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Santiago Aden /  High Concept: Armored Warchild Invoke: To tap into his heavily internalized military training; To get off the grid and use his status as a deniable asset; To obtain things from the military. Compel: To have a rival, instructor, or person in his past surface and confront him; To have his youth used against him. Trouble: Double-Timing Double Agent Indoctrinated and prepared by years of psychological conditioning and mental manipulation, Santiago's devotion to the military has not diminished by joining the Soul Network. He firmly believes in its ability to do good, but has been slipping data on it to the NEG. Invoke: To gain the trust of NEG or Network officials; To call upon contacts or call in favors to keep his cover; To lie convincingly and without hesitation. Compel: To force a clash of loyalties; To put him and his companions under suspicion or bring the spotlight to them; To be subject to manipulation as a puppet of unknown organizations Backstory: Veteran Of The Great Green Raid Argentinian by birth, Santiago's parents were old money, with influence and cash to spend as they saw fit - which was exactly what they did when they had him. He was a child of luxury, conceived and genetically tinkered with to showcase all the best qualities of his parents, and become an inheritor to their fortunes they could proudly parade for all their acquaintances to see. In spite of this, his mother and father treated him quite warmly. Part of it was the fact that he was a prized possession, and treasured accordingly by the pair of diehard materialists, but much to their surprise, the little kid grew on them far more than they expected. By the time, Santiago was six, the Adens were a true family, if an uncommonly loose one, closer to being good friends than parents and son. That changed very quickly when the cultists of Shub-Niggurath belonging to the Green Fury staged a massive surprise raid on Buenos Aires. A sudden rise of the organic matter beneath the city's foundations turned several districts of the city into a marshland, confusing the armed forces stationed within and allowing the cultists to take entire neighborhoods prisoner. Santiago and his family were carted thousands of miles away from home, as a massive chase ensued, the NEG's troops hot on the Furies' tails. As the military closed the distance, however, it found out that the Furies had prepared a nasty surprise: a massive band of jungle, stretching from the Andes to the coast, had sprung up overnight, providing the Furies with a perfect hiding spot. The writhing trees actively resisted all attempts to penetrate the forest, lashing out with overgrown roots and poisonous leaves. A dark mirror of the Impenetrable forest in the northern edge of the country, the Furies' surprise was codenamed 'Impregnable Woods of the Black Goat', or the Impregnable for short. The unholy cross between the Black Goat's thousand young and simple trees gave the Furies ample time to begin conducting grisly rites and experiments on their prisoners. Santiago never saw his parents again after being separated from them, and spent the next month in the filthy pigsty that the Furies called a prison, starved and mistreated, but refusing to give up on the life he'd been taught was his to enjoy. When the NEG finally managed to bust through the Impregnable and attack the makeshift Fury facilities, Santiago was one of a few hundred survivors of the raid. With no family to look after him, he would have been relocated to a foster home, had he not spent so much time speaking to the troopers who had rescued him, asking them what it was like to fight Fury scum, and how old one had to be to join the corps...which seemed to get someone's attention, as the 57th Mechanized Infantry Squadron took Santiago as their charge, delivering him to a secret NEG facility in the mountains known as the Steel Cradle. There, Santiago met a doctor named Adrianna Fang, adjunct advisor to the military courtesy of the Ashcroft foundation, and head of one of the NEG's most secret efforts: Project Warchild. Invoke: To push through pain and survive dire situations; To take advantage of familiar war territory. Compel: To go out of his way to get revenge and distrust members of the Green Fury; To take extreme measures to ensure threats to his own safety are taken care of. Yomikiri: Play Around, But Play For Keeps Unbeknownst to all civilians, and almost all members of the government hierarchy, the NEG had been working on backup plans in case of emergencies since its formation. Given the state of turmoil the world was in because of the appearance of things beyond the imagination of all but children and madmen at the time of the NEG's formation, it was only natural for the upper echelons of the government to decree that the intelligence and military branches of the NEG work hard to prepare for all eventualities. And by this, they truly meant all eventualities. Nothing should be left to chance. Government contingencies ranged from the sensible (countermeasures in case of a Mi-Go invasion), to the bizarre (sudden worldwide appearance of a race of underground monstrosities) to the bleakest, darkest possible futures for mankind. Project Warchild was born out of contemplating one such future: a world in which mankind had been so depleted by otherworldly horrors that all combat-ready adults were dead or disabled, leaving children to fight the wars of men in a desperate bid for survival. What started as a simple risk projection and psychological