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[Empiricist]

The Setting
It is the year who the fuck knows who the fuck cares.

Man lives amongst the stars. They've been here a while by now. The heavens once regarded with reverence and wonder is now regarded in the same manner one would regard their living room. It is an era of stellar empires and system spanning coalitions, of FTL drives and true AI. An enlightened era that in great wisdom had finally understood (though never explicitly admitted) that the internet was a fucking mistake.

It was already bad enough before they escaped Earth. It's so much worse now. Imagine JavaScript after literally centuries of evolution and with about just as much general guidance. Imagine a world where comm delays mean that inner core planets are scouring the stars for signs of the faintest hints of life while people in the outer rim are actively marrying aliens. Imagine combing through centuries old texts written in dead languages to secure your web server only to get pwned anyway because you never accounted for coenolexic crypto-analysis, a term you've never heard, are convinced was made up, and which was apparently invented fifty years ago in the ass end of human space. THIS SITUATION IS NOT CONDUCIVE TO SECURITY.

Now you'd think this realization would be a catalysm, a death knell even, a paradigm shift with profound impacts on communication and culture. You'd think humans would decide that maybe, just maybe, storing all your academic knowledge, corporate secrets, and niche fetish porn in the exact same place is a bad idea. That maybe, just because someone dumped the complete works of Shakespeare into a cesspool doesn't mean you should now bury your head into it like an extinct ostrich that went extinct FROM BURYING ITS HEAD IN CESSPOOLS.

Oh wait, that would require a rational, logical species. Humans? Humans still use the internet, they're like late-game Macbeth crossed with a domestic abuse victim - they've got stockholm syndrome; they think they're too far gone, so they keep on coming back to their abuser, except their abuser in this case is black tar heroin.

This has interesting consequences. Interesting in the same way the holocaust is interesting.

What do you do when your defenses fail? What do you do when even your toaster can be hacked by anything from the latest NSA zero-day to a SQL injection attack transcribed from the Black Sea Scrolls? You go on the offence. The systems of old? They were like knights, they were these dudes in armor going "come at me bro". Well hackers came at them, and it didn't really end well. So now? Now they're more like libertarian hermits - twitchy and packing more firepower than any one man should have.

This is the world you live in, a world ancient in its roots and byzantine in its construction, a world that spans solar systems, a world that has grown too large for any one group to index. A world of dead languages and punchcard viruses, of paramilitary girl scouts and killbot telemarketers.

Welcome, to the Internet.
The System
This is going to be more a high-level overview since this test will have inbuilt tutorials anyways.

Basically the system revolves around fighting people using your spells and whatever weapons you can loot. Instead of having stats you basically just have whatever spells you have deployed at any given time resolving how a turn goes.

Each PC has an Allegory, a fictitious world of sorts from which all their spells originate. A spell's raw form, its allegorical form is a piece of technology from that world, it could be a weapon, a vehicle, even a bio-weapon. An allegorical form won't do shit by itself though as it's fictitious, it needs to be manifested in the "real" world, the world of the network you're intruding on. The process of making a spell "real" is done using a compiler, certain conditions are required to compile each spell, but these are dependent on the network's "native" magic system. Naturally each network has a different one and I'll cover this mission's one in the next section over.

Allegorical forms are generally decently hard in terms of sci-fi, as hard as we can manage anyways. There is an exception however - each allegory comes with a piece of technology that defies reality, this technology is called Deep Magic. Deep Magic is the magic of wizards, code so low-level you can taste the binary, code so obscure you can barely recognize it.

Now using Deep Magic is kind of like bankrolling Al Qaeda, sure you get the Soviets out of Afghanistan but at what cost? Sensible designs have sensible problems, engineering problems, problems like heat and friction, functionality and reliability. They might not be easy to fix, but they can be fixed. Magical designs meanwhile have magical problems. You don't want magical problems. They're strange, they're arbitrary, they're like dragons on a bath-salt fuelled rampage - they can't be reasoned with. All you can really do is keep them under control and pray.
Kudos to USEC_OFFICER for the original game, Powder Miner for the lore, Corsair for system design help, and ElfCollaborator for proofreading this OP.

