Mausoleum II: Stairdancing The Multiverse - Or; Yet Another Stupid Crossover

After clarifications and edits, Kalea is accepted. Welcome to the party!

'Being around you guys makes me go "wtf" instead of pondering the ever increasing dread of time' - EchoingSilence, 2023

After a long discussion with Troy, I'm thinking of dropping Girimehkala at some point in the near future for reasons of general flatness of personality - turns out the whole cowboy pastiche pulp schtick works a lot better in a pen and paper setting where it doesn't have to be reestablished each post. Besides, there's only so many spaghetti western cliches I can cycle through to cover the cracks.

As such here's his boss, who has none of cowboy stuff getting in the way of his dumb Hindu schtick.

• Name: Charvaka, the Grand Delusion.
• Age: Long enough he's stopped bothering to count.
• Species, Sex, Place of Origin: Nominally male Rakshasa immortal from one of Golarian's districts of potentiality. As with Girimehkala, a Rakshasa is a king of ontological tumour birthed by a soul refusing to reincarnate property - a Rakshasa immortal is the god spat out when the tumour finally bursts.
• Appearance: Spoopy tiger man with backwards hands.
• Party Niche: Loremaster and Utility Mage, primarily useful for dealing with profound displays of cosmological bullshit.
• Powers and Abilities:
  • Being a Meaty Puppet-Avatar: Charvaka's body is a vessel into which he's manifesting from several realities over, constructed from available local flesh and pressed into the appropriate shape. As such he boasts impressive magical resistance and is capable of various feats of shapeshifting, but cannot violate conservation of mass and take forms smaller or larger than original. As a shallow facsimile his body is slightly less durable on the structural level than a human body, and although lacking in vital organs cannot heal by any method - once the damage gets to that level, building a new body is simply less effort. He is supremely vulnerable to exorcism.
    • Although Charvaka is able to amplify his vessel's strength, doing so has predictable affects on his tendons, muscles, and bones - he could theoretically send his vessel's fist through an oak door, but he wouldn't have a hand afterwards. As such, at close range he relies on the natural advantage of teeth and claws combined with as much cheating as he can fathom. Similarly, he's a talented swordsman of the swashbuckling variety who finds himself most at home stabbing the person he just tripped up through the crotch.
  • Will to Power: By invoking his authority and abusing the systems of reality for fun and profit, Charvaka is able to manifest influence over the world around him. This influence bleeds away dramatically with distance, terminating at around seven metres or about 22 feet. For reasons of ａｅｓｔｈｅｔｉｃ, this manifests in terms of the five classical elements of Hindu tradition.
    • Air, Water, Fire, and Earth: He's an elementally-themed conjurer, of the kind I don't think anyone anywhere is unfamiliar with. Hits you with that good fireball, makes it rain a little in his immediate area, gets real jiggy with excessively localised and honestly very shitty earthquakes, makes you mildly uncomfortable with a light breeze. As is going to become a running theme, specific manifestations of these abilities will be accompanied by justification for how they work and be subject to Troy's overwhelming power of veto, especially when we're violating conservation of energy.
    • The Good Shit: Space: Charvaka is able to translocate, replicate (within reason) and compress (within even stricter reason) the geometry of the material universe around him - as the most fundamental tool in his playbook this one also has the sharpest dropoff and finds most of its application on his mortal vessel. Charvaka's charming flesh puppet is able to levitate, walk up walls or on the ceiling (basically the same trick), and teleport himself and objects near to him along short distances no greater than his maximum effective range. This also has limited utility when it comes to healing other characters, by copying/pasting healthy flesh over the wound or transferring the damage to a nearby wall - he could theoretically generate new flesh, but in Hindu tradition the body is composed of all five elements and as such this would logically take longer than is strictly viable in an emergency. Troy can expect sixteen essays per post.
  • Weird Old Guy Cred: Charvaka is both profoundly well-read and privy to vastly higher orders of gossip than those thinking on the mortal plane are able to access. As such, he knows a thing or two about the fundamental workings of reality and vastly more about useless apocrypha and forbidden memery. He's the guy rolling the knowledge checks, essentially.
• Equipment:
  • Generally speaking, Charvaka will manifest with an ornate but otherwise mundane swordcane, a pipe, and a healthy supply of opium. His clothes are more luxurious than you can imagine and his hat took more man-hours to produce than the space shuttle.
• Personality: Charvaka is an eccentric among a species defined by its fierce heterodoxy, an empirical idealist who has rejected the notion of objectivity in its entirety and holds unconditional inference to be the lowest form of reason. His ambitions are petty and mindless, his whims as fickle as the breeze, and his capacity for giving Girimehkala migraines infinite.
  • In English: He's a being who long outgrew consequence and operates on an absurdist philosophy recognising only the existence of his own mind as undeniable fact, twisting through reality according to his base whims and passing ambitions, and on the level of ａｅｓｔｈｅｔｉｃ acts as the logical anthithesis to Hindu philosophical tradition. As such, he's a maximum-level troll who deals primarily in the semantics of power, wallows joyfully in his un-enlightenment, and in general brings shame to his betters.
• Motive: Charvaka seeks to plumb to the lowest depths of the Mausoleum and uncover the secrets which lie at the centre of the fundament, so that he may misunderstand them and defame the gods with dissenting opinion.
• Disclaimer: As he's projecting into a meat-puppet from a long ways out-of-plane, Charvaka's powerset is extremely vulnerable to various forms of ontological interference or localised magical/divine fuckery, to be decided at GM discretion as they arise. The specific effects of interference are also to be taken at GM discretion, but could be anything from spells whiffing to Charvaka disconnecting from the server entirely and collapsing into a pile of red slurry.
  • Similarly, his claims to authority over reality can be debated or rejected by pretty much any other source capable of doing similar. He's not just waltzing up and telling the Level 80 Mafia Sorcerer his fireballs aren't real or teleporting the slavering Elder Thing three feet back over a ravine. Talismans and wards are pretty much the bane of his existence here - creative problems require creative solutions.
  • Owing to the circumstances of the death with ended his time as a mortal, he's also an eternal eunuch.

Edited by OG-Sama on Feb 10th 2019 at 4:06:35 AM

Accepted, as per discussion.

welcome to the party I guess

'Being around you guys makes me go "wtf" instead of pondering the ever increasing dread of time' - EchoingSilence, 2023

EDIT: Actually, nevermind. Too much stuff on my plate.

Edited by Leliel on Feb 24th 2019 at 8:54:50 AM

What rises must fall, what falls may rise again.

• Name: Galaxy
• Age: 18
• Species, Sex and Place of Origin: Galaxy is a half-human-half-machine, or a cyborg, and he does not have any gender because of that. He came from Earth.
• Appearance: Since I can't put an image, click on the three dots on my profile and select "Avatar Gallery". He is the chibi with two guns
• Party Niche: Well, since it's mentioned, hybrid.
• Powers and Abilities:
  • Digital Boost: This is where Galaxy accelerates at high speeds, using data (digital information) in the ground or in the air.
    • Ground Boost: The normal boost. Galaxy accelerates on the ground at about the speed of a cheetah, leaving a trail of binary.
    • Air Boost: Serves as a sort of double jump, but higher. Like on the ground, he boosts at the speed of a cheetah, but this time in the air.
• Starting Equipment:
  • His computer: A computer for hacking or watching cat videos on You Tube.
• Personality: Galaxy is relativity honest. He tries not to lie, at all, but he can be rebelling (if he chooses to). He is pretty aggressive and Blood Knight-ty, too. If he isen't fighting, he enjoys coding handy apps and making gadgets for his team.

