Sooo no BP and Spirit stats, and Will got modded to work with 'Personality' as a 'counter balance' stat of some kind?
Or is that just how it works for us because we've got the Psychic thing going for us?

Kinda unsure of the division between will and personality. Your own mental strength versus the ability to interact with others, or your sense of self? Or is it more of a left brain / right brain kind of thing?

Trying to jive my guesses with empathy decreasing one and increasing the other and it doesn't quite work.

Think of Personality more as a placeholder until I find something that fits better or I stop caring. One or the other. Anyway, the way I thought of it was that Will is a measure of your personal control over yourself and your emotions. Of course, if you control yourself too much, you'll start to seem uncaring or almost overly logical. Mapping increases Will because you need that control to lock yourself away from the overload of information, or at least cut it into manageable pieces to be processed bit by bit. Personality, on the other hand, measure your ability to reach out to others on an emotional level, more of an understanding of how they feel, and more importantly, understanding WHY they feel that way. When it comes to Empathy, this allows you to reach out and touch someone's mind to feel out thoughts, feelings and memories. Personality, or rather the stat, is a measure of how well you can tune yourself to the person or object and extract those personal feelings/memories. To do that though, you have to release some of that self-control.

... I'm not sure I explained that well, but... eh...

>>77685
And to answer this, everyone is under the same rules, it's just much easier for psychics to manipulate their own minds and change themselves at that level. Steelworks are the opposite on the scale, as they tend to get a lot more implants, and thus fiddle with their physical stats more. Genetech is right in the middle, generally not getting very much fiddling either way, except through equipment.

No, that distinction makes sense. (Rational / disciplined / logical intelligence versus emotional / empathetic / interpersonal intelligence).

The penalty for the empathy ability seems a little paradoxical, though. That you're actually damaging or compromising the relevant statistic in order to control or apply it.

Oh... ouch. I'm an idiot. Or I was very tired, one of the two. Switch that. Empathy damages Will, increases Personality. Was supposed to put mapping there.

And that, my friends, is a reason you don't try to type up something while tired.

Can I just say if Elizabeth turns out to be some kind billion year old outsider who took the form of a child to manipulate us and everything about her personality so far has been an act, that's going to be a complete deal-breaker for me. Complete table flip moment.

Seriously. Because she is one of the best things about this quest.

...I've this kind of literary analysis character development thing half formed for a while, and I think this just spurred me to get it finished. I'll be back to christen this new dis thread with a wall of words when I'm feeling more awake and less dead.

Because it has been quite a while since I've done this, and because I figured I could, and because it is always interesting to see what you lot can come up with...

Time to make me a new character folks. Only this time, you get to build them from the ground up. As you please. For the enjoyment of myself and the participating parties. Ground rules exist of course.

I'm GIVING you 30XP to play with, based completely off of a chart made by, I believe it was, Mr. Wall-o-text(I really need a better nickname for the guy. He/She is a really loyal fan/quester/writeroflargewallsoftext). I encourage you to go freaking crazy. With lazerz. Or whatever else you damn want. Just keep in mind some really crazy ideas I might not use, or might modify to suit what I think works best a little better. Avoid any super crazy ideas as well, like plasma swords and the like. Said characters probably don't have as much access to the Doc as everybody you know and love.

So to sum up, make a character, using base stats and 30XP, however you like. Buy new foci with the XP for all I care(1XP for an additional focus). I might use them, I might not. But in the end, I'll get a kick out of seeing what all your minds can come up with.

And take your time to think it over. Not like I need them right now after all. The next few days of posts are deliberately going to be essentially filler and character development/bonding with everyone. Haven't done that in awhile, and I rather like the idea of getting some downtime before jumping headlong into the danger once again.

>I really need a better nickname for the guy. He/She is a really loyal fan/quester/writeroflargewallsoftext
If a name helps, I'm Dakdo on the wiki, or mageykun on the irc channel, and too damned lazy to namefag (and still somewhat enamored of trying to have my ideas stand for themselves) here. And Cally would hate me.

>xp chart
Been meaning to overhaul that, now that we actually have some understanding of avatar cost structures. (I way low-balled Marc and Michelle with XP estimates).

>30 XP
Which, for comparison, is just about Nicole's strength (depending on if her 3BP gloves mean she upgraded twice or not, she's at 31-33 total XP). Or enough to get right to spirit 8 if you ignored every other stat.

...but yeah, gonna think on that a while.

>The next few days of posts are deliberately going to be essentially filler and character development/bonding with everyone
I'm going to take that to mean then that our fretting over giving time to Aria, versus hanging out with Cass and making sure she gets at least one good birthday isn't really going to be a problem. Plenty of time for everyone.

Ok, Time I did some of my old breaker concepts a favor and went back to refine them into actual breakers.
Sooo first off, this guy.
'Foreman' John Deveros. Weapon type.
Strength-3 Finesse-1 Will-2
Original foci: Hammer key-chain (SledgeHammer)
Trauma type: Mental, anger at work being ruined? (Think the feeling of say, someone defacing a Quest Wiki, or something like that.)
XP boosts-
STR-10 (-7)
FIN-5 (-4)
WIL-4 (-2)
BP- 29 (-5)
SPR-4
2: Break Sight
4: Spirit Sight
(-10)
Foci Get: Revolver Pistol, 6 shooter. (-1+?{hopefully 2} total)
Modification: (-? XP{currently assuming a -1 cost to make this modification}) Nail-Gun Rounds that cost 2 BP, and the effect is 'This person got shot with two bullets, not one bullet'. (Again, only if I understand this right-conceptually I think he was thinking of a nail-gun and making a ranged version of that, for an in-story reasoning.)
Backstory-More or less what it was before-anger at watching Breakers ruin a job he just finished, lost the contract as a result, which led to him getting fired. Cue RAAAAAAAGE!

Secondly, (Because while Lira& Everly becoming a thing is awesome, I'm feeling greedy)
'Snake-killer' Natasha Arachne (Legally changed from 'Atkins') (Form Type)
Strength-1, Finesse-3, Will-2
Original Foci: Spider necklace.(Drider Form/Normal Spider Form)
Trauma- Mental: Always fond of spiders, she mourned the fact that she never learned to knit, for it seemed as if something beyond her power ensured she lacked the tools she needed, as if some greater force was preventing her from doing so. As if to hammer in this point, her last name 'Atkins' reminded her of Athena, relevant to our breaker here because of the tale of Arachne.
IN short? She thinks she's the reincarnation of Arachne.
Breaker history: Was one of the Fixers who took Mike's Snake Foci from him. Adopted the name 'Snake Killer' hoping for a re-match to finish the job.
STR-3 (-1)
FIN-6 (-3)
WIL-10 (-9)
BP-20
SPR-5 (-16)
2:Warped Minds (tends to abuse this to stay in spider form as much as possible)
4:Normality
5:Dream Weaver- Due to the deluded state of mind Natasha is in being the basis of her gaining Breaker powers, she herself has learned how to impose this state on others to trap them in Dreamtime-Illusions.
(Basically, it's an ability that taps into Dreamtime powers, but otherwise basically stuns the person until they make the Will Rolls to escape it.)
Foci Tune: Mike's Snake Foci. (Gorgon form)

>I'm GIVING you 30XP to play with, based completely off of a chart made by, I believe it was, Mr. Wall-o-text [...].

This is for that other quest you do that I can't read at all, and not Beyond the Stars, right?

Hahaha, a spider-girl would be such a good way to fuck with Linda (the right introduction and you can get a perfectly balanced reaction between attraction and revulsion). And a new opponent involved in the dreamtime could be interesting, and give us an actual reason to throw Raphael powers around. (Spider dreamcatcher? Illusions, traps... it's an interesting puzzle-y powerset to maybe face).

...I'm not sure we've ever been told Mike lost his focus, though. I mean, it could explain why he can't de-manifest, but that kind of contradicts him being able to break at all. Especially if someone else tuned it.

One problem with a form-type though is we don't have any information on how their upgrade structure works, which might mess with proposed XP distribution. (Could she have a drider combat form, and a smaller, actual spider form for sneaking and spying?)

>WHAT chart? Point me at it, please
Here, it's kind of outdated now by like half a thread now, though. >>68497

>This is for that other quest you do that I can't read at all, and not Beyond the Stars, right?
Yeah, it's for Breaking Reality. BtS people are less absurdly powerful (not being reality warpers). There's no xp, stats are modified by training, equipment, and augmentation.

Okay, so here's some character analysis and a look at how some unintentional things came together in interesting ways that's been kicking round my head.

Linda starts off with what we would later see to be slightly unusual for a breaker- with a life not significantly impacted by her injury. What for many was a defining point in their lives, or even a persistent part of day to day existence, seemed for her to merely be something ugly that happened once, and that was past. (And that she occasionally had to dress to cover up). We had seemed to have lucked out with a physical injury, missing out on the wider problems that came with the more common mental injuries. Especially since the injury itself seemed so minor.

(Interestingly, this wasn't a result of us trying to game the system, since the injury was chosen for us. We only got to suggest how it came to be, not what it was).

It takes a long time before we see the real damage, and realize than even physical injuries came with mental costs. We start catching glimpses of it after getting to Sun City- a few moments where the scar comes into play and Linda shuts down very bit as bad as Cass. They're fleeting, and it takes the right situation to tap into the pain, but the damage is there. Hidden. Worse than we realized, and than Linda is perhaps even really willing to admit to herself.

But what gets really interesting is we don't see the depths of her injury until she tries to heal it.

Enter Elizabeth. Initially, the motivation for her her adoption was purely practical. It was a means to keep her safe, since we knew she wouldn't be at the orphanage. It didn't start out as real for either of them. But, eventually, it grows to be. Elizabeth slowly goes from being the strange girl Linda found herself looking out for, to the daughter she otherwise never would have had. Elizabeth fills the gap in Linda's life that is otherwise irreparably broken.

Paradoxically, though, in some ways this repair job makes Linda more vulnerable. Before her injury was mostly hidden away, hard for the world to hit on. Now she had something to lose, that could be hurt. A berserk button. And we see it pushed hard, and Linda lose control, at the end of the fight with Marc and when interrogating Maria.

Tragically, Linda either doesn't realize, or doesn't let herself acknowledge, what Elizabeth has come to mean to her until right before Elizabeth dies. (She calls her her daughter for the first time in the heat and anger of the moment of the confrontation with Marc). And in a way, Linda breaks all over again that day. The whole experience parallels her beginning. In losing what filled the gap, in essence, Linda suffers the same injury. And she breaks herself anew (becoming nonexistant) trying to fix that, gaining a new power at a further cost to herself.

And the day that Linda starts thinking of herself as Elizabeth's mother is oddly literal, in a way. It's the day Linda brings Elizabeth (back) into the world.

Maria ends up being an interesting mirror of all this. Her similarities as Linda's mirror match are pretty obvious (dark haired gunner gals, both dual wield small arms, have a bigger gun for tougher things, finesse and evasion builds, and they have the same daughter). But the degree to which our doppelganger flips things around is surprisingly complete. As far as we can tell, Elizabeth actually seems to be her injury. She was broken by motherhood, rather than the loss of it. She gives a child up, rather than finding one. And she seeks to heal or resolve her injury by killing her daughter. To correct a wrong (or protect her?) by taking a life rather than safeguarding it. More broadly, this is her response to all breaking. To seek to fix it by eliminating it, and all breakers, herself included. Linda of course has embraced a completely opposite ideal- embracing the humanity of breakers, and trying to help as many as possible. Thematically, the Angel is a symbol of justice- a destroyer or a protector. An arbiter of a higher morality. Maria's own archetype, as an western style gunslinger, is very much the same. The gunslinger travels a lawless frontier, and imposes their own code on it. They've just ruled differently. (The swapping even extends to some small details- Maria starts with small arms and picks up a heavier weapon, reversing Linda's order).

Which bring us back to Elizabeth herself. What makes her so interesting is that she's by no means a passive or static player in all this. I've discussed how she influenced a change for the better in Linda, but you can see Linda's effect on her as well. The Elizabeth we saw in the first two threads is rather different than the one we know today. She's emotionally stepped out of her shell, showing genuine care and compassion for her adopted family. She's grown far more lucid as time has gone on, and has found the strength to face down what she sees where she was once reduced to a quivering puddle of tears. To take action herself when necessary, an actor, no longer a helpless observer. And one who challenges us. That's really what makes me love this character so much. Time and time again in quests we find a character to protect. A friend. A love interest. Very rarely a child. They're not usually dynamic (usually more person-objects), nor do they let you see this kind of reciprocal development.

Elizabeth's own injury of course follows a classic archetype. The blind seer- sight for Sight. A loss of perspective for a greater or different vantage point. But, if you consider the nature of her injury (the gunshot to the head) you're left with an odd symmetry. That which struck her down is now what safeguards her (literally even, if you consider the time Linda had to shoot her in the head to protect her). And mirrored in that which would hunt her still. (And with the potential to become more tangled still. With time travel not being out of the question in this setting, and Linda's Someone Else ability, it's not inconceivable to imagine a situation where she becomes the gunner who breaks herself, or Elizabeth). Most breakers in some way transmute victimization into strength, but Elizabeth has turned abandonment and injury into belonging and protection.

tl;dr: I spend way too much time thinking about this quest.

my suggestion is based on my basic understanding of how the psychic powers work. trade quality for quantity.

Well, IDK about you guys but I'm personally thinking the more breaker ideas the better!
Darcy Ardelgur (Weapon type)
STR-3
FIN-2
WIL-1
Original foci-skull bracelet (Scythe)
Trauma-It REALLY blows living in what most people call a haunted house. It's even worse when it seems like no one, not even your parents wants to even reconize your existance. And as if the agony that you're undergoing isn't bad enough, one day you wake up to and somehow, you KNOW, deep down, that something' wrong, that you're no longer normal, and that you can't even associate with those who are lest the other breakers come, and bring death in the clashes that will follow...
Current stats
STR-6 (-3)
FIN-6 (-4)
WIL-6 (-5)
BP- 20
SPR-5 (-15)
2: Active Break
4: Weapon Environment
5: Into Death- This ability allows Darcy to, at will, 'erase' her very presence from Reality, an imitation of Linda's Nonexistance trait. However, maintaining this effect drains BP, and moreso when used while other breakers are paying attention to her.
Foci: Scythe
Modification: Alternate maifestation: dual wielding 1-hand sickles (-1)
Modification: Returning Perk on both sickle and scythe forms(-2)

You know, Zaelix, great ideas, but... you're missing a spirit ability. The one you get at spirit 3. From all your characters. The first two, Natasha and John, their Spirit 4 abilities are Spirit 3 abilities. Darcy just doesn't have a Spirit 3 ability at all. I don't want to cheat your characters out of abilities at all. So figured I'd bring that up.

>missing spirit abilities
...I'm annoyed I missed that. I blame trying to put that wall of thoughts into words.

For reference, spirit levels 2 and 3 draw from the standard pool of common powers (break sight, normality, warped minds, active break) and/or the next level of any of those trees if you meet the prerequisite (spirit sight, normality cloak, warped reality, forceful break).

(Although I suppose if you justified it with the right theme, character development, and/or injury you might be able to grab a general power out of order, skipping a prereq).

And all current spirit 4 powers were listed here >>77516. (And I listed possible brainstorms for other possibilities that might make sense if we feel like getting creative, here >>77518).

(I should really sort the powers more intelligently on the wiki, by level and tree. And separate personal powers from generally available powers).

...it's also worth noting that in unusual circumstances characters can get extra slots (Linda's Nonexistence and Remember the Fallen were plot triggered, and Elizabeth gets the sight abilities for free). I imagine matching theme and balancing that right would be tricky, though.

I'll see about seeing if I can offer anything constructive on the actual characters, or maybe tossing up some ideas, tomorrow.

>Missing Spirit 3 abilities.
oops.
Alright then for the edits...
I'm thinking John will take Weapon: Environment, because he's strength focused,
Natasha gets Fear itself, because of how it plays into her current powerset (possibly? I'd need to see this thing in action before I could decide-I'm a bit worried about overlapping with her Spirit 5 power-right now I'm thinking her Spirit 5 is a 'dreamtime' stun effect on her target-the point of which was that she'd stun them then chain kill them while they were caught in it, whereas Fear itself is more a direct Will-based attack.) And Darcy gets Unbroken Will, and since that replaces Weapon:Environment, she'll take forceful break, instead.
So in data format:
'Foreman' John Deveros. Weapon type.
STR-10 (-7)
FIN-5 (-4)
WIL-4 (-2)
BP- 29 (-5)
SPR-4
2: Break Sight
3: Spirit Sight
4: Weapon: Environment
(-10)
Foci: Hammer key-chain (SledgeHammer)
Bullet(Revolver Pistol, 6 shooter). (-1+?{hopefully 2} total)
Modification: (-? XP{currently assuming a -1 cost to make this modification}) Nail-Gun Rounds that cost 2 BP, and each round hits for two bullets.

'Snake-killer' Natasha Arachne (Form Type)
STR-3 (-1)
FIN-6 (-3)
WIL-10 (-9)
BP-20
SPR-5 (-16)
2: Warped Minds (tends to abuse this to stay in spider form as much as possible)
3: Normality
4: Fear itself
5: Dream Weaver- Due to the deluded state of mind Natasha is in being the basis of her gaining Breaker powers, she herself has learned how to impose this state on others to trap them in Dreamtime-Illusions.
(Locks the person in Dreamtime until they make the Will Rolls to escape.)
Foci Tune: Spider necklace.(Drider Form/Normal Spider Form)
Mike's Snake Foci. (Gorgon form)

Darcy Ardelgur (Weapon type)
STR-6 (-3)
FIN-6 (-4)
WIL-6 (-5)
BP- 20
SPR-5 (-15)
2: Active Break
3: Forceful Break
4: Unbroken Will
5: Into Death- This ability allows Darcy to, at will, 'erase' her very presence from Reality, an imitation of Linda's Nonexistance trait. However, maintaining this effect drains BP, and moreso when used while other breakers are paying attention to her.
Foci: Scythe
Modification: Alternate maifestation: dual wielding 1-hand sickles (-1)
Modification: Returning Perk on both sickle and scythe forms(-2)

Hopefully this looks good. Though I've noticed that I've the habit of making foci modifications as a secondary to the stats...Hrrm.

Aright. Trying for some helpful criticism now:

I think you're overpaying for spirit upgrades. You pay XP equal to your current spirit, not the next level, to upgrade.

So spirit 2 costs 1 XP, spirit 3 costs 2 (3 total), spirit 4 costs 3 (6 total), spirit 5 costs 4 (10 total), etc.

So you actually have some XP left over for each of these guys.

>fear itself overlap?
There is a little wiggle room in that fear itself manifests itself differently for different breakers. For Marc, it was an aura of fear or unease emanating from Amelia (presumably resulting in a penalty to the rolls of anyone trying to act under the effect). Elizabeth though makes a more direct attack on someone's psyche, directly trying to freak people out (which could have varied results- you could temporarily shut down or disable a person with that kind of attack, you could leave them off balance and acting with penalties, it could spurn someone to violence, or get them to slip up and give away information). One's more passive and the other's more active, and sort of applicable to different situations.

So if it's manifested or interpreted the right way, fear itself wouldn't be redundant and could actually be used to augment or bolster the efficacy of her illusion dreamcatcher trap thing (traps are harder to escape if you're afraid, after all).

>Dream Weaver
Fundamentally, I think it's a lot more interesting if she physically shifts her prey into the dreamtime and hunts them there, rather than trapping their mind and using it as a means of paralysis for easy chain killing. (Or maybe have it scale with spirit or will? Weaker opponents she can snare their minds while she kills their body, but stronger people she has to drag in and subdue herself). Although that is sort of a nerf, in that it's less powerful or exploitable for her than originally proposed.

(Or maybe another way to divide things up- the drider form gets to pull people into the dream illusion trap, while the gorgon is more for stunning people with a gaze for physical, real world chain killing)?

I'd think her space would follow different rules than normal dreamtime, though. Since instead of tapping into an existing dream, she's attaching her own 'web' to the dreamtime framework (between dream bubbles?), and between her prey and herself. Making an artificial, temporary space in that dimension. Could have interesting implications for how it interacts with other dreamtime powers. (Harder or different for others to move in/out of the web compared to normal dream to dream travel. And more complicated and dangerous for her to venture into the dreamtime 'proper'). Also possible implications if it's noticed by the real Morpheus Raphael once mentioned. (The lord of sleep? Possibly another outsider, like Observer or Warden).

>John
I'm not sure if I'm reading his weapon upgrades right. You're paying 1xp for a dual manifestation, like Linda and (I presume) Maria, right?

And the alternate ammo- does 'hit for two bullets' mean her only gets 3 shots of that instead of 6, or does it mean it's supposed to count as 2 deaths if you kill someone with one? And the nail-gun thing is a personal stylistic choice on his part?

>Darcy
The hardest part is to figure out how to balance the personal power right. The problem is that it's sort of similar to weaker abilities (an applied normalize, or hiding yourself behind warped minds) and Linda's stronger stuff. So it has to be kept distinct, and still appropriately powerful.

Ideally, it's meant to be a way to make the character disappear, to evade pursuit, attack covertly, and do stealthy stuff. But to be able to step back into her life when she's done, and not have it gone permanently. (Actually, that's one of the best powers yet for a breaker acting without a group. A viable secret identity thing. She's nowhere near exposed as anyone else would be working alone, or staying in contact with her normal life).

One nitpick, I'd kind of think someone who's theme is, well, the reaper, might want break sight. Knowing when someone's time has come and all.

>John
the XP loss was for buying the use of those nail-bullets, which would infact count for being shot twice IF they connect. The idea was an empowerment of the bullets so he would have 6 shots of double-hitting bullets. The trade-off is while it's more bang per bullet, if he misses with one he effectively misses with both shots.
And it looking like a nail gun is what I was going for, but I'm not sure if that's necessarily workable for a breaker modding as opposed to Doc taking a swing at it, while at the same time it's hardly worth the Doc's time to have that cosmetic change.

>Dream Weave-
The 'dragging into dreamtime' is an interesting touch, but I liked the power changing to reflect the form thing more, so that's what I'd like as the final version. That said, I suppose this means she'd actually have to learn to use the Gorgon form, but I liked the thought of her parading around her victory over Mike in that sense anyhow so yeah.

>Darcy-Her theme is actually lonliness, moreso than Death, but you've got a point with that Break Sight thing...Maybe with XP 'bonus' I'll boost her to Spirit 6, or redistribute Forceful Break...

Time for me to jump in for the yay/nay of this little thing, at least of what we have so far from Zaelix

>John's Nailgun
Hardly an issue for the most part. It wouldn't surprise me to have the guy find a nailgun focus somewhere(someone's got to have one) and it wouldn't surprise me him getting his hands on it, even without modding. And the rest seems alright. Except for what the nailgun actually does... What do you mean by two shots? Because one "shot" acting as two is more of a... personal power... than a weapon specific one. Especially if you mean that'll it'll kill off two bp every hit. That... won't work. It takes Linda an entire Spirit Slot, and a personal one at that, to simply have every round she fires count as a death, and that comes at a price tag on top of that. I'm not saying the idea itself isn't sound, but... you might want to rethink that one, or explain what you want it to do better, because maybe I'm just not getting what you want.

>Natasha
Nothing wrong with her so far, beyond the issue of Mike. Wall-o-text is right, I never said Mike had lost his focus anywhere, although given the idea's you've had, it would make it interesting if he had. Give me some time to think about that, and I'll get back to you, but as of right now I don't think I'll be changing anything for this one.

>Darcy
My biggest issue right now is her personal power. What you want(if I understand right) is a literal imitation of Linda's Nonexistence, which, by definition, is not a good thing, and furthermore, can't really be imitated with powers granted to people BY reality. I can understand it better if it erased her presence from being detected by others, or if it allowed some stronger form of normalize, but I'm vetoing the ability to make REALITY ignore her(as I think that's what the ability, as it is worded, says).

The difference there is that Linda literally CANNOT be seen by reality, and yet can still mess with things in it, while the other reality still sees and accepts, it's just that reality is warping in an active effort to make other people ignore her.

... Not sure I explained that properly, but eh. It sounds right in my head.

The only other thing I have to throw out there is the strong death theme for someone that seems more like they'd need something more... lonely. Sure, death is lonely, but... not in the same way I get from Darcy. She's more of a ghost than the old Grim, but that's not really a major thing.

Anyway, that's it for now. Have fun, and if you've got any questions on specifics, feel free to scream at me. I'll be awake still... mostly cause they changed my work schedule... again.

Ok, noted and confirmed.
What I was thinking of for Darcy was akin to a temporary non-existance phase thing, with something of a vauge idea of actually attaining to actual non-existance due to detactment from other threads. But I guess an improved Normalize would work-maybe it convinces others taht she's not even there, instead of just making her appearance normal.

I just realized I left the John Nailgun thing unanswered.
Changing it to an actual Nailgun is fine, especially since I've got to figure out where the extra XP all three have goes now...
Soo let's recalculate.
Foreman John
STR-11 (-8)
FIN-6 (-5)
WIL-5 (-3)
BP- 29 (-5)
SPR-4
2: Break Sight
3: Spirit Sight
4: Weapon: Environment
(-6)
Foci: Hammer key-chain (SledgeHammer/original)
Foci: Nail (Nailgun, -1XP)
Foci: Toy block (Utility foci, spend 1BP to make a block of material in front of John, like a manifestation. Must be raw material in a simple shape-1XP)

Natasha
STR-3 (-1)
FIN-7 (-4)
WIL-11 (-10)
BP-32 (-4)
SPR-5 (-10)
2: Warped Minds (tends to abuse this to stay in spider form as much as possible)
3: Normality
4: Fear itself
5: Dream Weaver- Due to the deluded state of mind Natasha is in being the basis of her gaining Breaker powers, she herself has learned how to trap enemy Breakers in a personal 'Dreamtime' room.
(Locks the person in Dreamtime until they make the Will Rolls to escape.)
Foci Tune: Spider necklace.(Drider Form/Normal Spider Form)
Mike's Snake Foci. (Gorgon form)

Darcy
STR-7 (-4)
FIN-7 (-5)
WIL-7 (-6)
BP- 20
SPR-5 (-10)
2: Active Break
3: Forceful Break
4: Weight Null
5: Invisbility- This ability allows Darcy to, at will, 'erase' her very presence from Reality, causing others to not even notice her. (Basically a Normality, except she's not even there in people's minds)
Foci: Scythe
Modification: Alternate manifestation: dual wielding 1-hand sickles (-1)
Modification: Alternate Manifestation: Etheral Scythe, attacks based on Darcy's Will Rolls. (-1)
Modification: Returning Perk on all weapons from this foci: (-3)

So, in short, John gets a utility foci, Natasha gets a much bigger BP pool to work with, and Darcy's designed to be able to hit a breaker's dump stat, no matter what it is.
And as if this wasn't enough BAD NEWS for Linda and company, I've just got ANOTHER Breaker idea I want to make.

Nikelston Gippers. Weapon type.
Strength-1, Finesse-2, Will-3
Foci: Two-headed Nickel (Gambler's Coin-utility foci, enables re-rolling of dice at 1BP per re-roll, on one target within eyesight.)
Trauma: Gambling addiction that left him destitute.

STR-2 (-1)
FIN-4 (-2)
WIL-6 (-3)
BP-47 (-8)
SPR-6 (-15)
2: Break Sight
3: Warped Minds
4: UnBroken Will
5: Lucky Break- If Nickelston is attacked, he rolls 1 more die then he normally would.
6: Break Generation
Foci: Two-headed Nickel (Gambler's Coin)
Foci: Joker Card (Deck of bladed cards -1XP)

I'mma stop here, but I actually wanted to make a gamer Breaker but then Nickelston got lucky.
...Part of me wants to have this 'dream team' of breakers come together and split off from the fixers for an epic clash with Linda's Haven Harem now.

>>77865
>nailgun
Instead of the duplex-rounds thing, why not have breaking nails that cause the target to be fixed in place?

So Gipper's coin is one of those unusual, tool-type weapons? And it doesn't really have a manifestation?

I would think the it could use a little expansion. The focus seems a little limited now- it only does one thing, and that's messing with background mechanics. I'd think you'd also want some kind of effect visible to the characters, in universe. General (erratic) luck manipulation, or changing of of the odds of events (up or down). Maybe even some of it passive or uncontrollable- just having him around skews statistics (like coins landing on edge, that sort of thing). And not all of it has to cost BP (not everything Elizabeth, or the Doc, or Raphael did/does in the theme of their focus has a BP cost).

There's a similar problem with the personal power- it's an across the board plus 1. Not interesting or powerful enough, and all background.

It looks like the intent (with the big BP pool, and fast BP regen) is for him to be a support type, burning BP to force rerolls, trying for bad outcomes for enemies and good for allies. Which is an interesting idea. (Although it's 1BP per check being rerolled, not per die, right? In that later his power would get pricey fast, since stats represent dice pools).

Are his cards intended to be a deck of wonders kind of thing, or they just for throwing and cutting (as a fallback option, I'm assuming. He's invested way more in the BP to abuse luck gambling then he has in finesse).

Maybe he could have some kind of interesting synergy between the gambling and/or luck manipulation effect with active breaking (he's certainly got the BP to gamble with). So his breaks tend to win big, or lose big. (Less harmless fizzles on failure).

...BP to gamble with. Hey. He should do that. Literally. That's a much cooler personal power- he's either winning back more BP to throw at people or shooting himself in the foot. Not sure how you'd mechanically balance that though- what costs or conditions do you put on activation?

(Ahh, how did that end up so long. Oh well, dis thread. It doesn't matter if I let myself run off).

>Haven Harem
Pff. There's no harem. We keep getting the love interests killed off!

Hopefully Aria keeps from biting it. A suit of armor isn't going to fit around Linda's neck.