[Empiricist]

So, how does this network's magic system all about anyways? Well...

DO DRUGS, FUCK BITCHES

In this network magic is done by doing drugs, hallucinating things, murdering said hallucinations, and harvesting their organs for that sweet sweet magic.

Each spell has a list of regents. These regents are what are required to cast that spell. Gather all of them and you can cast the spell, destroying the regents in the process and coloring the spell with the properties of the regents you used. You don't have to use regents raw either, if say your spell's regent is "something that launches things" there's nothing stopping you from eviscerating a hallucination and fashioning a slingshot out of its entrails.

[Empiricist]

Bogosort-Chan (Powder Miner)
Compiler

Spoiler: Contact Overlay Compiler (click to show/hide)

Spells compiled this way temporarily imbue objects with the properties of their allegorical form. Spells can only be overlaid onto something roughly similar to them in function, for instance, an artillery cannon can be overlaid on a bow and arrow but not a rolled up newspaper, a car can be overlaid on a skateboard but not a barricade. The caster must be in physical contact with an object to overlay onto it and the overlay terminates as soon as contact is lost.

Damage to an object similarly damages the spell's allegorical form, this includes pre-existing damage. For instance, if one were to overlay a flamethrower onto a supersoaker with a faulty barrel, the results would not be pretty.

Deep Magic

Spoiler: Essence of Magnitude (click to show/hide)

The Essence of Magnitude is the essence of godhood itself. Those that imbibe it become simply greater, their nature amplified, their capabilities heightened, their quintessential properties sharpened down to a fine edge. It makes man great, it makes man gods, and it makes man man no more.

It is simple to use, far too simple, dangerously simple in fact. Just apply to what you want to empower. That's it. What is it that you want to empower again? Perhaps it's a nuclear reactor? But what part? What aspect? A nuclear reactor is a complicated beast, a complex system incorporating moderators and poisons, fuels and coolant, with complex control systems and sophisticated mechanisms. So what was it you wanted to empower again? The fuel? The poison? The coolant? The walls themselves? Or perhaps it's something more specific? How about a tiny microscopic crack upon its edifice? A single neutron flying through its interior? A virtual photon exchanged between two particles? And herein lies the problem - there's no fine targeting, no fine control, it is an indiscriminate hammer that brings down miracle and calamity alike.

The trick to using it then is not a matter of application, it is a matter of stabilization and quality control. The key to stabilization is through the use of specially-designed nano-structures. The interior of the structures are shaped like cages and used to contain the essence, the exterior is tailored to limit what the structure will meaningfully react with. Generally a more restrictive the structure will have a lower essence density and be less versatile but also less volatile. There does not exist any magic bullet to quality control, it is simply a matter of limiting system failures that could lead to unintended amplification events, this is much easier said than done.

The mantle is great burden to bear, but it is godhood, and godhood is fucking bitchin'.

Spells

Spoiler: JEQUSN ewumju yiulqd (4) (click to show/hide)

Effect:
Integrates a fluid-based essence product into an overlay, giving it access to a limited supply of this substance and the systems necessary to circulate it. JEQUSN is highly versatile and highly volatile.

Regents:
-A liquid
-Something energetic or something that serves as blood

Allegory:
A system for storing, circulating, and releasing essence through the use of fluid-suspended nano-structures. The result is JEQUSN, a highly versatile, highly volatile formulation. JEQUSN systems shunt the fluid around like blood or fuel, if blood and fuel were comprised of a more violent, temperamental form of nitroglycerine.

Spoiler: EKNXFT vwgrbd teaxdk (5) (click to show/hide)

Effect:
No direct effect. Has a 1 in 120 chance of producing a highly compressed essence cartridge that greatly improves the capabilities of a compatible spell. Compatible spells must already have their own JEQUSN supplies and distribution systems. These cartridges can be stored in their allegorical form. The cartridges are even more volatile than JEQUSN and consumes JEQUSN to keep itself stable.

