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[pikachu17]

Masks is pretty much the Teen Titans RPG.

Spoiler: Masks-related links (click to show/hide)

Masks home.
Where you can get the playbooks and moves for free.
My currently favorite actual play podcast of Masks. Scroll down to the bottom to Final Hazard Sacrifice 01: Not
DeSnott for Masks gameplay, almost all of the non-season one stuff is not Masks.

The IC thread for Twilight Force.

Spoiler: Players (click to show/hide)

GiglameshDespair is playing Amelia Grace Dala AKA Nahullad (na-hull-ad)
Cruxador is playing Sam Walters AKA Sepiatone
Digital Hellhound is playing Elena Rosales AKA Vestige
heydude6 is playing Sancho Quixote AKA Sir Samuel the Second.

Spoiler: Assorted rules that are not obvious from the moves and basic moves. (click to show/hide)

Both Defend and Take a Powerful Blow can have to do with emotional harm, not just physical. A terrible insult and a fireball have the same mechanical results.

Death only happens for narrative reason.

 Carrying 1 (or a +1) forward means add 1 to your next roll (or next roll that fits the conditions listed when you got that +1).

The mechanic for when rolling is 2d6+label/conditions. The possible result of a roll:
10+ mean what you tried happens perfectly. It is a hit.
7-9 means it happens but limited or at a cost.  It is a hit.
6-  means the situation worsens. It is a miss. You mark a potential.
On taking a powerful blow you instead want to roll low, though a miss still gives potential.

Conditions are your health track.

Time is normally freeform, and so are a lot of actions, but moves represent those where there's a reasonable chance you'll fail.

The basic moves are more or less just "use this stat modifier for this kind of action" and the rest are extra - adult moves are available to Doomed and on an advance that is available after five advances, playbook moves are available as described in the playbook, and peripheral moves are a grab bag of things that happen which have mechanical aspects to them but don't fit the other categories.

Influence is a binary relationship thingy that some moves use and some moves grant, that represents caring what a person thinks.

Team is a pool of points that you can spend to give another character a +1 on a roll, or to shift your labels, moving one up and another down - which you can do after seeing the results of a roll if you want. You get more of them mostly by getting in fights while having a highly cohesive team, from zero to four points on any such fight depending on four criteria that the GM evaluates.

This is my first time GMing, PbP or not, so please tell me if I am doing anything wrong/could do it better.

[Digital Hellhound]

Interested. Will probably go for a Doomed heroine. Anything we should know about the world and general idea, or is that something that'll be defined/revealed as we go along?

[pikachu17]

"The game takes place in a bustling metropolis known as Halcyon City, which has been an epicenter of superpowered activity for three generations so far. There was the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the Bronze Age...
...but now, a new generation of heroes is on the rise."

That's pretty much it so far. There is more lore in the books, but I haven't really looked carefully at it.
Halycon City is a typical superhero city, an epicenter of supers and super-related weirdness (molemen, aliens, alternate dimensions, Etc.).
I plan to wait until you have made characters for most of the worldbuilding, so I don't constrain your characters, and can make certain things fit them.
Want your Beacon to have looked up to a Cryomancer hero named Brainfreeze in his youth? Sure, Brainfreeze exists now.
Was your Doomed raised by an apocalyptic cult? Yup, they exist.
Does your Janus have to take care of his younger siblings because his father was paralyzed during a molemen attack? Okay, molemen have attacked before.
Is your best friend a foreign exchange student from an alternate earth where everyone is the opposite gender? Sure, now there's an easy way to get to that specific earth.

[GiglameshDespair]

Eyyy.

I'm probably gonna pop out a Transformed. I have an idea for a dullahan sort of thing.

[Cruxador]

I said it in the other thread, but I've already got a delinquent character in mind. I'll write that up properly when I have time later today, and maybe we could start thinking about session zero stuff right away, since with PbP I reckon the time that takes is longer than the time it takes us to reach the majority of our interest player population anyway?

There can be only one example of each playbook in one campaign

Are you sure? Based on my reading*, it's only the case that there can only be one at a time - so retiring a character or using the advance to switch playbooks would open up your old playbook to new characters or a playbook switch. It's relevant to me since I was thinking it might make sense for my character to eventually become Doomed - though of course that's contingent on the game going on long enough without other play circumstances changing those plans, and I'm in no hurry anyway.

EDIT: Also just wanted to point out to everyone that there are five additional playbooks in the Halcyon City Herald Collection, which I would imagine are allowed, and three test playbooks in Masks Unbound which I reckon (as they're test playbooks) should be allowed on a case by case basis.

_{*The description of the Change Playbooks advance says to pick a playbook that no other player is currently using. (Emphasis mine)}

[Sirus]

Somewhat interested. I'll have to find some sort of rule summary somewhere though, the playbooks seem to gloss over a great deal of actual mechanics.

