Age: His new body is about 3 years old, but he has been around since the later years of the Era of Peace
Sex:Attack Jet Male
Height:6’5
Weight: 310
Alignment: Chaotic neutral
Character Personality: Astra takes up a friendly attitude around his fellow steelwalker’s, presenting himself as a cheerful being with a good sense of humor, personality traits that have evolved with his own kind’s evolution. Shortly after his reformatting he attained an impulsive edge to his personality, along with a slight sense of insecurity about just how well his body will perform in the field and desires to prove himself.
Casual Appearance:
Battlefield Appearance: Varies, in aerial combat it transforms into a jet, the blade becomes the nose, and the feet rotate around to become a part of the boosters. If he wants to use his gun his blade splits down the middle to reveal the cannon.
Origin Story:
Unit L1AM-77, Astra, was originally a support unit sent out to repair and to study their warp tower. This faction of steelwalkers wanted to experiment and replicate warp technology for their own use. Although they are unable to replicate the technology as it is in a cost effective way, they have been able to invent new technology because of it. Thanks to Astra’s efforts they were able to revolutionize themselves with a new found power source; they used this to enhance their factories, and themselves past any standard before. But after the Era of Strife increased volcanic activity and disasters of all kinds plagued the land these steelwalker’s decided to leave the land behind and sought to roam the skies instead of being left to uncontrollable conditions on the ground.
Using their new power source and the technology that came with it they constructed a massive air-ship to reside upon, although it was not as fast as the members onboard it would be fast enough to traverse continents and to avoid incoming disasters, and with it being airborne they weren’t as vulnerable to the unstable land beneath them as they once were. Astra worked extensively with his fellow construction and support units to help construct it, during the process newer more efficient units were introduced in order to help service this new vessel. With many steelwalker’s finding themselves outmatched and underperforming the upper echelon of this faction, known as the Source Council, decided to reformat and retrofit most of their most outdated vehicles and units.
Astra was one of the steelwalker’s chosen to undergo this new technique; instead of producing more of the many newer support units they instead decided that they would need a new force to explore the world. With this in mind L1AM-77 was chosen to become a part of the new scout class, keeping in line with their ideals of upgrading, they decided to experiment and gave Astra a variable transforming body. Along with his nimble “robot” mode, he would also be given a fast attack craft as his secondary mode to help him avoid trouble zones and traverse the planet more quickly. Now Astra fulfills his role with the same vigor as any of his other model mates and accompanies this new air-ship as they roam from one resource spot to the next.
Transforming: Due to his new experimental body Astra can change forms; from “man” to “jet” he has an advantage not many can boast about.
Attributes: (All Traits are at Maximum Effort, keep this in mind.)
Strength: With the more nimble scout body Astra cannot lift or hit as hard his others of his kind and can only manage about 5 tons.
Speed: In his robot mode he can accelerate to about 60mph, and in his hover mode he can “ski” with the rockets embedded in his feet and move to 100mph. In his jet mode he can reach top speeds of about 700mph, but reaching such speeds was not the intended purpose of his body and will need to recharge and repair afterwards depending on how long he spends going at these speeds.
Reaction Time: His reflexes can reach up to 50x normal levels
Endurance: Astra prefers to perform maintenance and recharge every 24 hours, but his Bridanium power source will let him operate in harsh conditions for 48 hours.
Agility: 50x Human levels
Intelligence: He can enhance what he knows at any time by using the central data net hub back at his mother ship, but outside of that his purpose is to record and explore and therefore only has average intelligence levels.
Combat Skill: Skilled, performed combat simulations back on the mother ship.
Technical Skill: Skilled enough to operate his own systems, perform maintenance, and limited repair knowledge. He also has a vague knowledge of other machines due to his experience as a support/repair unit earlier in his life.
Equipment:
Mechanical Body: Thanks to Astra being a steelwalker his body can withstand punishment and conditions no other living thing could, it also possesses more than 96 points of articulation thanks to its Variable Alternating Transfer System, or VATS
HF-Blade: Astra has a mounted blade on his arm that vibrates at high speeds that lets it cut through even his fellow steelwalker’s with some effort; the blade also becomes the nose of his “fighter” mode.