Regents:
-A liquid
-Something energetic

Allegory:
An exercise in futility and madness, the EKNXFT seeks to create a more essence-dense storage medium. The process actually requires the use of JEQUSN to keep the requisite nano-structures functioning, and even the slightest of flaws in the cartridge or the nano-structures themselves will result in the cartridge completely failing, either due to a runaway amplification event or the unexpected amplification of aspects of the cartridge itself.

The defect rate is over 99%.

The few cartridges that survive manufacturing are fully compatible with existing JEQUSN systems and actually dependent on them to stabilize their own payloads. EKNXFT is exceptionally potent and exceptionally volatile, and will undergo a runaway reaction should JEQUSN supplies be exhausted.

Spoiler: GHRCJH yqsitp thbsyu (4) (click to show/hide)

Effect:
Overlays a general-purpose mech onto a humanoid entity, granting the benefits of the mech's armor and access to whatever weapons have been integrated into the mech. An interal supply of JEQUSN be drained to enhance the user's strength and speed, this can also be used to increase the electrical power supply available for other integrated subspells. Damage can result in unpredictable and potentially catastrophic magical effects.

Regents:
-Something that belongs to a skeleton or exoskeleton

Allegory:
A combat exoskeleton built from the ground up around the JEQUSN Amplification System. The GHRCJH is stout frame powered by dual circulatory system of electricity from a fission reactor and JEQUSN from a centralized storage unit. Its high performance actuators have been designed with heavy armor in mind, and can be charged with JEQUSN to amplify their output, allowing the GHRCJH to exhibit supernatural speed and strength when necessary. To support energy-intensive systems the fission reactor has be designed to accept JEQUSN input, greatly increasing its output, though this mode of operation will quickly lead to overheating. Due to the inherently volatile nature of JEQUSN, damage to the actual circulatory system will mostly likely lead to an uncontrolled amplificable event with unpredictable and almost certainly disastrous results.

Spoiler: DKEJXO cadoea urjrgt (1) (click to show/hide)

Effect:
Imbues an overlay with armor that vaporizes physical attacks with a powerful electrical discharge. Its fragile nature means that it is single-use at best and while its performance could be theoretically amplified, trying to do so will most likely cause ruinous electrical damage to its own user.

Regents:
-Something hard
-Something energetic

Allegory:
An experimental electric reactive armor system that would be best served remaining an experiment. The armor consists of conductive plates separated by a layer of insulation and backed by more conventional armor. When an object pierces the plating, an electrical circuit is completed, vaporizing the offending object and greatly reducing the damage it would otherwise inflict. JEQUSN can be pumped into the system to further amplify the violence of this destroy more energetic attacks with a truly thunderous discharge. Unfortunately, the electronics are currently quite delicate meaning that attacks and really just hard impacts will ruin its circuitry, meaning this system will only be able to protect against at most a single hit (if even that) . Furthermore, its amplified mode of operation has a bad habit of discharging into the implementing unit, setting off any stores of JEQUSN in a cataclysmic event.

Spoiler: PMHQNE egssoh styezz (4) (click to show/hide)

Effect:
Overlays a rotary autocannon onto a ballistic weapon, allowing it to fire depleted uranium rounds at a high rate of fire. Has immense recoil and can only be operated in short bursts without overheating. JEQUSN can be injected to counteract both these flaws.

Regents:
-Something that can be used to launch things

Allegory:
A hydraulically driven rotary autocannon optimized for mech usage. The weapon boasts an impressive rate of fire and a similarly impressive amount of recoil mandating that whatever it is equiped to have enough mass and stability to handle it. The weapon must be fired in short bursts to avoid overheating. JEQUSN can be injected into its cooling and recoil dampening systems, allowing it to fire for extended periods of time with surprising accuracy.