analysis of the aptitude for children as soldiers rapidly metamorphosed into live tests, using rejected, unwanted kids as test subjects in controlled environments, before ballooning into a full-fledged military program, devoted to obtaining combat data of man's last line of defense, the better to prepare it for its potential destiny. The advisor in charge of directing the project was Doctor Adrianna Fang. One of Ashcroft Education's preeminent experts in child psychology, Doctor Fang was in charge of managing the human element of Project Warchild. While there was an astoundingly high rate of suicides and resignations among the Warchild researchers, Dr. Fang seemed to be immune to the tremendous psychological strain that the project posed. Indeed, one of the few times Dr. Fang showed any emotion was when she put her newfound 'pupils' through her modified education regime, delighted by the prospect of enlightening a new generation. Santiago entered the project a vivacious, clever jokester, heartbroken by the loss of his parents and ready to do whatever it took to get back at the Green Fury for it. By the time his education had concluded, the sadness was gone, replaced by quiet determination. He was well on track to achieving his goal, and knew it. He had a new family too, made up of the other Warchildren and their overseers, much bigger and more tightly knit than his old one, with an innumerable number of brothers and sisters. He would have given up an arm for them, and he knew they would do likewise for him. His trainers loved him, and it was plain to see: he could detect their happiness behind their professional façade, and saw a glitter in their eyes when they thought he wasn't looking. Each test passed was cause for celebration, each benchmark exceeded a reason to punch the air in victory. In spite of being in the middle of an enemy zone when it happened, Tiago had to keep himself from letting out a shout of triumph when he bagged his first cultist bastard, at the age of twelve. His work was more than a duty: it was a joy, something that gave his life meaning and purpose. And to think he had found it before hitting adolescence! It didn't take long for Tiago to distinguish himself from his peers. Out of more than a hundred Warchildren, Santiago was one of the first three selected for full combat duty. Each of the three graduates was provided with a prototype suit of Dragon-class power armor, employing state-of-the-art technology to transform resourceful, but easily overpowered children into operatives unmatched by opposition below the scale of Engels. Reina Aldrich, the Warchild with the highest kill-count, received the Red Blaze, specialized in close-quarters combat. Sophia Aquinas, who favored subversive operations and avoidance of confrontation, received the Black Ice, armed with a massive array of electronic devices and metamaterials with which to avoid detection. Santiago, possessing the best marksmanship record of the entire project, received the White Light, capable of waging unmatched long-range warfare, capped by the massively powerful Judgement Spark weapon. As a final test before their first tours of duty, the three children were pitted against each other in a training match. What started as a trial run for the Dragons quickly escalated, turning into a full-fledged brawl as the hypercompetitive First Class Warchildren refused to be shown up by their peers. The battle ended with all three armors disabled, but not before Tiago managed to score the only clean takedown of the match against the Red Blaze. He spent the next few days avoiding a murderously angry and humiliated Reina before finally abandoning the Steel Cradle. Invoke: To appear harmless and nonthreatening; To get into someone's good graces; To come out on top when the stakes are high. Compel: To not treat things as seriously as they should; To escalate a situation to prove his superiority. Volume Three: Working Out The Grand Equation Santiago's fourteenth birthday found him at the frontlines of the Aeon War doing what he did best. An year spent fighting had done little to quench his thirst for adventure, excitement, and the opportunity to pump some lunatics full of holes. Keeping a low profile and traveling across the globe as per Doctor Fang's instructions gave him a chance to see quite a few strange things, and meet an inordinate number of strange people. As a Warchild, he had standing orders to provide as much combat data for the project as possible and assist NEG forces whenever the opportunity arose, and no other obligations, except for the occasional special assignment. He didn't see his fellow Warchildren much after leaving the Cradle: while allowed to intervene at any potential hot zone, each Warchild First Class took up an unofficial assignment: Sophia focused on counterinsurgency and investigating the Migou, while Reina took up the war zones in Asia that persisted after the end of the Xanthic Storm. Tiago focused his efforts on the Green Fury, of course. It was a difficult, solitary job, but he did not mind, as he had something to keep him busy while not unleashing hell on cultists or strange monstrosities: Chaos Stage. An ancient game which sprouted from military strategic simulation programs, Chaos Stage put its player in the role of a mysterious benefactor, overseeing the development of life on Earth. Beginning in prehistoric times, the game allowed players to create a wide variety of lifeforms, leading to the development of a complete ecosystem throughout multiple stages, up to the beginnings of