I like the look of the Delinquent and the Outsider, so I'll probably work something up along those lines.

Fakeedit: Outsider it is, then.

[pikachu17]

I said it in the other thread, but I've already got a delinquent character in mind. I'll write that up properly when I have time later today, and maybe we could start thinking about session zero stuff right away, since with PbP I reckon the time that takes is longer than the time it takes us to reach the majority of our interest player population anyway?

Considering that we already have enough players, yes.
We should still wait until characters are more fleshed out for the When our team first came together, Relationships, and Influence sections, though.

There can be only one example of each playbook in one campaign

Are you sure? Based on my reading*, it's only the case that there can only be one at a time - so retiring a character or using the advance to switch playbooks would open up your old playbook to new characters or a playbook switch. It's relevant to me since I was thinking it might make sense for my character to eventually become Doomed - though of course that's contingent on the game going on long enough without other play circumstances changing those plans, and I'm in no hurry anyway.

_{*The description of the Change Playbooks advance says to pick a playbook that no other player is currently using. (Emphasis mine)}

Maybe I was just thinking of other PBtA games. The others make it so that when a playbook dies, no one can become them, the hole is always felt. That's only really relevant with this system with the Doomed, but I don't know. Does anyone have any opinions on this? Maybe if they die, no one can become them,  but if you just change your playbook someone can become that one? Or just let people change into a playbook not currently used.

Somewhat interested. I'll have to find some sort of rule summary somewhere though, the playbooks seem to gloss over a great deal of actual mechanics.

I like the look of the Delinquent and the Outsider, so I'll probably work something up along those lines.

Fakeedit: Outsider it is, then.

Did you look at the basic moves pdf? That includes much of the rules. If that does not explain it enough, I will try to myself.

Oh, and Digital Hellhound, there's also the government agency A.E.G.I.S, the Advanced Expert Group for Intervention and Security.
 They are kind of like a combination police/CIA that focus on the weird stuff and supers.

Concerning the End of Session moves, should those take place at the end of arcs, or where?

[scriver]

If you pick the Beacon, don't take the Phasing ability. I don't know what they were thinking. The Beacon is all about being relatively weak, but wanting to do good regardless. Phasing is way too powerful for this purpose.

I think it's because Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat had to a similar role in the X-Men for a very long time.

Also posting to follow.

[pikachu17]

EDIT: Also just wanted to point out to everyone that there are five additional playbooks in the Halcyon City Herald Collection, which I would imagine are allowed, and three test playbooks in Masks Unbound which I reckon (as they're test playbooks) should be allowed on a case by case basis.

Don't forget the two from Agents of Aegis.

[GiglameshDespair]

Amelia Grace Dala,
aka Nahullad

Spoiler: Amy Dala, Transformed (click to show/hide)

Hero Name: Nahullad (na-hull-ad)
Real Name: Amelia Grace Dala

Look:
• ambiguous, man, shifting, transgressing, woman
• Asian or South Asian, Black, Hispanic/Latino, Indigenous, Middle Eastern, White
• strange eyes, upsetting eyes, piercing eyes, human eyes  N/A
• metallic flesh, scaled flesh, alien flesh, plated flesh, untouchable flesh, mottled flesh
• terrifying costume, strange costume, unnerving costume, no costume

Nahullad is a imposing figure - seven feet tall at the shoulders. That's it at the shoulders has to be distinguished, because her neck ends around half-way up, presenting a rather horrible sight for anyone looking down from a height. She appears armoured, like a vaguely insectoid suit of plate; much of her body is covered in a black, chitinous metal, with only thin slits of alabaster flesh showing at the joints. Her hands are clawed gauntlets, her feet segemented sabatons. From her shoulders hangs a pair of white wings that cover her like a cloak, though she can't actually fly with them.

She can place an object on her neck - the closer it resembles an actual head, the better. She prefers mannequin heads, though she did try out a carved pumpkin once. When she does so, she can control and manipulate it like its part of her body, allowing her to speak with an electrolarynx. It also allows her to see, as long as there's at least the representation of eyes on it. However, it's easily detached, with the tendancy to come off with fast movement. Even worse, the 'head' rapidly degrades as it's being worn, until eventually it dissolves and collapses. To solve this, she carries around a bag with a bunch of mannequin heads in it.

Even without a head, her senses (minus sight) are supernaturally sharp, with the ability to sense the environment around her and read the intentions and emotions of people. Without a head, she communicates through a text-to-speech program on her phone. The screen on it is really scratched from her claws...

Moment of Truth [Locked]
It’s so easy to forget that you’re not your body, and you’re not the voice in your head—you’re both.
Be the monster, and save them anyway. Smash down walls, and speak softly. Because when you embrace it, you can do anything. Of course, putting on a display like this is sure to rile up those who see only the monster when they look at you…

Team Moves
When you share a triumphant celebration with someone, clear one condition if they treat you like a perfectly normal person and mark potential if they praise your power or abilities.

