A Game of Gods Season 3: Terminus

I recently booted up Bastion again to give it another play-through, and realized I'd miss a few things to do with his weapons. Nothing big, but stuff that he would have that I missed by not checking properly. Here they are, just in case.

War Machete- Upgrades include a serrated edge, a special mechanism in the handle that can launch small hidden blades in an emergency, a noxious point with small hidden reservoirs of Scumbag muck that can poison a foe and hamper their mobility as well as do small damage over time and reinforced spine that increases the strength and cutting ability of it.

Army Carbine- The razor bullets and the scope as well as being specially tuned for the faster firing capacity and more effective firing capacity.

Do those sound fine to add?

Yeah, those all sound fine.

Awesome! I'll edit it in. Now let's hope I haven't missed anything else.

I also forgot some stuff, I just thought it was too late. Since apparently it isn't, let me present a few things for review:

• Aero: Another damage over time spell, no cast time, weaker than the others and not available to Summoner.
• Cleric Stance: Even if it was subconscious, trying to leave this out was pretty cheeky of me. It basically allows a healer class (like Scholar) to go into "attack mode" by swapping the stats responsible for attack magic and healing magic. I'd honestly rather just leave this out and have all spells always effective since it would be a pain to keep track of this in a PbP game, depends on how much you insist on accuracy to the source material.
• Teleport: Takes 6 seconds to cast, can't be Swiftcast or Surecast and can't be used in battle. Teleport has potentially infinite range, but requires some sort of magical beacon at the destination that Jeyrr has attuned to in the past; in other words, he can only warp back to places he's already been to. Whether a given object can be used as a beacon is up to the GM. In addition, if two or more such beacons are linked to each other, Jeyrr can teleport from one to another. He can take up to seven other people with him when he teleports.
• Return: Identical to Teleport, but for the following: Jeyrr can't take anyone with him, and is sent to the point of least resistance rather than a destination of his choice. This is normally the beacon that he has the strongest resonance with, but in areas that can't be teleported out of it'll just send him to the last safe area he passed through. It's also possible that using this skill might boot him from the current challenge entirely and return him to the Tower; whether this happens, and whether he can get back in, is at the GM's discretion. He also uses this skill reflexively upon near death, but I'll leave that part out if the GMs don't like it.

edited 3rd Jul '16 11:50:25 AM by Anura

@Anura: Those are all fine. You don't have to take Cleric Stance if you don't want to, but if you'd like to stay true to canon, you might want to avoid having Jeyrr using offensive and healing spells right after one another.

Now then, A Game of Gods S3: Terminus is now live. Follow the link here for the game itself, and if you haven't already, please join us in the Discussion-thread here (no need to recap the whole thread, just skip to the latest page).

As for Sign Ups in progress or Late Sign-Ups, we'll be accepting characters all the way until the first Challenge starts properly. Once that happens, Sign-Ups will close. Next round of Sign-Ups will be for the second Challenge, but only if there are less active characters.

This signup happens to contain a huge amount of major spoilers for Xenosaga, so I politely request that nobody spill the beans on the spoilered sections until I'm able to make in-universe Reveals. Thanks!

• Name: KOS-MOS (caps, if you please), AKA Animus AKA Mary bat Magdala
• Age: Her frame makes her appear to be in her late teens or early twenties, but she has been operational as a robot for only a handful of years, and her consciousness itself is in truth considerably older - specifically, as old as the human race.
• Appearance: "I am happy to be of service"◊. She is 167cm tall and weighs 79kg.
• Universe: Xenosaga

• Personality: In spite of being a robot, KOS-MOS most definitely has a personality and will of her own, and has only become more human-like and emotive as time has gone on. She is intensely determined to ensure the safety and welfare of any persons she has designated as protectees by any means necessary, being highly proactive in that regard, and she is hardly troubled by the prospect of suffering damage or complete destruction herself in the process. Notably, she is not at all compliant with the Three Laws, and only partially adheres to the Second Law. Perhaps surprisingly for a machine built for combat, she actually has a rather gentle, kind, and stoic demeanor, almost never raising her voice. Even more strangely for a machine, she can be a bit of a neat freak, and hates cats. Nevertheless, she retains a number of other robotic qualities, such as a very proper manner of speaking, a strong inclination for logic, rationality, and efficiency, a certain degree of literal-mindedness and gullibility, and the tendency to announce her actions aloud when she's preparing for combat or running calculations.

• Backstory: At an unspecified point in time before history, when human consciousness first came to be, a certain cosmic force called Animus arose out of humanity's Collective Unconscious and took humanoid form alongside her male counterpart, Anima, somewhere near the modern-day location of the Red Sea. Animus existed as a metaphysical counterweight to regulate Anima's own power, as the latter would involuntarily destroy the universe if certain conditions were met. Many years afterward, near the beginning of CE, the pair became some of the innermost followers of a certain man who would be called the Messiah. Animus took on the name Mary bat Magdala, whilst Anima took on the name Yeshua ben Nazereth. The two personifications earnestly believed that man's teachings would lead to the betterment of humanity, whom they lived alongside. At some point, they attempted to use Yeshua's power to create a utopia by siphoning energy down from a higher dimension, but things went horribly awry and they instead almost destroyed the universe by activating Yeshua's failsafe. To prevent said apocalypse, Mary split the vast majority of Yeshua's power into twelve artifacts and died in the process, her own consciousness being shattered and scattering across the Collective Unconscious. Over the ensuing six thousand years, the bits of Mary's soul continued floating around the Unus Mundus.
  
