Son of the Sky:

Identity: Euranon. Successor of the "Emperor of Asia" position. Villain.

Powers and abilities: Euranon can transform into an Asian dragon as part of his heritage. To be more accurate, he transforms into a "Dragonoid", humanoid dragon. Dragonoid

• Superhuman strength, speed and endurance: In his dragon form, Euranon greatly increases his physical capabilities. He can stand toe to toe with most of the supers and lift cars with ease with these powers. Euranon can react well to attacks, but he can't dodge or block all of them. Also, he can take most attacks by hardening his scales (though this can be broken).

• Air magic: Flying and whirlwinds count as air magic. Euranon is a Dragon of Air, as such it's pretty clear why he has air magic at his disposal. Along with it, Euranon uses an air spear as another weapon. It is visible, but incredibly hard to distinguish during battles. And, most important of all, he can change weather (although it requires a great deal of concentration and power to do this).

• Bloodlust: The more enthalled he is in battle, stronger he becomes. However, there is a limit to how strong he can become, and he gradually loses his sanity using this power, being consumed by his desire for battle (and regains it off-battle)

Limitations: He can't transform into a full-fledged dragon, due to his inexperience.

Appearance: As a human, he looks like this. As a "Dragonoid", he has a smooth green scales, grows a beard and horns.

Personality: Euranon is an incredibly happy-go-lucky and positive person. Along with that, he enjoys fighting, as it gives him thrills (although it's not his only fun). Even when he is in considerable danger (for example, a room fully surrounded by monsters), Euranon would just laugh and enjoy the fight. He doesn't consider heroes (and other villains) as "enemies that must be destroyed", rather just people he can have fun with. The Son doesn't really care if this conquest fails, as long as he'll have fun during the process.

Backstory: Born as the son of the Emperor, Euranon was destined to become the next Emperor. But, he didn't really like the position he was in and tried to find all the excuses to not deal with the politic shenanigans. Foundation was the perfect opportunity for that. His purpose is to learn from his senior supervillains and assist them however he can.

Leitmotif: [1]

edited 3rd Jan '18 3:57:43 AM by kaalban

Everything that lives is designed to end.

Approved.

Manticore 4.0:

Identity: Manticore. Villain.

Powers:

Apex Predator: Manticore was created to be the Ultimate Weapon, an “Apex Predator". As such, it has heightened senses, super strength and super endurance. Along with that, it has healing factor. Worse? It Can Think

Weakness: However, he is susceptible to magic. And, he is beatable by those who have incredible super strength (someone like Stalwart, for example).

Appearance: 3 meter tall humanoid manticore.

Personality: Manticore 4.0 is very much a child in terms of mind. It loves playing with toys, reading children’s books and drawing scribbles… while laying waste to those it deems as dangerous. It is scared of the world, so it has to destroy it to rid itself of this crippling fear. The only person it trusts is Rourke, who is very much its father. Even besides Rourke, anyone who is willing to approach him and treat him kindly can become his friend… until Rourke orders Manticore 4.0 to kill that ‘friend’.

Backstory: Manticore 4.0 is a product of Rourke's quest to immortality. Professor was influenced by a mythical creature manticore, drawn to its strength and ferocity. Ever since this lab monster was born, it was always under the command of Professor Rourke.

Its simple childishness was Rourke’s design, since, if his creation was too intelligent, it would rise against its master. As such, its creator was able to convince Manticore that the world was its enemy and it needed to destroy it to survive. His purpose in the conquest is to act as the butcher of those who oppose the Foundation.

Note: it won’t kill anyone.

edited 3rd Jan '18 3:57:05 AM by kaalban

Everything that lives is designed to end.

Approved.

Friedrich Frankenstein

• Identity: Descendant of Victor, Mathilda, and Ludwig Frankenstein, cousin of Vittoria Frankenstein. Neutral: he has little interest in good or evil.

• Abilities:
  • Brilliant molecular biologist and a skilled medical doctor.

  • Above-average strength and durability. As a child, he was electrocuted, and all that it did to him was singe his hair.

  • Fluent in French and German, proficient in English.

• Appearance: A sharp-faced, slender European man with dark, curly hair and a pointed chin. Unusually pale and prone to missing meals and sleep. Wears a lot of black. Like, a lot.

• Personality: Friedrich is very aware of the legacy of the Frankenstein name, and he’s often frustrated by having to live up to it, which is why he left his initial study of molecular biology to get a medical degree. Awkward and prickly, Friedrich desperately wants to be normal even though on some level he knows it won’t make him happy. Friedrich loves science, but he’s afraid that that love is just something indoctrinated by his family and not genuinely his. In his dealings with Vittoria, he tries to be the sensible, moral one, and if nothing else, he does keep Vittoria from doing anything too questionable.

• Background:
  • Friedrich was born on the Frankenstein estate in Geneva twenty-something years ago. He was interested in science from a young age, encouraged by his parents, both of whom were scientists themselves. He was a shy boy, and his main relationship outside of his parents was his cousin Vittoria, even if it was mostly rivalry.

  • At the age of twelve, he began learning about his family history, and he didn’t react well to it. Embarrassed and ashamed, he tried to downplay his interest in science, causing a rift between him and everyone else in his family.

  • When he was in college, one of his parents’ experiments went wrong, causing an explosion that killed them both. Friedrich sold the Frankenstein estate and switched from molecular biology to pre-med.

  • Friedrich graduated early and joined a medical practice. He went to his job every day, he interacted with his coworkers regularly, he went on blind dates that always ended badly. He told himself that he was happy.

  • That was when Vittoria contacted him for the first time since he sold the Frankenstein estate. She was working on a project of her own, and she needed the help of someone versed in anatomy and molecular biology. Friedrich told himself that this was ridiculous, that he would be ridiculous to leave his life behind for something as unrealistic as what Vittoria wanted to do. He surprised himself by saying yes.

Vittoria Frankenstein

• Identity: Descendant of Victor, Mathilda, and Ludwig Frankenstein, cousin of Friedrich Frankenstein. “Frankenstein” is her mother’s maiden name; she legally changed it to from “Bernasconi” when she was eighteen to be closer to her family legacy. Morally ambiguous: purports to be neutral and will work for anyone if it furthers her interests.

• Abilities:
  • Brilliant chemist and biochemist; at least semi-proficient in anatomy, biology, genetics, nuclear physics, and botany.

  • Above-average strength and durability. She survived a car crash with little more than a few bruises and sprains.

  • Fluent in German and English, proficient in French, passable in Italian.

• Appearance: A stout, broad-shouldered, dark-haired European woman with a Roman nose and a ready smile. Rarely seen without her lab coat.

• Personality: Vittoria is a domineering, ambitious Mad Scientist with little regard for things like “public safety” or “respect” or “getting along with other people.” In contrast to Friedrich, Vittoria has no problem with the Frankenstein legacy, outside of her desire to be seen as brilliant in her own right and not just as a Frankenstein. Vittoria is proud: of her family history, of her own intellect, and just in general. She’s completely comfortable in her own skin - maybe too comfortable, since she’s not willing to change unless circumstances are extremely dire.

• Background:
  • Vittoria grew up in Grisons and spent winters at the Frankenstein ancestral home in Geneva. From a young age, she had a rivalry with her cousin Friedrich; while it often led to fights, Victoria later admitted that Friedrich is the closest thing she has to a friend.

  • When Vittoria was twelve, her parents went through a messy divorce. Her mother left the country, leaving Vittoria with her father, who stopped sending her to Geneva in the winter. Vittoria, in retaliation, began focusing on studying chemistry to the exclusion of all else. Then her mother drowned, and it became less a matter of revenge and more a matter of having something to live for, especially once her aunt and uncle died and Friedrich sold the Frankenstein estate.

  • Halfway through completing her master’s degree, Vittoria had a novel idea for her thesis: creating an entirely new lifeform. Her first few attempts got her expelled, but this only made her more determined. While she’s trying to perfect her creation, she’s been freelancing as a mad-scientist-for-hire. Recently, she contacted Friedrich for the first time in years, and the two of them have embarked on a somewhat shaky but surprisingly functional partnership.

Out of the darkness I will rise
Into the light I will dwell
I came to rule the world with muse in arms
I am the end of all sin
I am the stars in the sky
Death and rebirth in the Light
Alpha and Omega
Known throughout time

I am the god of the new world order
I am the chosen, the hero of light
I am the center, the heart of the Sun
Glory and fame, I am the one!

God-King

Stanley "Angelos Arthurian" Stephenson, Villain

Powers

Angelos, as he insists his name is, holds within himself an emanation of the Glorious Star, primary soul of The Light, The King and The Hero, also known as the Universal Empyrean, Heroine To All, King Of Everything, another living-narrative alien-god. This put Angelos in the same class of being as War Dragon and Dragoknight. His powers are tied to his virtues, his Courage, Conviction and Composure. Should he break one of these virtues, he will lose access to all associated abilities until such time as he atones for his actions with some over-the-top display. Of note, he’s not atoning to any entity, like the Star, who has no control of his powers, but to himself. It’s all tied up to his "Confidence", and should he lose that, he will lose everything.