When you share a vulnerability or weakness with someone, ask them if they think you’re losing or gaining humanity. If they say losing, mark a condition and mark potential. If they say gaining, clear a condition and shift Mundane up and any other Label down.

POTENTIAL
❑ ❑ ❑ ❑ ❑

Advancement

Other Moves

Abilities:
•  impenetrable armor
• superhuman senses

Labels:
DANGER -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3
FREAK -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3
SAVIOR -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3
SUPERIOR -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3
MUNDANE -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3

Conditions:
❑  Afraid (-2 to directly engage a threat)
❑ Angry (-2 to comfort or support or pierce the mask)
❑ Guilty (-2 to provoke someone or assess the situation)
❑ Hopeless (-2 to unleash your powers)
❑ Insecure (-2 to defend someone or reject others’ influence)

Backstory
• Who were you before?
Nahullad was once Amelia Grace Dala, more commonly called Amy by her friends. Her father is a corporate businessman, seemingly always away on business trips in some distant country-or-another, sorting out deals for the manufacturing corporation Helmsworth Industrial. Her mother was... well, Amy had never really been wanted. Her mother was always coolly distant, preferring to leave Amy's raising to the school system, her meals to the local supermarket's microwave meal brands, and her

Aside from that, she was a pretty ordinary girl, to be quite honest. She had a few friends, but not loads. She did acceptable at school, but neither did she excel or fail. She was a bit of a superhero geek; she dreamed of getting powers, making a difference, becoming famous for saving the city... she could once name every single hero (and most of the villains) that had ever operated in Halcyon City.

After she died, got back up, and became a headless monster that kind of changed a bit though.

• When did you change? What caused it?
Six months ago, the city was attacked by the evil cabal of sorcerers and witches called The Cauldron. They unleashed a great horde of monsters in the city, rampaging creatures that attack indiscriminately.
Being just an ordinary schoolgirl, she of course couldn't do much. She found herself hiding in an emergency shelter, with a small crowd of other people as the witch's monsters clawed at the door. They'd get through sooner rather than later. One of the people in the shelter, however, was a scruffy looking man in a stained labcoat, a weird set of goggles on his head and clutching a briefcase to his chest - nahullad doesn't know if he was a villain, or a hero. Seeing their doom (literally) clawing at the door, the haggard scientist spoke up.
He was in possession of a vial of serum - called Apothesis - that could grant superpowers, but not without risk. He wanted a volunteer to take it - to gain powers to fight off the monsters outside.

Amelia had always wanted to be a hero. She disregarded the risks and volunteered. A brief moment of pain and change - and she was a seven-and-a-half foot tall bioknight, her flesh black metal and ivory white. Only her head was unarmoured. She could sense the monsters outside, their weaknesses, and when she went out to fight she defeated them without too much difficulty - right up until a much larger one showed up.

That... didn't go so well, mostly around the part where it bit her head clean off her shoulders and tossed the rest of her away like yesterday's garbage. Her body lay crumpled for the rest of the battle, still and lifeless.

To everyone's surprise, especially Amy's, it was then she woke up, minus a central nervous system, a good chunk of memories, but still, somehow, alive and herself. She has a theory there was enough of the serum still in her that her body could adapt to its new decranialised situation.

• Who, outside of the team, is helping you understand your new body?
It turns out her parents weren't too understanding of her new condition. Indeed, they didn't even believe she was their daughter - just a monster that claimed it was.

The only person who actually has offered to help her is, ironically, an ex-sorcerer named Siobhán Hall, who had happened to be in the same shelter and witnessed the fight. Having lost most of her magic a long time ago to an accident while spellcasting, and used to the stranger sides of things, she took pity on the now-homeless, headless Amy, and lets her crash on her couch in her apartment. Amy doesn't sleep anymore, but it's nice to lie down, sometimes.

• Why don’t you just try to hide yourself away?
Hide herself away... And do what? Sit in a dark room and listen to Internet podcasts for the rest of her life - if it even has an end?

No, if she's going to find the scientist and get herself returned to normal, she needs to be out and doing things. If the scientist is good, perhaps he'll hear of her and get in contact. If he's bad... Well, a bunch of superpowered friends can only help in that case.

• Why do you care about the team?
All her friends seem to have made themselves scarce after she changed. At least the team isn't so keen to abandon her like everyone else. If she's ever hoping to go back to normal - perhaps it'll be with the weird psychic kids. At least she fits thematically with the person in the knight costume.

When our team first came together...
We drew attention and ire from plenty during the fight. One important person in particular now hates and fears us. Who is it?

Relationships
Vestige comforted you when you were at your lowest.
Sepiatone knew you before you changed.

