Pretty sure it was said we'd be steering clear of the major bad guys. Besides, Endbringer fights would require way too many NP Cs to be reasonable, and there's not much fun in fighting a bad guy like one of those, considering we'd be stalling them until Scion showed.
Exist, pursued by bearHere's my (mostly) finished sheet:
- Name: "Asuka" Lyndsey Southgate
- Age: 17
- Gender: Female (although the distinction is largely irrelevant now)
- Appearance: Her appearance post-modification.
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- Background: Will fill in soon. Until that's done, think Skitter, except without a semblance of a fuck to give about misusing her powers to get back at the people who hurt her/generally cause havoc for lulz. That and a mecha anime fixation.
- Trigger event: Being locked in a storage shed on her school campus for two entire days when she was 16. After being asked out on a date by a classmate she harbored a hopeless crush on, she was caught off guard long enough not to think that the invitation to the football team's opening night might be a setup. Halfway through the Friday night game, she found out she'd wandered into a trap and was confronted in the football field's supply shed by five clique members who had helped to arrange the whole affair in secret. Originally the plan of her would-be attackers (all male) was to "have some fun with her", but after she fought back, they deemed it not worth the time or energy and just broke her arms and legs. That way she wouldn't be able to leave the shed even if she found a way to escape. They then left her there over the weekend, from Friday night all until early Monday morning. The emotions she experienced during this period of isolation were many. Loneliness, fear, desperation, anger. But most importantly, she felt helpless. She wasn't able to move or even cry out for help the whole time she was there. She never wanted to feel so helpless ever again, while at the same time she wanted desperately to be saved. She didn't care by what or who, but the one thing that always seemed to come to her mind were the giant robots from the mecha anime her dad always brought home for her after his business trips. More than once she thought that if she had one of those, she wouldn't need saving. She'd be able to save herself, and fight back with her giant robot, her weapon and her silent guardian. When she was finally discovered on Monday morning by a member of the faculty, she was rushed to the hospital for treatment for severe dehydration and malnourishment, as well as her fractured arms and legs. While in the hospital, she first learned she had gained the ability to control robots when she made a toy robot belonging to a child in the pediatric ward malfunction. Intrigued, she asked her concerned father to send her many toy robots during her stay in the hospital, all of which she disassembled and began tinkering with. The rest, as they say, is history.
- Power class(es): Tinker (7-8), Master (?)
- Luck: 4
- Advantages and disadvantages:
- Disadvantage (Powers) - The Strength: Power is more potent, but drains you mentally or physically. Tends to work for long periods of time, overexerting her remaining human parts until she collapses from exhaustion. Has a obsessive compulsion with modifying herself that could be interpreted as a desire for self-mutilation.
- Power: Mastery and construction of advanced robotics. While her talent with machines isn't to be underestimated, her real strength lies in the field of robotics. Her powers allow her to manufacture and control anything classified as an autonomous electro-mechanical agent (i.e. she can't remotely control a microwave or a laptop computer but she can cause all Roombas in a multi-kilometer radius to violently rebel against their human oppressors). While this power has many diverse and versatile applications, it seems to have affected her mind somewhat, instilling an obsessive compulsive desire to fully become an android herself. She constantly experiments on her own body, methodically replacing everything she can with mechanical parts, and once she's inspired, she has a tendency to work long hours uninterrupted without food, water, or rest until she passes out from exhaustion, behavior which could be explained as a subconscious rejection of her human parts.
- Codename: Mechamusume
- Affiliation: Villain
- Costume: Spot the references!
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- Non-power assets and skills: "Owns" an auto garage by the bay which serves as cover for her self-built underground lair beneath the boardwalk, complete with giant robot launchpad (that she's used approximately once). Used to own a giant robot (used to), but it was swiftly destroyed by the Protectorate the very first time she used it. Besides that, she owns multiple generations of power armor, most of them styled after famous mecha, as well as a small army of robots in varying shapes and sizes. Is currently working on perfecting a program to enable self-replication in her nanomachines (progress is slow going) and is in the middle of working out a deal with the city's "gentlemen's clubs" for marketing a line of designer sexbots (girl's gotta make a living somehow).
