Dr Archeville

My first roll for Belphegor on this board, it's against someone using a fear effect on him, and I roll a one! Thank goodness (badness?) for Hero (Villain) Points. I'm assuming Belphegor (at the least) was within 25 feet of the guy in the first place.

The rod bounced off the man's head with seemingly no effect. From this distance -- the two were about 30 feet away, with a few slot machines and blackjack tables 10 feet from the wall forming a "corridor" between them and the two would-be robbers -- Ghost could just see the brief flash of energy indicative of a non-obvious force field. Nice trick, Ghost heard in his head. I would show you one of mine, but that'd be too easy. The whole time the man in black didn't move, but now the black man began running towards Ghost, leaping up into a flying kick which solidly connects. The demon actually paused... Holy crap!, he thought, I... I can't... I wi-wi-wiLL NOT BE COWED BY SOME GREY-HAIRED MORTAL!!! ... and then laughed. "Who said anything about compassion or care? I'm talking about basic business sense: do you want these patrons to know you don't care at all about their well-being? Sure, many of them probably sense that already, on some level, but to hear it actually spoken out loud... well, that can't do well for the bottom line, can it? Hard to get repeat customers if they know the security here is willing to shoot through them to get at any robbers, and equally hard to draw new customers if it's known that they will be considered as expendable as the card tables should trouble come 'round. So, which of the Seven hold the most sway over you and your bosses? Greed? Pride? Or Wrath?" Gotta play this smart -- some of these folks may actually prefer to be shot at by these guys than torn apart by a demon. Though I may take out this one I'm holding anyway, his fake jewelry is an eyesore. The demon looked about -- as subtly as he could, trying to move just his eyes and not his head -- and set his gaze on a woman cowering closer to the guards than to his side. He projected feelings of intense fear into her, making her know that no matter who here won this fight, she and all the other patrons would die. As he did, some of his internal fire seemed to die out, though some may see this as shadows gathering about him. [[ Using Emotion Control 7 on random woman, which means 'switching off' the Impervious on his Protection and Penetrating & Incurable for his Strike. ]]

No, the silence is a "no Ref has yet gotten to it" I'll get on that. In my opinion, Life Control is the better descriptor -- he can't affect dead things, right? Or undead things, like zombies, right? (At least, not without some Extra Effort.) Or androids or robots or mannequins?

GR's Wild Cards .pdf recently came out. I got it and have skimmed over it. There're some interesting ideas in there, though as some at the ATT have pointed out, some of the char stats seem a tad off from what even I remember. (Though I've not read any of the books in probably a decade, something I plan to remedy in the near future.)

Weird, I was sure I'd started a thread on this... This premiered in Central and South America last week. The ep was on YouTube (in Spanish) for a short while, but was soon yanked. From Variety Official trailer. Liberation Entertainment announced that the first DVD will be released on November 3rd in the United Kingdom. No word on an American release. IMDB page w/ voice cast.

Sorry 'bout my absence, some shiny things distracted me You list some things as Sirius (like some feats and his Magic). Am I correct in thinking that those only apply to his human form? I.e., does each form have Defensive Roll 1 and Dodge Focus 1, or does his human form have Defensive Roll 1 and Dodge Focus 1 and his fox form have Defensive Roll 2 and Dodge Focus 2?

I've edited the sheet to bring it more in line to the standard we're trying to maintain here. I changed one thing: the save for his Mimic. Since a Resisted Mimic has a Will save as its default, the base is 10 + Modifier. Changing it to a Toughness save doesn't alter that base (just like changing things from a Toughness save to something else doesn't alter the base 15+mod Toughness save), so it's a DC 20 (10+10) Toughness save, not 25 (15+10). Also, Long Range-only Teleports cannot have the Easy power feat. Is the Mimic supposed to be all powers (4pp/rank), or all traits (5pp/rank)? It says all powers, but if so, you've still got 10 more points to spend. (You could knock off two ranks of Device and use those 8pp for some saves.) The Normal Identity drawback applies to all powers, not just some.

No prob, I know how frustrating 'net outages can be.

Nyrath, the other three are headed SE. What's Mongrel Angel doing?

Thevshi PMed me some time back telling me she & her son were in a nasty car accident. They're okay, but the car was totaled, and the insurance folks are proving troublesome. :(

Weird: how did I miss this? Doc may well be interested in this. It's not the sort of thing he normally bends his intellect to, but changes of pace can be good ;)

Weird: how did I miss that thread? Anyway, the reception's started ;)

