Nick: 1 vote
Stellar: 1 vote
Staging Area
((No need to remove it; just a note that challenges may be unavailable if the entity is occupied.
Also, I think I just conflated fading into shadows and crows; bloops.
I think a nice mix of a good challenge and exposition would be best; that's one reason Drake came to mind, since he's such a talker. I don't have any strong preferences, really.))
Hmmm... might have to see where that forest goes at some point. Land and mingle first.
Land, hopefully gracefully, near the people on the road.
"Is this where the party is?"
You're coming in too fast!
As George listens, his expression changes to one of shock and awe. This is far beyond anything he would have imagined.
"Wow...all-powerful beings, pocket dimensions, wish granting....and I can really change anything here? Hmm...."
Wish for a can of diet soda to appear in my hand. Afterward, say:
"Ok, I now have twice as many questions as I did before, but first, why was I brought here?"
You blink. When you open your eyes, a cold aluminium can of Diet Cho-Cola is now in your hand. You open it and taste it. It is chocolate flavoured.
"Well, you see, that's the hard part. This place exists because of the Games. People are brought here when they are chosen by an entity to participate in the Games. You were brought here to complete challenges for those Games, along with other people."
"Said challenges can be anything. Fights to the death between each other, protecting innocents, exploring new worlds, bringing criminals to justice, assassinating politicians, surviving the zombie apocalypse, super-powered soccer games... And they can take place anywhere, including here in the Staging Area."
"Depending on how well you do in a challenge, you gain points, points that are used by the entity that chose you to modify you as it sees fit. On certain special challenges, you can gain special rewards, depending on your actions and your performance. If you do well, succeed enough times and please the one that chose you, you get to go home and keep your upgrades. Sounds cool, right? And if you happen to die during-"*caw* "Big bird! Duck and cover!"Roger grabs you and forces you to duck as a glider flies above you. The man flying it lets go of it and rolls to a stop as the glider crashes on a building behind him, the rock wall unharmed by the impact. Not the most graceful landing ever, but at least he would probably come out of it unharmed if he wasn't already protected from harm.
"Is this where the party is?" the man says as he gets up and removes the dust from his clothes.
"Adventure party!""Hey John. Nice landing." he says with a small wave.
Guess I'll be waiting for Charlie to do his thing.
Room of Champions - UT99"Good. Everyone's here." Charlie says after some sort of hang-glider accident occurs close to the entrance of the plaza.
"Or close enough anyway." he adds, shrugging as he turns to address the plaza, speaking with a quite louder voice.
"Attention everyone! I present to you, your champion!"
"Through skill, strength, cunning or luck, he has managed to defeat and outlast all who challenged him. As such..." He raises his hands and shadowy fire appears between them, condensing and then receding to reveal a golden plate with something engraved on it.
"We present him with this symbol!"He waves his hands and the plate flies towards Saevus, affixing itself to the lower part of his torso.
"May all who see it know that he is the best fighter among you." The plate unfurls and expands, forming a belt around Saevus.
"May it give him strength in his future conflicts." When the belt completely unfolds, a golden-red outline appears around him, as if there is something hovering around his body only visible when seen from a right angle.
"And may he defend it with honour from all who would claim it and wear it as long as he is worthy." For a few seconds the belt shines and the glow spreads to the runes across Saevus' body, causing him to shine brightly and the field around him to look like it's on fire, before the effect recedes and returns to a barely seen golden outline around him.
...
*blows raspberry*"Hey. I didn't ask for your opinion. Don't mess with my presentations." Charlie says after his shadowfire recedes into the ground and reappears next to Rodger, pointing one finger at him.
"Can't help it. It's hard to resist when you make them so lame."Charlie just shakes his head and once again sinks into the ground, reappearing back on the balcony.
Campaign
I grab the shirt in the bar anyway in case I have to deal with something sharp, and search the nearby houses for clothes.
You change to hybrid, get the half-burnt shirt from the bar and then search a nearby house for clothes.
The house appears to have been looted recently. There's the old smell of humans here and everything appears to have been moved around in their search without much care. Although from the looks of it, there wasn't much in the house to begin with.
You manage to find some old and worn clothes and shoes and adapt them for your use without anything interesting happening, although you can't help feeling a bit uneasy as you explore the house alone, even though the others are nearby. At least you got some clothes on. Getting caught in a dust storm naked would probably not be much fun and it would probably not be a good idea to rely on Alan for protection.
Campaign, Ike!