civilization. It was at this point that the real meat of the game began, as it entered its namesake stage, forcing the player to relinquish direct control of his creations and leave them to their own devices, only allowing subtle environment manipulation and cryptic oniric visions to guide the fate of the creatures and stave off the collapse of civilization. These visions were only available in limited amounts per age of civilization, forcing players to carefully study each lifeform and select the appropriate one to transform into a prophet and impact the fate of the world. Santiago had been playing Chaos Stage since he was a young child at the Cradle. It had taken him years to learn the basics of the game, but it was so tremendously engrossing and rewarding of proper judgement that he took thousands upon thousands of failed sessions in stride. Over time, he became a part of the fan community surrounding the game, known as Stagehands. The Stagehands were staunch believers in a 'proper play theory', integral to success in Chaos Stage. This theory, based on accounting for reliable interactions between variables governing the actions of sapient lifeforms, was known as the Grand Equation. The Grand Equation proposed that, while the immense number of hidden variables behind each lifeform made it impossible to perfectly predict the consequences of introducing a new element to the mix, pattern recognition allowed players to intuitively understand the effects of the hidden variables, known as Chaos Factors. To that end, the Equation provided hundreds of pointers with which to develop an unconscious knowledge base through which to perceive the impacts of the Chaos Factors. One day, while studying possible assignments, Tiago decided to make his decision based on an analysis rooted in the Grand Equation. To his shock, months later, Santiago began to see signs of changes that the Grand Equation had accounted for. Could it be used to predict changes not just within the game, but also the real world? Seeking to test his hypothesis, Tiago plunged into an analysis of the unexplained events of the world in the last few weeks, and found signs of a small insurance company in the States exerting tremendous influence on global affairs. Not waiting a moment, he took off to perform a more direct investigation, and soon found himself caught in a battle between a large cell of the Children of Chaos and a powerful private military contractor, Blackmore's Knights. Invoke: To press the right buttons; To see a pattern obscured by a cloud of misinformation; To intuitively perceive a coming event before it happens. Compel: To try to find meaning in things that lack it; To follow a hunch to disastrous effects; To be rattled by unaccounted factors. OVA: Child's Play (Is Serious Business) "Can I go in yet?" "No." --- "Can I go in yet?" "No." Sitting back on his chair in the middle of the deserted apartment, Santiago stared at the monitor array in front of him and grinned. An emergency call from a Soul Network contact meant he'd raced for Berlin overnight to keep an eye on a gathering of eldritch nasties, and act as support for one of the OOIs agents inside. Unlike most of his assignments, though, he'd received explicit, extremely serious orders not to intervene until the situation had escalated. The whole thing was such a powder keg that any bad moves could unleash complete pandemonium on the city. If something went wrong, his job would be to stall for time until Engel squads could arrive. If those agents couldn't handle the situation, drastic measures would be leveled against the threat. Needless to say, Santiago was dying to know just what the hell was going on inside, and the operative handling the matter, one Aidan Frost, had not been particularly forthcoming with information. So, he was settling for acting dumber and more eager than he was and pestering him with the kinds of questions a kid would ask. The extra distraction would help him bring his A-Game, anyway. One of the screens flashed as a tab indicated he had received messages. Keeping an eye on the screen that monitored Frost's vital signs (and especially, his heartrate), Santiago seized a keyboard. pre:<BlackWidowmaker>hiiii, how's our boy doing? ^_^ <BrightChild>Angry, but that's normal for him. Australia still bad? <BlackWidowmaker>Ugh, yes, I can't wait for my transfer. I just want out already! (-_-) <BlackWidowmaker>BTW, how'd he react to the offer? I've got some people who would love to have his help. <BrightChild>Been too busy to ask, gimme a second. "And forget about dealing with you, kid? Every second since you jumped in." pre:<BrightChild>Ain't too happy about his job. Pretty sure he'd desert it if he could. <BlackWidowmaker>Yaaaaaay! We just have to offer him the right incentive. I'll be working on it. Keep up the good work! "Hey Aidan, what if I told you I'm part of a super-secret worldwide organization and I want to recruit you for it? You interested?" "Kid, I swear if you keep loving with me I'm gonna get out of here and leave you hanging for a wire by your intestines. Shut up already!" "Fair. I just got one last question then." "What is it? What?" "Can I go in already?" "ARGH! Invoke: To act like a child to his benefit; To leave lasting impressions on people and get them expecting certain things from him; To have certain contacts and resources at his disposal ( Compel: For an impression to be too long-lasting; To kid around too much and too long; To have his business bite him in the rear end. Omake: Hunter In Someone Else's Hunting Grounds Incident