  The combat android called KOS-MOS was officially a specialized weapon designed by the foremost R&D division of human civilization's largest and most influential technology company, Vector Incorporated, to combat a little-understood yet existential threat to humanity, monstrous beings called Gnosis who rampaged mindlessly across all known space for unknown reasons and defied all laws of physics. Unofficially, however, she was created for another, more important purpose, which was to be a vessel that would collect Mary's scattered soul into one whole again, so that her powers could be utilized for a certain individual's plans. Through an extremely complicated series of esoteric events filled with symbolism, further tragedy, and technobabble, all of which were orchestrated and otherwise manipulated by one individual for the sake of saving all of reality by iterating a time loop that encompassed the entire history of the universe, she fulfilled this second purpose, Mary Magdeline was reborn, her consciousness fusing with that of the ghostbusting combat robot, and she finally encountered Yeshua once more, although he had re-christened himself as "chaos". Ultimately, the pair rejected the aforementioned mastermind's plan, choosing instead to once again place their faith in humanity and believe that there was some other way to prevent the universe from being destroyed, and they both sacrificed themselves (again) to forestall the apocalypse (again) and to allow their other companions to live on in search of an answer. Being an immensely durable combat robot has its advantages, however, and KOS-MOS survived (or at least, her mind and most of her upper body did) and she entered sleep mode to conserve power as she began drifting through Space alongside her dear friend chaos on another long, long journey.

