bit, I didn't know that).

As for the mask, it does cover his eyes. The HUD is wired into sunglasses lenses which are, in turn, a part of the mask. And I can get rid of sonar, if you like. Thermal vision should be plenty.

Also, any recommendations for good melee weapons?

Yeah, I'd prefer the sonar gone.

As for melee weapons, in this setting that could be a number of things. Improvised weapons are plentiful, since it is still an apocalyptic setting. Typical options would be knives, baseball bats, woodcutting axes, those larger blades that still aren't quite swords, like machetes, etc.. Improvised weapons would be down to the imagination; I'd say picture you had a roll of duct tape, (Or if you're feeling fancy, some bolts.) and had to pick items from around your house or in your garage to combine together in an attempt to make the best weapon you could.

Off the top of my head, I'd say that spears made from knives attached to broom/mop handles are probably freaking everywhere by now. Plus those nice mobster-esque weapons of just driving a bunch of nails through a bat or board.

Swords themselves, at least ones that aren't fragile display pieces, are actually pretty hard to come by.

edited 16th Oct '12 6:20:14 PM by FirockFinion

Here I go.

• Name: Nathan D. Ignacio
• Gender: Male
• Age: 35
• Appearance: Not a spot of the front side of his body is unobscured, loaning to his 'unique' method of attack. The top-most layer of clothing is a thick dark-brown duster, with two large pouches located at thigh-level. The entire thing appears textile, rather than leathery, an overall military looking fabric. The collar of a black shirt and the bottom of dark green pants -both made from similar looking fabrics as the coat-poke out from underneath, all above a pair of black combat boots that go shin-high. A bug-eyed gas mask covers his face, topped off by a world war two style helmet. The only exposed part of his head is a small bald patch above the nape of his neck. Well, that and his mouth, whenever he unscrews the mouthpiece of his mask. Who could understand a man who does nothing but mumble beneath a gas mask?
• Personality: An overall amiable sort, once you look past his special enthusiasm for his work. Or remind him that you can't understand what he's saying. He's might be overly quick to resort to violence towards potentially threats, but that's nearly a virtue in a wasteland. Tends to crack fire-based puns when he can.
• Backstory: Nathan likes fire. He was grounded for a good quarter of his childhood for fire related incidents. He barely eaked out a 'self defense plea when he lit a car thief on fire with a flare-gun at the age of eighteen. He became a pyrotechnist as soon as he left college, renting out as much secluded space as he could with his limited funds to perfect his trade. When the apocalypse broke out, and the demand for what laymen consider 'cheap thrills took a sharp drop, Nathan was left with a house full of fun. Putting two and two together, he jury rigged himself a flamethrower of arguably military quality, grabbed himself some other goodies, an took to bounty hunting.
• Equipment: His flamethrower, Isabella (which is good for about thirty-five seconds of use). A sawed-off shotgun, ready with two dragons-breath rounds, and twelve incendiary buck-shot shells tapered to the sides of his belt. A hand-axe held in a bottom compartment inside his coat. The fuel tank is placed horizontally, to accommodate room for an underslung backpack containing two canteens of water, six bags of jerky, six bags of dehydrated fruit, a utility knife, two match-boxes, a butane lighter, and a flare gun. His clothes are fire-retardents
• Abilities: An expert pyrotechnist, with some magical knowledge pertaining to amplifying combustable properties in otherwise immflammable or unimpressive substances. Willing to improvise when it comes to fire-weaponry and explosives. Not half bad with a shotgun. He's athletic as any man who intends to lug a flamethrower around in a coat needs to be.

edited 16th Oct '12 6:49:25 PM by goodisgood

Let me guess, you're a fan of Team Fortress 2?

@Firock: I actually started researching sniper rifles but figured you wouldn't want anything too specific. I'll go back and research and get back to you on it tomorrow. Okay?

Darn-Tootin'! When most of your targets can't shoot you, a flamethrower becomes a lot less terrible.

@Firoc I've added the rituals he knows to his sheet. He actually knows a few others but they are incomplete and unreliable, some more may be added later. Also the typo is highlighted in the quote below:

edited 16th Oct '12 7:54:32 PM by gbrngfol

@Goodisgood: I like it, though just like the initial reply to Tricksterson's, you should know that the special ammo won't be refilled for free; only regular ammo will be supplied.

