Hidden 9 yrs ago 9 yrs ago Post by Captain Jenno
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"... the body was found at 5pm this morning, crumpled on the kitchen floor, face contorted in horror..."

"... police are considering this an open homicide case..."

"The victim's husband has denied allegations of foul play, and toxicology reports are coming back negative..."


It was plastered all over the news for weeks. Deaths always are, in quiet, idyllic little coastal towns like this one: Pleasant Valley, California.
But it started on June 20th, 2000: that was the day the killings started.
Havana Reddy had been a perfectly healthy, twenty year old repatriated suburbanite, with a loving husband, a plethora of middle-class friends and a stress-free job as a yoga instructor at her local gym. She ate well, and took care of herself.
She turned up dead at 5pm on a warm Tuesday afternoon, sprawled out on her kitchen floor. Her husband had found her clutching a broken makeup mirror, surrounded by the shattered remains of a glass of store-bought "health juice". Her face had been contorted, in abject agony.

Police reported that there wasn't a mark on her, but suspected foul play. They thought her drink had looked suspicious, and took her husband in on suspicion of poisoning: but the toxicology came back negative, and a subsequent autopsy returned no signs of conventional poison.
In the end, they concluded that it was a rare, but not unheard of, case of sudden, unexplained death. It wasn't a common occurrence, but it happened: several times a year in the U.S. alone.
And with that verdict, most people were happy. It seemed feasible to most of the people of Pleasant Valley, and it put their minds at rest to know there wasn't a killer stalking their happy little town...
... but a small, fringe group of citizens knew better.

To most, Havana Reddy had been a spirited, spritely young woman, but otherwise unremarkable: but to a rare few with which she shared a special power, she was known instead to be the wielder of the remarkable, emotional-manipulating Stand, Midnight Oil.
Because Havana Reddy was part of a secret society of less than one hundred, a minority that had come- through the influence of some cursed antiquated arrow, introduced to Pleasant Valley at the turn of the millennium- to possess the awesome power of a Stand, a metaphysical manifestation of her own strength of will, a superhuman power.
And whilst to the rest of Pleasant Valley, her death might have seemed an unpleasant coincidence: to them, it was something much, much more.
No Stand user could be so easily felled, and in the world of Stands, there was no such thing as coincidence. There was no doubt about it: "this has to be the work of an enemy stand!"

But even knowing this, there was a great hesitation about intervening, throughout the whole Stand User community. There was a resounding fear that, should anyone stand forwards and get involved, they might be next.
Maybe Havana Reddy was a one-off? Maybe her death was enough...

22nd of October, 2000. Sunday. Damien Bourke has just been found dead, the sixth victim of this "Stand Killer" in the last four months alone. His stand, Celtic Spring, was one which controlled weather. Now that it's perished, nature struggles to adjust, and the rain makes the sand unto wet clay.
Something needs to be done. That's where you come in.

You are The Boomtown Rats, a group of students from the graduating class of Pleasant Valley High. You stepped up to the plate when the rest of the Stand community buried its head in the sand: because when injustice arises, one can always invest their faith in the recklessness of students.
You all know each other, somewhat. Faces seen passing in the hall, notes exchanged between desks during boring classes. But in many ways, you are perfect strangers. You know only the names of one another's stands, and that when nobody else was willing to bat, you all stepped forwards together.
Your mission: to find and stop The Stand Killer, before your own numbers come up.

But beware, because there are powerful forces working against you. Poking around murder investigations won't make you any friends in the Pleasant Valley Police Department, and making ripples in the Stand Community brings with it the risk of upsetting Pleasant Valley's resident gangsters - a troupe of Stand Users whose Stands suggest The Chinese Zodiac: The Zodiac Killers. They are the current known possessors of The Antique Arrow that gave the majority of Pleasant Valley's Stand Users their powers.

You've got a long way to go, Boomtown Rats. Hah. So much for Pleasant Valley Sundays.



So that's Pleasant Valley, now what about you?



