Cubist

Interesting, Jubatus thought as he watched the unconscious cat-boy revert to a mundane human. Some sort of magical effect? Whatever; there's two more cat-boys to deal with before I worry about the genesis of their cat-sign. He upshifted and blurred up to the closest cat-boy… raised a foreleg to tear at the target… …and a shaft of intense pain lanced through his upper torso at just the wrong moment. Thus distracted, Jube's claws sliced through empty air, less than a centimeter away from his intended cat-boy target. Ah, xxix. Well, let's see if i can make lemonade out of this lemon. Downshift "Hi there! Now that I have your attention: I just sucked up an ess-em-gee bullet, and I'm still ready to tear you a new orifice. Wanna surrender?"

Bummer. Okay; I'll let the miss stand, and save my lone Hero Point for a rainy day.

[checks Core book re: damage and recovery therefrom] Okay, gotcha. What to do, what to do… Active threats are limited to Gang Member 2, Red Lion 1, and Red Lion 2. Jube will take out Red Lion 1. He'll use his Mighty Strike 4, and apply the Stunning Attack feat. Attack roll for Mighty Strike (1d20+12=16) should hit, I think. Jube's upshifted STR is 20, which gives him a +5 STR bonus on top of the Strike 4, so the Red Lion needs to make a Toughness roll vs DC (15 + 4 + 5 =) 24.

Jube has his forepaws full, this round, recovering from his Bruised and Dazed conditions. He's also got the friggin' Injured condition to worry about, but B&D have to go away before he can do anything else.

Jubatus nodded at 'Rabbit' when the King of Suits introduced her, but did not feel any need to do more than that. "First, I think you're right about the zapper being related to Dr. Simian's ape-ifying devices. The underlying tech seems pretty much the same to me, but the zapper's been modified for greater power, faster transformative effect, and a much wider range of species available for its targets. "Second, Acinonyx' voice was transmitted from elsewhere, through a loudspeaker that was installed there"—the feline pointed at the specific advertising sign he'd discovered. "I doubt the mechanism will yield any useful information, but I'll dismantle it for detailed examination anyway, just in case. "And third, I'll bet good money that Acinonyx is, or was, an animal rights terrorist named Sue Donnermutter. A few weeks after I got the permanent fur coat, Donnermutter hired me to clean up her virus-infested laptop, and she apparently thought that anybody who looked like me would necessarily approve of her 'other life'. Wrong—I handed the FBI all the evidence I could find, and she went underground before they could arrest her. Given that her voice sounds like it's artificially synthesized, and the name she's adopted, I strongly suspect she's had herself remade as a cheetah. "Now, what have you and Rabbit discovered?"

Jubatus is definitely going to familiarize himself with the lay of the land while waiting for the supply transport to arrive. He'll want to know where everything is, be it hill, valley, stream. river, termite mound, and Magellan only knows what-all else—and he'll also try to memorize all the local scents, on the theory that any would-be attackers are likely to carry scents which aren't found in the immediate area, hence said intruders will be easier for his educated nose to detect in spite of any camouflage. He'll scout out all the land within a 1-mile radius of this camp. Also, Jube will inquire about the "super-mercs or something" Edge mentioned: What's the likelihood of any super-type antagonists actually showing up—10% (low chance), 50% (strong possibility), 80% (not just possible, but expected), something else? Why would these potential threats show up—are they just opportunistic scavengers, or are they hirelings of some über-rich jerkwad whose toes this project is stepping on, or what? And what sort of super-powers might they possess? Not sure how much information Jube will be able to gather in the time available, but he'll at least make an effort. He'll start by asking local types, not Americans or Europeans, on the grounds that people from outside aren't as likely to have useful data on local politics/villains/etc. As for the MREs… hm. Jube's an obligate carnivore. He'll be happy to trade the vegetable matter in his MREs, for meat from anyone else's MREs. He'll also make quiet inquiries about what local beasties are safe to eat (not poisonous, not members of endangered species, etc); if the Good Guys run short on food for whatever reason, it'll be good for Jube to have an alternate source of munchies.

