Ari

Happy birthday, trollthumper! May you see many more, and always be glad to.

How about you give a summary of the battle with the Gyro-Gryphons, ending with her escaping Death By Crushing and rolling up the plane's body, and I lead off from there with the shocking and the crashing and the continued bad day?

Alright then! Let's say Cerulean gets a Bruise and a HP for that, and we move the in-character thread on.

Mad Scientist, I have an idea: next 'round' closes off the fight when the leading Gyro-Gryphon misses while shooting a stun-bolt at Cerulean while she's on its wingmate, instead briefly electrifying the other craft and sending the ornithopter and momentarily-paralyzed superheroine crashing through the side of the airship and into one of the command levels, inadvertently bringing her closer to Sky Lord. Or, if you prefer, Cerulean can finish off the Gryphons and make her way aboard by some other, less catastrophic means.

#3, 5 and 6 are caught in the ray, their Reflex saves vs DC21: 25, 22, 20. #3 and 5 make it, their DC20 Toughness saves 20, 16. #6's DC26 Toughness save: 17. #3 is unchanged(still Stunned), #5 suffers a Bruise and Injury to the pilot and vehicle respectively, #6 gets another Bruise and Injury and has their Stun refresh. #5 tries something new in crashing bodily into Cerulean, attempting to crush her between its beak and the airship. Attack roll: 26. Connects. DC25 Toughness save, with a DC20 Reflex save/Flight Power Check/Stunt off of her Array/Other Combat Trick to avoid smashing into the Lady Aetheria for a somewhat higher second Toughness save.

That's actually just DC23, I am a dumz. Damaging effects only get the DC15+rank. No effect. Anyway, G-Gryphon #1 rolls its DC15 Pilot check on an attack run: 20. Attack with Atmo-Cannon(Move Object 11, Area(Cone)): 10. Miss. Reroll(+1HP to Cerulean, 2HP): 23. Round three, and the Gryphons are no longer affected by Eileen's Concealment (+1HP again, at 3HP), DC18 Fortitude save. Cerulean's turn after that resolution.

Hn. From my reading of the rules I took it that a natural twenty struck regardless of concealment, but I still need to roll against it to see if it is, in fact, actually a Critical Hit. 7 on the Miss Chance roll, so that'd hit regardless, making it an official Critical Hit. As for the other edit, it was to fix an error where Gryphon #2 HAD in fact rolled a 1 (I blame the gremlins) and crashed into the airship. It was previously recorded as still in the running.

Don't forget about the Stun, Mad Scientist! We need to resolve that first.

Edited earlier post of Round 2, correcting an almost-uncaught error on my part. Round 3 G-Gryphon 1: Unharmed-GM G-Gryphon 2: Out-GM Cerulean: Unharmed, 1HP G-Gryphon 3: Pilot(Bruisedx1, Stunned) Vehicle(Injuredx1)-GM G-Gryphon 4: Out-GM G-Gryphon 5: Pilot(Bruisedx1)-GM G-Gryphon 6: Pilot(Bruisedx1, Stunned) Vehicle(Injuredx1)-GM

No worries, Mad Scientist. The last three Gryphons go together. We'll say the readied action takes precedence. Their pilots' DC21 Reflex saves: 20, 6, 15. None make it. Their DC26 Toughness saves: 12, 22, 18. #4 fails by 14, let's say the G-Gryphon is Destroyed and its pilot descends to Earth with their automatic safety device. #5's pilot is Bruised, and their Gryphon Injured. #6's pilot is Stunned and Bruised and their ship also Injured. Only #5 manages to take an action this round. Their DC15 Pilot check to try and got an angle on Cerulean: 25. Their Attack roll against her with a Stun: 28. Natural Critical Hit. EDIT: DC23 Fortitude save vs. Stun.

Alderwitch, I regret to tell you that Nightingale is taken by Sorus' vampire. Personally I'd be fine with them having the same name since they're so different and unlikely to end up in the same circles or contexts, but just for clarity's sake.

