Renewed SHR 2 RPG Sign-Up and Discussion Thread

[WyldCard4]

Not sure if I ever actually explained what was going on with Alice and her family to anyone but Cleric, so might as well write up my own OOC post of glory.

So...

Alice was not the "seventh daughter of a seventh daughter times seven" as she so often said. That was her big sister playing a prank on her that she was sure wouldn't be believed. Carrol never heard about it and bothered to correct her. Shannon would laugh her ass off to read the RPG and find out how many times Alice brought it up.

Shannon is also the source of many of Alice's special views on history and religion. Shannon had a tendency to get bored baby sitting and found it fun to give Alice "history" lessons.

Alice's mother, Carrol King...

She did not like being a Witch of Ashur. So she decided not to be. She trained up her chi stat, eventually maxing agility. This screwed up her natural magic, but she happened to have some psychic abilities herself that the family picked up a long time ago. Her various stats led to being a perfect fit for a US government fighter pilot program that hoped to combat the shrinking number of mages through chi use combined with tech.

Carrol was a perfect match. She rejected her position as a witch, had maxed agility (needed to fly her new super jet), and she didn't have a deep political desire to change things. She was one of 27 people selected for the program.

It worked very well. The US military were good guys, at least in this project. Things worked out well until most of the project were killed off by MI-6 because other nations were not happy at the idea of the US having access to a fleet of brand new superweapons. They mostly used a group of power using terrorists/supremacists that Cleric mentioned a long time ago but who's name I forget.

So, the US Air Force was stuck with someone with Alice's impulse control and broader philosphical beliefs, but none of her compassion or righteousness. She was too valuable to just remove, but too nuts to actually trust. In the end they just made her a "general" and shipped her between different military bases.

This would have worked fine if she didn't run around like a cat in heat and refuse to use protection.

Hence, Jane King was born in 2288. Rapidly following her was Juniper King in 2289. Petra King was born in 2291, the fraternal twins Shannon and Rose in 2292. Katrina and Alice King were born less than a year apart in 2293 and 2294 respectively. And Carrol did not slow down until around the turn of the century, when she got bored.

That's the family Alice King was born into. She never in knew her father's name until Edan told her at the IBT. She was shuffled from military base to military base with her sisters, while her mother would be absent for long periods before suddenly bursting in and making their lives Hell. Sometimes she'd drop off another baby with an unknown father for them. The caretakers changed constantly, mostly because the military was afraid of what Carrol would do if she felt they were trying to influence her children.

Of course they could have stepped in. They had control over her if she tried to blow up Washington or something equally stupid. But if she quit there wasn't a replacement who could pilot her fighter properly. And that would leave America and the UEC just a bit more vulnerable. The Kings were a worthy trade for that.

So the sisters mostly raised each other. They all had different ways of coping. Jane and Juniper fled as soon as they could, Petra tried to take control over the house, Shannon and Rose clung to each other until they fled. Kat left a year before Alice did.

How did Alice react to her life? She retreated into what little she understood of her Ashur legacy. She researched all the magic she could. Alice's theoretical understanding of magic is impressive even by the standards of adult researchers, if they could figure out what she is talking about. Being self taught off of ancient texts and super-good translate led to her using very peculiar terminology and she developed some warped ideas about disciplies she didn't practice.

Alice could have left at any time. But she had no marketable skills, and her mastery of the actual practice of magic was rudimentary. She could have been a fine researcher or teacher, but as an early teen no one would have hired her. She believed she'd probably have either ended up on the streets or in some fighter training program if she left.

Of course she did end up in a fighter training program...

Alice's circumstances did change shortly before she entered Arcadia though. For the most part she just broke through on the practical side of magic. She figured out practical implimentation through her own methods, using her rudimentary psychic powers to talk to Dreamers instead of bothering with shouting Akkadian.

That is when Kat came back and dragged her off to Ashur Compound. The Ashurs wanted to train her and figure out what exactly she was doing. Alice liked the idea at first, but soon realized she had absolutely nothing in common with these freaks.

And more than that, they only came for her after she became powerful. They didn't care about her, only her power. And Alice didn't like that.

When Alice returned to her room in Ashur Compound, she found a note from Arcadia.

Alice didn't have high hopes going to Arcadia. She just thought it would be a good place to disappear for a while. She was shocked at how practical combat experience led to her developing practical magic on a level rivaling her theoretical understanding.

And then we're into the RPG, and you all know how that went.

[Froggy]

Dean's time as a wolf-it fit shim, kicking ass



Alice- explains a LOT

[Yun Lao]

Drake-time!