Influence
You try not to care what other people think, even if you can’t shut everyone out. Give Influence to one teammate.
Vestige has influence over Nahallud.

Transformed moves
❑ I am not my body: When you take a powerful physical blow, you may roll as if you had two fewer conditions marked. If you do, on a 10+ you must choose to lose control of yourself in a terrible way.

❑ Coming for you: When you mark a condition, take +1 forward against the person you most blame for causing it.

❑ Be the monster: When you frighten, intimidate, or cow others with your monstrous form, roll + Freak. On a hit, they are thrown off and make themselves vulnerable to you, or they flee. On a 10+, choose one. On a 7-9, choose two.
- you frighten others you had not intended to scare
- you hurt someone or break something you shouldn’t have
- you feel like more of a monster afterward; mark a condition (GM’s choice)
On a miss, they react with violence, hatred, and paranoia, and you suffer the brunt of it.

Spoiler: Further Questions (click to show/hide)

Could the two of you please finish your characters? Also, everyone, even those who have finished their characters, remember to have answered these questions:
• What family does your character have?
• Do you go to school?
• Do you have a secret identity?

Having been disowned by her family, Nallahud doesn't really have any. Technically her mother and father are still alive, of course; but they don't have any intentions of bringing her back into the family fold. As she is no longer a person, legally, she no longer goes to school.

She'd find it hard to see the board, anyway.

She doesn't have a secret identity because she's a seven-foot tall headless knight.

How much do you former friends and family fear you now? Do they refuse to believe you were ever Amy? Do they think you are some kind of devil possessing her mutated corpse?

It turned out that her death was filmed. Combined with her new, creepy appearance, she doesn't have people boiling out of the woodwork to restore ties.
Her parents, especially, consider her just some monster claiming to be her - the memories she lost in her death and resurrection don't help in that regard. To that end, she's been declared legally dead, and it's not something she really knows how to undo.

[Cruxador]

I'll have to find some sort of rule summary somewhere though, the playbooks seem to gloss over a great deal of actual mechanics.

If you find any for PbtA, the concepts mostly transfer, although sometimes the names change. Basically: The mechanic is 2d6+stat (and in this case, your labels are your stats) and the conditions are your health track, but death is something that only happens for narrative reasons. Time is normally freeform, and so are a lot of actions, but moves represent those where there's a reasonable chance you'll fail. The basic moves are more or less just "use this stat modifier for this kind of action" and the rest are extra - adult moves are available to adults, playbook moves are available as described in the playbook, and peripheral moves are a grab bag of things that happen which have mechanical aspects to them but don't fit the other categories. Influence is a binary relationship thingy that some moves use and some moves grant, that represents caring what a person thinks. Carrying 1 (or a +1) forward means add 1 to your next roll (or next roll that fits the conditions listed when you got that +1). That's pretty much the whole system off the top of my head, it's mostly freeform+ rather than something heavily mechanical. But feel free to ask specific questions, and if you're wanting PDFs, you can send me a PM.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and there's also Team. That's a pool of points that you can spend to give another character a +1 on a roll, or to shift your labels, moving one up and another down - which you can do after seeing the results of a roll if you want. You get more of them mostly by getting in fights while having a highly cohesive team, from zero to four points on any such fight depending on four criteria that the GM evaluates.

EDIT: Also just wanted to point out to everyone that there are five additional playbooks in the Halcyon City Herald Collection, which I would imagine are allowed, and three test playbooks in Masks Unbound which I reckon (as they're test playbooks) should be allowed on a case by case basis.

Don't forget the two from Agents of Aegis.

I didn't forget, I didn't know about them. Looking at them now, they're very foundational concepts that maybe even should have been considered in the core list. Also, for anyone searching, it's called Secrets of AEGIS at my source.

Maybe I was just thinking of other PBtA games. The others make it so that when a playbook dies, no one can become them, the hole is always felt. That's only really relevant with this system with the Doomed, but I don't know. Does anyone have any opinions on this? Maybe if they die, no one can become them,  but if you just change your playbook someone can become that one? Or just let people change into a playbook not currently used.

That kind of dismal situation is appropriate to something like Apocalypse World, but it doesn't fit the tone of a cape campaign - at least, not the kind that's listed as inspirations for this game. And unlike, say, Monsterhearts, there's a lot of difference in what a given playbook can give you. Look at the listed examples for the different playbooks in the core book, for reference - Tim Drake is a very different character from Scott Summers, and they're both listed as Protégé, which means that the game design reason for a hard rule like that - preventing characters that are functionally clones of each other - isn't very necessary. Hell, if you put that together with the question of genre, you can even consider that there are four well known robins (plus one very brief one) that are all considered sufficiently distinct characters despite having the same playbook, the same name and superhero identity, and the same main powers with only their personalities and the emphasis of their powers being particularly different.