7 June 2008 (Sunday) What is magic? Is there such a thing as magic? The mystical, the paranormal, the supernatural? In my opinion, no. There are merely things which we cannot as yet explain due to having insufficiently advanced understanding of the universe, or by being misled by the wielders of those effects. Take the simple Taser, initially developed in 1969 and first built five years later. Today they're an exceedingly common weapon. But if one were to go back in time and show a Taser to the Ancient Greeks, would they realize it for what it is, or would they think the user was Zeus come to punish them with his thunderbolts? Though I have yet to have an opportunity to study any "magic items," I am certain that they all operate on the same scientific principles that all other technology operates on, and they are most likely extraterrestrial or otherdimensional in origin. Metahuman/Mutant powers (I've still not found a term I prefer) can similarly fall into the "misunderstood by the superstitious" category. If someone with Johnny Rocket's or Bolt's powers lived in Ancient Greek times, they would likely be seen as gods to the 'ordinary mortals,' especially if metahumans/mutants are far rarer than they are today. The origins of many of the world's myths can likely be traced to the actions and deeds of a handful of superpowered individuals, passed down through the ages (and growing with each telling, as tales tend to do), or by individuals who intentionally misrepresented themselves as deities. Much the same goes for "monsters." Did a Welsh mutant with the power to shrink and grow beget the legend of the spriggan? Is Captain Wonder a mutant who had his latent powers activated by another mutant energy manipulator who told him it was magic? Does Keira tap into some "reverse" universe where the Laws of Physics are reverse from what operate in this one, where darkness and cold are carried by particles/waves instead of being the absence of them? Earlier journal entries mention a "Vampire Virus," and other "communicable" monsters like Lycanthropes and Ghouls likely arose from similar contagions. But what of the "spellcasters," the ones who do amazing feats with a chant and a gesture? My theory is that they all share a common mutation -- an unusually common one, at that -- which at its base level allows them to generate and manipulate all four quantum forces (electromagnetic energy, gravity, and the strong and weak nuclear forces). As with most types of energy manipulators, proper practice and training allows them to use this power for a wide range of effects. In their case, though, the training comes not just from friendly allies but also from "spellbooks," which are at their core a series of mental exercises that put a person in the "right frame of mind" to use their power for a given effect. Of course, these are all couched in densely symbolic images and archaic jargon, and being passed on through the years and being translated and re-translated and having assorted notes and marginalia added just further muddy it, but the fact that they do work indicates that there's something right in them. As for the gesturing and incanting, those are likely psychosomatic limitations placed by their elders, who worked under them because that's how their elders did it, and so on, stretching back to the first "spellcasters" who associated certain words and gestures with their "spells" because they just happened to be position that way and uttered that string of words when the effect they were trying for went off. There is one noticeable flaw in this theory: on the few "magic users" I've had violent encounters with, none of my mutation-neutralizing devices worked on them. This does not necessarily mean my theory is flawed: an electromagnetic pulse cannot take out all technological devices, so I may just need to research new methods of neutralizing mutations.

Merry Birfday! :monkey: :monkey: :monkey:

Under the description of the No Save extra in UP, it says Immunity trumps No SAve powers. I... am not sure. Strictly by the rules, yes, since bruises & so on impose a penalty on the Toughness save against further damage. However, I could see a case for a house rule where damage from non-Toughness save effects (like Mental Blast or an Alt Save/Fortitude Damage effect) could impose a similar penalty on that type of save, at least in regards to Damage effects calling for that save.

Fair enough. Hope the transition goes as smoothly as possible :)

Oh, I agree 110%! Heck, I've been playing different versions of Dr. Archeville -- all with "he's super-super-smart" as a core concept, though other aspects may differ (two were gadgeteers, one was a cyborg, one had a battlesuit, one had a body made of nanites, one was a being of pure mental energy, two became robots [one kept his mind, the other version lost it and became Iron Giant-esque], and one or two others I'm probably forgetting) -- for a little over a decade, and I still have problems with it at times!

Since my last post (almost five months ago!), I have seen the following from Netflix: Appleseed (2004) Awakenings Babylon 5: Lost Tales Batman: Gotham Knight Black Sheep Colossus: the Forbin Project The Court Jester Dead Meat Diary of the Dead Dogma Evan Almighty Fellowship of the Dice The Forever Dead Gamers Grindhouse: Planet Terror I Am Legend I'm Not There Isolation Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Jumper Mallrats: 10th Anniversary Edition MST3K: The Brain That Wouldn't Die MST3K: The Clonus Horror MST3K: Killer Shrews MST3K: Manos: Hands of Fate MST3K: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians No Country For Old Men Super Size Me Teeth Transformers The Tuxedo The Truman Show Untraceable Zombie Honeymoon

I recently re-read The Zombie Survival Guide, then read World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. Fun, fun stuff. ;)

Groovy. I'll give Heritage until Friday or Saturday to post for Grim before I move ahead.

Invisible Castle's back up Fighter-Type Guy -- Looks like Dee Jay from the Street Fighter games Tall Thin Man -- Looks like Tim Burton, but with very neatly slicked-back hair.