SA4126, Progress Report 15 From: Santiago Aden To: Dr. Adrianna Fang During the ReInsurance Co. debacle, the man behind the operation, one Catriel Imara, vanished into thin air, leaving few traces of his activities behind. Data salvaged from the ReInsurance headquarters pointed toward several still ongoing operations, and linked him to several major terrorist acts of the last two decades, including the Black Night of London, the massacre at Bruges three years ago, and the Great Green Raid. Hoping to find Imara and either terminate him or bring him in for questioning, I departed for one of the OpSites. (Before you ask, Doc, I don't have any scores to settle with this bloke. He's a dangerous fella first and foremost, and he needs to be brought down before more people get hurt. The Green Raid ain't important here. Honest.) To speak freely, what I found there was a clusterfuck. Apparently several people wanted to stick their fingers in the pie and they hadn't taken a liking to each other. The place was a warzone by the time I got there, and things kind of blew up when I got involved. Literally. Imara used the distraction to get away again. One of the survivors pointed towards Shanghai, apparently he has a backup base there. Any backup I could get would be appreciated, there's no telling just how many goons Imara might have at his disposal. PS: There was an OOI operative at the OpSite who handled himself pretty well considering he had no special tech to help him out against eldritch nasties, I think his name was Zhang San. That's chinese, isn't it? Maybe he knows the lay of the land well enough to help out? PPS: Don't tell Reina that I'm visiting her turf, Doc. Unless she's changed since we last spoke, she doesn't like it when people butt into her business. PPPS: No, really, please don't. Catching this SOB is too important. Invoke: To follow a trail succesfully no matter how cold it might be; To understand fellow hunters' mindsets and how to deal with them; To take down his prey. Compel: To focus on chasing down a target singlemindedly; To trespass into forbidden territory, literally or figuratively, and get caught in the act; To become someone else's prey. --- Skills +5: Guns, Chaos Stagehand +4: Athletics, Deceit +3: Systems, Rapport +2: Physique, Will +1: Empathy, Scholarship Chaos Stagehand: Uses Investigation as a base. Can act as a complement to other skills when dealing with pattern analysis borne of studying an extensive amount of data, and employ the Command trapping of Presence where appropriate. Stunts: Perfect Aim (Guns): When making an attack, take a -2 penalty to defenses and Alertness until the start of your next turn to gain a +1 to the attack roll. Outrageous Untruths (Deceit): Use Deceit to apply the Overcome/Create Advantage trappings of Provoke, so long as falsehood is heavily involved in your claims. Powers: Item of Power: White Light Dragon Armor [-3] -Supernatural Speed [-4] -Wings [-1] -One-Time Discount [+2] Item of Power: Judgement Spark [-2] (A massive concealed energy weapon, intended for use in desperate situations to take down heavily armored enemies. Its effects are indicated below.) --Target Acquired. Dispensing Judgement: Make a Guns attack. If it succeeds, add four shifts to the effect. --D-Engine Depleted: Judgement Spark can normally only be used once per scene. Additional uses require the expenditure of a Fate Point. --Hard Light: Your Guns attack roll is also treated as a roll to Create an Advantage. The extra shifts from Judgement Spark and the attack's weapon rating are not added when determining whether the action Succeeds with Style. The Grand Equation [-0] (Cassandra's Tears reskin: Features the following trapping instead. Chaos Prediction: You have an uncanny ability to notice details others have missed and put them together to form a coherent picture of the future, borne of natural intuition sharpened by years of training to recognize patterns. When you make a prediction, which requires a minimum amount of information with which to make a logical connection, you place an aspect on the “world” related to the prediction that remains until it comes true or is otherwise resolved. However, your intuitive leap leaves some factors unaccounted for, giving the GM one free tag or compel against you to use before the prediction is resolved. You can perform more accurate predictions by spending a Fate Point to invoke your related Aspect: if you do so, the GM does not get the free tag or compel.) Gear: White Light Dragon Armor, Armor: 3. White Light Weapon Systems (White Heat), Weapon: 3. Judgement Spark, Weapon: 4. D-Cell Sidearm, Weapon: 2. Stress: Physical: ( )( )( ) Mental: ( )( )( ) Refresh: 1/8 Transient People fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Apr 12, 2013 |
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Jan 9, 2013 23:04
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Gonna go ahead and reapply Santiago here, since it seems like he'd be a perfect fit for this game. Here's a link to the old app. I've edited the skills and stunts slightly to make it cleaner and more fitting, but otherwise it's as it was before. I've also got a question: Right now, what's the Next Big Thing all the corporations are aiming for?
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Apr 1, 2013 08:25
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Obviously the Season 2 guys got the short end of the straw and are the NTech Hero Lower Class compared to the glitzy Season 1 boys and girls. Considering that, Miami makes perfect sense for them. 