Courage
Powers tied to his Courage will be lost should he show any sign of cowardice, such as backing down from a challenge or retreating from a fight. If Angelos can convince himself that a threat is beneath him, he can safely ignore it.

• Absolute Victory Meditation: Through ritual meditation upon the zenith of the sun, Angelos produces a number of "opportunities", abstract globules of pure good fortune. At any point until the next zenith of the sun, he may expend one of these opportunities to give himself a burst of positive probability, askewing things in his favor.
• Bravery Inspiring Presence: He generates an aura of inspiration, confidence and courage to any who believed themselves to be allied with him who can see him. Most will be made to believe that they simply find him THAT inspiring.
• Thousand Sunbeam Array: Angelos knows kung-fu. Well, he instinctively knows an eclectic collection of martial arts and weapon craft. Each move, each strike, each counter, every one is executed perfectly and without flaw.
• Rote Protagonism Strike: Upon defeating a foe, Angelos may "enlighten" them. He will reveal to them a simple truth; they do not matter. They are bit characters in HIS story. He is the main character, the Chosen One, the ONLY thing that matters in this universe. There was never any choice, never any chance they could possibly win because he is the HERO and the hero always wins. He will instill upon them this madness in the form of existential dread and watch as they are broken by it. (Should he lose this power due to an act of cowardice, those afflicted, who haven't otherwise been cured, will immediately see through the lie).
• Infinite Supernova Strength: If Angelos were to find himself in a contest of strength with another, be it tug of war or wrestling, where constantly physical contact is happening with -something-, (so not fisticuffs) he will always find himself an iota stronger than the strongest person he is contesting with. However, this can only happen IF he wasn't the one to engage the contest.
• Immaculate Sun-Soul Radiance: (Composure) Angelos shines with a radiance that makes him stand out in the dark like a goddamn lighthouse. He can repress this light, with focus. The light cuts through all forms of darkness and methods of obscuring vision, as well as eating away at illusions, phantasms and holograms. As a further bonus, it protects him from extreme temperatures.
  • Sky-Illuminating Sunfire Projection: By focusing his shining aura, he can project it as a beam of heat and light. Doing so causes him to lose the advantages of the aura as it is focused into a beam, but will snap back once he ceases.
    • Arms-Of-Heaven Mandala: Instead of a beam, he may focus his aura into more pairs of shining, glorious arms.

Conviction
Powers tied to his Conviction will be lost should he turn away from or lose confidence in his chosen path, not stand up for what he believes in and not do what he thinks is right. Even compromise threaten to weaken him.

• Corruption-Denying Integrity: Resistance (not immunity) to polymorphic effects. Yeah, oddly specific, but there it is.
• Unblemished Unity Of Mind And Spirit: And the far more usual mental resistance. This resistance is especially potent against attempts at generating or imposing fear.
• That Which Is Not The Light: Angelos counts as a holy symbol, bane to all creatures of damnations who balk at the presence of such images. All those whom belong to a group he specifically doesn't like or oppose his personal goals directly are also subject to this ability.
• The King Of Heroes Destiny: There are certain magics in the world which require a user to be "The Chosen One" or "The Rightful Heir" or "one who is worthy" or something like that. Angelos's is all of those things, all the time, or at least he has the power to make those powers treat him as such. It MIGHT also fool technological sorts, if their function is similar.
• Rightful Place Restoring Imperative: With a single utterance, Angelos may perform a banishing upon a creature not-of-this-plane and sent back to their origin of existence. Truly powerful "outsiders" will not be so affected, of course. Extraterrestrial aliens will feel a strong compulsion to leave Earth.
• Glorious Zenith Attitude: Angelos walks about with an aura of charm and charisma about him. His appearance draws attention, and not just cause he’s a glowing jerkwad, his word enamore and his will presses down upon the mind from every direction. This is a passive effect, easily ignored by the strong-willed and those who are aware of it, but a constant one that may even wear away at them.
• Heavenly Mandate Marking: Angelos may mark those swear fealty to them. It doesn’t rightfully matter if they meant it or not, his symbol will appear on their body, burning for an instant as if seared. Henceforth, should Angelos wish it or if the marked were to betray Angelos, that person will spontaneously combust. Angelos will be vaguely aware of such event.
• Heroic Panoply Entitlement: Another twisting of fate and probability. Angelos just tends to find cool stuff. He’s built up quite a little treasure hoard of legendary items.
  • Elsewhere In The Heavenly Vault: Angelos stores away those treasures by instinct in an extra dimensional pocket that technically does not exist. As of right now, he can only have three treasures he owns out at a time.
  • Megingjörð: Propels his strength to upper-mid tier.
  • Hagoromo: A feathered kimono of one of the tennin, it gives flight.
  • Shield Of Achilles: Conferred with some of the legendary hero's invulnerability.

  • Shamshir-e Zomorrodnegar: Enhances Angelos's magical resistance, causes wounds that are slow to heal and is especially handy against unholy creatures (and, while wielded by Angelos, anything else that falls under That Which Is Not The Light).
  • Dyrnwyn: Flaming sword. Can only be safely handled because of his The King Of Heroes Destiny. Otherwise, it would set him on fire.
  • Gáe Buide: The spear of Diarmuid Ua Duibhne, lesser to its brother but would inflict wounds that refused to heal.
  • "Sun Slayer": The bow of Houyi, a mythological Chinese archer. With it, is said he slew nine out of ten suns when they threatened to burn the world. Arrows shot from it, along with being unnaturally strong, fast and sharp, burn with a hellish cold anathema to celestial beings.

Composure
Power tied to this will be lost should his bodily integrity be compromised, be it he be badly damaged, sickened or poisoned, including partaking of poisons himself.

• Sun-Bronzed God King Physique: Angelos has transformed into his physical ideal. You’ll see what in Appearance. Suffice to say, he’s now a few leaps and bound above “Peak-Human”. Not by an order of a magnitude, but definitely a few multiples.
  • Endurance To Withstand The Throne Of Heaven: Angelos’s perfect body has greater resistance to harm, diseases, poisons and environmental extremes. He has yet to test it, but it doesn’t age either.
• Self-Made Miracle Authority: Angelos has some instinctual grasp of divine magic. It is limited to things having to with things like light, glory, power, nobility, holiness, stuff like that.
• Casual All-Encompassing Competence: Angelos will always be, at least, passably competent at any skill he attempts to use, so long as it is not outside his Light granted abilities or within normal human limits.
• Halo Of Ministerial Dominion: Any organization Angelos heads runs smoother under his command. Through twists of fortune and lightly telepathic-induced urgency, his orders are passed on without delay and obeyed without misinterpretation. This ONLY works if he is at the top, and will not function if there is anyone he might consider his superior.

Appearance

Appearance This. This fucking guy. It’s perfect, I love it. Just give him dark brown locks, brown eyes, tanned skin and, uh… I wanna say more clothes, but I also don’t. Maybe a small speedo. High leg, yessss. I’m gonna just not say anything about clothes, leave it at that. No jewelry though, definitely no piercings. Beforehand, he was a lot skinnier, paler. Not bad looking, per say, unless you asked him, but not a supermodel either. Just, average.

Personality

Xenophobic, narcissistic, self-entitled general jerk-ass. Even before he got his powers, he believed the world owed him and was out to get him. He especially blamed the "other", that other being people of other races, genders, nations, religions, ideologies, whatever the hell came to mind at the moment. As he is now, as he’s come to view the whole world as his domain, he instead turns his distaste to those things outside of this world and not of the human race.

Bio

The act that gave Stanley his power was actually pretty heroic, he stopped a mass shooter. Some poor mad kid of Arabic origin who didn’t know, or quite care, if he was doing this for Allah or because he actually hated Islam or maybe he was like Stanley, angry that he wasn’t on top of the fucking world already. Anyway, before this boy could open up on the crowd, including a small congregation of Muslims, Stanley charged him and saw the Light.

Fast-forward some years into the future. Angelos, as he calls himself now, has travelled the world, taking what he believes the world owes him, by charm, force or sheer, bloody luck. He went trawled through Europe, passed through the Middle-East and cut across Asia, stealing ancient relics as he went. He is now on the shit-list of none other than Thor Odinson, Hades, Houyi and the Celestial Court to name some divine wrath, the heirs of O'Dyna and Arsalan and the protectors of Britain's 131213 Treasures.

He came upon an isolated East-Asian nation of dragon worshippers that, recently, suffered a coup backed by outside influences to overthrow the royal family. He, Mighty Whitey that he was, helped topple the new regime and plopped himself down on the enchanted throne only the royal family could sit in. He has been in charge ever since.

edited 2nd Dec '17 4:50:17 PM by God_of_Awesome

The Sagavolcrix, Juika and Echtels

Xenos Non Grata

The Sagavolcrix

Alvarium animus

A human-like species with some insectile feature, such as scattered carapace on their frames and a second pair of huge multifaceted eyes in their brows. Their skin color ranges in the red spectrum, different ethnicities running the gamut of orange and rose. The carapace and bug-eyes will normally be the same color on a given individual, oddly enough having colors matching human eyes (brown, green, blue, etc), while their regular human-like eyes will match their skin.

