trollthumper

APPROVED

I think you put 10 PP into Super-Senses, not 8: -Uncanny Dodge (Mental) [1 PP] -Mental Awareness 2 [2 PP] -Danger Sense (Mental) [1 PP] -Precognition [4 PP] - Uncontrolled [1 PP] = 3 PP -Postcognition [4 PP] - Uncontrolled [1 PP] = 3 PP So, 10 PP. You'll need to juggle some points there, but otherwise, looks good.

I am quite down for both of these. But for Your Right to Vote, would the Vignette be centered around the skullduggery, false flags, and accusations of Khanate interference that come with the Lor election? Also, an idea I've had in mind: Icons Your hero is a role model. Your hero is an example. Your hero is a champion for justice. Your hero is also an icon. The causes they embody, the costume they adopt, the professions/groups they belong to, their subculture, their race, their faith, their orientation - people stand up and notice your heroes for reasons beyond their deeds, but which their deeds certainly color and reflect. How has your hero been taken up as an icon by others? What does he or she represent to others? How does he or she feel about this? (This whole Vignette came from the idea of Temperance turning on the latest Solange video, seeing someone wearing a recreation of her Venetian carnivale-style ice mask, and letting out the world's most graceful, controlled spit take.)

APPROVED

-Please label your Defense in the Defense tab. You have a +6 base and a +7 from Dodge Focus, for a +13 total, but I'm only seeing the +6. -Please label your Trade-Offs as well, at the top of the sheet. As it stands, I can't tell that you're +3 DEF/-3 TOU shifted until I am halfway through your sheet. -Your ATT caps... if I'm reading this correctly, you're supposed to have a +13 to Melee attacks, which is +6 base, +4 from Plant Control, +3 from Attack Focus (Melee) (BTW, you should really designate whether that Feat is meant for Melee or Ranged, just to make it easier on everyone). But that means you have a Blast that is a +6 DMG on a +10 ATT, averaging out to +8, putting it under caps. In fact, your other ranged attacks (Snare +8, Paralyze +8) likewise average out to +9 under this rubric, also putting them under cap. And then you also have a Strike that's +8 DMG on a +13 ATT... which averages out to +10.5, and thus breaks caps for a PL10 character. -"Paralyze 8 (Spore Swarm, Effect: Dazzle 4)) 20/20" What is this supposed to mean? Do you mean that the Paralyze 8 has a Dazzle 4 linked to it? If so, what sense is the Dazzle meant to affect? -In fact, your Snare also has a Drain Toughness attached to it. Drain is, by default, a Touch Attack, whereas Snare is, by default, a Ranged Attack. To add Drain to a Snare, you would need to also buy up Range (Ranged) as an Extra for the Drain.

"That's the thing," Javeen said, turning towards Jessie. "We don't know. It's a fairly simple matter of temporal physics - change what was, create a fork from the prime timeline. But, as you might have seen, this isn't a simple matter of temporal physics. The events that caused this colony to form are themselves a predestination paradox, and that paradox has been leaking out in strange ways for centuries. 'Cutting the Gordian knot', as our ancestors used to say, could cause the whole thing to unravel --" Javeen was interrupted by Bliss's tirade. The two Lor-hybrids fell silent in the face of the Xuli'Ha's insults; to Bliss's eyes, it seemed like some sort of light was going out in Velek's eyes. Cavalier moved to intercept her. "They are people," he hissed. "Not worms. And you have plenty of reason to be pissed off, but if you want to go talking about just cutting people down because they get in your way, I will not hesitate to put you in the ground myself." He lowered his arms. "But... you're free to make your choice. Go on. If they're right, it won't matter. If they're wrong... hey. You get away. You do what I'm pretty sure every one of us has thought about since we touched down. We'll find out, one way or another." Away from the conflict, Sea Devil heard a message over her radio band. "Things have destabilized somewhat faster than I'd hoped. When this is over and the night has fallen, come to the clearing in the forest. There, we will discuss how we can possibly cut this knot without destroying the ropes."