"Well, crap. Guess we have to break the bottle, guys. You got any power over glass, Jesus? How about you, Nikolai?" says Ike, looking at Zechariah, then at Nik.
If there's no better option, try and break the bottle to free Alan, and hope he doesn't decapitate himself by accident or on purpose.
It's a plastic bottle, so you just repeatedly stab it to drain it and then hack it in half.
It looks like you accidentally stabbed Alan in the process. Nothing too serious though, should be fine as long as you stop the bleeding.
"Alright one big shard coming right up."
Tsar one of Zech's shards.
(Small minor action, move my comwire from my neck to my arm so it doesn't strangle me if I tsar it again.)
Sure thing.
Zechariah rolls his eyes.
"No, no glass powers, only power over my own creations. Hey, Nikolai, see if you can use your abilities on my crystal shards. I should be able to crack it open with a big one."
Instead of using little shards like before, create a giant, sharp one, or several of them if possible. Wait for Nikolai to tsar it/them. After he does (or even if he doesn't), pierce the bottle with the shard(s) and try to open it with a can opener motion.
Ike took care of that, so let's see if you can treat Alan instead... Yep, you get him up and get him to cough the liquid out of his lungs. You can't bandage his wound though. But at least he doesn't die immediately.
((Heh, I could threaten to pass my luck on to other people to get them moving.
...I wonder if Rhymerer has anything like that.))
Dream sweet dreams of airfilled balloons.
((And yeah the comment was IC.))
((I'm a bit surprised nobody has chosen an ability to manipulate luck yet. I already have a luck/random-event system in place in anticipation of such a character so that people can have semi-random things happen to them during missions. It's what I used as a basis for the random events/encounters in the campaign.
Not that such abilities would save you, of course, unless you got a character with the ability to give inverse dynamic rolls or something. Because no matter the system, luck seems to... not hate you, but more like wanting to have fun with you, mostly at your character's expense.))
You dream you are a mylar balloon, carried by the wind. You start your journey over a city with a great white pyramid in its centre, a city that shines impossibly white and bright in the midday sun, a beacon of light amongst the desert. So strange that such a pristine city could exist in such a barren landscape, with nothing living in sight around it. No rivers, no plants, no people. You keep flying over the surrounding desert, until you come upon a great sandstorm. You get carried by the winds in its wake for a while, until you suddenly shift direction, getting carried by a different wind. The sand gives way to plains with gigantic creatures grazing in them, followed by rolling hills and then forests with the occasional clearing and lake. You catch glimpses of the life in the forest through holes in the forest canopy as you weave your way between the peaks of conifers, the ground beneath you sometimes rising and sometime falling, still following a simillar pattern since the dunes you first started in. There is a part of the forest that looks bright and young, but that is not where you are headed. The wind carries you in the opposite direction, in the old dark heart of the forest where the trees become impossibly tall and you are forced to fly beneath them. You can see few living things down there, the most prevalent being great fungi growing on the layer of decomposing leaves on the ground. There's quiet, the only sound accompanying your journey being the rustling and groaning of the trees in the wind, and yet you can't help feeling as if you are being watched. The wind carries you close to a mountain range, a great wall at the edge of the forest, its snow covered peaks preventing it from expanding further. Beyond it you catch glimpses of a great port, a bustling city with half-rotten or sunken gigantic ships resting close to its shores and small crooked towers rising out of its chaotic patchwork of buildings. The strong wind coming from the mountains carries you in the opposite direction, where the forests give way to swamps, with multicoloured insects flying above them and dark creatures lying just below their waters, part of their body occasionally emerging from them, barely visible in the moonlight. You think you catch glimpses of a human camp, but they move past you too quickly to see. You come across a dark structure half buried in the ground, but quickly move past it as well. But then you start to slow down. Slow down a lot. After a few minutes of the view of the same swamp you lose interest and turn to look at the clouds instead and start flying up instead. When you look back down, you are flying ever higher, moving above the clouds. And yet there is something taller than the clouds. Mountains, their tops barren, bald, almost shiny-gold from the sunrise. You quickly zoom past them, going through the clouds. Below them you find a yellow bird with its eyes closed, lying on its back, its claws pointing towards the sky. On one of its claws rests a child. It looks curiously as you approach. It jumps and grabs you out of the air as you pass near it. It shows you a needle. You pop.
You wake up with a stab wound in your lower torso.
"Whoa. Trippy."It doesn't look life threatening, at least not if you bandage it and stop the bleeding. Now please stop dying.
Poll
15 (42.9%)
Author
Topic: Special People: Mechanical Syndrome (Read 1150139 times)