Oh, and Digital Hellhound, there's also the government agency A.E.G.I.S, the Advanced Expert Group for Intervention and Security.
 They are kind of like a combination police/CIA that focus on the weird stuff and supers.

Also like the police and CIA, not necessarily good dudes whose side you'll always be on.

Concerning the End of Session moves, should those take place at the end of arcs, or where?

I'd say model it on an episode. Whenever we get a big resolution on an issue that gives us a dramatic denouement moment, the episode is over so we do End of Session. An arc is often too long to be comparable.

[Cruxador]

Sam Walters, aka
SEPIATONE

Spoiler: History and Powers (click to show/hide)

Hero Name: Sepiatone
Real Name: Sam Walters

Look:
• A young man, with the narrow frame of a youth accentuating the slenderness of want.
• White, with elegantly high cheekbones and a long nose typical of the race, but also the lanky hair and poor skin.
• Untrusting eyes, deep set and underlined with darkness, shifting constantly about the room. Naturally blue, or perhaps grey, but shift colors to the amber hues of the land in his dreams when invoking powers.
• Casual clothing, and a bit ragged - cargo pants, a shirt, sometimes a jacket, all in muted tones and never entirely free from weathering and the predations of time.
• A cheap costume, it seems, made of ragged clothing - too many coats, mostly cloth but some leather, all of simple construction, and all surprisingly tattered. Some are longer than others, robe-like, and some are more intact than others, but all are in the same range of colors - brown, tan, mustard, or somewhere in between. Above this, he wears a pallid mask, and all of this is crafted of illusion.

Backstory:
• How did you get your powers?
More than two years ago, when he was fourteen, Sam Walters ran away from home. Why would he stay? His mother was there, but it's not like she would miss him. [OOC: I'm leaving the why of this open for future story hooks or if anyone else wants to relate their stories to it. If there's no super reason though, then the reason can just be drugs.] Shortly after leaving, Sam began to have dreams. At first they were ordinary, but they grew in intensity. In these dreams, he stood, or wandered, in a land not of his own, crossing endless smooth planes of ruddy murk, under amber skies dotted by black stars, with huge cloudy trees and massive beasts striding tall upon spindly legs in the far distance. A world like a landscape by Dalí, but instead of vibrant and colorful, it is dismal and empty. Although the dreams troubled Sam, they were never more than dreams, he always woke and things were normal. Until one day, back when he still went to school, he was called into the office. They had found out that he didn't live with his mom - it had taken them most of the year, but it was inevitable. There was a social worker there. As she talked about possible options, trying to make things better, Sam only grew more apprehensive. The color in the world around him seemed to fade. When she stepped forward and reached out a hand to comfort him, a white ceramic bat burst forth, and she leapt back. So did Sam, and he bolted. That was more than a year ago, now. He hasn't been back to school since.
• What do you do for fun?
Sam has a library card, and when he has free time, which is often, he checks out a book and takes it to a secluded spot in the park, hidden away behind some bushes where he can read and nobody comes around except for pigeons and sparrows, and one time a rat. He figures he learns more, or at least more useful things, this way then he ever did at school anyway.
• Who, outside the team, thinks better of you than you do?
The birds, maybe? There were people at school who said they did, but they're dumber than the birds are.
• Why do you try to be a hero?
It's either that or be a villain.
• Why do you care about the team?
Who says he does? But... It's nice to have friends again. And these are friends with a bit of money, which are especially good to have. [OOC: This answer to be refined as more people post characters]

Abilities:
• Power Negation. By overlaying the fetid equilibrium from his dreams atop the mortal world, and leaching out most colors leaving swaths of sepia-hued distortion, Sam also leaches out power. This is a slow process. Causing the overlay, which is at first a very slight alteration of the world's appearance, takes both time and focus, and even those within the area don't feel it's effects until they've been there for a while. However if they remain too long, even ordinary mundane abilities like physical strength, clarity of thought, and the structural integrity of objects can be forfeit. This effect is not permanent, but it takes far longer to fade than it does to cause. Because Sam's powers are derived from this realm, he is immune to its effects. That alone would allow him to physically best far more powerful enemies, if not for the time it would take him to weaken them.
• Illusion. After creating an overlay, Sam can manifest the strange phantasms that dwell below the black stars. In the normal world, they lack substance, but their bizarre forms may be useful for some distraction or trickery.

Moves:
• I don't care what you think!: Sam has already distanced himself from most of society. Being on a team is a change from that, but he's still grown used to charting his own path far more than other kids.
• Criminal mind: You gotta do what you gotta do to get by.
• Troublemaker: Worrying about unimportant details isn't always the way to get things done.

Relationships:
Sam keeps trying to impress Sir Samuel with his antics. Not because of the name, that's just coincidence.
We did some badass weapons testing with Nahullad. It probably didn't meet safety laws. Or, like, anti-arson laws.