Spoiler: SBFZFE emdvkp zxrcqo (4) (click to show/hide)

Effect:
Overlays a weaponized water jet cutter onto an edged weapon, wreathing it with a sheath of water that can slowly cut through armor. If supplied with JEQUSN, this sheath becomes much stronger for a single attack, becoming capable of easily cleaving through armor. Unspent JEQUSN can be left in the jet however, leading to unpredictable effects. The weapon is generally better at slashes than thrusts.

Regents:
-A liquid
-An abrasive

Allegory:
What amounts to an abrasive water jet cutter weaponized into a mech-scale blade and armored up for reliability. Upping the size and power hasn't really done much for its limited range however. This is where the JEQUSN system comes in. By injecting JEQUSN directly into the water jet, the stream is transformed from an industrial tool into a lethal weapon capable of cleaving straight through armor. The narrow cross-section of the beam makes it generally advisable to use it for slashing attacks rather than thrusts. As not all the JEQUSN injected will be consumed by the jet, the rest will be left in the blade, resulting in potentially unpredictable results as it could very well enhance its target's armor or enhance the wounds it leaves, rendering the weapon powerful but inconsistent. An additional consequence is that blade can only activated in short bursts due a cycling airlock system put in place such that any unintended ignition of the JEQUSN does not travel back up into the weapon itself.

Spoiler: RDJBLU rbezba glgmlb (1) (click to show/hide)

Effect:
Overlays an automatic grenade launcher loaded with smoke grenades onto a launching mechanism, allowing it to fire airburst smoke grenades. Or at least, try to. The launcher is prone to jamming and the grenades themselves have unreliable timers, often leading to them detonating inside their own magazines.

Regents:
-Something flammable

Allegory:
A grenade launcher with a high rate of fire and abysmal performance. Its only saving grace is that it is loaded with smoke grenades, meaning that when it inevitably jams and its faulty timer sets the grenades off in their own magazine, the results are unlikely to be fatal, at least, not directly.

[Empiricist]

Jin (Strider)
Compiler

Spoiler: Phase Compiler (Shrinking) (click to show/hide)

Spells compiled this way are immaterial and resemble their allegorical form in function though their scales will be shrunk. Parts of the spell's allegorical form can be crystallized into existence, making that part physically manifest. The part of a spell that crystallizes is always the same part and it can either fully crystallize or not at all - a spell cannot be selectively crystallized (though it can be comprised of multiple spells that crystallize independently or one another).

The immaterial components of a spell can only physically interact with something that is also magical.

Deep Magic

Spoiler: Veil Access Protocols (click to show/hide)

Picture if you would, the surface of an infinite ocean. An ocean without waves, without current. Upon this surface they built kingdoms, they built empires; and beneath lies their victims. This, is the Veil, the boundary, the distinction, between the living and the dead.

It is a machine, a grand cosmic machine.

And you have just pierced it. It is incomprehensible in volume, ineffable in purpose, and the ineffable, the incomprehensible, they will never be secure.

It all has to do with the soul. See, the living don't have souls, the dead have souls. Souls are what enclose a being's conciousness when they die, sinking back into the depths beneath the Veil, and until they have an occupant they're Empties. Empties, don't really do much, they just rise up through the Veil when something dies to pick up their mind, sort of like a taxi cab but for the dead rather than the dead drunk. Funny thing about that - they can be spoofed. With some high-power electromagnetic fields and some exotic matter to serve as modulators you too can prank call the ineffable psychopomps of the godless netherealm!

Why would you want to you ask? Why it's simple really - their guidance systems are as poorly secured as their authentication systems. Meaning, once they're up topside you can program them to fly off wherever the hell you want, just keep in mind that the potential energy trying to tear them back down is going to rise the longer they stay. This, has two interesting applications, firstly, the snapback effect of an empty diving back down, that create perturbations on the Veil. Get enough empties slamming back down and in the right formation and the still surface of the Veil suddenly becomes a hardened wall or a tidal wve. Secondly, empties don't care what they drag along with them, you could even drag a ship down a certain depth, it won't stay there of course and you'll find that survivability is an issue that scales with depth, but it's certainly an interesting option.

