Ari
-
Posts
7,853 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Freedom City Guidebook
Freedom City PBP: A How-To Guide
Gallery
Events
Everything posted by Ari
-
One thing that might be worth considering, if it's built into a stellar body, is that being on the surface of an atmosphereless globe means being in danger of meteorites. Now, obviously any interstellar civilization worth its salt will have some handwave technique(the favorite of course being the Five-Thousand Force Field Benchu Hatsu Super Materials Handwave), but what if it worked the other way for desirability, where if you had little scratch you got to worry about asteroids and taking care of the infrastructure lying on the surface.
-
GM "None of your 'dozens' suffered any permanent harm, Cobalt Templar. And unless they drive themselves mad wondering what it was they can't remember, none will. And I never so much as touched any mind that didn't have some inkling of a clue. If you want me to give myself up after I've seen what I need to see in the pool, I'll be happy to. You're right about one thing, I really shouldn't get away with this." Warping concave, the shield collapsed, and the indigo man took off the Indigo Ring with a jerk. Holding it up with a fingerless gloved hand, he looked at it for a brief moment of longing, but mastering himself tossed the artefact at Corbin's armored feet, where it clattered and rolled gently to a halt in its brother's flaming shadow. "Never should have taken that thing. Should have left it buried with the Caliph. Got desperate after years of looking." Dropping to the ground, In'Dego looked wearily at his three hunters "May I at least be escorted to the pool? I have to know when they come for the Night Stone. I know they will. I dream it all the time.
-
And as another PL15 Batclone in substantially non-PL15 circumstances, they even have a special kinship!
-
Ma-gic Grue, ma-gic Grue! The Grue Arcane aren't even anything like those one guys in Annihilation, you'll take everyone by total surprise. And a shapeshifting alien with like transmutive magic would be hilarious in the metaphorical opportunities.
-
Nope.
-
GM The tunnel's first visible sign was several seconds after Tona pressed the button, long enough for some rather questioning glances to pass between the quiet, tense crowd of tribals. Then the space before her twisted clockwise, swiveling open into a shuddering, roaring maw of red and white, the sense of apocalypse as strong as before. This time, though, there was something else, something wounded but resolute, which as the Terminus tunnel widened and stabilized was revealed to be a forest glade on Sanctuary, indistinct but blessedly real. At the sight of real, honest sunlight for the first time in any of their lives, most of the tribe drew forward, eyes wide. At the front limped Jail Bird, leaning on the shoulder of Petro. Staring wide-eyed at the paradise wheeling before them, he leaned over to his valiant, cunning daughter and whispered "I wish she could see this. A world bathed in gold, with a blue sky...that'd melt even Mama's heart..." With growing confidence, the people of the dying world began to rush closer to the portal, which by now stood as high as some of the trees, and wide enough to cover half the clearing. The Atoms, evidently, knew their other-dimensional transport. The first few ranks were just passing through, dimly visible as they ran and jumped for joy at their escape, when the drones and automatons arrived on the scene. A tight cluster of the metal beasts were charging for the clearing, shielding something in their midst, when a hail of pike-fire tore through them, sending their charge hurtling onto the grass. In his anachronistic, twisted metal finery, it was impossible not to know him. The Steam General, with his battered martial bravado now entirely gone, eyes wild with terror as he jumped up and staggered for the portal "Mercy!" he screamed above the tumult as the drones finished off his soldiers with contemptuous ease, his arms waving furiously as he ran to the last hope of safety "Please! Take me with you! I'll pay any penance, do whatever you want, just don't leave me here!" Silex's hysterical laughter cut through the sudden silence. The drones had swooped into a parade-style formation above the retreating tribe, looking on impassively behind their skull-like helmets, watching the last gasps of the world as it was sundered and torn by the ever-nearing Doom Coil. At that moment, the Atlantic was being reduced to a small puddle, the waterspout visible even that far inland.