Actually, this will probably be less Drake than anything, however, I wanted to bring up this bit of information. As you all may or may not know, Drake managed to get Godmode due to the sacrifice of the Probability Engine, however, I don't think I quite specified what it actually did. Now, as you may know, there are different versions of our characters in other dimensions as the dimension hopping proved, however, what the Probability Engine did during his ascension was actually take every Drake in existence (even the one who tried to dissect Alice, for example) and combined them, with the exception of two, into one, the Drake we know.

Who are these exceptions? Vargas and one in the past to continue the loop and to keep the timeline in order. Or rather, they were the exceptions as the more the past Drake continues said loop, he creates another an etc.

Confused? I certainly am.

Anyway, onto the real purpose of this post; Drake's momma.

Of course I mentioned that Soussana had been the one who had released Godzilla that Jericho and other Arcadians fought, however what I didn't mentioned that, aside from brain damage, she never really recovered her memories. Instead got all her "memories" of her past self from Bloodmoon's own memories, thus she really doesn't know what she felt, believed, thought, only what she had done and said.

[Froggy]

well that's sad to hear

but at least drake still got his mommeh

how's he getting back home though or is he going back home

[Yun Lao]

well that's sad to hear

but at least drake still got his mommeh

how's he getting back home though or is he going back home

I plan to answer that in one of his epilogues.

[Froggy]

I plan to answer that in one of his epilogues.

alright cool. I'm trying to work on Laron's epilogue, and hopefully I get to work in Charles Barkley

or "OFFICER BARKLEY"

I had a lot of missed opportunities with this dude :(

[Sion Reaver]

A little late, but fitting since its the end of the RPG. Manny's opinion on other chars and closing thoughts.

Aureole: Emanulle would be embarrassed to say too much about it in depth he and Aureole definitely have a connection. Even before he always had a respect for her and is attracted to her mentally, and obviously physically as well. The important thing is there isn't just a romantic attraction, but she's his best friend and that more then a lot of other things gives the relationship a foundation to stand on.

Alice: Emanulle doesn't like Alice too much and he frankly finds some of her views either bizarre or bothering. He's however nice and civil around her because she's a close friend of Aureole and the second being out of respect for James. That and it's just how he is, and despite how many disagreements he has with King, he knows her heart at the least is in the right place.

He does still think she needs some professional help, but he doesn't think its his place to say; that's up to James really.

James: They haven't really interacted much but he likes and respects James. Emanulle thinks he's rather impulsive and such in battle but what he admires is his outlook.

Gil: The two haven't interacted except like..maybe once in the whole RPG really? He respects his battle skills but hasn't really been able to form a solid opinion of him, due to low interaction.

Jason: Emanulle doesn't like Jason at all, and he wonders exactly how someone like Sara ended up with him. He respects his battle ability and doesn't take his cunning lightly, but as a person doesn't have a high opinion of him.

Sara/Lara: The twins he has no problems with, though he hasn't been able to interact much. They both to him are good people, though he still wonders what Sara see's/likes in Jason so much as it baffles him considering the two's personalities.

Dory: He hasn't been able to find much opinion of Dory and her other personalities living inside of her. One thing for sure though, he still doesn't exactly trust Demona.

Juni: Another class mate he hasn't really gotten the chance to interact with. From their brief interactions and own observations, he come to conclusion she's a decent person but other then that, he can't comment.

Laron: Another close friend, haven't interacted as much but the two get along pretty well, Em considers him a friend as well.

Claude: Emanulle likes Claude, though the two haven't interacted too much they have more then he has with Juni, he considers him a friend.

..He'd find the cross dressing if he ever see's it a bit odd, though.

Marcus: Marcus is one of his closes male friends since attending to Arcadia and its thanks to the sniper the class has survived some of their encounters. He finds the whole harem thing a bit amusing, if only because Marcus never struck him as the type for that sort of thing. However, it's too early to say how that'll turn out.

Liu: Their interaction has been scarce towards the 2nd half and onward of the rpg, but he likes and respects Liu. He considers Liu a better leader then he could ever be and has the natural talent for it. Emanulle never really considered himself suited for leading anything big really.

Drake: He actually finds his sense of humor funny, though being from a different culture something's natural fly over his head. I get the feeling the two would have been closer friends if they interacted more.

Shamus: Mixed bag, he ranges from amusing to disturbing. Sometimes all at once.

Ramza/Ramziel: It's still jarring for Em about them being separate people but he's getting used to it and consider them both friends. It could be said Manny is closer to Ramziel though since in a way they interacted more. His niece Sarah, also grew on him. Then again he likes kids and wants some of his own some day so it doesn't exactly take much.