Spells

Spoiler: Speed Fork (5) (click to show/hide)

Effect:
Deploys a swarm of frightfully agile spellbolts that maneuver using ablative wings that crystallize into reality whenever they need to brake or turn. The bolts crystallize into forks right before impact, either to stick into a foe and unload their weapons, or to block incoming fire.

Regents:
-Something hard

Allegory:
The "Speed Fork" Twin-Compiled Automated Kill Vehicle consists of two separately compiled components - a core and wings. Built around a fork-shaped spine, the core of AKV is an elegant amalgamation of reinforcement and redunancies built for survivability above all else, sacrificing trivailities such as "steering" and "aiming" for structural integrity and reliability. Its weapon hardpoints are fixed into its anterior armor, affording them a great deal of protection at the cost of rendering them incapable of firing in any direction other than straight forwards. Due to its absence of inbuilt sensors, any would-be sensor arrays will have to be mounted into a weapon hardpoint instead. More peculiarly, this same kind of logic seems to extend to its propulsion system mountings, meaning that it can't actually steer because its engines can only be positioned to push it forwards. The wings of the AKV are even more bizzare, an array of proccessors and matter extrusion systems capable of rapidly sculpting ablative ferromagnetic wings, wings that can serve only as heatsinks in the vacuum of space.

It is only when these components are compiled together where the pieces of the puzzle falls in place. There may not be air within the allegory, but there is air in the real world. By crystallizing only its wings the AKV is able to maneuver and brake all while its core continues operating as if in a hard vacuum.

Spoiler: Socket Jammer (1) (click to show/hide)

Effect:
Allows a spellbolt to deliver a stunning electrical discharge that will probably also destroy this weapon and cripple the spellbolt.

Regents:
-Something energetic

Allegory:
A capacitor that in theory would be charged by a ship's reactor before discharging a massive amount of electricity through conductive spikes built into the ship. In practice the electronics have a nasty tendency to short out and catch fire, which given that this weapon is entirely electronics, is a very bad thing. It will probably destroy itself and damage its own ship with its first pulse.

Spoiler: Backblast (4) (click to show/hide)

Effect:
Allows a spellbolt to emit a stream of charged particles at point-blank ranges. In addition to the thermal damage, the beam releases x-rays, the quantity of which increases against denser materials.

Regents:
-Something energetic

Allegory:
A big bad linac particle accelerator built for the express purpose of delivery high energy electron beams and nothing else. The weapon melts through its victims unless they're shielded by something dense, in which case it will instead bathe them in x-rays as the electrons decelerate, dealing catastrophic damage to flesh and electronics alike. It suffers severe blooming issues is limited to extreme close range applications.

Spoiler: Cygni Propulsion System (4) (click to show/hide)

Effect:
A propulsion system that can double as reactor. It offers low fuel efficiency but high acceleration.

Regents:
-Something flammable or something that keeps itself hot
-A gas or fluid that is not flammable

Allegory:
An open cycle gas core reactor rocket, effectively a nuclear reactor that violently expels its coolant to produce thrust. Unfortunately as its fuel is also a superheated gas, a lot of that flies out too, not necessarily after being fully spent. As a result it has both terrible fuel efficiency and requires a lot of cooling infrastructure. Plus it'd be an ecological disaster if it were ever crystallized into existence. The good news is that it has excellent acceleration and can double as a generator.

Spoiler: Radar (2) (click to show/hide)

Effect:
Releases a swarm of stationary magic circles that observe an area, networking with spellbolts for improved interception capabilities. Has issues tracking fast moving objects however.

Regents:
-Something that senses

Allegory:
A swarm of passive sensor drones networked to with a targeting processor. The drones are designed to be scattered and left to observe an area. Their data can then be used to help intercept other entities for offensive or defensive applications. Their thruster performance is lacklustre rendering it difficult for them to actually track fast moving objects, which unfortunately is also the precise kind of object one would expect them to track.