Round 2 G-Gryphon 1: Unharmed-GM G-Gryphon 2: Unharmed-GM Cerulean: Unharmed, 2HP G-Gryphon 3: Pilot: Bruised, Stunned Vehicle: Injured-GM G-Gryphon 4: Unharmed-GM G-Gryphon 5: Unharmed-GM G-Gryphon 6: Unharmed-GM Gryphons #1-2 attempt to make Pilot checks (DC15, it's a little tricky) to maneuver so they can safely fire on Cerulean: 13, 9, neither rolled a one(EDIT: actually #2 did, I beg your pardon Mad Scientist for this lapse. #2 crashes against the Lady Aetheria for a DC25 Toughness save: 13, failed by 12, craft is Staggered and Disabled, which I rule puts it out of the fight) or got below 5, so neither crash, but they have to pull away from the Lady Aetheria. Cerulean's go.

That hits, DC26 Toughness save: 17. Failed by 9, the Gyro-Gryphon is Injured, the Pilot is Stunned and Bruised. The last three make a Combined Attack with a Stun Attack (a kind of electric web): Leader (G-Gryphon #4) makes the initial Attack roll: 15, wow. The other two: 24, 27. The 27, as the highest, is the benchmark, and the 24 adds a +2 to the save, making it a DC20 Fortitude save vs. Stun.

A very happy birthday to you, Sorus! I hope you see many more!

GM Inside the Lady Aetheria's navigation chamber, its pilot stumbled away from the viewing equipment, clutching their masked face and groping for the heavy-duty goggles hanging beside them. After a moment's struggle, they fastened them overtop their already From the outside, the dirigible listed noticeably, no longer on the swing that would have brought its guns to bear. A precious bit of time on Cerulean's side. Meanwhile, the specks had grown quickly as Eileen had flown closer to their mothership, revealing themselves to be golden-hued craft the size of fighter jets, but with no visible engines and with hulls ornamented to resemble mythical griffins. Their wings in feather-like segments ablur and roaring with the incredible speed at which they vibrated, the squadron tore through the sky towards the blue-blazing heroine. Diving into an attack, the leading ships let loose crackling lances of electricity from the open beaks on their noses, but the bolts failed to hit Cerulean. The closer stabbed through one of the illusory images, barely near enough for the real article to feel the heat and smell the stink of ozone. The pair of bizarre ornithopters howled past Eileen and began the slow work of turning back, while the rest of the squadron droned rapidly closer!

They are not! Thank you for alerting me to that, Mad Scientist, I had quite overlooked it in your post, which I see mentions it very plainly. Miss chance roll (high misses, low hits): 17. Never mind, the Gyro-Gryphon's lightning-charge merely passes harmlessly through one of Cerulean's photo-illusions. Cerulean's action, please. EDIT: On second thought, it would be absurd for Sky Lord to put planes in the air that can be defeated by such simple means as 'not being physically seen'. Let's say they do (with an Accurate Radius Radio sense), but it's taking time for them to adjust to such a small and maneuverable target as Cerulean, and comes into play on turn 3 or so. That sound fair to you?

So combat lineup looks like this: G-Gryphon 1: Unharmed-GM G-Gryphon 2: Unharmed-GM Cerulean: Unharmed, 3HP G-Gryphon 3: Unharmed-GM G-Gryphon 4: Unharmed-GM G-Gryphon 5: Unharmed-GM G-Gryphon 6: Unharmed-GM Round 1, Gryphons 1-2 dive and fire electric bolts at Cerulean (non-lethal damage). 15, 9 on their rolls, so only #1 manages to land a hit. DC23 Toughness save, please. After that's resolved I'll post in the in-character thread and it'll be your turn Mad Scientist.

I beg your pardon for the delay. Please roll Initiative. DC19 Reflex saves for the pilot 8 DC19 Fortitude save 16. Until the pilot recovers, the dirigible is unable to bring its weapons to bear on Eileen, each additional successful use of the Dazzle gets her an extra two rounds of breathing room (unless the pilot is already Dazzled, they have to have clear eyes to be blinded again). For the pilots of approaching Gyro-Gryphons(super-science ornithopters), their craft give them Immunity to Visual Dazzles. There are six of them, and they dive towards Cerulean, commencing an attack. Their Initiative rolls: 22, 21, 15, 11, 9, 8.