Hope this is good enough, I worked really hard on this

• Name: Lumisa Kosugi
• Age: 21
• Species, Sex and Place of Origin: Eighth Children of Mother (fancy speak for Human) Female of La-Mulana 2's Earth.
• Party Niche: Ninja
• Appearance: American Ninja◊
• Powers and Abilities: Lumisa is basically at the level of a comic book peak Olympian Athlete due to receiving ninja training from the mysterious Kosugi Clan. Jumping dozens of feet in a single bound under her own power and repeatedly strafing vertical surfaces with finger strength alone are easily within her power as are breaking heavy ceramic urns and whipping flying bats out of the air. Though her primary weapon is the whip, she's pretty good with cold weapons in particular as well as a good enough shot with the more ranged sub weapons like pistols, throwing spears, and shuriken.
  • She's especially adept in surviving quickly changing structures of various dangers and lethal properties due to being an old-timey Adventure Archaeologist (though she loves the adventure part much more than the archaeology side). As a side effect of her world trotting and tomb raiding, she has a knack for translating foreign languages given enough time as well as solving overly elaborate death traps and puzzles under pressure.
• Starting Equipment: Lumisa has quite a few items on hand due to her long adventure through the depths of Eg-Lana, though for the purposes of this RP we'll focus on only a few of such items.
  • Hand Scanner and Mobile Super X3+ Tablet: A handheld device that is used to digitally map infrastructure as well as translate foreign languages. It comes with various programs that has a built in clock, calendar, calculator, and can be used as a smartphone with real time camera functionality. Also can hook into Wi-Fi if needed.
  • Melee Weapons: Lumisa comes equipped with a flail whip (very Castlevania in design) and a knife. They're completely regular weapons if well-made though they can be combined with the effects from other items to form a more potent combination.
  • Ranged Weapons: Lemusa has a stack of ten shuriken, a bag of caltrops, a chakram, a six-chambered revolver pistol with sixty rounds, and a flare gun.
  • Accessories: Lumisa sports several magical articles that improves her abilities to put up with more supernatural foes. She has the Nemean Fur, which greatly mitigates damage coming towards her torso due to it being a powerful defensive tunic. She has has a grapple claw that allows her to cling on walls, snow shoes that prevent slipping on ice or snow, a gauntlet to increase the speed of physical attacks by twice over, a ring that boosts hand dexterity, a Vajra accessory that grants advanced martial knowledge, a feather accessory which grants the vaunted double jump ability, and a spaulder that grants holy aura to her attacks via faint afterimages that allows for an extra oomph against undead and ghosts.
  • Renewable Resources: Lumisa has a pepper shaker that somehow manages to refill itself back to full capacity after being emptied- good for spicing meals as well as using in more creative ways. She also has Mjolnir equipped with a Power Band, which basically acts as an electricity diverting rod that sucks in strong lightning attacks to safely protect its owner three times with the fourth overloading it to disperse the saved charges and damage an unfortunate holder. Lumisa can shoot off a powerful blast of lightning at whatever she targets and consume a single charge every time she does so.
• Personality: A woman of few words and great determination, Lumisa lets her actions do the talking for her (though her facial expressions are also pretty telling a lot of the time). Despite her rather colorful design, she's a rather secretive person in general and doesn't really give out more than the bare minimum to any questions asked that she doesn't want to answer. Despite being quiet, she's an adrenaline junkie and gets incredibly enthused when danger rears its head. Also somewhat of a sucker for sob stories given how much she helps people out even if they don't give her any rewards.
• Motive: Adventure, plain and simple. It gets the heart throbbing and adrenaline a pumping. Side effects also include keeping your world saving skills sharp on dint of preventing the end of the world while on said adventures.
• Backstory: The end of the world had been averted five years prior when her father destroyed a ruin called La-Mulana, preventing an extraterrestrial deity of great power from fully awakening and using her great powers to wipe humanity away and start anew with a new race of sentient beings. Many times had this cycle occurred, with the Eighth Children (humanity itself) managing to avert their fate through the daring-do of plucky middle aged archaeologist Lemeza Kosugi...
  • Unfortunately though, said entity had a back up plan and shunted its adrift spirit to a second set of ruins from which it attempted to restore itself, via Eg-Lana. Sadly for all involved, daddy dearest is on the run from INTERPOL due to the fact that La-Mulana was a world heritage sight and the man dubbed a terrorist so his daughter had to come in lieu of her father and save the world.
  • And thus the mantle was carried on and the world was saved through many adventures and snarky quips by the local helpers later who understandably didn't want the life as we knew it to end, with Lumisa coming out from the experience rather satisfied that she could come to the aid of those that needed it as well as have the adventure she wanted.
• Notes: Lumisa has a very special technique that suddenly shifts her body right before impact from great falls so that it travels through her back without maiming or killing her like it would a normal person at the cost of temporarily stunning her for a few seconds as long as the terrain is roughly level enough and there's not dangerous hazards in the landing sight. It's a special Kosugi family ninjutsu that greatly helps with survival rate.

Edited by Makaioh on May 8th 2019 at 11:38:38 AM

@MakaiOh: Lumisa is accepted. Welcome to the party!

'Being around you guys makes me go "wtf" instead of pondering the ever increasing dread of time' - EchoingSilence, 2023

• Name: King Antiphates of Lamos
• Age: Unknown, appears to be in early thirties
• Species, Sex and Place of Origin: Laestrygones (Grecian Ogre)/Male/Lamos, of the world of Classical Greek legend
• Appearance: A combination of images: Without armor, plus a little gigantism. Would likely be played by Viggo Mortensen. With armor, though with a bull hide replacing the lion pelt, and stylised snarling duncleosteus faces◊ replacing the lion symbolism.
• Party Niche: Fighter (be it with weapons, his bare hands, or even wrestling)/doorbuster/tactician
• Abilities:
  • inhuman strength: can throw boulders with ease, and bite through flesh and bone in one
  • inhuman speed: can cover ground as fast as an Olympic competitor in as much time (though lacking maneuverability)
  • inhuman size: 8.5 feet tall, actual size is much taller.
  • unbreakable teeth, cannot be cracked or knocked loose
  • shouting voice which can reach across a city
  • no difficulty digesting raw meat of any origin
  • powerful swimmer: can even go against a current for a time
• Starting Equipment:
  • full suit of Greek bronze armor including the helmet (all immune to rust and resistant to wear-and-tear)
  • boots loincloth
  • bull hide cloak
  • longsword with scabbard
  • fishing spear (bound to back with rope)
  • net (see further note on cloak)
  • Duncleosteus-embossed bronze shield (also immune to rust)
  • cloak contains straps for fastening additional material to. These are as follows: one wineskin, one whetstone, belt has one bag containing a week's rations of dried meat fastened on.
• Personality: Like any respectable Greek tyrant, Antiphates fears and revers the Gods of Mount Olympus (he counts at least two of them among his ancestors, after all). If they demand his obedience, he will surely give it. That said, the task put before him weighs heavily on his mind. He wishes to return home to his Queen, his children, and to his countrymen. For while a respectable tyrant is stern, he must also never abandon that which he rules. As such, to any who are not the above, he is a hard man, using politeness or crudity as it suits him. He will keep his word so long as those surrounding him do the same. Should that word be violated, however, he will not hesitate to show what happens to those who disrespect the House of Laestrygon.
  • On the field of battle he is bloodthirsty, delighting in all the senses war entertains. Despite this, he has a tactical mindset with a preference for ambush through overwhelming force. If possible, he ends a fight before it can begin. On the field of diplomacy he is a different sort of man. He patiently hears what the emissary has to say, and so long as they mind their tongue, Antiphates will treat fairly with them. It is the way of a proper tyrant.
• Motive: A worrying prophecy caused him to entreat Poseidon as to what he could do to prevent its outcome. He was given a directive: find Origen and his Orb, and return with them for the prophecy to end satisfactorily. Through the power of the Gods, he is now here and searching.