>check or dice?
Dice. Check makes using the power a crapshoot at best for our DM here, and I liked the idea of the gambler having to learn to carefully manage his BP betting instead of blowing it all on one thing. That said...

>Gambling with BP vs. passive luck boost.
SO MUCH BETTER than the luck-based thing I had came up with, the problem is the criteria for how exactly the thing works, but I've an idea for that!

New Spirit 5 ability: Potluck

Nickelston can draw BP from any breaker in his immeadiate area at his choice, taking 1 BP from each of them, and himself. The BP is then randomly given to any breaker who contributed to the pot. If that Breaker's Maximum BP would be exceeded, another Breaker is randomly chosen to receive the runoff, with the roulette repeating everytime a Breaker would be refilled to the maximum.

I figure he should be able to activate it semi-freely? I dunno if I wanna attach a BP cost to this thing-it's just communal shifting of BP around, and wildly at that. He could act as something of a BP dispenser for others, as well as passively make others fight better...Ironically enough, I think this guy might be a better 'support' breaker than Rodreguiez, but we haven't seen much of him in a while so who knows what new powers and abilities he has.

>Cards: Wonders or throwing?
Throwing, as a back-up if he needs to engage in combat himself/ someone gets the drop on him.

>Dice
>I liked the idea of the gambler having to learn to carefully manage his BP
...that's not a problem for someone with a gambling problem? :p

My thought was that the cost gets too steep too fast at 1 BP / 1 die. Trying to reroll Linda into missing a single shot or dodge could then cost 14BP. Trying to bad-luck Cass trying to hit with her Chainsaw would be 20! He could very reasonably be bankrupt in trying to influence 3 or 4 events in a battle made up of lots of things to be checked.

Granted, it does make sense for forcing more unlikely things to happen to cost more. Maybe I'll leave worrying balancing exact mechanics to Dreamer.

>BP gambling with other breakers
Interesting, and played right does allow even 'loses' to be useful (moving BP to allies). Although I imagined more gambling against some imaginary house that was either granting him BP winnings, or burning him with BP loses.

>what Rodreguiez can do
Never really got a chance to see him in action, but Marc seemed to regard him as capable as Daniels (a white mage who can compete with a creepy assassin has to have something going for him). The only time we had a chance to take him on a mission was... jeeze the when we ran into Maria.

My hunch is still that his healing is based on some kind of exchange. That he's taking the burden onto himself. And that he's more interested in helping people with their issues than fighting, anyways. I kind of assume he's still playing some kind of counselor role. I'm sure we've got a lot of people who could benefit from that, and Linda doesn't have the time and energy (or existence) to personally work too far outside her circle of friends while running the place and things. (Although it is nice to see our friends starting to pick up their own friends, and working outside the leadership circle).

>Steep costs for Dice
While it DOES get harder to influence more powerful breakers, I'd think it'd not be as hard as you might think. A garuntee WOULD be expensive, sure, but the trick is, you just need to adjust things to win it. Say...
Darcy vs. Linda
FIN vs. FIN
7 to 14, and Darcy's rolls turn out like
5,5,4,3,2,1 versus Linda's
6,4,4,4,3,3,2,2,2,1,1,1,1
If I understand how the system works, here, we have what could be called a typical Linda win- 4 victories versus Darcy's 1. But then Nick does his thing and re-rolls Linda's 6 and one of her fours, at a cost of 2 BP
5,5,4,3,2,1
(6)3,4,(4)3,4,3,3,2,2,2,1,1,1,1
Now it's down to a 2 to 1 victory by Linda. Still not enough to get Darcy out of trouble, but perhaps prevents her from getting her head pulped by the shot.
I guess the real trick is how the heck this coin is going to work from Nickel's perspective...

Anyhow, gonna try a new breaker concept.
Louie Sulivan (weapon type)
Strength-3, Finesse-2, Will-1
original foci: miniture baseball bat(Classic Louieville Slugger baseball bat)
Trauma/history: One of the many disposable baseball bat breakers, Louie simply had the good fortune to not be quickly defeated and stripped of his foci right away, and actually was able to make something of himself. Actually played baseball seriously.
(Hey, there's how many guys with baseball bats? One or two of em should manage to get to higher levels of power! A different take on what these guys would be like, from the Hunter Elizabeth defeated.)

STR-14(-11)
FIN-7 (-5)
WIL-2 (-1)
BP- 17
SPR-4 (-6)
2:Warped Minds
3:Break Sight
4:Weapon: Environment
Foci: Mini-Baseball Bat (Classic Louieville Slugger baseball bat)
Additional manifestation- Richochet Baseball (-1XP)
Foci get: Mini-baseball Bat ( Aluminum Baseball bat) (-1XP)
Upgrade: Additional Spikes (-1XP)
Upgrade: Increased length (-1XP)
Upgrade: Something like the blunt weapon equivilant of 'increased sharpness'...'increased mass?' (-1XP)
UPgrade: Retractable Spikes/Length (-2XP)

Okay, getting to chose to reroll just the highest / lowest dice in the pool does make it cheaper. It's a lot messier if you can't control that (picking dice to reroll blind), or if it's all or nothing, which is what I was imagining.

This talk of Darcy and a potential stealth build reminds me we haven't gotten much of a chance to apply Someone Else in a covert manner, yet. (I had planned to have Linda try walking right into the last fixer base as Maria, but they all pulled back after east we curbstomped their forward military bases).

Other someone else shenanigans: we haven't really tested with an ally what it's like from their perspective yet. (Although eventually it will come up that we become someone in order to make them disappear in face of some kind of an attack). And I wonder if the avatar sticks around or poofs out if you take their breaker's place. ...heck I wonder if avatars are real enough that we could become one? (Probably a bad idea. There's the risk of all kinds of mind-to-mind complications and contamination. And I could only imagine what would happen if we were stupid enough to try with Sidhe).

Other silly ideas: it occurred to me we're probably never going to tune the small black ball to make holes. (Linda has so many options already). But if it has an interesting tactical effect, maybe it could be fused into the handgun to make an alternate utility ammo? The same way Cass bundled the flamethrower into her saw. And that wouldn't cost any of the XP we've been saving to tune forget-me-nots. ...although I've been wary to mess with fusion for fear of ruining perfectly good equipment. I'd kind of want gm assurance we aren't just rolling the dice with ruining a main piece of our gear before trying that.

>breaker idea
focus: AA battery
trauma: extreme sexual frustration
manifestation: dildo

...what? There have to be breakers who completely lose the cool power lottery too, right? (I'll try to come up with some real ideas instead of just working on Z's at some point).

>breaker idea
focus: AA battery
trauma: extreme sexual frustration
manifestation: dildo
...Dang it, this thing could potentially scratch the itch I've been trying to hit-for all the breaker ideas I've made so far, making one with more...'Magical' powers as opposed to just 'ubermensh with hammerspace weaponry', like the difference between A breaker who makes a gun, or a sword, or those breakers Doc had hired, Lightning and Fire. Yes, Access to Doc made such things easier, but still...
It's almost like I'm getting a bit of Doc's thing of leaving projects unfinished. As of right now I've three breaker ideas: Magical Girl, Knight, and Gamer, on the que, not to mention whatever I get inspired to make while working on those.

>character development and bonding before heading headlong into danger again
...I would like to note the amusing irony that even our character development and bonding has now devolved into battles. :V

Ah well, I'm sure there will be time for some talking with people after that.

>this thing could potentially scratch the itch
You don't say. (Nudge nudge, wink wink, know what I mean).

Alright! Time to make these new Breakers!

Terra Salvez (Form Type)
Strength-1 Finesse-3 Will-2
Original Foci: Cat Statue (Panther form)
Trauma: A slowly built-up dislike of humanity caused Yoko to turn to feline companionship...
Or to put it simply? Crazy Cat lady.
STR-4 (-3)
FIN-8 (-5)
WIL-4 (-2)
BP-32 (-4)
SPR-5 (-10)
2:Active Break
3:Warped Minds
4:Evasion
5:CopyCat -Yoko can learn to copy another Breaker's manifestation, be it avatar, form, or weapon, if she gets ahold of their foci. Manifesting foci she shouldn't be able to use costs double BP than normal, and this still requires conventional tuning to the foci, which costs twice the normal amount of XP, and Yoko cannot modify 'stolen' foci.
Foci: Cat statue (Panther form)
Foci get: KnightCrest (Sword&Shield, Weapon/Stolen, -2XP)
Foci get: Broken Cellphone (Admiring mob, Avatar/Stolen, -2XP)
Admiring mob stats:
STR-4
FIN-2
WIL-2
2BP per 3 members in mob (Cannot be repaired!)
Sudden Appearance

...How much does Trauma have to relate to the breaker in question?

I dunno. I'd understand if you wanted to have a cat themed form, or someone with a power-set specifically built around copycatting or duplicating other people's powers or manifestations. But a connection between the two seems a little weak. And that there's really not enough of a justification for her to be breaking typing rules.

Linda pushing typing rules with special cases- Twinda is a heavily modified weapon that imitates an avatar, and the mech is a construction that acts like a form without being one. And she can only really cheat by tapping into Remember the Fallen and temporarily changing who or what she is, and using someone else's soul or essence (and Linda can only use Remember the Fallen because she fundamentally damaged herself tapping into raw reality and preforming a break that's not normally possible). Guy got to break the rules by fatally breaking his being- destroying his own mind, and burning the reality of his own thread for fuel. Yoko here... just she hasn't paid for it.

Also, is it Terra or Yoko?

tl;dr- either focus in on one theme, and/or split them into multiple characters, or work up a strong reason as to how she gained a new power, or how her theme evolved that way.

>...How much does Trauma have to relate to the breaker in question?
Well, I like to think the trauma ends up being kind of a pretty significant influence on the character. (see: previous longass musings on Linda and Elizabeth's development, or that we could predict Cass' injury in advance of her telling us).

Of course the connection between trauma and manifestation or power need not be as simple as "breaker hurt by <x> gets <x>" or "breaker who loses <y> gets <z> to compensate". There's room for subtlety or complexity.

That said, I'm not sure say, being a crazy cat lady is sufficiently traumatic unless, well, she's really actually insane. Or if it came with the abuse of living alone of the streets, abused and mistrusting of people more and more. Which kind of does tie into a feral animal theme.

>assorted ideas
Brainstorming but not statting up right now.

A breaker whose power is tied to other breakers' deaths. Specifically, the more times you've used death avoidance, the bigger a danger he is, because he can throw your past deaths in your face. (No idea how to implement or balance that mechanically, yet).

We've had a teleporter suggested before. Now that we have potential enemies kind of a long ways away (breakers on the east coast, the Triad across the pacific), having someone who can act as transportation would be a good way to suddenly have trouble show up without much warning. I'm thinking as mental damage support type- it's expensive but doable to move groups long range every so often, but far too expensive or too much of a strain to do telefrags or a nightcrawler kind of thing in combat. Would kind of fit with the exploitation thing we've heard about the Triad.

Gun and sword breaker. They're both reasonably common finesse based weapons- it's only a matter of time till it occurs to someone to branch out, and develop a two handed style.

Hrrrm...Then in that case...
The Cat-girl will have to be ditched-there are things I'd want to do that I couldn't trust that was how Forms worked..
Now then, for some reworking-that last idea was REALLY all over the place. The name inconsistency made that so obvious it wasn't funny.
Yoko- catgirl name
Terra-Magical girl name
I'll make the magical girl breaker now at least.

Cindy Salvez (Weapon type)
Strength-1 Finesse-3 Will-2
Original foci: Stone talisman (Runed Staff)
Trauma:They all agreed to shun her. She didn't know that Jared was going out with the super-popular Opera, all she knew was that Jared asked her out to prom, and she was so excited about going with such a hunk and she was only a freshman but then, then!
Then Opera found out and she was mad at Jared but Jared was popular too! So with them being popular and she being a nobody everyone blamed her and thought she jumped on Jared the first chance she had when Jared and Opera started to have problems and she really didn't mean to but now no-one listens or cares or even gives her the time of day and her friends left her and, her parents don't care and aaaaagh!
...At least there's always the magical girl anime...
STR-2 (-1)
FIN-10 (-7)
WIL-5 (-3)
BP-41 (-7)
SPR-5 (-10)
Active Break
Break Sight
Evasion
Combine Break Spell- When activated, Cindy can 'ask' BP from any allied breaker nearby-it's up to them if they want to give it or not. Once that's done, Cindy can unleash the stored BP force to deplete opposing Breaker's BP stores at a ratio of 1 BP contributed to the storage, to 1 BP lost by opponents.
Foci: Stone Talisman (Runed Staff)
modification: Fire Rune (1BP to make the staff set things on fire, independant of manifesting the staff...I think -1XP, if only because it's a situational trick.)
Modification: Rune Shoot (1BP to activate, deactivates active Rune to fire off a 'shot' of that rune's effect-Fire Rune would cause it's target to be lit on fire, for example.-1XP)

in-progress ideas (if anyone wants to work with them, feel free!)
'Mob' Avatar Breaker.
'Tank' Avatar Breaker.
'Sword&Shield' Weapon Breaker.
'Thief' Weapon Breaker.

Pff. I want to laugh at her trauma, but the sad thing is high school drama probably could get bad enough to break someone.

She looks pretty good, although I think the base powers or capabilities of her magic staff could use some expansion. I mean, it wasn't just a melee weapon before she added on the fire tricks, right? I'd expect some base level of magical girl stuff. (Think Raphael or Elizabeth- she should get some capability beyond what's explicitly laid out in her spirit abilities).

Not sure how far to take that, though. Flight might be too powerful for free, as perhaps might be a transformation sequence and/or magical girl armor without a focus for it. The staff should have some base form of attack, though.

I'd perfer the magical girl armor/uniform alongside manifestation, perhaps with a slower manifest in general if that armor becomes significant in effect, actually...
But Cindy's Breaker theme I intended to be a breaker that was all about the friends she could accumulate-like a reverse of Darcy, almost-Darcy embraces the lonliness, Cindy seeks companionship...Anyhow, a simple outfit change should fit and work, I think...

Cindy Salvez (Weapon type)
Strength-1 Finesse-3 Will-2
Original foci: Stone talisman (Runed Staff& Mage outfit)
Trauma:They all agreed to shun her. She didn't know that Jared was going out with the super-popular Opera, all she knew was that Jared asked her out to prom, and she was so excited about going with such a hunk and she was only a freshman but then, then!
Then Opera found out and she was mad at Jared but Jared was popular too! So with them being popular and she being a nobody everyone blamed her and thought she jumped on Jared the first chance she had when Jared and Opera started to have problems and she really didn't mean to but now no-one listens or cares or even gives her the time of day and her friends left her and, her parents don't care and aaaaagh!
...At least there's always the magical girl anime...
STR-2 (-1)
FIN-10 (-7)
WIL-5 (-3)
BP-41 (-7)
SPR-5 (-10)
Active Break
Break Sight
Evasion
Combine Break Spell- When activated, Cindy can 'ask' BP from any allied breaker nearby-it's up to them if they want to give it or not. Once that's done, Cindy can unleash the stored BP force to deplete opposing Breaker's BP stores at a ratio of 1 BP contributed to the storage, to 1 BP lost by opponents.
Foci: Stone Talisman (Runed Staff/magic outfit)
modification: Fire Rune (1BP to make the staff set things on fire, independant of manifesting the staff...I think -1XP, if only because it's a situational trick.)
Modification: Rune Shoot (1BP to activate, deactivates active Rune to fire off a 'shot' of that rune's effect-Fire Rune would cause it's target to be lit on fire, for example.-1XP)

For those who might be interested, Cassandra Gelds new Spirit 5 ability finally revealed!

Aegis- The ability increases Cass' defensive ability to uncanny levels. Things that normally she would be incapable of blocking or deflecting are defeated with ease while the ability is active, but she loses BP over time in accordance with the number and strength of the attacks she's blocking. This only works against attacks capable of being blocked by her.

Also, for the magical girl, I wouldn't be opposed to say that the staff she has comes with some sort of generic rune already attached to it when first manifested. Like, I don't know, a basic magic missile type thing or something. Because otherwise, she actually seems a bit weaker then everyone else, even with her personal ability. I mean, the one BP lost thing is kinda weak, all things considered, unless you fuel her with a shit ton of BP, which would work in large scale battles between forces. But against smaller fights, like the ones Linda and Co tend to directly participate in, she's really not that great.

Although I will say when Linda meets her, there's probably going to be some head butting going on. I mean, come on. Magical girl anime? Definitely not Linda's thing.

>Aegis
And now Chainsaw is a full-on Tank in combat.

>Magical girl gets basic missle thing/kinda weak.
Hrrm...Kinda wanted to stick a 'leech' rune on her but that's kinda a 'dark' power, and I figured the BP lost blast could be dangerous if used correctly, still...I guess the issue here is the constant BP loss just to even attack.
So a basic shot thing works just fine.
I meant for the Fire rune to be a persistant thing, but the shot expended that- I was kinda thinking something like Tao's lightning powers but different energy (thermal instead of electric) and on a weapon, instead of generated from his body.
Then again, I also don't know how Tao's powers work...

Don't get me wrong, the BP Breaker Spell thingy is very powerful. When used in the right places. I'm just saying that her personal power is going to be more useful in full on war type situations(like the fixer war thing that kinda happened, although maybe a bit more grand). In small skirmishes where there is only a small number of combatants, her power is somewhat limited.

As for the rune thing, I understood that you wanted the fire rune to be persistent. I was and am fine with that as well. The way I'm imagining it, is that she uses the fire rune, and that switches her staff to the fire rune, allowing her to unleash "fire" missiles or whatever. Then you can have that other one, Rune Shoot, change into something else, like uh... I don't know, it amplifies the attack, but only once, and expends the current rune. So maybe not call it Rune Shoot, maybe... Amplify or something. Again, I'm just chucking out ideas. Maybe keep her constrained by some other random set of rules or something. I don't really watch magical girl anime, so I wouldn't really be able to tell you how that works, but there's gotta be some sort of staple rules she can be forced to follow or something. She might not even HAVE to follow them, she just thinks she does... seems like it fits... Anyway, rune magic, in my opinion, seems like a solid idea that just needs more refinement. I don't even see why you're basing it on something as simple as the elements. You could try doing things like basing them on vague concepts like "courage" or "Wisdom" or whatever else. Think that might be just as interesting. Eh. Your character, up to you.

The way I see it, everything she'd be able to do would be based on the who "magical girl" idea, and more importantly, her desire to BE them. After all, they always end up popular and loved and all that, so why not be them? Regardless, I think I know when and where she'll be appearing, but not for awhile. Besides, she hasn't been refined quite yet. And I'm just letting you know, a lot of people are going to want to get their hands on the poor girl. She is probably the closest to permanently breaking "magic" on the world. And if she did that... well, things would get a lot more complicated for a lot of people.

There's my thoughts for right now, anyway... need to think some more. And refine Isaac. He's got an odd build as well, just not quite as odd as the rest. Wanted him to be a bit more on the boring but practical side of things.

Anonymous 2013/11/25(Mon)12:21 No. 77993 ID: 2f4b71
File 138541088653.jpg - (20.57KB , 480x360 , Load_Cartridge_Nanoha_1.jpg )

>>77987
To work with the BP system, something akin to Nanoha's 'cartridge system' could be used: each magical Device is somewhat potent 'passively', but for any serious firepower they expend cartridges charged with magic (sometimes multiple for each spell).

>>77996
From the other board, but yea, totes something to add fuel to that Magical Girl vs. Giant Robots argument.
>>77993
Probably a good way for 'magical' type weapons to work, if they become a thing multiple breakers have.
Maybe 'magical' foci, like Tao's lightning can work like that?

>Aegis
Neat! It changed from an insane offense that put her at risk, to a defense that can be applied in a supportive manner. I like it.

Also, an interesting way to keep str relevent (often a str build seems the weaker way to, since fin applies to offense and defense), since thanks to weapon enviroment she's applying it to the accuracy and speed of those blocks, and she's using raw power to hold that defense.

Interesting how that manages to differentiate itself from Chris' approach of cutting down attacks.

>a basic magic missile type thing or something. Because otherwise, she actually seems a bit weaker then everyone else
Yeah, that was the point I was trying to make. She needs a way to have fought before XP and upgrades.

>switches her staff to the fire rune
Affixing the element- enchanting! That's magic-y.

Late realization for combat:

Due to the way Isaac's power is set up, using active break to disable his weapons might have been effective. They're recovered stored items, not manifestations, so they might be exempt from any protections manifestations net from hostile breaks, and he wouldn't have the option of remanifesting or repairing easily (he could try an active break, if he has that).

Although, it kind of depends on how large he's built his arsenal (or if there are limits to how much he can store). For an arbitrarily large arsenal the tactic is a waste, since it deletes our BP without taxing his resources.

Something I just thought of as a way to break gun users-what about some sort of 'anti-bullet field' around them that makes bullets not work?
It'd screw over most ranged breakers, while leaving Linda free to Cold Magnum them in the face, or just shut them out and possibly make them expend BP getting rid of it?

Not really sure that's something we can do, really. Most our breaks are kind of changing the state of reality- taking the way things are sand saying no, this is the way things are. Linda breaks guns by forcing them to jam or misfire. Setting up a continuous field to exert some kind of automatic break to the same effect under a certain condition might be possible, but it's certainly more sophisticated that anything we've attempted.

If it's possible (not sure it is) that's probably something we'd have to practice. And it might take long enough to set up to not be useable in battle (unless they're set up in advance, like defensive fortifications?). There's also the chance something with a continuous effect would sap BP while running.

Of course, that's just (active) breaking. Some kind of lock down defensive or support ability is certainly within the reach of a personal power, or pretty specialized focus.

Soooo it's been awhile since I've made a breaker idea.
One that I was tossing around, assuming Wallo's theory concerning how breakers are actually chosen, was the thought that 'what would happen if the breaker picking thingy made a mistake and hit someone fine and healthy?'
The hilarious thing is that actually might make for a legit case for a breaker- I've heard it said that it can be highly difficult for a sane person to prove themselves as such in a mental facility, and I'd think with an absolute rule of 'all breakers carry a trauma' if someone normal became a breaker, they might start going 'why am I a breaker then, if everyone else has been broken, somehow?'
With that thought in mind...

Violet Bleu (Avatar Type)
Strength-2 Finesse-3 Will-1
Foci: Idealized Self. (Humanoid doll)
Strength-2
Finesse-3
Will-1

Trauma: (minor) lack of self-esteem, excerbated by becoming a breaker.
Upgrades (And now I never make another Avatar type again after this...)

STR-5 (-3)
FIN-7 (-4)
WIL-3 (-2)
BP-17
SPR-4 (-6)
Warped Minds
Active Break
Finesse Focus
Foci: Idealized Self. (Humanoid doll)
STR-5 (-3)
FIN-7 (-4)
WIL-3 (-2)
Sudden Appearance (-1)
Break Channel (-1)
Speech (-1)
Human-like (-3)

>>78091
...that's brilliant. I have no idea if the fluff supports that injury working, but it's interesting in all kinds of ways.

For instance, how different in personality would one's idealized self be? And how does one get on with their idealized self? It would alternate between being near-perfect harmony and in violent opposition, I think. (And the self-esteem thing would only complicate it more). And there's the added confusion of who is actually leading and who's following, and to what extent you could actually tell (how do you distinguish corruption of self by yourself and natural change or growth from the experience of being confronted with yourself?).

It's also a great vehicle for a twin kind of fighting style.

Perfect choice with the stats mirrored stats, break channel, and max humanlike- make the avy identical to the breaker. And a single level of sudden appearance so they don't fight apart (but no more, so the avy doesn't get to tele-spam).

She might need speech (2) to have her voice sound exactly the same, unless it's special cased due to theme.

And the name works great too. Because the nickname for violet is Vi or V. Which means we can name them with physics jokes (They're V^2! Or label them V_1 and V_2. Or Vi (V_i) works as initial Violet).

>Wallo
Pff.

This is now retroactively the name of my accidental self-insert, aka red hot iron poker guy.

Alright. We're getting close to the first increase in psychic power for Grey, so I might as well start giving this to you.

To start off, psychic power grows as one uses it. The more one uses it, the more power one gains, as the mind adapts to the increase in use. Similarly, the more one uses it, the more abilities unlock. TIme is of little factor, it's all about use. This, in game mechanics terms, means the more you use powers, the more powers you'll be able to unlock. Now, for a summary of power available for the first progression.

-Using two "points" can break into another of psychic disciplines, providing access to one of the two pathways of either the External or Internal powers. Since you are a Sensory psychic, however, your choice will be limited to only one of those two disciplines, and furthermore, only one of the pathways from either one. For the External, you'll gain access to the "Force" pathway, granting powers related to movement of objects and such. The more classic psychic. For Internal, the pathway will be the "Reinforcement", allowing you to increase your own ability to survive damage through subtle, skin-like psychic barriers and other such internal methods.

One progression "point" can also be applied to one of the two pathways of the Sensory discipline, granting you continued access to those abilities.

-For the Empathic route, the next two available are Improved Empathy, which will refine your ability to take information from objects and places with Empathy, and Suggest, which allows you to place an basic idea, thought or urge inside someone's mind while in physical contact with them.

-For the Mapping route, the next two are Distract, which allows you to cause a target to notice "something", although it does not guarantee a change in behavior, or Third Eye, which allows you to place a "sentry" at a position, which will warn you if anything hostile enters the of it's influence.

As always, any questions regarding anything I'll be happy to answer.

Hrrrm...I personally like the sound of the Mapping upgrade 'third Eye'.
As far as Empathy goes, I'd say Empathy+ seems like a good buy.
Honestly as far as our character goes...I'm of the opinion that we should specialize in getting more intel-battlefield knowledge. It's not a FUN role to play, mind you, as it basically lets us see everything that goes on, without necessarily being able to do anything about it, but we can empower our allies to make smarter decisions out there, which could very well be more effective than telekenesis-crushing an alien mech...If they even have those.

On force vs reinforcement, reinforcement seems the more useful tree to tap into. There are all kinds of ways to kill things, and we're going to get access to better weapons as we go. But there are relatively few ways to prevent yourself from being killed. Durability is more valuable than explodability.

As for what ability to actually pick up next level up, I'm still unsure.

>crushing an alien mech...If they even have those.
Inb4 the entire quest is revealed to be one of Linda's animes.

>>78119
That's a thought. I bet breakers take LARPing i[]way[/i] too seriously.

...That makes for a potential case of massive inception/realization of pretty much any fantasy setting-it's all Breaker-set up LARPING and other such things...Hrrrrm...

>BR update goes up right before I leave for work instead of while I was asleep
Curse my compulsion to reply now instead of waiting 8 hours, and to be verbose in suggesting.

...counting on you guys to ask any questions I forgot.

>chapter end
Hey, I was wondering when that would happen. Higher stakes now- we've got the fixers to the east, the triad to the west, and now the government stepping out of the shadows to come after us directly.

...I suppose that's what we get for getting comfy with our own concerns and not doing anything about D7 earlier.

Interestingly, it's not actually the end of the masquerade, necessarily. Assuming we do something about the power structures actually opposing us, neuralizing the populace is something breakers could do.

>3 month time skip
Alright, so if Cass' birthday was near the end of July, we just jumped to the end of October.

A few back end concerns and lingering questions:

The prisoners. It was one thing letting a two-week timeskip derail our having to make a decision as to what to do with them, and for Linda to struggle with making a decision in the short term, it's another for her to forget about them and leave them to rot for months. We should probably figure out here in dis what to do (or rather, what was done) with them during the skip. (I'll write up another post with our options and my opinions as to what that should be in a bit).

Raul. What happened to him and his group? It would be kind of odd for him to stay camped out in our city for that long without doing anything, and to not approach us again (especially once he caught on to something odd going on, and his underlings suddenly not knowing who he was talking about. Unless he doesn't talk to his own people?). Unless he just left after we broke up that almost-fight?

Nonexistence. I'm hoping a time-skip doesn't mean we lost contact with anyone who we've been trying to keep remembering us. Cass, Elizabeth, Nicole, Chris, Michelle, Aria, and the Doc are people we were actively working to keep from forgetting us (although I don't if we have to worry about Elizabeth- her powers might protect her from that). Sonia, Rise, Raul, Maria, and Isaac are characters who who remembered us at the party (or shortly before) due to recent interactions, but may not after a time skip. Tears and observers seem immune to the effects (even if Observers can't perceive us, they remember).

There's also still the annoying problem of saving xp for forget-me-nots. We've been at it since before the Godkiller / Athena fight, but there haven't been many opportunities for XP. (Lots of talking to people, making decisions. Little skirmishes, but not real battles).

Dreamwalking. I'd hoped Raphael would visit in our sleep on a regular basis (recharging every few days? Once a week? Once every two?) and allow Linda to check on her allies, and to kind of keep his role in protecting everyone on that front alive. There's still a lot of exploring to do with that power, and a lot of people to visit. Are we going to say Linda's been getting any dreampractice in the timeskip?

...and I guess that means we didn't meet the conditions for real-Raphael / Daniel to return as Elizabeth saw he might when talking with Aria.

There's also still that conversation we meant to have with ghost-Cally.


Not that I'm trying to be a whiner or critical. These things certainly aren't plot holes, yet. It's just a big time-skip leaves a lot of things to be aware of and clean up.

Oh, and another silly little thing we're time-skipping past:

>They think I'm touring the world in search of the finest teas... or was it china?
One thing I was planning to do the morning after the party was to ask Twinda to compile some research on the world's finest tea and china, put it under a heading like "in case you ever need to cover yourself" and deliver it to Aria without ceremony and walk off.

I figure it would have been good for a laugh. :V

>what to do with the prisoners
Okay. So we had a chance earlier to make decisions, but we were indecisive, and Linda walked away. So let's try to take the time to hash this out not under the pressure of an update. (I've actually been planning on bringing this up, but having a time-skip has forced my hand).