Plasma Cannon: A rapid-fire plasma cannon embedded inside the HF-Blade, it reveals itself by splitting the blade in half. It fires bolts of energy that melt down his targets, but it’s power is weaker than his more offensively orientated allies and would take a few shots to take out a fellow steelwalker.
Booster Jets: Booster jets on the bottom of his feet allow him to swiftly cover ground in his humanoid form, and they become a portion of his main thruster power in his fighter mode.
Alternating Identifying Distinguishing System : His sensor module has multiple “visor’s” ranging from night-vision to infra-red to help him identify trouble spots and resource rich areas to report back to the mothership.
Detailed Identifying Concentrated Scanning System: The advanced sensor modules the L1AM class scouts possess need a minute of concentration on the target to scan and upload to the mothership.
Low Grade Forcefield: A force-field generator powered by Bridanium, the power source discovered from their warp research. The force-field isn't as strong as the motherships but it can repel low tier attacks like stone throwing, but it mostly serves to soften blows.
Resources: Minimal, he can use his body and whatever he takes with him
Supporting Characters: Source Council, Central Computer/Unit 1-0, fellow steelwalkers from the mothership.
Do you know how to post pictures?:Probably
What is best in life?:Something about maiming your enemies and the lamentations of women? Sample Post (Minimum four paragraphs, doesn't have to pertain to the roleplay.):
The corridors of the mothership were big in order to service the many different types of steelwalker’s within, from tiny maintenance workers, to larger tank like beings that needed to move around occasionally, but it never seemed cramped. And the crew wasn’t made up of mindless automatons, the steelwalker’s had advanced ai’s that have been evolving ever since they were created, emerging with their own varying personalities.
Character Personality: Sinister, dramatic, and often theatrical, Chief Ez-Bub is a master showman and manipulator who maintains a ruthless control over his tribe and its many differing voices. He is a rare example of a fanatic and a true believer in the words he speaks, if this is due to some dark blood connection to the Spider or his own delusions is uncertain.
Casual Appearance: ‘Red-skinned’ with dark brown hair coated in black grease and oil worn tied up as a pony-tail in a warrior’s thong. Ez-Bub is tall by his people’s standards, and as stocky and wide as all of them with a powerfully muscled build. His body is a myriad of scars, none more prominent than the eight self-inflicted burn grooves running across the sides of his face in the pattern of a spider’s legs. He wears a bronze nose ring and his dark brown eyes seem almost black staring out from red-rimmed lids. His garb is that of most of his people, though more ornate and colourful he wears a combination of furs and tough leather, with simple sandals and black ribbons wrapped around his bare ankles and wrists. He goes no-where without two short swords across his back. He wears a large sacrificial knife at his hip, which often drips blood. On his head, he wears a black iron circlet not unlike a crown.
Battlefield Appearance: Ez-Bub goes to battle riding the great Spider. Like all his people he will paint his face with the oil and blood of the spider, and usually adorns himself in scrapped together chainmail. If forewarned of a fight getting to close quarters he will sometimes use a Big Banger, the 8 Legs favoured firearm.
Origin Story: Ez-Bub rose to prominence after defeating the first chief of the tribe, before they were even named the 8 Leg. Back then they were the Long-Haired, and the cause for his brutal usurpation was other a differing opinion in regards to a huge mechanical corpse the tribe happened upon in their nomadic wanderings. Just eighteen years of age at the time, Ez-Bub was born under the sign of the Metal Star, and was gifted with a technical aptitude borne from an internal magic. So it was that when the Chief of the Long-Hair was asked what to do with the great metal skeleton, he cautiously pulled his tribe away. Ez-Bub however had grown enamoured with the great metallic beast, which resembled the body of a huge spider as tall as a tree. Ez-Bub plotted that night, and at the stroke of midnight he challenged and cut down the Chief in a great fury, feeding his heart to the Spider. The Chief was the first of many sacrifices to the great machine, and somewhere in its infernal heart something stirred. The Spider was reborn anew, fuelled by an unholy combination of blood magic and technical expertise, sending plumes of black arid smoke into the clear sky. The noxious smell of burning flesh was to herald its arrival for those few red-skin tribes that still stood in the great valleys. One by one the fell, their cultures lost, eaten up by the 8 Legs Tribe as they came to be known. The great spider led the tribe ever onward, with Chief Ez-Bub at the helm.