Well. This was different. Temperance could see the spirit accompanying the woman in the biker jacket... and it seemed some of the essence of spirits licked off of her as well. Was she like her? Another child of the spirit courts? That's something to dig into another time. Right now, deal with weird cultist stuff. "My friend has the right of it," she said. "You can tell us what you know, or... well, I assume the local plants aren't going to happy with you." She gestured to the Venus fly trap that has blossomed to life beneath the bleeding man's hand. "Would you like to feed them? I imagine it'd go a bit faster than the usual way..." "We..." The bleeding man seemed to be fighting through the pain. "We don't... Look, we don't know. We just know we... have to. We got brought on for the work. Cut down the trees, get them out, make the cash. Soon, the boss started directing us to new groves. And then we started getting... hungry. He kept us fed, said it was part of the payment now." Cannibal cults? Temperance had heard whispers of wendigos, but imagined those were concerns for further up north. There were spirits who dabbled in unsavory practices... but why would they try to worm their way into logging? Maybe it's the injury rate. Between that and the illegal activity, no one's quick to notice when a limb - or a body entire - goes missing... "So. Where might we find your boss?" "You tell him, Frank," said the seeming foreman, "I swear to God, I will eat you myself --" "Shut it, Bill. They're capes. About four klicks north-north-east from here. Keep going 15 minutes, and you won't be able to miss the noise." "Thank you." Temperance looked to the other elemental woman. "Not to be presumptuous, but... do you need a lift?"

That means Temperance is first. Temperance unleashes a Blast of icy pellets at the Ember, trying to hit him before he reaches critical mass. A 26 hits, for +2 DMG, which is DC26 TOU. The Ember succeeds. Sea Devil is up next.

Moved back to Character Bank to work on formatting and PL issues.

BOSS FIGHT! For the Ember of Cthugha, we shall use my Living Reactor at PL12. Ember goes on 10. Temperance goes on 23.

"They aren't exactly at my beck and call," said Temperance. She didn't intend for the arrogance to leak out into her voice... but it was meant primarily as a cover for panic. To her eyes, there were no spirits hiding backstage. It was as if the place had been driven out... or prepared. Either they were clearing space for when the great fire in the sky came down, or nothing that hung around here normally wanted to be within a mile of the place when it showed up. But there was a sense of something - that swirling precipitate, like air growing thick and heavy before a storm... "Upstairs. Now." The stairs were gone in a flash. Stealth was no longer a concern. If what Temperance found below enraged her, what she found up top confused here. The floor she'd arrived at was more of an open plan - desks without cubicles, and corner offices at all side. If there were any people here, they were likely away in the offices. For on the main floor were four firemen, stripped to the waist, kneeling at the cardinal points of the office, holding brass daggers pointed towards the sky. In the middle stood a man who was likely the fire chief, clad in the full regalia of his trade - but with the traditional hat swapped out for some sort of hideous headdress. "My men sent word of you," he said. "The children of water. One who speaks to rain drops and one who suckles at Hydra's teat. Water boils, children. It sublimes and dies at His hands. It has a will and whim you cannot begin to imagine. When the Lord of Fomalhaut comes --" He was met with a blast of water that caught him at his midsection. "I am getting quite tired of pronunciations and promises," Temperance said. The fire chief locked eyes with her - eyes that burned. "No promises. Only guarantees." The center of the room turned hot white as the suit - no doubt the finest fire protection equipment Freedom City was willing to pay for - turned to ash and dust in a second. Fire wreathed the man's body as he took to the air. "He comes! I shall be his spark! We shall be his kindling! This city shall be baptized by fire!"

Socotra. Beautiful island. Horrible despotism. Joe remembered the last time they'd been there, when a giant deity from before the days of Mohammed was lying dead in the harbor and his brethren was holding Typhoon on trial for the murder. The League had to intervene to try to resolve the matter, facing divine judgment on one end and Typhoon on the other. This will still be more awkward. Still. Whatever awkwardness he felt about the prospect likely paled compared to what Mark and Nina were likely feeling right now. He would have cracked a joke about Asli wanting to be anything but his plus one, but he didn't want to poke Nina on the matter - even if giving her the chance to feel superior might help cut the tension. "Mark, if I know anything about you, it's that you don't force anyone to do anything. Coax, maybe, but force, no. And I know you're gonna be a great dad, who lets his kid be what he -or she - wants to be."