-
GM In apparent answer to Equinox's question, the column of life abruptly split, several great spirals of creation sliding noiselessly back into the ground, while the core remained, its head of microbes splitting into three children that arranged themselves to better oversee the doings of the newcomers. The silvery cords gave no other sign of movement, which destroyed the illusion of life pretty thoroughly, but added a certain air of vigilance. A faint coppery tang hung in the air where they stood. 'Don't say I never warned you, Cantos. I mean it, we'll all likely be seeing the Great Shadow soon, and if you perjure me at the silent gate I'll never visit you. No matter where they throw that ungainly soul. I shan't even bother telling you to run or try to talk sense to it, it's probably too stupid to understand anything but violence...which is always rather nice...'
-
Equinox's magical learnings and keen eye let her in on a little secret: the ley line coursing through the earth and water below isn't anything like the harsh, angular dragon lines Ghorummaz carved into place eons ago. It's the result of guiding elemental force, bending it and binding it to one direction and purpose. It seems to draw most of its authority from the narrow spring river, which has all the signs of having been around for a long, long time. It's barely stable, and only really works by sheer momentum, but it's powerful enough and a feat of magical engineering all the same. As it's not connected to the larger network, its likely source is the spring upriver.
-
GM As the Claremonters were being shown around, Magmatic quietly approached Cho Lee, Saboteur playing the tour guide at the front with the rest chipping in with various bits they knew. Unusually soft-spoken, the crystalline Magmin said "Hey, uh...Cho? See, Miles is gonna ask later, but I thought it would be better to just come out and say it. Do you...well, would you like to join us? Just for a little while, to help show us how this superhero thing works? You said earlier that Claremont's not really got you doing stuff full-time, and it'd be nice to have somebody around who isn't as scary as Bestia or as creepy as Racer to talk to. Not like most of us know much about this country, either, I wouldn't mind having somebody who knows what's going on around!" Smiling hopefully, the gemlike princess waited for Cho's answer.
-
GM With a curt nod and a signal to Racer, whose gloomy face had a brightened a little at the approach of their tall green-clad leader, Saboteur explained himself to the Claremont gang. "We're some of the WYRM's students, an-ah, that is, we're wards of the World Youth Rescue Movement. It was founded only a year or two ago to prevent children or teenagers with powers or exceptional skill from falling into the hands of warlords, supercriminals or those traitors to mankind in New Freedom" Spitting on the ground at the word 'Freedom', Miles cautioned Racer as an insectile mask started growing over her head "Just a quick jump, Khonny, don't overdo it." The warning got a light chuckle from the armored girl as the horns on her mask and feet flared with murky power. As a globe of darkness flashed into place around the teens, Saboteur went on idly "Me and Bestia were the first they found and rescued in central Africa, then Magmatic and Racer in the Pacific," the globe locked shut with a feeling rather than a sound, a sensation of sudden, cold isolation, like being in a diving bell "with our latest member, Brainclay, discovered in South America. The Movement trains us, gives us room and board, and provides us with an excellent education, but our purpose is not to become mainly crime-fighters. No, our purpose is to become teachers, examples and rescuers ourselves. Learning to do battle with super-criminals and trying to soften or avert disaster is but one part of what the WYRM hopes to achieve through us, so while we may do things similar to the great super-teams, like your justly vaunted Freedom League, we do not merely copy their ethos. Our mission and methods are our own." With a jolt, the globe receded, admitting a flood of light that dazzled unprepared eyes. As they grew used to it, a large, starkly Modernist room materialized before the young heroes, immaculately polished steely walls, a floor and ceiling so white they seemed to vibrate. Close by was a circular table with a holographic projection of the Earth rotating above it, orbited by the words 'No Anomalies Detected'. The room was square and high-ceilinged, leading off in the north to a short passageway with seven doors, five of them marked on the right with an LCD display with one of the new teen's names. And the very end of the hall were a pair of doors marked with the universal sign for 'restroom'. To the south, a heavy electronic door marked 'HVOC' stood shut, while to the west a softer, more naturally-lit room with windows overlooking Midtown's skyscrapers was set up with exercise equipment and a dais bearing substantial amounts of print and electronic media. The sheer number of Castle Comics books alone was staggering. To the east was a generous kitchen, and a well-stocked, exceptionally clean one at that, adjoining a sumptuous dining room heavy on the mahogany and red cloth. The only sign of the benefactors was a simple sign, a white globe with the organization's initials on it in red, on the central room's floor. Nearby was a simple metallic elevator.