- Post-trigger history: It's an... interesting story, to say the least. After discovering she had developed superpowers, the first thing Lyndsey did was use them to exact her terrible, hilarious revenge. After returning to school, she waited for about a week, the bullying having gotten slightly less worse after the massive controversy the incident had sparked. Then, eight days after her return, she snuck off to the bathroom and pulled the fire alarm, evacuating the school of all its inhabitants. That's when she called in the giant robot to come pick her up. After smashing through the campus infrastructure to find its master, Lyndsey commanded the robot to lay waste to the school in front of all the students and teachers who had assembled outside, blasting it to pieces with rockets and autocannons before setting it on fire with a flamethrower and vaporizing it with the robot's shoulder mounted plasma cannons, leaving nought but a smoldering crater and stinky pants. Then, for good measure, she used the robot's precision targeting systems to demolish the houses of everyone who had mistreated her. It was around this time the Protectorate showed up, and engaged Lyndsey and her robot in a massive hour-long brawl. While there was extensive property damage both to the school and the surrounding area, the only casualties of Lyndsey's little rampage were her robot and the family dog belonging to one of the bullies, which tragically died underneath one of the collapsing houses Lyndsey destroyed, a fact she only found out later when it was brought up on her criminal charges. Lyndsey regrets this, but what she regrets even more is that none of the other local villains will ever shut up about that time she literally Kicked The Dog. Ever since then Lyndsey has lived life much more freely and impulsively, adopting the pseudonym "Asuka" and dropping out of school to set up shop in an abandoned auto garage, finding work as a tech supplier for the local cape population (mostly villains, obviously). Of course, this is done inbetween her donning a suit of power armor and committing much more overt crimes (such as bank robberies) under a different cape name to further fund her 24/7 tinkering. She has never again attempted to build a giant robot, however, as she spent most of her time in prison grieving the loss of her first one, and doesn't wish to experience such crushing emotional torque ever again.
Also, I think we need more dudes.
edited 7th Apr '14 11:22:33 AM by KSPAM
I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serialWhere did she get the resources to make a giant robot, hide it, and deploy it in eight days? Also, exactly how close does her backstory follow Taylor's? Is her mom dead and her dad a former boatworker? Also also, this doesn't take place in Brockton Bay. Also x3, part of the whole cops-and-robbers thing is that villains rarely face serious charges unless they go VERY bad, in which case they go to the Birdcage.
Exist, pursued by bear
No, they face charges, it's just that unless their crimes are really that bad, they're just sent to jails made of paper-mache with the assumption that they will shortly break out to return to their usual happenings. Or at least that's how I understood it. Also, I'm assuming there will be a beach or a bay in this city for the moment because that's the best place to launch your giant robot, dammit.
As for the giant robot... how did Bakuda manage to build a bomb with the payload of a 200+ kiloton warhead that could cause black outs over one fifth of America in more or less the same amount of time? Tinkers are magic, son. Science-y magic
EDIT: Woops. As for the Skitter analogy, I meant her backstory involves some pretty heavy-duty bullying at school, and that she has a close relationship with her dad. Unfortunately, her dad is almost never around, unlike Taylor's.
edited 7th Apr '14 12:18:57 PM by KSPAM
I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serialAre we really applying logic to people who's superpower is both being more intelligent than people with multiple college degrees and being really, really good at making one specific kind of thing, to the point where they can beat Tony Stark's record for making it out of a box of scraps in a cave? Tinkers have made weapons that can knock the moon out of orbit with a budget roughly the same as or even less than a third world dictator.
I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serialWell, considering that logical applications of powers is one of Worm's major themes? And Tony Stark's scraps were things the terrorists wanted him to turn into weapons. Not quite scraps as in a broken toaster and some tin cans. I can accept that she'd know how to build a robot, but getting the materials and hiding it? Sorry, no. At least, not in eight days. Maybe if there was more time between her trigger and her attack, where she could work on a base and subtly gather materiels.
edited 7th Apr '14 1:41:57 PM by KarrinBlue
Exist, pursued by bearEh. Again, time and resources. Pretty sure it takes more than eight days to build a giant robot, even if you have drones dedicated to building it. I mean, you have to write code, make sure it can support its own weight, build the casing. since Tinker, I would say it would probably take a month. As for getting the resources, theoretically you could get cheap, substandard stuff from a junkyard, but again, cheap and substandard. GOOD resources would probably cost, because, again, tinker, a few hundred to a little over a thousand bucks, depending on just HOW big the giant robot was.
That being said, I'm just hazarding a guess. It comes down to the DM's decision.
Its so easy when your evil![]()
You can't apply logic to everything in Worm though, is my point. Especially not Tinkers. I mean, applying the logical consequences to standard superpowers is a great thing, but it stops being great when it bogs down the story. Wildbow knows this, which is why Armsmaster's miniaturization technique is never really discussed in detail, why Kid Win didn't just use microwave emitters to boil Leviathan from the inside out, and why powers like spatial manipulation, timestop bombs, and teleportation are not shamelessly abused in ways that would render any conflict with such capes entirely pointless.
edited 7th Apr '14 1:56:58 PM by KSPAM
I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serialWell, logic is applied to tinkers. When the Wards want to recruit Chariot or whatever his name was, they offer funding and equipment for his work. Kid Win says that one of the better things about working for the Wards is the accommodations for design he gets. Blasto allies with Accord because he needs a lab. In short, while the specific mechanics don't get logicked - and I have no issue with the idea of her knowing how to build the robot - the idea of resources and prep time does.
Really, you can solve this problem by just putting more time in between her trigger and attack. She could build salvage bots, find some abandoned, large area, and work on her thing.
Exist, pursued by bear@ NP Cs: That's one way we could go, yeah. I'd still like to keep the scale of this setting a little on the small side, as even with player support I don't really want to be running a city the same size as BB or NY.