• Notes: TBA

Edited by Colonial1.1 on May 11th 2019 at 10:23:03 AM

Proud member of the IAA What's the point of being grown up if you can't act childish?

@Colonial: As discussed, I'm going to need far more formatting than that: at the bare minimum, please bold your headings and place each ability in sub-bullet-points instead of chunking them all up. Also, please separate and bullet-point the Starting Equipment heading. The Backstory section is not actually required, so feel free to ignore that.

I'm also going to ask you to qualify his abilities, as I have no idea what inhuman speed and strength actually mean. Can you give me a qualified estimate? Does he lift boulders? Bend steel? Run faster than a train? Or is he simply strong in direct proportion to his great weight and height? I don't need tonnage, just a bit more detail.

Lastly, but not least, I'm going to reduce his height to eight feet, as twelve feet is far too high to fit into tight corridors, small holes, normal doorways and the various other things the Party is going to be subjected to. Please let me know if you have any thoughts.

P.S.

To be perfectly honest, this part worries me. We really need a team player, and also someone who won't fly off the handle at his pride being injured - I'd much rather a taciturn and stern King than one with overweening self-esteem. As you have a history of playing characters who fly off the handle when their pride gets injured, I'd appreciate it if you could temper it this time around, as you no doubt can. Everything up to that line is fine.

A sense of humor is essential, basically, and a willingness to be owned or made the butt of jokes with some regularity. A super-serious RP this is not. Please adjust your expectations accordingly.

P.P.S. Either he has a very large backpack, or he wears the fishing net permanently in his hair. No hammerspace allowed.

Edited by troydenite on May 10th 2019 at 11:58:33 PM

'Being around you guys makes me go "wtf" instead of pondering the ever increasing dread of time' - EchoingSilence, 2023

>height Eight point five, I say! He's meant to be about as tall as a Darknut or Space Marine (though obviously some witchcraft is afoot, and he will notice).

>Disrespect Hey now, you've played against a character of mine who could keep his temper, while yours took a flying leap off the handle in response (Lady's Favored). When I said that, I meant something on par with what happened in the Odyssey, such as breaking an oath or attacking him when he's trying to parley. He's been a field commander, troops tended to have little jokes and bawdy songs for their generals even back then. You savvy?

In any event, I'll put the rest of the info in the edit.

Proud member of the IAA What's the point of being grown up if you can't act childish?

8.5 feet is fine, and that's good to hear. Let me know when you're done editing.

'Being around you guys makes me go "wtf" instead of pondering the ever increasing dread of time' - EchoingSilence, 2023

• Name: Lance Galahad
• Age: 17
• Species, Sex and Place of Origin: Lance is a human male from Earth (Brain Dead 13 Earth, that is), born in a town somewhere in near Transylvania.
• Appearance:
• Party Niche: Mechanic and Rogue
• Powers and Abilities:
  • Quick Reflexes: Yeah, surviving a mansion where EVERYTHING is trying to kill you does things to you. As shown throughout the whole game, which is based around Quick Time Events, and especially in this scene.
• Starting Equipment: Lance's starting equipment involves his mechanic equipment (a wrench, a screwdriver, a torch, tape, nails, ect...), a couple of blueprints, and a butterfly knife for self defense.
• Personality: Lance seems pretty nice, but can be rather snarky.
• Motive: Lance was in need of some extra money at the time. So he found out about the Mausoleum and here we are.

Edited by Routeferret on May 11th 2019 at 8:52:09 PM

i think i’m in love (probably just hungry)

@Routeferret: Thanks for your interest, but we already have multiple candidates for Rogue and Mechanic. The profile is also a bit bare for my taste, and I can't see any particular role for Lance to play in the Party. Sorry, but I'm going to have to pass on this one. :)

'Being around you guys makes me go "wtf" instead of pondering the ever increasing dread of time' - EchoingSilence, 2023

• Name: Lang Wu Yao, The Song That Dooms Evil, and Ling Ya, His Instrument
• Age: Early 20s (Lang); Unknown (Ling Ya)
• Species, Sex and Place of Origin: Human Male from the Kingdom of Xi-You (Lang); Male-identifying Pipa from parts unknown (Ling Ya) (Both from Thunderbolt Fantasy)
• Appearance: "My muscles are strings◊, my heart a drum◊, and my breath a flute's song◊; my life is a harmony, and will not allow the discord of evil to ruin it.◊"
• Party Niche: Offensive Bard/Melee Fighter

• Powers and Abilities:
  • Cursed Voice: Lang's voice is cursed - or at least, he believes it to be. Whenever he does speak, failure, misfortune, and suffering seem to follow soon after. Note that the curse does not seem to apply when he sings.
  • Detect Evil: Lang is a savant at judging the character of others, even those he has just met, such that he experiences a startlingly accurate gut feeling when encountering someone who will later do evil, even if they are not evil yet. The strength of this feeling is directly proportional to the degree of evil detected.
  • Enchanted Singing: Lang can already produce an impressive array of music using Ling Ya, but when he adds his voice to the mix, things get crazy. Lang's songs backed by his enchanted vocals project outward from his body in an expanding spherical aura of visible power, can (subject to per-case GM permission) dispel enchantments, illusions, and curses, alter the weather and invoke other natural phenomena, and can even accomplish feats such as turning dragonfire back on the dragon that spewed it. Performing supernatural feats via his singing leaves him panting and vulnerable for a short while.
  • Ki Channeling: Lang is able to channel his life force in various ways, allowing him to perform a number of magical feats. Note: in spite of my using orange for his color, Lang's ki is actually red. By projecting it from his bare hands, he can channel it into a person with a touch, boosting their own energy, healing their lesser wounds, and stabilizing those on the brink of death. By channeling his ki through Ling Ya, he can produce blasts of razor wind, either by a sweeping blow of the sword form or by strumming the strings of the pipa form. Said blasts can cleave cleanly through stone, bone, and flesh with equal ease, and do not need to travel in a straight line, able to curve around obstacles much like a boomerang. Lastly, when channeling ki through Ling Ya and using the instrument as a bludgeon, he can add extra oomph to his blows, such that an ordinary human adult is sent flying perhaps a dozen feet away.
  • Sonic Sense: Lang's ears are extremely keen, to the point that he can pick up whispered words from across a crowded and raucous room. In fact, his hearing is so good that he can construct a reliable image of his surroundings in complete darkness or with his eyes closed, much like a bat, though he can be fooled by a crafty opponent. In addition, by closing his eyes and concentrating, he can track specific, reasonably loud noises that he's listening for (for example, shouting or the sounds of armed combat) from across an area roughly the size of a large medieval city. Loud noises - or at least his own very loud music - do not seem to cause him any unusual amount of pain, though they may disrupt his sonar ability.
  • General Physical Abilities: Lang is very good with a sword, though not on the level of a true master, and is also proficient in bludgeoning things with his instrument like a common club. Like any good wuxia hero, he is extremely skilled in hand-to-hand combat, especially in making fancy footwork and jumps while executing kicks and even while singing and playing his instrument. He is more than skilled enough to fight off multiple ordinary opponents at once. Lastly, he can leap approximately twelve feet up unaided.