A psionicly gifted race with the unique claim to fame in the galaxy that they are made of "individual hive minds". Individual minds will have several bodies, all of them female and birthing clones of each other. The life-span of these bodies matches the galactic standard until later generations begin suffering from genetic degradation, stretching the life-span of these minds far beyond said standard. "Sexual maturity" is reached when a breeding body is produced, a male or a female body geared for non-clone reproduction, depending on the gender of the mind. This will produce a body with its own individual mind that will, in time, birth more bodies for itself.

I am undecided on the matter of the effect of distance.

Besides the hive mind, the alien species identified as alvarium animus has a strong inclination towards psionic powers. When their race first entered Stage 2 Sociological Development, the species wide unity under a single government considered necessary before entering the galactic stage, their technology favored the discovery of a psychic realm for their FTL. This has become the norm for societies dominated by their species. Stage 3 Sociological Development, the post-FTL species disunity considered the norm after the wide open galaxy is discovered, led to a more militant break-away faction discovering a different method for FTL.

The Juika

Venenatus Magus

A sapient, alien species with a natural inclination towards magic. They're one of the few species that managed to achieve FTL without Stage 2 Unification. When the spell to reach the stars was discovered, it's metaphysically loud nature spelled the ritual across the firmament and was disseminated across the world in short time.

The venenatus magus are a humanoid race with the aquatic features of a cephalopod, though their race is amphibious. They've eyes larger than the norm and no outwardly protruding ears. They have "hair" in the form of a mass of tentacles, which can vary in thickness and form across ethnicities. They have extremely vivid and bright skin colors, the three main pigment matching the primary colors of light; red, green and blue. Few are purely of one color but tend toward one, with some hybrids taking towards a secondary color. A full hybrid will be a pale, near-white color and common lore among their various cultures state they descended from a common pitch black ancestor race.

The Echtels

Prudens Opifex

The echtels, the people of the planet Uxthon and the Uxthon Federation, or Uxthonians, represent a post-FTL Stage 2 civilization. This means that, for the most part, the entire species is still united under a single government and culture. They are the survivors of a terrible war they wrought upon themselves that nearly ended in their extinction. Instead, it ended in peace and unity, allowing them to turn to the stars.

They're a mammalian race covered in thick shaggy fur, looking like a cross between a bear and an orangutan. Their coat color range quite closely to our own, with browns, blacks, blondes and reds. Of note, most modern echtels sport copious amount of cybernetics and/or genetic modifications, so they will differ from the baseline.

The entire species are a species of Mr. Mad's, meaning they have displayed two distinct traits that nonetheless appear to be one. They can instinctually engineer machinery and the like, fabricating "gadgets" that work fine on their own. They refer to this as "natural science". Also, they can create thing that should not work but are allowed to by subtle or unsubtle tweaks to natural laws, fabricating fantastic "devices" with dubious reliability. They refer to this as "dark science".

A large portion of their culture is dedicated to the supression of this later ability. Everything an echtel makes is carefully tested, dismanted and rebuilt until as much device has been removed and only a "gadget" remains. This has made the progress of their technology erratic, advancing leaps and bounds in some fields and screeching to a halt in others for unpredictable periods of time.

If they so pleased to, they could fill in the gaps their intuition had yet to fill with "dark science", doing with the unreal what the real cannot yet. They don't, for it was the reckless use of "dark science" during the last great war that they blame for the near extinction of their species. It's this ingrained historical fear that had lead them to the suppression of their abilities.

Instead, they seek to use their abilities and technology wisely, not only for their betterment but for the betterment of the galaxy at large. They have a purpose in this galaxy, a place that must be carefully, nurtured until it blooms into a wonderful fruit bearing flower. Cautiously nurtured, lest their people be remembered as a blight upon the galaxy. They are all of one mind about this.

All of them.

No dissenters.

No'sirree.

The Invasion

Earth

A pre-FTL planet still within Stage I Disunity. It is considered valuable for its high volume of metabeings, high sapient population density and largely untapped background mystical radiation. Anyone who would seek to exploit one or more of these resources would be hard pressed to find a more prime target than this planet. As such, Earth was placed under the protection of the Galactic Commune. A security grid was placed just within the very edge of where the sun's gravity field severely reduced almost all forms of FTL. With a small fleet versed in delaying tactics stationed nearby, it was thought that there would sufficient time to respond to any invading force.

The Macrame Junta

A militant splinter culture of the sagavolcrix, the last vestige of the now defunct Applique Empire, that long ago achieved Stage 3 Disunifcation. The Macramians were a proud warrior race, unafraid to sacrifice a few of the spare bodies of their individual hive minds for the good of the state. They were one of those people who had a rather serious line of thinking that they were the destined rulers of the galaxy.

They had fallen on hard times, their influence upon the galactic stage was shrinking and their ability to support themselves was waning. In the midst of this unrest, a figure arose promising to return her people to glory. She rallied enough support and was able to ascend to the position of Supreme Commander. She made to do precisely as she had promised, with all the aggression and fervor that had won her the position in the first place.

She led the Junta from one disaster to another. She made war where even the militant minded Macramians would have sought peace. She brokered deals with powers that her people would have rather seen exterminated. The core of supporters remained strong, but her popularity waned around the edges and her dissenters began to gather momentum.

In desperation, she declared her plan to campaign against a thought-to-be-untouchable planet. The Junta would be able to exploit the meta-genetic potential of the natives, splice it into the Macramians and turn them into a species of super-beings that would ascend to their rightful place atop the galaxy. All of this would be done with the help of some choice allies. Some rather controversial allies.

The Void Consortium

The juika were an innately magical species from an age long ago that never managed to unite their people before they took off for the stars. Slipping between the cracks of competing nations and cultures were the dregs, the scums and rejects; pirates, terrorists, murderers and the fanatics of dark powers. Somehow they found solace in one another and didn't immediately implode into infighting. Over strange generations, they synthesized into their own culture, a roving band of exactly whom they descended from and practitioners of the foulest arts their species had ever conceived.

This was quite the unusual collection of the very worst a single species had ever had to offer and their continued presence was a blight upon the reputation of the rest of their species. With the aid of the Galactic Commune, the splintered species assembled an international task force, The Sufficient Trust. Over centuries, The Trust evolved into its own entity, existing apart from the nations of its species and dedicated to the cause of wiping the Consortium from existence.

The Void Consortium stylized themselves as businessmen but business had not been doing so good lately. The noose of the Sufficient Trust drew tighter every cycle and the flow of blood sacrifices grew dry. Though they could still slingshot their way around through the Setting of the Shadow and hide in pocket dimensions made from darkness, they increasingly found that was all they had.

They were contacted by the Supreme Commander of the Macrame Junta with a business opportunity. In exchange for the Consortium's aid, the Junta would secure an entire planet's worth of sapient lives as fodder for their blood soaked alters. The only reservation they had was that the meta-enhanced specimens be left to them and their other partner. The Consortium, desperate, agreed.

The Cult Of Najox

A secret society of echtels that believed the Uxthonian way of life was stiffling to the true potential of their species. They followed the supposed teachings of the disgraced and deceased Grand Meritor Najox The Plutocrat. They were adepts of the dark sciences, freely experimenting with engines of unreality fueled by their imaginations alone. The strongest of them ruled the rest with their indomitable inventions.

It became their goal to garner sufficient power and backing so that they might overthrow the Federation that fearfully crippled their people and lead them towards a glorious, unfettered future. Failing that, they'd settle for just being allowed to emerge from the shadows and establish themselves as an independent sovereign nation, beginning the echtels' shift in Stage III Disunification.

The Macrame Junta's Supreme Commander promised them this backing. In exchange, the Cult would collaborate with the Junta and the Consortium build their back door to Earth around the Commune's protection, supply the Junta with specialized weaponry during the invasion and afterwards collaborate with the Junta in adding the meta-genetic power of Earth's supers to the Macramians. It was this first and third task that especially interested the Cult, presenting them with an opportunity of reckless experimentation. Along with the promise of backing their future power grab, the Cult of Najox was drawn into the strange alliance.

The Invasion

By combining the Consortium's knowledge of dimensional jumping, the Junta's psychic mastery and the Cult's unreal technology, the world seeker engine was built. It would allow them to key in on the concentrated presence of sapient minds upon a densely populated planet and use those very minds as an anchor. Through this method, they could ignore the normal FTL disruptions caused by the gravity of a nearby star and portal directly onto the planet. The size of the portals limited the Junta to just ground troops, but it was decided that that would be enough.

The beginning stages of the invasion were performed undercover, via espionage. During that short period of time, TALOS fought a secret war they did not fully know the scope of. The Mystics Department was baffled by completely knew kinds of sorcery, the guys up in Technology couldn't make heads or tails of machinery that didn't seem to need to make sense and the people from Psi found themselves hampered by ancient minds.

What one must understand is the Junta, especially its leader at the time, were not really oriented for this kind of warfare. They acknowledged its necessity, but they were a proud warrior race, bred for the battlefield. Their allies were a secret cult of shady mad scientists and dark wizard space pirates, and they counselled for the cloak-and-dagger approach to be stretched on as long as possible.

