Heritage

Here is the crunch for my new space character, Ditra Fifty-Five; I thinks he turned out pretty good, considering how iffy I am at chargen. My one rules question is, if she has Comprehend Electronics, would she still need Datalink to access computers, or is that already covered? EDIT: already found and corrected a few mistakes in skills and such

Power Level: 10 (150/150PP) Tradeoffs: +0 Toughness/-2 Defense Unspent PP: 0 In Brief: Alien cyborg with telepathic and technopathic powers Alternate Identity: ditra055diplo Identity: Public Birthplace: Somewhere in Lor space Occupation: Diplomat and politician Affiliations: Second Hive, the Coalition, the Praetorians? Family: Hundreds of hive mates Description: Age: 10 Gender: Female shell Race: Nameless (Diplomatic model) Height: 170 cm Weight: 55 kg Eyes: Golden Hair: Green Skin: Green Ditra is a very pretty Nameless agent of the Diplo class, marked by green skin and green hair, which she currently wears short. Due to the nature of her robotic body, she has few physical needs, so she tends to dress in simple yet flattering jumpsuits in gray, white or black, which offer little protection from hostile environments or attacks. She does own an older EVA suit that she keeps in her luggage in case of emergency. History: Ditra is a Nameless agent, one of hundreds chosen to serve her race's long-term plan to infiltrate and overthrow the Republic from the inside. But the Fifty Year Plan, which had somehow not been completed in nearly two hundred years, quickly became obsolete once the first agents were exposed in the early stages of the Communion Incursion three Terran years ago. Like the rest of her race, Ditra had to adapt to a radical new situation, and she was as surprised as anyone else to find herself fighting alongside the 'marks' in what would come to be called the Coalition. But she has always liked the Lor, and never specifically wished them any ill will, so maybe it should have been less of a shock. She served with distinction throughout the conflict, even receiving the grudging respect of members of other races. With the fighting over, Ditra registered herself along with the other more or less law-abiding agents, and looked into finding some sort of gainful employment on CoVic Station; she did a number of odd jobs, including security, labor negotiations and working in the various markets throughout the station. One day she was approached by members of her hive about possibly serving on the Coalition council as a representative for the Nameless; they pointed out that she was a popular agent, and her distinguished war service meant that she was already known outside the hive. After much consideration, she agreed to having her designation placed on the ballot, and was shocked to find that she'd won the election by a significant number; she now suspects there was some sort of tampering that guaranteed her victory. Despite (or perhaps because) of the way she came to her position, she takes it very seriously, and she sincerely wants what's best for her people, even though no one can agree on what that truly is right now. Personality & Motivation: Ditra Fifty-Five was, like all Diplomatic units, designed, bred, cloned, assembled and programmed specifically to be likable, helpful and attractive to the Lor. Yet even if one knows this, it's hard not to like her; she's pretty, warm and charming, and genuinely wants to serve both her race and the Coalition as a whole. She's very much aware of how most races see her kind, and will freely acknowledge their concerns; she knows that will have to work very hard to earn anyone's trust, and that even then, a single careless word or action can bring it all crashing