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Apr 9, 2013 04:02
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Speaking of guest stars, working on one for Zhang's story right now. So to update UnCO3's chart a little...UnCO3 posted:GUEST STARS:
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Apr 9, 2013 04:21
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Alright, time to do some work here. Guest Starring In: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Zhang Incident SA4126, Progress Report 15 From: Santiago Aden To: Dr. Adrianna Fang During the ReInsurance Co. debacle, the man behind the operation, one Catriel Imara, vanished into thin air, leaving few traces of his activities behind. Data salvaged from the ReInsurance headquarters pointed toward several still ongoing operations, and linked him to several major terrorist acts of the last two decades, including the Black Night of London, the massacre at Bruges three years ago, and the Great Green Raid. Hoping to find Imara and either terminate him or bring him in for questioning, I departed for one of the OpSites. (Before you ask, Doc, I don't have any scores to settle with this bloke. He's a dangerous fella first and foremost, and he needs to be brought down before more people get hurt. The Green Raid ain't important here. Honest.) To speak freely, what I found there was a clusterfuck. Apparently several people wanted to stick their fingers in the pie and they hadn't taken a liking to each other. The place was a warzone by the time I got there, and things kind of blew up when I got involved. Literally. Imara used the distraction to get away again. One of the survivors pointed towards Shanghai, apparently he has a backup base there. Any backup I could get would be appreciated, there's no telling just how many goons Imara might have at his disposal. PS: There was an OOI operative at the OpSite who handled himself pretty well considering he had no special tech to help him out against eldritch nasties, I think his name was Zhang San. That's chinese, isn't it? Maybe he knows the lay of the land well enough to help out? PPS: Don't tell Reina that I'm visiting her turf, Doc. Unless she's changed since we last spoke, she doesn't like it when people butt into her business. PPPS: No, really, please don't. Catching this SOB is too important. Aspect: Hunter In Someone Else's Hunting Grounds Invoke: To follow a trail succesfully no matter how cold it might be; To understand fellow hunters' mindsets and how to deal with them; To take down his prey. Compel: To focus on chasing down a target singlemindedly; To trespass into forbidden territory, literally or figuratively, and get caught in the act; To become someone else's prey. --- Still thinking about the second guest star. Who to partner up with, hmm... Transient People fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Apr 9, 2013 |
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Apr 9, 2013 20:06
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Just updating this chart here, don't mind me... Zhang San, ACTION HACKER (K Prime) - guest stars with Aidan Frost and Kimber "Kim" Embry Agent Maynard Song, OOI Field Profiler (UnCO3) - guest stars with Kimber "Kim" Embry and Santiago Aden (or he will when I write them up) Kimber "Kim" Embry, OOI Field Counselor (Charlie72) - guest stars with... Santiago Aden, Armored Warchild (TransientPeople) - guest stars with Zhang San and Aidan Ashcroft Marcus Bauhdric, A Gentleman Beyond Reproach (Stormgale) - guest stars with... Aidan Frost, Eldritch Ashcroft "Consultant" (AlanWhats) - Maynard Song and... In other words this means that the following characters are OFF THE TABLE: Aidan Frost, Kimber Embry. Everybody else is still open!
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Apr 10, 2013 08:05
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Alright, enough lazing around, it's time for me to crank this one out. Presenting Santiago's second guest star... Guest Starring In: "You're Invited To A Mythos Family Reunion" "Can I go in yet?" "No." --- "Can I go in yet?" "No." Sitting back on his chair in the middle of the deserted apartment, Santiago stared at the monitor array in front of him and grinned. An emergency call from a Soul Network contact meant he'd raced for Berlin overnight to keep an eye on a gathering of eldritch nasties, and act as support for one of the OOIs agents inside. Unlike most of his assignments, though, he'd received explicit, extremely serious orders not to intervene until the situation had escalated. The whole thing was such a powder keg that any bad moves could unleash complete pandemonium on the city. If something went wrong, his job would be to stall for time until Engel squads could arrive. If those agents couldn't handle the situation, drastic measures would be leveled against the threat. Needless to say, Santiago was dying to know just what the hell was going on inside, and the operative handling the matter, one Aidan Frost, had not been particularly forthcoming with information. So, he was settling for acting dumber and more eager than he was and pestering him with the kinds of questions a kid would ask. The extra distraction would help him bring his A-Game, anyway. One of the screens flashed as a tab indicated he had received messages. Keeping an eye on the screen that monitored Frost's vital signs (and especially, his heartrate), Santiago seized a keyboard. pre:<BlackWidowmaker>hiiii, how's our boy doing? ^_^ <BrightChild>Angry, but that's normal for him. Australia still bad? <BlackWidowmaker>Ugh, yes, I can't wait for my transfer. I just want out already! (-_-) <BlackWidowmaker>BTW, how'd he react to the offer? I've got some people who would love to have his help. <BrightChild>Been too busy to ask, gimme a second. "And forget about dealing with you, kid? Every second since you jumped in." pre:<BrightChild>Ain't too happy about his job. Pretty sure he'd desert it if he could. <BlackWidowmaker>Yaaaaaay! We just have to offer him the right incentive. I'll be working on it. Keep up the good work! "Hey Aidan, what if I told you I'm part of a super-secret worldwide organization and I want to recruit you for it? You interested?" "Kid, I swear if you keep loving with me I'm gonna get out of here and leave you hanging for a wire by your intestines. Shut up already!" "Fair. I just got one last question then." "What is it? What?" "Can I go in already?" "ARGH! Aspect: Child's Play (Is Serious Business) Invoke: To act like a child to his benefit; To leave lasting impressions on people and get them expecting certain things from him; To have certain contacts and resources at his disposal ( Compel: For an impression to be too long-lasting; To kid around too much and too long; To have his business bite him in the rear end.