Spoiler: Gauss Cannon for Forks (2) (click to show/hide)

Effect:
Allows spells with compatible allegorical forms to be fired at subsonic velocities. Takes a bit of time to ready the spell and it can't be aimed quickly.

Regents:
-Something that can be used to launch things

Allegory:
Large single-use networked gauss rings with rudimentary thrusters to maneuver them into position. They form up into a mass driver for launching interlocked clusters of smaller vessels before driving off into space as the recoil forces them out of position. One too many corners have been cut in their production, leaving them slow to move into position or aim. Furthermore it's fairly difficult to provide power for something so large so the velocity they impart is fairly limited.

Spoiler: "It's Actually A Prius" (4) (click to show/hide)

Effect:
Produces magic circles that can be used for flight and fast movement. They work based on thrust so the result is akin to that of a less graceful Iron Man. Care must be taken to not fly out of control.

Regents:
-Something used for movement

Allegory:
Effectively a casing designed to be constructed around the Cygni Propulsion System laden with radiators maneveuring thrusters and flight processors. Effectively an independent rocket booster that can be duct-taped to another object.

[Empiricist]

Barb (Raganarok)
Compiler

Spoiler: Extrusion Compiler (click to show/hide)

Spells compiled this way mirror their allegorical representation in both form and function but are comprised out of materials from the caster's environment. The spell is extruded out of the environment itself.

The caster must be touching the object they want to extrude the spell from. The spell will take on the material of that object, though its exact material properties will also incorporate aspects of its allegorical form as well. The object must have enough surface area for the spell to extrude out of it. The object cannot be hallucinatory.

Deep Magic

Spoiler: Genetic Destiny Encoding Systems (click to show/hide)

The humanity of antiquity sought to know the future. Stars and entrails, lots and mirrors, they consulted them all, but the stars remained silent, and the entrails could only bleed, lots could only show their winner, and mirrors only one's reflection.

But you, you know better. The fate of each being is written in its very form, encoded deep within its genome. It is a black prose written in the language of a mad god, of twisted allegories and paradoxical claims, a forbidden literature forged from infernal devices for which there are no names, a treacherous text bound not only to itself but the very physiology of that whose fate it ordains.

The humanity of antiquity thought they could know the future, you'll do one better, you'll pick up the pen and write the damn future.

Fate-weaving is a precarious and inexact science, as limited as it is powerful, as powerful as it is limited. Destiny is not absolute, it is a potential, it is a tendency, but not a requirement. Vaguer destinies work better and to bring about its full potential you must recognize that triumph and disaster are two sides of the same coin. The sheep destined for the abattoir need not fear the wolves. If something is doomed to fail, then you can make it fail the way you want it.

If something is mediocre, then condemn it, doom it, bind its fate with chains of twisted causality, peculiar restrictions enforced by the threat of death, simple destinies, destinies that can be guaranteed. Ordain that it will die after ten paces and plant a bomb in its brain set to guarantee that. Counterproductive it may seem, but a hero's tale usually has its tragedies and for good reason too - the easiest destinies make for the strongest of foundations, the strongest of guarantees are what bind creatures to their fates most strongly, and a brilliant destiny must be tightly bound to come true, after all, it is the brightest lights that cast the darkest shadows.

Also much less poetically, please keep in mind that destinies are encoded in both coding and non-coding DNA. The same destiny for a different creature must be written a different way.

Spells

Spoiler: Tera-Teddy (3) (click to show/hide)

Effect:
Creates what amounts to an overclocked polar bear with opposable thumbs. Its combat algorithms are simplistic, incapable of understanding much beyond "charge at entity X and brutally maul it". Powered by an internal supply, it terminates once that runs out.