• Powers/Abilities/Equipment:
  • Being a Space-Age Combat Robot:
    • KOS-MOS' strength, agility, dexterity, and durability are all superhuman. She can punch holes in concrete, leap two stories in a single bound, and kick down ordinary doors in one blow. She is able to run at a maximum speed of about forty miles per hour, thirty if she wants to be able to turn. Her advanced targeting computer makes her an excellent yet not flawless shot even at considerable distances. She can effectively shrug off and only be superficially damaged by the likes of ordinary knives and small-caliber bullets, though not high-caliber ones, and certainly not rockets. She does not experience pain, though she does appear to have some kind of sense of touch. Although the exact location of her core unit in her body is unknown, it would be impossible to repair if damaged without the exact original data of her creator, as the core's software is an unopenable, impossible-to-examine black box.
    • Thanks to extensive pre-programming, KOS-MOS is fully capable of masterfully using with deadly force anything traditionally considered to be a weapon. If she doesn't know how to use a weapon yet fulfills needed pre-requisites for its operation, she can probably learn any methods of destruction less complicated than giant robot piloting in short order.
    • KOS-MOS' memories are largely stored as electronic data, and as she can simply run a query against her internal database when she wants to remember something, she has effectively perfect recall unless her databanks are damaged by an external force. In addition to traditional human senses, her sensors and associated subroutines allow her to do a number of other related and useful things, including determining likely chemical composition based on spectrum analysis, observing the environment in infrared, identifying the magnitude and direction of strong energy sources, creating and referencing 3D maps of her immediate environment, and calculating a dubious kill probability for everything she comes across.
    • KOS-MOS, being a robot, does not require food, drink, air, or many other human necessities, and will never tire as long as she is undamaged and has power. That said, actually finding a power source capable of properly recharging her outside of an advanced, space-age environment will be difficult, to say the least, so she will need to ration her power consumption and output accordingly.
    • Additionally, KOS-MOS is EMP-proof, though her nanomachines (used for self-maintenance and transition to/from R-Blade and L-Cannon) are not and would be knocked offline until she is able to recharge and reboot them. The effect of strong magnets on her has not been observed, but she would presumably be caught by one.
  • Hilbert Effect Generation: By flipping down her eye-cover (seen at top-right in Appearance) and standing perfectly still, KOS-MOS is able to project an ethereal, multicolored spherical field from her head which manifests a phenomenon called the Hilbert Effect. The Hilbert Effect forces intangible phenomena such as ghosts and spirits into a tangible and therefore destroyable form which obeys the laws of physics for an unknown amount of time (although it is known to eventually dissipate and allow intangibles to return to intangibility), the destruction of such entities being KOS-MOS' original primary purpose. The Hilbert Effect also interferes with any advanced mechanical sensors (other than KOS-MOS' own) that the field comes into contact with for a short time. The original max diameter of KOS-MOS' Hilbert Effect was something like one Astronomical Unit, but that's a little bit much, so it's now confined to the diameter of one large modern-day building at most.
  • Self-Maintenance: Thanks to an enormous number of internal nanomachines, KOS-MOS is self-repairing. However, actually engaging in repair requires redirecting all power that would be devoted to combat routines, so it cannot be used while in battle. Moreover, severe damage requires a great deal of time and almost all her energy (except basic functions like memory) to repair in this way, which means she must re-route all power beyond basic functions to the nanomachines and enter prolonged sleep mode while connected to a sufficient power-charging source if she wishes to repair more severe damage, and she cannot recreate lost limbs. She also requires sufficient material in the environment for her nanomachines to draw from in order to reconstruct absent matter. The nanomachines will be knocked temporarily offline if hit by the likes of an EMP until she is able to recharge and reboot them.
  • Weapons
    • Blaster: A futuristic blaster pistol which shoots bolts of what appears to be plasma, slower moving and more visible than bullets, but in most cases at least as damaging, and with bonus third-degree burns. Holstered on her right thigh.
    • D-Teneritas: A weapon which unfolds from KOS-MOS's chest like so◊ and proceeds to charge an orb of bright blue light in a very evident way, which KOS-MOS then sends flying rapidly forth. After leaving her, the sphere expands to a diameter slightly greater than her own height and halts abruptly at whatever it impacts. Supposing that the thing it hits is smaller than its diameter, that target will simply float in place, free of gravity and be trapped, immobile inside the sphere. When subsequently pierced - this is the main use for the throwable knife in her left leg, as seen in Appearance - the sphere and anything in it suffers successive high-intensity explosions on the interior for several seconds before the sphere itself (not the thing inside) fades away entirely.
    • G-Shot◊: A pair of personalized, triple-barreled Gatling guns which KOS-MOS keeps in a personal hyperspace pocket. She can summon or de-summon one in either or both of her hands in approximately one second. Rate of fire is such that she must reload after approximately six or seven seconds of constant bullet-slinging, and she is unlikely to be able to do so in the middle of a battle unless there is a lengthy lull or she is behind cover. Hyperspace in Xenosaga is actually the Collective Unconscious, meaning KOS-MOS is actually storing G-Shot and and its ammunition in her own subconscious, neatly explaining why she would still be able to summon her most iconic weapon at any time or place. Her ammo stores are not unlimited, however, and she will eventually need to re-stock.
    • L-Cannon◊: KOS-MOS can transform her left arm to and from a sort of long-barreled rocket-launcher via nanomachines. The process takes approximately one second to complete, briefly suffusing her arm in a red glow, and can be undertaken while in motion. As expected for a rocket-launcher, the projectiles explode on impact. L-Cannon happens to have a lot of kick to it, so a standing KOS-MOS is typically forced a few feet back and into a crouch after firing to mitigate recoil. Disruption of the nanomachines via the likes of an EMP will prevent her from transitioning to and from arm forms until the nanomachines have had time to reboot via power charging.
    • R-Blade◊: KOS-MOS can transform her right arm to and from a sharp and handy double-edged sword via nanomachines. The process takes approximately one second to complete, briefly suffusing her arm in a blue glow, and can be undertaken while in motion. Its exact sharpness is never made clear, but it is at least sharp enough to cut steel and 61st century alloys cleanly. Disruption of the nanomachines via the likes of an EMP will prevent her from transitioning to and from arm forms until the nanomachines have had time to reboot via power charging.
    • X-Buster◊: A one-directional, rapid-fire beamspam attack of many deadly thinner lasers that covers a general area of about one hundred feet in width and lasts for about five seconds. As it is fired from the center of her abdomen, as she must briefly bend over to activate it, and as the prelude to its firing involves a small light show and completely typical robot laser-charging sounds, any time it's about to be used will be extremely obvious. X-Buster consumes quite a lot of power, and KOS-MOS must therefore use it only rarely.
  • Wi-Fi: KOS-MOS can connect her mind directly to the internet and wireless devices without the need for cumbersome cables. Amazing! Naturally, she has highly advanced firewalls, but she could still be hacked with enough time and computing power. Her ability to interface was designed for the internet of the 61st century, but she could probably adapt to other models with a few minutes of analysis and a little effort.

• Why have they been picked to climb the Tower?: A Space-age robot familiar with humanity would provide an interesting foil to several other Climbers and would be helpful in navigating any interstellar eras the Climbers may eventually find themselves in, although she would stick out like a sore thumb in most other environments. Naturally, she would be useful for many of the different combat situations they may encounter. Besides, she was already destined to float through Deep Space in sleep mode for at least the next several hundred years anyway, so getting picked to Climb and being mysteriously repaired to full functionality will hardly be any inconvenience to her.

edited 6th Jul '16 4:24:19 PM by darksidevoid

Well, I've been wanting to play this character for a while so let's see if I can handle this...