-
GM In a tangled cloud of acrid vapors and vicious liquid, the whirlwind swept away the acid to the toxic waste disposal facility on the South River bank. That done, there was nothing else to stop the heroine discovering where the chemical came from, and the link it had to the prisoner. Zipping into the closet, Velocity saw the answer in a glance. An African-American girl, barely out of her mid-teens at most, was secured to the far wall in a cage of metal and plastic, tubes running from cups suctioned to her hands and cheeks to the melted containers. She was disheveled and wearing the dirty remains of a homemade costume, hoarse with fear and made only a brief cry of joy as Megan rescued her from the cramped prison. Outside, blinking in the unfamiliar light of day and shivering at the chill, the girl and Velocity were met by a now grim-faced Bonham, wearing his AEGIS uniform and flanked by several agents as he disembarked from an unmarked car. "I heard what happened." Stewart said "Good work. I knew you were right for this. Hey there, kid" he added with a gentle smile to the girl Megan held "you're going to be all right now, we're the good guys. Got a name? Do you know who the people were who captured you?" Shaking her head and making her long black hair bounce and bob around her face, the girl said weakly "M'Savannah Pensy. Called myself 'Leak', cause...I made that stuff in there, Velocity" she looked up at the heroine with a flinch of shame "They made me make it. I came here, thought a super-gang was hiding out, that I could just go in and bust 'em...'stead they grabbed me and shut me in that closet. They never said anything to me, 'cept if I was ****ing up the formula, for all the good that did 'em. I heard them say 'Majestic' a lot, though. That help?" As she spoke, Bonham's smile had twitched and wavered. At the last words, it vanished, and the normally blasé Deputy Director was all business. "It gives us a lead, and that's more than we hoped. Thank you, Savannah, we'll get you back to your parents as soon as possible. Velocity," his sharp blue eyes turned to regard the speedster once more "looks like we'll need to get you a task force. This is worse than any of us expected. A near-miss with a bio-agent attack, right here in Freedom? I hope you'll agree that letting word get out would only complicate matters. I'll meet you at City Hall to, ah" for a brief moment his eyes regained their usual gleam "get you shipped to the Pole." "Wait!" Suddenly jerking free of Velocity's arms, Savannah limped up to Bonham on her disused legs, the blond man subtly reassuring his guards with a wave of his hand as they twitched into readiness and nodding once to the girl. Breathlessly, she demanded "I want in. I can help-!" "National security, Miss Pensy, is no place for amateurs" replied the Deputy Director coolly "I would rather not have to look Powers in the eye and explain why I let a novice mask get herself killed..." glancing suddenly over her head at Megan, he added thoughtfully, rubbing his rough chin "...but maybe something can be arranged. You might have heard something more. And AEGIS has let Goddamned highschoolers into its ranks...we'll see. For now, home. Officers?" With Savannah being escorted away, he and his guards turning back to the car, Bonham said over his shoulder to Velocity "Good luck, sweetheart. We'll all need it. Waiting's over, it's go-time now." END of the First Stage.
-
GM The cupola closed over her and Ted, the man shifting uncertainly before a soft tone filled the ears, and both were cast suddenly into sleep. The world of solid, tangible reality was transformed into one of shifting uncertainty, guided by the vagaries of the mind. As before, Ted's contribution to the local psychic impressions was a massive black tower, carved all over with everything he feared. I'll kill myself like Mom Everything I am to my family is a lie My brother will just try and give me over to the Mob tomorrow We'll be put out on the street I'll watch my kid starve because I wasn't strong enough... And, as before, the monster crouched on top of it, casting Ted's fears into even deeper shadow and weighing them even more heavily on his mind. "So, uh..." Ted stared up at the hideous thing looking down at him and Amelyth from the ramparts "What do we do about that?" "Nothing. You leave, because you cannot fight me even here."