Player Characters on here have already solved a terminally-ill girl's disease by transferring her consciousness into a robo-corpus. At least one other PC(since Archived, sadly) was the result of nanotech raising a young woman from the dead. And one of the primary hopes of nanotechnology is that it'll allow for medical options hitherto undreamed-of. I think you'd be good having your character use their gifts to benefit humanity like that. As for it as an excuse for wealth/nemeses, sure. Both make sense. As for whether to use an existing disease...I'd strongly encourage it. Do the research first, of course, so you'll get it as right as you can, but superheroes bringing hope where there's none and solutions where none exist is as old as Superman punching out arms-dealers.

GM For an instant, the door held. Another and it had burst out into the hallway, leaving a red-hot hole in the wall and shards of hissing metal embedded in the opposite wall. The meal was evaporated. As the echoes of the explosion died away, a new sound began: the long, mournful wail of an emergency siren, digitized and seeming to come from every direction! A voice rang out, sounding like a 1940's radio announcer "Alert, alert! All troops to stations! Cell breach in arch A09, superhuman presence suspected! Pilots to gyro-Gryphons! Alert, alert!" Down the hallway, the soldier who had given Eileen the food swung around at the explosion of noise. Seeing the living lantern surrounded by her blue nimbus and the hole in the wall of her cell they leaped into action, lunging over to a small red lever and yanking it down like their life depended on it. Another claxon clanged to life even as the soldier dashed madly around the corner and out of sight, their footsteps receding even as others both heavier and more numerous drew nearer. All along the ceiling, mounted guns swung down, quickly turning to get a lock on Cerulean as soldiers in the hefty powered armor burst into view, their deceptively primitive weapons crackling to life. "Intruder spotted! Commencing capture!" Now... After the raucous, metallic din of the airship, the upper troposphere was a peaceful, if stomach-turning, change. The wind whistled softly past Eileen's ears as she tumbled towards the distant clouds, the fragments of the wall already vanishing into the gentle white cover. New York City lay below her like some abstract painting poking through gaps in the cotton wool of the lower atmosphere. Far above, small buzzing things darted from the sides of the Lady Aetheria, rapidly swinging down to intercept the young light controller. It was hard to make them out in the fading light, but something about their approach and shape whispered 'danger'. There wasn't any flitting silhouette of Elite's Ex-Jet(it was shaped more like an 'E', but that was beside the point), a silver flash of the Star-Car or the red-gold streak of Metro Champion. Incredible though it seemed, the massive airship had remained totally undetected, and Cerulean the only one around the power to do something about that.

Glad to have you back, souffle_girl! I'm well and so far the site is getting along okay. If you want Emily un-archived drop the Rednames a line and they'll take care of it.

Surveillance Crew DC20 Sense Motive check: 12. Door's DC26 toughness save: 13. The door explodes into the hall in a shower of super-heated metal. GM post and then we'll get back to normal chronological order, unless you want to do more in the flashback Mad Scientist?

Mad Scientist, feel free to edit your post with Eileen's transformation and next action, as the guard very happily trots off when told they're not wanted.

GM "Alright, just a sec, gotta heat it up a bit..." Something tingled in the air, and with a rattle of crockery the meal-door opened into the cell, letting a ramp carry gently down a plate of steaming potatoes, vegetables and a hearty slice of aromatic mutton. As the meal came to rest on the shelf at the ramp's end a chair flipped up to meet it and the door clicked shut. "Wait, hold on" The door slid open again, admitting a napkin-bundled set of cutlery. "Guessing you already know water's next to the bed, my cart's got some flavoring for the food or drink if you don't like mutton. Any questions? Anything you want me to tell another prisoner?" From the sound of their voice, the soldier on the other side of the door had been at this for a while, and the words were rapid and almost mechanical.