• Name: Genji Shimada
• Age: 35
• Appearance: Even if I sacrifice my body, I will never sacrifice my honor.◊
• Universe: Overwatch
• Personality: Genji may look like a serious person at first, but he's not above making jokes or take a few jabs at others if the situation is appropriate enough for it. He's a very nice guy who tries to appreciate the beauty in life, he's also a bit of an optimist who tries to see the best in people and willing to help anyone he thinks is in need even if they've wronged him in the past. That doesn't mean he won't fight or kill though, he's very willing to do so if he has to. He also really likes ramen, although he isn't able to enjoy quite as much as he could before. He used to live a playboy life, but ever since turning into a cyborg he often feels like he doesn't fit with other people, but who knows, depending on the situation maybe he could show this playboy side of his.
• Backstory:
  • As the youngest son of the master of the Shimada ninja clan, Genji lived a life of luxury and privilege. He had little interest in the family's illegal businesses, and although he excelled at and enjoyed his ninja training, he spent most of his time pursuing a playboy lifestyle. Many within the clan considered the carefree Genji to be a dangerous liability, and they resented his father for coddling and protecting him. Following the clan leader's untimely death, Genji's older brother, Hanzo, demanded that Genji take a more active role in their late father's empire. Genji refused, enraging Hanzo. The tension between the brothers built to a violent confrontation that left Genji on the verge of dying.
  • Hanzo believed that he had killed his brother, but Genji was rescued by Overwatch and the intervention of Dr. Angela Ziegler. The global security force saw Genji as a potential asset in its ongoing operations to combat the Shimada clan. As Genji's injuries left him clinging to life, Overwatch offered to rebuild his body in exchange for his help. He was put through an extensive process of cyberization, which enhanced his natural speed and agility and augmented his superlative ninja skills. Transformed into a living weapon, Genji single-mindedly set about the task of dismantling his family's criminal empire.
  • But as time passed, Genji felt increasingly at war with himself. He was repulsed by the mechanical parts of his body and could not come to grips with what he had become. When his mission was complete, he abandoned Overwatch and wandered the world in search of meaning. He drifted for many years before crossing paths with the omnic monk Zenyatta. Though Genji initially rejected Zenyatta's wisdom, the benevolent omnic would not be deterred. In time, Zenyatta became his mentor, and under the monk's tutelage, Genji reconciled his dual existence as both man and machine. He learned to accept that although he had a cyborg body, his human soul was intact, and he came to see his new form as a gift and a unique strength.
• Powers/Abilities/Equipment:
  • Enhanced Ninja: Being a ninja, Genji is very agile and has very good reflexes, plus is capable of moving around stealthly with ease. He can easily climb walls and move around. He's also a very talented swordsman and his cyborg body enhances his mobility even further while also making him a little more durable.
  • Deflect: With his reflexes, Genji can use his wakizashi to redirect enemy projectiles such as bullets even if they come in a barrage. However, he can't keep at it for too long so assuming the reflected bullets don't kill the enemy, just keeping at it would be enough to get him. He's also vulnerable from any angle that isn't in front of him while doing this.
  • Swift Strike: Genji can quickly move in a burst of speed and often uses this alongside his sword for a surprise slash, even being able to do so in the air. It can also be used for running away, but he can't really go too far with it and can't use it repeatedly
  • Dragonblade: Genji summons his dragon spirit to empower his sword, making it able to slice through most things with ease, however he can only keep it like that for a few seconds as it strains his body to use this ability for too long. He can also use either of his other two abilities while doing this.
  • Genji has many shurikens stored within his cybernetic body and he usually fires them at most 3 at a time, either in a focused barrage or spreading them out. He also carries with him his trusty katana and a wakizashi for his deflect skill as well for quick melee attacks
• Why have they been picked to climb the Tower?: Genji is very fast and able to get through terrain with ease, his stealth ability could also help him get through situations that would be difficult for some of the others.

edited 4th Jul '16 11:01:30 AM by FullMoon

KOS-MOS and Genji Shimada are Accepted.

@darksidevoid: Please note that KOS-MOS has been accepted entirely on the basis of the non-spoilered parts, so I'm gonna have to get someone else to read those and check for anything questionable. But for now, you may consider her accepted and have her join the game.

Now, this next thing goes for both of you. When you have KOS-MOS and Genji appear in the Tower, they will have arrived at the same time as all the others. This goes for all later Sign-Ups until I close this round of Sign-Ups.

I can confirm that there is nothing in the spoilered sections that I would consider questionable.

Name: Instinct. Well, less a name (she's basically nameless) and more of a title. If you have an actual name do suggest it to her IC, she really needs one

Age: Depends on what metric here. Physically between 16 and 17, if you count time in existence 18-19, if you count time with her own body it's like 1.5

Appearance: She's a short fellow, 5' nothing. Her frame is made up of very tightly corded muscle, with long auburn hair that goes to just above the small of her back. She's very beautiful in a dangerous sort of way, with very sharp features. Her eyes are striking, the color of moonlight silver with sprinkles of wheat yellow and seem to glow softly. There are red tatoos running over her body, down her arms and legs, torso and forehead. Leftovers from when she was created by the god Tatu, who had similar markings.

Universe: Broken Bow original, mixed with AGOG canon as a returning kind of vet.