• Starting Equipment:
  • Adventuring Supplies: A canteen currently filled with sake, and a modest supply of money in various currencies earned from his work as a traveling bard.
  • Ling Ya: An enchanted, talking pipa Lang has been toting around for years. A musician who has mastered Ling Ya's use, as Lang has, can bring into being the music of any instrument he thinks of, and multiple instruments at once, simply by plucking the four strings. Strings, brass, wind, percussion, you name it, Ling Ya can produce it. He can even bring forth the sound of instruments that someone of Lang's time period has no business knowing of, such as electric guitar or synthesizer; the musician need only be able to imagine it. The only sounds he is unable to create are those of vocalists. Ling Ya is very durable, enduring no apparent damage even when used as a club with abandon. The instrument can transform between the form of a pipa and a curved sword, as seen in Appearance, the actual transformation only requiring a brief flash of light. The blade itself has no special properties unless channeling ki, as mentioned above under Ki Channeling, though it is also supernaturally durable.

• Personality:
  • Lang: Lang is a stoic, goodnatured, and fairly simple but intensely passionate man, pursuing his goals with singular, unwavering focus and drive. He aids the oppressed and powerless wherever he finds them and, perhaps more importantly in his mind, vanquishes evil wherever it raises its vile head. Though he is usually impatient and quick to cut down evil individuals whenever he finds them, he is still savvy enough to plan ahead and work with evil individuals when their goals align, only putting an end to them when their aid is no longer required. With the soul of a genius musician, he is easily inspired to compose by unusual and even ordinary sights, and enjoys sharing his music with the world. He hates talking, however, as he believes his voice is cursed and will bring suffering to both himself and others. As such, he only talks when he is particularly moved to by strong emotion and leaves most dialogue with others to his talking pipa, Ling Ya, though he does indicate agreement or disagreement by strumming an ascending or descending chord.
  • Ling Ya: Ling Ya has been around the block a few times and has seen a lot in his years. Unlike his master, Ling Ya is quite the boisterous gabber, cheerfully chattering away with whoever is at hand, sometimes forgetting himself and spewing his master's secrets for anyone to hear. He is very much in-tune with Lang's thoughts and emotions, and can easily speak for him when needed. Although unfalteringly loyal to his friend and master, he is willing to speak up when he thinks Lang is about to undertake something risky or crazy (not that Lang usually listens).
• Motive: Lang is seeking to put an end to any evildoers who may be after the legendary orb for their own nefarious ends, his surface excuse being that he is looking for a way to end the curse on his voice. Ling Ya is accompanying his friend and master as a matter of course — it's not like he could really refuse, either way.
• Notes: You should imagine Lang as being voiced by T.M. Revolution and Ling Ya as being voiced by a nasaly Kamina. Also, in the interest of full disclosure: their backstory is largely unknown, to be expanded upon in a motion picture coming out later this year, but their personalities and the extent of their combined abilities seems to be firmly established.

Edited by darksidevoid on May 16th 2020 at 4:41:27 AM

GM of AGOG S4: Frontiers RP; Sub-GM of TABA, SOTR, & UUA RPs

• Name: Colonel Rotgut
• Age: Complicated. She’s been “awake” for 17 years, spent an unknown amount of time prior to that as a mindless zombie, and appears to have been in her mid-to-late twenties at the time of her death.
• Species, Sex and Place of Origin: Human zombie/flesh golem, female, OC
• Appearance: Her overall look, with this face and hairstyle (minus the feathers),◊ and these colours for her hair and uniform.◊
• Party Niche: Fighter with a side order of spellcasting.
• Powers and Abilities:
  • Undead: Rotgut is an intelligent zombie. Her undead state comes with certain benefits...
    • Doesn’t need to sleep, eat, drink, or breathe.
    • Unaffected by poison.
    • Resistant to piercing damage (due to a lack of functional vital organs).
    • Feels no pain and doesn’t tire from physical exertion.
    • Can survive decapitation and dismemberment as long as her head remains intact. She can still talk if she gets decapitated, and she can control her body if it’s within 15 feet of her head and its spine (discounting the neck, of course) hasn’t been broken. If her body is beyond that range, it will just flop over as if it were dead.
  • …And certain drawbacks.
    • Her wounds cannot be healed with medicine, healing magic, or through natural means. Her bones can be mended with other forms of restorative magic, but flesh wounds must be stitched up.
    • Vulnerable to fire, holy magic, anti-magical effects, and effects that turn the undead.
    • She has no sense of smell or taste, and while she can eat and drink she derives no sustenance from doing so.
    • Severed limbs and body parts must be reattached with needle and thread. If not done properly, reattached limbs can fall off at inconvenient times.
    • She needs to periodically apply embalming fluids to her flesh, or else she’ll begin to rot and start attracting flies. This can also lead to limbs falling off.
    • The fact that she doesn’t feel pain or get tired means that she can’t tell when she’s pushing her body past its limits. This can lead to ligaments tearing, stitches snapping, and limbs falling off.
    • Rotgut has imperfect control over her body while decapitated. She can tell when it’s within 15 feet of her head, but not where they are in relation to each other. Her bodily coordination and fighting ability are also diminished, as she can’t see where her body is stepping.
  • Landsknecht Mercenary Training: Rotgut is proficient with a number of weapons, including the pike, the halberd, the harquebus, the zweihander, and the katzbalger short sword.
  • Sigil Magic: Rotgut has dabbled in magic and memorized a few minor spells. All of her spells take five seconds to cast and require her to have both hands free, and once she casts a spell she needs to wait a full minute before she can cast another. Since this severely limits their use in combat, she only casts spells as a last resort.
    • Charged Fist: An offensive spell that gathers electricity in the caster’s palm and discharges it through an electrifying punch. May stun the target for a few seconds.
    • Frozen Grasp: A touch that steals heat from the target’s body, inflicting cold damage and potentially freezing them for a few seconds.
    • Rimespike: An offensive spell which attempts to skewer its target with a large, icy spike that erupts from the ground at their feet. Has a maximum range of 6 meters/20 feet.
    • Spectral Blur: An illusion spell that distorts light in order to blur the target’s silhouette, making enemy attacks more likely to miss. The effect lasts up to 30 seconds.
    • False Pit: An illusion spell which tricks the target into thinking that a bottomless pit has opened up beneath their feet, causing them to fall prone for a few seconds. Has a maximum range of 6 meters/20 feet.
    • Utility Spells: A spell for repairing cracked or damaged objects less than a foot long (used to fuse broken bones back together or mend small tears in her uniform), and a cleaning spell (to remove bloodstains and other fluids from the uniform).
• Starting Equipment:
  • Katzbalger: A short sword designed for cutting more than thrusting.
  • Landksnecht armour consisting of a breastplate, faulds, tassets and gauntlets worn over aflamboyant blue-and-yellow uniform. Helmet optional, hat mandatory.
  • A “medical” kit containing needles, thread, and three small jars of embalming fluid.
  • Sturm: A treasured relic of Rotgut’s former regiment, this halberd-slash-battle standard was once carried by the regiment’s founder, Lord Friedrich von Falkenstein. It is said that he held this weapon aloft as he rallied his troops on the eve of an important battle, whereupon he was struck by lightning. Miraculously, Lord Friedrich not only survived, but led his troops to victory that very night. Since then it has been passed down from colonel to colonel, its legend growing with every victory until it attained powers of its own.
    Sturm protects its bearer from electricity, allowing them to survive direct lightning strikes with only minor injuries and momentary paralysis. In addition, the weapon and its wielder become empowered if Sturm is directly struck by lightning while held aloft: for 1 minute, the weapon discharges bursts of electricity whenever it strikes an enemy or a solid surface, and the wielder can move and attack at twice their normal speed.
• Personality: Rotgut is brash, confident, and has a zest for life at odds with her undead state. She feels most alive on the battlefield, reveling in the crush of colliding armies and the thrill of locking weapons with enemy soldiers. In her eyes, every victory won affirms her right to exist and proves she was more deserving of life than those she slew. She celebrates victory with as much gusto as any of her living peers, and she takes being cut down in stride so long as her men are victorious (after all, she can be patched up later).
  Rotgut values deeds and merit, and respects those willing to put their lives on the line. She has a professional attitude towards her work, believes in seeing a job through to the end once it’s been taken on, and doesn’t believe in switching sides halfway through just because the other guy’s offering better pay. She has no patience for people who try to cheat her out of money, however, and has made her displeasure known to such clients on several occasions.
  While off the clock, Rotgut loves trading war stories and using her undead state to get under people’s skin. It’s (usually) all in good fun, and no harm is meant by it. She has an interest in storied weapons and artifacts. She respects magic and those who practice it, but she doesn’t have the patience to do more than dabble with it herself. The one exception is necromancers: she despises these, particularly those who raise the undead to perform menial labor.
• Motive: Fortune, Glory, and Renown. Rotgut wants the Orb of Origen because of the riches it is said to contain. And if it doesn’t have any riches, then at least she can leave her mark on the universe (by literally inscribing “Rotgut was here” into the fabric of reality with its power).
• Notes:
  • Rotgut comes from an original setting that’s basically a fantasy version of Earth with magic, monsters and shit. It’s roughly in the equivalent to the 16th or 17th century.
  • Sturm’s protection does not make Rotgut immune to lightning and electricity, merely highly resistant. Getting struck by one or two lightning bolts is survivable: getting struck by five or more in quick succession is not.
  • The concepts and mechanical underpinnings of Rotgut’s magic and Sturm’s magical properties are borrowed from Tyranny.
  • In case it ever becomes relevant, Rotgut is a combination of the Artificial Zombie and Voodoo Zombie archetypes:
    • There are enchanted copper wires threaded throughout Rotgut’s brain. These filaments anchor her consciousness and soul to her undead body. If they were somehow removed without destroying her brain, her soul would depart immediately and she would revert to a lifeless corpse.
    • Rotgut can’t turn other people into zombies by biting them (“What do you think I am, a vampire?”). She has terrible dental hygiene, however, so a bite would probably make you sick.