The whole problem with indefinite detention is it goes against what we're all about. Our whole organization, and a lot of Linda's own mission, is about treating people fairly- giving normals a chance to live their lives without breakers fucking it up, and giving breakers a chance despite what has happened to them, or they have become.

Although, it is important to note, we're doing this for the sake of our conscience, and these people's rights, such as they are. If we don't have a better choice and it comes down to sacrificing those to protect those we care about, we will. We won't like it, necessarily, but we will.

>Jacob
The more egregious of the two. Locking him up forever, just because we're afraid of what he knows (or might do), or because we can squeeze intelligence from him, flys in the face of what we're about. It's too close to what we've seen others try to do to Elizabeth, how we've seen D7 use people, how we've been told the Triad does, how Marc used us, or Raphael... or anyone, really.

What I would like to do is ask Elizabeth if he poses any direct risk to her (their powers crossing seems a no-no). And if not (he's got no Xp. Whatever his goals, I don't see him forcing her into anything without significant help), I'd like to make some kind of arrangement with him. Give him more freedom within the base, or allow him to join the group. There's no real harm in team-members talking to him, or in his learning stuff, so long as he's protected from people who might come after him. What he really needs is a friend or escort, someone to look after him, to step in if anyone pushes too hard with questioning, or if something threatens him. Obviously Linda doesn't have the time to manage another child (nor does she really want one, i think), but there must be someone who would be interested. (Many Rodriguez would take him under his wing?).

Basically, give him some of what he wants, and a chance at some kind of a life, rather than just being our reference locked in a room.

>Maria
She's messier, since she's a POW, not an indefinite detainee we deemed dangerous. We know she opposes us, that she would kill our people and work against our interests, given the chance. There's also the fact that Linda has a personal beef with her- which isn't good. The fact that she's Elizabeth's birth-mother makes me feel Linda should almost recuse herself from decisions regarding her- but we really don't have anyone else to make the call.

So, options.

We could execute her. I'd discard that out of hand, though. Killing in battle is one thing, but I'm not about to start killing a prisoner who surrendered in cold blood. That's a line too far.

We could try and recruit her. Which, uh, barring some very significant developments in her personality and beliefs is a completely insane idea. And even if she does claim to have changed her mind about certain things we'd have to be nuts to put a gun in her hands again.

We could keep her locked up. Except we can't really, not forever.

Which leaves releasing her.

We have to decide how, though. Do we take away her foci and just kick her out the door? Presumably she's dedicated enough to rejoin with the other fixers, even depowered. And she might have a spare focus, somewhere. Do we let George wipe her memories, and release her as a normal? (May not be an option- now that the government has gone public with breaking, they might start rounding up ex-breakers, too). If we let her keep her mind, there's the possibility of using her as a messenger- send her back to the fixers with what we have to say. I've also considered the possibility of giving her the choice- start over as a normal, or not.

There's also the option of releasing her with foci, but I'm not sure how we could trust her enough for that.


...that's enough for now, I think. I've already left one wall for Dreamer to respond to, and the prisoner problem for my fellow contributes to comment on (I hope). Stuff like ideas on how to deal with the government going public and other character analysis I've been meaning to put out can wait.

>government going public
Honestly, this just boils down to how much of an issue an army of normals against us becomes, as well as just how big this army will be.
Though I can't help but think this might smoke out all the various breakers I've made (Come-on Dakdo! You can add your own to the wave, there's still time!)
Hrrm...Now my question become how to deal with D7? They're kinda scary in that McCarthy is quite skilled in tactics and has a great deal of resources and an unknown agenda which we frankly have not really been able to disrupt with either Guy or Linda, from what we can tell...
So, he seems to have some ability to know when people are thinking of him, and perhaps an ability to view reality to go along with that, otherwise drawing his attention wouldn't be such a bad thing.
the GOOD NEWS is that if we focus on 'bring down D7' or 'stop the UNA from persecuting Breakers' we might be able to plan without him peeking on our tactics...Hopefully...
And well...
Time for someone who'd probably end up under Mcarthy's command, due to backstory.

Lionel Blitzen (Avi type)
Strength-2 Finesse-3 Will-1
Original foci: shrapnel piece (Helen the Tank. Yes, an actual Tank)
STR-3
FIN-1
WIL-2

Trauma: Somethimg Something military operations and mental overload. In short, this guy's to represent those soldiers who end up with mental issues from their time on the battlefield. I had in mind him being overly connected to the tank he was driving, naming it and all that, and then having to abandon it. Don't really know the name of that particular hang-up though.

upgrades
STR-3 (-1)
FIN-5 (-2)
WIL-3 (-2)
BP-35 (-6)
SPR-4 (-6)
Break Sight
Warped Minds
Evasion
Foci: Shrapnel piece (Helena-Tank)
BP Cost-3
...How to stat a tank...
STR-5 (-2) (Cannon destructiveness/Armor Maybe?!?)
FIN-4 (-3) (Manuverability/Speed?)
WIL-5 (-3) (Actually changes the least I guess? Dunno if it should have this stat.)
Speech (-1)
Unmaker Rounds (-1) (McCarthy did something?)
CQC size manifestation (-1) (I imagined it being juuuuust big enough to to ride on, albiet looking like you're driving a clown car while doing so. Basically, for use in buildings.)
Enhanced Repair (-1, enhances the repair function to be more effective)
Enhanced Durability (-2, pretty much makes the tank more armored.)

Pretty much a straight-up boss fight build right here, I hope.

A few of these things will be addressed in the first post of the new thread(which will happen later. I want to focus on Stars for a little bit first). Still, some of this stuff can get decided here in the dis thread, instead of wasting time later. So, here we go...

>The prisoners
You lot are free to decide what you did in the past three months with the two you have locked up. Your decision will be mentioned once the new thread goes up.

>Nonexistence.
Anyone you normally spend time with to avoid losing memories is assumed to have been granted some of your time on a regular basis. Furthermore, while YOU might not get out much, that doesn't mean that your friends, acting as lieutenants, didn't. Besides, what's to stop everyone from finding some spare, unclaimed foci and handing them over to you for use? For now, you can assume that your inner circle at least now wears protection against memory loss via nonexistence. Anyone else you would like to include you should mention now.

But no, that does not mean I'm granting you any XP. You'll be getting more involved in battles again soon enough.

>Dreamwalking
Raphael doesn't "visit" anyone. You have to actively wield your newfound power in order to call the two of them up. So it is completely up to you guys whether or not you did or did not use him on a regular basis, and whether or not you experimented, what you experimented with, and so on. Although, I'll be reserving the Cally-Talk for in game, if you don't mind. Something tells me you'd prefer it that way. Regardless, tell me what and how much of it you did, and I'll give the results in the new thread.

I think that covers everything I wanted to mention... So have at it! I might do another side-story, just to tide me over till Stars gets going, but that's up for further thought. Got to be a lot to play around with in three months.

>Come-on Dakdo! You can add your own to the wave, there's still time!
Honestly, I find it much easier refining and adding to characters than initially creating them! :p

If I get the chance, I'll try and put some together. I'm still getting used to a new work schedule, and my time management has been weird as a result.

>free to decide what to do with the prisoners
Alright.

Jacob first. The problem is we can't just decree what happens to him- since there are ifs. If Elizabeth isn't seriously threatened or put at risk by letting him out (something we'd have to ask her), and if he's willing to come to some kind of terms with us, then we could grant him more freedom / make him a member. Obviously he'd need some kind of supervision (he can't protect himself if anyone else tries to snatch him for intel, or if what he says causes problems with any of the people who talk to him). I'm hoping there's someone who will take an interest in him, or take him under their wing, rather than having to assign a guard. (I thought Rodriguez might fit that role? And it would be a way to bring him back into the story a bit).

Maria, uh, pending. That's gonna need a bit of back and forth, and I'm not up to working it all out tonight.

>what's to stop everyone from finding some spare, unclaimed foci and handing them over to you for use?
Have our allies subsidize forget-me-nots, you mean? Each one collects a foci, forfeits the xp and hands it off to Linda, who tunes it and hands it back. If you'll allow it, I much prefer that option to having to wait until we pile up 7xp ourselves. We actually considered that idea ourselves, in the old dis thread.

(Would we still have to spend an XP supplying an noncombatants, like the Doc? I suppose that depends if he's still charging people for foci modifications).

Although, if I can add a caveat, I'd prefer to use Mac and/or the vault to swap random foci around for bullets. It just makes thematic sense, and that way the forget-me-nots double as backups. (Unless you had a good idea or reason for a 'random' focus you wanted to sneakily made sure we had access to, later).

Only real complaint about doing this in the background is that we miss having a scene in story where we give a bullet to Aria. It's both a pretty big gesture of trust, and a symbol for giving her choice. It gives her the freedom to leave. (...which would probably want to make her leave less).

I suppose we'll have to test if you can manifest from a focus someone else is carrying. And if so, what the range is.

Amusing idea #347: safest place Michelle could keep her memory charm; plush-doll Levi just eats it. :V

>No free timeskip XP
Pff. Course not. I wasn't asking for any, either. :p

>Anyone else you would like to include you should mention now.
Uh. Well, that's tricky. Ideally, it's more convenient the more people we work with who remember we exist. But the more people we include, the more foci we have floating out there, and it occurs to me that there might be certain risks if a focus falls into the wrong hands. Ways it could be used against you.

I suppose it would be partially driven by character. Who do we know who might strive to imitate the inner circle, and take it upon themselves to ask Linda to tune a memory-focus for them? Isaac might, if he gets close enough to Cass. And Rise might take it upon herself (if she was told about Linda's condition or figured it out) due to the way Chris is tied to Linda (she'd want to remember her sister's keeper, as it were. Linda almost provides a better connection to Makoto for her than Chris does). Sonia's probably drifted away from Linda, and distracted by her personal life. Raul- I can't say without more information. He'd certainly want to remember, but we don't know what he's figured out, or what he did after his last confrontation with Linda. I mean, he doesn't seem a terrible person (he and Linda would probably get on pretty well if the politics and powerplay wasn't in the way), but I don't see Linda giving him a focus out of the blue in the background. There are circumstances where we might trust him, but that would have to happen with good reason, and we'd actually have to play through it.

There's also the question of Jacob- theoretically, he might be able to help people who have forgotten use remember, which opens up a whole wealth of possibilities.

>Raphael dream powers
>doesn't visit anyone
The problem with having to actively choose to invoke his powers (instead of having him show up on certain nights and offer to take us dreamwalking) is the story doesn't stop each night and ask us if we want to stay up and go dreamwalking. It tends to skip ahead to the next day (or week, or three months... :p).

I'd like to use the nightmare on a regular interval, and practice and stuff. (Frequency depends on the recharge rate. Ideally- wait to go dreaming when the tank is full, and stop before running it dry. That way we have some reserve fuel if we ever really need to call him when we're awake). Checking in on dreams is cool, and maybe if anyone has a nightmare we could chase it off, or eat it to get access to a fear form.

Although some of the exploring and fun I want to have with don't work so well if, well, we don't actually get to see it happen. Like I'd like to see what the inside of Cass' head looks like now. Or Nicoles'. Or visit Michelle, and see how avatars affect the dream-mix (would they keep us out? Be there with her? Have their own dreams?). Maybe spend a night playing with mini-Elizabeth, maybe help Chris more (if that isn't crossing a line? It's problematic if she doesn't want it). There's also visiting Aria (you know she'd appreciate that!) although I'd prefer to have explored how things work with friendly avys before risking walking into the mind of one who may not be so happy with us.

>I might do another side-story, just to tide me over till Stars gets going, but that's up for further thought.
I wouldn't object to doing stars or something else for a bit before continuing the main story. Give us a chance to make sure everything is worked out.

Golem's displeasure
This, to me is obvious. It's a sign that we are, in fact, getting to make Aria an ally of us enough to defy the duty he represents.
It's also worrisome because it suggests we could end up fighting him, if not him and Aria, to keep her around.

>Jacob
Hrrrm. It's annoying. He's JUST unsettling and creepy enough to set us to not trust him, but at the same time innocent enough to not warrant something like execution.
>Maria.
Honestly, I'm tempted to just execute her after holding council with the others simply because-
A-she's our enemy.
B-the only reason she's NOT dead is because of the bad feelings she invokes and the thought of killing her unfairly-but from what I can tell we really do have legitimately have no real way to cleanly deal with her no matter what we do. Linda's grudge against her isn't even unique to her-I don't think anyone in our group likes her. I'd say the problem is doing so feels out of character for Linda. She logically might get it that this is the simplest answer, but she doesn't do things like this, and she's scared of the slippery slope...But I feel like that's no reason to leave her alive, either.

Yes, the root of Golem's displeasure is rather obvious. Although what might happen if Aria actually does chose to challenge her paradigm is still up in the air (we've got several competing examples. Would a transformation in her fundamental outlook alter her avatar? Would she cast him off as Cass did her blades? Would the leash know or care if what or who was holding the other end were to change?).

An actual fight with Aria and/or Golem would be interesting. I've thought about a strait one on one two fight before, I'm not actually sure Linda could take them. Golem can tank small arms fire, and even though we could put holes in him with the tank gun, I'm not sure if that would actually hurt him or slow him down. And we'd be hard pressed to keep ahead of the two of them fighting in tandem. It would be hard to get past Golem's defense to hit her with battlefield instinct, we'd be hard pressed to stay maneuverable and at range with the tank gun, and even getting a hit off with the shotgun would be tricky. Plus she's got more BP to burn.

Just Golem attacking us is complicated for different reasons. How do you stop an avy coming after you without putting down the breaker? As I said before, I'm not sure if it will hurt him much punching bullet holes in an empty suit of armor. We saw in the fight with Marc that the anti-breaking rounds will hurt an avatar, but they don't shut down the way a breaker does. And you can't depower the manifestation by taking a focus away, since avatars are autonomous and avatar-types are, by their very nature, mostly separate from their foci anyways! Assuming Aria couldn't control him, (or we don't find a way to get through to her or him) I think the only means we have of stopping him are killing her, or keeping her locked down with the anti-breaking shotgun.

>Jacob, execution
...jeeze, you jump right from wondering if it's safe to trust him to wanting him dead.

Honestly, the most likely problem is he doesn't have any kind of filter. Out in the open, people will approach him, and he's going to end up saying things that cause issues at least some of the time. After that, there's the increased risk of one of our enemies using him for intelligence (obviously, we have to be careful around him and visitors and/or brand new people). After that, there's our unconfirmed suspicion that Elizabeth's wariness may be well founded.

Weirdness and a potential cause of friction is no basis for execution (we've got loads of that, in various people). We're also not in the business of killing people for what they know, although balancing protecting that information with personal freedom is a little tricky. The third reason is the real sticking point- but it boils down to he's only a threat if he's capable and willing. We have ways to evaluate both of those (Elizabeth, and talking to him / coming to terms).

If it turns out we really can't trust him, then we swallow our objections and keep him locked up. But he deserves us at least broaching the issue with him.

>Maria
We don't kill all our enemies, though. Removing foci and leaving defeated enemies alive, when we can, is SOP in a lot of cases. Sure, fixers died when we kicked them out of town, but a lot escaped alive and depowered too.

Anyways, reasons I have a problem with killing her:

* Killing POWs just for being POWs is bad practice. She surrendered, and we accepted. (Or rather, one of our lieutenants accepted on our behalf. But she is authorized to act for us, and was even instructed to avoid killing). That comes with certain responsibilities and obligations, enemy or no. She honored her terms, and cooperated. We're suppose to honor ours. And we'd certainly condemn anyone else if they allowed one of our people to surrender and then killed them.

This alone should be reason enough.

* We're really in no position to judge or try her. Pretty much every member of our organization is guilty of having killed for the cause, Linda included. We've killed some people we didn't have to, and not everyone we've killed deserved it (thanks, Marc!). If you want to qualify any of it as murder is complicated, though. Since even the optional killings happened in combat, wartime-like situations (although that means justifying a kind of gang-conflict as war. ...and justifying war). Maria's done the same, except for a different cause. Hers might even be less murder-y than ours, since the fixers could hide behind the justification of a formal military branch and rank, as early as thread 1. Acts of war, not murder. You could try to justify what she'd done as genocide or war crimes, but that's still a mess (we've wiped out opposing factions too! And then there's the matter of evidence).

tl:dr- we'd be making up a legal basis to try or execute her, and applying a double standard by ignoring for forgiving what we and ours have done.

* Linda almost isn't in a position to make this decision, due to how personal it's become. She can't decide killing Maria is justice, because it would always partially be motivated by other feelings. It would be personal, and murder. If this were a court case and Linda were the judge, she'd have to recuse herself.

* An execution is different than killing in battle. That's a line I don't want Linda crossing without a damn good reason.

* We have alternatives. She can be made a non-threat by mind-wiping her. She could also potentially be made useful if we decide to let her keep her memories, and send her back east with a message. Successfully reaching out to the fixers, or convincing them that what they want is impossible could save a lot of lives.

* Linda would have to spend the rest of our life looking at Elizabeth and knowing she chose to kill her mother. I can't chose to taint that, even if Elizabeth doesn't seem to care what becomes of Maria.

...holy fuck how do I sit down to talk about this and end up with all this text like an hour later. (Seriously, I'm not trying to win arguments by volume. I just can't seem to keep my ideas concise anymore).

Thank you for the opposing reasons good sir!
That was bugging me, the lack of options. Holding her forever didn't feel right to me, but neither did any version of letting her go-and I'm not a big fan of the mind-wiping thought, but I can see why that would be a more reasonable thing to do...
I'm thinking send her to fixers, after using her foci as modding regents...Or could foci be outright molded into raw reality? That could be something to try. Alternately, we could try and 'babify' the foci and have Linda make another tank gun, or hand it off to some other breaker who wants another copy of their foci! So many possiblities, and a potentially awesome new service Doc could offer-don't like a foci you got off someone? Have it made in the image of your own foci!...Probably the most useful for forms, since Weapons I think can just add an extra manifested form to their foci.
Actually, part of me is curious what Maria's fear would be, and wants to 'taste' it...Hrrm.
Then again, depending on how relations with the Fixers goes, we might give her back her foci and she goes back to fighting, assuming the Fixers are willing to work with us.
Geh. I don't like prisoners.

>lack of options for Maria
>other choices don't really feel right.
I actually tend to agree. There's no choice that jumps out as right- even if the alternatives don't offend me the way execution does, they each have their problems.

I'll see about brainstorming a list of everything we could do with her and the pros and cons tomorrow. Try to discuss and work it out from there.

>Duplicating foci
We already know the Doc can break foci down and rebuild them into completely different things. Assuming he can also read the 'code' that makes up existing foci, I don't see why he couldn't construct duplicates.

(One form the file of unused backup plans: Back when we were trying to resurrect Elizabeth, I told Linda to push hard enough to break a focus, if she had to. I figured if we did break one channeling that much power through it, we might have been able to get the Doc to study the pieces and replace it).

Not sure how much utility that would have though. It would allow identical backups, for people devoted to a certain weapon? (like Chris). And I suppose certain specialized and powerful foci could be given to more than one person (...if anyone else really wanted their own twin-ring, say). Although things like that might be harder to duplicate than simple weapons.

>foci experiments
There's no real reason we'd need to use Maria's. We have spares, and there's that whole vault full of them Marc accumulated.

One of the background thing we should probably tweak are the trading rules so there are ways for people to do favors / tasks for the organization and earn the right to claim a focus from the pile. Now that the group isn't aggressively expanding or in constant conflict, and that (hopefully) most new breakers who crop up are going to be recruited peacefully, the supply of new foci from defeated people will have dropped off. A lot of newer or weaker members, or people not particularly combat oriented, won't have any spares to trade for a second focus.

And I still hope Elizabeth is spending some of her off time vetting the backlog. Trading will improve the more Mac actually knows what he has in stock, there way be a few that are 'supposed' to go to certain people, and if there are any that are hazardous to the mind or health of people who might tune them, it would be good to weed them out (or at the very least, stick on a warning label and make sure anyone who purchases one knows what they're getting into).

You know, we could always hold Maria prisoner. Without even getting into whether life imprisonment of someone who wants to commit genocide is justified, I'm sure we don't plan for this war to last forever, and if the Fixers ever capture one of our people, perhaps to interrogate them for intel, then we'll at least have someone valuable for a hostage exchange.

She's been locked up for less than a year. I think we're rushing things just because we like having them wrapped up. She's a prisoner for now, and we don't have a good option or even reason to change that at the moment.

Poor Grey gets hampered at every turn, doesn't he?
Really should have gone for the TacArm soldier I think-that would have been MUCH more fun, then again, I'll bet it pays off later on, if we can get there without dying.
...
And because I'm personally bothered by the lack of form types in my breaker suggestions, let's have some fun with Dreamer Quest Crossover-inspired characters!

Alexander Grey (Form Type)
Strength-1 Finesse-2 Will-3
Foci: toy-sized UFO (manifests martian form, bonus to will while in form)
Trauma: The whole family believed in aliens, that there were such a thing as extra-terrestrials. Alexander just found it preposterous, but being from that family, it garnered him more than a few jokes about it, especially because his last name was Grey. It didn't matter that he perferred literature to math or science, or that the reason he wasn't atheletic was due to a severe case of asthma-all anyone saw when they met him was just another crackpot alien chaser. People kept throwing that stuff at him, it made sense he'd pick up a thing or two from it, but really, he wanted to be seen as more than just a sterotype nutjob.

Now to apply his upgrades!

STR-3 (-2)
FIN-5 (-3)
WIL-9 (-6)
BP- 20
SPR-5 (-10)
Normality
Mormality Blanket
Fear Itself
Mind Paths- passively detects minds around Grey, and enables opening a telepathic link to another person. If Grey has a Will advantage, he can read their 'unspoken' thougts and emotions, the clarity and depth of which are dependant on the gap between Will scores.
(Bigger the difference, more he gets
6-5(difference of 1) = general sense of the person's mood.
differnce of VERY HIGH= sees the other person's mind.)
Foci:UFO (Martian)
-4XP Xenoic Mind-using this form the Spirit ability Unbroken Will.
New manifestation: (Triskelion Crab, -1XP)
Triskelion regeneration -1XP, passive to form, +1 to BP cost of form.)
Autonomous foci -1XP (Think like how that Werewolf guy's wolf could go and do stuff without him manifesting it, at least from what I saw.)

Basically, I'm guessing form powers work kinda like an Avatar, but without the unpleasant having to split your upgrade points between Breaker Stats and Avatar Stats, so they could get crazier foci powers maybe?
And if you like I can have a follow-up post on the Triskelion Crab if you want a new Xeno-thing to use in Grey's home quest of Breaking Reality.

Zaealix 2013/12/08(Sun)17:50 No. 78344 ID: 828582
File 138655380480.png - (8.47KB , 644x515 , Triskelion Crab.png )

Triskelion Crabs-Fairly simple-minded, perhaps their most notable trait is that even immeadiately after birth, they will ravenously swarm and consume anything they find edible in their path, beginning with their parents.
As time passes, and the swarm shrinks due to casualties, the crabs develop in size and intellect, learning to blend in with rocks or ambush their prey.
When they reach maturity and maximum size (Around the size of a large dog, as I tried to demonstrate in the sample pictures) Two Triskelion Crabs will meet, and mate through a special 'seed' of genetic material released through the top of one crab, into an special 'second mouth' past the shutter-teeth of the other.
From there, the bottom crab perishes after this, while the top one's body feeds itself to the now-fertilized eggs in it's body. When the eggs hatch, the swarm feasts upon what remains of their parent's bodies.
Their name, hails from their triskelion appearance, from the positioning of the eyes, to the three legs, even down to their mating position, and the shape of the genetic seed-the only break in this rule is their five 'shutter teeth' that open and close much like a camera's lenses when taking a picture.

>>78344
Awwwww, it's ADORABLE!

To clarify something I probably didn't make very clear in the last Stars post, when I said "direct it", then yes, technically, you are attempting to further increase your power over either mapping or empathy. Which the first response had it right, sorta. Focusing inward would lead to empathy increases, outwards leads to mapping.

>>78314
A fair point. I'll include that option in my consideration.

Okay, I meant to write this up days ago, but I've been crazy busy. Thankfully, I assume we have a decent window to play around with BR ideas while we do Stars and dreamer entertains ideas for a side project.

>>78386
...I was actually assuming trying to push psychic power outward meant using it, which potentially useful practice, would be work, not meditation, and not serve the same purpose.

Oh well, I ended up voting for what I wanted anyways. I favor empathy over mapping for the moment. (It was useful in the pre-reboot, but draining enough that we couldn't use it much. I'm hoping if we can get more faster / easier, it'll be much more useful in combat or near-combat situation).

Any response to the proposed reaching out to Jacob (what we do with him does depend on his response, and how Elizabeth feels about it), or dreatime practice, or modifying Mac's shop rules? (Or maybe modifying how the rules for how the organization hands out credit to be spent at the shop). Or leaving the issue as to whether some of the secondary characters get memory foci up to them? (How close they get to Linda, or those near her).

>Everything could do to Maria
Everything I could think of, including one or two that are obviously terrible.

>kill her
+ She's dead, and no threat to Elizabeth or anyone else. Over for good.
- All the bullets from the second half of this post >>78296
- We lose the chance to ever try becoming her with Someone Else and infiltrate a fixer base (although, she's been MIA long enough we probably couldn't get away with that at this point, anyways).

>mindcontrol enslave her
+ Converts POW into a military asset
- Goes against quite a lot of what we're about
- George isn't as effective at that as D7 is, and we've seen both break down. It's not certain, or safe. At all.

>Attempt to recruit her
+ More allies is always a good thing
+ potentially a route towards resolving the long term problem of the other fixers
- Are you insane
- Seriously, how could we ever trust anyone who's driving motivation is to kill her (our!) daughter, and commit complete breaker genocide culminating with her own suicide

>Keep her locked up longer
+ Potentially useful for a future hostage exchange (...although that would probably involve retuning her foci. And if she's been presumed dead, and with the fixer succeed and die ethos, we don't know they'll place much value in her life).
+ It gives us a chance to work on her longer, in controlled conditions. If we can't convince the one fixer we have the most in common with, and have 24-7 captive audience access to, that her ideas are wrong and/or won't work, (and perhaps that our attempt to manage breakers, and replace the constant gang wars with stability is better) then we're never going to be able to get the larger organization to give up their genocidal plans to fix everything. (Without resorting to force, at least).
+ We aren't making a permanent decision, yet.
- She's potentially a risk (albeit a small one) so long as she's here.
- We aren't set up to, nor do we particularly wish to, hold long-term prisoners. We aren't running a prison, here.

>Release and Mindwipe her
+ Makes her a non-threat without having to kill her, or trust her
+ Potentially gives her a fair shot at a new life. A chance for peace and redemption (more than she deserves, delectably).
- While it's not execution, it's up for debate how okay we should be with mindwipes.
- No chance of using her for diplomatic ends with the fixers
- May not be a safe way to dispose of her, in the post-presidential announcement environment (if they start gather up ex-breakers). Although Linda would have no way of knowing this months in advance.
- There is the small risk that someone will find a way to restore her memories, and return a (spare?) focus to her.

>Release her (without foci)
+ She ceases to be our immediate problem.
+ She can be sent back to the other fixers with our message, and as part of an effort to reach out to them. (Either bind her to deliver it through the terms of her release and with her honor, or even better, carrying it willing if we manage to get her to change her mind).
+ If she becomes a threat, or fights against us again, shooting her in a fight isn't a moral quandary.
- She's driven by her cause. Even without foci, she's likely to continue trying to work for her goals.
- She may well have a spare focus somewhere.
- There's the chance she'll be picked up en route by another faction (D7, Jean, Raul). Sending her to a worse fate isn't good for us, and what some of them might do with / to her, or learn from her is a concern.

>Release her (with foci)
+ She's out of the dungeon
+ Her return makes a much better gesture of goodwill, and gives any message we send with her more stregth.
- (Unless we turn her first) We're releasing and arming a known enemy, who opposes everything we stand for.

>Use her for the Doctor's experiments
+ Potential limited increase in our knowledge or power
- Using unwilling human test subjects is a terrible idea, and goes against what we stand for
- Conducting superpower experiments on superbeings is a terrible idea. (Read: half the quests in existence). Especially against their will.

>Make Raw reality
+ Disposes of her permanently
+ Most people wouldn't remember what we'd done. (Potentially, we wouldn't either).
+ Raw reality.
- All the problems with killing her
- The added moral problems of unmaking even the memory of a person. We understand how terrible that is.
- We'd likely still know what we'd done (and have done it). Elizabeth would likely know as well.
- Raw reality (seriously, that stuff is useful, but look what the last time cost us).

...okay, that's everything I think.

>Moar breaker ideas
Jeeze, I still need to look those over later.

Oh, and cause the wall of text reminded me somewhat(and because I would assume you'd ask your companions for their thoughts on the matter)

>Cassandra
"Kill the bitch. I mean, I might be trying to avoid the whole murder everything mentality, and I might be the poster child for reformation from a crazy murderous freak show, but... Well, if you're aiming to murder your own daughter in cold blood, knowingly, then I'm sorry, but I have no sympathy."

>Elizabeth
"..."

>Nicole
"Uh... honestly, I'm from the west coast. I'm not really sure how things go down back east, but... we don't really go for the whole murdering thing among us breakers. Even as punishment. I say wipe her and get her the hell out, unless you can see a reason we should keep her around."

>Christin
"I will abide by the master's will."

>Michelle(Assuming we are including her in the inner circle)
"Uh... I don't... really feel very comfortable making that kind of decision... Levi wants to eat her though, and Moth is getting bored... he says we don't fight enough anymore..."