Personality: Instinct is basically a scion of Artemis (and in fact simply refers to herself as 'a shadow of artemis' when asked). She's solitary and usually quiet, not one to press others so long as they aren't pressing her. Nearly fearless in combat, but easily confused by aspects of life outside of it, leading her to be a fairly nervous individual most of the time. She comes off as abrasive to strangers, not necessarily because she's mean but because she has little experience in personal interactions and has little patience with the confusing social rules surrounding everything. She's extremely independent and has no patience whatsoever for any that try to bind her in any way, and when she does feel the need to speak she doesn't have much of a concept of holding her tongue except for pragmatic reasons. Her insular attitude, reveling in her own sense of freedom and living, leads to her not paying much attention to things outside of her immediate interests, which further makes her feel like an outsider in civilization.

When in her comfort zone, she's far more genial and conversational, letting herself have a sense of humor about things. She's SUPER sarcastic, to pretty much troll extents, and at times playful though she won't admit it. She's ambivalent about others most of the time but like everyone else can grow attached to companions she stays around for a while, and is insistently loyal to anyone who she views as being in her 'circle'.

While she's laid back most of the time, she comes to life when hunting or exploring new lands. She loves nature, feeling most comfortable whenever she's surrounded by wildlife and forests, and on the flip feels uncomfortable in purely man made regions. When something — or, if they're particularly deplorable, someone — is marked as her prey, she'll hunt them for days on end, enjoying the simple chase as much as the end like a cat playing with string.

On a deeper level when it comes to things like morality, Instinct is a pretty neutral individual. She believes in her own nature bound sense of honor — disliking thieves and cruel violence without purpose, leave other people and things alone when they're not bothering you in turn — and has a distaste for people who go against what she believes is proper behavior, but she doesn't go out of her way to punish anyone and isn't prone to judging. Though, people who are particularly monstrous she'll scorn in full and may even hunt them down.

She's very intelligent but incredibly narrow visioned; she hasn't really 'existed' in full for a little more than a year, and most of that year was spent being in danger or simply wandering, which is why she is so easily confused by other people. She's basically a newborn, in some ways, and will doubtlessly grow less and less narrow visioned the longer she journeys and experiences new things.

Finally she tends to be a very proud individual, which can lead to her making easy mistakes when she's not careful, and getting into fights she could have easily avoided. All the same, she's more prone to rolling her eyes at people than truly getting offended by anything.

Backstory:

Go check out my renaissance sign up to see who Armani Dove is. Instinct is basically his alter ego given form; when Armani was born, his connection to the wild and god half basically grew into a nature spirit on its own, forming another semi conscious body that inhabited his mind brain, acting as both his base instincts and his connection to Artemis. This spirit was Instinct, who for years guided her cub from behind the scenes as best she could through their crazy life together. She didn't make her presence known much, just giving him a helping hand every now and then while occasionally making wry comments to him about whatever horrible situation they managed to get themselves into.

Last season, she was ripped from his mind quite traumatically and forced into a body of her own. To say this was disturbing would be to put it mildly; suddenly, she wasn't just the distant hindbrain. Now she was all alone in the world, a sensation that was completely alien to someone who had lived her entire life having someone share her mind, terrified and lost. At the end of the season, she somehow wound up lost in the multiverse — don't ask how, the reasons were lost to the black hole that was S2's ending — and without the ability to track her way home.

In between seasons she has searched everywhere, for any kind of power that could return her to Armani. One had taken them from home, another had separated them; surely there could be another out there that could find him and reunite them, she thought. So she wandered, hoping against hope that one day soon she would find a power like that.

Then this shit happened.

Powers/Abilities:

• active power:
  • Arrow summoning: She retains the ability to summon moonlight arrows to herself, supernaturally sharp to the point of armor piercing and might even be able to hit targets only normally vulnerable to supernatural strikes. She doesn't have the ability to summon a bow to fit them though, so she employs them more for utility. She has a lot more control over them than Armani does; she can modify the size of them when she summons them, how sharp they are, and where on her body they manifest. Her main use of this ability has become using them to form claw-like constructs around her hands or feet, just as sharp and capable of ripping limbs off with a slight amount of effort. She can also control how sharp they are, which is useful for utility such as using her claws to climb up things or only moderately damaging a target.

  • Animal affinity and control: She can communicate with all animals of nature, and can exert control over them as well. The more intelligent the creature, the harder it is to simply force them to her will, and the more they simply are instinctive creatures the easier it is for her bind them to her commands.

  • Summon ethereal wolves: She can summon a small group of ethereal wolves to help her fight. They are supernaturally quick and strong (not to super levels, maybe twice as much as the normal wolf) and intelligent, but pop like balloons when struck. They're basically shadow clones. She can summon 4 at a time and has about 8 in total when they're all healed; after 'death', the wolves need a good half an hour to reform before she can summon them again.