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Apr 12, 2013 20:07
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Kai Tave posted:...and Tang. If the Tang reservoir doesn't end up spilling and covering everything as far as the eye can see the Miami game deserves to be called a failure. 
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Apr 14, 2013 05:52
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Ronwayne posted:I had an idea for writing out Central America as a green hell sort of thing, ancient temples dedicated to squiggly things, places to fight an all out brush war, etc. but I think I'll hold off until we're one or two chapters in and we've burned down enough stuff to start casting for new targ-er, settings. If you need something like that, remember more or less a third of the south American continent is already in that position thanks to the Green Fury. That way central am can be used for another good hook and some of the groundwork is laid down already.
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Apr 16, 2013 22:54
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Alright, here we go - been working on this for a while so hopefully it's not too awful. Pictures coming as soon as I find five or six hours to go hunting for them! Theme: Flowers Among The Flotsam The '60s were a bad time for China in general, and Shanghai in specific. Bad, bad times. Chaos, Anarchy, Death...and all washed away by fear of the unknown and the future when the Migou entered the scene by obliterating the Xanthic Storm. There was a time when the Crown of the Orient was little more than a wasteland, where only the toughest, craftiest, deadliest, most embittered survivors managed to eke out a living, let alone prosper. In a way, Shanghai has skipped a couple generations: the only people who live there are those who came in after it was fully rebuilt not so long ago, or the people who were already there before the Storm rolled in and were too stubborn or lost too much to it to get out. Face: Lao Long In chinese mythology, dragons are considered divine creatures, unmatched except for the greatest heroes and gods. Without dispute, Lao Long is the head dragon of Shanghai's hacking community. He's old. Even before the Xanthic Storm hit, the man known as Jiang Longyan had already made a name for himself as one of the best security crackers in the world. The Xanthic Storm took away his family, his home, most of his faith in mankind and his hopes for the future, but not his talent for codebreaking. Since then, he's followed an ironclad policy: Get paid upfront, do the job perfectly, and get out. Shoggoth, Triad, NEG, doesn't matter who wants his talents, so long as the bills are paid. Things of Note: The Dragon of Shanghai has always been surrounded by rumors - anyone with such a storied history tends to build up a legend around himself, even if he wants to remain anonymous. Over time, to his disgust, he's built a cadre of 'followers', people who learned hacking from him and still respect him as their teacher. Recently, strange rumors have surfaced: One of them is that the Dragon's pupils have started to band together, with aims to become an organization (some say he's behind it, some say he's not). The other, and stranger rumor, is that he's been recently doing work...pro bono. Nobody knows who exactly is the beneficiary and the Dragon isn't telling, but everybody's certain it's a thing and desperate to know who has the Dragon in their pocket. Another rumor says he's doing work for G://0st, and by extension, the Soul Network. Aspects: The Dragon of Shanghai, Living For The Work, Don't Believe In Nobody Goals: Keep Living, Get Paid Other Face: Cypher Santiago's closest contact in the Soul Network at the moment, Cypher's actual name is Alsairsephy Dalarine Went, or Sephy Went for short. Australian by birth, Sephy is one of a million Akathar kids who decided tech sounded like a great idea and got into hardware tinkering, before moving on to ripping out software's innards instead. How she got into the Soul Network is not entirely clear, considering G://0st usually only picks up competent, tested operatives, but she's extremely eager to "help fight the evil aliens and save the world along my human friends!" (sic). She used to live in Perth, but recently immigrated to Shanghai because 'I was sick of my old neighborhood, and Shanghai was pretty close and sounded. So. COOL!' (sic). Needless to say, she chose her hacking alias herself. Aspects: Wet-Behind-The-Ears Hacker, Militant Networker, "Everything's So Great! ^_^" Goals: Have a fun, exciting life; Clean the world up, one hack at a time!