>Aria
"The prisoner? I suppose, if I were in your position, I would look for a way to deal with her without bloodshed. Our organization does pride itself on avoiding that as much as possible, after all... still, I personally don't see the benefits of keeping her around. I've encountered the fixers, after all, and they aren't big on prisoners themselves. Regardless of who's they are or who has them. I would suggest a method of leaving her harmless and out of the way. Maybe send her to the LR or something along those lines. I could arrange for a passport if you like."

Also, no side story for the moment. Thought about what I COULD do, and didn't feel like handing out information that would have gone with it quite yet. Or so easily. Anyway, the main story will continue in a few more days, after I get some things sorted out, and we'll go from there.

...Hrrrm...
I don't like the idea of just sending her elsewhere.
Killing her is oh-so tempting! But I think I like the option of mind-wipe and send her packing the most.
As far as Raphael uses to dream-walk...I figure we'd go back to Chris, try to fool around in her head and restore her memories (Good ones this time!)
Part of me wants to see what would happen if we visited Michelle, as spectacularly bad of an idea that might be.
Aaand as a final visit, let's see what Issac's mindscape is like. Maaaaaybe even Taste of his Fear?
Let's not forget Cally use but yeah...She doesn't quite provide the same level of utility that Raphael does, more like a different (and more focused, ironically?) fighting style. Maybe...2-3 uses as the months go by, same as Raphael.

>Allies' opinions
Hmm. Exiling her to the LR isn't something I considered. Although if we leave her memories intact, I see no real reason she wouldn't try to find her way back to us and/or to the Fixers and continue working towards her goals. ...there's also the fact that if we were to do that (memories intact or no), Raul would likely notice and intercept her at some point, see what he could learn from her. (Unless we reached out to him in exiling her, instead of futilely trying to sneak her past him? If it's cooperation or a favor, and not hidden from him, he won't be as snoop-y about it). It is attractive in that we wouldn't be leaving her at D7's mercy when they ramp up after the time skip, and if we normalized her, we wouldn't have normal!Maria living on our doorstop, or our being responsible for her.

Only real consensus is nobody liked the idea of hanging onto her. (Prisoner exchange is a no go, seems like. And even though it was my idea, I don't have any faith we'll be able to get through to her or change her mind).

>I think I like the option of mind-wipe and send her packing the most.
...kind of, yeah. It removes her as a threat, and from our responsibility while giving her maybe a better chance at a life this time. One where she doesn't think of herself or the daughter she never wanted as monsters who need to die for the good of the world. Someone who isn't driving to attempted genocide by guilt or a martyr complex.

Honestly, it's probably more of a chance than she deserves (she made her choices, after all), but even with Elizabeth's silence, I'd feel bad not giving her a chance.

...dunno how Chris will react to this, though. Her master choosing to erase someone's memories (and someone she has an odd sort of respect for) when we kept trying to get her to want to remember might come across in ways we might not like too well. Even if she'd take whatever decision we made silently, we may want to make sure we explain our reasoning.

>Assuming we are including Michelle in the inner circle
She's... sort of on the edge of the inner circle? We don't know her as well as some of our other friends (oddly, we may know Levi better than we know her), and she never got a command role, but she was someone we went out of our way to keep remembering us. And we were close enough for her to keep her memories over the two-week Havers gap, while certain other people we've know longer couldn't (Mike, Rodriguez, George).

>Levi wants to eat her though, and Moth is getting bored... he says we don't fight enough anymore...
Now, is Levi's opinion just his default voracious reaction, or is that his impulse to protect Elizabeth kicking in again, I wonder? And don't worry Moth, I'm sure you'll get some action when the plot picks up again (and there's always the arena or combat training until then. Giant demons would be good for drills where people are forced to learn to work together).

>Cally
Tricky bit is if Linda had been using her, she'd have had opportunities to talk, but not used them. Meaning it only makes sense if we used her over the timeskip in situations where there wouldn't really be a chance to talk.

Might want to have at least have checked out what the Doctor wanted with her? He was interested in that Supernova thing from before. (Although if we do that, we'll be adding one to the death tally in absentia :p).

Oh, and another idea. If Isaac's power is directly proportional to how much he can have prepared in advance, maybe he should have a materials budget. We could pretty easily give him a small (compared to our net worth) budget that would keep him in all the weapons he could want. (Unt there's an upper limit to how much he can have stored at once? Even then, being able to choose a loadout from a bigger selection is an advantage).

Not a wall of text since I'm at work and on my phone

Hmmm... Assuming the last days of WWII and the Cold War in this universe proceeded along roughly similar lines in Linda's universe, we probably need to deal with the US nuclear stockpile at some point. 'Breaking' in, unless McCarthy has managed to emplace D7 in the notoriously suspicious and secretive of places like Pantex, should be possible undetected if done with care to normalise everyone, but missing weapons would be noticed shortly (and definitely be provocative) disabling them while leaving the fissile material verifiable intact would be the best course of action (e.g. by replacing the explosive lenses, removing the neutron sources, and distorting the structure).
Though whether enriched Uranium and Plutonium could be broken into existence is a worrying question, as the actual assembly of a nuclear device is fairly trivial. As is the destabilising effect of a perfect Breaker ABM defence.

Of course, if this universe never got around to splitting the atom, this isn't particularly a worry.

Why do we want to become nuclear terrorists?

In any event, they're a poor weapon againsts us (breakers are decentralized, live in civilian populations, and can walk out of the radiation zone with death avoidance). Securing them is olny a problem if we destabilize or collapse the government, which is a bad idea.

And with someone else and Elizabeth's wireless puppet option, taking control of any conventional military site would be pretty simple.

D7 remains the problem. If we deal with them, fixing our problems with civilian government / normals becomes easy.

>>78422
>Why do we want to become nuclear terrorists?

We don't. But if the UNA decides that breakers need to Go Away, accusations of nuclear terrorism won't be far behind. At least removing them takes them off the table for use as a hostage-taking tool. Would McCarthy not launch a strike on non-breaker cities in order to either frame breakers, force the spread of forces to defend said cities, or both at once?

On second thoughts, it might even be safer just to pilfer the entire stockpile and nuke the moon. Verifiable destruction of arms and a show of force.

Honesty, it just seems a silly thing to worry about when there are so many easier, and more effective ways for him to cause a witchhunt. He has ways to damage reality directly, for cripes sake. And enslaved breakers. And Liz would see something like a nuke coming, and there are simple steps we could take to stop or subvert a launch.

And if we need a sword to hold over the government's head, organized breakers are more dangerous than a nuclear stockpile.

Hate to break it to you, but nukes WOULD kill a breaker pretty quick. Sure, you'd survive the initial blast by simply coming back to life. Then the sudden increase in radiation would start killing you off bit by bit. Actually, it would probably be worse then normal, given as you get to relive the horrible dying that accompanies acute radiation poisoning multiple times over. More than 60 in some stronger breaker cases. And yes, to answer the question, the equivalent of WW2 did happen, and nukes do exist. The Cold War, sort of, but not with UNA participation. That was actually the LR and Russia, which the LR essentially had already won before the "war" even started, because it wasn't exhausted after WW2 because it didn't participate.

Also, the new thread for Breaking Reality is now up. I'd apologize for the first post but... well, it's the first post, and there was a lot to say. Anyway, have fun, and go wild.

I kind of assumed if you had enough BP you'd be able to progress out of the blast zone painfully over many deaths. Although I suppose it would depend how close you were to the center and how bad the radiation actually was, and if you were able to active break any measures to delay each death by radiation? I'd have to go back and do some research on actually dying due to rad exposure too. It would be kind of messy.

I stand by my claim that it's really not the best way for them to come after us, or to get people to hate or fear us. There are much more practical means of both, and something that ends that many threads would have to send up screaming alarms to Elizabeth well in advance allowing us to prevent it.

(And really, I'm not so much interested in making this into anti-nuclear proliferation quest :P).

>New thread
Yaaay! ...there goes sleep.

...Because of sheer awesomeness applied by Polokoa's most recent appearance, I've been inspired to make a few more breakers!

Soren Deltos (form type)
Strength-3, Finesse-2, Will-1
Original foci: carved wooden fist (Martial Artist-not a direct transformation like turning into a skeleton, but enhances stats when activated-I'm thinking a floating boost akin to Golem's Gaurdian ability, as a starting ratio, about 3 stat points when activated.)
Trauma: Overlooked for inheriting the family dojo in favor of his younger, more talented, and disinterested in martial arts brother.

STR-10 (-7)
FIN-10 (-8)
WIL-5 (-4)
BP-32 (-8)
SPR-1
Foci: Wooden fist (Martial Artist-stat boost)
-2 XP: increases BP->stat conversion cap.
Additional foci:rubber carrot (Snowman form)-1XP

The Deltos brothers are more or less made in honor of the three Neumono types-Hill, Snow and Tree. Soren is the 'Snow' representative, and also serves the role of a martial artist breaker idea I've been rolling around. To make the 'snow' connection more clear, I gave him that snowman foci. The lack of Spirit is intentional- Soren wishes to focus on his skills in martial arts, which he is the most dedicated to, of the three brothers.
Next, is the aforementioned younger brother.

Samuel (Sammy) Deltos (Weapon type)
Strength-2 Finnesse-3 Will-1
Original foci:Blowgun(3 darts upon manifesting) &Spear(feather+nut talisman.)
Trauma:Was attacked by a lion on the african savannah, Sammy ended up losing his left eye, although the rest of his injuries healed over time. Kinda a bummer since the massive drag that the family dojo was left to him by his father when he died...

STR-4 (-2)
FIN-9 (-6)
WIL-2 (-1)
BP-23 (-2)
SPR-4 (-6)
Normality
Normality Cloak
Finnesse Focus
Foci: Blowgun(3 darts)&Spear (feather+nut talisman)
Darts: Paralyzing, Poison, Hallucinogen (-3XP)
Blowgun: Wrist sheath (-1XP)
Blowgun costs 1BP, 2if the Wrist sheath is included.
Darts cost 1BP for standard, 2BP if special.
Spear: Extendable (-3XP)
Durability (-1XP)
Returning (-1XP)
Spear costs 5BP.
Additional foci: origami shuriken (shinobi bag(10 Shuriken)-1XP
Caltrops - 1XP
Smoke Bomb - 1XP
Capacity increase (20)-2XP
Bag costs 3BP, reloads cost 1BP.

Sammy here, is the 'Tree' brother, and is kind of a ninja. He's almost like a Linda build here-lots and lots of tricks, but I was really kinda trying to go for something a bit more long-ranged and tribal, initially. The ninja bag happened mainly due to not wanting to make another Breaker like Chris, who can't afford to lose her sword.

Sonja Deltos (Weapon type)
Strength-3 Finesse-1 Will-2
Foci: Robot Arm (False Arm+Sling)
Trauma: Birth defect that caused her to never develop a right arm. Was passed over as heir to the dojo because of it, to the surprise of all three siblings.

STR-9 (-6)
FIN-4 (-3)
WIL-4 (-2)
BP-20
SPR-5 (-10)
Active Break
Break Sight
Weight Null
Spirit 5: Extension of Self-As a martial artist, and due to her original foci, Sonja can imagine and visualize her manifestations as a part of herself, and thus restores them along with herself, when she revives from death.
Foci: Robot Arm (False Arm+Sling)
Detachable-1XP
Mental Self Destruct-1XP
Cost:3BP
Additional Foci: Dagger -1XP
Additional Foci: Boxing Gloves -1XP
DOC VISIT: Modified into Powered Gauntlet -3XP
Forcefield Generator:-1XP
Enhanced Power (+2 to STR stat while active)-1XP
Cost: 3BP
(as before, -1XP per foci given to Doc to make it happen, it's my way of making 'Doc' Upgrades purchasable, but still giving a reason to discourage doing so.)

And last but not least, the 'Hill' Sibling. This was perhaps the hardest one to work with, since Hill tactics are based off sacrificing one for the good of all, as well as the innate abilities of the Neumono. Here, the Trauma is perhaps the most thought-out, yes, technically she has the arm she never had, but it's mechanical, and the upgrades are to show that she's kinda scornful of having it, and worse yet, it's a mechanical arm, and clearly so-part of why the sling is a part of the foci when not active, to hide this fact from others, and hint at the real issue underneath.

>>78446
>Then the sudden increase in radiation would start killing you off bit by bit.
Actually, after the initial gamma pulse there's not that much hard radiation around. The danger after that is from the fallout.
For the first 2-3 days, staying indoors to avoid contact burns would keep you safe (assuming you kept out the falling dust and contaminated water). Following that you'd need to be very careful about touching, breathing in or consuming anything contaminated with fallout, but walking around outside with minimal protection (thick sealed clothing) would avoid lethal doses. After 10-15 weeks, walking in a boilersuit, boots and a respirator would be safe.
As long as breakers kept indoors after the initial blast (basement parking structures and the concrete cores of large buildings are excellent radiation shields, and very likely to survive all but a direct ground strike) the chances of survival are high. Especially as long-term effects are not a worry due to the ability to die and revive (assuming cancer does not survive revival).
>The Cold War, sort of, but not with UNA participation.
Then we're in luck, the nuclear stockpile is probably domestically produced and few in number (think Britain before the purchase of Polaris) so their use is less likely.
>>78447
>And really, I'm not so much interested in making this into anti-nuclear proliferation quest
I'm thinking more the potential for Sneaking Mission into some of the most heavily and paranoically guarded places on earth. That should be fun, and give 'Moth something to chew one once it inevitably goes tits-up.

>>78463
A big complaint (for me) with seizing nuclear sites is it goes against what we're shooting for. The minute we do that, we've disarmed the UNA in front of the rest of the world (potentially a massively destabilizing action, since it's been portrayed as a more dickish and competently evil USA), and we're also literally holding a gun to it's head. That means we've crossed the line. We can't try to establish breakers as a separate but parallel system- outside of the normal government control, but policing ourselves and refraining from interfering with / taking over the world of normals. In that moment, we become a legitimate world power, responsible for either taking over, holding hostage, or destabilizing another major power. Non-interference stops being an option, and we're forever entered into world politics on a big scale.

Honestly, it takes the plot and what we have to deal with in increasingly less fun places.

Granted, it remains to be seen how much non-interference we will maintain while being at war with one government agency. But we're not out to rule the world, here. We've got enough on our plate handling breaker stuff.

...I was planning on writing up a first draft of the public appeal speech when I got out of work tonight, but it's 2am now and I'm exhausted. I'll do it tomorrow. And I'll see about responding to your character designs too, Z.

Okay since this is going to be important, I kind of wanted to start working on our public address. I see it as having a three main parts:

Part 1: we introduce and explain what a breaker is to the world. Dispel any propaganda or fear Division 7 is spreading with the truth. An appeal to the world to see us the people we are, not as monsters.

Part 2: we explain who we are, and what our group stands for. At different points, this appeal is to different groups. It's an appeal the public opinion of normals (to try and get the nation thinking), and especially an appeal to the locals, who have hopefully seen firsthand our positive impact on their community. We're also offering our hand to other breakers, or their groups. Offering refuge and/or friendship (if they're willing to cooperate, or have views / values similar to our own).

Part 3: the ultimatum. We explain exactly what D7 is, the highlights of the dirt we have on them (the full details of which we release online at the same time, and make sure to spam it far and wide, and forward it to all major media outlets, to make it impossible for the government to cover up, or crack down on people for having accessed it), justify our secession or independence, and that we're not going to take this sitting down.

Then once the world knows where we stand, we can worry about making contact with other breaker groups (I worry that contacting them before our appeal would be bad for relations. Like a betrayal of whatever private talks they had with us).

The problem of nonexistence messes with it, though. If we're trying to be open, and trying to sell our humanity, having to hide our face doesn't help. I had planned on just addressing the world as Linda, and then mentioning that they'd forget our name and face at the end as a kind of proof we were what we said we were, and that we'd have a big enough impact for our words to be remembered. If that doesn't work... we'll left with the awkward choice of either concealing ourself and making a supervillainesk appeal, delegating it to one of our allies (as much as I love and trust them all, that doesn't quite feel right), or picking Someone Else to be when we address the world. A borrowed public identity.

(I was just gonna start writing the speech, but figuring out how to deal with nonexistence really messes with the first part, and we're still waiting on information for the third).

All right, here's another installment in my musing on characters series.

Nicole.

Nicole's a bit of an odd case, in that compared to the length of time we've known her, we don't actually know her that well. Linda had very few one on one conversations with her that, well, got into any detail. We know very little of her past (she fought gangs in her pre-breaker days. Like drunk Linda!). She doesn't feel the need to open up, much. She's the friend who lets you know where you stand without saying much, and is content to leave it at that. (Almost makes me regret not playing as her that time we had a chance. Yes, I love Elizabeth, but there's so much we don't know about what's inside Nic's head).

Most of what we do know comes from observation. She's obviously driven to succeed, and to improve herself (as seen in her friendly rivalry in the arena). We know her worst fear (the burning man), but not the context. There's a chance it's tied to her injury, but we don't know that either- nor do I really see anything in the theme of her abilities or in her personality that supports a solid guess.

It also says something about her character that she recognized the weakness in her style and the need for a second focus to grow stronger, but didn't act on it herself till Linda suggested it. I'm not sure what that means, but it's interesting, and almost endearing, in an odd sort of way.

I'll admit my initial reaction to her wasn't terrible favorable. Her introduction seemed to set her up to act as the third leg in a love triangle that we really didn't need any part of (as if we hadn't made a mess of relations with Raphael enough already). But she grew into her own and proved herself surprisingly quickly. When Raphael ignored her she never made an issue of it. When it became blatantly apparent there was unresolved tension between Linda and Raphael, she never called us on it, or even wanted to talk. Her apparent motivation for joining with our squad (infatuation) seemed to be replaced almost immediately with a desire to prove herself to Linda, and to earn her respect. (She was volunteering for a suicide mission the first night, for crying out loud)! We struck up an odd sort of friendship based on mutual respect almost by accident, and without discussion.

Now, while I appreciate the hell out of the way she treats / sees Linda, I'm not exactly sure what we did to deserve that, or inspire that in her. A lot of the significant changes we've seen in other people can be directly tied to our decisions regarding them, or things we've said to them, but I can't pinpoint it with Nicole. It seems more she responded to what she saw in us, or how we behaved, or how we acted. Winning her loyalty has been one of our better diplomatic successes, and we did it mostly unintentionally- just by being ourselves (or rather, by Linda being herself). Which, while odd, would seem to speak pretty well for 'Nic (ie, she respects us because she admires or adheres to the values we've been fighting for, or that we show).

Especially interesting is now the fact that we're basically dependent on her. Now that she's nonexistent, Linda needs intermediaries to run the organization, and Nicole has stepped up to that role more than anyone else. Elizabeth did some of that the first week, but she's busy with her own problems now. Aria helps, but it's more working with Linda. Nicole is the intermediary, the go-between who represents us to our people, and gets our orders carried out. And even though we've gotten found of saying this is our city, it's hers- she's the one who's from here, and cares about the place, and the people, and what it stands for (not that we don't. But standing up for people and for a home and what it stands for are kind of different things). She's literally indispensable, now. We'd be hard pressed to run this place without her.

She's also got one of the potentially strongest powersets, if applied correctly. The ability to pull her punches doesn't just allow her to remove normals non-lethally. It allows for knock-outs in fights, which is a hell of a lot of a faster way to deal with breakers than killing them down to zero. And her unstoppable force / immovable object (and force redirection) personal power has potential that is simply absurd. Granted, there are weakness and difficulties in application, but most of those can be circumvented by effective teamwork (not letting enemies exploit her weaknesses, or enabling her to get that knockout blow, or apply her powers in the right way or time. Something we really haven't tried much of). She lags behind the rest of our party's fighters in terms of XP (2nd to last, ahead of Elizabeth), and could really do with a much bigger margin of BP for safety and power applications. Frankly, she's got a lot of underutilized potential, and we should probably be making better use of it.

Although this indispensable for running the place thing and under-tapped potential, and her desire to prove herself to Linda and to grow stronger are kind of at odds. (As we saw the last update we were in, giving her her orders). Finding the proper balance between letting her kick ass and acting as a leadership proxy is tricky, and I don't think we've got it right, yet.

if this wont be answered in the main thread, how do FTL comms work? in beyond the stars

In this universe, FTL is achieved by not, technically, traveling at all, in the sense that there is not movement through space itself. Rather, ships, and the people inside, are simply ceasing to be in one place, and suddenly being in another. The two processes, referred to as desync and resync respectively(and as a space fold in laymen's terms), occur at essentially the same time, just different places within space. This is achieved through an additional engine, referred to as a sync engine, to provide the quantum shove that enables the event.

FTL Comms are handled in much the same manner, radio waves being projected through an opened space fold. The same engine design used to allow a ship to jump(albeit modified for its intended purpose) is used to force a space fold open, and then more conventional devices can simply speak through the fold itself to whatever is on the other side.

The main issue with both, however, is that it can take days to properly plot a fold to anywhere, with accuracy and reliability dropping sharply the farther you have to travel(relatively speaking). This "run up" time can be reduced drastically if the engine is calibrated to a specific point and that point only, but it can still take hours to actually induce the fold, longer if you are attempting to hold it open.

And... that concludes my thoughts on that. I'm sure somebody can actually come up with something that sounds a bit more... scientific? Plausible? Whatever, when you start chucking psychic powers around, I think a little suspension of disbelief is in order.

>>78623
Yeah, if you have FTL transmission of any information, then you either have time travel,or General Relativity is no longer valid. You can make a case for Closed Timelike Curves, but actually getting information in or out of them is tricky and generally allows infinities to slip in.
Basically, if you accept FTL and reject time travel, then you also reject General Relativity. No alternatives, no 'you can FTL this way but not that way', anything that allows you to send information outside of your light-cone means you can create a scenario where you can send information to your past self assuming General Relativity is valid.

The easiest thing to do is declare general Relativity invalid, give the universe Absolute Time, and gloss over the edge cases where we've detected the influence of GR stuff (e.g. GPS timing wouldn't require any fudging).

...it's kind of difficult for two things to happen light-years apart instantaneously, since simultaneity is relative, and observer-dependent. I suppose we could define a kind of universal fleet time, independent of local factors, as the reference frame in which sync and desync appear simultaneous.

>reject General Relativity
Or ignore it, yeah. Or just state that even though it is possible to send information to your past self, nothing ever actually changes (the "time travel already happened and is built into the timeline" model). Or you have a small group of scared scientists and the upper limits of government who admit to themselves that sending information backwards should be possible, but are terrified of the consequences of trying, have no idea if, in fact, it has happened already, and suppresses the shit out this information. They don't teach the full theory, censor education, and recruit and control or silence people they think might be a risk in the name of wartime mobilization. Honestly, it wouldn't be out of character for what little we've seen so far of this society. (And potentially, this leaves the author all kinds of options if and when things break down).

Potentially there's a way to bullshit justify the psychic powers with either of those options, if we wanted to. (Although that can get even sillier than justifying ftl).

Although, honestly, even before you get to time paradoxes and ftl, you have to make all kinds of silly assumptions for conflicts spanning multiple distant systems to even begin to make sense. Really, it's best to gloss over stuff like that. We're a grunt, not a fleet commander or a scientist. The details of how these things work is outside the scope of our story (unless, say, time travel or universe-breaking paradoxes become a plot point), or what the character is in a position to understand.

Mechanics now, those matter. Instantaneous transport with a long prep-time is all we need to know. That gives us the strategic factors we need to be aware of.

I'm not going to go revealing everything about how they work quite yet, but since you will(most likely) be working with Jean at some point, I figure I'll give you a little something to think about.

Generally, they're base stats are the same as a breakers, or any other person, Strength, Finesse and Will being the three major ones. They also have Spirit to reflect on how much of an impact they have on the weave around them. The higher the Spirit level, the more unravelling they can cause around themselves. Unlike breakers, however, a tear does not have BP, and therefore, does not have a limited supply of crazy things they can do, although what they can do is usually heavily limited to simply consuming the threads around them.

The other major difference is them not really having different varieties. While each one is their own "person", tears do not have the multiple types that breakers have. They can also not "avoid death", although this is largely irrelevant, given as reality can't recognize them as having died in the first place. They also cannot "Manifest", at least not in the normal fashion. Instead, tears gain the abilities to go Active and to consume Threads, their primary method of increasing in strength.

That's all for now, at least on the subject of tears. Because it's not a very big thing, at least story wise, I will say this regarding Linda. Her nonexistence is in no way associated, or even similar to, what tears are, although the end result(reality not recognizing them) is about the same. So don't go thinking up anything crazy regarding the similarities.

Hrrrrm...I've been thinking about Reality and threads and whatnot. I THINK I get what's up and what gives and how exactly this all works out.
Weapon types-ability to temporarily create/activate threads for the objects they wield. bigger/more 'important' threads have more power and thus take more to summon (Why Chris uses up so much BP to summon her sword.)

Form types modify their own thread, saying "I'm not a human, I'm a Werewolf!" Or something along those lines. The more outrageous the form, the more 'magic' needed to sustain it's existance without it falling prey to the power of physics.

Avatars...They seem more 'unstable' than most other breaker types, considering Marc, Michelle, and the deceased Guy, but that's to be expected when one literally creates a new thread from their own, splitting in two.

I suspect that ALL breakers are because there's more reality then there are threads to fill, an 'excess' if you will. And the 'Seamstress' mentioned by Ol' Jack is the person responsible for making more threads/combatting Tears at their source. Her dissapearing or whatever is why the Tears are such an issue now, I'll bet.

>Her nonexistence is in no way associated, or even similar to, what tears are, although the end result(reality not recognizing them) is about the same. So don't go thinking up anything crazy regarding the similarities.
I figured, but I couldn't resist throwing in that line about the uncomfortable similarities.

>>78684
Well, it's been made clear several times that avatars don't really exist when they're not manifested, so that would sort of support your theory. We haven't had any official seer-commentary on other types, regrettably.

Manifestations scaling with BP isn't a matter of importance, though. It's a matter of the difficulty in making something real. Or plausibility, if you want to look it at that way. Manifest a gun? Sure, there are lots of guns that exist. It only takes a little power to say there's one more now. Manifest a sword that cuts through anything with little to no force? That's... a bit of a stretch, and it costs more to force reality to accept it.

Ah! I forgot a couple of things!

For Breaking Reality:

Linda McCallahan
XP: 4

Cassandra Geld
BP: 41
XP: 4

Elizabeth McCallahan
BP: 35

Nicole Reed
BP: 26

Chris Wayneright
BP: 47

Michelle
XP: 5

Aria Galliana
XP: 2

And for Beyond the Stars, Grey's psychic abilities have increased again!

Psychic Points: 2

In addition to all the increases you can gain from last time(Third-Eye, Improved Empathy, Suggest, or gaining access to one of the other two routes) you may also gain Fog, which allows you to place a "fog" over the eyes of anyone you can detect. However, you have to be actively concentrating to keep the effect going, leaving you vulnerable.

Okay, so Linda got 2XP from somewhere (the fight with Tao? Cass' birthday? The off screen training?) on top of the two she already had in the pool. Cass got plus 4XP (2 for the pool, 2 to BP), Elizabeth got 2XP (all to BP), Nicole put 2XP in BP, Chris put 4XP in BP, and Michelle and Aria got 2 for the pool.

So... I'm assuming everyone earned a flat 2XP and the reason Chris and Cass got more is because they're the ones who left on an actual serious combat mission? And the others either had it easier, or just haven't finished their assignments, yet.

I approve of the across the board BP bumps. Gives Elizabeth more leeway with wires, Chris with teleport abuse, Nicole a much needed safety margin, and room to use her more interesting powers. (Linda herself might need to invest a few points in BP, eventually. We're lagging a little, although blue potions and our accelerated BP regen give us more leeway).

Cass- I'd very much like to see her put another point or two in will. It's still her biggest weakness, and she could use a little help in interpersonal stuff. Otherwise, she should probably be saving for spirit (or other weapon upgrades or tuning?) or keep str stacking.

>Linda
Okay, I'm thinking we may want to get her to ~40BP (1XP gets us to 38, 2 to 41). We could also use another point or two in finesse.

After that, I'm thinking it's time for a round of weapon upgrades. First up: the tank gun could use a general power boost. Just make it hit harder, up the stopping power. We've actually had a few times where we've run into things it has a hard time putting holes in things- let's do something about that.

...what's the ammunition count on the shotgun, but the way? Do we have to pay a BP to reload between every anti-breaker shot / blue potion recover?

>DJ name
While toying with if we needed a silly stage name for our party showing up (and wondering if DJ Angel is too on the nose to be any good) I got to wondering what Linda's aura must look like in her fusion forms.

I'm thinking a callyfied Angel would have that white glow replaced with crazy colors, like her glowstick. The angel, once a creature of light, becomes a creature of a different kind of light, and plasma, with a thumping beat. The nightmare Angel seems like it would just be light tinged with darkness, a gothic, muted sort of light. Light and darkness, superimposed (light in the dark, dark in the light, light powered by the dark, all those good duality juxtaposition kind of things).

>ammunition count on the shotgun
Currently every time you use the weapon, a vial is filled, so... one pair of shots. Or reload after every use, if you want to put it that way. So yes. You have to "reload" the weapon after every use.

And, because it really doesn't matter in the long term for Grey, I'll give the basic rundown on the other two Paths you haven't seen!

For the External, it's the "Energy" pathway. Dealing mainly in various forms of energy(other than kinetic and potential) this pathway starts with the simple generation of thermal energy, namely the sharp increase and sudden expansion of heat in the form of fire. As a psychic continues to improve in the pathway, one learns to manipulate that which they produce, and the varieties of energy that can be created also incease, ranging from the more traditional, such as thermal and electrical, to the exotic, like sound and nuclear.