down. But all is not so serious for this young sentient; she is very curious and loves to learn things, and finds other races and peoples to be fascinating. She also loves playing the elaborate videogames her people design, and spends much of her free time in highly competitive gameplay Powers & Tactics: In terms of offense, Ditra really only has one weapon: the powerful blaster built into her right forearm. But to think this is all she brings to the table is to sell her short; her communication capabilities are considerable, and her databanks hold a tremendous amount of information, which make her an ideal investigator, interrogator or negotiator. Complications: The Nameless Peril: Ditra is a member of one of the least trusted races in the galaxy, and is frequently the subject of considerable prejudice. A Bit of a Snoop: Ditra is both naturally curious and a telepath; she may have a hard time resisting peeking into someone's mind, even if they're a friend. For Love of the Game: Like many Nameless agents, Ditra is a bit of a videogame addict, and may be distracted from time to time by gameplay in her head. Domo Arigato, Mistress Roboto: Though her body contains several biological components, it is still mostly robotic, and thus is susceptible to powers or devices that affect technology. Horrible, Horrible Freedom!: If her centipede-like pilot is ever pulled out of her shell, Ditra would be terribly exposed. A Sense of Duty: As an elected councillor of the Coalition, Ditra takes her duties very seriously, which may lead to moral conflicts over where her loyalties lie. Abilities: 0 + 6 + 0 + 10 + 4 + 8 = 28PP Strength: 10 (+0) Dexterity: 16 (+3) Constitution: 10 (+0) Intelligence: 20 (+5) Wisdom: 14 (+2) Charisma: 18 (+4) Combat: 16 + 12 = 28PP Initiative: +3 Attack: 6, Melee +6, Ranged +6, Unarmed +6, Blaster +10 Grapple: +16 (+10 Str, Attack 6) Defense: 8 (+8 Defense), 4 Flat-footed Knockback: Saving Throws: 0 + 8 + 5 + 8 = 21PP Toughness: +10 (+0 Con, +4 Defensive Roll, +6 Protection) Fortitude +8 (+2 Con, +8 Enhanced Con) Reflex +8 (+3 Dex, +5) Will +10 (+2 Wis, +8) Skills: 60R = 15PP (*Skill Mastery) Bluff 6 (+10)* Computers 5 (+10) Diplomacy 11 (+15)* Gather Information 6 (+10)* Knowledge (Behavioral Sciences) 5 (+10) Knowledge (Civics) 5 (+10) Knowledge (Galactic Lore) 5 (+10) Notice 3 (+5) Perform (Oratory) 6 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10)* Feats: 7PP Benefit: Diplomatic Status Defensive Roll 2 Eidetic Memory Jack of All Trades Skill Mastery (Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Sense Motive) Well-Informed Powers: 24 + 9 + 3 + 18 = 54PP Standard Diplomatic Shell [24PP] Comprehend 3 (Read, Speak and Understand any Sapient language) [6PP] Features 3 (Internal Compartment, Internal Computer, Iron Stomach) [3PP] Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9PP] Protection 6 [6PP] Communications Package (ComPac) [9PP] Base Power: Mental Communication 5 (Extra: Subtle) [6PP] AP: Datalink 5 (Radio-based, Extra: Subtle) [1PP] AP: Mind Reading 10 (Extra: Subtle, Flaw: Limited to Surface Thoughts Only) [1PP] AP: Radio Communication 5 (Extra: Subtle) [1PP] Sensory Package (SensPac) [3PP] Super-Senses 3 (Mental Awareness, Radio) [3PP] Tactical Package (TacPac) [18PP] Blast 8 (Extra: Accurate 2) [18PP] Drawbacks: (-3) = -3PP Weakness (Requires Radioactive Materials, Frequency: Common, Intensity: Moderate [cumulative -1 penalty on all checks, attack rolls and Defense]) [-3PP] DC Block ATTACK RANGE SAVE EFFECT Blaster Ranged DC 23 Tough Damage Mind Reading Perception DC 20 Will Read Surface Thoughts Abilities 28 + Combat 28 + Saving Throws 21 + Skills 15 + Feats 7 + Powers 54 - Drawbacks 3 = 150/150 Power Points