Now, what are these guys— Upshift —gaah! Damned instincts. Okay: One bullet dodged— Some heroes might think it was nice to have an instinctive, always-on "early warning radar" that could detect pretty much any incoming attack, before it came close to hitting. Downshift —right. Bullets all over the place, and targets are— Upshift —one more bullet dodged, why don't these idiots ever learn? In Jube's case, the problem with always-on 'threat radar' was that whenever it detected a threat, the damn thing automatically activated his Timeshift. Downshift Where was I… right. Gunmen targeting Mr. White, and catboy over there, and me— Upshift Which was rather irritating when you wanted to stay at one stable tempo for an extended period. —son of a—enough with the friggin'— Ttthhuunnkk Oh… misjudged, that… trajec… The feline speedster slumped to the pavement.

I did burn the HP to prevent Fatigue from the power stunt—check post #29 in this thread. As for the bullet Jube just got hit with, his Toughness roll (1d20+10=12)… hmm. That's firmly in "Stunned + Bruised" territory. And since Jube only had one HP in the first place, there's nothing to burn for a re-roll. Frump. Well, fine. Stunned + Bruised. The Bruised goes away real fast, courtesy of Jube's Regeneration; as for the Stunned, that goes away in one round (Core rulebook, pg 163, 1st column, last paragraph). So it's not the end of the world… and story-wise, it should have more than one Good Consequence, so I'll take one round's worth of Stunned and Bruised, thanks.

You might want to burn a Hero Point for a re-roll of that nat-1, Chris. It's allowed…

Jubatus growled. That his words hadn't done a bloody thing to defuse the situation was hardly a surprise, but it still would have been nice if even one thug had chosen to not live down to his expectations… eh, whatever. Upshift Everything was frozen in the stillness of fast-time. The cheetah pulled a roll of duct-tape from his Vest Of Many Things and… Hmm. More targets than I like—not sure if the roll's got enough dee-tee to do the job on all of 'em… okay, fine. Tear the tape in half lengthwise for use on the normal types, and full-width tape on the cat-freaks. Thus resolved, Jube blurred between and around the thugs, looping duct tape around their wrists and ankles; apart from the feline-wannabees, there were clearly two distinct factions in play, one of them African-Americans and the other Latinos. And when he finished this job: Okay, looks good enough, assuming the half-width strips hold… meh. No way to calculate it out from first principles. Downshift As it happened, all of the catboys were more-or-less securely bound, but one of the black guys, and two Latinos, managed to free themselves from their duct-tape bondage. Hm. Half-width strips aren't good enough. Good to know.

Jubatus (not 'Jay Xavier', as he figured he was on the clock, more or less) spent most of the 'chopper ride looking out the windows. He'd acknowledged/greeted his four traveling companions when they boarded the aircraft; all of them being Claremont students, there was an elevated probability that all four were supertypes. Blue Jay he was mildly familiar with from having worked with her twice before; Arcturus he only knew of only from social media and news reports, which painted the kid up to be some sort of magic-using shapeshifter; as for the other two, Xavier didn't know much about them, but he suspected that John might have been involved with crowd control during the Day of Wrath and that utterly bizarre business involving Doktor Archeville, and Giang could have been the water-controller who helped out with an attempt at kidnapping Deep One babies from the aquarium. Whatever; Xavier had never been gregarious even before the damn fur coat was permanently installed, and the damn cheetah-influenced neural architecture that came with it certainly didn't make him more open to interpersonal relations. Much more interesting to goggle at the terrain of a continent he was visiting for the first time! When they finally touched down at their destination, they were greeted by— Oh xxix it's him! —Edge. There weren't many things which could terrify Xavier, but Edge was definitely one of them. Being a troubleshooter, deliberately thinking about Ways For Things To Go Wrong was just one of those things Xavier did, and when he applied that mindset to the disturbingly cheerful, world-class matter transmuter… Upshift Xavier closed his eyes. Come on, Jube. You're being utterly, completely stupid here. The kid's not some kind of psychotic murdering freakazoid, he's a friggin' superhero who's earned his good rep. Get a xxxxing grip on yourself, you idiot cat! He spent a second or so calming down for a couple of minutes… Okay. I'm cool. I can do this. I'm the fastest cat alive, I don't fear anything I can outrun. I can make nice with the kid. Downshift Jubatus stepped off the chopper and shook Edge's hand. "The flight was okay, Señor Lucas. Could've done with less engine noise, but the view made up for it." Hm. What's with Blue Jay? "Define 'mighty'?" Jube asked the archer. "I mean, everyone's more powerful than someone. And this isn't a competition; if you're pulling your own weight, I don't really see the point in comparing your load to someone else's." Then, to Edge: "You just let us know what needs doing, we'll take care of it."