@ Maxyrama: Sure, he can be a plot point. You guys are free to come up with plots between your characters and play them out. I'll have a story of my own to tell, but I'm not going to micromanage every aspect of the plot by myself.
@ The Endbringers: Damn, my plan to drop all three on the city at once has been spoiled!
Seriously, though, probably not. As Karrin said, it would require way too many NP Cs to work. Similarly, we won't be including the Slaughterhouse 9 either.
@ KSPAM: Looks good, mostly. Again, I'm a little iffy about a tinker with a second non-tinker power. I allowed it with Zeke/Shizo Tech so I'll allow it here, because it fits together thematically, but I'd be happier if her Master classification came from some sort of control transmitter she built rather than another power.
Regarding resources and her giant robot, Karrin does have a point - the sheer physical mass of material alone needed to build a huge robot is a bit implausible to gather in a week on her own without being noticed.
(Also, I'm not sure if it's come up where you are in the story, but one of the main reasons why tinkertech isn't taken to its logical story-breaking conclusion is that sometimes it doesn't work properly without the tinker around, and usually only a tinker can maintain and repair tinkertech devices. Additionally, some characters actually do take powers like teleportation and spacial warping and abuse the hell out of them.)
My proposal would be to 1) extend the time between her trigger and her revenge kicking off (dish served cold, and all that - maybe she stewed in her revenge plot for a while?), and/or 2) specify that the robot wasn't some gundam-like machine with plasma cannons and sleek amour, and was instead the equivalent of Tony Stark's first suit - still very powerful, but obviously thrown together quickly and roughly.
In the end, thought's not super important, as the robot isn't in the picture anymore. Just keep in mind that resources and prep time are a tinker's biggest weakness.
@ the city: Yup, I've been planning on making out city seaside or port town, although I have a confession to make - I have never lived in an american city
If I make some sort of weird localisation non-sequitur, please point it out.
edited 7th Apr '14 2:54:59 PM by gaunt88
Okay. Sorry for being a bitch about this, Karrin, Gaunt, it just seems like it'd be a little weird for her to bide her time for so long... wait. Actually, that's exactly what she'd do.
... Nevermind about that, then. Whatever timeframe seems appropriate to you, since this is before she had an army of assembler robots and such working for her (she would have nano-assemblers, but she can't get the damn self-replication protocol to work). I was just a bit iffy on it taking a long time to build, since, well... do you know how long it takes to build a nuclear bomb? It's actually a very time consuming process. Which is kinda why I imagine Tinkers cheat the laws of physics with their machines, all things considered. Most of that stuff has no right being built with the time and resources available to anyone besides DARPA unless they're making it out of spoons and used microwave ovens.
edited 7th Apr '14 3:10:30 PM by KSPAM
I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serial
I originally didn't know what to do with her character, but then I thought "Wait. She wears a mech suit that looks like Eva Unit 02, and she has an obsession with robots (especially giant ones). Nerds have an obsession with robots. Nerds tend to get picked on because they're social outcasts. Otaku also fall under the spectrum of 'nerds'. What if I made a mecha otaku version of Skitter except she didn't bother telling herself 'I'm too nice of a person to not use my awesome god-baby powers on these assholes who have done nothing but make my life miserable'?"
And thus Asuka was born. Oh, and as long as we're talking about this, I would hope more than a few people got this reference considering what her power armor looks like, but her adopting "Asuka" as a first name and delegating "Lyndsey" to the status of middle name is a semi-shoutout to Asuka Langley Soryuu, whose first name is Asuka and who has a non-Japanese middle name starting with L and ending Y as well as a last name that begins with the letters "SO". I admit, making their names sound similar isn't the most immediately obvious or clever shoutout to one of my favorite mech anime of all time, but it is cute. Or at least I think so.
edited 7th Apr '14 5:24:24 PM by KSPAM
I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serialThis Asuka doesn't really have those problems, thankfully. Not that the problems she does have are any better, but at least she has a healthy relationship with her dad and I just totally gave away what to do if you want to completely cripple her, didn't I?
I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serialAlso, even if we can't have the Endbringers or S9, I'd like it if we could have at least one of those Hero Killer moments. I fucking loved that when Leviathan first showed up. Carapacitator down, CD-5. Krieg down, CD-5. WCM deceased, CD-5. Iron Falcon down, CD-5. Saurian down, CD-5…
I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serialYeah that would be fun to play out. I see Hoshiko as someone who would get involved if innocent lives started getting risked. Which we all know will be the case because that's how things are.
EDIT: Tweaked powers again. That last bit about her not being able to emerge in locations being scrutinized didn't really work anymore due to the earlier tweak so I removed it. Hope that's ok.
edited 7th Apr '14 7:46:27 PM by maxyrama
Oh, anyone else feel like posting image songs for their capes? If Asuka has one, I'd have to say it'd probably be this:
That's the point

OHHHHHHHHHHH, NOW I REMEMBER WHAT I WANTED TO ASK! Any chance the Endbringers are going to be showing up at all in this RP?
I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serial