Woo-hoo!

Sorry I got so behind on posting; Friday was rough at work, and I was busy all weekend. Will attempt to get caught up over the next two day.

Casey's Notice: 1d20+14=30

Actually it does sound like Casey placed the call to three people she trusted to help with the investigation; awesome!

Grim's cheerful smile vanished at the mention of these 'mimicking agents'; the Empress had rather cavalierly replaced several people like it was no big deal. She might be a shapeshifter, but the thought of it made her sick to her stomach. Without the mental link, Gretch will detect the imposter immediately; she's probably pinned her to the wall with her Ring and is making her wish she was dead. Hell hath no fury like a Gretchen deceived. And if she somehow doesn't detect the imposter? Forgive. Understand. Do not accuse or blame. You made that mistake once with Bill; never again. With great effort, the changeling kept her tone civil and polite...as she fought the urge to leap upon this woman and claw her eyes out. "I'm sorry, but 'aggressive, mean-tempered and violent towards anyone not their own'? Congratulations, you've just described humanity; your people would act exactly the same way if they were stranded on a strange world. It's what desperate people do." Shaking her head in disgust and crossing her arms tightly across her chest, she continued. "We'll help you with your problem, because that's what heroes do." Then she waited for the Empress to answer the various questions the group had asked of her.

Ooooooh!

Ooh, pick me, pick me! Blarghy did an amazing job with his first GMed thread, so I have high hopes for this one. Tiff, if you do chose Miss Grue, it would be nice to see to her and Casey working together again!

I have wanted to either play or run a 'shrunken heroes' adventure for *years*; would Miracle Girl be okay, or does flight make things too easy?

All of Casey Blankenship's homework was already done, as it typically was within the first minute she was back in her dorm after classes, checked, double-checked and triple-checked as well. She sighed as she saved her work and put away her textbooks; now she began to ponder what to do for the rest of the evening. Checking her calendar, she saw she had no long-term projects due and no upcoming Scouting activities, which meant another night of patrolling. Casey genuinely liked patrolling the vast majority of the time, but that didn't mean she didn't have days when she just wasn't in the mood. This evening, the sunset was still gorgeous and the city spread out before her like a beautiful sculpture made of light, but for whatever reason, her heart just wasn't in it tonight. That is, it wasn't before she spotted the glowing message in thermal ink on a Kingston rooftop that set her pulse to racing. Yes, Terrifica needs me! This night just got a thousand times better! Casry quickly swung home to put on a navy blue tracksuit over her usual bright red, white and blue costume (she really had to talk to Sakurako about some camouflage options), then zipped back actoss thr river post haste. The blonde heroine drastically reduced her speed as she approached North Bay, which caused the bioenergy field around her to dim considerably, as well as greatly reducing the sound of her passage; by the time she got to the address in question, she was hardly more than a dark blue smudge in the sky. She landed as quietly as she could next to her mentor, struggling to keep her excitement from bubbling over and overwhelming her attempt at whispered conversation. "Hi, Terrifica! What kind of case are we working?"

Don't mind if I do!

Tagged!

Happy birthday, durf and E!

Lynn has always loved Riverside; other than the occasional cast iron fence or storefront that made her queasy (Lantern Hill was technically worse), it was pretty much her dream neighborhood. The quirky shops and galleries, the street corner cafes and hair in every shade of the rainbow always just made her smile. She used to share an apartment here, many years ago, and she still found herself here at least once a week, looking to see what new places had opened up. She also liked to stop by to visit her 'friendly rival' Andrew Orlando at The Never-Ending Story, to grab a copy of the Riverside Review and talk shop over a cup of coffee. Her tummy now warm with caffeinated happiness, she idly wandered the streets until she suddenly got a whiff of something so utterly delicious, she had to stop and take a long slow breath through her nose to savor it. Oh my God, is that challah? It smells simply fantastic! Using her amazing sense of smell to literally track down the scent of the egg bread, the changeling soon found herself entering Jaden's shop, a lovely young woman wearing Teva sandals, khaki shorts, a No Doubt T-shirt and an ecstatic expression. Hi!" Oh, she was smiling like an idiot. "I was just wandering the streets just now, and the smell of you challah more or less dragged me inside! Can I buy a loaf?"

Trying to use a little Diplomacy to get Rhekgar motivated: 1d20+10=13, 17 with Attractive Man, I should have just stuck with Skill Mastery! I know this will seem dumb, but I almost want to blow an HP for a reroll, because that was some fine Diplomattin' I wrote there! Or would that be something else other than Diplomacy?