Okay, Jube's gonna Area Snare the whole bloody lot of thugs—he'll burn the Hero Point for the power stunt, and add an extra (Area: Burst) plus a flaw (Full Action) to his existing Snare 5. The rules for Area attacks, on pg. 159 of the Core book: An area attack automatically hits an area the attacker can accurately target, filling the area with its effect. Targets in the area get a Reflex saving throw against a DC of (10 + attack’s rank). If the save is successful, halve the area attack’s rank or bonus (rounding any fractions down) before applying it to the target, who then makes the normal saving throw against the attack. Targets with the Evasion feat (see page 60) suffer no effect if they make their Reflex save. Targets with Evasion 2 suffer only half effect even if they fail the save, and no effect if they succeed. If you delay (see page 156) or ready (see page 158) a move action you can try to avoid an area effect entirely. If you move before the attack and have sufficient movement to get out of the area, then you’re safe. You must choose how far you move before the GM tells you the result of the area attack, so be sure you move far enough! You can also spend a hero point to gain the Evasion feat for one round, allowing you to suffer no effect from an area attack if you succeed on your Reflex saving throw (see Hero Points, page 121). So Jube automatically hits the area. Targets with the Evasion feat may be able to avoid Jube's Snare entirely. Everyone else in the area gets a Reflex save vs DC (10 + 5 =) 15; targets who fail this Reflex save are hit with Snare 5, and targets who make this save are hit with Snare 2.

Hmmmm… power stunt for Area: Cloud… put that on Jube's duct tape (i.e., Snare 5) and he can 's got 125 feet of Trail for his Snare. How many of the 12 enemy-types on the ground can Jube get to within the limits of a 125-foot Trail? Alternately, Area: Cloud would allow Jube to Snare everybody within a 25-foot-diameter circle. If I'm visualizing the battlefield properly, Neospell is distinctly outside the 'crowd' of thugs, so it should be fairly easy for Jube to not catch Neospell within the radius of effect. How many of the 12 thugs are located within a 25-foot circle?

Which of the heroes knows—or at least knows of—which others? Jubatus and Blue Jay know each other, having face-to-face. Also, Jube and Edge have worked together As for the rest, Jubatus can safely be assumed to be aware of any hero who has shown up in publicly-accessible data sources (i.e. the news media and/or social media), but it's not clear to Jube's player whether or not Arcturus, Myrmidon, or Tsunami qualify on that count. As for which characters know of Jubatus, his identity is public, and his appearance, seriously exotic; on those grounds, I'd expect he's got more media exposure (both news- and social-) than he might otherwise merit, which would boost the odds of J. Random Hero having some knowledge of the cheetah.

Jay Xavier wasn't sure why he'd been invited to take part in this particular humanitarian mission; in fact, he hadn't even been aware of it until his therapist, Ed Halstonne, asked him how he intended to respond to the invitation. One scan of his spam folder later, Xavier had some little food for thought. Whoever was responsible, they'd clearly done enough research on Xavier to discover who his therapist was, as well as Ed's email address… which indicated that they (whoever 'they' were) had wanted to be sure that Xavier would read their message rather than just ignoring it. So… who was 'they'? And why had 'they' gone out of 'their' way to request Xavier's participation in this act of constructive charity? He wasn't affiliated with the Freedom League; rather, he was a B-list hero at best, and whatever degree of fame he possessed, he doubted that notoriety extended beyond the borders of the United States. True, he'd done a little a couple of years back, but even then, there were plenty of other heroes who were more noted for doing that sort of thing… All in all, it was a puzzle. Xavier didn't like this kind of puzzle—but he hadn't been able to discern any indication of ill-intent on the part of the mysterious 'they' in question. And when all was said and done, the Messalo River had flooded after a dam collapsed; there was work to be done, wreckage to clear away and rebuild, water damage to restore. It might not be the typical 'job for Jubatus', but that was alright. As a freelancer, Jay Xavier had experience with atypical jobs. So it was that Jubatus ended up riding an ancient rustbucket of a Russian helicopter through the skies over Mozambique, a ride he shared with four other superheroes…

Jubatus doesn't have any of those three skills; he does, however, have Jack of All Trades, so that's alright. In game-mechanical terms, Jube is trying for Diplomacy. And hisDiplomacy roll (1d20+1=15)… may or may not suffice to have any desirable effects. Ah, well. Questions about the scene: The Initiative list has three Red Lions, five Gang Members, and four Cartel types. That's 12 in all. How many of the 12 did Jube actually see when he looked over the battlefield? Can Jube tell the difference between Gang Members and Cartel-ites? How many of the 12 are obviously armed, and with what weaponry?