Yasu: In the beginning Emanulle didn't like her for a reason as he saw her merely as a ghost that made Claude do some horrible things. Through the time in Arcadia as she's mellowed out, along with her interactions Sarah, he's grown to respect her. Manny has a hard time holding a grudge anyway as he considers it a waste of energy. If she keeps on the current path he'll have no problems with her, maybe even become friends with her in the future.

Closing thoughts..

It needs to be said Emanulle isn't a new character, but his personality and background has been revised a bit. Originally, he was just "generic evil demon prince" but I find myself disliking it. Instead I went with the "Dark is not Evil" trope for just him, then his entire race soon after. So over time I changed it, making someone hopefully that was down to earth with a genuine good heart but still had some issues. Mainly family and such making him a bit relate-bale and likebale. Whether I succeeded in any or all of these is up to other people roleplaying with him I suppose.

I had a lot of fun with this roleplaying game and its the best campaign I've been in. Regardless of what everyone thinks of Em, I had a lot of fun roleplaying with you all, so I'm going have to do it again when I get the chance.

[GrampaGen]

I found Liu to be a bit of a challenge to write and build, given the ultimate idea for her abilities were primarily focussed on physical skills. In the end I think I managed to do alright, and despite my worries, eventually carved our a unique niche for her.

So, the influence for my character's skillset wavered all over the place. Originally, I was going to build her as a Captain America, peak-human type, that used an exclusive weapon, pure fighting skill and reflexes to combat and triumph over a superpowered series opponents much stronger than the students. This was a fleeting idea at best, so I decided to build her into a 'stupid impossible skill' type, in the vein of Temugin, and if possible, Val Armorr.

The only problem is, in an RP setting, how does one rationalize that, especially with an ostensibly normal human being? Calling it straight skill and experience would be insulting to the other players, and would not match the breadth and scope of abilities demonstrated by comics characters, where an even starting ground isn't necessarily a consideration, but is a must here for the sake of fairness. So I stuck points in chi. She's not a brick, but because of skill, she's able to enhance her stats to fight one; she's not a magician, but because of focus, she's able to interact with energies, etc. Much like Temugin is able to punch beings made out of electricity, I wanted Liu to punch foes made out of abstractions and essences...but, again, in the context of the RP, I had to rationalize it.

So she developed psychic powers. Again, as Liu was supposed to be supposedly 'normal' and this was not in my original plan at all, I had to work it into the storyline. How she got them wasn't too important, but I at least tried to cover my ass in showing that a sixth sense popping up out of no where would be as alien as a blind man suddenly gaining the ability to perceive light. I hinted at the PGA being a focal point of mystical energies once, but I never got too deep into its creation - I'll write that up in another part.

So, chi to rationalize the foundation of her skills, psychic to cover a specific bed of weakness - especially as there's no context for her being a mega genius like Drake or Jason - fighting skill as the primary focus, and agility to show while she won't be running as fast as speedsters, she'll at least be able to perceive and react to them. Tech would cover her weapon, each upgrade creating a master class weapon in bursts. Later I invested some points in magic because I happened to be reading The Immortal Iron Fist at the time, and knowing how Cleric loves to cancel out powers, I gave Liu a backup source. I was all set.

Then everyone else started to pick up points. The first thing was that several people got morphy weapons. No big, I thought, since the PGA's only function is as a conventional weapon, it'll be the best straight weapon. Cut straight through your nanomachines, cool.

Then Aureole started a trend with the Golden Armor. Suddenly plucking extra points out of nowhere by the tens to buff to stats was in fashion. But eh, not worry. Skill and precision is the important thing.

Then there was a point where Clancy seemingly randomly dumped some six or so points in skill and eclipsed Liu's progression by a small margin. A character who has pretty much been brawling up to this point was suddenly riffing on my schtick. Wait a tick, that's not cool. But eh, I'll suck it up.

Then the 25 MAXes started rolling in; Clancy, Claude, Marcus, etc. And then, suddenly, Shamus. This was confusing and alarming to me. A magician by trade whose MO is to get drunk before fights and is as likely to cast a spell as crap on an enemy's foot was suddenly a master of hand to hand combat as well.

Time for an overhaul. I mean, exactly what purpose would my character serve among this lot that couldn't simply be switched out by someone who could buff out to be better?

Then I realized, eh. Despite appearances, RPs shouldn't be about the wacky powersets and abilities. Overriding all of that, is something more important.

It's a matter of Character.