The Junta rightly feared that dancing around like this risked the plot becoming uncovered and the element of surprise being lost. Besides, the primary goal, silencing the agents of the Commune, had been successful. To an extent, they were right, as TALOS was beginning to put the piece together and had been on the edge of blowing the lid off the whole thing. However, the Consortium and Cult's counselled patience may have been able to overcome that, but the Supreme Commander declared an end to this phase of the war and ordered the beginning of the invasion proper.

The Cult Of Najox withheld the direct support of their personnel from this stage of the war, but their strange machines made an appearance, often operated by a soldier of the Junta. The Macrame Junta operated as a proper military, portalling in on military and government targets for swift decapitating strikes. They through their bodies fearlessly into the fray, for each hive mind knew it had others to spare.

As for non-combatants, some of the Junta gunned down civilians as readily as enemy forces while others followed protocol and treated captured civilians and surrendering combatants with a modicum of decency. Largely, this reflected on how closely the unit in question were in line with the politics of the current Supreme Commander.

The Void Consortium, however, targeted civilian populations. They were pirates and raiders, and all the interested them was the taking of slaves and the terrorizing of the innocent. Here, they cut loose and finally were able to revel in the slaughter. Here, some Junta units finally got a good look and whom they had allied themselves with and could take no more of it. Sparse pockets of combat erupted between allies, holes in the offensive the defenders easily took advantage of.

TALOS had figured out the means by which the invaders were appearing on Earth and how to hijack these portals to take the fight to them. Mostly rallying around these points of "friendly fire", TALOS agents were able to recruit a number of crack commandos and mercenaries willing to fight for IOU's under the circumstance, heroes, anti-heroes and even villains willing to put their lives on the line for the greater good.

In the ensuing chaos, many different battles were fought, sacrifices were made. The Hunter sacrificed his free will to the Monster and tore nine kinds of Hell through the invaders. The bearer of the red crystal before the Red Child, an unknown up until that point, revealed himself and just as quickly disappeared again, dragging chunks of the invading forces with him into a paradox with his strange mastery over time. Dragoknight was convinced to relinquish his policy against killing and demonstrated the full wrath of the Conqueror. And seriously, where are all these robots coming from?

Somewhere in the world, there is the young elementary school boy who would become Amethyst. Elsewhere, the beautiful young boy who would transform into the Mongrel. The girl who had yet to manifest the powers that would mark her as Victus. They watched the television with rapt attention as the news babbled on about unknown parties attacking military bases and government seats. Some attention is being paid to a sudden surge in just the past hour alone of things stalking the shadows, rapidly disappearing civilians or messily butchering them, leaving police and heroes tied up trying to track them down. It's speculated that the two are related, especially when the unknown parties are spotted breaking from their initial attack and begin battling all manners of horrors that are suddenly revealed to be slithering through the cities.

The Void Consortium, feeling the heat as not a few super, military and even civvy forces begin to rally back at them with some success, prove unable to stomach protracted conflict. Crying foul at the rogue units of the Macrame Junta that turned against them, the Consortium withdraws its forces in the haphazard manner of their kind. Most of them, anyway. They also get set to backstabbing the Junta right back, pilfering some world seeking engines for themselves and capturing Junta citizens.

The Supreme Commander leads each front of the conflict personally, each of her bodies present to issue commands from her hive mind. One body is killed by a Consortium assassin, with an arcane poison that begins infecting the thoughts of her whole self. After that, the other fronts collapse one-by-one and in none of them to the defenders of Earth manage to take her prisoner, nor do they allow her to escape. The final fight takes places upon the Junta's fleet, parked just outside the boundaries of Earth's solar system, as close as possible before they portal in. Earth's counteroffensive involves a rampaging monstrosity empowered by the ur-rampaging monstrosity from before the dawn of time, so you know you're pretty fucked then.

Earth's defenders then fought the Junta upon their turf and the Macramians pushed that advantage to the hilt. These human boarders were repelled from most of the ships, including the flagship. However, unfortunately, very sad, the Supreme Commander's final body was slain during the battle. Mysteriously, she died on the bridge, which no border had managed to get to, with a burning hole in the back of her head.

Terribly wounded, crippled in some cases, and bereft of their allies, the Junta mounted an organized retreat. This retreat ended up smacking face first into a Star Corps fleet. It seemed TALOS had been able to smuggle at least one Commune agent to safety and at least one counteroffensive boarding had been a front to access the Junta's communication arrays and send a distress signal.

Aftermath

In all, the Invasion took place in under a week. The whole was a chaotic mess, for both sides really. For Earth, a mess of conflicting reports drowned each other out. Aliens was one of the bigger theories, especially with the joint TALOS-government's investigation afterwards looking a lot like a cover-up to some, lots of bodies and wreckage being taken away to god-knows-where. Of those who participated in the counteroffensive, many didn't know precisely who it was they fought, so quick and an anarchic had been the melees. A lot of them said "Aliens" though. Other conflicting accounts muddied the issue however, including TALOS "leaks" that cited a return of Fenris.

So, did Earth get invaded by aliens? Maybe, probably, most definitely but possibly not. It was definitely some organized force that struck all around the world simultaneous, with bizarre technology and abilities, and a dubious claim of humanity at best. Mutants? I bet it was those dirty metahumans, finally rising up and trying to overthrow humanity once and for all.

The new Supreme Commander took a stance of conciliation, and surrendered her people and government fully to the judgement of the Commune. Under heavy censure, occupation and dismantling, they endure a shame and supression that will last them for several of their very long generations. The Void Consortium disappeared into the shadows once more. However, so heavy a tip of their hands gave the Sufficient Trust some very good leads that tightens the noose around them ever more. The Cult Of Najox escaped mostly intact, losing only a little bit of their secrecy as knowledge the Junta revealed pointed in their direction but they covered their track well-enough.

Both the Cult and the Consortium managed to leave agent on Earth. The Cult has little interest in conquering the planet, but are highly interested in continuing the experiments set upon them by the Junta. They wish to see if the metagenetic potential of the native populace might be harvested for personal use. The Consortium doesn't precisely want to rule the planet, but they see the meaty center of an oyster they just learned how to slip past the shell of. Plans haven't been ironed out yet, between a second global invasion or periodic undercover raids or what, but the agents of the Consortium wait patiently, plotting and planting the seeds for whatever scheme.

Both parties are capable of waiting patiently, playing this game of cloak and dagger for a long time.

App.

Rov.

Ed.

Angra Mainyu

• Identity: Marah Ahriman, Villain, Secret Identity
• Abilities:
  • God of Darkness: As the rebirth of darkness, her body is as shadow, malleable into any form she desires, though always colored as the blackest night. She is like black mist, nigh unkillable, even spawning shadowy minions, which she can control remotely from across an entire city. Her main weakness, obviously, is light. But as long as darkness exists in the world, she can never truly be slain.
  • Verg Avesta: The simplest yet most potent curse of retribution to those who would harm her. Any who attack Angra Mainyu without extremely exceptional magical or mental resistance are afflicted with pain. They are not physically harmed, but the pain doesn't fade so long as they continue to fight her, and may eventually drive attackers mad. This pain is proportionate to the empathy the person possesses, making it more effective against those who are 'good' and 'just', but mostly worthless against psychopaths.
  • Realm of Void: An empty world of her own design, which she can access at will through her own shadowy body. She usually stores things within it, but she can also drag opponents into the void with her. Her strength is increased an order of magnitude within. Those caught in the void can escape, with great effort, by forcing their way out through her body.
  • All the World's Evils: A collection of 13 sacrificial knives forged from the hate that encompasses Angra Mainyu's soul. Though impossibly sharp, against living targets the blades do not strike flesh. Instead, they wedge inside and poison the spirit of those who cannot resist them, filling them with 'evil.' So long as the spirit-dagger remains imbedded in a person, that person will tend towards petty cruelty and spite, and will be unable to sympathize with others. Only the spiritually-attuned can actually see or remove the dagger once it has been placed inside a target. If destroyed, a dagger will reform within the void.
• Appearance: In her human guise, Marah is a dark-skinned, slender woman with black hair and eyes, covered in reddish-black tattoos of ancient cursed symbols from the neck down, and preferring formal dress. Her true form is a horned, humanoid shadow with glowing red eyes, upon which her markings now glow red and move about randomly as she changes shape.
• Personality: Haughty, yet refined. Marah looks down upon all humans and thinks of them as little more than toys, but she's clever enough to hide her full misanthropy so as to not alienate useful pawns. She's a very good liar, and can pretend to care for someone despite actively hating them so long as it fulfills her plans. She revels in her evilness, and has no concern for the lives of others, except where said lives would impact her own.
• Background: In a forgoten legend, it is said that in an ancient time a group of mystics lead by Zoroaster bound the source of all evils of the world into a human body, so that Ahura Mazda the creator could strike him down. But ages past, and along came an orphan, born with cursed blood and a heart full of hatred. The woman who raised her thought she had been the victim of a demonic ritual that scarred her flesh, and took pity on her. Marah always knew, deep down, that the symbols upon her body were those that marked her as evil. Though Ahura Mazda had once cast down and shattered the soul of the Darkness, it was reborn, and Angra Mainyu lived again. Accepting her place as the embodiment of evil itself, she resolved to one day reign over the Earth and Heavens alike, starting by getting into politics. However, as of right now, she's stuck in high school. She's making the most of it, though, and aims to take over the school as a test of her evil leadership abilities.