Powers (Be Specific): Blood Magic and Ritual Chief Ez-Bub can use a rudimentary form of Blood Magic, by making sacrifices and coating his body in the blood of his enemies he can access greater strength and speed while making himself resistant to harm of all kinds. More importantly, he can use this ability to power machinery like the great spider, and to bestow upon his warriors bloody ferocity in combat. Lacking the more flashy aspects of other magic, Blood Magic is more of a passive increase to already present abilities and traits. It can be used as a way of corrupting enemy machinery, making them more prone to failure, though this is not something he has had much need to experiment with.
Attributes: Upon Accessing Blood Magic
Strength: The strength of three grown men, Ez-Bub can lift almost a tonne of weight with effort. Speed: Ez-Bub can run at great speed across the open plain, reaching almost 40mph. Reaction Time: Heightened to an unholy degree, his reactions peak at 3x human maximum. Endurance: Naturally resilient to harm and tiredness, his body hardens to all but the most significant mortal wounds. Agility: Ez-Bub can move at frightening speed for his size and weight, though only tipping into the supernatural. Intelligence: Questionable, Ez-Bub has a rudimentary knowledge of many matters, but an innate technical gift and a knack for oratory often makes up for it. Combat Skill: Like all the Long-Hair, now 8 Leg, Chief Ez-Bub is a master of shortswords and as good as one can be with a Big Banger. Technical Skill: High, if somewhat unrefined. Ez-Bub can work with any machinery he lays his hands on, especially when his Blood Magic is infused with it.
Equipment: Ez-Bub carries two Spider Fangs worn across his back, serrated shortswords usually dipped in poisonous fluid, which leaks out of the Great Spider, before combat. He also carries a cruel sacrificial knife made of obsidian which can cut through flesh like butter.
Resources: The 8 Leg tribe and a giant mechanical Spider
What is best in life?: To Conquer and to Follow the Path of the Spider!
Sample Post: The Horizon Beckons
The simmering fires and the wailing cries of women and children mourning their dead heralded the end of an era. The last of the so-called free tribes of the southern plains and the Red Teeth mountains crushed underheel. All eight of them. Atop the Great Spider, a mountainous machine that looked like a perverted but none-the-less uncanny artificial duplicate of its namesake, the mighty Chief of the 8 Leg tribe surveyed his Kingdom. It was a moving kingdom, made up of the peoples of the plains and the mountains, ferocious warriors, Red Skinned and dangerous to a man and woman. Yet the last of them had fell this day, bowing under the combined might of those who fell before it and the Spider itself, of which he alone was in command. It was a glorious day, and a burning hot tear rolled down his heavily scarred face, carrying the taste of blood and oil and victory into his open mouth as he breathed it in. What a glorious day!
“People of the 8 Legs! Hear me now!” His voice was like a roar of thunder, and beneath him hundreds of warriors looked up at him with the adoration of children for a father. “Another tribe joins our great Kingdom! Their fallen will feed the Spider and their souls will journey to the great beyond where they will await you with feast and story!” He raised his hands and the roar of pleasure rolled across the crowd. It made it so much easier to kill a brother man when one knew what awaited them, paradise. “But we are not done! The Spider would have more of us now! Until this day we fought to unite the tribes, but like the ocean we are now too great to be contained in this place, the horizon beckons! New lands, new conquests, new hearts for the Spider! Come, brothers and sisters, follow the Path of the Spider! Your Chief Commands it!”