Regents:
-Something that serves as biomass

Allegory:
If bears sculpted statues of their gods, the result would look something like the Tera-Teddy. A colonial organism built for modularity and enhanced with cybernetics the Tera-Teddy is an extreme beast, something that could never exist in nature. Its metallic bones will never heal from injury, its fast-twitch muscles will eventually tear themselves apart, it cannot even eat for while it is well-equipped in tooth and claw, it lacks a digestive system, its existence sustained solely by an internal glucose tank, the unit terminating once that runs dry. Its average lifespan is measurable in minutes.

The combat algorithms housed by its wetware is fairly basic, enough that when given a target it will be able to engage said target, not enough to actually be assigned waypoints or tactics or anything fancier than "maul this motherfucker". It is theoretically capable of wielding weapons, though for anything more complicated than a grenade it will probably need to network with an auxilliary combat processor.

Spoiler: Mammal Accelerated Combustion Enhancer (2) (click to show/hide)

Effect:
A HEAT round sans propellent designed to be attached to a foe and remotely detonated, driving a high velocity jet of liquid metal into them. Has issues with staying adhered correctly.

Regents:
-Something that bursts

Allegory:
Take a HEAT round, remove the propellent and give it a remote detonator. Such are the beginnings of the MACE. The MACE ressembles a metallic American football with an adhesive front designed to be attached to enemy armor and remotely detonated. When set off, shaped charge detonates, sending a high velocity jet of molten metal through its target. Unfortunately, there are problems with the reliability of its adhesive, problems that the football shape really doesn't help, leaving it liable to move off-angle or fall off after placement.

Spoiler: Bear Spray (5) (click to show/hide)

Effect:
A system built into bio-weapon constructs that allows them to be remotely overclocked, causing them to fly into what amounts to a focused drug-fueled rage that allows it to tap into its full theoretical potential at the cost of injuring itself.

Regents:
-Something like a brain or processor

Allegory:
While bio-weapons are able to permit certain self-destructive actions that would be counterproductive for another organism, they still have certain limits placed upon them to ensure their effectiveness in prolonged combat. This system removes those limitations. Upon activation, a distributed network of implants floods the organism's body with neurotransmitters, disabling their usual limiters. Where neurotransmitters would be too slow, electrical discharges can be used, forcibly moving muscles at their maximum power.

Spoiler: Build-a-Bear Emergency Stuffing Generator (6) (click to show/hide)

Effect:
Creates a facility around its user that harvests resources from their surroundings. While the facility is unarmored and has an extremely short lifespan, it is cheap to cast and easily replaced as a result.

Regents:
-Something that leeches nutrients from the earth
-Something hard

Allegory:
An exercise in frugality, the Build-a-Bear Emergency Stuffing Generator is a dazzling array of industrial-grade resource extraction equipment stripped down to their bare components and powered by limited internal batteries. Every corner that can be cut has been cut, and as such the entire operation will render itself inoperable in a matter of mere seconds. The only question is whether it will be from running out of power or from wear-and-tear. But that is acceptable, ideal even, if it breaks, and by God it will break, it can be replaced, it is cheap after all. And if it's cheap and easily replaced and going to break anyway, it doesn't matter what breaks it, does it? Blade, bomb, and bullet, they can cut the generator down, but it will rise again and again.

Spoiler: Eisha-Type Ursine Accelerator (3) (click to show/hide)

Effect:
Where the Stuffing Generator is designed to extract raw resources from the environment, the Ursine Accelerator is designed to extract resources from existing consolidated sources, which is to say it's designed to butcher dead things and soon to be dead things. Has a jamming issue however. It's recommended that it be redeployed rather than manually unclogged in such cases.