What is so amusing about this? Why do you take lives? How can you forget?

Accepted, but a note re: all god level characters. Remember that its up to the other players to decide if their characters are affected, and how. Thus no ability is infallible or irresistible.

Sapphire

Bailey Bernadette, anti-hero (adventuring murder-hobo)

Powers

ArashiBailey is a crystal bearer, with an organic crystalline structure growing through hisher body. This symbiotic organism, fully integrated with all hisher cells, cannibalizes energy from nearly any source it can. The energy has to be placid and passive, neither stored and stagnant or active and attacking. Mostly, "background radiation", solar, magnetic, heat & light, magic, etc.

The crystal is known to take the host's superhuman potential, any possible metagene(s), integrate that and evolve it through every possible permutation. Some people had a meta-potential that existed on a precipice between a dozen different directions and the crystal takes advantage of every single one. This is quite evident in Sapphire's seeming chimera of traits.

• Charging:She can gather and store energy to keep herself going for long periods of time or enhance her abilities further. This requires silence and stillness, concentration as she slowly pulls in and convert energy into whatever form the crystal symbiote uses.
• Energy Projection "Lightning/Lasers": Sapphire can project energy from her body, mostly her hands, in destructive blue beams or waves. When focused into tight beams, energy is converted into heat for thin, cutting lasers. When less focused, the energy acts a lot like electricity and mostly gives that off but is also lashing forks of heat and kinetic-like force.
• Telekinesis: Sapphire has that good ol', basic psychokinetic ability to move things with her mind. Unless she focuses on not doing it, her touch comes with an obvious blue glow. The power of her TK is stronger the closer to her it is to her, petering out to just normal human strength a few dozen meters away and gaining strength on an L curve. This leads to-
  • "TK Power Armor": Flight, (Nigh) Invulnerability, Super Strength, Super Speed, brought about by wrapping her body in a powerful telekinetic sheathe. This far outclasses her normal TK. This power isn't always on, not unless she wills it to.
• Esper: ESP, extra-sensory perception. Sapphire has a G.E.P., Generic Esper Package, a hodgepodge grab bag of foresight, farsight, precognition, empathy, telepathy, third sight and energy sensing. Each is weak on their own and have to be focused on to use but just one at a time can be amped up, blinding the others.
• Biokinetic Regeneration: She has a fairly speedy regeneration, but she has to think about it, focusing on the wounded area to mend and grow itself. When she does, blue electric sparks sizzle around the wound. She can also use this to supplement sustenance, allowing her to go on without eating, sleeping or breathing, and resist environmental extremities so long as she has the focus (and the the crystal has the energy).
  • Healing: If she's touching someone, and she focuses, she can lend them her own regenerative abilities and other benefits.
• Astral Projection: Exactly What It Says on the Tin. She can go for as long as she's comfortable leaving her body in a coma and she can't do it in place of sleep. She also can't Charge while she's at it. With focus, this projection may become visible and solid.
  • Emergency Projection: In case of massive, deadly trauma, Sapphire will emergency eject her consciousness from her body. In this form, she can channel her regenerative abilities to reconstitute her body to a condition suitable to house her consciousness, ie alive. To note: She's doesn't know she can do this because she hasn't been murdered before.

Appearance

Bio

~+~

Rubeus

Frederick "Frankenstein" Frankel, anti-hero (adventuring murder-hobo)

Powers

Frederick has the red crystal of Earth. Like all the others, it exploits every avenue of his metahuman potential and cannibalizes as much energy sources as it can to fuel these powers. In Frederick's case, the powers actually seemed to almost follow a theme rather than being a seemingly unrelated hodepodge of powers. Particularly, Frederick seems to resemble some kind of living construct.

• Density Shifting: The primary power Rubeus has displayed is density shifting, able to make himself lighter and softer to heavier and harder, giving him related amounts of super strength, up to upper-mid / lower-top tier at his heaviest. He can also do this to anything, or anyone, he touches, up to a certain volume (like five time his size, maybe?). One of his favored tactics is to go light and jump high in the air before going heavy and "goomba stomping" back down on the ground.
• Unliving Traits: Rubeus doesn't need to eat, sleep or breathe. He can survive and keep going past grievous harm so long as it doesn't compromise his structural integrity or destroy his brain.
• Reconstruction: Rubeus can regenerate from harm but he has to be manually put back together, usually himself. Stuffing organs back in his body, pinching wounds close, putting limbs back on and one time having his skull carefully reconstructed by a Sapphire who swears she wasn't crying because she thought he was dead. Lost mass must be replaced with suitable physical material, anything roughly approximating the composition of said material.
• Self-Geas: Like a golem with a command, it is difficult to turn Rubeus from his intended purpose. Rubeus may geas himself, placing commands in his mind that are ironclad and far harder for any telepath to break. As an unconscious telepathic glamour, people looking at him may see the list of commands he has given himself scrolling on his forehead.
• Reaction: His reaction times and sensory speed have been amplified to the point he can keep track of a mid-tier speedster and instantly harden himself in response to a speeding bullet touching his skin.

Before getting his powers, Fred was some kinda Renaissance Faire nerd, trained in the use of medieval weaponry and armor. His usual fair as a "superhero" is plate armor, sword and board. He also has an education in welding, smithing and general metallurgy. In particular, during his travels, he got his hands on some tough exotic metal, somewhat mystical, somewhat advanced

Appearance

Fred had ruddy, reddish brown hair before getting his powers and now he outright orange-red hair with a slightly earth tint. He's about 18, muscular, mid-height. His eyes have turned red and two red crystal spikes jut out of his temple like little devil horns.

His costume, namely his armor, and equipment are all of a black-colored metal, given a red tint whenever he extend his density shifting power to it all. This give it all a very menacing appearance, leaving some people to label him a villainous anti-hero out of aesthetic, when he really wants to be a knight in shining armor.

Personality

Rubeus has a blood lust and battle hunger that drives him to violence. It is tempered by a chivalric, sometimes archaic and somewhat vague code of honor and a general sense of decency. His heroic ideals are somewhat medieval: One does not let the bad guy just live. You kill him (hopefully a him) and take his stuff. Sometimes he gets pretty hammy and Shakespearean with his speech, especially in a fight. Outside of battle, he's humorless and unsmiling. Inside of battle, he's got a slasher grin on and jovial attitude.

On an unrelated note, he's gay, just a bit closeted about it. If confronted on the matter, he'll say he's a private individual and not at all ashamed. He's a little embarrassed though, and confused. It does make it very easy to live up to the chivalric ideal of "treat every lady like she were your sister".

Bio

However, his own ideals clashed with the restraints of normal superheroes and he left Emerald's tutelage alongside Sapphire. The two them struck out on their own to forge their own path, drawing a line in the sand with the blood of the wicked between the innocent and guilty. On the way, he would enrich himself, if that weren't a problem.

edited 3rd Dec '17 9:42:55 AM by God_of_Awesome

Approved, approved, approved, app-app-app-*brrzt!* (recording breaks down)

Concept: Emotion Manifestation. The Watchers.

Emotion Manifestation is a technique or a type of superpower discovered by The Owl. EM is a superpower that uses wielder's own emotions as source of power or energy. Powers are usually physical. Technically, any being with emotions have the potential to use this ability, but only some of them can use this power without any harmful consequences to mental health. So, it's a blatant copy of Emotional Sprctrum. Shame on you, kaalban. Shame on you.

Using a device created by Rourke called Emotion Manifeststion Unlocker, one can forcibly unlock this power. From what emotion this power draws from depends on the wielder.

After unlocking second emotion source, The Owl decided to create the army that had the same power as him. He called them the Watchers. Most of them use Rage and Will as their source of power, and they wear blue and red medieval knight-esque armor respective for their emotion source.

Current users:

• Joseph Stark AKA The Venom Dog

• Joseph Stark of Earth 66 AKA The Owl.

• The Watchers

Categorization of Emotions (courtesy of Lizard Of Aus):

• The Emotions of Relationships: The ups and downs of a passionate relation, ranging from lust to indifference, from submission to rivalry. Parallel to Goals.
  • Love, Loathing, Fear, Hope, Melancholy, Obsession, Apathy

• The Emotions of Gaining: The feelings that come to light when something is within our grasp, whether we're ambitious enough to take it, or apprehensive about how to tackle it. Parallel to Gifting.
  • Will, Serenity, Apathy.

• The Emotions of the Object: While we consider something to be a 'thing', do we covet it or reject it entirely? Parallel to the Future.
  • Obsession, Apathy.