  • Camouflage: she has the ability to camouflage herself, to varying degrees depending on where she is. Normally, she can take on the appearance of her surroundings and reduce her physical profile, seeming to sink somewhat into it. The refresh rate on the power is quick (IE it'll adjust itself when she moves) so she can move relatively slowly — up to a quick walk or a slow jog — without breaking the magic, but anything more than that and the ability can't keep up and she winds up looking like a weird conglomerate of images that make her stand out worse than she would than if she simply turned the ability off. When in a location filled to the brim with nature — a forest, a well maintained nature park, etc — the ability is less like solid snake and becomes more like the cloak from halo, nearly invisible except her outline which remains obscured but visible in the air, like a heat distortion.

  • Moonlight aura: She can generate a glowy white moonlight aura around herself, to a much larger degree than Armani's small aura. Or it just can leak out on its own if she's stressed. Great for lighting the place up at least. The lava lamp look is very distinctive.

• Passive abilities:
  • Heightened senses: Exactly what it says on the tin. She's got the smell of a bear, the hearing of a deer, the eyes of an eagle...though let it be said that this is also a rather big weakness; being in a sewage infested street forced her to sit down and focus her mind on ignoring it to avoid being incapacitated, and heaven knows what would happen if she caught the brunt of a flashbang.

  • Super strength, super speed: She's strong enough so that a full powered punch can send people flying back a good 20 feet (someone help me figure out how much force/pounds that is, I dunno), and she can run faster than 60 mph, unnerfed - buut her trip here has somehow made it so she can only go 40. Wonky tower physics, man, messing with her connection to nature. Her muscles are clocked so that she can physically move extremely quickly as well, up to bullet deflecting on the defense and on the offense attacking quick enough so that the normal person without any combat experience will have a hard time seeing it coming before it hits. Used to be damn near impossible for a normal person to react to her in time, before her powers began to leak subtly away. Now it's just really difficult.

  • Forest buffs: When in a forest, her speed gets increased considerably — going from 40 mph to a couple hundred — while her strength gets a more moderate boost, like an extra ton. Her abilities such as animal calling also get a much larger radius, making it difficult to confront her in one without getting swamped by wildlife. Also her stealth aptitude gets better, naturally finding ways and paths needed to help her keep herself unexposed.
    • Alas, the tower's wonky connections to nature have reduced her affinity and made it so she can only go 75 mph max in a forest, straight line speed. She'll just have to adjust

  • Forrest phasing: When moving through large sections of wildlife, she'll basically start jumping through space to reach the other end. Less like superspeed, more like the space of the wild will bend and allow her and people she's with through to the other side in a small amount of time.
    • Due to the stress it would put on her current body though, it's outside her ability to take anyone else with her, having just enough power to go herself.

  • Overclocked mental processing: Instinct processes her surroundings at a rate a normal human mind physically can't; it's definitely fast enough to let her perceive things like bullets and super speed-using opponents flying at her. Her mental reaction speed is far far faster than her actual physical speed, notably, so it isn't a perfect defense as at a certain point she can sense something but can't do anything about it. Seeing the battlefield in bullet time also helps her plot out her moves, which is mostly why she's a very good physical combatant since she can think quick enough to actually be helpful in the middle of a fight.

  • Enhanced bodily control: Being a spirit of instinct and of the unconscious mind, she has tight control over the small details of her body, capable of issuing orders normally only the unconscious mind could such as blocking out pain or slowing her heartrate.

  • Savvy instincts: Her combat instincts are top stuff, and what she mainly relies on in fights. She's not 'skilled' per se, it's just that her instincts are overclocked to where they can adapt to most opponents. This is the other half of what makes her top notch in melee combat, since she doesn't ever have to actively mentally process her next move. Also they tend to flare up like spider sense when something super dangerous is about to attack her in one hit kill fashion.

  • Fantastic agility: She's basically an action hero similar to Black Widow, capable dodging and jumping through a laser filled room like a spy movie. It's quite hard to make her lose her balance as well, even on a very bad and moving surface.

  • Enhanced durability: She's tougher than a normal person, and can take a lot heavier blows with much less injury. Not like actually hard skin or anything like that, just an overall very resilient body when it comes to resisting pure force.

  • Extremely good shot: Also exactly what it says. She's excellent at extremely long range shots if she has a long range weapon and quick on a snap shot, if she has anything she can make a shot with on hand. Maybe throwing coins or something.

  • Stealth apptitude: She's capable of moving extremely quietly, and instinctively has a knack for remaining unnoticed. Not really a power, just a skill.

  • Immunity to pathogens: She's immune, as it says, to disease and some poisons. Though magical diseases could test this.

  • Mental protection; She's capable of guarding her thoughts and mind so that foreign psychic attacks will have a very hard time breaking through. There are exceptions though; she's susceptible to things that are directly physically implanted instead of psychically probed.

  • Other random effects of her nature: While not really any powers about them, the fact that she's a spirit of nature, hunt, virginity, moon, fertility, childbirth, and...hill (that one is always kind of the odd one out) could have some strange effects on certain situations. Who knows what kind of shenanigans could be done with her fertility and childbirth affinities, for example. Not really anything to speak of, outside of shenanigans or from making NPC's who are part of these domains have a personal connection with her, maybe being able to predict the lunar cycle, etc etc small things like that.