Spoiler: Things that change in play (click to show/hide)

Labels:
• Danger +0
• Freak +1
• Savior -1
• Superior +2
• Mundane +1

Potential
☑ ❑ ❑ ❑ ❑

Advances:
• None yet

Conditions:
❑ Afraid (-2 to directly engage a threat)
❑ Angry (-2 to comfort or support or pierce the mask)
❑ Guilty (-2 to provoke someone or assess the situation)
❑ Hopeless (-2 to unleash your powers)
❑ Insecure (-2 to defend someone or reject others’ influence)

Influence Granted
• Nahullad
• Sir Samuel
• Vestige

Spoiler: General commentary and possible future advancement (click to show/hide)

When coming up with this, I realized that themes of decay, a mysterious character with strange powers but dressed in rags, and distant decaying landscapes all parallel very closely to the mythos of the King in Yellow. I'm not trying to go Lovecraftian - that would be at odds with the genre, and not particularly fun to play anyway - but I did like Chambers' original book, and a few of the things that have built on it. I thought perhaps the realm of the fetid equilibrium might lie among the Hyades and contain Carcosa, which would mean that on a substantial breakthrough of power, Sepiatone might become Doomed, with the King as his Nemesis. But that's a future thing anyway, we'll see what other possibilities crop up. Right now, the only references to that mythos are minor and aesthetic: Black stars and a pallid mask.

For a more immediate advancement, small things like getting a knife to stab people while they're weakened instead of just decking them, or non-combat things like getting a place to call home, would also be big benefits.

In a more medium term, powers could evolve in vague quantitative ways like letting them operate faster or cover larger areas, or in a few qualitative ways, like unlocking permanent changes.

Has Sam ever accidently broken something or hurt someone due to his power negation?

I'm thinking maybe not. His powers only weaken rather than damage, so it's difficult to imagine this scenario, and even weakening something at an inopportune time is a bit out there since his powers are difficult to use in the first place and making them too unbound would kind of be edging into the Nova's wheelhouse. But mostly, I haven't thought of a good little story along these lines.

I guess I'm actually kind of taking a liberty by making it able to weaken things and facilitate entropy/decay in a general sense, since "power negation" is presumably just meant to be about super powers - I think it's fine since although that increases his ability's versatility, every other change I've made to his power weakens them substantially in ease of use (and, for the illusions, in versatility) in ways that can be molded to the needs of the narrative. But it's still subject to GM thumbs up/down.

Does the overlay stay in place, or move with him?

It stays in place. He can make and spread or intensify it, and can use it for the illusions, but it's not connected to him and he has no real control over it.

It sounds like he creates a sepia overlay, that then itself drains the area of even mundane powers.

Exactly.

Does this overlay require concentration to stay, fade with time, or stay forever as a blight upon the land?

It fades away over time, and everything that it drained returns. Like the creation of the overlay zone and the draining of the powers, all this takes time. Different amounts of time though, creating it is slow at the scale of time that combat happens on, and probably requires unleashing to achieve meaningful results fast enough, but for it to fade should at least be until the end of the scene. Making permanent zones like this would be more the sort of ability to become available during play than during character creation, in part simply because it's a qualitative powerup that makes sense in the context of his original powers, and in part because that's an ability which substantially alters the world, and I reckon gaining the ability to meaningfully affect the world is a big part of the transition from childhood to adulthood that is included in the theming of this game.

• What family does your character have?

Sam has visited his mother briefly after leaving. She acted happy of course, but that was it. He didn't stay long. He hasn't known his father since he was very young, and has no siblings. His maternal grandfather and aunt are still alive, but he hasn't seen them in a long time either.

• Do you go to school?

Nah. Not worth it.

• Do you have a secret identity?

A secret identity? I guess so. Where Sam Walters is and how to find him isn't a matter of public record, and he doesn't intend to introduce himself by that name either. It's a lot simpler to not mention unnecessary life details after all. But it's not like a huge secret or a double life or anything.

[pikachu17]

Cool character. His savior should be -1, though.
Labels at the end of character creation should add up to 3.

Has Sam ever accidently broken something or hurt someone due to his power negation?

Does the overlay stay in place, or move with him?

It sounds like he creates a sepia overlay, that then itself drains the area of even mundane powers.
Does this overlay require concentration to stay, fade with time, or stay forever as a blight upon the land?

[Cruxador]

Cool character. His savior should be -1, though.
Labels at the end of character creation should add up to 3.

Thanks for catching that, I think I must have just looked at the wrong line when transcribing labels.

Has Sam ever accidently broken something or hurt someone due to his power negation?

I'm thinking maybe not. His powers only weaken rather than damage, so it's difficult to imagine this scenario, and even weakening something at an inopportune time is a bit out there since his powers are difficult to use in the first place and making them too unbound would kind of be edging into the Nova's wheelhouse. But mostly, I haven't thought of a good little story along these lines.