The 8 Legs (Tribe)
The Great Spider
The most prominent feature of the 8 Legs is the Great Spider, a huge mechanical walker almost a hundred feet tall, 200 feet wide (counting the legs) and 200 feet long. It does, in every respect, resemble a huge spider. Its gears and metallic wiring run its length, worn in some areas, outright broken in others, its movements judder and shudder and by all rights it shouldn’t even work. Yet, it does. Powered by the burning corpses of the fallen, as well as oil and blood, it sends black smoke gushing into the air that can be seen up to a mile away. As one might expect from a apocalyptic tribe riding a giant spider, the 8 Legs have mounted countless weapons batteries to the thing. Primitive anti-air weapons that launch explosives and shrapnel in the sky line the top, gunners sit on the knees of each leg, and the head has a multitude of actual cannons attached which fire explosive balls often loaded with fire or arid poisons. Needless to say, with such a weapons platform at their disposal the 8 Legs have prospered.
Population: The 8 Legs tribe boasts around three thousand people, most of which cluster around the legs of the Spider and under its carapace for shelter and comfort. Large portions of the tribe however march out ahead and behind as scouts and hunters, bringing back food and captives for the Spider.
Culture and weaponry: The culture of the 8 Legs is something akin to hero worship, for the Great Spider and by extension, Ez-Bub. The people are warlike and brutal in every-way, their signature weapons are the spider’s fangs, viciously serrated shortswords usually dipped in poisonous fluids that pool out of the spider itself. They also make use of Big Bangers, rudimentary blunderbusses which are filled with shrapnel that is often poisoned. When combat begins, the Big Bangers are fired in two great bursts, one to shake and kill the enemy, the second to signal the charge. Against a single target, they are next to useless beyond twenty meters, but enmasse against mass, they can be brutally effective even at greater range.
Mechanical and Tribal adaption: The 8 legs is a conglomeration of tribes from the great plain and the Red Teeth mountains, all of which are red skinned warriors. With each new tribe enveloped by the 8 legs the knowledge and techniques of the tribe increase. Each original tribe came with its own skills, and while their culture is lost these skills still persist in the 8 leg tribe, here is a summary of the current tribes within the 8 Legs and the skills they bring.
The Long Hairs: Shortsword masters and quick learners, many of the elites who ride the Spider are of the Long Hair, the original founding tribe, and most are competent mechanics as well.
The Bang Clan: Gunpowder lovers and the first and most difficult conquest of the Long Hairs, though few in number even now the Bang Clan bring their knowledge of explosives and firearms to the 8 Legs and are responsible for all artillery and Big Bangers.
Black Arrows: Master archers, the Black Arrows are hunters by trade with experience in all terrains, they serve as scouts for the 8 Legs and hunter gatherers.
Soana: The Soana are one of the weirder tribes in the 8 Legs, their people are mostly normal but one in every fifty is known as a ‘Spirit Walker’ and materialises odd magical abilities mostly revolving around bartering for control over the elements. Interbreeding has resulted in almost twenty so called Spirit Walkers among the 8 Legs, who have a myriad of horrifying powers.
Plain Runners: The Plain Runner tribe are renowned for their mastery of horsemanship, though the exact nature of their mounts is often somewhat sketchy their ability to breed and train all manner of terrifying and speedy beasts is invaluable. They are also responsible for the large herds of cattle that follow in the Spider’s wake, feeding the people.
Lesser Tribes: Many small tribes conquered along the way exist within the 8 Legs, accounting for its population of almost three thousand people, though they bring no notable skills of their own they are all competent warriors, and many adopt the skills of the other major tribes through a diffusion of skills and training.
Appearance: Red skinned with brown and black hair often matted and covered in grease, oil and blood, the people of the 8 Legs wear furs and scrapped together iron armour, particularly in combat. Their legs and wrists are adorned with blood drenched ribbons, but by far their most fearsome aspect is their warpaint. Before combat, the 8 Legs use the oil and blood that constantly drips down the legs of the spider and from its belly to paint the pattern of a spider’s legs on their faces. It is the sacrificial blood they adorn themselves with which attests for their ferocity in combat, shirking lethal blows to continue fighting until their bodies die.