The second of the Internal pathways is the "Stimulant" pathway. It focuses mainly on using psychic abilities to stimulate or suppress the natural biological processes existing within the body, such as the rate at which one heals and or the nerve signals detecting pain. At first the processes that can be affected are limited, but as power grows, the number of processes that can be targeted increase, as well as the degree one can manipulate them. This can result, at some of the very highest levels, in Stimulant experts being able to regenerate from a seeming "death" and react to things at speeds no human should be able to.

>white magic versus black magic never made sense to me
Really? Converting magical energy to electrical energy, thermal energy, kinetic energy or what have you and throwing it at something is a very different skill than interfacing with biology and directing energy towards (or supplying energy for) specific accelerated repairs. That you'd have to have specific training to do either effectively seems logical. It always seemed to me the big difference was finesse versus power.

Granted, sometimes deciding why specific spells (especially edge cases, like buffs) are black and white can be odd. There's also the fact that certain spells have jumped schools in different games, meaning there are multiple ways to interpret them (I always assume black-haste was the result of actual temporal distortion, while white-haste was supercharging biology, for instance).

I imagine it's a similar problem in this setting. Learning to move specific objects or blow things up is a different skill from learning to enhance your own biology or generate static or automatic shields.

>>78844
yes. as i noted in the thread i feel the autonomy of the powers is part of it. a psy shield will stop bullets you don't notice.
kinetic control COULD stop bullets too, IF you notice them in time. which is the biggest difference, internal powers operate mostly by themselves as long as they are on. but external powers require a target, and must be actively used.

> i think he is asking why you cannot, say, use the external powers defensively.

Or crush someone with a barrier, or use alteration to kill a hostile by altering their metabolism so that air is poisonous to them, or otherwise bending the apparent categories of 'offensive' and 'defensive' that seem to be the abstract limit here. Those categories are psychological values more than they are different types of effects, and that's what I'm stumbling on.

If it's more aligned with >>78845 and it's a characterization of momentary/active versus continuous/passive effects I could follow that a bit easier.

>>78847
Well, if these are psychic powers we're talking about, then psychological distinctions should have noticeable effects on the progression of powers, no?

>>78847
>Those categories are psychological values more than they are different types of effects
Actually, psychological values might have a big impact on psychic power. What with it being a mental thing and all. The user's own perception of how things work and what they do might influence what they can do.

...which potentially makes Rain very interesting, since she's completely natural, and was left to develop completely isolated and on her own. She might not follow the same rules as more established or trained psychics.

>>78848
>>78849
And yet we do not know if invisibility comes under one, both, or is only something we eventually can kludge with the Jedi mind-trick using our psychic-sensory main powers only. Similarly for 'haste' effects, and so on. I guess I'm asking for what the PHB spell lists are here, so that we know what it is we're saying no to with each choice under internal/external, since these categories are a little vague to me. If we can't have that I'd recommend we stick to the choices that don't cause unbreakable future limitations for as long as possible.

>>78851
I'd prefer not having that information actually. A good idea of what the distinction is, sure, but an actual list of how that can manifest? Takes away alot of the cool factor of suddenly unlocking something or seeing some other psychic do something.

I find the distinction pretty clear though. My understanding is that it seems like either path, what we essentially get is the ability to project a telekinetic force, but which path we take changes how we can use it. Externally is classic Telekinesis. Internally means we lose the ability to manipulate force outside of us, but get a much better ability to sustain it, which allows us to maintain a sort of skintight barrier, which we may be able to manipulate for other affects with future upgrades.

Invisibility, or the apparent invisibility, falls under the Mapping pathway, which is actually better described as being the more literal of the Sensory pathways, but I couldn't find any particular word I like to define it at the time, and haven't bothered to look for one since. In practice, you're not actually making yourself invisible, but convincing other people's sight that you weren't seen. The brain fills in the rest for you. "Haste", or the effect of increasing raw speed, could fall under two pathways, Force or Stimulant I'd say off hand, although the Stimulant route would require some support from Reinforcement. Those are just the two mentioned though, as I tend to agree with >>78852 in that it's more entertaining/influential to be left wondering what you could gain from following one path over another.

They are also right in that both of them are the projection of psychic power. Unlike the Sensory abilities, which tend to have both active and passive settings, External tends to be almost exclusively active, albeit not requiring any large amount of concentration, as they are instantaneous effects. Internal tend to be passive in nature, and tend to not cause much drain on your concentration, as they are applied, generally, to something that your subconscious mind is intimately familiar with, even if your conscious mind is not.

>>78851
This post did point out an interesting thing I'd like to highlight, in that you can cobble together mixes of powers, if you want to. I don't guarantee success, as(I may not have mentioned it in the reboot) the listed abilities you have are something your mind has unlocked on its own, turning nascent energy into a solid method of using it. There's nothing that stops you from trying to do something not listed on the fly, or take an ability from another pathway, or even try to overtax your limited abilities and pull off something you don't have the power to normally do yet. Just be aware of the chance of failure, and the consequences of pushing too far.

>>78853
i would call distraction guiding a type of that. we experimented with it and found a way to use it differently then listed. but it was a close enough thing and we had time to practice in safety so the failure chance was ether low or nil.

Ah, I didn't realize we could attempt free-form breaking, uh, psychic-ing? Assuming the limits as relate to power level and theme / power-set are similar to the system for freeform breaking, we at least have a rough guide for coming up with things that might have a chance in hell of actually rolling a success.

Although free-form applications kind of make the most sense in an external context. Reasonable reaches with mapping / sensory are kind of harder to conceptualize.

>>78854
I'd say the distraction guiding was more a creative or unusual application of something we can do reliably. Not the intended purpose of the power, but within it's capabilities.

>>78855
>Assuming the limits as relate to power level and theme / power-set are similar to the system for freeform breaking

The initial explanation we got on that made it sound significantly more difficult, with a much greater chance of negative backlash. That, at least, is why I haven't made any posts untilizing it in either version of the quest. If we absolutely need to freeform to try something, sure, but if we have any other viable options it seems like a poor idea.

The original thread made mention of Grey accidentally blowing up people's heads during training, but he was never able to manage it when it was what he was trying to do.

I expect almost anything free form Grey could attempt at this point would be equivalent to a low spirit break, out of theme, and without active break. Which means, yeah, a big chance of blowing up in our face. (It was a long while before we started getting reliably successful breaks! It was sort of a big deal the first few times we succeeded, or used them effectively in a fight).

Which yeah, means it's a bad idea for now. But as we get better stats, and our powerset or personality starts to establish more of a theme, I figure we'll have opportunities where it will eventually be more feasible.

>>78853
And now I still don't know if we get to use barriers or alteration effects from the internal path offensively, or make useful, defensive effects (barriers) with external path powers, unless the anons speaking under 78848 and 78849 are official sources.

Apologies about being nitpicky here, but this could make a difference; all the protection in the world is worthless if you can't defeat your enemy. We just got a small taste of that with our last mission with running out of dynamite and ammo.

>>78858
There is nothing in the world that says you can't attempt it. You just might not get the results your hoping for.

To put it another way, yes, you could try. But nowhere in the standard array of abilities is it achievable. You had to, as other have put it, freeform the ability, although more than likely if you succeed in freeforming it, I won't be opposed to allowing the ability to be purchased as viable ability later.

I hope that answered that... hopefully.

>>78858
>all the protection in the world is worthless if you can't defeat your enemy

Protection allows you to get into position to more efficiently use the firepower you have. It also allows you to survive to use it period. There's also fewer ways to get protection then firepower.

>>78860
True. Also true is that an artillery piece that's as mobile as a person with no additional crew or supply requirements and the power to be its own spotter is priceless, tactically speaking.

high end of both powers will obviously result in very pants wetting amounts of power.

high end defense will let you take... let's say 50 pound railgun slug to the face. and it BOUNCES OFF.

high end offense would let us point at a guy a few miles away, and his head would pop like a balloon.

so regardless of what we pick. the end result will be one scary mofo. assuming power can reach that high.

i wnat defense for various reasons. one was it was noted that the defenses are not personal only. meaning we can make things like, bubble shields. our ship getting shot down during entry? not anymore, it is now covered in a psychic bubble.

>>78862
We're not good enough at it yet, or high enough ranked for our warnings to be heeded at the interstellar-fleet level, but I'd tend to think we already have a shield under development: Avoid stepping into the ambush using our psychic powers of sensory confusion and detection to find it before we step into it and avoid triggering it. For the rest, a sufficient offense is a perfect defense.

In regards to Beyond the Stars little requisitioning attempt, I'm entirely willing to have you suggest items as well that you might want. I can't guarantee the camp will have it, but you can ask. The same goes for the possible manufactured you could accept into the crew. If you want to build a character for possible recruitment(now or later), be my guest. Always fun to see what everyone will come up with. On that note...

Building a character for Stars is a different from BR, obviously. In this case, stats are adjusted based on which industry the manufactured comes from.. Since you are already confirmed as being the only Psy Industries on the planet, the basic building blocks will be as follows for both the available industries. No matter which industry you choose to build a character with, you'll be allowed 4 "Build" Points, which you can use to adjust stats or acquire further equipment. Trade-Ins/Stat Trades are also allowed, for things of equal or lower relative value. So no trading an assault rifle for a rocket launcher. At this time, no characters will be allowed to have a TacArm already, although all Steelworks can technically use them. Implants work similarly to Psychic points, albeit for the two physical stats instead, unless otherwise noted. Simply put, if you have eye implants, that will raise finesse without damaging strength at all. Arm implants, on the other hand, must be focused on one or the other... God this sounds complicated. I'll handle any questions or adjustments myself later, just go to town.

Genetech
Strength-3/Finesse/3/Will-3/Personality-3
Starting Equipment: Assault Rifle, Pistol, Basic Combat Armor

Steelworks
Strenth-4/Finesse-4/Will-2/Personality-2
Starting Equipment: Basic Nerve Implant, Pistol, Basic Combat Armor

Hrrrm...This is easier said than done, thanks to a distinct lack of military hardwear knowledge on my part, and I'm kind of not that clever in this department.

Still, I can at least throw this up:

Steelworks
Hive
Strength-4 Finesse-4 Will-3 Personality-2
Arsenal: Basic Nerve Implant, Pistol, Basic Combat Armor

Ooook...Sooo here's my thinking on the matter.
SteelWorks brings the Tac-Arms to the table. But what if they decided to try something a bit...Smaller?
To that end, I present Hive's weapon of choice-Drones. Specifically...

Personal Drone System(Nerve implant required)
SteelWork's answer to Psy industries's mapping psychics, this device enables operation of multiple drones, up to 5 at once. And due to the small size and weight of the drones, up to 20 can be carried at once.
The flipside, is that the drones are unarmed, and the system takes a measure of getting used to, making it an unpopular choice for SteelWorks Manufactured.
I personally rate this thing as a 1 point, simply because I imagine it taking up the 'Primary Slot' for weapons (Hive can't carry, say an assult rifle with the ammo he'd need for it and this thing.)
An upgrade for this thing is bigger drones with some sort of small weapon mounted in them, which costs another point, this is the one Hive has.

Hive
STR-4, FIN-4, Will-2, Personality-2
Armament: P.D.S&Nerve Implant, Combat Pistol (x2), Stealth Suit.

Your thoughts, Dreamer?

we also need to decide if we need another person or if an equipment would be useful.
such as, what exact does an auto-turret do? and how good is it compared to a soldier with a gun?
also what does a stealth suit do, how does it give you better stealth, make you partially invisible?

Auto-Turret sounds like a dandy idea. The sneaks go in, ninja to the cannon and blast it, then when the aliens discover and chase them down they can hit the dirt when Mech Wolf and the turrets shreds them!

>>78888
The actual usefulness of the turret depends a lot on how it functions, and how it would be set up.

...I wonder if there's any advantage to stacking third eye near a remote turret? Could we increase the efficacy? (I suppose that, again, depends on how it works).

The usefulness of the stealth suit sort of depends on what kind of stealth mission this is (and yeah, what it does). If we're sending one person in to plant the bombs, it would obviously be useful, but if we're having a squad move in quickly and quietly, kill some guards, plant the bombs and get out before anyone notices us or the people we killed, it's less so. Especially as I'm not sure we have anyone trained for ninja style sneaking up and killing people. Especially since the xenos look a lot less squishy than humans.

I'm pretty sure we don't need an extra tac arm, since we aren't committed to the frontal assault. (Also, Wolf didn't give us an ETA on when the one she's building out of spare parts would be ready. We don't know if we'll have that on the mission or not).

Still kind of debating in my head whether specialized equipment or another squad-mate would be more useful.

>>78875
This is an idea that is much more likely to be helpful to us than someone with spy drones.

Name: Bear
Genetech
Strength-6/Finesse/3/Will-3/Personality-3
Starting Equipment: 2xAutoshotgun, Pistol, Basic Combat Armor
Bear is from a specialized line of genetechs intended for CQB with the build necessary to use a pair of autoshotguns fired from the hip. With his build like a linebacker on steroids he's awfully useful either when it comes time to go toe-to-toe with the aliens or haul ass carrying materiel and wounded.

I dunno, would two autoshotguns make a fair substitution for a flamethrower? Either way this suggestion is all about having a trencher with the power to get us through close contact with the enemy.

Another idea:

Name: Rally
Steelworks
Strenth-4/Finesse-4/Will-2/Personality-2
Starting Equipment: Basic Nerve Implant, Pistol, Basic Combat Armor, Jeep with turret .50cal

Rally has lovingly stenciled in dozens of alien kills on the hood of her jeep that she made herself by running them over. She's not the gentlest driver, but her speed and control has more than earned the privilege to threaten castration against anyone making wisecracks about woman drivers.

Huh. Michelle's mental setup is interesting. It almost seems based on the presumption that she'd eventually be able to manifest all her personalities / demons in the real world.

Which makes me wonder if that means there's other ways beside the Doc distilling a blank avatar to imprint on for that to happen. Is there any natural process by which a breaker can develop a new focus? (Break again? Develop or evolve or refine an existing break?).

Also makes me curious if foci of other types can be boiled down to a blank state. (Advantage- no xp to tune. Disadvantage- you don't know what it will become).

Nickname: Table
Steelworks
Strenth-3/Finesse-5/Will-3/Personality-1
Starting Equipment: Nonstandard Nerve Implant, quadrupedal combat transport TacArm, automatic mortar.

Steelworks designed Table's TacArm as a prototype for a combat resupply & heavy weapons platform for assisting conventional TacArms in longer operations. While the design was excellent - maintainable using standard TacArm components, stable, long endurance, and able to keep up with TacArms over any kind of terrain - the project was cancelled as it was decided that TacArms would never be deployed far enough from a FOB for long enough to need a dedicated supply chain. Table herself, her Mark1 Manufactured siblings, and the prototype TacArms, were sold off at the end of the project to recoup costs. The partially completed chassis for the Mark2 model were scrapped, and the Mark2 Manufactured were liquidated prior to completion. Tank herself is taciturn and unflappable, and somewhat poorly coordinated (outside of her TacArm), a trait shared with her siblings due to their enlarged motor cortices and more deeply embedded nerve implants requiring a reduction in overall cerebellar volume.

Inspired by the old GE Walking Truck http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMGCFLEYakM[/spoiler]

>>78994
It could be one of her later Spirit Abilities will let her manifest them all at reduced cost... or pull her enemies into hell where they get to deal with them in their own domain.

i am upset with dreamer. we were all asking things and waiting for an answer. but instead he just updated with the only suggestion there was rather then address our concerns.

even just a "i can't tell you out of character" would have been an acceptable answer. because then we could have done something else.

>>78998
That's certainly possible! Raphael's spirit 10 would have let him manifest all the fears he had saved up at once- Michelle's being something that let her draw on all her demons at once would be consistent with that.

>>79004
Eh, it was kind of a stalled decision anyways. None of us were advocating very hard for any one direction, and if we weren't getting any additional information, that wouldn't have changed much. Better to just take something and go with it than let the quest stall. And it's hardly the worst blind choice- we'd expressed interest in stealth options earlier anyways.

Honestly, the consequences of a resource choice can be downplayed, anyways. Assuming this mission isn't a scripted failure, there probably wasn't a 'wrong' choice- all the resources likely could have been used to succeed in different ways. It's not as if it was a major choice about the fate of a character, or our allegiances, etc.

Especially if the requisition isn't permanent. We don't know that we'll be holding onto what we were assigned.

>>79004
And I apologize for that. I actually missed Core's post(regarding the specifics of the auto-turret and the stealth suit). There was also a question regarding the turret paired with Third-Eye. I didn't miss that one, but experimentation in game is always nice. So I guess I'm actually apologizing for not telling you that you were not getting that information, and by way of apology, you ARE now getting that information, along with an extra manufactured companion to make up for just updating like seemingly out of the blue.

Regardless, moving on to the information. The Steelworks "Guard Dog" Auto-Turret does exactly as it sounds like. The thing is actually pretty bulky, and is generally strapped to the back of a TacArm or other large vehicle for transport long distance transport. The machine stands about a third the size height of a TacArm, and is generally outfitted with a minigun. Once deployed, the machine anchors itself into the ground, then begins to monitor the area around it, checking anything entering its effective area against its personal friend-or-foe database before opening fire on threats. The result is less than spectacular, as the auto-turret is somewhat dumb, firing on anything not registered, and has difficulty tracking fast moving targets. They are also lightly armored at best, meaning that a lucky round from even the smallest of calibers can cause the thing to malfunction. They are therefore best used to assist in guarding locations from enemy intrusion.

The stealth suit is a relatively new creation, a joint project produce by Genetech and Steelworks as an answer to Psy Industries Sensory Gifted, and the apparent ability of some to simply disappear from sight altogether. The suit uses a multitude of tiny implanted machines, similar in design to a Steelworks Nerve Implant. The ones used in the suit, however, don't connect to the nervous system, rather, they constantly monitor the environment around the wearer, outputting the appropriate temperatures, visible light and light conditions to blend the user into the environment. In essence, it displays what the an observer would expect to see if observing the area the user is in. The system is far from perfect, as it has to cool down if used for prolonged periods of time, and can only handle so much data, causing the user to be restricted in how fast they can move. The Mark 1 required the user to be mostly still for the"invisibility" to take effect, while the Mark 2 has improved that to slow movement, the equivalent of a slow crawl forwards. There are also prototype Mark 3's allowing motions up to a fast walk, although these are rare to see on the battlefield. Still, a better description would be to call it a chameleon suit, or active camo.

That sums that up. Regarding the other part of my apology, you can vote/create manufactured possibilities in here, and I'll introduce them... somehow. Anyway, you've already three or four already made ones floating around in here, a few good choices at that, although they mostly seem to be Steelworks. Not bad in and of itself, but there is one that has a TacArm(albeit a prototype TacArm), Table, that would be allowed. At least for the moment.

Hope that helps/makes up a little for just springing an update like that. Could've handled that better... eh, it is what it is.

>>79010
thank you. it wasn't the choice itself that had me upset, but the fact it was not a proper group consensus. the suit does seem like the better pick still, i just would have liked to have been able to state my opinion.

>>556115
And before I post again(and to avoid further misinformation) there are things mentioned her that are inaccurate to the setting(such as it is).

The first I'd like to mention is that she does NOT have the authority to command you to do anything. You have certain obligations regarding her, and you are more or less expected(but not required) to obey simple requests, but when it is concerning military chain of command, direct orders of any real substance, or in regards to her safety or the safety of other trueborn, she wields absolutely no authority over you whatsoever.

Second thing I noticed is the assumption that she is being protected from solely alien threats. His duty has nothing to do with alien threats. It any and all threats, human or otherwise. Not that you would necessarily know that, but Grey would, or at least would be able to assume as such, and therefore, information giving time.

I'm just using this particular post because the assumption is rather blatant. Besides all that, I think the argument over all is the most sound. Logic is probably your best bet, given your ability to empathize is rather impaired at the moment. Not too badly yet, but if you Personality is overshadowed by Will too much, your going to find me modifying your suggestions with large amounts of "I simply don't care about your feelings".

>>79012
Should I repost to the thread with an adjusted version of my suggested statements, or is substituting the appropriate insight/assumptions a default action?

As far as which suggestion to go with, since we can't get the TacArm one yet I'm gonna favour the trencher with the autoshotguns I made up. The reasons are that a jeep is probably too loud for unit-stealth and can't go down stairs underground or climb hills (unless it's a damn transformer or something). The drones don't provide either additional firepower or mobility, and the other choice is a, "Not yet."

>>79013
If you feel you need to make any major adjustments, go ahead and repost. If you don't, then you can leave it to me to mix in what I think will work, although that can leave things sounding not like what you intended, or leaving out something you'd like to say.

In the end, completely up to you what you want to do. Just leave it as is and I'll modify it myself, or you can repost to include changes or to add new things you'd like to mention. I'm not much of a stickler of one suggestion per suggester per update, as long as it doesn't go crazy.

>a joint project produce by Genetech and Steelworks as an answer to Psy Industries Sensory Gifted
As competition, or a countermeasure? I would assume the former, as it seems likely that sensory abilities could be applied to edit yourself out of others perception (he hacked my eyes!), but it would be pretty hard to hide someone from sensory abilities. Even if the suit hid everything else, wouldn't there still be a mental signature to pick up on?

Although I suppose some kind of mind shield or empathy-jammer isn't completely out of the question.

Still, if the suit does interfere with Grey's senses, that's going to make it harder to guide anyone wearing it through the stealth part of the mission.

>logic, assumptions
I'm comfortable relying on logic. The manufactured we've encountered so far have generally been more pragmatic or logical than emotional. Ten was even willing to explain the reasoning behind command decisions after action, without taking the usual offense one might at having their decisions questioned (pity we lost a CO we could actually talk to so fast). I figure we've got decent odds of getting through to the guard if we're not needlessly disrespectful and explain why we did what we did.

And Grey not using our incorrect assumptions is fair. Makes sense that you wouldn't want your sapient weapons trained to obey any civilian, anyways.

>given your ability to empathize is rather impaired at the moment
Really? I'm surprised moving from 4/4 to 5/3 has such an effect already. I was kind of presuming we started above human baseline in our capacity for each will/personality, and the steelworks and genetech seem to function well with just 2/2 and 3/3.

Or is the gap between the will and personality more significant that the absolute values? So being two down slants our perception, and makes us less empathic that a balanced 3/3, despite their lesser potential.

...it might behoove us to try and keep our stats balanced then. Meaning we should pick something from the empathy tree next time. (First we picked a mapping power, which slanted us that way. Then we took an empathy and mapping ability at the same time, which cancelled any stat changes out).

>competition, or a countermeasure?
The former. There is no current technological way to directly interfere with a psychic. Unless you count a bullet through the skull.

You're also correct about the difference meaning more than the actual values themselves. While a higher number is better when using abilities associated with the stat, it's the gap that determines the effect on personality. The gap isn't too large right now, but trying to appeal to emotion is going to be penalized. Even when it might be logical to try, your ability to understand and empathize is starting to wither. But only just barely right now.

Just remember that Mapping powers generally draw on Will, and Empathy powers draw on Personality. While you might lose your ability to empathize with others, your strength in your mapping powers will also increase, as well as make you somewhat immune to other people trying to appeal to your emotions. That also means that empathy based powers will suffer, and you'll be much more susceptible to appeals based on duty and logical claims that make sense to you.

Just things to consider.

:/ It's probably the sheer creativity allowed in Breaking Reality, but I find that quest far more interesting to generate ideas for than Beyond the Stars. Speaking of...NEW BREAKER IDEA!

Backstory: Warren and Waldo Gemvini were identical twins, and they played it up big time, participating in the same hobbies, and staying together whenever possible. And then the Traumas struck on a vacation to Spain...

Warren Gemvini (Form type)
STR-3 FIN-2 WIL-1
Original foci: Broken Bull hornpiece. (Manifestation-Minotaur form)
Trauma: Participated in the Running of the Bulls, got spun on a bull's horn like a car wheel.

STR- 13(-10)
FIN- 6 (-4)
WIL- 2 (-1)
BP- 38 (-6)
SPR-5 (-10)
Active Break
Break Sight
Weapon: Environment
Spirit 5-With My Strength
Warren can boost another breaker's stats, in exchange for his own BP (Not 100% sure on the mechanics, but think an over-time drain akin to Cass's Spirit ability, during which the breaker of his choice is empowered.)
Foci: Bull Hornpiece (Manifestation-Minotaur form)
Resiliance/Durability/whatever 'being tougher and harder to hurt' is called for form types. (-1)
Stampede: Allows Warren to manifest a spectral charging bull for 1 BP. Said bull has STR equal to Warren's STR score, but is otherwise is akin to a normal bull. (-3)

Waldo Gemvini (Weapon type)
STR-1 FIN-3 WIL-2
Original foci: box with lightning symbol on it (Manifestation: tazer)
Trauma:During the Running of the bulls, Waldo was seperated from his brother before being electrocuted. Left hand is now numb from the nerve damage.

STR-
FIN-
WIL-
BP-
SPR-5 (-10)
Normality
Normality Cloak
Finesse Focus
Spirit 5-Team Foci:
Waldo can temporaily allow one allied breaker to manifest anything he can manifest (effectively, this ability would allow his partners access to the same manifestations he uses-so if he had Cass's Chainsaw, and was fighting alongside Warren, Warren could manifest Cass's Chainsaw.)
Foci: Box with Lighting Symbol (Manifestation: Tazer)

Will finish this later.

>>79015
>"You're asking a QM who is interpreting the character as a sociopath because their will stat is two points higher than their personality stat to reword things. Are you sure you want *me* to do that?"

Fine, I'll reword it, but this doesn't seem right about the character. Look up the definition of sociopath: It's someone with impaired ability to notice or care about the emotions/interests of other people.

>Linda and Jean
Uh, since we kind of cut away from that, were we going to bring him back with us after talking to barrier-makers, or part ways?

On the one hand, having a tear to study close at hand might be very valuable. And we'd be able to keep an eye on him. On the other hand, it's almost certainly a crazy risk (putting someone potentially unreliable and very dangerous in among everyone and everything we're trying to protect, and tempting a tear with a smorgasbord of big fat breaker threads), and one hell of a diplomatic nightmare if and when other breaker factions we're trying to deal with realize what we're harboring (not keeping Jean at arms length might push us into open war with Raul, even). To say nothing for the sentiment it may raise within our own ranks (Elizabeth would hardly be the only one upset or afraid to have him around I suspect).

Kind of why I called it parole- if we're the parole officer, we get the advantage of keeping an eye on and in contact with him, without all the drawbacks of getting too close. And it leaves him some freedom to do... whatever it is he needs to do.

By the way, I am loving the fact that we're getting to play all the different missions from all these character perspectives instead of only following one, this time. It's loads of fun getting inside some of these characters' heads. And it really helps counter sort top-heavy, "we don't have the time or room to do all the stuff we'd like to now that we're in charge" feeling.

>Linda XP: 6
We're only one XP away from being able to upgrade our spirit again. Do we want to save for that rather than spending on other things?

I'm thinking go for spirit 8, and then use the leftovers or the next batch of xp to stack another point or 2 of finesse and/or BP, and set aside an upgrade for the tank gun (the manifestation cost for our signature holdout heavyweapon can afford to be a little higher- honestly, it's pretty cheap compared to some of our allies already).

>>79018
Hmm. I dunno. Being more in tune with logic and duty can be an advantage or disadvantage depending on the situation. Being out of sync with emotion seems like a pretty big disadvantage, though. Any edge we gain by numbing ourself is more than outweighed by penalties dealing with or understanding others. And it's hard to quantify how much of an advantage the boost to mapping is.

I certainly wouldn't want to make the gap any bigger, at least. Keeping it where it is or trying to balance again though is the tricky decision.

>>79020
Oh, I like the minotaur. Str based offense/support isn't something we've seen yet. I sort of wonder if there's anyway to work the mythological maze-affinity into that, but I suppose it could just be something he gets a bonus to sensing or breaking, due to theme.

I know the other guy's unfinished, but I'm not really sure where you're going with him yet. Weapon sharing is a little odd (it would best benefit someone who had both a lot of weapons, and close allies used to sharing them? Or someone who collected the very strongest or most esoteric weapons to share them to devastating effect? Kind of weird to decide how one would play that).

>>79021
Um... I think that came across wrong. What I meant was that if you want to do the rewording based on what Grey, as a character, would know, then you can. As for the actual logic/emotion thing, that won't be as pronounced as it could be with a larger gap. At this stage, it's more of just a slight disinterest than anything, and a slight lean towards more interest in his duty and goals. Of course, Grey being controlled by you all(mostly), I'm sure his motivations and goals will change, and therefore his "duty" will therefore follow. If the gap gets larger though, than yes, you'll get to the point where you just won't care outright. I'm not intending to make Grey the equivalent of a sociopath just based off of a 2 point difference... maybe I worded the explanation wrong? Or maybe I'm just not understanding what you're getting at... Eh... I hate feeling like I'm missing something...

>>79024
Well, I think most of us were expecting that the size of the gap shouldn't be the operative 'stat' because otherwise there's no difference in the social abilities of a default steelworks or genetech manufactured.
I was figuring that a personality of 2 would be mildly unobservant/disinterested in other people's emotions, 3 would be about normal, and 4+ would be someone with above average social awareness. I suppose it would help if you contextualized these numbers with what the normal human range would be.

>>79023
My intention was a 'twin breaker' type theme with them, one they created and empowered to override what would be their breaker themes normally. To emphasis this, their traumas would be more related to being seperated in so drastic a manner moreso then the actual injuries.
What I WANT to do, is give them a spirit 5 ability that lets each twin call on the powers of the other, but I wasn't sure exactly how that would work, and they'd be screwed up if something happened to the other, so I decided to settle for making the powers seperate, but together they could give off the effect of two breakers acting and being one entity.
...
And to be honest, I had no real clue what to do with him. I was originally thinking sword and shield, but I stupidly decided to handicap the poor man, which...HIGHLY complicated the use of any foci that'd require two hands to use.