• The Emotions of Approach: When something crops up before you, are you confident in facing it, or will it take you completely off-guard? Parallel to Faith.
  • Will, Fear

• The Emotions of the Self: How we look upon ourselves, in pride or in shame. Parallel to Society.
  • Loathing, Love, Apathy, Fear

• The Emotions of Passion: The fire in our hearts or the cold despair when meeting the world head on. Parallel to Community.
  • Melancholy, Love, Serenity''.

• The Emotions of Events: Our reaction to the very moment, be it celebratory, tragedy, or merely something to be endured. Parallel to Cathexis
  • Will, Melancholy, Serenity, Love, Apathy.

• The Emotions of Resistance: Whether we abstain in spite of ourselves, or reject with all our hearts. Parallel to Acceptance.
  • Serenity, Apathy, Will, Fear.

• The Emotions of Goals: The measure of how we deal with the passage of time between us and what we desire. Parallel to Relationships
  • Will, Apathy, Hope, Melancholy, Serenity

• The Emotions of Gifting: How we feel when we give to others, whether we wish to or not. Parallel to Gaining.
  • Love, Obsession, Fear

• The Emotions of the Future: How we react with things that lie ahead, be it hopefully, fearfully, despairingly or aggressively. Parallel to the Object.
  • Hope, Fear

• The Emotions of Faith: The feelings ignited from approaching the great unknown. Parallel to Approach.
  • Love, Fear, Melancholy

• The Emotions of Society: The emotions that decide how we interact with the world around us, be it welcoming and aiding others or walling oneself off and pushing all else away. Parallel to the Self.
  • Melancholy, Love, Loathing.

• The Emotions of Community: Those positive and negative emotions derived from interaction in a close-knit group. Parallel to Passion.
  • Loathing, Love, Melancholy, Obsession.

• The Emotions of Cathexis: All those feelings of love and loathing fixated around one target. Parallel to Events.
  • Obsession, Apathy

• The Emotions of Acceptance: Emotions derived from levels of enthusiasm in any activity. Parallel to Resistance.
  • Love, Serenity, Apathy.

List of emotional sources:

• Will: Those who wield the powers of Will wish to enforce their will upon the world, to change the world according to their philosophy or to acquire something. Usually those are either stalwart champions of justice or delusional fanatics. Will is the most stable of the sources after Serenity and Apathy.
  • Construct creation, physical augmentation, reality alteration (incredibly rare), indomitable will (very common), flight.

• Loathing: Loathing wielders are those who loathe some creation of the world, whether it be a particular person, a group, the whole world or themselves. Usually very much unstable, this power usually destroys the user at the end, as it is the manifestation of their rage and hatred. But, there are those who can manipulate Loathing to the degree it might be mistaken for Serenity.
  • Heavy weapon constructs, pain empowerment, life force (their own) empowerment, super strength, enhanced endurance.

• Fear: Fear wielders are afraid of something - an object, a person, a possible event, even themselves - wishing to put a stop to their fear. Despite that, they can never destroy their fears. While at first glance Fear might seem balanced, upon closer inspection it can be deduced tat the very nature of Fear is broken, as Fear is often irrational.
  • Construct of their own fears (usually weapons like chainsaw and knives), transformation into their fear (like spider, snake, bugs, monstrous versions of themselves), metamorphosis into others' fears, terrorizing (psychic attack that induces fear and terror into the minds of others)

• Love: Those who Love adore, like or even revere a particular creation of the universe, ranging from a lover, a whole humanity or themselves. In terms of stability, Love stands in the middle: while certainly not an Obsession level of chaos, it never reaches the serenity of Serenity. The more target of Love is to a particular object (a person, thing or themselves), the more unstable it becomes.
  • Empathy (being able to feel everything their target feels), healing (sacrificing their life-force to recover another's), empowering people they love (up to five people), defensive construct creation), resurrection (theoretically possible, but no one has this power).

• Obsession: THE most unstable source of all, Obsession stems from sick and twisted desires towards fixed object, concept or person. Obsession will consume the person permanently with no exceptions. It is speculated that Obsession is an unnatural emotional source, since Obsession is actually a twisted form of any other emotional source, except for Apathy. In other words, a person needs to have some source before acquiring this one.
  • Frenzy (losing one's sanity in exchange for incredible physical capabilities), mind control (if the obsession is towards a person), duplicate constructs.

• Hope: Hope is a desire that everything is going to fine in the end. It might be similar to Will, but whereas Will only affects the wielder, Hope wielders can also inspire or manipulate others. Among those who study EM, it is often argued whether this power needs to be called Hope or Ambition. Also, this source is one of the sources that can lead to Obsession incredibly easily.
  • Hope aura (aura that will dispel any kind of doubt), empowerment, unbreakable will and body (both to oneself and others), mind control, healing (less effective than Love and Serenity's healing).

• Serenity: Users of Serenity are balanced, peaceful and rational. While safe to use, it is rare and hard for a person to develop this emotional source, though not impossible. It is considered as the "perfect" emotional source, since there are no apparent flaws with this source.
  • Stopping time (impossible to gain, only theoretically possible), calming down being's mind to the point of non-hostility, taking away serenity from the mind, levitation, healing (less effective than Love's, but more than Hope's).

• Melancholy: Melancholy draws its power from either despair, guilt or sadness. Those who have it are not always sad, contrary to the belief. Rather, they trigger their genesis of sadness (trauma, guilt, loss) to activate their powers.
  • Melancholy aura (people nearby Melancholy user will feel a bit down), physical empowerment, personal space (some of them can create a pocket dimension of their own, but this one is a rare power), rot inducement.

• Apathy: This source is the most unorthodox of the emotional sources, as its moving factor is a lack of emotions. This source is the hardest to develop from all of the sources, even more so than Serenity. It is speculated that one needs to be completely dead inside so that this source can occur.
  • Psychic immunity, absence of pain, aura of emotional void, invisibility (as in erasing oneself completely from existence, then coming back).

Note: Not everyone with the same emotion source have the same powers. For example, one Rage character might only use heavy constructs, while the other might only have pain tolerance.

Note to players: This power is a free license power. It is to be used to anyone if one wishes. And yes, that list right above can be filled in with your ideas.

edited 17th Dec '17 7:14:56 AM by kaalban

Everything that lives is designed to end.

This is a bit too close to DC's Color Spectrum, but I might allow it as two separate effects: emotion-based powers (say, superstrength when angry) or solid imaginary constructs (fears, for example) The use of a power-granting devices is OK in both cases.

OK?

Kaalban, mother of micheal, PLEASE permit me to work my ideas into this. I've been extensively studying wikipedia for the classification and categorisations of emotions, and I have notes like you wouldn't believe.

OK. Made the change. Hope it works.

Of course. You're welcome.

edited 6th Dec '17 8:26:34 AM by kaalban

Everything that lives is designed to end.

Here ya go, Emily, apparently The Sirens' archnemesis?

Umber

Gabriella “Amber” Ursula Ness VI, Agent Of TALOS

Powers

Gabriella has become the host to an emanation of the Dark Wyrm, one of the top ranked souls of The Shadow, The Villain, The Vizier. She is a Living Mythos, like Dragoknight, War Dragon and God-King. This has opened access to her to the Four Shadowed Paths; Deception the Liar, Darkness the Thief, Death the Killer and Damnation the Demon. These paths intertwine with each other so thoroughly, however, that it’s often pointless to pick them apart and academic to everyone except Gabriella herself, who must navigate the paths to expand her abilities. All of these abilities work best under the cover of dark and suffer under the light of the sun. It should be noted that a few of these abilities already line-up with skills Gabriella had previously and only serve to enhance them, her natural abilities unhindered by weaknesses to light.

Like all of the Living Mythos, except War Dragon, whenever she uses her abilities, they announce their nature, etching their names into the minds of all witnesses. Mind, The Shadow's nature does his marvellous best to downplay this as much as possible, but it is also The Shadow's nature to screw himself over.

Until very recently, Gabriella has refused to walk down the Demon's Path. Since all the paths are intrinsically bound to one another, this has hampered her progress upon the other paths. It's only now that she has begun to see possible merit in taking the demon's path.