For example:

Stand User
Name: Bruno Garcia Hays
Age: 19
Gender: Male
Brief description of appearance: Bruno is a tall, slender figure, 5'11", with narrow shoulders and an overall thin build. His hair is a cobalt blue, and he wears it up in a pompadour (although, to allay concerns, he isn't too defensive about it). His eyes are green, and his skin is lightly tanned, betraying his origins in a hotter climate. He wears a black leather jacket, around the collar of which is a black-and-white checkered pattern. Over his left hand he wears a single, padded leather glove.

Personality summary: Bruno is an Aussie, through and through: hot tempered and fast-mouthed. A reformed teen gangster, Bruno's heart is in the right place, but his execution can sometimes be less so. His playful teasing can seem cruel at times, and his rushing to fix problems with his fists can sometimes make them much, much worse. Still, his loyalty, once earned, is nigh unshakable.

Short biography: Bruno Hays is an Australian immigrant who was moved forcefully from his hometown of Trenchtown, New South Wales, by his parents after he'd been involved in a botched museum robbery, orchestrated by The Wailers. They were a gang of teen anarchists that Bruno had fallen in with at 13. During the robbery, a collection of valuable antiques went missing: Bruno never saw the benefits of any of them.
Instead, in the commotion preceding his arrest, Bruno panicked and ran into the road, colliding head-on with a police car and losing his left arm due to a complication in the ensuing surgery.
It was un-salvageable, and replaced with an inflexible wooden substitute- all that his family could afford- and such reality motivated Bruno to leave his roguish lifestyle behind at 17. It was well crafted, like the arm of a well made doll, but it was totally inanimate.

Bruno moved to Pleasant Valley with his parents, and his now-estranged, then-girlfriend Maria Shintaro, expecting to spend the rest of his life as "the one armed man". But upon arriving, Bruno suddenly found himself in the possession of a powerful spirit which allowed him to move his wooden arm as though it were made of flesh and bone again: and when he touched things with it, he could emulate the material. His arm could become stone, metal, any solid material.
He would later learn that this was the birth of his stand, Matter of Fact!

Over the years he's kept it to himself, and wears a glove over his "stand arm" when he isn't using it. Sometime in the last few years, Maria left Bruno, leaving only a note which declared she was running to L.A., after she'd ransacked his room and stolen some of his most valuable possessions.
He recently joined The Boomtown Rats, under the impression that his violent early teens might be put to better use via vigilantism.
Namesakes: "Bruno Renzella" of Australian band Fat Lip, "Jerry Garcia", a finger amputee from the American rock band Grateful Dead, and "Colin Hays", a Scottish musician from the Australian band Men at Work.

Stand
Name: Matter of Fact (Duran Duran)
Description of Appearance: N/A: Bruno has never seen Matter of Fact "in person", as it were. He's only ever seen its arm, which remains even when he removes his wooden prosthetic. Said arm is a translucent sea green, and seems almost to let off a pale blue steam whenever it's outside of Bruno's arm. Although not particularly broad or powerful, the arm is fairly well toned and covered in what look to be small Widmanstätten patterns. In the absence of his prosthetic, Bruno wields this, but can no longer absorb other forms of matter.
Power: Matter adoption - When Bruno touches a solid surface with his wooden arm, he can assimilate the materials and change the material his arm consists of, for the duration of the fight. This alters his stats, but the change is only temporary and the ability has a long "recharge" period.
Stats:
[Default - Wood]
Destructive Power: B
Speed: A
Range: B
Durability: C
Precision: C

List of approved Stand Users
Bruno Hays - Matter of Fact

Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by Unraveller
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Oh wonderful! Glad to see the topic already up and ready to go. I should most likely have a character sheet up sometime within the next twenty-four hours, hope I can stand up to your expectations.
Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by Captain Jenno
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Oh wonderful! Glad to see the topic already up and ready to go. I should most likely have a character sheet up sometime within the next twenty-four hours, hope I can stand up to your expectations.