APPROVED

The roaring void twisted and buckled against Sea Devil's blow, but stood fast... seemingly. It roared again - or rather, the blowing wind and the cries of the people near it blanked out - and the distortion in space slowly began to bleed away. Soon, there was nothing but a relatively empty field full of heavily armed people with nothing to shoot at. "That was lucky," said Javeen. "Usually they don't go down so easy. There are tales of the six of you managing to drive entire armies of them off all by yourself back in the day, but..." Javeen just let the sentiment drop off. "Yeah," said Cavalier. "'But'. So, what the hell are those things?" "Like I said. We really don't know. Given the strange spatial properties demonstrated by some of them - like that one - we think they may be related to the temporal anomaly. There have been theories involving the Casimir effect and many worlds interpretation, but it's mainly conjecture." Velak gave the group a studied look. "Mind you... the fact that you're here while still, uh... here in one form of another... that can't help but exacerbate paradox..." She shook her head. "We have whole new territory to explore here. We'll have some time, at least..." "Right. About that. How long do we have before this waveform collapse?" "Right now? A little under 42 hours." Velak looked to the group. "I know what this must mean for you. I just... ask that you take some time to consider."

The unicorn appears to be one of the relatively "pristine" times associated with virgins and Lisa Frank binders. Mind you, it's the fae, so the fact that it appears that way may mean it sells crack to preschoolers.

Bliss's attack misses. After talking it out with others, I'm going to wrap combat because, between hectic real life events and the erratic flow of this battle, the thread has slowed when it doesn't need to. Fortunately, temporal paradox always allows for a GTFO. However, I will allow one action from Sea Devil to wrap the round.

Grim's dog was extremely successful in latching on. Not only did it manage to catch the fae hound off ground, it managed to catch it in mid-leaf. The black dog was able to seize the advantage, hurling the dog with great force and sending it flying into the thorn wall. The hound hit like a side of beef slamming into a brick wall, then slid to the ground, unconscious. In a matter of seconds, the leafy matter of the ground seized it. It didn't so much tear the hound apart as it... subsumed it, back into inky gossamer and dreams of sharp teeth. Which, to most of the group, looked like the dog had effectively been broken down into its component parts for dark mulch. "Okay," said Cannonade, "someone tell me this place isn't a giant leaf-based woodchipper." His eyes landed on the bloody wreck that the hounds had gathered around. "I mean, in the sense that ain't metaphorical." He stepped forward tentatively, trying to get a look at the kill, hoping it wasn't human. He was relieved to see the gnawed and cracked hooves amongst the mass of meat... only to be focused by the broken, solitary horn extending from a head that - even mostly flensed of flesh - looked fairly equine. "All right. Been a while since I read Harry Potter, but I remember this kinda thing being seriously bad luck..."

And that's another dead dog, which takes us out of rounds. I'll be posting a description of the scene tomorrow.

Temperance spends an HP to stunt Transform (steam into water). I will get a post up for the fight tomorrow if you don't want to get in an IC post for Aquaria, AA. I'm just leaving some room before I'm about to crash tonight.

Aquaria found the hostages, trapped and gagged just like the ones Temperance had found. She had a remarkable lack of axe-wielding cultists to deal with, which is why she was able to extract the individuals quickly. Also helping was the strange metal that made up her armor; one of the benefits of armor that had been made to repel cosmic radiation was that it wasn't highly conductive to heat. She was able to find an area that wasn't burning... just yet. The humans could stay safe there, hiding close to the ground from the choking smoke, but it was only a matter of time... And then, the roof opened up. Water came pouring down from the sprinklers that had been shut down earlier. Temperance came rushing from around the corner, her brow furrowed in concentration. "Had to... feed my own water in... but did it." The flames were giving way to steam around them - and once the flames were out, Temperance extended her will, collapsing the steam back into water, if somewhat less than before. "That's always taxing," she said. "Needed, though. We've got to find the leader and stop this."