If Liu's was going to suck as a powerset, then I would at least focus on making her a fully realized person. Coming from a privileged military background. Father's a big war hero, never so much as mentions her mother. Going to school at a military academy to try and follow a legacy, and has a penchant for fights; During which, she preferring guile and precision to simply plowing on through, shown in her method of combat.

So she was pretty much a normal person placed in Arcadia, to start. But against a sea of troubles, Liu swallows her emotions and refuses to show a weak side to the point where here at the end she's pretty much forgotten how she's a sixteen year old girl. After all that was taken from her and her friends in one fell swoop, it was either buckle or get shit done. The latter is what she was trained to do and what everyone she admired had done, but this being a first outing for her she slipped under the weight of that a few times.

Of course, not many listened to her authority as acting Captain - and in some regards I may have overstepped my boundaries as a player and peer with that anyway - but do know that even if she wasn't a leader, she would still act much in the same way, to push herself and others forward the best she could.

I wonder if I managed to communicate that effectively, especially since I hadn't been online and attentive as much as I'd like to be.

So I had fun playing her pretty much. I got to try and write a different character and mentality than Natalie or Janos (or Kekowa, Henry, Rhia, Xellos, if ghostwriting counts...). If nothing else, by the end, Liu wasn't at least just some face in the crowd, and everything worked out in the abilities department by the end. Not the least which was a very specific and petty counter to all the damn super-modes that popped up.

Yes. Liu's Wu Yi Zhuan, the Nil-thought transmigration that draws upon the primordial void, was created as a super-mode that cancels out other super-modes by shutting them off. CANON =P

[Boukinator]

I found Liu to be a bit of a challenge to write and build, given the ultimate idea for her abilities were primarily focussed on physical skills. In the end I think I managed to do alright, and despite my worries, eventually carved our a unique niche for her.

So, the influence for my character's skillset wavered all over the place. Originally, I was going to build her as a Captain America, peak-human type, that used an exclusive weapon, pure fighting skill and reflexes to combat and triumph over a superpowered series opponents much stronger than the students. This was a fleeting idea at best, so I decided to build her into a 'stupid impossible skill' type, in the vein of Temugin, and if possible, Val Armorr.

The only problem is, in an RP setting, how does one rationalize that, especially with an ostensibly normal human being? Calling it straight skill and experience would be insulting to the other players, and would not match the breadth and scope of abilities demonstrated by comics characters, where an even starting ground isn't necessarily a consideration, but is a must here for the sake of fairness. So I stuck points in chi. She's not a brick, but because of skill, she's able to enhance her stats to fight one; she's not a magician, but because of focus, she's able to interact with energies, etc. Much like Temugin is able to punch beings made out of electricity, I wanted Liu to punch foes made out of abstractions and essences...but, again, in the context of the RP, I had to rationalize it.

So she developed psychic powers. Again, as Liu was supposed to be supposedly 'normal' and this was not in my original plan at all, I had to work it into the storyline. How she got them wasn't too important, but I at least tried to cover my ass in showing that a sixth sense popping up out of no where would be as alien as a blind man suddenly gaining the ability to perceive light. I hinted at the PGA being a focal point of mystical energies once, but I never got too deep into its creation - I'll write that up in another part.

So, chi to rationalize the foundation of her skills, psychic to cover a specific bed of weakness - especially as there's no context for her being a mega genius like Drake or Jason - fighting skill as the primary focus, and agility to show while she won't be running as fast as speedsters, she'll at least be able to perceive and react to them. Tech would cover her weapon, each upgrade creating a master class weapon in bursts. Later I invested some points in magic because I happened to be reading The Immortal Iron Fist at the time, and knowing how Cleric loves to cancel out powers, I gave Liu a backup source. I was all set.

Then everyone else started to pick up points. The first thing was that several people got morphy weapons. No big, I thought, since the PGA's only function is as a conventional weapon, it'll be the best straight weapon. Cut straight through your nanomachines, cool.

Then Aureole started a trend with the Golden Armor. Suddenly plucking extra points out of nowhere by the tens to buff to stats was in fashion. But eh, not worry. Skill and precision is the important thing.

Then there was a point where Clancy seemingly randomly dumped some six or so points in skill and eclipsed Liu's progression by a small margin. A character who has pretty much been brawling up to this point was suddenly riffing on my schtick. Wait a tick, that's not cool. But eh, I'll suck it up.

Then the 25 MAXes started rolling in; Clancy, Claude, Marcus, etc. And then, suddenly, Shamus. This was confusing and alarming to me. A magician by trade whose MO is to get drunk before fights and is as likely to cast a spell as crap on an enemy's foot was suddenly a master of hand to hand combat as well.