I'm already excited! I look forwards to the character.
Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by Unraveller
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I might have to go with a character design I recently drew, if only because it feels rather JoJo. Though its pretty obvious that it wasn't particularly inspired, and being labeled as uncreative is never fun. I shall spend tonight deliberating on what in the hell I'd like to do, I might even go crazy and use that random stand generator, could be fun.


Hidden 9 yrs ago 9 yrs ago Post by Captain Jenno
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If it feels JoJo enough and you think you can spin an interesting character out of it, then by all means!
Hidden 9 yrs ago 9 yrs ago Post by Penultimate_Pi
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-deleted, ignore-
Hidden 9 yrs ago 9 yrs ago Post by Captain Jenno
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@Captain Jenno
I feel the rules on stats are a bit unnecessarily restrictive. I understand this is to promote balance and ensure we're not below average, but I feel like it doesn't give us a lot of wiggle room as to how dramatically we want to arrange our Stand's natural ability. That rule about power-to-range, especially, limits what we can set up with just five stats of predefined ranks. And personally, I don't think excluding Developmental Potential is very proper, since it does serve as a measure of how much our Stand is capable of growing in the future (that is, if it gains any new abilities or forms throughout this roleplay).

If I were a GM, I'd make it into a sort of point-buy system: with all of your stats starting at E, you distribute a set amount of points to increase individual stats in rank. So, I could spend 4 points out of 10 or 12 or something to make a single stat A-rank, 3 points to make a stat B-rank, and so on. I might also make the power-to-range rule more of a background rule for Stands - that a Stand becomes functionally weaker the farther they operate from their user, no matter their Power rank (so a Stand operating at A-rank Range may only be as powerful as a C-rank Power stand, even if they would normally have an A-rank in Power.).

But that's simply my personal thoughts on the matter. You're the GM, and what you say goes, so I'll kindly follow whatever rules you set. I just wished to express my opinion on the design, and I won't insist anything be changed.


The rules remain, power-or-range has always been a facet of Stands in general and having a Developmental Potential stat in a roleplay seems presumptuous given you and your characters have no idea where you're going. Your opinion is acknowledged and your input appreciated.

Although on the topic of thinking things not particularly proper, I'd prefer your first post in a new OOC weren't made up mostly of a two paragraph critique of the game system - for future reference, should the mechanics introduced ever fail to satisfy the people who sign up to this roleplay my PMs are always open. But until the roleplay has actually begun, I'd rather the OOC were about character creation.

EDIT: It should be noted that the stat system is a means of ranking, not of restricting. As stated on the CS, I won't actively restrain players from performing spectacular feats on the basis of arbitrary letters if it's feasible your Stand could do it - the stats are simply so one knows that if an enemy has a higher rank in that stat than you, chances are you're not going to win in a fair fight. Time to get Joseph-smart.
Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by Penultimate_Pi
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The rules remain, power-or-range has always been a facet of Stands in general and having a Developmental Potential stat in a roleplay seems presumptuous given you and your characters have no idea where you're going.

I wouldn't say necessarily in terms of stats, but you are right.

Although on the topic of thinking things not particularly proper, I'd prefer your first post in a new OOC weren't made up mostly of a two paragraph critique of the game system...

Absolutely true. I've no right to say what should or shouldn't be.

It should be noted that the stat system is a means of ranking, not of restricting.

I never meant to imply the system was meant to actively restrict us. I won't comment any more.

Right now, I'm mostly just struggling with actually creating my own Stand right now, since it has a certain power that's kind of difficult to nail down in terms of raw stats. I also need to figure out appearances, something I've never really done quite so well with in writing...
Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by Unraveller
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Welp, here I was minding my own business, writing up that character sheet. And my PC decides to restart unannounced. Never fun to lose that kinda work. Nevertheless, I shall trudge through and see if I can't put the pieces back together.
Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by Captain Jenno
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Welp, here I was minding my own business, writing up that character sheet. And my PC decides to restart unannounced. Never fun to lose that kinda work. Nevertheless, I shall trudge through and see if I can't put the pieces back together.