-
Alright, now for the second chase(because marketing was chewing me out for false advertising). HP awarded to to Kyle for doing the more subtle approach and for running off with a destablising space gem. It's basically just an opposed sequence of Reflex rolls. At the end of each pair of rolls(let's say there's four pairs in total) Cavalier and Cerise try to shoot each other off-course, which is an Attack roll(using Accurate/Power/All-Out etc...if you wish) countered by a Toughness roll. Going at Space Travel speeds, there's a decent chance Kyle can get the Star back to the Newtorch station, so long as he wins at least half of the pairs. Does that work with you, troll, or would you prefer to do the scene differently?
-
GM Rocketing away from the lamed Celestia, his cargo blazing in the cool vacuum of space, there was plenty of time for Kyle to try and figure out what to do. The cracks on the Blue Star were spiderwebbing their way out from the core of evil, each new mini fissure sending a brief spike of energy through the Star Knight's armor. That close to the thing, it was impossible to be deceived any more, he could see clear as day the roiling, eye-studded horror crouching inside the cosmic gem. From the way it pressed against the walls of its prison, it wasn't hard to guess that it wanted the thing gone as much as almost everyone else wanted it intact. A coruscating column of energy blasting feet away from his head suddenly called attention to another problem. Behind him, brow thunderous with fury and body crackling with a sheathe of power, was Captain Cerise, green eyes aflame. Though his crew were presumably in the escape pod darting away to the stars 'below' them, it was plain that Zanvir wasn't going to let his prize go without a fight!
-
Breella! Have a happy birthday. And then have some more birthdays, like lots more. You're a grand person. We wish you the best. PS. Hope Azuth has stopped/soon stops visiting Sickland.
-
"Heh! Water-Fang never dared ride the sea horses again, not 'til the very end of his days! I'm sure the kick in th-ah, but that is a story best told in full. After this, I shall tell you its entirety. Thank you for the hospitality, Scion of Waterspouts. Lady Tsunami, Lady Temperance, I hope to rejoin you soon." Wit those words and an aquatic bow, dragon-tipped tail circling him briefly, Wave-Eye swept downwards into the stands, hunting for that too-faintly caught face and scar. Passing a statue of Poseidon gracing the central span, the Aztec triton paused, wondering at the sight. The Lord of Earthquakes looked...young. In his prime, hoisting the Earthshaker Trident above his head, smiling with a pride and confidence that had yet to settle into cold jadedness and arrogance, his beard not yet become that vast, matted net, and with a forehead not yet creased with dreadful anger. With a flash of sudden understanding, Nochehuatl realized why the Atlanteans honored Poseidon, after all he had done and become. 'They remember what he was like, when he and Zeus and Hades fought the Titans to make Earth safe for the weaker races. Their priests and his children still see what he was in him, and seek to bring it out' As a son of Tlaloc and Chalchiuhtlicue, his human father not even a shadow on his memory, Nochehuatl had borne the souls of children, their blood filling the sacrificial pools, into the blessed paradise of the fertile Tlalocan. The Teotl was something remote, something alien to his half-human mind that set the makers of the suns far beyond mere like or dislike. No matter what, when his mother spoke through the rolling waves or his father called from the stormy skies, he had had to turn and listen. But these gods were almost like...elder brothers to the Atlantean mortals. Disorderly but helpful relatives. Valued as much for their personality as their rule over nature. The Teotl were, at their most human, still very much divine. Shaking his head vigorously, Wave-Eye turned back to his search, vanishing into the growing crowd and exchanging greetings and smiles with more faces than he had in decades. It was odd, at first, and the first few nods and terse words were awkward and forced, but as he went deeper and deeper into the swelling mass of jostling life, Nochehuatl began, for the first time in many long centuries, to relax. Here, at least, he was just another face in the crowd.