Time for an overhaul. I mean, exactly what purpose would my character serve among this lot that couldn't simply be switched out by someone who could buff out to be better?

Then I realized, eh. Despite appearances, RPs shouldn't be about the wacky powersets and abilities. Overriding all of that, is something more important.

It's a matter of Character.

If Liu's was going to suck as a powerset, then I would at least focus on making her a fully realized person. Coming from a privileged military background. Father's a big war hero, never so much as mentions her mother. Going to school at a military academy to try and follow a legacy, and has a penchant for fights; During which, she preferring guile and precision to simply plowing on through, shown in her method of combat.

So she was pretty much a normal person placed in Arcadia, to start. But against a sea of troubles, Liu swallows her emotions and refuses to show a weak side to the point where here at the end she's pretty much forgotten how she's a sixteen year old girl. After all that was taken from her and her friends in one fell swoop, it was either buckle or get shit done. The latter is what she was trained to do and what everyone she admired had done, but this being a first outing for her she slipped under the weight of that a few times.

Of course, not many listened to her authority as acting Captain - and in some regards I may have overstepped my boundaries as a player and peer with that anyway - but do know that even if she wasn't a leader, she would still act much in the same way, to push herself and others forward the best she could.

I wonder if I managed to communicate that effectively, especially since I hadn't been online and attentive as much as I'd like to be.

So I had fun playing her pretty much. I got to try and write a different character and mentality than Natalie or Janos (or Kekowa, Henry, Rhia, Xellos, if ghostwriting counts...). If nothing else, by the end, Liu wasn't at least just some face in the crowd, and everything worked out in the abilities department by the end. Not the least which was a very specific and petty counter to all the damn super-modes that popped up.

Yes. Liu's Wu Yi Zhuan, the Nil-thought transmigration that draws upon the primordial void, was created as a super-mode that cancels out other super-modes by shutting them off. CANON =P

To be fair I did have Shamus slowly buil his skill stat up through out the rpg. As the story progressed he began to use his hand to hand skills more and more.

[GrampaGen]

To be fair I did have Shamus slowly buil his skill stat up through out the rpg. As the story progressed he began to use his hand to hand skills more and more.

Yeah, true. It just caught me really off guard.

Especially since Liu managed to wrestle evenly against him with her arm in a sling once upon a time XD

[Froggy]

my self analysis

I miss too much time man :(

a dude disappears and absconds to random parts of the US for a few days and misses a couple hundred pages

brother can't catch a break

srsly though, I"ll make sure I have more time to give next go around

[Boukinator]

Yeah, true. It just caught me really off guard.

Especially since Liu managed to wrestle evenly against him with her arm in a sling once upon a time XD

i think she had like a 7 point skill advantage on him at the time, that was also before I actually began to understand grappling.

[WyldCard4]

Yeah, true. It just caught me really off guard.

Especially since Liu managed to wrestle evenly against him with her arm in a sling once upon a time XD

Shamus's fighting skill wasn't really that strange. He was always focused on physical and transformnation based combat. A high (if strange) fighting skill fit him.

Alice's was, but it's retconned now.

Personally I think the intelligence and fighting skill stats tend to be weird, and no one seems to have come to any agreement on what they do. I remember a heated debate between Falcon and Kamen after Juni's fight with Edan about that.

[Sion Reaver]

Shamus's fighting skill wasn't really that strange. He was always focused on physical and transformnation based combat. A high (if strange) fighting skill fit him.

Alice's was, but it's retconned now.

Personally I think the intelligence and fighting skill stats tend to be weird, and no one seems to have come to any agreement on what they do. I remember a heated debate between Falcon and Kamen after Juni's fight with Edan about that.

Yeah it is.

Take for example someone who has ten skill, vs someone who has, let's say 15 or even twenty.

You'd think on paper the one with the more points would have the advantage(assuming both chars have similar stats and pure hand to hand) But that's not the case, because a characters fighting skill largely depends on the player at hand, some are just flat out better then others at rpg fighting.

Personally, I think skill should reflect the effect of certain powers or something rather then a clear gauge of someone's actual fighting ability.

[Froggy]

I guess I'd do my own OOC post

the plan I had for Laron was to have him gain more control over the cybernetics implanted into him. Due to those he couldn't really sleep at all (narcolepsy caused by the fact he had to have his body charge at night and be awake for it, along with his overdrive mode being a berserker type o thing

I scarpped that though and then time got in the way and well.it all fell to the wayside

now I just have to finish his epilogue


I think I'll still do that story about the roadrunner being an arcadian mascot though if Yun Lao can answer a question I have