>>79025
Yes, that was my initial assumption as well. But, as he already explained, the gap ends up being the more significant decider in actual behavior.

Maybe think of the mental stats not only as the ability or potential for that kind of action, but interest? Then it sort of makes more sense that with a noticeable gap the character would focus them in on one to the detriment of the other, even if they have the potential to do the other well. It's a mental stat- it changes the way they think.

Although, what it boils down to is an interesting choice. Specialization nets more power in a certain mental field- at the expense of working with or even understanding the other. Balance gives us a better perspective, at the cost of power. It almost forces us to put character and build at odds.

Because it's got to start somewhere, and because I've been thinking about it recently. Anyway, from here on for this post, information on the creation and first year of life for Psy Industries Manufactured. This is hardly an in depth look, more an overview really, and I'd be glad to answer any questions regarding specifics that anyone has. Always fun to build worlds in my head.

To start, all Manufactured are "born" in tube like machines, simulating a woman's womb. The period of pregnancy, however, is accelerated to that of only a few days, and before a week is out the manufactured child is already physically the age of 1. It's at this point that they are removed from the safety of their steel womb and moved onto the first stages of training and development. The first step in this stage, as it is with all manufactured, is the branding, a machine effectively punching the tattoo denoting who they are into each child's arm. Then they are carted off for initial psychic testing before separated based on potential. The next few months will be filled with drug tests, mental conditioning and indoctrination into the manufactured lifestyle. Most psychics begin to display their gift at around a month "old", usually only the vaguest of whispers, and the first "Culling" occurs, generally dropping the 100 members of the batch to 30-40. Then, the remaining are put once again into metal tubes, to have their bodies accelerated once again, the manufactured going through puberty while under complete stasis, and the mind receiving information through a form of psychic link, provided by other psychic manufactured. This leaves the mind somewhat dull to interest in sexual reproduction, further reinforced by both indoctrination and that genetic imperative subdued through gene manipulation.

The second stage, the true testing phase, begins shortly after awakening again, which involves another round of psychic tests along with further drug tests. This second phase lasts another month, bringing the "children" up to two months old with the physical makeup of 16 year old. The mind is generally slower than an average human, not having access to the memories and experiences of a trueborn. Still, they function, and over the next year, a third and fourth culling occur, reducing the numbers of viable psychic manufactured to at most 7. During those twelve months, the manufactured still alive receive psychic training, further mental conditioning and finally a basic understanding of military knowledge. At 1 year of age, with the body roughly developed to that of a 17 year old, the manufactured are once again placed into tubes, these for transport, and shipped out to their final destinations.

One final thing to mention. The numbers assigned to a manufactured are to them as dear as a name. The moniker they eventually gain for themselves, such as "Grey" or "Wolf" are little more than easily discarded titles. The number, however, is who they are. Taking Grey's as an example: U-173-49628.

The U is the place of "birth", denoting one of the many manufactured facilities owned by Psy Industries. 173 is the genetic code used to clone and birth the manufactured, stating which gene sequence is the "parent", for Psy Industries, usually a trueborn psychic who agreed to donate genetic data. The Last number, 49628, is the batch and personal number, 496 the batch, 28 Grey's personal number. Essentially, he was the 28th member of the 496th batch cloned from Sequence 173, manufactured at a Lunar Facility floating above a human agricultural world called Aphaea.

Hmm. On the one hand, I'm not such a fan of the hyper-accelerated development phase. It kind of takes away from the visceral impact of lifetime of being broken down and abused to be shaped into what they are.

On the other hand, if they can get them from cradle to grave in less than a year, the vastly diminished worth human commanders place on manufactured lives is somewhat more justifiable. The costs of production are a lot lower than if they take years to raise.

Psy industry's main problem would seem to be their processes has a higher loss rate- I'm assuming a lot more than 7% of a batch of genetech or steeltech clones make it to deployment. It's probably a lot easier to train someone to reliably train soldiers and pilots than psychics (that meet their standards).

Minor criticism- the ID numbers seem too short when broken down that way. One digit for facility, and 3 for genetic sequence? They're going to exceed 26 facilities sooner or later, and if we assume they start with lots of genetic donors and tweak the genetics to try and zero in on the best manufactured they can they're going to end up with more than 999 variations pretty fast (I suppose you could conserve slots somewhat if you only assigned numbers to sequences that actually went into production? Theoretical, experimental, and development strains could have a separate identification protocol).

>breaker stuff
I find myself actually half hoping something's going to go wrong back home, just so there will be something for Nic to have to resolve, and to give us an excuse to play as her.

<<79044
How badly did the aliens kick humanity's ass, what (apparently?) stopped them from finishing the job, what started it, and was there ever any meaningful communication between the two?

The lifetime part isn't there so much in the Psy Industries manufactured, no. The Genetech have it the hardest in that regard, as you have to train muscle memory, not just thoughts. Generally, a Genetech will have the accelerated growth stopped just before puberty, and as they grow from there, they are trained in the military drills, tasks and weapons they'll be using through out their lives. For Psy Industries, the "tragedy", if you want to call it that, is the results of the drug testing performed on them. Because of how trueborn view manufactured, it allows for a lot more leeway in terms of what can and can't be done on them. Drugs that have been classified as "safe" for manufactured testing have the tendency to cause things like hallucinations, dementia, brain hemorrhaging. Things that are generally not good. Even those with actual psychic potential tend to die off from inability to handle what they're going through. Still, the same tests have lead, eventually, to psychic enhancing drugs that are safe, and widely used by trueborn gifted to help nurture their own abilities.

As for the other two industries, yes, they tend to have much higher output rates. Genetech successfully provides anywhere from 70-80 per batch, the remaining lost due to accident or simple inability to perform to standard. Steelworks have settled at around 40-50 per batch, the chances for accident significantly higher than Genetech and the nerve implants still having a chance of rejection.

>ID numbers
You'd be correct on a few points. Each company maintains it's own database for both facilities and gene sequences. Furthermore, there are more facilities then there are letters, but most of those facilities don't actually produce manufactured for commercial use. Psy Industries, for example, has a number of facilities that focus on the production of booster drugs and the study of trueborn psychics in hopes of finding why or how the brain manages to develop psychic ability, so that they can hopefully produce more gifted manufactured. On top of all that, it has been only 2 decades since the end of the First War, and production of usable facilities takes time.

Similarly, while this is hardly a valid argument for Genetech or Steelworks, the number of Gifted trueborn is, I think, being overestimated. While Gifted did exist before the First War, it was generally weak and of very little practical use. When the aliens hit, however, the abilities of those who were already identified as gifted expanded exponentially, and more gifted began to pop up throughout human controlled space. Still, the total number of active gifted trueborn, with enough potential to be considered a military asset, is estimated to be somewhere just below 1000, and about a third of those refuse to have anything to do with military. Of the remaining 2/3, there's maybe half that have given genetic material for use by Psy Industries. The number of viable gene sequences, for both psychic potential and relatively good health, cut that number to a quarter.

>The Ass-Kicking
Humanity, at the start of the war, controlled most of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way, and had proceeded unhindered across the stars. Most of the controlled star systems at least had a small orbital satellite, designed to do nothing more than collect data and keep watch for activity, generally from illegal pirates and the like. Habitable planets within star systems were generally occupied by massive numbers of people, frequently in the billions per world, and systems rich in minerals would have similarly massive space stations within them, acting as mining facilities and factories. Over the centuries, humanity managed to make its way slowly towards the Sagittarius Arm, and upon barely entering the closest star systems within made first contact. From there, things went down hill rather quickly. Human forces were immediately pushed back into the Orion Arm, and eventually only a third of what humanity originally held was still within human control. This, of course, can tell you roughly how much damage was done. Assume, since I'm no expert on the number of star systems there are in the Orion Arm alone, that there were roughly 4 billion(probably wrong, but whatever). Maybe a billion contained the bulk of human activity, each of these places containing a couple billion people. Now cut that by a 2/3. That 's how much damage humanity took. Roughly. And probably not to scale, but again, I'm no expert on astronomy.

>Alien Attack/Halt
After first contact, and the first attempts at communication(which were met with no response of any kind, or at least none that humanity could pick up on), neither side really did anything. The alien ship that had been discovered jumped out, and the human ship did what it had come to do, which is colonize. A few years after human arrival, a few more encounters with alien ships met with similar results, and a few more systems colonized, and suddenly, contact with the colonies were lost. Ships sent to investigate were lost similarly, and a few months after that the first alien assaults into human controlled space occurred, and the First War was in full swing. Humanity tried a number of times to make contact, and all were met with nothing.

Trueborn propaganda would state that humaniy halted the advance thanks to the introduction of new technologies and simple human stubbornness. Human scientists believe the aliens halted their advance because they either saw no threat or were spread too thin and needed time to regroup and reassess. To be completely truthful, however, humanity as a species has no idea why the aliens even attacked in the first place, much less why they decided to stop.

And on a totally unrelated note, I now officially hate your dice rolls. God damn dice.

>And on a totally unrelated note, I now officially hate your dice rolls. God damn dice.

I can't decide if that means we lucked out and got a near-max rank Stealth Suit or something else went really really well for Grey...

Silly idea I thought up was Grey's Squad as power rangers versus an evil version of Linda McCallahan and her pals. Seems like something that might make for a fun thing to visualize eh?

>billions and billions
The one thing to watch out for there is scale. If you're not careful, you end up with a military that's absurdly small for the number of troops who have to be fighting considering the sheer volume of space or number of planets / systems involved.

>we lucked out and got a near-max rank Stealth Suit
I think we got a full on ghost stealth suit, the kind that would usually be reserved for an elite trueborn commando crazy enough to be taking front line infiltration missions. Top of the line shit.

(Which raises the obvious thought that if we'd decided to play human, we'd have access to shit like this all the time!).

>I now officially hate your dice rolls. God damn dice.
We do have a pretty good track record, actually. Aside from a few streaks where the dice have really hated us (Jake's club was cursed, seriously), they do have this tendency to come out pretty strong when we need it.

>And on a totally unrelated note, I now officially hate your dice rolls. God damn dice.
What, did we just get a lemon, or a mint here? If it's a mint I think that might just be enough awesome to let us do a mission for a dozen people with only six.

Vehicles: What is there, what do manufactured get to touch, and what carries us between planets (operations)?

>What is there
I'm not sure what exactly you're asking for. Broad categories? Specific kinds of vehicles? Specific examples? I mean, technically, even a TacArm is a vehicle, and that was deliberately made to me modular in and of itself, to fit the differing preferences of their pilots.


>What do manufactured get to touch
I assume you mean what do manufactured actually get to operate. Most any small military vehicle, like trucks, mobile artillery, attack boats, helicopters. Things of that nature. TacArms as well, for those with the nerve implant. Rarely anything larger than that. Of course, manufactured are put to work to keep larger things in working order, why waste the manpower? That's reserved for mainly Steelworks, however, as they tend to have the most knowledge regarding machinery.

>What carries us between planets
In Grey's case, he arrived on the planet via a interstellar recon frigate. The ship is the smallest class of interstellar capable ships, carrying anywhere from 50 to 100 comfortably. Up to 150 if you just want to pack in bodies. Most of those aboard would be manufactured, as the recon frigates serve as the main delivery system for the initial assaults on planets. The interstellar class ships range from frigates, the smallest, to the massive Dreadnoughts. There is only one class larger than Dreadnought, dubbed Titans, of which there are only six, four in military service, one currently under constructions, and the last under direct service to the Imperial family of the Orion Empire, a holdout of the years before the First War and the formation of the Terran Confederacy.

Which brings up something else I'd thought to touch on. The current government of humanity, as a whole, is a loose Confederacy of a number of other governments. While during the first years of expansion into the stars many still followed the Sol Republic, eventually, as humans are apt to do, divided opinions and political maneuverings split the colonies from their mother planet, and eventually other governments sprang into being. As the years continued, many systems came together to form united fronts for safety, or were simply swallowed up by the more militaristic systems. After the disaster of the First War, only four political powers remained that held any real clout, and it was, with the urging of three out of the four and the reluctant agreement of the fourth, that the remnants of humanity formed the Terran Confederacy, a relatively loose agreement to put aside human differences in the face of a new threat. Those four governments, however, still retain a large degree of self autonomy, and nothing ever ceases the political maneuverings, not even the threat of extinction from alien lifeforms. Regardless, those four major powers are the Sol Federation, the Orion Empire, the Free Colonies, and the Flotilla.

As always, questions, comment and concerns are much appreciated. I would call this... semi-complete, as all this is generally just thoughts I have whirling around in my head, and I it never hurts to world build with other people telling you where you're wrong.

Now to actually write a pair of updates I should get to.

>I'm not sure what exactly you're asking for. Broad categories? Specific kinds of vehicles? Specific examples?
I would like to know if there's hoverboards, flying cars, wingless vectored-thrust vehicles, jetpacks and such we could salvage: These things could cause a lot of damage if we could pick up some and use them.
I'd also like to know whether or not civilians are allowed to drive vehicles or if instead self-driving vehicles are mandatory.
It's also notable we haven't seen many aerial vehicles in use by the military. We haven't seen any besides Hive's drones and the can we were chucked at the ground in, so apparently the enemy capabilities with anti-aircraft fire are prohibitive?

>>79073
Diaspora fragmentation followed by a a forced alliance due to an overwhelming threat and unending political maneuvering and squabbling sure sounds like humanity, all right.

> hoverboards, flying cars, wingless vectored-thrust vehicles, jetpacks
So, in essence, vehicles that can lift off directly from the ground in some way. Yes to all of the above, by the way, although for anti-grav, the system is generally very expensive and not used much. Hovercars(very expensive hovercars) will use anti-grav excusively, while Thrust Vectoring aircraft will generally use more conventional engines and fuels. Jetpacks come in two flavors, conventional engine jetpacks, which are bulky and cumbersome, but can sustain long periods of use, or anti-grav, which more streamlined, provide short leaps of increased height and distance.

>civilians are allowed to drive
Ground based vehicles only. At least in terms of cars and the like. Hovercars are reserved to automated functioning only, to reduce the amount of accidental crashes and the potential use for crimes. Of course, that hardly stops those who really want to, as it is possible to manual override the automated functions and do whatever you want with them.

>Aircraft
They do exist, just not generally on Recon Ships. You can't simply launch most aircraft out in, as you put it, tin cans. At least, not if you expect them to be immediately deployable for use. Most are kept in more dedicated carriers, and most of aircraft in use by the military is capable of atmospheric and orbital flight. For the most part, I just haven't had you encounter any of them yet. That'll be corrected as time moves on.

I'll have work things to do for about the next week or so, and since I know very well that I'm infamous(to some) for disappearing for stretches of time, I'm simply letting it be known that I'm only gone for a week this time. For sure. Mostly.

>>79175
No worries, I'll put the hot poker in the fire to start warming up.

At least it gives us some time to work on the demon-puzzle.

>Name the demons
Okay, first up, here are the names we've seen in the text.

Leviathan (Levi), Behemoth (Moth), Amadeus (As), (Bel), (Mon), (Beel)

I those last three nicknames can be completed as Belphegor, Mammon or Aamon, and Beelzebub.

The real problem is, so far as I can tell, the seventh has never been mentioned. (Although maybe there's something hidden in earlier updates? We didn't realize Michelle had more than Levi for a long while, maybe there's a tiny fragment name we missed).

>cheating
If we can trust information from A Song of Demons as being accurate to this setting: Belphegor is Sloth, Leviathan is Envy, Beelzebub is Gluttony, Behemoth is Wrath.

>Sins
The ones we know:

Leviathan has been stated to be either Envy or Gluttony. His consumption based attacks and constant hunger would more support Gluttony, although I have a hard time using either to explain his character fully. For instance, he shows a respect for debts owed, and a recognition of worthy opponents (now turned ally) that doesn't really fir with either sin. And he seems fiercely protective of Michelle, even compared to the others (possibly that's why he was chosen to become real first? Or is it a consequence of having to protect her?). Maybe it's just because he's had the most screen time to develop, but he's clearly more than an avatar of sin. He has motivations beyond his hunger.

Behemoth is named as the Prince of Wrath (although, from what little we've seen he's more interested in killing than anger per se).

Amadeus is rather obviously the Prince of Perversion Lust (and has been named as such).

The ones we have to guess at:

Belphegor:
"Leave me out of your tiresome bickering."
"Let's just get back to sleep and be done with this whole affair." "Bel, we're going to be working rather hard, tomorrow." Please, don't remind me. The pointlessness of all that work is simply-"
He finds bickering tiresome, votes for sleep, and finds work pointless. A solid pick for sloth. (He's not getting an avatar anytime soon, is he).

Mon:
"The woman is interesting to us. So many chances to corrupt her pure intentions."
Doesn't really tell us much, unfortunately. Corruption hardly narrows it down between Mammon / Aamon or the remaining sins. I suppose it's more like greed than envy or pride? (He sees something to be taken, not envied or shown up).

Beelzebub:
Hardly the most pure of goals, Mon. She is irrelevant to our Mother. Leave her be and get some rest. You will need it tomorrow, Mother. (The next response is addressed to "the ever silent Beel", but I'm not sure we we attribute all three of these sentences to him, or just the last one or two).
"Ah, a lovesick heart. How... cliche."
Not definitive, but could be Pride (too good to talk to the others, he's above these stupid cliches).

Unknown:
So far as I can tell, the Seventh is never addressed by any of the other demons, nor mentioned by Michelle. Can't seem to attribute any of the dialog to him, either.

...I don't suppose it's possible Michelle is the Seventh? (Lilith after all). Or her brother, maybe?


So just going off of quest sources, we're still left with three demons (Mon, Beel, and unnamed) and three sins (Envy, Pride, Greed).

>I don't suppose it's possible Michelle is the Seventh? (Lilith after all). Or her brother, maybe?
Nope, never-mind that idea, she definitely mentions there being seven voices inside her head. Which means we're still left with identifying someone silent and unnamed.

>Amadeus
Whups, that should be Asmodeus (geeze, without the s he can't be As, duh). And that mistake got carried over into Z's post, too.

Thinking about the Sarah defection thing- more upsides occurred to me.

The obvious one is she might be a more useful source of intel than any prisoner, since she's now willingly cooperating.

The other thing is that our group, by it's very nature, has always been open to infiltration. (If you're taking in everyone who comes to you for protection, than leaves an easy way in for an agent of a rival or hostile faction). If she's around, that means a fixer trying that could be recognized, at least. (Although that doesn't help with other factions. Granted, between mind reading and precognition we have some protections in place already).

I guess the thing to determine about As' 'acquisition' is whether it was cohesion / control, plain in simple, or if it took the form of a pact or bargain (arguably, either is in character for a demon).

And then we have to wonder if any of her other children will start thinking this is a good idea... we've potentially opened a big can of worms. That cult Aria joked about so glibly may end up realized.

An interesting thought to that is that Michelle's Cult is part of what being a powerful breaker is all about- people literally start flocking to you and steadfastly following in your tracks, it seems like.
Chris's Gaurdians, Cass's Shock Troops, Mike's Sneaks....Effectively, any powerful breaker will start to sway and 'control' lesser breakers around them, unless they have identity of self enough to resist it?

>>79480
Well, powerful people do attract followers. And if you make people lieutenants, it makes sense they need people to lieutenant to.

In this particular case I'm wondering if anyone will try to follow Sarah's example (will anyone, seeing it's possible, approach Michelle wanting to make a deal with a demon?), or if, now that they know this is possible, are any of the other demons are going to try and reach out? Depending on if/how this spreads, and how much it's a bargain versus mind control... there's a lot of room for things to get complicated.

(Dangerously- it may give As a degree of freedom to act without Michelle. He has a pawn now that's not directly under her control).

We've also yet to see how she really becomes an important piece of the puzzle, I think.

>cohesion
Coercion. Dangit, spellcheck.

I'll put the requested information here, for both easier access and because I'll be noting a few of the different enemies here. Makes it slightly easier to refer back to as well. Regardless, here we go:

The most common enemy is simply the Warrior or the Soldier. A humanoid species, they are remarkably similar to humans in size and physical strength. They do come, however, with a natural, bony armor plating across their bodies, which is resistant to small caliber weapons and slashing weapons. This durability is further enhanced by a form of combat armor that all their troops seem to wear, which functions similarly to human body armor, albeit much more effective. They can generally be found carrying the alien equivalent to standard firearms, along with all manner of other weapons, up to and including their rocket launcher counterparts. Otherwise, they are unremarkable, and have not been noted to display the Gift themselves.

The next most common, at least in urban environments, is the Spider. A long limbed and clawed life-form, they exist as ambush troops, using walls, ceilings and whatever other objects they can to traverse the environment and drop in on unsuspecting prey. What follows is generally immediate and merciful death, or being dragged screaming to some unknown fate. On the plus side, Spiders are not incredibly durable, as even the simplest of weapons can kill one, and they are unarmored, needing the lack of protection in order to utilize their preferred attack methods.

Less common are the Bulls. Massive brutes, the things measure nearly twice the size of a man, and have been known to bust down bunker walls. They are the main reason the TacArm was designed, the idea to match brute strength with brute strength, and the results have yet to be seen, as Bulls have yet to be encountered on the battlefield. Still, time will tell.

The last was seen rarely, and documentation is spotty at best. Described by the few that survived encounters with them as tall and thin, with the atmosphere about them somehow seeming... fluid... they were dubbed Wraiths, and it was an encounter with one that awoke the Gift in the truly powerful human Gifted. They are the only ones to be recorded displaying the Gift among those aliens encountered during the first war, but little else is known beyond their pure psychic might.

>just reports from lawyers who still don't have any definitive answers for you
Okay, I'd like to bring this up out of character, since it seems hard to do in-quest.

I'd really like to write a part of Linda's speech directly responding to how the government is treating us, and justifying our response. Unfortunately, I'm missing information I'd need to do so.

The first, big one, is the underpinning legal structure. This is an alternate America, with a different legal and government structure. Presumably the natives in-quest are familiar with say, what rights citizens are supposed to have (and what the limits on that are), and what powers the government (and branches / divisions) are supposed to have, but we don't. Without knowing the basics of how things are supposed to be, it's hard to criticize any deviations.

Then, next, it would be nice to know what the government says it's doing now. We saw the president's public speech. But there's always more than that- there's a legal argument for their actions, a public statement as to what they're doing and why. The speech is to sell to the public- the paper is to bring along it's own government (this is why our absurdly illegal drone program domestic spying program hunting and killing our own citizens program is totally legal, guys). Knowing the legal justification gives us the lynchpin to attach in our argument.

Finally, it would be nice to compare what they say they're doing to what we know they're doing. Between Rise's records and Jacob, we have a lot of D7's own internal records. Potentially, there's conflicts there- proof we can hold up to show the government isn't doing what it's saying it's doing, or for different reasons, or that it's actually breaking the laws and rules it claims to be protecting (ie, they're not protecting the public- they're killing and capturing and torturing and experimenting on people for their own gain. They've made breakers. Etc).

...I mean, I don't expect the entire constitution and pages of documents for us to mine as sources. But without say, knowing how the bill of rights differs, or getting a summary of the hostile breakers act, it's hard to be very specific at all.

Okay, so expanding on Jean's pointing out the problem with Linda's realness. There are several ways I could see towards explaining that:

Simplest explanation is that Jean's wrong. Despite 'not existing', reality still has a hold on Linda, and can influence her to a certain extent. The name for her condition is a misnomer, or inexact, or doesn't go into the full complexity. While reality in many ways refused to acknowledge she exists, she still, in a limited manner, maintains a connection.

Another explanation would be that Linda has her own sort of internal reality. She was cut out of reality, a thread cut out of the tapestry. So, within the context of the tapestry, she doesn't exist. But her thread, the stuff that was cut out, still is. It's like her own bubble universe, a reality of a single thread. While reality-reality can't affect Linda, her own internal reality still follows rules. Rules that could be possibly altered, given the vastly reduced complexity and scale of her 'universe. That would come with risks, though.

Explanation number 3 would be that Linda has a kind of inertia. Reality can't act on us anymore, but we're still under the effect of forces that once acted on us. The concern would be if there's any kind of dissipative force at work (reality-friction. What if we slowly get less and less real, less and less human, as the last influences of reality on us slowly die out?), or if we do anything to interfere with our lingering inertia (once we break a rule, or change it, what if we can't get it back?).

Number 4 would be what I posited back in thread- instead of carrying the old rules of reality along with her, Linda is unconsciously enforcing them on herself. She's making her own reality. The tears pretend to sleep, and eat and act- she's going one step past that. She's making something that doesn't have to be real, real for her. Upside of this interpretation, (if valid) is that means we might be able to learn to control it (changing what rules apply to her when she needs to) with less risk of never getting back what we set aside (since we were doing it all along). Biggest risk though is in discovery or some kind of turmoil. Unconscious / automatic processes have this nasty habit of shutting down when you grow aware of them (start thinking about your breathing!), and realizing everything that's still real about her is a lie might be enough to pop the bubble. An emotional or existential crisis could get very real. Or, unreal, technically.

The possible upside to most of these is they present possible models (of varying feasibility) for making tears more real. It Linda can do these things (or they've been done to her), we might be able to duplicate the effect in someone who currently has nothing.

Crazy theory: Tears are propagated backwards in time.

This would mean that a future event is their true creation event, something that rips up reality so badly that the tears don't just propagate across reality (equal time) but backwards in time too, splitting into smaller and weaker tears that follow paths of least resistance in the weave until they are eventually are stopped by having nothing weak enough to tear back through. This means that a tear being 'created' is not the creating event, but just where the rip in reality stops. McCarthy isn't creating Tears, he's picking out paths of weakness and waiting for a tear to propagate back top them (or creating those paths of weakness in the first place). He may even be gathering (and merging) Tears, as a result of trying to ensure that the rip event occurs at their eventual convergence in some sort of crazy-ass self-fulfilling ontological paradox.
Unfortunately, if this is correct then reality will need some massive and widescale manipulation in order to allow for the creating of tears without the rip event, for all Tears to be retroactively 'sewn up' (harder as things progress and Tears merge), or - in the worst case - a pocket of reality floated through the rip event and reattached at the other side, as the tears propagate 'forward' in time, splitting and dissipating. Assuming that the weave of time and space was at least roughly in existence 'before' the rip event came to be, that would essentially dump that bubble of reality into the future.

>>79601
This damn post sent me into a week long brainstorming session, not to mention a 3 hour conversation with a family member that loves history, politics and anything even vaguely associated with either. So, on top of coming up with an answer(a rather simple one to), we've also fleshed out a lot of the world. Somewhat. That'll come in another post later, I have some other issues I need to hash out first(rebuilding a world is a lot of work), but for now, I'll answer requests posed in the post itself.

>Legal Rights/Powers
To put it simply, there really hasn't been any real changes in the constitution. The US was founded on the same ideals as our version, it just ended up going in a different direction. The current government of the UNA still uses the US constitution, with some very minor differences in wording for the change to the name of United North America. The main difference is the government itself, and how it chooses to interpret the constitution. Still, consider all current constitutional amendments to be in place. There are, however, some additional amendments put into place. Since the inception of the UNA, changes made have included the abolishment of a Judicial branch and a change of the Congressional. Instead of each "state" electing representatives to both the Senate and the House, each of the 6(now 7) Divisions represent the governments interests in one piece of the Congressional branch known as the Divisional Council, and the citizenship is represented by the continuation of the House of Representatives. Laws are passed through both groups before being presented before the President, who is selected through a majority vote of the population from one of the Divisions, usually the Division Head.

It is the Divisions themselves that are the most major change. It is seen, by the current government, as a citizens duty to abide by decisions set forth by the government. The main issue with this problem is that, with the abolishment of a judicial branch it is left largely to the Congressional to decide what is or isn't against the constitution, and what does or does not pose a threat to the rights of the citizenry. Even more problematic, the Divisional Council wields far more power than the House, due in part to they being the only ones capable of becoming the President. This has led to massive limitations in power over the House, such as the highly detested law that forbids the House from voting on military concerns, such as the formation of new Divisions, or the actual act of going to war.

For reference, the 7 Divisions, and their known Heads, are as follows:

1) The National Division- General Jacob Hammond
2) The International Division- Admiral Charles Marley
3) The Military Division- General Carmen Adams
4) The Economics Division- The Honorable David Torson(Current President)
5) The Justice Division - General Emily Fisher
6) ???
7) The Division of Reality- Special Agent McCarthy(Acting Division Head)

It is crucial to keep in mind that the general population knows of only 6 of the 7, although with the technical Seventh Division being revealed, many are starting to notice that they seem to have skipped the sixth.

>Legal Bases
A simple placement of Breakers as both domestic and world terrorists. They are attempting to classify Breakers as somehow undermining reality as a whole, in an effort to raise support among the world powers. This has had limited success. While this is forcing the world powers to acknowledge the existence of breakers, only the Soviet Union is taking up the same hardline stance as the UNA. The other 4 major powers are taking largely different roles, not to mention the numerous subcultures in the world. Mostly it seems the world is uncertain of how to deal with the issue.

Still, the UNA is stating that, because of the threat to reality, there is a threat to the UNA citizens, and that it will deal with the threat as necessary. It's also rescinding citizenship to all Breakers within it's borders. This has had two effects. In the east, most of the citizens have rallied to the government, likely because of the major presence Division 7 has. The west, on the other hand, is skeptical at best, and is aided by the fact that Breakers, under your organizations watchful eye, have continued to perform and coexist peacefully with the normal population. House representatives of the western states are just as skeptical as those they represent, but seem disinclined to openly question anything, lest they be labeled terrorists themselves.

Hope that helps. Any other questions I'll try to answer, but making governments takes time, so bear with me if I don't answer them immediately.

>Damn post, lots of brainstorming
Haha, yeah, sorry about that. I kind of realized I was opening a big can of worms there.