Given your guy's skills, he could try enchanting regular ammo to have a fire effect though... With mixed results.

The only other thing to keep in mind is how encumbered your guy would be compared to everyone else so far. (So if a foot-race happens, he'll likely be in last.)

As long as that's understood, he's good to go.

@Tricksterson: While I'm trying to tone back my usual crazy level of gun-detail...ness, there's some stuff I find important to know just for running the RP. And things like "how powerful your gun is" and "how quickly you can shoot it" are pretty high up there. And with sniper rifles that's really variable.

EDIT @Gbrn: Looks good, and thanks, not sure how I missed that. o_O

Of course, with the animate dead spell, he still wouldn't have any control over the walker. Which makes me wonder how you plan to use it... Could get very interesting...

edited 16th Oct '12 8:04:57 PM by FirockFinion

@Firoc I have no intention to use that ritual, I just thought it would be interesting to have that one. Also something I keep forgetting to mention is the shot gun is full barrel.

• Name: Nathaniel Wolfe (Prefers 'Nate')
• Age and Gender: 29, ♂
• Appearance: Stealing a video game character again◊. Imagine that he doesn't have any white hairs. Add a backpack, second weapon holster on his other leg and ammunition pouch bag over his shoulder, and cancel the ammunition pouches on his vest.
• Personality: Nate is generally a blank. He will think about a situation with absolutely no emotional attachment to it and will always produce what he believes to be the most efficient solutions. To put this another way the trolley problem isn't a problem to him - he would save the raw numbers unless the one person provided a significant advantage otherwise.
• Backstory: Because I don't often go in long on this kind of thing, here goes - Nate began his career as an engineer in Her Majesty's Armed Forces, until he decided he didn't particularly like the pay or the queen and country, which drove him to work for a private military contractor. Once the apocalypse hit, being (technically) a civilian, he became a Bounty Hunter, since PMC work is now in short demand.
• Equipment
  • One modified Beretta 90two. Enough slots are in his ammo bag for six 17-round magazines. Modifications;
    • Underbarrel, there is attached a combat knife.
    • On the top is a round-framed red dot optic. The forward-facing part of this red-dot is lined with LEDs, making it double as a torch.
  • One modified Ingram MAC-11. Enough slots are in his ammo bag for six 16-round magazines. Modifications;
    • Underbarrel, there is also attached a combat knife, although this is only used if ammo conservation is a problem.
    • LEDs are mounted on the sides of the barrel, meaning both of his weapons have torches.
  • One combat knife.
  • Backpack, containing several MRE packages, some basic medical supplies and everything Nate needs to maintain his weapons as well as a few more general tools and a carton of cigarettes.
• Skills:
  • Solver of practical problems: If it's broke and you've got the parts/tools to fix it, Nate can likely add the experience needed to fix it. Military equipment and firearms are a bit of a speciality. Since the apocalypse, he's got fairly good at jury-rigging too.
  • Military Man: Due to Nate's experience with shooting stuff, he's fairly good at shooting stuff. He's no slouch with his knives either.
    • Sapper: Nate is able to work safely with explosives.
  • Basic First-Aid: Nate can perform first-aid, although this is first-aid only, basically the ability to keep someone alive until they can get proper treatment.

edited 19th Oct '12 2:04:45 PM by Plumbum

Okay for sniper rifle I picked the M110 Semi-Automatic Sniper System. Uses 7.62x55mm NATO rounds, a Leupold3.5x10 datime optic, wit PA Ls magazine pouches. I figure he carries three regular magazines and one each of silver, special hollowpoint and cold iron assuming you let him have that much and same for the Desert Eagle except only two magazines regular because, as with the knife he prefers not to get that close in the first place.

@Plumbum: Normally I'd say that's too much ammo but then I realized he's carrying them in a bag, not pouches, and they're fairly small as far as magazines go. Of course, I can't help but think it'd be a bit awkward and slow to reach over your shoulder every time you reload, but at least it works.

I'd also say that his weapons are a bit too tacticool-contrived, but his backstory does make some sense as to why he'd have weapons like that. Combined with the fact that they're both pretty low-end in terms of gun power... Yeah, I'll allow it this time.