-
Alright, to cover the situation Velocity beholds: a young woman(16-17ish) encased in a mesh of steel and clear plastic, wearing the ragged and dirty remains of a homemade costume with a big blue 'A' on the hoodie chest. Her hands and head are free, but attached to tubes running into the nearby containers, with the sediment of some kind of fluid streaking the clear walls. The restraints and cage can be easily dismantled, since Velocity is outside them. They weren't built to provide maximum security, just keep somebody from getting away for the time being. There are acid marks almost up to the collarbone level of the cage.
-
'Relatively' means in this case means 'next room over'. It's out of the way for enough time to admit a speedster rescue!
-
More than half a century ago(in fact, now nearly four-fifths of one), a fan of E.E. Smith's cosmic-scale science fiction series, Lensman, which would later come to inspire the Silver Age Green Lantern Corps and several million other parts of thousands of other stories, decided to mock the sillier parts of the thing he so loved. This parody, titled 'Backstage Lensman', preceding the modern abridged series in both form and function, presents everything ghastly, ridiculous, unrealistic, tiresome and plain moronic about that laudable workhorse of a story as the stuff of high comedy. It is so good that Smith, upon reading it at a convention, was wracked with hilarity for the entirety of its brief page-space. In honor of the recent surge of space adventures and the many more to come, and in honor of this, my last day of posting(besidesthetimeitwilltaketofinishmyGMthreadsandgetalltheNPCsandsoforthontothetable), I present to you, my comrades in Play by Post, the great, the ineluctable, the inexorable, the fantastic, BACKSTAGE LENSEMAN Edit 22/09/2015: Changed link, inserted text (within spoiler tags) in case of future link outages.
-
Alright, an extra HP to Kit for the Sudden Dramations. At the present she is Fatigued, and at 2HP for the scene.
-
Races? His fan-like hair swirled as Nochehuatl turned his monstrous head to inspect the arena below. Massive black eyes squinting down seemed to contract into his head. As the water above the circuit cleared a little, and the passing swarms of fish and other visitors grew thinner he caught sight of what lay below. At first, the modern fashions and materials filled his heart with a vague sense of renewed gloom, as it appeared that even that old and beloved sport had changed beyond recall. Then, as the sextet drifted closer, he caught sight of some very key and telling details that sent a wave of nostalgia through his heart. The well-postured charioteers, though their gear was much heavier and of a different make than he remembered, had the same high helmets with the many-colored plumes waving above them. Their narrow platforms had the identical brassy waves curling at the prow, and the bent-necked hippocampi straining at the same stiff harnesses had the same fiery air and snorting impatience! For Wave-Eye, who for many long eons had seen only ghosts and faint echoes of the past, it was like hearing a beloved voice again that you'd given up all hope for. "Like old times, Daughter of Earthquakes! Reminds me of the contest between my brother Water-Fang and Krios the Brave. Never seen a crowd laugh so hard in my life." the triton rasped delightedly, the scarred red scales around his mouth bending fantastically to show off his array of glistening fangs "I am glad we came here, if my kind young escorts would permit me to go look for some old comrades, I should be much obliged. I think I see a familiar gashed set of fins and surly eyes in the stands."
-
GM Rene de Saens "There. Finished." Tossing the paintbrush into a glass of water on a nearby shelf, Marsha stood up and backed away to critique her handiwork. Glancing at Rene she added with a quirk of her lips "Hope y'like it. Your fault it exists, after all." 'It' was a notably crude painting, though given the constraints and circumstances that was excusable. It was a takeoff of the myth of Sisyphus, showing somebody struggling up a rocky hillside pushing a heavy load. They were muddily-colored and the face was indistinct, but hardy and resolute. A shining figure, bound to an equally large burden of their own, was just reaching over to help. Tapping her chin, the painter scowled deeply "Ehhhh...it's obvious, trite and the composition is just plain clichè. Bet everyone who sees it will freak out, it's how it seems to go. At least it gets the point across. And it's at least kinda true. They're not here to supplant us, just to help. They've got problems, small victories, nagging regrets and all the other stuff." Turning fully to the ancient artist Marsha smiled awkwardly, arms crossed "Feels kinda silly it took me so long to get that, but 'least it's got. Thank you, Mr. Dream." The black threads that had flowed from her head to the easel withered with a far-off howl of anguish and defeat. For the first time he'd seen, the young woman looked downright relaxed and even a little happy.