It's possible that Neospell might already be aware of Jubatus? See Jube's for further details.

[ignore this post—would delete it if i could, but since i can't…]

Jubatus' nightly patrolling included all parts of Freedom City. While he wasn't fast enough to cover the whole city in one evening, he could (and did) cover different subsets of the City every night, determining exactly which neighborhoods with a random number generator so as to make it more difficult for badguys to detect any exploitable patterns in his behavior. Tonight, as it happened, Southside was on the cheetah's itinerary. So far, he'd dealt with three muggings; one attempted burglary; two drug dealers; and one idiot who clearly believed eleven vodka-and-tonics wasn't alcohol enough to make him an unsafe driver. Jubatus disassembled the engine of the idiot's car, and duct-taped all of its clearly-labeled loose parts to the car's hood, while it was doing 65 MPH is a 35 zone. Suddenly, br-rr-rr-raaaap!! went the distinctive cry of a submachine gun! That's… not coming from the direction of any licensed shooting range, Jubatus thought. Joyous friggin' day. And so the feline blurred down the streets of Southside to the source of the dangerous noise. Once on the scene, Jube took a careful, upshifted look at the general vicinity. Hmm… Three guys with a little feline in them, Bast only knows why; minimum of five—no, make that seven—human-normal types, some of them armed; and that guy in white. So okay, looks like three factions here, not counting any Involved Persons who're keeping themselves concealed. Fine. Downshift To slow (normal-speed) eyes, Jubatus simply appeared in the middle of the conflict. "Okay, folks: I don't know what problems you have with each other, and I don't care. What I do know is, this ess-em-gee crap ends. Now. So you can stop the ultraviolence of your own accord, or a guy who can crack Mach 8 under his own power can stop it for you. Choose wisely."

The cheetah's Initiative roll (1d20+37=42). No need for contrived explanations; Jube covers all of Freedom City in his patrolling, albeit he doesn't get to every neighborhood on any one night. So he kinda rotates thru the verious regions, and it just happened that tonight's patrol included Southside.

Jubatus is ready and waiting for his cue!

It's probably worth noting that you don't actually need a GM—you could do a solo thread, in which Neospell confronts whichever evilness all by himself. Should you go this route, you'd pretty much have total control over how you present Neospell, and you'd be able to tailor the events of said thread in such a way as to make it clear to every reader why Neospell would be a cool hero to team up with! On t'other hand, there's also much to be said for GMs and for interaction between player-characters. So… Since you mentioned Southside, you might want to look at the thread. Many of the characters listed there are ('were'?) played by people who have drifted away from Freedom City, but and are definitely still active, and I can categorically state that Jubatus is available for threads. And apart from the three heroes I just mentioned, pretty much any hero can show up in Southside, as long as their player is agreeable. So sending up a "hey, wanna do a Southside thread" signal, as you're doing here, is the Right Thing to do. What sort of situation would you like Neospell to get mixed up in? Mugging, gang warfare, bank robbery, smuggling, a drug deal, some other crime? Alternately, what about a "meet and greet" social-type thread, perhaps one which starts out with foiling a crime and goes on from there?

Hmm… would the "Sagittarius" of War-Earth have a bodily form appropriate to Earth-Prime's astrology? A bit of a coincidence, if so. Or perhaps it could be a sign of some deeper connection between War-Earth and Prime? If we go there, perhaps the centaur transformation could be a visible sign that the newly-anointed Sagittarius is accepted by War-Earth's mystical Powers That Be?

Yes, he does—the MagiStunner power, Stun 8, in his Bracer of Weaponry. That said, it's nice to have a wide range of options available. The MagiBlaster, MagiGuns, and MagiBlade are all basically variations on a theme; it might be good to consider dropping one or two of these damage-causing powers, and replacing it/them with alternatives to damage, such as Snare, Dazzle, or Nauseate. Another possibility might be to lose the MagiStunner power, and take the feat Stunning Attack, which would allow you to inflict a stunning attack with any melee attack you've got, including the 'Blaster and 'Blade.