You don't want to do that, Ghost heard. At first he thought it was someone whispering -- though not Whisper, the voice was definitely different -- but turning he saw no one, at least no one near him. You really don't want to do that. You should just go home, forget about this. Scanning the place more carefully, he saw two men standing near a set of curtains (likely concealing a secret door). Both were looking his way, though one stared intently while the other looked mostly at him, looking away now and again to look at the others. The intently staring one was a tall, thin pale fella, in an expensive all-black suit; the other was a well-toned black man with short dreadlocks and simple loose-fitting clothes. The demon looked to Capricia, then back to the three men. "Pfah, a parlor trick! The real question is, how far are you willing to go with it?" The demon scooped up the cowboy and held him like a human shield, one taloned hand pinning his arms behind him and the other at the man's throat. "Willing to risk harming this man to get to me? Willing to risk me doing... unspeakable things to him, in front of you all, unless you allow us to do as we wish?"

I think part of it may also be that -- in my experience, at least -- "brainy" characters aren't very popular. Most folks tend to play characters with immediately obvious powers: Blast, Enhanced/Super-Strength, Force Field/Protection, etc. Even players of characters who are very intelligent, like the Battlesuit or Gadgeteers, tend to focus on the flashier aspects of what they can do -- the powers of their armor, of their devices -- and less on how they do it. Even folks who play Mentalists, which could be one of the most subtle of archetypes, tend to go for outright Mind Control and Mind Reading (or Mental Blasting), if not the very blatant Telekinesis. Even in the comics, some of the smartest folks -- Doctor Doom, Doctor Pym, the Mandarin, Reed Richards, the Wizard -- are known more for their powers and gear than for their thinking ability. (Reed may go on about how his mind is his greatest asset, but most everyone focuses on either his stretching or what he can make at any given moment.) Though it seems DC's a bit better at this: Batman, Brainiac-5 and Lex Luthor have all shown what thorough planning and thinking can do (though even Luthor's worn a battlesuit, and at one point the writers focused as much if not more on Brainy's force fields). There are, of course, two very basic reasons why this is so. A) Comics are a very visual medium, and it's a bit easier to show the fruits of one's intellect rather than the intellect itself. Most comics tend not to change the world around too much, in part so readers can still on some level identify with it, which means many of the things a super-genius could/should be able to do don't/won't happen. That's one reason Doktor Archeville doesn't carry any weapons: I want to play up his super-intelligence, focus on and play up his ability to think his way out of things and make do with what's available. It's also why I sink points into skills that will probably never have any real in-game benefit (like Knowledge [behavioral sciences] and Knowledge [earth sciences], skills almost never used), because they fit the concept.

For what seemed like an eternity, the room was filled with buzzings and murmurs and half-whispers, but no one spoke in a loud or clear voice. Eventually, though, someone did stand, a well-built man with close-cropped blonde hair who seemed more at home in a gym than in a lecture hall. "Yeah, hi, er, Doc," he stammered a bit at first, "is there any truth to the rumors that you're joining the Freedom League?" The buzzings and murmurs roughly tripled in intensity, but swiftly fell down to less than half their original volume. Archeville chuckled, “dat is a gut question, ja, und von I seem to be asked a lot lately. Am I joining de Freedom League? Vell... let's say 'no,' I am not joining de League, but I am trying to make meinself available to dem for... consultations und collaborations. Though I am still vaiting for Daedalus to return mein calls!” “Speaking of de Greek inventor, I haff been lead to believe dat dere vill be a blend of both Greek und German delicacies from de caterers." He looked back to Voldman and the other professors and alums seated behind him. Voldman checked his watch, then rose, and the others followed. “Und so, I say -- if I may be de von to close dis lecture, Professor Voldman -- sprichen was wahr ist, issen was gar ist, und trinken was klar ist: 'speak what is true, eat what's been well cooked, and drink what's available'!” Archeville and the other professors and alumni headed outside, soon followed by many of the attendees. The large tree-lined court behind the Bernanke Center was filed with tables, both low ones to sit at and taller one for standing by. Along the middle were two long tables filled with food, each dish accompanied by a small sign indicating exactly what it was. The right table was filled with assorted Greek dishes, heavy on vegetables and cheeses, but with a fair amount of lamb and chicken; the far end held several pastries, some delicate, all sweet. The left table held German foods, breads and sausages of all types, a few hearty vegetable stews and assorted dumplings, and a couple of fish dishes. “What the?!” Voldman blurted out, clearly surprised at the spread. “Ah, I do apologize, professor, I should haff told you earlier,” Archeville said with a sly grin. “You see, I learned dat de original plan vas to just haff some small appetizers, nutzing very spectacular. But since dis vas my first time back on campus, I vanted to make it somevhat... memorable. So I contacted a few caterers and arranged for all of dis, out of mein own pocket. Unfortunately, campus policy prevented me from bringing in any alcoholic beverages, but dere are plenty of coffees und teas available at de end of de line. Plus, it's supper time, so vhy not give de people a full supper?!”

Invisible Castle's back up!