• Charming Tongue Technique: An ability from the Liar’s Path, she can give her words a slightly hypnotic tilt. The deception must begin with some grounding in reality, a half-truth or some twisted logic. It becomes less about getting someone to accept her statements, but to ignore the glaring holes in her arguments. IE, give some a dollar bill, convince them it’s $100 bill. It’s got the one there, see the one, it’s one and you know that 100 starts with a 1, it’s gotta be a $100 bill. Hey, ya, get in my car, your home’s real far away, I can give you a ride. Just ignore you don’t know me, just ignore you already got your own car, you need to use a car to get where you’re going, get in mine. This power is especially fragile to the touch of light.
• Where Darkness Waits: From the Thief’s Path, Gabriella has gained superspeed. Mostly good for locomotion, it can be used for tasks as well but suffers a bit at hand-eye coordination.
• Bump In The Night: Thief’s Path, more locomotive powers: Super jumping, climbing. TALOS training has included parkour for her, plus her general very active lifestyle before hand.
• Monster In The Dark: Killer’s Path. Super strength, reflexes, killer instinct. Gabriella is given a constant awareness of where the knife and your juggular is, for example, when this power is active. Plus claws, so that’s neat. This power is especially sensitive to light.
• Key Deception Speech: Of both the Thief and the Liar. If Gabriella has a reasonable facsimile of some lock’s key, mechanical, electronic, biometric, what-have-you, she may attempt to “convince” the lock that this key is the real thing. It takes a few moments of whispered conversation with an inanimate object, but upon completion the fake key will work.
  • False Competence Discourse: Edging closer to the Liar and possibly the Killer. Gabriella attempts to convince inanimate objects she knows how to use them, thereby getting these items to do what she wants.
• Creating Shadows From The Shape Of Light: Demon's Path. This is a risky ability to use; at a glance, Gabriella creates a personalized demon for someone and allows it to partially possess her. This demon wants for nothing more to destroys that person's hopes and dreams and as Gabriella struggles against its compulsions she becomes aware of the targets motivations and goals. She may excorcise herself at anytime, but it takes time to become intimate with the demon, and therefore the target.
  • Gazing Into The Abyssal Mirror: A more powerful version of the above, from which Gabriella upgrades from "what" to "how". This far more potent demon she conjures into herself not only knows what the intended target wants and holds dear, but exactly how, in the best way, to take those things from them. Gabriella is reticent to do so, because it imposes an even more malevolent monomania upon her.
• A Face In The Dark: Liar’s Path. Gabriella may make a disguise made of shadows and lies. Those who look upon her will be convinced she is who she is pretending to be, even under various types of scrutiny, be it magical, psychic or technological. However, like all lies, it will fail once put to the test and the simple physical tests, like weight or human touch, will give to the lies of the disguise and it will begin to break when that happens.
  • Betraying Backstab Strike: Also partaking of the Killer’s Path. If Gabriella strikes a surprise attack to someone while wearing the face of someone they trust, so long as they can look to see her right after, the feeling of betrayal will manifest as a literal poison in the wound. This poison might only knock someone out if delivered without killing intent. Partaking of the Demon's Path, the poison is a constantly cloying thing that slowly undercuts the trust someone has in the person whom's face Gabriella wore, even if the truth is revealed.
• Golden Years Tarnished Black: Of the Demon's Path. Gabriella may reach into the mind of another and find their cherished and positive memories. The Shadow's venom poisons these memories, tainting, twisting and desecrating them so their emotional context is changed to something negative and unwanted.
• Shadow Clone Technique: Another of the Liar’s Path. Like the above ability, it is made of shadows and lies and will not survive direct physical contact.
  • Deceiving Death Itself: A specialized ritual conducted in a place untouched by the light for a year. 12 hours long, from noon to midnight, Gabriella works. No one may observe for this time, and occlusion field shrouds the area in dark impervious to spying and scrying. At the end of it, the expensive reagents are consumed and the area used now has too many eyes on it to be of use for another year. Two Gabriella's emerge, one is a clone made of shadows and lies so well constructed that even the universe is fooled. If one were to die, it will always turn out to have been the clone.
• Probability Violating Shade: Demon's path. Gabriella casts a dark shadow over the surrounding area within her sight and it becomes subject to an entropic pall. Essentially, bad luck. However, it is The Shadow's nature to defeat even himself, and Gabriella is as much subject to this misfortune as anyone else.
• Dark Thoughts Meditation: Liar’s Path. Mental protection. It obfuscates mind-reading with false information and mental control is rules lawyered to death. This enhances TALOS mental training, which she must rely on in the sunlight.
• Shadow Born Steel Blades: Killer’s Path. In a pinch, Gabriella may pull blades or cudgels made of inky black out of her shadow or nearby darkness.
• Hidden In A Dark Void: Thief & Killer’s Path. Gabriella may store things in a pocket dimension, using shadows and darkness as portals. It must be something she can, at least, push with her hands, better yet lift. She keeps a motorcycle in there, as well as a small arsenal and general cache of goods she might need on the go. Further, she can hide herself in there.
• Still As Silent Nights: Thief’s Path. By only moving very slowly or, better yet, staying still, Gabriella may render herself invisible.
• Cloak Of Shadows: Thief’s Path. Gabriella becomes harder to precisely see and pinpoint in the dark as she raises a swirling vortex of shadows around herself. However, this would give away her presence in general, so it’s a move used once already spotted.
• Shady Evidence Argument: Liar’s Path. Gabriella may create certain objects out of shadows and lies. They cannot have any functioning purpose except for convincing people of a lie, like seals, document, the like. If somebody who knows the truth proclaims that these things are falsified forgeries, than the objects will indeed shatter under the force of the truth and noticeably explode into multicolored wisps and shards, alerting everyone to “Hey, that’s suspicious.” Her own experience, plus TALOS training has made her less reliant on this ability, especially given how fragile it is.
• Thaum-Snarling Deception: Of the Thief and Liar's Path. As long as she is aware of the onlooker and the method by which they sense her, Gabriella may cloak herself from supernatural senses or even send out false signals.
• Total Shadow Jump: Thief’s Path. Gabriella may teleport between places of nigh absolute darkness.
• Witness To Darkness: Thief’s Path. Speaking of absolute darkness, Gabriella can see just fine in it. Whenever she activates this ability, her eyes glow red.
• Consumed By The Night: Killer’s Path. Anyone she’s killed, Gabriella may have their body immolated by black fire, leaving no physical traces. If she’s merely knocked them out, she may have them stored in a pocket dimension, but only at night. They will reappear at sunrise having suffered from truly hellish nightmares.
• Becoming Shadows Shintai: [LOCKED] Of the Thief’s Path, Gabriella will become a living shadow, permanently, should she take this ability. She will become completely invisible, intangible and flight powered at-will in darkness, but the touch of the sun’s kiss will destroy her (clothes will not help). Every time she uses abilities of the Thief’s Path, she feels the call of this power, tempting her. This is the same thing with the other Shintai.
• Lying Tongue Shintai: [LOCKED] Of the Liar’s Path. Everything Gabriella says, people will be immediately inclined to believe. However, if she ever speaks the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, she will die.
• Living Abhorrence Shintai: [LOCKED] Of the Killer’s Path. Gabriella will gain the ability to kill at a glance. Downside is she must kill everyday or else die herself.
• Ultimate Antithesis Apotheosis Shintai: [LOCKED] Of the Demon's Path. Gabriella permanently transforms into a shapeshifting master of darkness. The only form she may take is a copy of someone else around her, with all their powers, abilities and skills, as well as her own, and a monomaniacal need to destroy everything they hold dear, as well as a plan on how to do exactly that.
• Powers Born Of Darkness: Gabriella has an instinctual grasp of some magic, so long as it is themed with Deception, Darkness, Death and Damnation. Which Path it touches upon depends. TALOS mystic training has been applied to her.
• Dancing Shadows Style: Gabriella has an instinctual grasp of a martial art that incorporates aspects of all four paths; feints, cheats, sadism, stealth, a willingness to use every dirty trick to make sure your opponent dies as painfully as possible.
  • TALOS/Personal Training: Gabriella's past experience has given her a good grasp of tactics, weapon usage and all the things a homegrown vigilante terrorist needs. TALOS has emphasized non-lethal takedowns, but these remain tainted by The Shadow's need to hurt and humiliate.
• Wickedness Beyond Life: A peculiar book-keeping kind of ability. This allows her to overcome any immunity the undead or otherwise non-living may have to her various abilities.

Appearance

Personality

Bio

Gabriella VI is the descendant of the sister to the WWII French heroine of the same name, the Arms Mistress (And a dozen other epithets). Gabriella grew up believing that she would have to live up to her ancestress's legacy. She set-out then with good intentions, and you know what they say about good intentions.