Although it's sort of your own fault, dragging us onto a political stage. Naturally we're going to start asking questions about politics!

But thanks, that's a big help, actually. Between snow storms and president's day I've got a long weekend, and I'm going to try and see about actually trying to get a speech draft written in advance of our media presentation.

One major note. Some of this conflicts with things previously stated about the world. It's isn't anything major to the story as a whole, if I recall the changes correctly, so if anything contradicts what's already been stated, assume this post to override everything before it.

First off, while there were numerous signs of change before WW1/2, the world wars were the major changing point. Before that, the United States(as it was still called at the time) was getting steadily more militaristic in nature already, and had developed a relatively bad relationship with Britain. When the wars in Europe did erupt, the US took the opportunity to attack Britain, and conquered what was once Canada. This led to the formation of two new nations, the United North America, made from the US and Canada, and the Latin Republic, a nation formed by the nations of Central America in response to the creation of the UNA, fearing something similar happening to them. The Latin Republic would later become an economic powerhouse, making them one of the most powerful super powers to exist in the modern world of Breaking Reality. They steadfastly refuse, however, to take sides in international matters, preferring instead to limit themselves to trade and economic agreements. The UNA, on the other hand, has a highly militaristic government, and while this is generally not felt by the population, the nation is kept out of war simply by the threat of other super powers in the world.

Of course, during this time, Europe was embroiled in war, and the Japanese were staging their own attacks on what was Korea and China. With the US busy attacking Canada, the Japanese saw no threat to their own forces and dominance in the Pacific, and chose not to raid Pearl Harbor. This, combined with the fact that the US had no interest in foreign affairs at the time, left the Japanese to remain unchecked through out Asia, and by the time the fighting stopped, what was once the Far East became the Empire of Japan. This would later become simply the Empire of the East, although Japan would remain the "ruling" nation within it's own borders, with all other nations being treated much like the self-governing commonwealths of the British Empire. The main difference is that a provincial governor oversees each region, making sure that dissent against the main governing body is stamped out quickly and efficiently.

In Europe, without the support of the US, and the troops they would have supplied, the Allies are forced into a stalemate with the Axis. The last major acts performed by the Allies resulted in Britain pushing the Axis powers out of Africa and the Russians managing to force German forces back across Poland, to the German border. However, with the lack of additional forces, and supplies running thin on all sides, the push into Germany itself was repelled, and the attack on the beaches of Normandy never happened. This resulted in three major powers existing within what is modern day Europe.

The first is Britannia. Far from losing their colonies through out the world, the conclusion of WW2 has resulted in the British Empire solidifying its control on the colonies they possessed, and therefore solidifying its place as a world power. As of modern times, Britannia controls Africa, India, the Middle East and Australia, although it maintains only enough control of each region to extract the natural resources of each to their own advantage, leaving the local warlords and leaders to squabble amongst themselves. They come into conflict mainly with the UNA, whom they view as backstabbers, and the Imperial East, who clashes with them as a major naval power.

The last two world powers are unnecessary, as they won't be playing a part in the story at all(or at least, there aren't any plans for it). As such, I'll leave it at that for now. As always, comments, complaints, questions and concerns are loved and appreciated.

As the local obsessee, I'm actually not seeing any obvious conflicts with previously stated fact (well, except we went from 'no congress' to a 'weak and fundamentally different congress').

Points of commentary, interest:

It's kind of odd that when ascending to the role of president, a division-head doesn't leave his previous job.

If this universe started to diverge significantly from ours around the 1940s (or a little earlier) that would mean the civil war still happened, and so did the Lincoln memorial. Which means my silly idea for a form type breaker who's focus is a penny and whose manifestation is a giant stone Abe Lincoln works! :V

I forget that the UNA included Canada. Suddenly it makes more sense why the Havers trip was so long. We were headed further north than I thought. Cue lumberjack jokes for Cass.

The USSR grinding to a halt at the German border is an interesting bit, mostly because I'm not completely sure that would have happened, even without the USA joining the war. Still, I'm hardly an expert, and that's the kind of thing WWII nerds could argue for days and not reach a meaningful conclusion. (And could be affected in all kinds of little ways by details from a divergent history, anyway).

That does mean that the US never helped rebuild Europe though, which would probably penalize the modern-day economy. Or at least, how long it took to rev back up (Unless the LR found reason or profit in propping them back up in their place?). What actually happened to Germany could go several different ways, though. Did the nazi regime collapse under the terrible strain of all the war-damage and the terrible things it did, and its leader going insane? Did it endure? How does the modern-day country feel about the systematic genocide and its history? Depending on how you play that, you could end up with several really different Europes pinned between the USSR and Brittan.

The space race would have played differently, since the US wouldn't have scooped up all those Nazi rocket scientists. (Unless there was an internal collapse of the regime after the war, turning the masses or the leadership against certain individuals, that lead to them fleeing to the UNA. The UNA taking Nazi refugees- that would be an interesting inversion). Especially if the tensions between the UNA and USSR never escalated to the full cold war it did for us.

Japan's situation is complicated because the way the war went means two major cultural influences never happened in this timeline. They never became the world's first post-apocalyptic society, and they weren't subject to the massive culture influence from the US's occupation and rebuilding. Why is this important, and more than a simple curiosity of an an alternate culture / society? Because we made Linda a rapid mecha-anime fan and a several important forces that shaped that artform aren't present in this timeline! (Unless after their ascension to a world empire they still somehow got a similar cultural exposure to the west, and/or a nuclear disaster happened for different reasons, or in different circumstances)?

Brittan never giving up a colonial rule on the Mideast / Africa / India is kind of a fascinating idea, especially in light of the modern history. What happens to all the rebellions and conflicts and cultural upheavals of the last 10, 20, 30 years if they were never parceled out into semi-arbitrary countries drawn by arrogant and ignorant white men a world away? What happens when they're left under lose supervision, or under the heel of a common enemy?

One thing that almost strikes me as odd (and that I'm almost reluctant to bring up) is that in the UNA, this seems a setup for, well, a more hard-line and conservative country. But while that might be the case with the political leadership, we don't seem to be seeing much of that on the ground, culturally, so much. I mean, we haven't seen much in the way of racism, or sexism (kinda might have been an issue with Linda's career path), or issues with sexual preference. Things seem about what I'd expect (or better?) compared to the real world. Not sure if that's just a coincidence of the people we've encountered (breaker kind of have a lot weirder and bigger things dividing them), or if the culture is actually different. Maybe the militaristic world power stance shifted the fears and hates that fuel / fueled one side of internal civil rights issues towards external threats? (Real or imagined).

>>79732
>
Japan's situation is complicated because the way the war went means two major cultural influences never happened in this timeline. They never became the world's first post-apocalyptic society, and they weren't subject to the massive culture influence from the US's occupation and rebuilding. Why is this important, and more than a simple curiosity of an an alternate culture / society? Because we made Linda a rapid mecha-anime fan and a several important forces that shaped that artform aren't present in this timeline! (Unless after their ascension to a world empire they still somehow got a similar cultural exposure to the west, and/or a nuclear disaster happened for different reasons, or in different circumstances)?
Or influences were inverted: the Tezuka-analogue was not Japanese, but come from one of the occupied territories. It was the bleed of Japanese culture into a conquered nation (rather than the bleed of foreign culture into Japan) that created the mix of fatalism and hope that gave rise to the 'forward with technology' mindset.

Anonymous 2014/02/27(Thu)22:08 No. 79939 ID: 4a75fa
File 139356773234.jpg - (149.88KB , 600x397 , nonexistant birthday.jpg )

Happy "you don't get a birthday this year"-day, Linda.

>>79939
That is the most awesome cake I've ever seen, and I wish I would do it justice. Unfortunately, we are unaware of this Linda you speak of, and think you should probably get your head checked for delusions and possible insanity.

But more seriously, that is awesome. Can't think of a better unbirthday present for our resident nonexistent.

Think I'll repay that by actually posting for once.

So... that was a nice summer hiatus, I suppose. The quest's been dead for a while now, though. Can we shoot it in the back of the head and get it going again? Or crack it over the head with the red hot fireplace iron I suppose, since that's my thing.

>>85087
get on IRC and ask a mod to pull it out of the graveyard.

>Breaking Reality running again
Ohboyohboyohboy!

Um. There appears to be some confusion.

That was a shot in the dark to see if dreamer was around and might be interested in giving this a go again. Not an announcement of return. Unfortunately.

Still, it's nice to know I'm not the only one missing this quest.

Oh... well... I should probably get on that, shouldn't I?

Thank you for the poker to the face, by the way. I tend to think people aren't waiting for me, although I think I've said that before, haven't I?

YAY! DREAMER'S BACK!

I'll be posting a new breaker idea in case we need one but...It's been a good amount of time, and I've got to figure out some decent breaker concepts to work with, I think this time around I'll start with the Traumas and work from there.
Current concepts: The dishonored Vampire& Existence through fans.

>>85351
my statement still stands, mods can pull things out of the graveyard if you ask.

also, i read Beyond the Stars. kinda a hard place to cliff hang, right on the spot of "do you make it out alive or die horribly"

Holy crap, my shot in the dark hit something. Only took 9 days. I was about ready to resign it as a lost effort! Welcome back!

This is still one of my favorite stories on the site, and I'm glad I don't have to give up on it. Didn't stop thinking about it, even while you were gone. Some assorted ideas:

Chris' prisoner taking we left off at? One potential problem occurred to me. It's impossible to actually secure any enemy agent that's aware of McCarthy's nature. All he has to do is think and he's compromised the location we're keeping him at. (Circumvent by keeping him someplace disposable, at a known location, or just getting what we need and mind wiping him and releasing him asap?).

We may actually have a means to fix breakers who've lost their focus, like Mac. Normally the problem is, they have the potential, but no means to focus it, right? Not even to tune a focus. But what if Linda cheats. Using someone else, she takes the breaker's thread, and then she tunes a focus to that thread. As far as reality is concerned? That thread tuned a focus to itself. Dunno how many normalized breakers there are hanging around Sun City, but we are sitting on a vault of stockpiled foci.

That apparent bias in the cast towards female characters? It occurred to me that's not necessarily just tgchan being tgchan, for once. This is a world where abuse and trauma result in superpowers. It's kind of fridge horror, but when you think about it, an overall bias makes a disturbing amount of sense.

On building breakers: we've focused on themes, powers that are consistent, that tie to personality or injury, that are balanced. Then we've got Linda. Between the way nonexistence has developed, and the foci we've collected / modified, she's completely unbalanced in comparison.

So how long until we meet someone similarly unbalanced? Someone who spent as much effort pushing at the edges of what manifestation typing allowed, or who went through something as fundamentally self-altering as our breaking time to reverse Elizabeth's death? There are going to be other breakers who break the rules among the upper echelon. It's just a matter of time.

>>/quest/594283
Oh, we're following Elizabeth's investigation into Rise's disappearance. Cool. That was on my short-list of things I wanted to follow up on. (That, and we need to find a chance for Nicole to do something cool on her own. She needs a chance to level, and do something besides babysit the base). I assume this is planned to be a short thing, like Guy's arc, before we go back to Linda?

And yeah, if and when you want any of the other threads out of the graveyard, just ask, and one of us can bug a mod in irc.

One cool thing about using an outside narrator? Things can get really fucked up around Linda. The character can have meetings with and be influenced by an employer he never remembers having interacted with. She actually makes a really fucked up and interesting boss from a player perspective, since we could be being used by or manipulated by her and not even know it. Things the character feel, or that they know, might actually originate from forgotten discussions. (Don't know if that will really come into play here, or not. Possibly it's the kind of thing that might be interesting to mess with, if there's ever in a sequel in the same world, and Linda's retired to a background character).

>note with a passing interest that one of her eyes is definitely not natural at all, one being green and the other brown
Oh right, I forgot that detail. I'd been imaging eyes as green and greener, in my head. Lazy brain not willing to compile artificial heterochromia iridum.

A question I wished to pose to the lot of you, which should get some creative juices flowing for me as well:

This next breaker is a form type, and while I have my own idea about where I want to take him, I'd also like to see your take on it. Trauma and all that is completely up to you, just thought I'd see if anyone else had a good idea I'd prefer over my own.

>>85369
HAHAHA! I wanted to make more form types! Here we go!
Brittany Ballade (Form type)
Strength-3 Finesse-1 Will-2
Foci: chess pawn piece (Manifestation: Form of Marble)
Trauma: All I've been, is a pawn to others. first, my controlling mother, who wants to see me claim the glory she never could due to her weak body. Then, when she died, I was brought under my father's care, and he wanted me to be the son I could not be. Then I was kidnapped, and made to be a servant...But one day, one of my captors asked me: What were your dreams? He was mocking me, I think but...I...I didn't know!
I never thought of such things, ever!

STR-5(-2)
FIN-7(-6)
WIL-10 (-8)
BP -26 (-3)
SPR-4 (-6)
Break Sight
Spirit Sight
Unbroken Will (She has no mind of her own?)
Foci: Chess pawn piece
(Manifestation: Form of Marble, 2BP)
Enhanced durability (-1)
Foci gain:Ant figurine (-1)
(Manifestation: Giant Ant Soldier,2BP)
Functional Wings (-1)
Foci gain: machine gear (-1)
Manifestation: Robot, 2BP)
Lazer Eyes. (-1)

Basically, a multiple-foci type Form Breaker.
I kiiinda wanted to do a 'playboy bunny' form but how to justify it, was easier said than done.

>>85369
Well, judging from the 'undying' label, and some of the comments he made, this guy's injury seems to be some kind of chronic illness or disease? (That should be killing him, but is not, because breaker). In that case, the form could be something along those lines, maybe a pestilence kind of thing? A form that let someone became a lot of things, like a swarm of insects, could be pretty messed up and interesting.

>I kiiinda wanted to do a 'playboy bunny' form but how to justify it, was easier said than done.
Two different ways I can think to justify that.

The first, would be a manifestation that invokes a rabbit monster of some kind. Over time the breaker has modified it so they don't just have to go were-rabbit horror. Made it into a slide bar, instead of a switch. So she can go little bunny, human, full on monster or... A kind of playboy bunny thing in between. (So you're getting some fin or str bonuses without the monster endurance, or added natural weapons). Of course, you need the kind of personality that would actually think playboying herself was a good idea. Trauma would probably be some fucked up childhood thing involving a stuffed animal (hence the default monster form).

Bunnygirl form, down. (Could also use similar logic to make a catgirl or whatever your monstergirl of choice is).

Second option? Go full on fucked up. A will build. The playboy bunny is the form. Kind of like an evil charisma thing- fight with psychological and psychosexual stuff. Looks like a cute fantasy, but the theme is really deep dark primal ID stuff. Trauma would obviously be mental in nature (probably a history of systemic abuse and exploration by fucked up people as a child). The breaker would not be stable on their own (heavy mental fuck up, worse that Liz when she was still having fits) and would need a group looking after them. Gets a lot more lucid (and scary) when manifested, but this isn't a good thing.

There you go. Take your bubbly silly 'I made my form a bunny girl' or your fucked up psychological horror sadist in a cute Freudian wrapper.

>exploration
Exploitation. Damn you, auto-correct. This is what I get for trying to post from work.

>>85370
I forgot to comment on this before but could her theme sort of be... being small? (Or being made small). Sort of fits literally with the kind of helplessness you describe in the trauma, and more literally, with the ant and marble forms (even if the ant is giant). Rolling around as a tiny marble might allow for sort of a spy build (especially paired with sight powers), that could maybe adopt a ballistic attack pattern? Might work better with a partner, so she could be used as a weapon.

Oh wait, you meant marble like the stone, didn't you. White like a chess piece, an emotionless facade for the person lost under the other personalities who have tried to use her.

Although the idea of a form meant to be used as a weapon by someone else (a Megatron kind of transformation) might be interesting. There's room to break some regular limitations, balanced by how absurdly constraining it is.

>Bunny ideas.
I think I perfer more vague backstories as opposed to something more direct, especially given the weird relationship between initial manifestation and trauma some breakers have.

>Wielded forms
That could be a great idea for someone with servitude as their thing... Maybe next time.

One thing is I'd like to make the trauma as light as possible-easier to succeed when you're more functionally insane then the next guy, plus I just don't like grim dark stuff.

And I realized not long after posting that recent breaker idea that I would have named a man Brittany... Aye-yah, that'll leave a mark. Maybe I could do something with that.

>vague backstories
And here I thought I was plenty vague! (Bunny 1 is really just an idea for how any form type might be able to make halfway forms, and Bunny 2 was just a vague, creepy idea without the actual mechanics sketched out at all).

But thought-experiment, anyways. Not what I would want to apply to our unnamed PC, here.

>make the trauma as light as possible-easier to succeed
Interesting how that works out really. That's basically what we pulled with Linda, and it's had all kinds of unexpected consequences. Her initial injury was almost inconsequential, or at least, very manageable compared to people around here. However, since we put Elizabeth in the picture, the mental aspect has almost become more important, and now we've got a big emotional weak spot slash berserk button. And holding onto her is how we ended up Nonexistent in the first place. And in retrospect? Maybe one can attribute Linda's not-closeness to her parents to be partially due to the fact that no one else really remembered what happened to her, so they weren't really there for her when she needed them. Suddenly little injury has a big effect on trajectory. (And if we assume her assailant was a breaker who normalized the incident, congratulations. Breaking fucking up the course of your life comes full circle).

But granted, yes, less fucked-up breakers are more functional.

>And here I thought I was plenty vague! (Bunny 1 is really just an idea for how any form type might be able to make halfway forms, and Bunny 2 was just a vague, creepy idea without the actual mechanics sketched out at all).

Different sort of vague then what I meant...What I mean is degrees of seperation.
Cass's ACTUAL theme, to me, is Gemini, the twins as one person. There's the normal Cass, and then there's the, shall we say, 'Breaker' Cass, which is probably what happens when she stresses out, be it from combat or otherwise.

Or for that matter, how Chris's current theme, remains 'experiment 23' despite Linda's attempts to rebuild the person she once was.

I like the idea of the Breaker's actual powers being related to what you see them do, but not necessarily the story you expected them to have in the first place (Granted, I probably could have done a better job with this on some of the earlier ideas, but still!)

On that note, I should toss out the Playboy Bunny idea soon, as well as two other breaker ideas (The mob returns, alongside a 'theiving' breaker)
But for now, let's focus on our protagonist.
He's got a STR based Form and a WIL based Form.
Now, I presume whichever one is picked will become his main form, and I like the thought of him being STR based to round out the trio.
Guy as the WIL Avatar, Linda the FIN Weapon, and unnamed as the STR Form. All three types focused on all three stats, with no overlap.

So let's see...
I like the idea of this fellow somehow balancing out the other two, but how to do that personality-wise...I'm thinking this guy will probably be the guy that balances Linda's optimism, and Jean's cynicalism. Be the face that Linda can't be due to nonexistance, and Jean won't be because he's a Tear.

>Chris's current theme, remains 'experiment 23'
Chris' theme is hard to place, considering how little we know of her personal backstory, or even her injury. (Aside from the vague theory I have about how breakers from different cultures 'earn' their powers, and why that might have made the Muramasa siblings easier to induce breaking in).

I'd really argue against the idea she hasn't grown, though. She's not very expressive about it, but she's more than she once was. There are hints of it her dialog, and in the few scenes we've played as her. There are little things she exults in and enjoys, a willingness to be creative, even to look for ways to follow the spirit if not the letter of the order, if she thinks it right. She didn't do that, before. Subject 23 was someone who followed the loyalty switch in her head without question. Now Chris, if she found herself switched back? She's someone who I think would struggle with that.

Granted, she hides or protects herself with an ideal. She's hyper-focused on the present, cutting ties with the past. But the fact we haven't turned her back into the person she started out as isn't a failure, either. She still has growing to do, but I'm not sure getting Makoto back is even the end goal, here.

>Now, I presume whichever one is picked will become his main form
...I was wondering that, but kind of hoping not? Especially since I seem to be the only one who's voted so far and I answered solely out of boring in the moment practicality, not long term build stuff.

>Now, I presume whichever one is picked will become his main form
No. Not really. His original form, yes, but not main. He's more of a "use what works best" kinda person. Or rather, his set up is. I'll give you stat info as it becomes pertinent(aka: I'm still working out the exact details)

For now, you can have this little tidbit:
??? Form: STR=15, all others stat's remain unchanged.
-Undeath: This form can only be killed using specific methods. The most common are as follows: Fire, Complete dismemberment, removal of the vital "heart" that allows the form to continue. Others methods exist, but are more difficult to accomplish.

...This is gonna end with me doing frantic re-works of my form-type breakers, isn't it.
And now that I think on it, she DID say that we were the 'undying' so probably could have seen this coming.
Also-Break Sight does NOT appear to be a common pick at all. I wonder why that is?

...This guy's the flaming man, isn't he.
It's not about fire. It's about watching those she cares about die and being unable to help them.

Also, I bet we just missed out on having a Vampire Breaker. Oy.

>Also-Break Sight does NOT appear to be a common pick at all. I wonder why that is?
Because it doesn't have the direct applications some of the other powers do, I suppose.

It allows you to identify breakers (sometimes), allows you to not kill people if you're careful (and not many people seem to care about this), and maybe allows you to make guesses about people's abilities when they spend BP. Useful to someone who wants to be careful or think about things, less useful if you're going be indiscriminate or direct.

...oh boy, I just realized this arc means there's a good chance we finally see Liz get to do something terrifying and awesome to behold with fear itself.

Revenant
Stats: Str-5/Finesse-5/Will-5
Spirit: 6
BP: 50
Manifestation: Form Type
Draugr: An undead of Norse origin. Numerous stories grant them all manner of strange powers, but in this case, it simply makes Revenant incredibly strong and highly resistant to death. Grants: Str-15, Undeath trait, Regeneration Trait
Wraith: Ghostly undead known to terrorize humans, draining them of life and bringing various other calamities. While in this form, Revenant's attacks are all based on Will. Grants: Will-15, Incorporeal Trait, Undead Trait
Spirit Abilities:
Death Avoidance
Manifest
Warped Minds
Warped Reality
Unbroken Will
Spreading Undeath: Revenant's unique power. It allows him to produce lesser forms of whatever undead he is capable of turning into, whether by directly "infecting" those he kills, or by "calling" them into existence through BP. Either way, these lesser undead follow his directions to the best of their mindless ability. Current Options: Zombies, Ghosts
Active Break

Ooh, warped reality. Haven't really gotten a chance to see that power in action. (Michelle didn't get a chance for the bit we got to play as her, and I'm not sure I ever caught it working for Raphael on screen).

A wraith, huh? I wonder how that's different from ghost-girl's form, or if there would be weird ways their abilities could interact. (What happens if you try to spread undeath to someone who already is?). We never really explored either of the school-kid's stuff. (And unless Marc swung something in advance, they're both hyper-delinquent runaways by now).

Hrrrm... Looks like Form types provide a flat bonus to the stat of their association, as well as a few traits. Looking forward to finally getting to find out how form types tick, stat-wise!

>Looks like Form types provide a flat bonus to the stat of their association
I'm not sure that, mechanically, all the forms act like Rev's, here. Raphael's forms, for example, looked like they were fueled by his base stats (or else his upgrading those stats regularly doesn't make much sense).

It would make a lot of sense for many forms to include some kind of stat bonus (stronger, faster... will-i-er?) but what's notable here is that Rev's forms don't add on to a stat, they replace them with a fixed preset. (Kind of unyielding and inflexible, unchanging. Fitting for the undead). Meaning it actually distinctiveness boosting bases stats.

>if there would be weird ways their abilities could interact
Also wondering now if his power would interact weirdly with Linda when using Revenge of the Fallen. Or Jean, with the whole Guy thing. ...or heck, even Elizabeth, since reality says she's supposed to be dead (and Michelle, and probably half the grunts at the base who got murdered in Marc's aborted timeline team-kill rampage).

With all this death cheating around, there's all kinds of ways someone with death-powers could complicate matters.

>Elizabeth, since reality says she's supposed to be dead
Technically not true. It said she was supposed to be dead. Now only a certain group of observers say she's supposed to be dead. Reality was convinced she'd never died.

Also, I railroaded a bit just to get the story going, but I think from here on out it should be easier for me to present you with more open ended problems and way to travel. I apologize if that seems a bit overbearing, but I can only do what I can do.

Another also, about the other thread. If you want, it can be archived instead of brought back, I was going to have it go into this(although not by introducing a new character), with maybe a little Linda talk in between, but I've already figured out what I'd prefer to do with the story right now. Unless anyone would prefer to do all that. Then bring it back I guess.

Another another also, I forgot to mention how much each of his forms cost for BP. It's 5 a pop, just to inform you, and he's currently at full capacity, since he stayed all zombied up.

Think that's it for now. Also, shout out to Z-Man. One of your form types takes center-stage this time.

>Technically not true.
...reality disagreeing with observers is kind of an interesting thing to consider. To me, that raises the question of how much they're really an intrinsic part of the system, versus how much they're self-styled protectors making up their own rules as they go. Less angels, more ascended vigilante gang.

>railroaded a bit just to get the story going
No! The precog manipulated our stalwart hero?! Indignation and horror.

>the old thread
I don't really think we need to cram another Linda-talk in there. Any talk that needs to happen can always take place after Rev's mission, here. And I'd kind of prefer not to make the threads hard to read in order again (I think a new reader would want to read up to the end of the Havers mission, then read Guy's thread, then switch back to the main story? Otherwise they run into Jean before Guy, and that's the neatest way I can think of to break up the overlapping threads).

Although it might be nice to pull the thread out of the graveyard just long enough to slap a last update on and close the scene and thread more neatly before archiving? All Chris really had left to do was take possession of the prisoners. (Unless you had a twist planned).

>One of [Z-Man's] form types takes center-stage this time.
It's totally the spider-gal, isn't it. Elizabeth did mention nightmares, after all.

Since we're back, I'm going to see what I can do to clean up the wiki page. It's kind of become a wall of stats that's hard to read, and my wiki-fu is way better now than it was way back when we started.

Started with trying to organize spirit abilities so they're more of a useful resource for Zaealix or anyone else who wanted to suggest characters. (Though I might still clean it up more, move the personal powers to their own table, maybe. Or make it so you can sort by spirit level, or power trees?).


Question that came up as I was trying to organize spirit powers: Are the spirit 9 powers the same as the spirit 4 powers, or is there another set?

I ask mostly because I noticed there's not really a good choice from the current pool for Linda, when she gets there. She's undoubtedly finesse, but we already have Evasion, and Finesse Focus wouldn't be very useful to her (guns don't benefit much from being able to roll fin for str checks). I guess if we branched out type-wise Unbroken Will would have utility, and or maybe Fear Itself could swing something creepy from Nonexistent. Kind of underwhelming for a penultimate power, though.

>No! The precog manipulated our stalwart hero?! Indignation and horror.
Your sarcasm. It wounds me.

>Spirit 9 Powers
Planned to be different. I'm still working on specifics, and if anyone has anything they think would would, I'd much appreciate the input. You are right when you say the the Spirit 4 powers are a little... underwhelming... if you try to hand them out at Spirit 9.

Hrrrm... Part of me likes the idea of some sort of base breaker theme understanding?
Like... If say, Marc used this thing, he could see what/who he was when he first started out, how his breaker powers would turn out without getting another avatar/major interference and change, and finally what happened to him to make him the way he was now. Getting to read his own thread, sorta thing I think?

Hmm. I remember brainstorming possible variants on spirit 4 powers in the old thread but that was mostly switching around bonus or stats. Not really any cooler for level 9 powers.

Maybe... powered up or enhanced versions of powers that weren't worth it before? (Okay, I'm just reaching now. I'd still like Linda to pick up spirit sight for thematic reasons, but some new common power or whatever's next in the nonexistent tree is probably going to be too attractive to pass up).

Okay. By spirit 9, most breakers are going to have a pattern. Ways to avoid damage, or dish it out. So they need options that mix that up a little.

Some medium-power actives might be interesting. Something stronger or more reliable than an active break, but weaker / cheaper than a 5BP personal power. Offensive options: maybe forcing success (or allowing more rolls, a la forceful or limit break) on a certain kind of combat roll. (If you absolutely need a shot to connect? Make it. Sort of like an active, to-hit version of evasion?). Or a 'rush' or stim kind of thing where you spend a few BP to have an effective stat increased for a few seconds (really need a burst of strength to get through?).

Passive debuffs? Say, you knock your enemy off balance, and it's harder than normal for them to recover (different versions for different stats? Fin off balance, str staggered, wil confidence broken?). Maybe kicks in if you beat an opponent in a check bad enough (crit hit versus bad dodge fail) Permanence in breaks? Your changes to reality are harder for others to change or undo. Stealthier breaks? Some kind of spirit and/or will check that makes it harder for other breakers to sense you breaking, or to pick up on things you previously changed.

Personal rule change? When active, you change the way you interact with reality slightly, varies by character. Say, you're allowed to walk on walls like they were floors. Or you're unaffected by heat and cold. Or you don't need to breath. Light or friction doesn't interact with you normally. Some in-theme cheat to abuse. (Might be tricky to balance right? Between interesting and too-useful).

In the will realm, it might be interesting to see more powers that had some kind of affect on diplomacy. Bonuses to or means of persuasion and/or domination? A way to apply will stats in a physical battle? (Temporary force field or wall? Infringes on Sidhe's theme though).

Utility powers? Not sure if they fit the theme here, but a means of (willing) merging two BP pools, or allowing BP transfer. Some way of increasing an ally's chance of passing a check?

Hmm. Not really sure those are fleshed out enough to be interesting. Feel free to change, mix up, expand on anything.

>>85700
The introspection spirit journey is kind of a neat idea, but what does it do after that? It sounds more like an experience than a power. Unless it's ongoing. Or unless you meant it as a will ability where you force people to experience it?

