Cubist

Okay... Diplomacy, that's a CHA skill, so Jube's +1 CHA modifier comes into play. That, plus the +1 for flattery, makes it... Diplomacy roll vs Duke of Oily (1d20+2=3) ...not a friggin' prayer. Oh, well...

Groovy, SC! Jubatus will be ready and waiting.

Jubatus is obviously tryna hit the Duke of Oily where it lives; Jube will be very surprised if the Duke buys it, but it was worth trying regardless. And hey, if it does work, Jube ain't gonna complain! Not sure if a Diplomacy roll is called for or not...

Oh. Scheisse. I'll just bet you were 'told'. And hey, it's not like Apollo knows how many thousand supertypes have lightning powers, or that white hair is even more common. Oh, [bg=black]xxix[/bg]. Good buddies with Hitler, and willing to take any old sorceror's say-so on legal technicalities. Oh, [bg=black]xxxxixx[/bg] [bg=black]xxix[/bg]. 'nicht ins grosse'? Sure. And if their toys happen to die of old age, or too-rough playing, before they get around to sending 'em back, that's not their problem, is it? Oh, [bg=black]xxix[/bg] Jubatus 'blurred in place' intermittently, buying himself time to think of possible ways out of this situation, while the Duke of Oily monologued. Let's see if I can talk him down. Damnit, I hate flying blind... "I got a better idea. This 'Emperor of the Dark' you're the son of? I'll bet he's got real problems with light, problems you don't have because you're only half-Shadow. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if Daddy doesn't give two wet farts in a hurricane about a half-breed like you, and he only tolerates you because you can go places and do things he's flatly incapable of. Like, say, popping over to a light-filled dimension to kidnap a busload of random people." I really hate flying blind. Jube paused for a fraction of a second, then went on: "If I was in your position, I'd be wondering what's in it for me? Why am I busting my butt on behalf of a father figure who treats me like a trained dog, not a person in my own right?" The cheetah knew that his attempt to imitate the Duke would be unrecognizable, but at least it was different-enough from his normal voice that the audience could get the idea. "Heck, you're not stupid; odds are, you're already making plans to usurp Daddy, or break away from him to make a life of your own. If so, fine, it's nobody's business but yours. But Daddy wouldn't like that if he knew, huh?" I really, really hate flying blind. "You're going to have to make your move some time, after all, and now is as good as any other time. And when you do, maybe some outside assistance might be useful. Just, y'know, just in case Daddy wants to pound you into an unrecognizable smear, for 'disloyalty' or whatever other charge he pulls out of his lower GI tract. And you know that there are some people back on my world with some pretty serious power; might be worth seeing what they can do working with you rather than against you. So... how about if you put everything back the way you found it? The bus, the people in it, their belongings, all that. Yeah, it'll piss off Daddy, but you're going to do that eventually, aren't you? And if you do put everything back, that'll make it a lot easier to persuade superheroes to work with you instead of whaling on you. So what do you say, hm?" I really, really, REALLY hate flying blind...

The cheetah didn't spend so very long waiting; the dark-topped tallthing was faster than a lot of other tallthings. A little faster, anyway. The dark-topped tallthing held its forelegs out in front of it as it moved towards the cheetah... The cheetah wasn't sure what the dark-topped tallthing was trying to do. It pondered as the tallthing drew near, but it just couldn't figure out what the tallthing was up to. When the tallthing was close enough that the cheetah could touch it with a forepaw, the cheetah decided to move out of the tallthing's way. The tallthing might be slow, but it was also big enough to do some damage, so getting out of its way seemed like a good idea. So the cheetah got up on all fours and moved around in back of the dark-topped tallthing. It walked behind the tallthing, following it as... Hmm. The dark-topped tallthing just fell down. And it didn't look like the tallthing had meant to do that! Poor, clumsy, slow tallthing. The cheetah padded around to in front of the tallthing, and watched as it raised its head. Ouch -- the scent of blood! That looked like it hurt! Poor, clumsy, slow tallthing. The cheetah craned its head forward and started to clean the tallthing's face with its tongue...

Jube will (try to) disarm the Thugees and generally stop the fighting. Hopefully everyone involved speaks English; once the fighting is over, Jube will ask both sides what the heck was going on here. Should I roll for Disarm, or shall we assume that a speedster can just naturally take the guns away from a bunch of normal humans?

Jay Xavier could be hired by the venue to serve as technician/engineer -- and Jay's alternative identity of Jubatus might be useful. Of course, this assumes the venue doesn't already have an engineer/technician on staff, which may or may not be true... Jube is technically PL11, but I haven't yet spent any of his accumulated Hero Points, so in practice, he's PL10.