Edited by SullenFrog on Jul 12th 2019 at 3:04:30 PM

The Danse Macabre Codex

@Sullen, Colonial, darksidevoid: I see no problems with your sheets as-is. Accepted. Welcome to the party! I'll be sending Discord invites shortly.

And with that, signups are closed until further notice. I'll post again should they re-open. Thanks for your interest!

'Being around you guys makes me go "wtf" instead of pondering the ever increasing dread of time' - EchoingSilence, 2023

After ten thousand years of procrastinating, and a bit of time talking with Troy, I have decided to subject you all to my MMO character, because I'm one of those nerds. Please find attached everything you need to know about dealing with the Lalafellin scourge

• Name: Beatrice "Biscuits" Dollarhide
• Age: 26
• Species, Sex, and Place of Origin: Female Lalafell from Eorzea - Final Fantasy XIV
• Appearance: A very imposing potato. For reference, she is exactly three feet tall.
• Party Niche: Tank, frontline support, can attack from range using magic if necessary
• Powers and Abilities:
  • General Fantasy Training: Biscuits is a seasoned adventurer and renowned paladin of Ul'dah. Having toiled mightily to hone her abilities, she is far stronger and more durable than the average human, which is especially impressive due to being a Lalafell. Due to having tiny legs, she isn't actually any quicker than a regular, athletic human, but that still puts her well above what a Lalafell can normally do.
  • Paladin Abilities: Despite what the title may imply, Eorzean paladins are by no means holy warriors of yore. "Paladin" is simply the title bestowed upon the esteemed members of the Sultansworn, the personal guard to Her Majesty the Sultana of Ul'dah. Trained with sword, shield, and a bit of magic, a paladin is the very picture of a gallant protector and formidable combatant. In spite of her diminutive stature, Biscuits is a tough nut to crack and a persistent and deadly force in battle. Her training has also afforded her two unique magic spells: A concussive orb of light which she can fire from the tip of her sword, and a massive shield of light, resembling a pair of enormous wings, which she can call forth from her shield to further protect herself and her allies if they stand behind it.
    • tl;dr: Biscuits is strong enough to drag things far larger than herself (but not lift, because she'd just topple over from the wonky balance), quick enough to keep up with an athletic human, sturdy enough to usually not fall over if you shove her, and durable enough to be a perfectly serviceable tank for the party. She also has one offensive spell as a ranged option, and a big shield she can summon for extra protection for everyone around her.
  • Goldsmithing: Biscuits' parents were goldsmiths by trade, and before joining the Sultansworn, she was taught the family trade. She is both a savvy businesswoman and quite skilled at making jewelry.
• Starting Equipment:
  • Sword and shield: Both are of exquisite craftsmanship, and both can be made to catch fire with a thought from Biscuits. The fire is magical in nature, so it will not harm her, and it isn't extinguished by water, but anything that suppresses magic will affect the sword and shield as well. Both will automatically extinguish if they should leave her hands.
  • Armor: Standard fantasy leather armor with steel pauldrons and gauntlets; nothing really fancy about it. It's sized for a Lalafell, so anyone other than a child probably can't wear it.
  • Backpack: Large for a Lalafell, so normal size for a regular person. Waterproofed as best it could be.
  • Rations: Fourteen days' worth of bread, cheese, dried meat, and wine; all carefully packaged and stored in her backpack. Less food than it sounds like, because Lalafeel don't need to eat very much. Probably about a week's worth of food to a normal person.
  • Spyglass: For seeing things far away.
  • Compass: For telling direction, not that it's likely to help here.
  • Brush, leather soap, and hand cloths: For cleaning her armor.
• Personality: Biscuits is very concerned with doing things the Right Way, and is very particular about that, partly because she's set high standards for herself (due to believing she's got something special, which isn't entirely untrue), but also because as an actually very good goldsmith, she's used to having to get everything exactly right all the time, especially when it comes to fine details. She's outgoing and generally magnanimous and likes making shows of being that way, partly because of how it makes people feel, and partly because she's never had to worry about money being finite. She likes talking about herself, but also enjoys hearing about others' experiences, since she knows she comes from a different world than people who weren't as fortunate. She sometimes dips into "You people" territory without meaning to. On the other side of things, she sometimes feels slightly used when it comes to people expecting her to solve all their problems for them, and part of her very much resents how much weight is constantly on her shoulders, and couldn't someone else foot the bill just this once? Not that she'd ever tell them that, of course
• Motive: Biscuits decided to embark on this expedition herself when it became apparent that Something Fishy was going down. She is interested in acquiring new riches and magical baubles, both for personal glory and because she thought there might be a chance that the world was being threatened again, and she was in a position to do something about it.

Edited by DoctorThunder on Jun 11th 2019 at 9:24:08 AM

Accepted. Welcome to the party!

'Being around you guys makes me go "wtf" instead of pondering the ever increasing dread of time' - EchoingSilence, 2023

You never reviewed galaxy though.

@Heyitsgalaxycreeper: Oh, sorry for missing him out - unfortunately, the profile is a bit barebones for my taste, and the character concept doesn't seem to fill any particular niche. I'm going to have to pass on him, sorry. Best of luck in your other games.

'Being around you guys makes me go "wtf" instead of pondering the ever increasing dread of time' - EchoingSilence, 2023

Guess what character tvtropesnoob aka the 'Dresden-Everywhere-System Admin' is here with, again?

The name, the man, the (not)legend!

Carlos Ramirez, the master of the shit eating grin and of being a chad virgin

Age:

Somewhere in his mid to late twenties. 25-28.

Species, Sex, and Place of Origin:

Spanish male. The Dresden files, I am fucking amazing at being unpredictable I know.