I guess I'm actually kind of taking a liberty by making it able to weaken things and facilitate entropy/decay in a general sense, since "power negation" is presumably just meant to be about super powers - I think it's fine since although that increases his ability's versatility, every other change I've made to his power weakens them substantially in ease of use (and, for the illusions, in versatility) in ways that can be molded to the needs of the narrative. But it's still subject to GM thumbs up/down.

Does the overlay stay in place, or move with him?

It stays in place. He can make and spread or intensify it, and can use it for the illusions, but it's not connected to him and he has no real control over it.

It sounds like he creates a sepia overlay, that then itself drains the area of even mundane powers.

Exactly.

Does this overlay require concentration to stay, fade with time, or stay forever as a blight upon the land?

It fades away over time, and everything that it drained returns. Like the creation of the overlay zone and the draining of the powers, all this takes time. Different amounts of time though, creating it is slow at the scale of time that combat happens on, and probably requires unleashing to achieve meaningful results fast enough, but for it to fade should at least be until the end of the scene. Making permanent zones like this would be more the sort of ability to become available during play than during character creation, in part simply because it's a qualitative powerup that makes sense in the context of his original powers, and in part because that's an ability which substantially alters the world, and I reckon gaining the ability to meaningfully affect the world is a big part of the transition from childhood to adulthood that is included in the theming of this game.

[Digital Hellhound]

Spoiler: Vestige/Elena Rosales (click to show/hide)

Hero Name: Vestige
Real Name: Elena Rosales (full given name: Elena Maria Rosales Villar)

Look: a Latina woman with angry eyes. Wears unassuming clothes in her everyday life and a containment suit when on the job.

The former tends to be athletic wear or cheap stuff that keeps people from paying too much attention to her - hoodies and sweatshirts, thrift shop jeans, ragged t-shirts, the like. The latter is an utilitarian full-body suit with a silvery helm, heavy with electronic cables and a power pack on the back. Anyone can see it's far from an expert construction - a makeshift combination of AEGIS tech and scavenged scrap built for her by by a friend. The suit helps contain her powers, but it's hot, claustrophobic and actively painful to her when powered up. She needs it and she hates it.

Elena has dark brown eyes, shoulder-length black hair and a perpetual expression of barely-contained fury. She has an athletic build, with wiry muscle and a runner's physique. She's seventeen years old.

Backstory:

Elena's powers first manifested at the age of 13, when her family became convinced that their house was haunted. Visions of dead relatives and appearances of out-of-place objects appeared with increasing frequency and the parents dutifully reported the supernatural happenings to their local AEGIS office. The specialists sent on site quickly recognized that the 'haunting' had nothing to do with the supernatural - instead, it was caused by the errant manifestations of Elena's psychic powers. She would unconsciously read memories of those around her and project them into the real world as short-lived psychic constructs. The power was minor, as these things went, and could have been brought under the girl's control with proper training and practice.

She never got the training she needed. Her father's call to AEGIS had been intercepted and waylaid by operatives of a rogue AEGIS project called PHALANX. The men who came to the Rosales household were not who they claimed to be. Instead of delivering her to a school for the Gifted where she could learn to harness her powers, the PHALANX operatives took her to an off-the-books research facility where their leader, a man called Doctor Reyes, began to experiment on her.

Reyes was convinced that Elena's minor psychic ability could be empowered into something much greater. He believed in the psychic potential of mankind with a fanatic's zeal - indeed, he believed that a worldwide psychic awakening could be engineered by men like him, which would turn the human race into an unified hive mind - a psychic entity marching in lockstep and working as one towards the supremacy of the species. Elena was only one of his subjects, all of them children or little more. Anything could be justified in the pursuit of his grand dream. Doctor Reyes' surgeries and tortures killed dozens until they resulted in breakthrough. One batch of his victims did leap forward in terms of psychic ability, their brains unlocked to their full potential under his knife. Elena was one of these unfortunates - while they gained power, they lost what little control they had. Their powers killed them or drove them mad, causing chaos across the facility - chaos which allowed Elena to escape, barely holding on to her sanity.

She found her family and collapsed on their doorstep. When she awoke, she was in another AEGIS facility - this one a legitimate hospital for the superpowered, though it appeared to be another place of torture at first. Anti-psionic devices drained her power to safe levels to allow her some measure of control... though only after her constructs had run rampant through the hospital for days. Those inside had been tormented by some of their worst memories and twisted versions of people they knew. When her family looked at her now, they looked haggard and afraid. The staff was not much better, with seemingly little to separate them from the torturers of PHALANX. Whatever they said, whatever they say, Elena knows they see her as something dangerous - a monster, growing more and more dangerous by the day.