edited 6th Dec '17 7:02:35 PM by God_of_Awesome

Ruki

• Identity: Artyom Nikolayev, Villain, no secret identity.
• Abilities:
  • Tenevyye Ruki (Shadow Hands): Artyom has the absolutely bizarre and disturbing ability of sprouting up to 50 hands from any surface with suitable space, even himself. He can only sprout hands from a radius of 20 metres. The hands are black with rot, and each one has a single, purple-tinged glowing eye in the centre of the palm. The hands are fully functional and are mentally connected to Artyom within range, and can extend up to the elbow from the surface they're attached to. If the hand is detached or destroyed, Artyom can no longer access it, however it will constantly emanate a faint high-pitched tone unless the eye is destroyed.
  • Glaza Tenevykh Ruk (Eyes of the Shadow Hands): While in the radius of control, Artyom can see out of any one of his active hands through the eye on the palm, having the effect of a security camera. However, he can only access one at a time, and if the hand he connected to is cut off from the wall it will forcefully disconnect him and give him a violent spasm of mental pain in the process.
  • Pesnya Tenevykh Ruk (Song of the Shadow Hands): The most dangerous ability of the hands is their singing, which emanates from the eyes. The songs are usually in the style of opera with a range that extends way beyond the limitations of human ability, and can go up to 137 db, causing excruciating pain to those in close range. Prolonged exposure could cause loss of consciousness of those in close range. The singing voices of the hands sound androgynous due to their high pitch.
• Appearance: Not... really worth linking an image, is it?◊ Exactly 6"0 tall, and his face is always obscured in shadow. His actual hands are black with rot like his others, and share the same eyes and abilities, including the sight. Not that that's necessary.
• Personality: Due to his nature as both The Stoic and The Speechless, it is very difficult to read Artyom's emotions initially. However, it becomes quickly apparent that he finds comfort and simple joy in typically childish things, such as amusement parks, candies, and cartoons. Truthfully, under his silence, he is a traumatized and depressed little boy in an adult's body that only wants to achieve his dream; to sing opera. As such, he despises his powers, feeling as if they are mocking him with their singing that he can now never achieve with his own voice. However, he understands that he can never hope to use his real voice, and so he still uses his "fake" singing in an attempt to fill the void left behind, creating an endless cycle of depression. Artyom feels detached morally, (with the exception of harm against young children) making him an excellent villain-for-hire as he follows orders without qualms.
• Backstory: Not much is known about Artyom's background, due to a combination of his silence and his own repressed memories. But the information he does share (that is, through the use of a notebook) reveals that he was born in Kazakhstan in 1989. According to him, something traumatizing happened to him when he was around 8 years of age, leaving him with no voice, separated from his family, and a pair of purple eyes on his now disgustingly rotten hands. This destroyed his life's dream of singing opera, and he fell into a deep depression and despair. However, after discovering his ability to mimic singing with these hands, he snapped due to the cruel irony of the situation and turned to a wandering life of crime and mercenary work, finding any excuse to fulfill his lifelong dream even if it was through fighting. His wandering led him to Easton, where he inwardly hopes in his broken mind that the high superhuman population would be more willing to accept his unconventional songs.
• Leitmotif: Opera 2

edited 10th Dec '17 3:19:48 AM by Enirboreh

bork

Submitting characters is a slippery slope for me, but making them is fun. I'm bringing the Virtues back, although like with Omnitech, I haven't really transposed the concept post yet.

Identity: Sol. Also known as The Lightbringer.

Alignment: Villain.

Secret Identity: Eguzki, Virtue of Leadership.

Powers & Abilities:

• Emperor of the Sun - The host of Sol bears the aura of true authority. They stand out even when trying to mingle in a crowd, and most mortals will never think to ask them for identification or somesuch.
• The Neverending Legion - The Virtue of Leadership is capable of summoning forth soldiers to follow the commands of the host. Although raising a true army takes time, individual formations can be brought forth in combat without any true strain.
• Decree of the Heavens - The host of the Virtue of Leadership bears a voice that carries an undeniable decree. All but the strongest of wills find themselves kneeling in service to their commands, although the blazing influence wears off rapidly once the host leaves. In addition, the command must generally be short and to the point, such as "kneel" or "slay him".
• The Virtuous Path - When a Virtue's host is defeated or it is exorcised, the Virtue is banished back to the realm from whence it came, awaiting the day it is summoned (or escapes) once again.

Weaknesses:

• Burden of Ozymandias - The host's confidence may never waver; although campaigns may go south, and retreats may be in order, to question their worth as a leader would begin the cycle of decay for their empire. Should they ever believe themselves unworthy, contact with Sol will be cut temporarily, and their own soldiers' unshakable will is compromised, making it possible to turn their armies against them.
• The Commander's Duty - If the host ever is knocked unconscious, slain, or similar, all their soldiers will stop their current actions to form up once more before freezing in place as stone statues. Only with the reawakening of the Virtue of Leadership will the soldiers rise again to serve their master.

Description: The Virtue of Leadership◊ takes the form of what looks like an angel made of searing light. Its current host is a 1.68m tall 23-year-old woman with long, red hair and hazel eyes that belie an ambitious and calculating mind. Blue jeans, red jacket, faded olive t-shirt, sneakers. Not exactly the regal costume, but they stopped making those a while ago.

Personality: As with all Virtues, The Lightbringer's personality is one-dimensional, wishing only to expand its power, and occasionally diminish those of its rivals as the dynamic between Virtues changes.

Background: Originally inhabiting multiple dynasties in ancient China, Sol quickly tired of its relative lack of challenge. After a boring run among the CEOs of many organisations and the ambitious barons of many soon-to-be-kingdoms, it decided that the reason for its lack of satisfaction was that although it was aiding its hosts in achieving their goals before death, their goals weren't enough (something its compatriots agreed with in their own fields). Recently, it has been attempting to establish a new nation followed by a world government under the rule of its current host, one Stephanie Finlay, who may have gone a little overboard with the occult research.

Leitmotif, since we're doing that now: Emperor of the Sun.

---

I considered asking another player to play the host, but in practice that'd get slow, and I don't want a repeat of when I tried to do that dynamic with Labyrinth (although if anybody is insane enough to want to have a Virtue in their head, my metaphorical door is always open).

Also, I hereby state my intent to eventually figure out how to give anthropomorphic personifications of human emotion actual personality and backstory. Maybe I should go back over the Death line of Discworld books.

edited 19th Feb '18 2:40:47 PM by Mistfader

Identity: The Replacement of Mankind (RoM) (villain)

Abilities: •Powers

- Super Strength - He is a robot, after all. He could probably lift a car with relative ease.

-Twitch Reflexes - Another advantage to being mechanical is that his reflexes are phenomenal. He can react the second he sees something coming.

-Pain Resistant - To him, pain is just info, not real pain.

-Analytic - He can scan things for weaknesses and access the internet in his head for basic knowledge on a lot of subjects.

•Weaknesses

-Vanity - He's a proud specimen who, while he does like efficiency, also highly values the aesthetic and beauty of design. His weapons tend to be flashy but not as efficient as they could be, and his wooden body, while it has its advantages, is not as tough as steel (though it's certainly more visually appealing).

-Reproductive Tendencies - He will, as his purpose states, ignore other goals to create more robots. While, for whatever reason, he does not have his own blueprints or designs, he still seeks to create vague copies of himself. This keeps him from achieving other goals (except possibly his replacement of humanity).

•Skills

- His top area of expertise is machinery and putting it together, allowing him to create his own equipment and create other robots.

•Equipment

- The Brightlight - it's basically an assault rifle with an outwardly wooden appearance, with a few streaks of gold. It also has an extremely bright strobe light on the the scope to disorient enemies.

-Baton - A wooden baton with a steel center. Very tough, and combined with RoM's super strength, a formidable weapon.

Appearance: He is humanoid, but also obviously not human. He is made of a dark brown wood, and his joints are steel. Inside he's all machinery, of course. Outside he's a surprisingly slim figure, with almost no stand out features. He has no nose nor ears, hair, or mouth. His eyes are perfectly round and bright white. He speaks with an imbedded speaker not visible from the outside.

Personality: He's a singleminded 'man', with an intent on replacing humanity with copies of himself. The biggest problems with this are that humanity is rather resistant to being replaced and that RoM doesn't actually have his own blueprints, so he is sort of making stuff up on the go and hoping he creates a perfect copy one day. Besides that, he's proud and rather vain, thinking himself far better than mankind. He also likes to be dramatic, as he enjoys leaving an impression. He's menacing, and quite violent when he needs to be, but his singular purpose is to replace mankind as the superior species, not to necessarily kill them.

Background: RoM was created by Dr. Sollus, a brilliant engineer who believed humanity was too flawed to function properly and believed it could be replaced by robots, who would be far more efficient. However, he programmed the robot with a mind similar to Sollus's own, making it vain and flashy. Before he could finish downloading all the necessary knowledge into RoM's mind, a police raid happened on Sollus's property, and Sollus activated RoM early, setting him loose on mankind. Sollus escaped easily, and has been since prowling around in search for the perfect materials to make his siblings with.

edited 6th Dec '17 12:30:24 PM by Kepler-7

Re: Umber- Nice concept, but way too many powers. You'll have to save part of them for later development, or nerf her in some way so she cannot access all of them at will.

Ruki, Sol and Replacement of Mankind are approved.

Concept: TALOS

TALOS is the United Nations' anti-terrorist force, specialized in dealing with hi-technology threats. It was created by the ONU's Security Council in the 1950s mainly as a response to FENRIS.

Its main headquarters is located in Switzerland but it has bases in every UN member country including the United States. The one in the US is located somewhere between Easton and Washington DC.

All TALOS personel has diplomatic immunity. That means they cannot be arrested for any violation of the law they might commit. Conversely, they cannot arrest anybody and must surrender any prisoners to the local government if demanded. TALOS' relationship with the American government has had its up and its downs -many resent their presence in American soil- but few can deny their aid is often necessary.

TALOS employs the best agents and technology available, including several supers. Its still not up there with the best scientific minds in the world or the most powerful super-teams; what it does have however, is numbers and an unwavering loyalty to their mission on their side.

TALOS agents wear navy-blue skintight uniforms with a badge in the form of a golden Greek warrior.

Any PC can be connected to TALOS (assuming they meet their standards). Conversely, TALOS leaves most villains to superheroes unless they are really dangerous.

edited 6th Dec '17 4:14:43 PM by Sijo

Alrighty, cut down Umber's powers to everything she had last game +2.

Approved now.