When Casey was about ten years old, she stumbled upon a Will Ferrell movie on cable called Stranger Than Fiction; like many young kids, she thought he was really funny, especially in movies like Anchorman and Elf, so she decided to watch this movie, too. Except it wasn't very funny; it was about a man who found out he was only a character in a story, and his whole life was a lie, and at the end of the story he was going to die. And even though it had a happy ending, Casey thought it was the saddest thing she'd ever seen in her young life. Rhekgar now knew he was fictional, and she couldn't imagine a crueler thing to do to someone; what could she possibly say to someone after they learned that? She landed gently on the floor near his cage, and then crouched down to have a seat. "I'm sorry this happened to you, sir; I can't imagine how you feel right now." She sighed as she tried to think of something, anything that might offer him some solace. "Look, in your tribe or clan or whatever, you tell stories about the great deeds of your forefathers, right? About who slew the most men or saved the prettiest princess? So that means that after a hero dies, that's what they leave behind: their story." She shrugged. "I don't know if this will help or not, but here in our world, millions of people know your story; they can describe your greatest battles and adventures, they're inspired by your courage, and little kids wish they could grow up to be you. Isn't that what every hero wants; to live in the hearts of men and women forever?" The blonde heroine scooted a little closer to Rhekgar's cage. "Now what was done to you was wrong, ripping you away from your world, your life and your loved ones." Then she laid a hand over her chest. "You don't have to believe I'm real, but believe that my desire for justice is real. If you can help me defeat the man who did this to you, I swear to you that I will do everything in my power to get you and the other hostages back to where you belong. Can you help me do that?"

Miracle Girl could also fly him over easily.

-Anything?- -According to the all-powerful internetz, which are never, ever wrong, the Parkhurst has been vacant for years. And the records of ownership are a labyrinth of bizarre accidents and disappearances. For instance, in 1964 a woman's head was found in one fo the bridal suites, and they never figured out who it belonged to. Ever.- -So....creme de la weird, eh?- -Yep.- Lynn pursued her lips and nodded a few times...and then she got up from behind the desk, stepped over to the door and locked it. She then returned to her seat, and ran her fingers through her hair while letting out a long sigh. Finally, after looking down at her surface of her desk for a long time, the store owner leveled a glance at her interviewee. "Marcus, I have to ask you a very important question, and I want you to answer with complete and total honesty; I want to assure you that I'm very hard to shock and I can keep a secret, for years if need be." Lynn closed her eyes for a few seconds before continuing. "What can you tell me about magic?"

Lynn opted to try none of the refreshments; she had very few physical needs, and memories of innocently ingesting Doctor Archeville's mind controlling nanobots quickly came to mind, and she wanted to full cognizant during this briefing. She took a seat, folding her legs under herself, the whole time pondering the mystery of the voice of the Empress; had she encountered her alternate back on Prime? There was a conversation of some type, possibly about books...? And then Gabriel went all chummy and talkative, and what the genuine f###? The Jewish pixie and the Catholic crusader didn't see eye to eye on everything, but each had a healthy respect for the other, and she felt she knew him well enough to say that humanity's God-given free will was one of the things he respected most. No way; there is no way Gabe drank the Kool-Aid. He's got to be stronger than that. If it was anyone else, she would have bought it all hook, line and sinker, and part of her still wanted to believe his earnest spiel, but her heart told her it was a big stinking pile of BS that smelled like roses. So instead she just smiled and looked at the Empress expectantly, an eager child ready for her lecture.

This was a lot of fun! I love tragic villains, which seem to be what we're dealing with here, and I really like it when actions have consequences. Looking forward to the next one!

Dueling Storms it is!