Of course killing the villain's infernal device didn't solve the problem… Wait—that's Sue Donnermutter! Jubatus thought, referring one of the first people to hire Jay Xavier after he'd traded up from the human body he'd been born with… A virus had reduced Donnermutter's laptop to an expensive brick; while working on the problem, Xavier found files that proved Donnermutter led a double life as an animal rights terrorist. He turned all the evidence over to the FBI, and the last time he'd checked, Donnermutter had managed to evade capture and was still wanted. Her voice is off, though—sounds like a high-end voder… Well… maybe she's had throat surgery. Maybe. Oh, xxix. She did get zapped into a non-human thing. Because being eaten alive by a predator is so much more spiffylicious than sucking up whatever minimal amount of discomfort comes with being an experimental subject. Okay, Donnermutter hasn't changed in any way that matters. The tail end of the woman's rant was nothing special; she was now calling herself 'Acinonyx' (with that nom de guerre, the odds that she wasn't now a cheetah-derived critter were low-to-nonexistent), get used to the new forms, you all need Acinonyx, yada yada yada. Jube glowered when she referred to him as "my brother Jubatus"—this situation was bad enough already, without any idiots getting the idea that he actually supported the villainness' goals. Well, too late. Deal with it, Jube.When Donnermutter/Acinonyx finally shut up, the good news didn't end… Not good. "Hello? If anybody in the cage can understand me, raise your hand."No response. Upshift Back in fast-time, the first thing Jubatus did was install a set of filters in his nostrils, on the grounds that the less olfactory distraction he had to ignore, the better. Now: What had Donnermutter done here? The behaviour of the cage-occupants was consistent with their being transmuted animals, but they were clothed, and if T-mog's zapper didn't… Oh. Right. If they're T-mog victims, they could've been zapped and clothed before I showed. Whatever; it's clear their minds aren't all there, so the cage is probably the best way to keep 'em out of trouble for the moment. So resolved, Jubatus locked the cage—and made a mental note to dial 9-1-1 for assistance. He wasn't at all sure what sort of emergency services should be invoked here, but he figured the dispatcher would sort it all out. For the present, he had work to do: Namely, looking for the loudspeaker through which Donnermutter had spoken, and examining the remains of the transmogrifying gadget which King of Suits had disabled. Jube's sensitive, mobile ears had zeroed in on the loudspeaker while it was active (it was concealed in a cluster of advertising signs), so he looked it over first. Hmm… pretty bog-standard stuff; burned-out battery there, cable hooked up the metal sign-framework that served as its antenna there… looks like generic Radio Shack parts to me. Low probability of getting any useful leads from the thing. As for the gadget which was responsible for all the involuntary 'body transplants', that device was rather less comprehensible. As part of his continuing campaign to kill time during his 150-hour-long days, Jubatus made a point of researching any and every source of publicly-available information about bodily transformation; this particular gadget wasn't a particularly close match for anything he'd read of, but nevertheless, it struck him as bearing a family resemblance to the gadgets Dr. Simian exploited to transform humans into apes. And… right. This gizmo's got a much wider range of forms it can impose on its targets. Also a higher power level, and faster transformations, than Simian's devices. Judging from the workmanship, it looks like this gizmo had been thrown together by a competent craftsman working to a tight deadline. Now to compare notes with King of Suits… wait, I don't like the looks of the crowd. Okay, herd-slash-crowd control first, then compare notes. Downshift Back at the default tempo of 1: "Hello, people!" Jubatus called, loud enough for his pseudo-voice to be heard over the noise of the city and the newly-transformed animals. "I know what you're going through here. Believe me, I know. And I know that brooding about the craziness that's been dumped on you isn't going to help anything. So for the time being, I'd suggest that you focus on finding out what your current body can and can't do." With any luck, T-mog's victims would be so busy concentrating on that, that they wouldn't have time to freak out over their bizarre situation. "If you're quadrupedal, standing on your hind legs is gonna be awkward, and probably painful—but if you can deal with the discomfort, you should be able to manage it. Your paws just aren't as dexterous as real hands, but since you've got human intelligence controlling 'em, you should be able to get better use out of 'em than a natural-born version of your body would. Speech, who knows if your current vocal tracts can do speech? It'll be worth some experimenting. And while you're doing that… Me and the King of Suits will do our damnedest to figure out how the hell to get you all back to normal, okay? So… hang in there. You're not alone." The cheetah took his leave of the civilians, and joined the King of Suits. "Hello, your majesty," he said. "You were here first, but I think I may have some data you don't. How about we pool our information?"