I gots no objections to giving the other characters a chance to do something. Just let's not wait too long, because if a character just isn't going to act, that character just isn't going to act, right?

The situation was not the least bit happy-making. Given a busload of civilians (plus a few heroes) spirited off to Ymir-only-knew which planet in Ymir-only-knew which dimension, the most sensible course of action was to play along with the entity which, as best Jubatus could tell, held everyone's ticket home... An Emperor, is it? Oh, joyous frigging day! Jubatus thought to himself, attempting to keep his cynical pessimism off of his face. 'Chosen', the... man? thing? ... whatzit says. Yyyyyeah, right. You betcha. Because any time you select specific targets, why of course they all just happen to end up riding on the same bus. Just because. And of course we can trust this Emperor to be a good and wise trier of fact. Because nothing, but nothing, says 'dispassionate, Solomonic judgement' like glomming onto a random collection of people who happen to live on the same [bg=black]xxxxixx[/bg] planet as your putative targets are alleged to have fled to. Vunn-durr-barr. This day just keeps getting better and better. Since the Duke of Oily was clearly expecting questions, Jube supplied a few: "These criminals you mentioned -- what crimes did they commit? Are we talking about jaywalkers, or serial killers, or what?" Because for all the red flags that're waving, I'd just as soon not let any real scumbags evade what passes for justice in their home culture. "How did you confirm that all your targets are on this bus?" Whatever answer Duke here gives, it's sure to be instructive. "The legal system back home has a concept called 'jurisdiction'. How does your legal system handle jurisdiction? Assuming it does, I mean, which it may not, for all I know..." Let's see just how presumptuous these guys are, thanks. "What happens to anyone who's determined to have nothing to do with the criminals you're after?" If these geeks don't let innocent bystanders go free, us hero-types are gonna have to get friggin' medieval upside some extradimensional heads.

Right now, the only reason we have for thinking that Thugees fired those gunshots is that Willowbreak said so. How far can we trust that man? Be that as it may, gunshots were fired, and Jube is going outside for recon and general intelligence-gathering. We still don't really know much of anything about what's happening here, so caution is called for...

Hm. How does he know who it is, just from hearing the boom-boom? Jubatus thought. But if he's right... [bg=black]Xxxxixx[/bg] religious freakazoids. Can't help but have fun taking 'em down, but hopefully I won't enjoy it too much... "What she said," the feline declared, indicating Carrie. And then he vanished in a blur, leaving his shirt and pants neatly folded on top of a convenient seat... ...and he discovered that Willowbreak was right: There were Thugees out here. Or at least people whose garb would have marked them as Thugees if they were back home, anyway. And if they're not this world's equivalent of Thugees, that's too damn big of a coincidence. The fastest cat on two Earths zoomed into the murderous zealots and started collecting weapons. Bullets were flying in all directions, but at his current tempo of 40, that wasn't important, as everything around him (leaden projectiles included) was moving at only 1/40 its 'normal' speed. Bullets were easy to see -- being the only things besides Jube himself that were visibly moving -- and easy to dodge. And even if he did get tagged, it wouldn't do worse than maybe raise a bruise. That was the theory, anyway. Jubatus was uncomfortably aware of the fact that he had no actual experience, no empirical data to support this theory. But still, a tempo of 40..?

Jay Xavier... no, this was pretty clearly a superhero thing... Jubatus didn't like this situation at all. The bus had been hijacked to Hermes alone knew where, by some sort of über-powerful whatzit with unknown motives/purposes. On the plus side (and it wasn't much of a positive, but the cheetah was going to take what he could get), whatever-it-was didn't seem to have mass murder on its immediate agenda... "Raincheck on the rest of the conversation," Jube said to Brandtford. "This looks like a job for me." With those words, the fastest cat alike stood up and walked calmly down the aisle, maintaining a tempo of 1, until he reached the 'crowned' whatzit. You're paying attention here, he thought; you can understand English, written form at least; and violence isn't your first response when somebody does something you don't like. First, let's see if you're as good with spoken English as you are with written. "My name's Jubatus," he said, looking right at the whatzit's pupil-less eyes. "Who and/or what are you, and what did you grab this bus for?" He waited for the whatzit's response, ready to whip out his iPad, or even pencil-and-paper, if the whatzit didn't seem to notice audio...

Yes, I realize that the narration specifically states that the bus wasn't damaged. Jubatus went into full "damage control" mode anyway, because he's a fussbudget perfectionist and he hates leaving anything to chance if he can help it.