Equipment:

She got some pretty dank shoes I guess. A hairband to help keep her long hair out of her face when she's on the move.

Why have they been picked to climb the tower?

Cause this was the only game left I didn't have a slot in, damnit. Also because once she learns of its purpose and what it can do for her, she'll risk everything if it means getting to the top, and her abilities and wits are enough to fight against the threats she'll face.

Trivia

• Like armani she has a phobia for the undead.
• She's pretty Asexual, though with a liiiiiiiittle bit of leeway since the physical body is more normal, though I expect her to stay that way.
• She speaks Greek and English

edited 6th Jul '16 3:54:42 PM by tvtropesnoob

Is it wrong that when I saw that she was lacking a bow, my first thought was "damn, I should have given Jeyrr more levels in carpentry"? I mean, he can make a bow, but not one that could withstand her draw strength. She'd just end up with a broken bow.

...I'll see myself out.

edited 5th Jul '16 1:37:04 PM by Anura

No u stay.

I tried to divvy her and armani's powers up. She's got better reflexes and nature powers, he's got better physical stats and general experience thanks to thor being a master of war. Also he has the indestructible god bow

You gave Armani the bow, but you didn't give Instinct sole access to the arrows? That's not what I call divvying up the powers.

Instinct looks good, for the most part, but her forest buffs are a bit too much, in particular her speed. I'm thinking no more than 75 mph in a straight line, less when turning. And the forest phasing also needs some nerfing, no warping the entire party the whole stretch of a large woodland area in one go and without cost. Could you possibly rework it with some quantifiable limits? Also, I'm okay with the vagueness of her divine domains, but I'll be expecting that you clear the various effects with the GM, Challenge GM and those otherwise affected in advance.

Editted that speed cap in.

Let's see...for the forest phasing...well one way we can have it is to set down a maximum of how much space they can cover per hour in terms of soft-teleporting around the place. Got any numbers in mind that sound nice? If it's small enough to where it ruins the point of travelling quicker in a forest, we might as well just get rid of it. Alternatively, nerfing it so that only she can do it and can't take others might present some opportunity.

Also lemme just point out that right now, her reflexes are good enough for bullet deflecting (if she has a sword to deflect with anyway, perhaps bullet 'jerk my limbs out of the way' is a better term). In case that wasn't clear, and in fact don't think it was so ahma go edit so that's clear

edited 5th Jul '16 3:20:24 PM by tvtropesnoob

Yeah, if you restrict forest-phasing to only her, then you can keep it the way it is. I was mainly just worrying about it being used for the whole party to bypass whole woodland areas in one go. And bullet deflection is okay, as long as its mainly limited to shots coming from the front. However heightened her senses are, I will call shenanigans if she starts blocking attacks that she can't pinpoint the location of.

Double-post, but sign-ups are now closed. SUs that are going through final edits will be accepted when edits are done, but we'll not be taking any new sign-ups before we start nearing the end of the first Challenge and the number of characters has decreased.

Took care of that there detail. All my sign ups are finally done, I can hop in at last

Also yeesh you ever gonna settle on one avie?

edited 6th Jul '16 7:39:34 PM by tvtropesnoob

'Also yeesh you ever gonna settle on one avie?'

Lemurian settling on an avatar is actually physically impossible.

Sorry about the delay, Instinct is Accepted. She will be added to the list of accepted characters right away.

And no, I'm not. I've decided to give all the avatars in my collection their time to shine, so I'll be cycling through them forever. And if I ever reach the end, I'll make some new ones.

edited 7th Jul '16 10:38:29 AM by Lemurian

I'm going to scribble some stuff I forgot into Shiroe's sign up sheet, using a different color. I'm adding in information about his Scribe ability, adding his Contract Art Ceremony ability, and writing in his Half-Alv race thing from his anime and attempting to explain that.

I'm writing it in a different color so that its easier to notice what's new and so I can take it out if needed.

Those changes look fine. But all uses of the Contract Art Ceremony will have to be approved in advance by GM and Challenge GM, because of it potentially being a Reality Warping power.

That's absolutely fine by me, I figured that was going to be where it would end up anyway. Thank you!