-
Hey now! Not very heroic? They're just a yellow and blue short of a whole Power Rangers gang! What could be less sketch than that, I ask you?
-
GM Stronghold Taking the small yet potent artefact with trembling hands after several dangerous moments of amazement, Abby gaped at the band of ochre metal, putting it on her right ring finger with deep gravity. "I've never even dreamed about something like this," she whispered, eyes bright with tears "but...it's the only place this could happen. Alright!" Suddenly turning to face the now rather more cautious dream dogs, Abby's suit, torn and grubby to a caricatured degree, wavered and reformed into a vivid orange costume like Haukea's own, and the Ring flared and crackled with a power that transcended states of consciousness! "You can't-!" "You forget-!" "Shut up! You're parasites, and predators who can only hunt the helpless!" even as she spoke, Abby gestured sharply wit her Ring-bearing hand, a ball supporting a square platform appearing under their feet and beginning to bear the three away. "Now seeing as nobody else is around that needs rescuing from you, I'll just leave you both to starve! Miss Stronghold, please keep still, and hush there, little guy" she added softly to Carlos, the boy twitching and whimpering at the light and noise in his formerly peaceful, vague dream "you'll be okay, let's get you back home. Where's a safe place? Here..." Touching the child's fingers to the Ring, Abby briefly surrendered some of its power. The dogs began running after them "You cannot!" they shouted, frothing at Haukea "This is not permitted! Not their place!" Giant orange anvils crashed from the sky and smashed them through the ground, silencing them and giving Abby just that much broader a smile. A golden bridge sprang up under the floating ball, leading it through the towering wreckage to a perfectly sound apartment building, to an apartment covered in pictures and photos, with a cat sleeping on the balcony, to a room with walls and ceiling filled with ornate drawings by a clumsy childish hand. Carlos was sleeping on the bed, with an older already up and reading in a corner. At first the place seemed enormous, Cyclopean, but as they neared the bedroom it shrank to normal size, and as Abby put the dreamer back into his body, the world gained, for the briefest instant, a sense of weight and reality. The next instant, the pair awoke, the cupola lid spinning open above them, and Dr. Faiur was politely reminding Haukea and 'Mz. Strom' that it WAS an open expo. "I can't let even my insurers's friends hang around all day, miss. It's been almost half an hour." Starting up, Abby blinked around at the busy convention hall, then looked at the bare ring finger on her right hand. "Right, yeah, sorry doctor, didn't think it'd take that long" she said quietly. The doctor snorted and began the involved work of reconfiguring the machine to match other brainwave patterns. "Well, that did help a little," she told Stronghold as she escorted the superheroine back to the door "but...it was just a dream, right? I didn't really do anything?"
-
GM Amelyth Ted looked downright crestfallen at Amanda's move, looking forlornly after the pill. He didn't gainsay her, though, no matter how stricken and wounded Chung looked as he moved on. Faiur, for her part, looked just affronted "Kid, at no point in my life have my inventions been the site of such flagrant, self-destructive stupidity. They have been the site of some recent overly-emotional displays, but that's it. Got a few people asking to use them to stop suicides. Seems they suffered from depression thanks to their dreams" despite her stolidity, Faiur couldn't help but roll her eyes at that "and the nights they didn't have any seemed to make the symptoms vanish, but I don't just hand out rides on my babies for free, you know? This isn't a really big Oculus Rift, it's sensitive, one-of-a-kind equipment!" Looking uncomfortable, Ted asked nervously "So...them not using your machine might have...led to some of that bad stuff?" "Of course not, how could the..." The woman pulled up short, paling noticeably "...though, now that I think of it, one of the...victims..." Turning around sharply, Faiur tapped furiously on a control panel, opening up the machine again. "Get in. I can suppress the...you won't have dreams for a while. I just want to be sure, you understand?"