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Apr 17, 2013 00:42
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Faction: Armed Forces of the New Earth Government The Migou cleaned up the worst of Asia's trash when they appeared, but a lot of filth has tried to take the place of the Xanthic Storm since then. Not wanting another major uprising, the NEG responded by reallocating the forces already in Asia to preventive duties: Find cultists and assorted eldritch nasties, gun them down, move on. In practice, this hasn't affected day-to-day affairs, as the government still functions (as well as it normally does, at least) and they are too overworked and busy fighting at the frontlines to have more than a small garrison out there most of the time, but nobody in the criminal underworld wants to make really big moves at the moment to avoid bringing a couple dozen armored divisions to Shanghai. So long as there's a bigger fire to put out, nobody will get hurt by a large-scale military purge. Aspects: Fighting On All Fronts; Our Heroes Are Disposable; Don't Wake Up The Sleeping Giant Faces General Zhongda While not as permanently active as the South American Front, the Eastern Theatre has perhaps been the one that has most heavily taxed the NEG's forces. While major engagements have been short and resolved quickly in most cases, it has always been at a tremendous cost in lives: millions of troopers have fallen in the line of duty, and terrorist attacks have killed many at all levels. Chinese by birth and one of eight brothers born to one of the most influential politicians in the NEG, Zhongda has risen meteorically across the ranks of the military, even though he was quite reluctant to become a part of it, believing the NEG's days were numbered. Much of Zhongda's current station is owed to the Red Fever Crisis that wracked Shanghai not too many years ago: The then-captain's handling of a situation that stumped his superiors was cause for condecoration, and the recent assassination of the previous general in charge of the warfront finally pushed him over to a position in control of the Eastern Theatre. He currently resides in the Former French Concession, and claims to be trying to clean up the city 'without moving a single man from the warfronts'. Ashcroft Foundation Analysts have studied him repeatedly, and each of them has come to the same conclusion: "A man to watch, respect, and fear. He shall climb as high as he is allowed to." Aspects: Man of Intelligence; Hidden Ambitions; The Impossible Is My Stock In Trade; Shanghai Will Be My Playground; Sima Yi Reborn Goals: Power and control; Bring an end to war, by whatever means are necessary; To do it in ways nobody else could even have thought of. Reina Aldrich The second of the three Project Warchild First Class graduates, Reina is a hell of a nutcase. Some people like battle, some people love it, and some think it's better to stay dirty bathing with any other water than the blood of their enemies. Reina belongs to the latter group, possessing a kill-count that easily dwarfs that of her two fellow Warchildren, Santiago Aden and Sophia Aquinas. Born in the States, she lost her parents to a biological virus and was taken in by the Project soon after. She pilots the Red Blaze, an extremely advanced power armor model, capable of achieving supersonic speeds, designed for up close and personal fighting. She was stationed at the asian front a year ago, and arrived to Shanghai a few months later. She is a perfectionist with insane confidence in her own skills, who strives to be the best of the best of the best, a soldier without paragon. She used to be extremely popular with the other warchildren (and rather close to Santiago), but has been completely immersed in her work. As of late, she seems to have developed an odd fascination with the Triads, particularly its assassination methods. Aspects: "KILL THEM ALL! SORT IT OUT LATER!"; Transient People fucked around with this message at 02:10 on Apr 17, 2013 |
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Apr 17, 2013 02:06
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Kai Tave posted:I don't know how people in the Miami game feel about splitting the party, GM included. It's the sort of thing Juliana would suggest, but I'm not married to it as a player if it'll be a hassle/less fun. You probably just gave Mistaya PTSD.  (Just had to joke about this, Miami amuses me entirely too much to not comment upon it a bit.)
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Apr 20, 2013 08:59
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Alternatively, the body is real and Kaiya just reuploaded herself to another body, Eclipse Phase style. It's another possibility.
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Apr 21, 2013 03:53
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We're actually still missing features for our hideout, aren't we? Someone get on that and start pitching good ideas for a lair tia
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Apr 21, 2013 17:39
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Hideout update: by consensus and to continue the dragon theme of Shanghai, the front for the hideout is a library known as Shenlong Books. We now return to your regularly scheduled already running games after this helpful public service announcement.
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Apr 22, 2013 04:27
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I'm on it, I'll be around later today!
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Apr 22, 2013 22:09
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Speaking of splitting the party, the OOI hangars on Shanghai are elsewhere, right? I'm assuming so but I thought it was worth asking to make sure, since in that case Santiago's gonna have to take a detour
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Apr 25, 2013 18:34
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Ettin posted:I was assuming there's a hangar/garage with a secret entrance/exit in a nearby government property or something, so you guys can just drive there. (If you are splitting the party I'd rather not have it split by someone showing up early and making all the rolls, though.) Shouldn't be a problem, not gonna try to play Sherlock Holmes here. More like securing the scene and making sure nothing is terribly out of place, really!
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Apr 26, 2013 04:54
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Hey Ettin, did Ho Fong resist everything we threw at him with the +8 roll? Just checking to make sure Santiago's own contested roll didn't get passed over.