Appearance:

Handsome◊ wanker◊

Party Niche:

Precision dps / defense-oriented dps (traps, alarms, anti seige). Or if we're using broad capabilities instead of RP Gisms, tactical field military commander type with trickstery methodology.

Personality

At first glance you'd read Carlos Ramirez as a jokey, relaxed casanova. His outward facing persona card would certainly be the Fool. He revels in showing off and loves to play himself up, having more than a bit of an ego, both for said persona and also in reality. Laid back, boisterous and cheeky, his over the top personality stirs both eye rolls and chuckles from his cohorts. He deliberately plays all these features up in order to both put people at ease around him, and also cause people to underestimate him, being a definite believer in obfuscating stupidity. This would normally be the part where I'd say 'oh but don't you worry it's all just a mask!' but nah, it's more that he has those traits already and just exaggerates them to comical levels for amusement and obfuscation. Underneath his larger-than-life persona, he's extremely savvy and much wiser than he normally lets on, being quick on the uptake and bearing good instincts. He's young, relatively, but there's a reason why he was chosen to be the head wizard authority in all of North America (besides there not being anyone else for the job!). When he needs to be, he's extremely competent and efficient. Pragmatically minded, ruthless when he needs to and as sharp and dangerous as an obsidian knife's edge, he's practically glued to his harsh duties at all times and can never let his guard truly down even when it seems like he's lazing about.

If there was one word that would describe the central core of his character, 'duty' would probably be it, next to 'ambition'. It's the ideal that binds his life and gives him his seemingly inhuman determination and drive. From a very young age he decided that he would use his innate power to serve his fellow man and ensure that the people who don't share it are guarded under his wing, his duty as a powerful wizard to see to the security of others against the things that go bump in the night. Duty to his position as the Warden regional commander for north america, guarding, leading and inspiring less gifted ('compared to me, who isn't!?') wizards in their wars and in upholding the law. It's this feeling of calling that keeps him up at night, exhaustively researching new spells and obsessively planning for the future of his subordinates and protectees. It's also probably why his love life is garbage, but hey, something's gotta give.

He's definitely on the side of the good guys — you'll be rare to find a wizard more loyal or good intentioned. He's gutsy and not afraid to speak his mind, even to his superiors — though he's not quite as mouthy as other people from the series (cough cough Dresden cough), having a bit more restraint when needed. He's playfully snarky to people he likes (and also to people he doesn't, with a bit more bite), and hard to seriously perturb. Like all wizards he also is used to playing politics, being a regional commander himself — he's much better at bearing with it though, not generally grumbling though at times he's quick to retort if he thinks his superiors are being stupid.

Like most wizard wardens, he's paranoid and independent, slow to give out trust to strangers through words alone, and (unless compelled by duty or his sense of warrior's honor) will hesitate to jump into unknown situations. He keeps secrets like a hobby and it takes a decent amount of prying to get him to open up, firstly guarded by his wizardly sense of keeping cards to his chest, secondly enforced by his machismo and desire to play things off when possible. He's always looking for more power to give himself the edge, and is willing to be the one who pulls the trigger on despicable actions, but he's still got lines that he won't cross. He won't torture even heinous enemies unless extremely pressed for example, and it would break his heart to do so despite his warden's sense of ruthless pragmatism. He's not interested in the darker sides of magic, or in messing with any powers that could lead to personal corruption, preferring to keep his nose clean when at all possible.

He'll make a show of being the big tough boi on the block and never shies away from a fight, but internally he genuinely hates hurting most things and wishes that he was more able to solve situations without violence, and gets sick anytime he has to bring harm onto anyone even though it's 90% of his job. Given the option he'd much rather let enemies live and go, though he's found that he's rarely given that option. A good man at heart, but he's still someone who's position demands he occasionally do things such as executing teenagers, and does it without complaint.

He's practically minded, but his 'spanish pride and honor', as he'd put it, occasionally gets in his way and can wind up holding the dumb ball when properly provoked. He's payed for it plenty so he does a pretty good job of keeping his emotions in check these days, but his hot headedness still can rear its head and drive him to brash decisions in its name. Like that time he apparently decided it would be a 10/10 idea to lead a small rebellion in his organization due to feeling like they were all being stupid. He's a bit more reserved now, thankfully.

Finally, he loves to talk so much shit about how he's gods gift to women and gay men everywhere — but he's actually a virgin, who woulda guessed. He's pretty attractive physically and not superbly hard to get along with, so it's definitely by choice at this point — I figure he's a combination of 'married to the job' and 'hopeless romantic afraid to accidentally get into a casual fling' sort of fellow, when pushed to actually admit it.

Powers! (aka the part where eyes roll back in heads)

• As he is a wizard he's able to control magic and unleash it as physical matter. I've got a huge lore primer on how this specifically works here but for simplicity's sake: Energy go in, magic (and magical effects) come out. Former is proportional to the latter. Latter gets bigger if the wizard is actually good at that type of magic. As does casting time and general level of control and thus size / complexity of the spellwork.
  • Theoretically DF magic can be used to do just about anything, but in practice magic can barely do fuck all if it's not within the school you chose to actually specialize in — like how a first grader CAN technically figure out how to solve the p = np dilemma but it's sure as fuck gonna be hard to do seeing as how they're missing the lifetime of study in the related fields needed to grasp it. IE ol 'los can do a fuckton of bare basic spells such as elementals (blowing a bit of wind around, lighting a fire, etc) via very low-effort physical matter manipulation, but while it's worryingly wide it's also as shallow as a kiddy pool — relatively little actual combat usage can be seen outside of his major schools listed below.

  • In terms of magical capacity, he's much more reliant on speed and accuracy for his strikes than overt strength / raw force — he just doesn't have that much juice to throw around. But he's epic tier at magical dexterity and control.

• Combat/evocative (speedy casting) spells:
  • He can form some shell-like shields in various shapes, but they're not particularly strong and can only ward off a strike or two from strong combatants before blowing due to his lack of capability in strength contests.

  • Major school: Water magic. Carlos's main abilities are all wrapped around water — he can manipulate it and control it, pulling moisture out of the atmosphere to create pools he can manipulate. He can morph it, like small scale water bending would be a decent equivalent. He can manipulate water's physical properties — increasing surface tension to make it more solid, increasing water pressure to smash things, that sort of thing. Water is pretty malleable as far as elements go, so it'd be a bit hard to list every possible way he could use it for this list. Shouldn't result in things that are OHKO's or anything, though. Worst he could probably do is trap you in water and try and crush you/drown you — and that's avoidable if you're nimble or if you carry good defense, and unless you try fighting him next to a lake you'd probably also be able to shrug your way out of such traps. (Don't try and fight him next to a lake though).
    • He does have one VERY nifty trick for water spells that deserves to be covered in more detail; in the dresdenverse, water magic is associated with entropy and decay, and he can use this to vaporize things in spells that take various forms. Specifically, at some point he decided to specialize in the whole 'water erodes' physical effect — he can create water that applies an assload of time's worth of water erosion to whatever it comes into contact with. Unspecified how MUCH time — but he completely zapped away a gorilla-sized enemy's torso with it on contact and turned metal into dust, so it's potent in any case. It's pretty cool and often very powerful — but the baseline of how it works is important to keep in mind. It's useless, for instance, against things that water can't actually erode no matter how much time passes (like light) / is incredibly resilient to erosion (like...diamonds?).