Initally it was meant as basically a way to inform the Breaker what they might have dominion over if they haven't figured it out yet/powers they don't have yet that they can discover.
Like...Linda'd pick this and and definitely learn about any and all Non-Existant Perks she can use currently, as well as any bonuses still within reach (Some things might get closed off for whatever reason or new paths opened.)
A better example might be Michelle or Aria since we had that Avi choice between them.
Michelle NOT getting it would maybe lead to her seeing how she originally might progress, perhaps into discovery of how to 'swap' Levi out with another demon or temporaily break all of them into existance. Or Aria, if she got...Let's call it Princess, from that avi-egg, she might lose access to say, getting a matching set of armor for when she fights with Golem, in favor of perhaps a chess-set esque army break or something...
...I think effectively, what I'm going for here, is a choice of 'ultimate' that's thematic for the Original Break (breaker without influence), versus Actual Breaker (breaker with any/all influences they've had.)...

As far as your ideas go...Let's see.

mid-power abilities-I've a thought. While MUCH of a breaker's powerset varies, one idea was something that you get dependant on your type.
Weapon- freeswap arsenal-pretty much? You get to change/re-manifest your weapon for free now. Great no-matter which path you take between variable weaponry or empowered reality-bending equipment.
Form-Army Formation- Outnumbered in a fight by hordes of mooks? NO MORE! With this power, Form types can divide themselves into multiple lesser variations of their Forms with this power.
Disclaimer: This power can and will stack with previous powers to create additional fighters, do not expect to beat them at their own game if you lack such abilities.
Avatar-Avatar of Self- An Avatar Breaker with this ability can use it to temporarily turn themselves into an Avatar Foci. Note that this ability is one that can bypass the standard limitation on Breakers requiring a Foci to use.

...Was kind of hoping someone else'd post so I didn't have to do so again.
Anyhow, more feeding off >>85702 !
The passive debuffs I figure could go as follows-
Fumbling Foes/Strength Sapping/Will weakening-mechanically, every dice victory you get over your foe in the appropriate category grants them a temporary (until next roll) penalty to their corresponding stats.

Possibly some sort of opposing buff power as well could be a thing?

Rule changes...Hrrm.

Vengful Tally- Every time the Breaker uses Death Avoidance, gain +1 stat point to each of their stats (STR,FIN,WIL)

Weapon Repair- a countermeasure for Weapon Breakers with uber-powered manifestations, this ability is to drop 1BP in restoring any weapon to pristine condition.

Hrrrm...That's something I hadn't considered up till now.
Form types have no real reason to not have a single, uber-powered form, beyond worst-case scenarios of getting foci-looted-once transformed they STAY transformed, and unlike weapon types that might have to remanifest/reload weapons throughout a battle, they can potentially stay in their forms for long periods of time, as we saw with that snake-guy, Mike I think his name was? Or our current protagonist Rev.

As for Will&Utility...IDK. Frankly I don't think I know well enough the effects of the Break Sight ability or Normalcy- esque stuff to really say what else a Breaker might actually need.

>Was kind of hoping someone else'd post so I didn't have to do so again.
I was considering responding yesterday, but didn't get around to it before work rolled round. :p

Powers themed by type instead of stat is an interesting idea, although those particular suggestions might be too strong for semi-unique powers. Freeswap: No manifest cost / weapon swapping seems is a big game changer (removes a big consequence and tactical decision from combat, and pretty much lets any weapon type fight like Isaac, without his drawback). And as for multi-forms: it's been established multi-body stuff is complicated and has mental costs. For instance, we still have huge limitations on doing multi-body stuff with Twinda. (Although our spirit must be high enough now that Linda could perspective swap, right? Right?). Rev's zombie / ghost summons are Not Smart (and take a personal power slot), and Raphael's potential spirit 10 power would have been a multi-form thing.

Doesn't Avatar of Self functional just change an avatar type into a form type?

Weapon repair is sort of in the same vein of freeswap, but seems much more balanced. It doesn't do away with manifestation costs, or make changing trivial, but it means you can't bleed someone dry by breaking or damaging an expensive manifestation anymore. Seems good. (Might be useful for Cass? Her saw's not that expensive, but a few times she's had problems with enemies who could break it. Chris' sword is pretty expensive, but then again it's never broke, either. Linda... had guns busted a few times, but I'm not sure this would be worth it, for her).

Vengeful tally is marvelously simple and effective. The more you die, the stronger you get. (For a time limit, or single battle, or day). Reminds me of the Black Caldron. I like it. Though it might be strong enough to be a passive spirit 5 power.

And we need more things that interact with death avoidance in interesting ways.

Possible ideas there: maybe a passive that makes it when you get killed, you spawn further away (sniper / ranged fighter's friend. Spawn at range and retaliate). Or the inverse for melee fighters (respawn point blank on top of your killer). Or you could have a delayed respawn (to fake enemies out). Or maybe just slightly randomize your respawn location relative to point of death, sightly weighted towards beneficial (so reality is less likely to put you back in that garotte, or on top of Levi's head. Providing you don't fail the roll).

I think I should try to stat up somebody who's power is based on tapping into how many times his opponents have been killed. So he's ridiculously unfair against experienced / good breakers (since they've died a lot) but he's actually at a big disadvantage to newbies (and normals). So for him, it would be all about covering up that glaring weakness and picking his battles (and/or using allies to cover where he can't). Fighting him would mean figuring out how he worked, and actually having a team / organization with weaker members to employ right.

>form types that stay in a form
There are disadvantages to that, though. Quality of life issues, mostly.

Lots of good ideas. Always fun to see both what you can think up and what you think would be useable. I can easily say some of my own ideas are certainly more useful than others.

Regardless, I've found our resident Samurai's personal song, if anyone cares to take a gander.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2unb1Cf04EI

Surprisingly mellow for Chris. Reassuring, I guess. She's more at ease with her situation than anyone around her is.

>Will&Utility...IDK
I was mostly thinking will could use more options than "immune to mind control" and "cause fear". (Although I suppose modified versions of fear itself that inspire different emotions are pretty trivial). And uh, come to think of it, fear itself can provide a passive debuff, or at least it did the way Marc and Amelia used it.

Might also be worth looking at higher level powers that allow the knocking off of more than one BP at a time, a la battlefield instinct. Linda can't be the only person to have found a way to get around that. (Well... so did Marc / Levi).

Also, yeah, the challenging part is always to somehow balance powers that are both interesting and reality breaking but somehow reasonable for their power level (and deciding what makes sense as a power, personal power, a focus driven thing...) and/or with sufficient drawbacks. I admit I'm not sure everything I brainstormed is right in that respect.

And I also look forward to the idea of people who are Linda-level fucked up. Nonexistent and someone else / remember the fallen completely broke the normal power progression and type restrictions for her (and bypassed normal spirit slot limitations), and it almost remade or fundamentally alters her theme. (Or adds another one?). I have no idea where to start brainstorming or balancing breakers who might have found analogous ways to completely break the usual rules, but it's a cool idea.

Another less ambitious idea might be to consider doctor-analogues. Other people who could modify or edit foci. Or possibly, edit people / powers / abilities / themes. We've got cheating stuff like the ice gun and anti-breaking shotgun- there's no reason other people out there couldn't have found ways to unlock similarly unfair advantages.

The problem as far as Will is concerned is that...Mental influence is cool in theory, but in practice like this? It's very much a background-stat that we don't get to see. The most DIRECT use of it seems to have been Guy issuing orders and passing himself off as someone he isn't...
In effect, it's fast talking almost, something that TGchan tends to be good at to begin with and thus becomes rather difficult to make Will really stand out properly...
I feel like something that would help is seeing proper Will Builds in action more often-there's possibly Marc&Amelia as a Will build, as well as Guy, but...I feel like we're not familiar with Will for some reason or another. Maybe if Magic becomes a thing Will can be what it's based on, since Spirit is so handy for Breakers anyhow...Hrrrm...

>Mental influence is cool in theory, but in practice like this? It's very much a background-stat that we don't get to see
Well, yes! That's kind of why I wanted to see if I could come up for more applications for it. Although, as a counterexample- roll to dodge is still a background effect, but we can see the results, and we still found Evasion useful as an ability. And can sort of tell when the mitigation effect kicks in.

>The most DIRECT use of [will] seems to have been Guy issuing orders and passing himself off as someone he isn't
That, and pretty much every time Elizabeth uses her sight or control wire. And Marc pretty blatantly forced a conversation to go the way he wanted a few times (and dominated the Angel-avy, and threw around fear itself in that last fight). We pretty obviously failed a will roll with Raphael a few times (say, almost persuading him to back down from that dream fight when he was half dead, and then whups, no). Linda herself used force of will (Power word: STOP!) to trip up an opponent (notably, Chris) a few times. And then, Sidhe's shields are will based (will as magic directly, there).

But yeah, it's hard to 'see' it working in regular conversation unless we get an amazing success or failure. Circumstance and personality often seem like bigger factors. (Especially when allies trust us enough that we don't need to forcibly persuade them into things).

Guy's frequent normality-enhanced bluffs were pretty fun, I'll admit.

...Well thank you, I've FINALLY noticed a gripping spot for an idea.
Leader's Will- something something passive stat bonus to allies under your command equal to your will.
Figure of Terror- something something passive stat debuff to opponents equal to your will.

The primary thing that I spotted was that there wasn't a use of Will to enhance your teammates-if you can use it to demoralize and cower your foes you should be able to use it to raise morale right?

Been fiddling with the formatting on the wiki page, trying to break up the walls of stats so things are a little more legible. Better?

Does it make sense to the descriptions for stick personal powers in the abilities table, instead of in the stat blocks? I mean, I think it looks neater, but I'm not sure if it's as logically sound. (I could just have spirit abilities link to the table. Would that help?).

Still gotta decide what formatting actually makes sense for avatars, add a table for avy powers, and add Rev (and maybe reorganize the allies / others thing now that we have overlap between different character arcs).

>>85906
Everything makes sense. To me at least. Certainly easier to find spirit abilities, and everything looks quite a bit neater already.

>Sidhe
Some changes to Sidhe, as she is now technically her own person. For starters, stat changes!

Will- 10
Spirit - 4
BP - 38
Spirit Abilities:
Death Avoidance
Circle of Protection
Shield Burst
Prank
Whispering Wind- Allows Sidhe to project sounds across vast distances. She mainly uses it to attract people into her traps.
Bond of the Soul- ?

>Sidhe is now technically her own person
Oh. Wow. I totally missed the implications of that. I've been thinking of her as an autonomous avatar (powered by whatever Guy did, instead of a breaker). Which left potential weirdness for interaction with Michelle (would Beloved by Avatars affect an unaffiliated avy in some way?) and Linda (what happens if Remember the Fallen is applied to her? Do we tap into her original breaker, Guy, Jean, or something else?).

But personhood makes her an edge case in all kinds of weird ways. We've got a breaker who didn't start out as human (and/or a fragment of a person grew into a whole?). Who doesn't have a focus (or is their own focus? Kind of an avatar / form hybrid), and with a completely atypical power-progression. Quite possibly no ability to attune foci, no tramau (or a dual one? The one that created her, and what she went through when we confronted 'Emily'? ...only she probably can't remember that). I was wondering when we'd find another crazy edge case breaker- but we already have!

Really makes her interesting in light of the whole tear thing. Figuring out how she works might be another part to solving the puzzle of how one of them could become real.

Does she gain XP?

Yes. She hasn't yet simply because she hasn't participated in anything and then gotten to a "safe" place, which is usually when I dish out XP. Something like allowing your mind and existence to properly take in what just happened and the like. Or something... eh, it's just easier on me.

Regardless, you are right in saying that Sidhe will not be following normal skill progressions in any way. She will only ever have the one stat out of the three, will not gain any of the normal progression of spirit abilities, and will generally continue to be a support role only. Of course, as she gets stronger, I'm planning on having her pull some fairly crazy things, but that is, of course, assuming she actually gets any stronger.

Erin Charlie Dales (Form-type)
Strength-3,Finesse-2, Will-1
Foci:horsehair bracelet (Centaur)

Trauma: It really hurts, losing your best friend, yanno? Like charles was the best. He had my back always, and it sucked when he tripped and broke his leg. Horse can't live on a broken leg...And nobody seemed to get it! They just would say things like "You know he was just a horse right?". Sheesh...

STR-8(-5)
FIN-4(-2)
WIL-6(-5)
BP-26 (-2)
SPR-5 (-15)
Active Break
Break Sight
Weight Null
Mount&Rider: So like, If someone rides me while I'm in my forms, I can give them one of three, umm, powerup things? Like they can get a horn, and blowing it makes our friends faster for a while, or they can get a banner, which makes those friends stronger, but sorta not as much stronger as they'd get faster? Oh, and both of those are based off my, uhh, willpower or something?
Foci: Horsehair Bracelet. (Centaur form)
(-1) additional form (Horse form)

Something something support form-type attempt.

Since Rev mentioned her recently, I got to thinking about Nicole and her powerset.

We know her gloves are literal force multipliers. They let her hit harder than she could otherwise. Sufficiently powerful strikes require charge time (mostly seen when she has to stop before punching through a wall). There's also an implied ability to pull her punches, lessening the force applied, so she can KO normals without death or serious injury (mechanically, maybe the effective weakening is accomplished by diverting force to charging, or the other hand?).

Now, her boots are supposed to function as the opposite of her gloves. How this affected her personal power was laid out explicitly (she can blatantly become an unstoppable force or immovable object) but what are the implications in a more normal use? If the gloves allow her to control the force she exerts on objects, the boots should be for modulating the forces applied to her (or at least, to the boots). Which would mean they're less about letting her kick harder, and more about how they let her stand.

The simplest application is a weaker version of her personal power. She can dissipate blows, absorb incoming force so she's not knocked down, knocked back, or knocked around (assuming she has footing). She can effectively tank hits she wouldn't otherwise be able to (to an extent. She doesn't have any additional durability without activating her personal power. Hits that can splatter her are probably still going to).

The more interestingly, I would think they would let her regulate friction. If the boots can control forces acting on them, Nicole should be able to control how much grip she has. If we held a Nicole v Linda rematch, using the ice gun to try and mess up her footing would be a waste of time. Properly exploited, this would provide a ridiculous degree of control over the space she fights in, and her own movements. Forget wall running, Nicole should be able to stand on walls, and damn near anything else.

Even more abusive than friction, if we can apply force mitigation to the force of gravity of the earth on Nicole she would gain a huge movement and attack advantage (crank down for fast movement and acceleration, crank up for harder hits). Could also allow standing or movement off of things that would never otherwise support her weight. (Standing on twigs, water-walking?).

Then there's the possibility of interplay between the items. Can force absorbed with the boots be used to charge the gloves? Can the glove charge be used to power the boots?

Of course, the vague part is just how much you can get away with before you cross the line from normal use to having to spend BP on an active break, or need to activate her personal power.

Finally done playing wiki formatting, I think, and finally added Sidhe and Rev. Not sure if I'm happy with the avatar abilities table but whatever.

So I thought I'd finally contribute some breaker ideas. Probably not going to stat them as out detailed as Z does it, more of a brainstorming thing. And uh, mostly more of the fucked up variety.

>bug guy
A form type, who turns into a swarm of bugs.

He should be primarily will based. We've discussed before powers with serious mental consequences- I would think splitting your mind into hundreds to thousands or bodies and trying to coordinate them while dealing with an alien set of senses would qualify, big time. The biggest hurdle for this guy is keeping it together during a fight. Also, communication (both ways) and perception is kind of difficult while transformed. (Potentially making it hard to work with a group, but he would probably be better off if he could).

Mechanically, speed and str would be proportional to size of the current form, which scales with power (upgrades / spirit) as he grows. He'd need a power to 'reload' the swarm, I think. Since you can't count on death avoidance to kick in if, say, only half the bugs are dead. Also opens up options of adapting mid fight and loading different kinds of bugs as 'ammunition'.

While in swarm mode, he's functionally a hive intelligence. Numbers of bugs become an issue- too few, and he's not got enough to work with, and it gets hard to think, too many and he starts to lose himself, and control. I'm thinking the distributed intelligence thing also makes him weirdly immune to and vulnerable to different mental attacks. For instance, a normal control wire in a bug? Congrats, you suborned a single bug. But something that could hit his mind directly? It's kind of hanging out there, right in the open, and already taxed controlling the form.

Injury should probably be psychological. Rather than literally doing something with bugs, I'd think some kind of past mental breakdown. A complete loss of self, fragmentation, that he spent years recovering from after. Which is now the exact thing he has to face and fight again every time he goes swarm, but the only thing that lets him contribute.

Spirit powers-wise, I'd say fear itself is a must. (Swarm of bugs for crying out loud). Warped reality might interact interesting with his powers, and/or active break could make him more versatile, to do the things bugs can't. (And it's a lot harder to stop him breaking. If the swarm spreads out, you effectively can't target / kill him as he makes hostile breaks).

>Power up
I'm thinking a breaker who's power is something like halfway between the Doctor's foci manipulation and Division 7's artificial breaker inducing.

Basically, someone who's power is enhancing normals, temporarily making them into pseudo-breakers. People he's worked with or dosed longer get better results over time. Potentially possible his subjects could actually end up breaking (due to the situations they're put in) or maybe the process actually blocks or drains what they'd need to break.

There should definitely be a cost to the target of this. Not sure how dark we'd want to go, but it shouldn't be good to do this to people. Maybe there's a recover time. Or it's addictive. Or it slowly chips away at something inside of you it shouldn't. (If we want to go really dark- it slowly consumes the normal's thread. Until it kills them and the poof out of existence. So he doesn't even know he's killing them).

The easy choice would be to make him a weird tool variant weapon type. Although, he could also worked as kind of a really fucked up ethereal avatar type. (Ie, manifests some kind of freaky parasitic spirit thing inside people to power them up. Would have to allow multiple manifestations at once too, which is really unusual for an avy).

Injury would be psychological. I think a profound betrayal of trust. Someone he had absolute faith in turned on him. Which is why his whole thing ends up with him being forced to put trust in others, and/or recruit a group into putting trust in him.

Several different ways to play it, personality wise. We could go with a complete bastard manipulator, remorselessly using people utterly dependent on him for power. He could be more well meaning, but ignorant of the real costs. Or trying to balance / mitigate the dangerous costs of using his power while working towards a goal he thinks is worth it. Obviously could work as a leader, or he could be picked up early on by someone else, used for their ends, since he can't really fend for himself.

Interestingly, could work as say, part of a normal resistance group. (People, frustrated and afraid, finding a way to stand up to the big bad breakers). Not sure if the fixers would see him as an abomination (he's making breakers!), or a step towards something better than themselves (breakers who can switch off). D7 and basically every evil warlord group would be glad to use him, I'm sure.

...may fall into the "there's no way to balance this" and "this don't fit with the story" categories, but eh.

Stats: will all the way.

Abilities: normality and active break probably fit. And a variant of spirit sight, so he can see the potential in non-breakers before enhancing them.

>failed precog / space cadet antitheses
I'm thinking start with some kind of weapon-type precog. Another gimmick, in a different vein from Elizabeth (sight, thread) or Jacob ('post'-cog, memory). Only she refuses the call. Instead of focusing on her core power, she turns her back on her potential and picks up a weapon or two, and ends up using her abilities to support a more normal fighting style.

Think a watered down version of Lindabeth versus Casey. Someone using perception or precognition to guide short-term tactical decisions. (Less 'this is the exact action to take to win, execute' and more 'this is what I should do' and 'man, this makes dodging and hitting easier').

The kind of person Sonia would disprove of. The epitome of using breaking to get around needing actual skill. Worse than the usual breaker, since she has an additional crutch to lean on (and that crutch kind of keeps her from learning). Her abilities gave her a huge edge early on, but further up the power curve, she's annoyed to discover her fighting style doesn't net anywhere near as big an advantage as it once did.

A weakness is she doesn't appreciate how much she's being lead. She lacks the scope to see the big picture, or dead ends coming.

Injury should be physiological. I'm thinking the fruit of knowledge, here. She learned something she wished she never did. Information she never wanted that destroyed some part of her life. Pandora's box once opened, and know held tight shut, hope trapped inside.

Theme is a kind of... missed potential. Not that she necessarily made the conscious choice to reject what she could have been. It was just... easier to turn away and hit something. It's been a common theme with several of our characters that they faced what broke them and came out stronger for it. The idea here is someone who looked away.

Philosophically, she's probably be vulnerable to recruit by the fixers, or the less willing to unite groups, since her whole thing is kind of about running away from herself, or what is. Not suicidal though- early discovery of the fixer endgame would probably send her into a panic. Definitely a follower though, not a leader.

Basically fucked against Linda, a tear, or anything her precog wouldn't work on.

Really fucked if she ever crosses paths with Elizabeth, since Liz is basically everything she's afraid of in herself (whether she admits or knows it), and in a unique position to utterly destroy her with fear itself. And Liz probably won't be happy with what she sees.

stats: finesse / will build. Either even, or finesse passing will.

abilities: probably unbroken will (fear itself would be too 'active', evasion redundant). Probably sight powers to aid tactical decisions.

weapons: ???, handgun of some kind, baton (melee and ranged options, and a precog-guided blunt weapon cheats more against breakers than an edged one)

>tl;dr
I waste way too many words making up cannon fodder for us to maybe shoot at one day.

>tl;dr tl;dr
I break that resolution I had about trying to keep my post size manageable.

>Wallo ideas

>bug guy
...I wanna call this guy Hive. Egotistical, perhaps, but Hive just feels too fitting.
..Anyhow, this has some interesting ideas too it. The idea of him being say, a fly on the wall for spying IS There, but I can see issues with remembering which bug is the one in the room as opposed to with the rest of the swarm/issues with mentally commanding them at a distance/staying together if the swarm splits up.
Most interesting feature is the powers this guy could have, to me.

>Breaker Maker
XDDDD, but yeah, this could go any number of ways. One idea I like, backstory-wise, is some sort of Russian Farmer-ish dude who came to America and well...Things did not go well. Maybe the 'betrayal' can be a friend who convinced him to move to America in a way that burnt the bridge back home, only for that friend to ditch him. Or better yet (Especially if I'm right about my theory) McCarthy orchestrates this, and successfully predicts that this guy becomes a breaker and now is forced to empower D7 agents...
Ooooh, that might be bad not just from a backstory viewpoint but a 'how are we gonna fight this' viewpoint. But yeah, story/personality was my thoughts here.

>Failed precog.
...This might sound weird but I think I can modify this.
Pandora's Box opened is what did it, what about making her a Cat-girl form-type?
The idea being that to add onto the 'secret that ruined everything' there's an additional element of 'be careful what you wish for/curiousity killed the cat' which leads into the next thing.
Some sort of 'nine tries' precog, where she gets to basically try out what works and what doesn't eight times and on the ninth she actually has to live with the choices she's made. Or maybe it activates when she would die, leaving her a somewhat sloppy fighter until something that would kill her happens.
Also serves as making her less obviously someone to throw Liz, Linda or Jean at, since there'd be a less obvious connection between her 'injury' and the overall theme of her powers.

I actually was toying with the concept of some sort of Cat-girl Breaker, but the nine-lives concept for a breaker power was a pain.
It either basically made her nigh-unkillable unless Linda was fighting her (nine lives per BP respawn, holy cripes!) Or was some sort of weird splitting thing (nine lives, but 1/9th the power/suddenly, 9 of her fighting as a team/as one mind) But none of it really felt like good ideas.
Might still try and make a 'Copycat' Cat-girl idea though it's iffy given that we've seen others with possibly simmilar powers.

We already have a Hive in Psychic Space Clones versus Space Bugs Quest. No duplicate names! (I do not actually care what name his group or enemies end up calling him by. Too on the nose and unusual for a birth name, though).

The espionage option you bring up is interesting. I suppose it would involve using as small a swarm as he could without impact intelligence, and spreading out or concealing most of them while using one or few as a scout? But yeah, as I imagined him, going fly on the wall wouldn't be easy. Bugs don't hear or see the same as we do (making spying hard without practice, or the right bug), the mental effects would make staying in form for long term surveillance hard, and yeah, focusing on one bug isn't supposed to be his thing. Could be doable though, in theory.

More generally, the idea of form types who can become something innocuous and spy is a good one. In theory, it even gives normality cloak a purpose, as it would allow you to infiltrate breaker groups without a floating number giving you away.

I'm kicking myself for missing the obvious "breaker maker" rhyme. But yeah, the idea here is I was trying to come up with breakers / powers who would be on a similar utility level to the Doc. Kind of a tricky prospect to come up with something similar, but not overpowered.

I don't like making the precog a form type because of the whole missed potential theme. It's a lot easier for a weapon type to make their own path than a form type. Lots of weapons to choose from, and you can use more than one at a time. You just have to tune them and increase the 'wrong' stats. Forms are rarer and you have to use one at a time. If she's still turning into a cat and using luck or 9-life based powers to fight with, she's still doing what her powers 'wants', which isn't what I was going for. She's supposed to be a would-be seer who looked away and ended up a fighter. (Albeit a cheating magic fighter).

That said, I wholeheartedly support a catgirl form of some kind showing up at some point. I think I've even suggested it myself, before! (...as if Linda isn't bothered by enough people hitting on her).

If you want to balance your suggested nine lives catgirl mechanic, I'd go for a modified death avoidance (or an ability that enhances it). Say, nine times per (day, week, fight, whatever), when you die, you don't just re-spawn. You can (choose to?) get sent back in time a few minutes so you can try to avoid your death and/or screw over what killed you. But it still costs BP as dying would. A cap makes it less abusable, and at best, you're still trading kill for kill, BP for BP. But as an advantage- your opponent wouldn't be able to tell he was getting kills in, or even costing you BP (especially if you had normality cloak). That's a big moral hit, and goes to psychological warfare. Also, it makes it very hard to chain kill you (and possibly lets you chain or disable an opponent). Could also open up suicide to go back and save a friend emergency moves.

Biggest problem, narrative-wise, is it's only interesting if the PC has this power. If any enemy were to use it, the reader wouldn't even be able to tell it was being used! (Well, unless we were playing as Elizabeth or Jacob, or supported by one of them, or had View the Weave active).

>Hard to defy potential with form
Hrrm... Hey!
I've got an idea, what if her original foci manifestation was a a scrying mirror, that she then turned into a shield, with the mirror facing outwards for Will-attacks while she bashes them with another weapon or something (sword&shield?)
Sound like what you were going for?

Pfff. Haha, using a scrying item into a shield-bash would be a pretty literal way of wasting potential.

Although I was really thinking of just doing it the way Cass did it. Just tune and use a different weapon as your 'main' weapon (chainsaw instead of knives). Opponents wouldn't even know she had a will based tool-focus helping her in a fight unless they were particularly sensitive to that kind of thing.

Changing what her powers do (repurposing her original manifestation / skillset to suit her new path) would take something like what Cass went through in Havers, I think. An epiphany, where the breaker faces their inner demons, and chooses their own path. Hypothetically, if precog-girl faced her demons, she could wake up to what she's been missing and embrace her potential. Or she could say fuck it, and find the strength to make her own path, and change herself- stop being held back. (So a magic shield or equivalent would be an late or endgame development for her).

...not something I expect a mook to go through before being dropped into the narrative as cannon fodder, though.

Right now she's supposed to be like... Superman using eye-beams to engrave nameplates. Yes, that's something you can technically do to earn a living with that power, but man is it not living up to what the potential is.

>scrying mirror
Reminds me that we never actually got to see what mirror-girl's powers did last arc, when we were hunting Holiday. Maybe she'll show up again, get drawn into our growing group somewhere now that she and her boyfriend lost their last one.

Hrrrm...
So here's something that's a thought.
IDK if I've said this before, but I think McCarthy is based upon Fear and Paranoia.
There's a bunch of reasons why I think this, one being his name, as a referance to McCarthism I think it was called? Basically, it was a time you had to prove you weren't a communist should someone accuse you of it, like a witch hunt.
And then from there, look at his moves.
He had 23, an implacable killer.
He got into and heads D7, which grants him the ability to cause widespread chaos:
And look at how he outed the Breakers-as monsters in human form, effectively saying 'trust D7, and no one else.'
It also plays into his power to detect use of his name I think, only by working off his own paranoia rather than other people's fear.
The big problem, is he's not going to keep going for bigger and bigger parties like holiday, he's going for the whole hog right now, so it's going to be extremely important we find an answer to tears sooner or later.

Yeah. He's got kind of a... pregnant name, especially considering in the role he's in. It's a pretty good guess that his game is to stir the pot, and built something with a witch-hunt the same way Holiday built his party. Just on a much bigger scale and focused on different emotions slash a different facet of human experience.

Part of me wonders if he named himself on purpose, in universe (although that would depend on having a Senator McCarthy and a red scare to name himself after in this alternate history). There's also the fact that Agent McCarthy implied he's been active since at least the forties, so I've been wondered if he might have orchestrated McCarthyism himself, back in the day.

Although I'm not entirely convinced he's not up to something bigger than building up something big to feed on. He's had a lot of time to plan, and he has to have seen lesser tears try that approach and fail, over and over.

... the life out of me.

Much fun as it is to see family and friends again, doesn't leave much time for me to do any writing of any kind. Or really much of anything, now that I think about it.

Regardless, as has become customary, I'm alive again. No hot pokers necessary this time.

Hopefully nothing else pops up to steal my time again.

le sigh...

Oh, and fun ideas are fun.

I really do like the idea of someone who is anti-thesis to Elizabeth. In a more literal sense than Jacob or whatever I named him... I think that's right.

Also, been toying around with some other fun ideas, like how I'm going to work in some other "friend" quests and such... companion quests? Whatever, I'll figure it out.

Also, I've started to put together the "legal" stuff that was asked for ages ago, we'll see how well that goes though, since I'm no lawyer by any stretch of the imagination.