So, he's good to go.

@Tricksterson: Your link didn't work, but I managed to find it. I'll allow the gun, but six magazines seems a bit much for a big rifle like this one; especially if he's using the 20 round mags instead of the 10 round. I'd say cut it down to four, one either 20 or 10 round for the normal and 10 round mags for the special ammunition. This mainly being because it's a big ass rifle instead of a handgun.

It occurs to me now that I'm actually not sure if by "desert eagle automatic" you mean a desert eagle that fires fully automatic. I was gonna not allow that but then I realized you probably wouldn't hit anything effectively with a full auto desert eagle so I'm just gonna shrug at that one. As for the ammo on that one, I think it's fine. (I'm assuming you're going with the 7-round, .50 cal desert eagle, since it's the most popularized one.)

So if that's all okay with you, he's good to go.

edited 17th Oct '12 4:41:22 PM by FirockFinion

Since I'm not terribly creative, I'm gonna say Sanders has an AK-47. He's not officially military, so him having really high end equipment he can't buy legally or build in a garage doesn't make sense.

As for melee replacements, how about a bat with iron and silver nails in it? (this assumes of course crushing a vamp's head means the same as decapitating it)

@KSPAM: An AK-47 is just fine, with three extra mags sounds reasonable too.

Decapitation isn't vampires' weakness in this setting; it's the good ole' stake to the heart that gets that privilege.

That said, just about anything that can kill us can kill a vampire in this setting too, if applied enough. So yeah, crushing the skull in works, it's just harder than crushing in a normal person's skull.

A bat with nails is a good idea, and silver nails are acceptable, just not as many as regular nails.

Well here I go!

• Name: Dale Steelman
• Gender and age: Dude, 26
• Appearance: He wears a white bite/cut-resistant jacket, normal tan cargo pants, black shooting gloves, standard brown hiking shoes, a camouflage tactical vest over his jacket, sunglasses during the day, and a headlight. He himself is a 6'1" guy who looks pretty strong, with somewhat tan skin and buzzed black hair.
• Personality: Uncharacteristically positive and "nice" for a bounty hunter, while being stubborn as a mule.
• Backstory: Always a bit on the dim side, his quite-wealthy Baptist preacher father from sent him from his home in Arizona to college to get him out of the way and make something out of himself, but he mainly just used this as an excuse to coast through school and play football as a linebacker. He never finished, on account of the end of the world happening when he was home on break.
  He hasn't forgotten his dying father's words after he was wounded by a skeleton at a local baseball game, "Boy, I know we've been at odds, but I was wrong to want to a'change you from who you were. So don't you done go and let these'ahere demons change who you are, either. Lead you astray or some nonsense. Whole world going to hell, don't you let it take you with it."
  So with all that said, he spent the next five years trying to keep on being who he is, making a living out of saving the world.
• Equipment: No special ammo or anything, just regular BOOLETS.
  • Brooklyn Smasher: Sort of sticks out of the top of his backpack.
  • Folding Hunting Knife: A standard drop-point frame-lock blade that he keeps in his vest. It has a seatbelt cutter and window punch on the back. The sort of thing you get at Big 5 for $20.
  • FN P90: Held in front with a chest sling, it has a 50-round magazine in it, and a red dot sight. There's two mags in vest pockets.
  • FN Five-seveN: Held in a holster on the left side of his vest. Has a twenty-round mag in it, and another twenty-round mag in a vest pocket.
  • S&W 500: Held in a holster on his right hip, it only has the five rounds in the gun, and his two speedloaders are empty.
  • And then a Generic Backpack with the usual crap every bounty hunter has, like a couple water bottles, a few MREs and protein bars, a tiny first aid kit, cell phone, some AA and AAA batteries, and a flashlight. Actually, I'll do you one better and say it's a Dorcy 41-4750. Oh, and his headlight... let's say it's an Energizer Trailfinder.
• Skills: He's 100% human, none of that "magic" crap.
  • Football. Footballing? Additionally, his former athletic training has kept him in good physical condition.
  • Stubbornness
  • Sort-of college educated
  • Roughly five years of bounty hunting experience

edited 21st Oct '12 5:55:32 PM by nman