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Sep 18, 2013 18:05
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To play Devil's Advocate for a moment, here's what would change with a switch to pure Fate Core: -No More Powers: In Core, a stunt is a stunt is a stunt. The closest thing to a Power is a stunt that requires an Extra and some permissions to take, which could be made to model Powers as they are in Dresden but would probably be unnecessarily clunky. -Stronger Stunts: With a couple exceptions, Dresden stunts are pretty much garbage that applies only in niche situations and provides small bonuses. Core standardizes things so that every stunt provides a +2 bonus and most of them are much more broadly applicable (for example, '+2 to Intimidate attacks so long as you hold knives'). Any stunts that grant a +1 bonus right now or work under niche circumstances probably should be stronger from the conversion. Notably, Core's version of the 'Super X' (Endurance, Strength, Speed) stunts is also stronger, pound for pound. This could create balance issues except... -Lowered Refresh Rates: Core doesn't have the +2 bonus from being purely human and it starts from the considerably lower baseline of 3 base refresh (plus 3 automatically granted stunts). It also doesn't have the Pure Mortal Refresh boost, the point breaks from Item of Power, Catches or Sponsored Magic. We're looking at going down from what is effectively 12 to 14 refresh per PC to six to ten, probably (depending if we go from the baseline refresh to a very high 7 base refresh and the 3 bonus stunts. These dials can be tweaked as needed, of course). -Lower top end numbers: Even though Stunts and their Power equivalents are generally stronger, Core runs on somewhat tighter math and it's less easy to go up to the nutty numbers people like Shiro, Storms, Santiago and Da'ud can throw around. If we switch systems, weapon lethality (and armor durability as well) is probably going to drop by one or two points of stress in general to lower the amount of edge cases where people go from taking no damage on a miss to going kablooie on a tie. -Skill List Pared Down: Not as big a deal as it would be if we'd been doing pure DFRPG, this is still notable because it helps some characters out, as Core has one or two less skills than the ones we have right now. -Stronger Aspects: In Core, the action to create a Block, the action to set up a readied attack action, and the action to Maneuver are all one and the same and achieved with a single roll all at the same time - Create an Advantage. This means maneuvering is going to be stronger relative to just straight up attacking. I think this is a good thing because daaaaaaaamn, our combat monsters are scary yo. -No Set Magic: This has been mentioned as a big problem but to me it seems pretty simple. Magic (and equivalents) are modeled as either extra skills, or 'upgrades' of preexisting skills in Fate Core, usually with some sort of stunt cost attached depending on what it's meant to do. For example, Mina might have Technomancy as a skill in Core, and so would Aidan be paying for a new skill called Millionth Favored One that does a bunch of funny things. Da'ud, meanwhile, would probably just straight up be rolling to do things with either Will or Lore. About the only notable change would be the death of automatic plusses from specializations and focus items, and switching Enchanted Items to be things that require paying a stunt (or more in the case of incredible stuff) to get. Should be simple enough to do. Overall, the switch seems easy enough to pull off, and there are definite benefits in there. I think it mostly comes down to how lazy we're feeling about tweaking our sheets, really.
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Oct 15, 2013 06:49
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Mors Rattus posted:Well, that and I'd end up losing quite a lot of my power from the changeover, and I have no idea what I do with the Refresh I'd get in exchange. Well, if you wanted to just retain your oomph, what I'd probably do is port over Da'ud's big blasty spells using Core's Energy Blast - it's a Extra stunt that grants +2 to attack rolls and a +2 bonus to weapon ratings over the highest mundane number you can find. Attach a mental stress cost to it (and your other powers) and I think you're set for replicating his magic in Core. Ronwayne posted:I agree, TP, but Storms' combat monstering was/is a combination of ridiculous guns and having a fat stack of FPs and a bunch of combat related aspects to just blow apart entire zones (and a bunch of carnage related compels to instantly get those FPs back), rather than powers. You're right with the extremely limited stunts/powers and FPs, this mitigates it quite a bit. However since throwing and shooting are now the same, and I wouldn't be doing anything with awareness, that's three stunts I could drop right off the bat, leaving me with only three I'd need to port over. Net result is him having "only" 3 refresh instead of his original 4. There's a distinct lack of explosions in Miami right now, anyway. Is a man not entitled to the boom of his explosives?
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Oct 15, 2013 22:21
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My argument is that the upgrades aren't minor, though. This means we're at an impasse since this isn't something that can really be debated since the supposed value of upgrading is the keystone of both positions. I do think it works better if we switch because it eliminates a lot of wonky math and weird glitches, but that may be my preference for more tightly controlled numbers speaking.
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Oct 16, 2013 02:01
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If you're planning to do some Thaumaturgy, here's how it works: A) Ask the GM how many shifts you need for a spell. B) Once you know the number, compare it to your Lore. if it's higher than that, you need to provide them. C) To provide shifts, you can spend Fate Points, skip scenes, or roll skills to generate Aspects and use their Invokes. You can also take Consequences, if you like. D) Once you have enough shifts, roll Discipline to cast the spell. Before each roll, select how many shifts you want to try and cover with it. Fail, and the spell backfires. Succeed and you continue channeling. E) Once you've finished channeling all the shifts, congratulations! You just cast a spell!
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Feb 5, 2014 22:52
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Elfface posted:Thanks for the help! Bingo. It pays to have a couple fate points handy for thaumaturgy, just in case the dice decide to be assholes and throw a -4 your way. A good rule of thumb is to call up Discipline-1 shifts per roll if you're somewhat hurried but still have time, Disc-2 if you've got time to kill, and go for broke by calling up your full Discipline Score's worth of shifts if you need to get a spell out RIGHT NOW.
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Feb 7, 2014 01:10
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