    • FRIGGIN LAZAH BEAMS: His most common usage of forming vaporizing water puddles. He can fire out water lasers, or at least an equivalent with that whole erosion factor built in. They're pretty quick — less so than a bullet, but...er, still fast. Chews right through wood, rock, most metals, and of course flesh. Due to his control over water physically he can make the actual effect a spread on contact — hammering its target with erosion several feet in diameter for example, IE the gorilla torso — or for instance he can try to keep it compact to go for a more piercing effect. Fucking hurts against unarmored foes — armored is usually better off since Carlos's magic doesn't actually pack much staying power. The rule of hand is that several feet of physical matter will slow down and stop his attempts at penetrating — he can try and go for piercing by compressing the beams down instead, but at the cost of making them more like tiny armor piercing bullets instead of gorilla-searing thrown puddles.

    • Disintegration shield: His usual shielding technique is to put a disintegration field up and use it to block things. Redirects force rather than outright stopping it. Objects that come into contact with it will generally be vaporized, like a larger but relatively unmoving example of his particle beams. Fairly easy to make, but he has a hard time being too malleable with them once they're actually generated since trying to maintain the erosion effect + manipulate the water into floating + manipulate its shape to spread out is damn difficult the bigger it gets, something gives if he pushes it too hard. He has no problem making a 10x10 foot rectangle with it, for a baseline.

    • "Water Magic: This itself is powerful enough to make him top-tier. The number of applications water magic has in any water-drinking society are endless. I'm not going to touch it too much, but I am going to reduce the speed of instant erosion from 'immediate vaporisation' to 'I've been treading water for five days and now my skin is peeling off.' This is to prevent him from poofing non-human or robotic NP Cs with one touch. The water lasers can also stay, but they'll have the same effect as a water jet cutter of similar volume. In keeping with the theme of limited inventory, I'm also going to slow the rate of moisture gain enough to force him to carry physical supplies of water on him at all times. No instant water lasers, unless he's willing to charge them for ten seconds or so."

    • "Disintegration Shield: Force-dampening instead of force-redirecting. Dissipates physical force and applies the oversaturation effect stated above, but does not vaporize it. Metal will probably rust, but not vanish; fists will turn into wrinkled mush but not disappear. Light bends instead of disappearing."

  • Major school: Illusions: He's got a talent for veils and illusion crafting — the art of manipulating light, sound, and other things for trickery. They can't be too large or ridiculously complicated, but he's good enough to make stuff up that's either very distracting such as blasts of light or sound or deceitful such as appearance masking. I'd describe Carlos's overall specialization being 'security expert', so his preferred uses of this magic take on an effect fitting to it. He's good at disguising himself or others, from appearance changing to becoming invisible against sight (well a human's eyes anyway) and sound. He can still wield magic and fight while keeping up most illusions, but veils (IE invisible shit) require his full magical attention and as such before actually doing any actions he has to drop it if he's got one on. Mostly used to be a sneaky boi, and aid security-like activity.
    • "Illusions: He can change his appearance and create distractions, but only become partially invisible (like an underwater diver, shimmering in the depths). Skilled and experienced magic-users (or very attentive mortals) will be able to pierce his disguise, but only with great scrutiny and a very keen eye."

  • Major school: Earth: His final specialization is earth-based. He's not really down for tossing huge chunks of earth around or anything — see earlier comments about 'dexterity > strength' but he can manipulate it in smaller quantities and draw strength and stability from it as minor buffs for instance.
    • His biggest trick here is that, similar to how water gives him properties over odd side effects of the element such as entropy, he uses earth mostly to let him do things with electromagnetism, from summoning up magnetic fields to their manipulation, to just flat out shooting lightning around. His biggest attack from here is straight up lightning, quite strong but also extremely draining, I reckon he can shoot two or three strikes of it at full stamina before just blacking out, so only really used as a last resort when he needs to really throw a punch.

    • "Earth Magic: Lightning is fine, subject to last-resort limitation. Magnetism is limited to the amount of repulsion a Carlos-sized magnet would do."

• Non evocation (not-instantaneous) spellweaving:
  • Thaumaturgy (with a security specialization): the study of magical connections between objects and observing those connections/ sending forms of magic through the connections. Objects that are bound together include parts of the same whole like silly puddy globs, blood, hair or fingernails, or extremely good images to the thing that was imaged. He's not specificially good at this, but most wizards at least know the basics. For himself, he focused on things orienting around security and surveillance such setting up small enemy-detecting fields with spells candles and playdough...listening to someone from a distance by sticking a piece of playdough onto their door and listening in from the other fragments of playdough he still has in his pocket...monitoring a room with a glass eye stuck through playdough (lots of ways to use playdough lemme tell you). He uses this and pulls in tricks from the other schools to help fortify locations, creating traps and alarms and the like. Also can aim magic over long distance, which is otherwise limited by line of sight and energy.

  • Security and charm making: Los is specialized as a security expert and can create and apply charms that contain his magic to locations for a variety of purposes related to his stronger schools. Such as sticking an illusion to the door to make it look like just a wall, or setting off a water bomb when combined with thaumaturgy to make a trap when the wrong people try to walk in, as examples.

  • Vast magical theory knowledge: Man's spent his life studying magic and its laws and schools and whutnut, so if he gets in a room with spellcasters from a setting that loves talking about their lore they'll go fucking nuts like a couple of university nerds. He knows a fuckton about enemy monsters as a point of study from various mythologies, so he can go into some fights knowing some good tactics beforehand if they're earthish foes.

• Notable weaknesses: He absolutely refuses to violate the 7 laws of magic — and if he did, it would pretty much destroy his mind. The 7 laws basically are a bunch of rules that say 'don't use your magic to directly do x', with it being easily summed up as 'don't break into people's minds, cause time paradoxes, or kill people with magic'. The last one is the biggest ball buster; he can indirectly use it to slay opponents, but killing mortals (IE humans or similar beings) directly with magical strikes is a big no no. If you violate them, it slowly drives you insane and makes you more likely to do it again, so it would quickly start to harm him after one or two violations.

• Random wizard shit that doesn't play into anything else so deserves their own mini bullets:
  • True Sight: The ability to see the world in symbolic form to reveal its truer nature; for example, if a wizard sees a man whose wife has just died, he might see the man with sword wounds all over his body. Helps with seeing magic stuff more clearly and can gain an insight into other people but the things seen can never be forgotten in the slightest, so he's extremely careful using it as looking at something particularly evil or unpleasant can basically break his mind.

  • Opening doors to magical realms: In series wizards can open holes in reality to step into the magical reality that exists next to us, so in general it means that if someone puts him into some space-time magic spell that puts em apart from normal reality he can try to cut through it. Only works if it's magic that's done it though.
    • "True Sight: Can play tricks on him even in addition to its symbolic nature: the nature of the world is cryptic and this is only compounded by the existence of infinite worlds."

    • "Opening doors to magical realms: Only works on the local level; he cannot use it to escape from a given Room, although he can use it to escape to another plane in that Room."

  • Wizard Sense: Sixth sense, detects Magic in its natural state and worked forms. Wards, for instance, are invisible to the normal eye, but a wizard would be able to sense when they are present.

  • Soul gaze: Wizards can do something called soul gaze, which allows people to see into their souls and vice versa, happens automatically with eye contact that lasts more than a couple of seconds. The benefit is that you can't hide your fundamental nature during a soul gaze so it can help establish trust or the like, once you see what someone basically is, but the downside is that like true sight you can never forget what you saw, it'll always be just as pixel perfect clear as it was when you saw it. Less dangerous than true sight — you usually can't be driven outright insane from it, but it can be a very unpleasant experience if it's a very unpleasant soul you witnessed. Also, due to souls being hard to interpret and just giving you a broad image the benefit is pretty vague unless you just want to know if that saint is secretly a complete monster.
    • Actually seeing the soul: what I mean when I say 'you see the other soul' is actually something not set in stone and is generally a good place for a player to be creative (though it'll always be something that gives you a broad impression rather than gritty narrow details of their lives). Carlos hears people's theme songs for example, though I imagine it's much more vivid and descriptive than just basic audio. Lasts about as long as you want, in real life it takes about a second of time passing, during which the characters will simply be frozen in place due to their minds having other things to process.
    • Fun for R Ping stuff, but also fairly invasive so I only do it when another player actually wants it done / to NPC's when the GM figures it'd be neat to do.