Neither Jay Xavier nor the geek he was conversing with (whose name was Martin Brandtford, as it happens) noticed when the pseudonatural entities showed up; both of the pair, human and cheetah alike, were simply too absorbed in their mutual conversation to take much notice of anything outside the bus' windows. However, even the geeks' obliviousness was no match for Miss Liberty's power bolt; not that the bolt inflicted any damage on anything but its intended target, but, rather, that said target shuddered when Miss Liberty tagged it, and the bus couldn't help but shake when the thing which held it shuddered. "... of course, we might end up with a somewhat lower p-value if we do it," Brandtford said. "But that's a reasonable tradeoff, ri -- aahhh!" Having grown up in earthquake country, Jay was better-prepared to deal with random shocks than many other people on the bus. He upshifted and zipped around the bus' interior, from end to end, making very sure that nobody hurt themselves falling over, and also ensuring that nobody's belongings got crushed or otherwise damaged by accident, for the duration of the vibrations. Truth be told, the vibrations were neither intense enough nor long-lasting enough for there to have been a serious chance of any harm being done... but that chance was still greater than zero, and that was too big a chance to suit Jay. And when the bus finally came to rest, Jay returned to his seat, next to Martin, and inhaled a couple of strips of beef jerky from a convenient vest-pocket.

More ponderings and musings... Every major Character card will be either a Hero or a Villain -- we don't really want anti-heroes, or people with ambiguous morality. Am inclined to think the game should allow for the possibility of a Character switching sides; this could be due to Mind Control (a Power), or Blackmail (a GM Fiat), or yada yada yada. The site's House Rules thread has a post about Descriptors. They are as follows: Very Common -- Bludgeoning Damage (Lethal + Nonlethal), Divine, EM Energy/Radiation (Electricity, Gamma Rays, Infrared, Magnetism, Microwaves, Radio Waves, X-Rays, Ultraviolet, Visible Light, etc.), Life Energy, Magic (generic/nonspecific), Piercing Damage (Lethal + Nonlethal), Slashing Damage (Lethal + Nonlethal), Technology Common -- Ballistic Damage (Bullets, Explosions), Cold, Electricity/Lightning, Fire/Heat, Impact Damage (Falling, Knockback, Slam Attacks), Light, Mental/Psychic, Metal, Plant, Radiation (Nuclear Force, Radioactive Materials), Sonic, Water, Weather (Not Including Lightning), Wood Uncommon -- Acid, Blessed/Celestial/Holy, Chemical, Chi/Ki, Darkness/Shadow, Demonic/Hellfire/Infernal, Dimensional, Gas (Inhaled, Skin Contact), Gravity, Grue, Iron ("Cold" / "Pure"), Magic (specific, i.e. Necromancy or whatever), Magnetism, Silver ("Pure"), Temporal/Time I'm not sure all of these Descriptors need to be in the cardgame... but it's a good list to start making cards with, and if it turns out that some of these Descriptors just don't show up anywhere, it'll be time enough to consider trimming the deadwood off of the list. Whenever you play a card from your hand, you grab a card off the top of your deck to replenish your hand. Yes, we likes the idea of burning thru our deck quickly, we does. Discarding one's entire hand, and drawing 7 new cards, should be a valid move on your turn. The actual game mechanics should be simple; ideally, there should be no need of writing stuff down, or keeping track of physical tokens, or whatever else in that general line. The game should revolve around the Character cards. During setup, you should be able to just pick a Character card out of your deck and play it before you. That Character determines whether you're on the side of Good or Evil (see also: "each Character is either a Hero or else a Villain") for the duration of the game, so choose wisely and well. Hm. That kind of setup runs the risk of their being no Villains for the Heroes to vanquish. Not sure if there should be a special rule that requires at least one person to choose a villain -- why force someone to change their mind after they've made their choice? Okay... what if you start by choosing two Character cards, one of them a Hero and the other a Villain?

I take it that Jube noticed that "off-road vehicle" because it's not one of ours? Jube's Knowledge: Arcana roll via Jack of All Trades (1d20+4=12)... may not be good enough for him to recognize even the general purpose of the weird symbols. Will edit my most-recent post to include a mention of said symbols, because, Knowledge: Arcana or no, Jube would recognize there's a good chance that they are magical sigils, even if he's got no idea what their intended purpose might be.