Elena ran from the hospital, from her family, unwilling to trust AEGIS again, unable to look her parents in the eye. She drifted on the streets, keeping to herself and avoiding any contact with her old life. Though she avoided people, Elena would meet some friendly faces - including Marcus Holloway, a self-taught engineer and aspiring tinkerer hero going by the name of Kid Mech. Marcus had an uncanny knack for anti-psionic technology and helped build Elena a suit incorporating AEGIS' anti-psionics and his own designs. While not the most comfortable or convenient piece of design, it allowed her more control over her powers than ever before.

After years on the streets, she found refuge with [the Team] - but the innocent who had been abducted by PHALANX was long gone. Anger consumes Elena now - anger rising from self-loathing, distrust of others and the injustice of the world she sees all around her. Even so, she dares to hope that she has a chance, that the damage can be undone - that she can find some kind of peace, acceptance, even love with her new family. That she can do good, protect people, make a difference in the world. But the clock is ticking, and her Doom approaches as her powers grow beyond the means of the anti-psionics to contain...

Worse, Doctor Reyes lives still. He has not forgotten his escaped subject. That she could hold on to her wits and some measure of controls where others failed intrigues him. He will have her back... and this time, she won't be getting out until all the secrets of mankind's psychic evolution are his.

What family do you have? - Father Roberto, mother Cristina, large and close extended family. Elena hasn't seen them in years and is doing her all to avoid them, convinced that they see her as a monster and that she's an active danger to them.

Do you go to school? - Elena hasn't been to school since she was 13. She's tried to educate herself on her own since, but she is still hopelessly behind her peers in learning.

Do you have a secret identity? - In a sense. Most people don't know Elena Rosales is Vestige, but most people don't know Elena Rosales exists in the first place. She's barely in the system, having lived on the streets for years, avoiding all police and government contact.

Nemesis: Doctor Reyes. An amoral neuroscientist leading a rogue AEGIS project known as PHALANX. PHALANX began as a fairly mundane project to study psychic abilities and explore ways to augment the psychic power of AEGIS operatives. When Reyes' methods began creeping in less and less ethical directions, the organization shut the project down - but Reyes went rogue with his trusted men, restarting the project in an off-the-books facility right under their noses. PHALANX still operates, usually disguised as a legitimate AEGIS branch, acquiring young psychics for their scientists to experiment upon. It's said that their latest victims have proven quite successful... as well as loyal, child soldiers brainwashed into unquestioning obedience and lethal efficiency. Kid Mech, the young designer of Elena's suit, may prove to be the one to play a crucial role in defeating him, given his knack for anti-psionics and eager heroism.

Abilities:
-Memory Manipulation: Elena can read and manipulate the memories of those around her; distorting them, removing them, adding false ones. She mainly uses them in conjunction with her primary power:
-Psychic Constructs: Elena can project psychic constructs based on the memories she reads. She summons ghosts of the past and spectral warriors to deal with foes and obstacles, or ghostly objects drawn from memories. These tend to reflect her emotional state - when consumed by her anger, they become increasingly hostile and dangerous to others, endangering allies and innocents if she cannot rein them back in. Elena can maintain up to three constructs with her suit. Without it, she can manifest much more, but with rapid loss of control.

DOOM:
-Doom Track: X ❑ ❑ ❑ ❑
-Gained by: injuring innocents, frightening loved ones
Doomsigns:
-Bolstered: Mark your doom track to use an Adult Move one time.

Sanctuary: The Attic. The attic of the team base serves as Elena's sanctuary and safe place. On its own, it's a rather dull and empty room, devoid of almost all furniture. With her powers, however, it becomes a replica of her childhood room, a perfect day from a memory eternally repeating. Elena withdraws into the memory when things get bad and nothing else will calm her. She hasn't told anyone about it, unwilling to let them see that side of her. The sanctuary is a meditation space first and foremost. It is also stocked with snacks and features the sights and sounds of her childhood, providing art, music and food. Lastly, it is sometimes populated by idealized versions of her parents and relatives, who serve as aides and assistants.

There is always the danger that Elena will indulge too much. The sanctuary is thus tied intricately to her doom. Since it demands focus and peace of mind, it is also somewhat difficult to access.

Labels:
• Danger +1
• Freak +2
• Savior +1
• Superior -1
• Mundane 0

Potential: X ❑ ❑ ❑ ❑

Relationships: - Would like to kiss Sepiatone before her doom comes.
- Told Nahullad all about her doom and the danger she's in.

Influence: Sepiatone & Nahullad have Influence on Vestige.

Still some things to fill in. If anyone makes a tinkerer or super-scientist type of character, they could be the one who built Vestige's makeshift suit. If not, it'll have to be someone outside the team. May alter the Nemesis, since the playbook calls for an epic villain and this might not quite qualify. Some kind of alien psychic entity manipulating Reyes and his ilk, perhaps.