• Name: Chaika Bogdan
• Age: Presumably 14.
• Appearance: The Coffin Princess
• Universe: Coffin Princess Chaika
• Personality: Hot-headed and stubborn, Chaika is a very serious girl who rarely smiles. She does not care much about others and detests being touched. However, she is significantly more considerate towards those she considers appropiate, to the point where she may go as far as to surrender her own goals in order to secure her companions' well-being. She has some difficulty speaking due to her constant attempts to try to talk in a language she is not completely fluent in.
• Backstory: Chaika is the daughter of the late Emperor Arthur Gaz. After his death, she started her quest to gather her father's remains with the purpose of rebuilding his empire, as well as seeking revenge against his killers and those who betrayed the Empire. In order to do this, she hired David and Selma Kensworth to assist her, and together they have succeeded in securing one of the eight pieces.
• Powers/Abilities/Equipment:
  • Combat Abilities: Chaika is a skilled swordswoman and a very capable combatant even when unarmed. She is also unusually strong for someone her size and age, and has very quick reflexes.
  • Coffin: A relatively ordinary coffin Chaika carries with herself in order to store her father's remains, as well as other items she owns. It has wheels for easier transportation. Its contents include:
    • Snake Blade: A one-handed sword that can also be used as a whip. It is Chaika's weapon of choice, and one she is very proficient with.
    • Pouches with Silver Coins: Self-explanatory. Chaika is most definitely not poor.
    • Arthur Gaz's Right Forearm: The one remain of Arthur Gaz she has managed to recover from the hands of the Eight Heroes. It is encased in a resistant glass case filled with liquid. It is also a great source of magical energy.
• Why has she been picked to climb the Tower?: Chaika can be a dependable ally and a trustworthy companion, but first she has to be proven that her effort is not being wasted. Also, broken speech shenanigans.

• Name: Akatsuki (Shizuka Hanekura)
• Age: 20 years old (Born July 7)
• Appearance: Shiroe's Loyal Assassin
• 'Universe: Log Horizon
• Personality: A woman much smaller than her age, Akatsuki has very limited social abilities because her stature has made it nearly impossible for her to socialize with people her own age. This being noted, she's never been on a date or has had a really close friend. She also takes massive offense to comments against her height and is usually quick to retort at anyone that pokes fun at her size. A hard working woman by nature, she can almost be too serious at time and does not relax very easily. She considers Shiroe her Lord, since when the Apocalypse trapped everyone in the game, her game avatar was a tall male. This caused her trouble with her daily life and forced her to require a potion to change her appearance, which Shiroe provided her. Disgusted by perverts and fiercely loyal to Shiroe until the end, there's never a dull moment when she's around...and there's nothing she and Shiroe cannot achieve when working together. Sometimes she is plagued with low self-confidence in wondering if she can be any use to Shiroe, despite him usually telling her that he couldn't do it without her.
• Backstory: Always shorter than normal, Akatsuki has been primarily tormented by her height. Her younger sister is taller than her and often calls her the younger sister. Middle school kids have confessed to her. Desperate to overcome her height, she enrolled in kendo classes and began raising a dog, but her social skills were poor enough that it became clear she needed a job with less talking and more hands-on interaction. She became a college student in Shibuya and also began playing Elder Tale, eventually getting sucked into the game during an apocalyptic event in which all players suddenly woke up in the game world. When this occurred, she needed a potion to change her appearance because her avatar was so different from her real life body.
• Powers/Abilities/Equipment:
• Akatsuki is a high level Assassin, with a Tracker Subclass and an Overskill called Shadow Lurk. Assassins have the highest damage per second of all classes in Elder Tale, trackers can find players and enemies easily, and Shadow Lurk allows Akatsuki to duplicate herself...but she has to hold her breath.
• Her assassin abilities are:
  • Assassinate: A strong and quick attack unique to assassins that -if the enemy is weak enough- can result in instant death. With its in-game damage maxing out at 10,000 points, its a very powerful asset that Akatsuki uses very efficiently.
  • Stealth Blade: A strong ambush attack whose damage is best when used from behind. Short cooldown that can be taken advantage of in parties that can distract the enemies, as well as in conjunction with other skills.
  • Venom Strike: Coats Akatsuki's dagger in poison for a heavy strike, during which her dagger has a purple hue and she can inflict serious poisonous damage. If the enemy is poisoned, they take damage from this over time. However, since the apocalypse. Akstasuki's use of this skill is more rare because she would have to make the poison for her dagger herself and in Elder Tale, searching for those ingredients is considered prohibited.
  • Dark Vision: Allows the user to see into the darkness without the use of a light source.
  • Hide Walk: At a small energy cost, allows Akatsuki to dash into the enemy's blind spot to attack. This skill raises her hit rate and attack for the next attack she launches.
• Akatsuki's Tracker Subclass allows Akatsuki more ability to track friends, track foes, hide herself in the dark, and move more efficiently in said darkness. She can use this to almost completely erase her presence in order to move stealthily, primarily in shadows. This also increases her ability to hunt food or items, because she can move quieter and quicker.
• Akatsuki's Overskill (a skill being used in a way it wasn't intended in Elder Tale after the apocalypse) is called Shadow Lurk. Combining her tracker skills and holding her breath, Akatsuki is able to create duplicates of herself that attack in conjunction with her. However, if they are attacked, they disappear.
• Why have they been picked to climb the Tower?: Akatsuki has been selected to climb the tower in order to prove herself to be the best assassin she can possibly be. A feat that, if she can achieve it, will grant her a boost to her self confidence and allow her to better work alongside her Lord. This is a massive opportunity for her, and she will not squander it.