Jubatus felt something chew on his brain. The feline did not consider the implications of why his subconscious mind had instinctively supplied predator-on-prey imagery for the disquieting sensation, because he was busy, damnit! Busy separating a crowd of mind-controlled villagers from their (farm) implements of destruction, to be precise. And after removing those implements to a very safe distance from the people who had been carrying them, Jube zipped back to the 'command post', following a wide spiral trajectory so he could get a better sense of how big the crowd of villagers actually was. Once in Blueshift's presence again, Jube said: "One, crowd's about 500 strong. Two, something tried to eat my brain. Didn't work, but I'm not about to get cocky where mind-controllers are concerned. Your on-board sensor suite got anything that can pick up on psychic assault? Three, unfamiliar car parked behind that house" -- here, Jube pointed at exactly which house he meant -- "and four, some weird designs scratched into the dirt about where we stopped building yesterday."

For those who weren't already aware: 'CCG' stands for 'collectible card game'. The first, and possibly most successful, CCG is Magic: the Gathering, but there have been dozens of others as well... and it occurred to me that the Freedom City campaign might make a good CCG. So here's a thread for discussion and brainstorming on the topic! Basic premise: Hero vs Villain, of course. With superpowers. A fair chunk of the game-mechanics for super-powers should be directly transferrable from MnM to a CCG; attacks and defenses-against-attacks are both pretty useable, no problem. Supersenses and sensory obscurement can be implemented in terms of "if you can't see/sense it, you can't do anything to, or about, it". Types of cards: First are Character cards. One of these defines what-all its character is capable of just because. You need at least one of these in a deck. Next, Power cards. Each Character card has the character's powers listed on it, of course, but if you also have Power cards, you can add new powers to characters, either temporarily (see also: power stunts) or permanently. Third type of cards, Descriptors. As per MnM, Descriptors define what sort of power a power is. Each Character card has one or two Descriptors printed on it; each Power Card includes a list of all the Descriptors which can be applied to that power. If a character doesn't have any of the Descriptors listed on a Power card, you can't give that power to that character. The reason for allowing Descriptors to have cards unto themselves is, that way you can add Descriptors to their Character cards or Power cards, and thus allow characters to make use of powers they otherwise wouldn't be able to. Descriptor cards should be rare. 4th type of card, Combat Maneuvers. THese should be common. Every Character Card has a list of Maneuvers that the character can execute at any time, just because; play a CM card, and the character can use Maneuvers that aren't listed on their card. Lastly, DEM (Deus Ex Machina) cards. We may end up changing the name, but they're basically 'GM Fiat' cards. One of these babies can make pretty much anything happen. Some DEM cards will be more powerful than others, and as a class, DEM cards are rare in direct proportion to how powerful they are. Game setup Each player has their own deck, and their own discard pile. At the start of the game, each player picks a Character card out of their deck and plays it in front of themself. Each player then shuffles their own deck and deals themselves the top seven cards of their deck as their initial hand. Whenever you play a card, you can grab the next card off the top of your deck.

I am happy to report that Jube's Do-over on Will save (1d20+9=27) was a stunning success.

Naah, let's just go with it as it stands. "No, harm, no foul", as the saying goes, right?

Will save (1d20+9=13): Hm. Could be bad. I reserve the right to burn a hero point for a do-over, if the roll of 13 has icky consequences... Initiative! (1d20+31=40)

Is Crow going to do anything to/about/with the cheetah that just nommed all his kitty treats? feral!Jube won't stick around indefinitely; once teh kitteh gets bored, he'll zip off and find someone else to play with...

Suggestion for future reference, Arichamus: The next time you find yourself needing to lay down a GM Fiat, try mentioning it first in the OOC thread -- and say, "Here's what I need the PCs to do for this bit: [description of actions or whatever] Can you all please come up with your own reasons for why your character did what they did? Thanks much, and since this is GM Fiat, go ahead and collect a Hero Point for your trouble!"

Obviously, Jube and the geek from ASTRO Lab (who really should have a name...) were so absorbed in their conversation that they didn't notice anything weird until it was far too late to do anything about it. Otherwise, it's not at all clear why Jube wouldn't have at least tried to do something, like maybe evacuate everyone off the bus, when the weird figures first showed up.

Jubatus' intent is to take all the toys away from the zombies. Assuming he can do this thing (it seems likely, but with Haitian zombies, who knows what surprises they might have up their sleeves?), he's going to use an indelible marker from his Vest Of Many Things to mark each item with a binary code-number, and a matching code-number on the forearm of the person he took the item from. Just to make sure everything gets back to its proper owner when the smoke clears, right? And yes, Jube is going to (try to) disarm the crowd right now. Meaning, before these guys actually use their implements of destruction. The plan is to deposit all the shovels and rakes and etc at the airport, miles away from here. Yes, Jubatus is a suspicious and cynical soul...