  • Quick reaction time: due to a lifetime of fighting opponents with highway like super speed, he's able to react quicker than a normal human would. So in the amount of time it takes you to think "Oh shi—dead" he'd manage to react "Oh shit shields up".
    • Not technically pointed out as a power in-universe, but wizards IU sometimes fight monsters that do indeed seem to blink-blink around faster than you can actually blink. So it's got canon founding, I figure the original author just never really goes out of his way to think too much about it. Basically (both in his home universe and here) this is just something to justify why he doesn't instantly lose to characters with the whole 'moves faster than any human could react' schtick that speedsters are often fond of.

  • Funky shieldy magic circles: Drawing a small circle or otherwise making the image of one and solidifying it in his mind can basically summon up a purely magic-based shield in its radius. As in it's a shield both to keep magic things out if he's inside and to try to keep magic things in if he's outside. Like a vaccuum seal for magic energy. It'll shatter if it takes too much damage and isn't meant to be permanent due to it, larger and more complicated geometry drawings can help make it stronger, and it breaks if non-magical beings toss non-magical materials through it (past dust or the like).
    • "Magic shield circles: All okay, although reduced in power. Can maybe take a cannonball before breaking."

• General physical abilities: Carlos is well trained in a lot of forms of combat. He's good at martial arts and a good marksman. I'd extrapolate that he's expert class at swordplay and general marksmanship, like a very well trained soldier. In terms of physical attributes, he's basically a really athletic human. Again, parallel is a very well trained soldier.

• Otherwise competencies: His experiences as a commander warden in an era of wartime have basically left him a cia-cross-specops-cross-military leader-cross-politician/diplomat-cross-adventurer-cross-scout kind of thing, so he can do a wide variety of jobs and be pretty competent at it. There are better and he definitely can sometimes show his youth, but there's a reason why he's in charge of an entire continent's defense and operations. Got a lot of general competency in areas you could expect a magical Commanding Officer for a whole theater of war to have.

• Speaks latin and spanish

Equipment:

• Desert eagle: Got a good gun. Though fuck if he's gonna be able to find ammo for it anywhere. Probably carrying a few dozen rounds on his person.

• Magical Willow Sword: Got a good sword. It's magically enchanted to be nearly unbreakable, burn if it's not held by its master / with its masters permission, very sharp. It has anti magic properties, being made to murder other shield-happy spell users, and can generally just remove any magic it comes into contact with. Very powerful anti magic effect — made for slaying wizards whose enchantments have 300+ years of power thrown into them.
  • "Magical Willow Sword: Has an enhanced cutting effect on magical shields similar to Carlos' but no generalised anti-magic effect due to conflicting laws. Sharpness and unbreakableness is fine."

• Some frag grenades: Also fuck if he's gonna be able to find any replacements.

• Wardens cloak: Has a big ol grey cloak he typically wears on his shoulders. Is enchanted to provide good defensive capabilities and against the elements — I'd put it probably as an equivalent to modern-day combat armor if we also built them to withstand claws and swords too. Doesn't stain or stink! Especially against blood, which is important in this line of work.

• Actual combat armor: Has modern military defensive gear like the a military combat vest as well, and puts ceramic plating into his garments to protect against knives, claws and the like.

• Gauntlet thing (I am feeling unimaginative with my names): He wears a gauntlet of serrated metal plates on his right hand, with aztec runes all over it — it's his focus for his entropy magic, a piece of equipment especially made for helping him cast spells involving disintegration magic. Helps him focus his magic in general, and makes a decent parallel for brass knuckles in a pinch.

Motive:

Cause it's the wardens job to take care of any magical doo-dads around, any signs of supernatural disturbance, and everything mixed in. He was happy to be among the first to volunteer to hop in, cocky shit that he is. Also it was that or spend a long time in prison and be potentially exiled from the wizarding council for the small matter of having started an internal coup against it a year or so earlier, so. One of those 'Send them in as punishment, but actually they're not too mad to do it anyway' dealios. His boatload of experience, guts and general capability made him a prime choice in any case — the politics are there to explain why he's in here and not out there leading in the field anymore.

Edited by tvtropesnoob on Feb 5th 2020 at 10:20:37 AM

"Your Sig is now charmingly out of date" — Vox, 7/6/2016

@tvtropesnoob: I'm going to have to prune the powers here, as the variety of things he can do to circumvent challenges is overwhelming. In this RP, killing people is never a solution, so even that limitation means almost nothing. Carlos' utility is massive.

Water Magic: This itself is powerful enough to make him top-tier. The number of applications water magic has in any water-drinking society are endless. I'm not going to touch it too much, but I am going to reduce the speed of instant erosion from 'immediate vaporisation' to 'I've been treading water for five days and now my skin is peeling off.' This is to prevent him from poofing non-human or robotic NPCs with one touch. The water lasers can also stay, but they'll have the same effect as a water jet cutter of similar volume. In keeping with the theme of limited inventory, I'm also going to slow the rate of moisture gain enough to force him to carry physical supplies of water on him at all times. No instant water lasers, unless he's willing to charge them for ten seconds or so.

Disintegration Shield: Force-dampening instead of force-redirecting. Dissipates physical force and applies the oversaturation effect stated above, but does not vaporize it. Metal will probably rust, but not vanish; fists will turn into wrinkled mush but not disappear. Light bends instead of disappearing.

Illusions: He can change his appearance and create distractions, but only become partially invisible (like an underwater diver, shimmering in the depths). Skilled and experienced magic-users (or very attentive mortals) will be able to pierce his disguise, but only with great scrutiny and a very keen eye.

Earth Magic: Lightning is fine, subject to last-resort limitation. Magnetism is limited to the amount of repulsion a Carlos-sized magnet would do.

Thaumaturgy: All okay.

Security and charm-making: All okay, subject to every limitation above.

Weaknesses: All okay.

True Sight: Can play tricks on him even in addition to its symbolic nature: the nature of the world is cryptic and this is only compounded by the existence of infinite worlds.

Opening doors to magical realms: Only works on the local level; he cannot use it to escape from a given Room, although he can use it to escape to another plane in that Room.

Soul gaze: All okay.

Quick reaction time: All okay.

Magic shield circles: All okay, although reduced in power. Can maybe take a cannonball before breaking.

General physical abilities: All okay, subject to the fact that a hardened soldier with no magical training will probably have spent more time training pure combat than Carlos, and thus might have an edge.

Other competencies: All okay.

Magical Willow Sword: Has an enhanced cutting effect on magical shields similar to Carlos' but no generalised anti-magic effect due to conflicting laws. Sharpness and unbreakableness is fine.

Everything else is fine. Let me know what you think.

Edited by troydenite on Feb 6th 2020 at 7:09:30 AM

'Being around you guys makes me go "wtf" instead of pondering the ever increasing dread of time' - EchoingSilence, 2023

Sounds good! I'll edit em in

"Your Sig is now charmingly out of date" — Vox, 7/6/2016

@tvtropesnoob: Carlos is accepted. Welcome to the Party!

'Being around you guys makes me go "wtf" instead of pondering the ever increasing dread of time' - EchoingSilence, 2023

[redacted]

I think I will need more time to decide if I can commit fully to this game. Sorry about that.

Edited by ShyNinja on Mar 3rd 2020 at 7:55:12 AM