Och, sorry to hear it - but best of luck! There's no rush, as people seem to be coming fairly slowly. If I can help at all feel free to drop into my private messages!
Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by Unraveller
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Of course, no worries. I've mostly gotten it all back together, hopefully at least. I'll need to start learning to write things on Google docs or something similar. I always tend to lose a post or two every now and then, haha.
Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by Penultimate_Pi
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I'm posting a draft here. It's mostly complete aside from the appearances, but I'd like to get some opinions on the work, most notably the Stand and its ability- it went though a handful of concepts before I got something much more simple to explain while being potentially interesting.


Also, I'd like to apologize for introducing myself to your roleplay on a poor note. It was a poor sense of judgement on my part and I feel wholly embarrassed about it.
Hidden 9 yrs ago 9 yrs ago Post by Unraveller
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Well here it is! I sure do hope that everything is in order, though I've probably screwed up somewhere. I'm just gonna blame it on sleep deprivation as always, just go ahead and make your concerns known, I'll be glad to ammend. I personally vote that we are all pompadoured punks.

While I don't have much in the way of concrete criticism for that stand ability there Pi, I must say that it sounds quite fun. I'd love it for our little gathering to be comprised of wacky powers that would otherwise be seen as lackluster, if not for our resourcefulness of course.
Hidden 9 yrs ago 9 yrs ago Post by Turboshitter
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Turboshitter Ubiquitous. Mendacious. Polyglottal.

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Hidden 9 yrs ago 9 yrs ago Post by Turboshitter
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Edited my above post with my draft. I hope it's okay if I play someone from the local mafia family. They kinda caught my interest ^^'

EDIT: Also woooow, the Boomtown Rats are so far like 99% delinquents xD
Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by Unraveller
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Grand, that's exactly the first image that came to mind, a rag-tag bunch of misfits, the only thing they probably hate more than each other would be those dastardly villains.
Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by Captain Jenno
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I personally vote that we are all pompadoured punks.


This is gonna be the start of a beautiful adventure. I really like this character, approved! I'll take a gander at the others now.
Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by Captain Jenno
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I'm certainly down for her bein' a member of the Bratva, but I feel like I should say that if that's the case, (i) I'll be playing her father (for later plot reasons) and (ii) She isn't necessarily in regular contact with The Zodiac Killers, either - they're daddy's toys. Is that alright? If so, we're grand.
Glad to see you back, though! Maybe we'll arrange Ram Jam to appear as an NPC, that'd be a fun little easter egg.

The character portion is approved, but I'm marginally concerned about the stand. Not because I think it'll be OP but because I'm vaguely worried it might be less powerful than you desire? Most of the story will follow The Rats so you might not find much in the way of opportunities to create the horde you might so desire. But once we've parsed that part out, we can add you to the CS tab.

NOTE: I feel as though I should mention I'm a fairly competent Russian speaker, if you ever want me to put things into Cyrillic for you (because anglicised Russian never does look quite right) I'm always happy to translate whatever ends up in my PMs.
Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by Captain Jenno
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I'm posting a draft here. It's mostly complete aside from the appearances, but I'd like to get some opinions on the work, most notably the Stand and its ability- it went though a handful of concepts before I got something much more simple to explain while being potentially interesting.


Also, I'd like to apologize for introducing myself to your roleplay on a poor note. It was a poor sense of judgement on my part and I feel wholly embarrassed about it.


Don't sweat it! Like I said, the input was appreciated even if I disagreed with it - I hope that passion translates into lots of posts! I'm loving this so far, and not just because your stand has strange applications to the plot you don't yet know of. It's an interesting, quirky power, but not overpowered (ie "A plastic knife becomes a gigantic serrated steel blade!"). I can't wait to see the incomplete sections filled in!
Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by Captain Jenno
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Also woooow, the Boomtown Rats are so far like 99% delinquents xD


They're Loudmouths! (The very best of Bob Geldof and The Boomtown Rats...)
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