THE NAMELESS (aka ‘Bugs’) The Nameless are a bioengineered race that was designed for infiltrating galactic empires such as the Lor; they were modified so long ago, they barely remember their homeworld, though they do tell the story of how they turned on the race that created them (known only in legends as ‘the Harvesters’) to win their freedom. The Nameless successfully lived within the Empire for almost two hundred years, slowly plotting and accumulating wealth and power before they were discovered, but by that time though their numbers were small they held powerful positions throughout all layers of society, and a purge might be catastrophic. So an uneasy peace was negotiated, with all Nameless agents relinquishing their holdings and revealing themselves to the Empire. Though they will never be fully trusted, the Nameless have since proven themselves to be loyal and hardworking…at least as long as someone is watching. A Nameless agent consists of two parts, a ‘pilot’ and a ‘shell’. The pilot is a dark chitinous creature like a centipede as thick and as long as human arm, with a long venomous spike for a tail; they originally come from a high-gravity planet and breathe methane, as well as requiring trace amounts of various toxic elements to survive. The pilot coils it up in the belly of a robotic humanoid shell that is physically indistinguishable from a Lor or other humanoid race (depending on the model), with a head full of cloned brain matter to help translate its alien thoughts into understandable speech and behavior; the shell also boosts the pilot's natural telepathic abilities. In addition to allowing the bugs to survive in a terrestrial atmosphere, the shells often contain hidden weapons or communication devices useful for their work. Among humanoids, a Nameless agent will eat regular food, which is allowed to decompose in a special internal chamber, providing the methane they need to survive; however the shell is also used to intake a bewildering variety of substances for trace elements, so it's not uncommon for a bug to be seen eating eggshells, old batteries or lint. This bizarre diet has been the source of much inter-species humor over the years. It should also be noted that a pilot can abandon its shell for another by climbing up the throat and entering the mouth of another shell; few outside of the Nameless have seen this disturbing Cronenbergian phenomena, and it is not a sight soon forgotten. It is also therefore possible for a pilot to use another's shell, in essence hijacking it; since most elements of the created humanoid personality are housed in the shell's brain matter, it can theoretically be very hard to tell who's really who when addressing a shell. Predatory creatures before the development of the shell technology, the Nameless still show much of their biological legacy; though they've developed a great deal of affection for the humanoids they've lived amongst for all these years, they still enjoy toying with them like a cat with a mouse, or pulling the wool over a rube's eyes. These tendencies have not gone unnoticed, and prejudice against the ‘bugs’ is very common among intelligent species. THE FOUR NAMELESS SHELL TEMPLATES The Astro (Blue-skinned) - Masters of astrogation, technology and mathematics, Astros are hard to get to know; some humans genuinely dislike these seemingly cold individuals, who display behavior similar to humans at the far end of the autism scale. Not all use their skills for piloting, however; many are researchers, technicians and designers without peer. Astros rarely interact with the general public. The Diplo (Green-skinned) - Outgoing, friendly and universally attractive, just about everyone likes hanging out with Diplos; skilled in a wide variety of social sciences and experts at reading body language, these agents always seem to know the right thing to say. They can also change their hair, skin and eye colors to better fit in with other humanoid races. While they make excellent spokespersons and negotiators, many Diplos are wonderful doctors, therapists and writers. The Infil (Pink-skinned) - Shapeshifters and true masters of telepathy, Infils are what most people think of when they hear the term 'Nameless'; manipulative spies with changeable bodies moving effortlessly through the human population. Though their skills would seem tailor made for security and espionage, many Infils can also be found in the visual and performing arts, though rarely openly. The Tac (Gold-skinned) - Huge and menacing, Tacs are the front-line warriors of the Nameless; built for strength and durability, most Tacs incorporate extensive internal weapon systems, and can frequently fly, shoot death rays from their hands and genuinely kick serious ass. However few of these giants are actually as fierce as they first appear, and their humble demeanor is a source of calm on the battlefield, though they also patiently toil in low-g factories and on hydroponic farms.

The way I was gonna play it for Grim is she would totally buy what he's saying...if she didn't know him. And her gut would tell her that unless he's mind controlled (a terrifying thought), there is no way in hell Gabe would sign off on this, as it flies in the face of humanity's God-given free will, which is one of things she knows he values highly.