Regents:
-Something that is part of a digestive system or something equivalent
-Something hard

Allegory:
Similar to the Stuffing Generator, the Eisha-Type Ursine Accelerator is an array of industrial-grade equipment stripped to the bare minimums. Except said equipment has been rigged to look more like a demented Saw trap more than anything else. It's a veritable death trap dedicated to stripping apart corpses and butchering them for their internal components. Entities that are more armored or hazardous in construction may require some preprocessing to handle. Furthermore the equipment it uses was never really meant to handle the things get forced into them, meaning that it's fairly prone to jamming unless regularly cleaned, except it's so hazardous to clean it's terrible idea to try and do so. On the bright side, still-leaving enemies can be smacked against this OSHA nightmare to make them a little less living.

Spoiler: Quantum Stuffing Replicator (6) (click to show/hide)

Effect:
Creates a squid-like fuel pump that automatically refuels constructs in range even as they fight. The facility will eventually run out of fuel.

Regents:
-Something edible or something that functions as a power source

Allegory:
Basically an automated fuel pump that plugs into bio-weapon constructs, replenishing the internal stores of glucose and electricity that keep them functional. It has a cutesy exterior that resembles that of a squid plushie. Not particularly exciting, but its precise construction and elegant internals allow it to rapidly refuel multiple constructs with minimal fuel leakage even in the midst of combat.

Spoiler: Defensive Rift Containment Unit (2) (click to show/hide)

Effect:
Creates heavy personal body armor. Doesn't really protect against anything per se, but it can reduce the severity of injuries. Will degrade and crumple over time. Restricts movement, situational awareness, and liable to cause heat stroke.

Regents:
-Something protective like a shell or thick hide

Allegory:
An EOD suit, boom! An amalgamation of metal and foam, plastic and kevlar. It'll just be like one of those knights from those ancient video games! Wait, why's this so hot? Oh God how do you even fight in this?

The DRCU is, not the most ergonomic of armors. It restricts your movement, your situational awareness, and if you wear it for too long you'll probably get heat stroke. It is however protective, to a degree anyways. So long as it's compiled using a sufficiently sturdy material it will protect against small arms fire and can reduce the severity injuries its user will suffer from some heavier attacks, though it is still best to avoid being injured in the first place.

[Empiricist]

malloc(sizeof(post));

[Empiricist]

malloc(sizeof(post));

[Glass]

...what the hell am I looking at here?

[Powder Miner]

DRUGS
but also AI
but also drugs
but also
AI

[Strider03]

A system test.

[TricMagic]

DRUGS
but also AI
but also drugs
but also
AI

Yes

[Glass]

Question, Emp: why is it that all of your games always seem to be filled without a signup thread ever being posted?

[Empiricist]

Question, Emp: why is it that all of your games always seem to be filled without a signup thread ever being posted?

A mixture of them being commissioned and them unexpected external factors. Of my more recent games, TnO SI was effectively commissioned by Murdoc via shitpost, though it did hold recruitment in its OOC. TnO CT held full normal recruitments in a different forum, but moved to Bay12 due to issues with said other forums. It then proceeded to crawl back into the hole from whence it came and died there.

This? Commissioned by Powder. I didn't actually wanna post this. This was supposed to be a system test run in a dedicated private sever in Discord, don't really wanna dump a system that could very well crash and burn before the first turn even resolves onto Bay12. But, I wound up having to do so anyways because, well, see those spells up there? It's a lot easier having them in a spoilered and consolidated in posts than in say, Google Sheets or a dedicated Discord channel.

This is a system test, one mission, assuming it even gets that far. If all things go well, I'll launch the finished product with its own OOC and recruitment. Recruitment will probably be done on a per mission basis rather than having a fixed PC pool. Helps sidestep player inactivity and get a more diverse range of players and characters. Plus helps balance out the fact that the party size is probably only going to be 4 PCs per mission due to well, the GM work required to run each PC.

[Screech9791]

Stop my sigtext can only have so many quotes - anyone who sees this thread that bothers putting funny quotes in their sig

either way, PTW since who the fuck knows what shitposts will happen in this thread

[Glass]

Stop my sigtext can only have so many quotes - anyone who sees this thread that bothers putting funny quotes in their sig

either way, PTW since who the fuck knows what shitposts will happen in this thread

All of them, most likely.