"Some dubious means, huh?" Cavalier cracked his knuckles. "Man, it's been a while since I busted out the old troubleshooter skill set. May be a little rusty. Still, it's the same on every planet. Info brokers, secret keepers, leg breakers, dens of vice... where do we want to hit up first? Dens of vice are always the fun ones..." He paused, thinking on it. "In fact, if we know of any dens of vice near the spaceport, that might be a good place to start. If you spend all that time hauling cargo from Khanate space to here, then suffer through the experience of praying the fake ID holds in the face of orbital security, you're gonna want to find somewhere to blow off steam. We could probably find a ride there."

The workers cried out briefly as the roots started snaking up from the earth. Temperance stepped out ahead, ice gathered around her, not willing to wait to see what fresh hell this was. She didn't see any spirits snaking out of the darkness to extend their will, but she did see the traces of spirit magic on the roots. Perhaps this was one of those massive root structure spirits that dwelled deep and turned over in their sleep like an earthquake. "I am not even going to pretend I know what's happening here," she said, "so first one to answer gets to keep their fingers. Or at least gets to take them home to do up with barbecue sauce." She found it frightening how easily she was able to remain cool in these circumstances. Even with all the weird things she'd seen, autocannibalism was... definitely up there. "We're just doing our jobs!" said the guy who'd lost his fingers. "Come on, we've got a schedule to meet!" "I think you should consider worker's comp. And who hired you for this operation?" "Our boss," said the guy who'd been giving orders. "And if you think we're giving him up so easy, you've got another thing coming."

Then we are on to Cavalier. Cavalier takes to the skies and fires on the Titan with his Blast w/ Autofire. Or not. 17 isn't good enough. The Titan acts. It stands absolutely still, locks its eyes onto Singularity, and just draws in its silent breath. Paralyze, resisted with DC23 Will. Bliss is up next.

Sea Devil could hear the response in her head. "Intruders!" cried one of the guards. "Breach on 46th!" "Acolytes," called the high priest, "begin the offering. Set the chrism alight. Put the charges at 1 minute. His coming is at hand!" Sea Devil could hear the whoosh of flames rising in the distance. As the flames went up, they were joined by a strange sound, like a distant cry undersea. Muffled screams. Temperance was in soon after, flying in to the office. The flames started to lick down the halls, and she was quick to meet them with her own water. But she noticed that the trail forked in a number of places, running into individual offices... "No!" She extended her will into the walls, trying to feel out the sprinklers. Nothing on this floor - whoever had set up the ritual hadn't just disabled the sprinkler sensors, they'd cut off the water pressure so that they couldn't access the nearest reservoir. She flew down the hall, over the dying embers. There were workers in the offices, bound and gagged, desperately trying to roll away from the flames. They were still weak, though, which gave Temperance enough time to extinguish them before any harm could be done. It was lucky that she heard the other scream, then. She ducked just in time as a fire axe embedded in the doorway behind her, nearly taking her head off. Without thinking, she shot water behind her, then solidified it with a thought. The cultist was cocooned against the office wall, frozen thick. "How many floors?" she demanded. "How many others? Where is your master?" "It doesn't matter. None of it matters. You'll see soon enough. Everything burns."

"On it, Paradigm," said Cavalier. He rerouted the power focus of his armor into external systems, and he was glad he did. Muscle, steel, and other things he didn't really want to know about - these convicts were not lacking in these things. It was a simple matter of lifting, hauling, and depositing, and Cavalier was very good at maintaining a fireman's carry at this point. Even during three-dimensional movement. When he was done with that, he spent a few seconds recalibrating the settings on his blaster. This was usually meant for singular targets, but if he could get it right, they'd have a temporary measure of security. And he really did not want to have to do all this over again, in case someone woke up. With one pull of the trigger, a hemisphere of energy formed over the incapacitated targets, keeping them secure. "There. Temporary detainment. And if we need to keep it up, I've got the settings programmed in. Can't make it mobile, though. That would make transport a hell of a lot easier."