Finally edited in what the ever vague "Field Survival Kit" contains, most of it being gear that accomplish things his armor can already do, and so completely redundant so long as it remains intact.
Also added pictures of the dear Captain's rifle and pistol.
So I'm informed that at least one player has not posted IC at all since the start of the RP. I wasn't necessarily planning on joining this, as a result of already being overloaded on RPs, but they've been comparatively slow lately, and this has piqued my interest since I first saw it. That said, I'd like to make a character for this game, if only as a guest; is it safe to assume that JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is of an appropriate power tier for this RP, @Lugubrious?
Man, I resigned myself to a lot of work going with the format for the next post that I did. Stay tuned, folks. I've been working for more than 2 hours and I'm not about to give up yet.
So I'm informed that at least one player has not posted IC at all since the start of the RP. I wasn't necessarily planning on joining this, as a result of already being overloaded on RPs, but they've been comparatively slow lately, and this has piqued my interest since I first saw it. That said, I'd like to make a character for this game, if only as a guest; is it safe to assume that JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is of an appropriate power tier for this RP, @Lugubrious?
Actually, everyone who signed up has posted by now, so we have no openings, but I could put you on the guest list and pre-maturely review a character sheet if you want to put one up. JJBA is an acceptable setting, but the specific power would have to be judged on whether it's too good or not. For instance, if your character's stand was The Fool or Earth, Wind, and Fire, that'd be alright, but I don't think I want to see any stands on the level of Cream or Killer Queen.
I don't believe Indra has posted yet, unless they have some other plans concerning the plot for Mika like ColoredCyan's Garbage.
You're quite right actually, Indra has failed to post, even though he's been active with other RPs. This is most vexing, but at the moment, I am not in a good place to make a decision. Since you and Indra are the 17th and 18th players, you were set to face one another in the first round, and then for the winner to immediately face someone else for their first round. What a quandary.
Alright, until I can be sure of the situation with @Indra, I will also hold out posting for @The Wild West to avoid setting up something that would need a messy retcon, but in the mean time, I have finished my 9-page post.
I apologize in advance for the somewhat messy and abrupt nature of each section. I would be glad to confer with any of you individually about what you can do, if nothing seems apparent. You have some freedom to create small parts of the world around you, so really, do what you feel like. The main objective is to find and fight your NPC opponent, but even if I haven't indicated something else you can do beforehand, something can be arranged. You can also encounter your opponents and interact with them if you so choose, but before you actually start a fight (which will follow the usual format, though there won't be any voting, and everyone will just win their three rounds, but please try to do a good job anyway as your work will help inform others of your characters' abilities and behavior later) give me some room to come in with the announcer and officiate the match.
I'm open for any questions, of course. If I made mistakes or missed something vital in my gargantuan trash pile, please don't hesitate to point it out.
More information about all of the City's areas can be found at the bottom of the OP, if you didn't know already.
Oh, and Draco: I'll do my best to get the final NPC, who is your opponent, up today.
@Lugubrious I have a super busy Saturday this week so I won't be starting writing till at least Saturday, so any delay in the npc creation won't be a problem.
@Lugubrious Well, I've got a thing here. Take a look-see, and tell me if you think anything is too much.
Name: Motley Crue
Alias: The Book Keeper
Race: Vampire - A human evolved beyond human limits.
Sex: Male
Class: Ripple Master/Stand User
Equipment: None; his own power is enough that additional weaponry is unnecessary.
Abilities: Way of the Hermit - Before he became a vampire, Motley was a very talented Ripple user, capable of many feats that normal humans could only dream of performing. Nominally, his transformation into a member of the undead would negate the ability to use the Ripple as anything other than an elaborate suicide technique; with the development of his Stand, however, it has evolved into a form better suited to his current power type, a form of Dark Ripple if you will. Vampirism - Motley's evolution into a vampire has brought him a large variety of abilities that far surpass normal human limits, and that are only further enhanced by his resurgent Hamon power, boosting his strength and speed in much the same way it would for a normal human, as well as amplifying his vampiric abilities to quite a sophisticated degree.
「Heavy Fuel」 Destructive Power: A Speed: C Range: D Staying: A Precision: D Developmental Potential: B
Heavy Fuel possesses the power of Nicotine For Breakfast, inverting the normal relationship its user has with the Ripple, thereby converting it into a sort of anti-Ripple similar to the energy that sustains undead beings such as vampires. This negative Ripple, variously referred to by the user in many ways, can be utilised in much the same way as the normal Ripple, but reacts with undead beings in much the same way as the normal Ripple does with living beings, ranging from enhanced healing to strength boosts, whilst rapidly killing just about any living being via extreme necrosis and potentially subsequent zombification, or otherwise negatively affecting them in some form or another, and is even capable of negating and/or overwhelming the standard Ripple if the opponent is less skilled in its use and/or less powerful than the user is. Due to the form the Stand takes and its abilities, it is extremely resistant to harm, drifting around most objects and Stands that opponents try to harm it with, whilst in turn allowing the user to channel their anti-Ripple through it and anything touching it up to and including other Stands, making a straightforward Stand battle a dangerous proposition to say the least.
Heavy Fuel is a perfect conductor of the Ripple, but inverts the normal relationship its user has with the Ripple as it passes through the Stand, thereby converting it into a sort of Anti-Ripple (or Black Ripple, Dead Ripple, and various other designations) similar to the energy that sustains undead beings such as vampires. This negative Ripple can be safely utilised by the user in much the same way as the normal Ripple, including interactions with liquids and other Ripple-conductive substances, but reacts with undead beings (including the user themself) in much the same way as the normal Ripple does with living beings, albeit modified in some ways to improve the abilities the undead often possess or cancel out some of their weaknesses: -General physical boosts in all areas: strength, speed and agility, durability, and to some extent senses; -Enhanced regeneration via direct application of healing; -Improved precision of bodily control, allowing for improved versions of normal vampiric powers, in Motley's case specifically something he refers to as "Lightning Mode"; -Protection from sunlight and UV radiation: By channelling the Ripple through Heavy Fuel and passing the Stand into themself or any other target within range, the user can shield themself from the harmful effects of sunlight, UV radiation, and anything else that would normally destroy an undead being. Heavy Fuel on its own can partially protect the user from sunlight if they cannot breath correctly for some reason, but they will begin blistering after five seconds, dissolving into ash after ten, and will completely disintegrate and die within fifteen seconds if a source of shade is not reached, though this is still a lot longer than the near-instantaneous death of most vampires in sunlight; -Life negation: The user can use Heavy Fuel to "block" an enemy Ripple user's Ripple by, essentially, converting their Ripple power into Anti-Ripple on contact as it passes through the Stand, as it generally must if the enemy wishes to actually strike him. This likewise applies to other sources of life energy, namely certain types of magic revolving around the concept. However, sufficient life energy can bypass this asset of Heavy Fuel, though it must then clash against and overpower the user's Anti-Ripple to actually hit the user, and the user's Anti-Ripple can in turn overwhelm opposing life energies if they are less skilled and/or powerful than the user is. Note that as the user is more biologically-inclined than most vampires, they have no special weakness to holy power, but also don't gain any special resistance to it through Heavy Fuel's workings unless it specifically deals with life energy; -Spiritual interaction: As it is the result of a Stand power, Anti-Ripple can interact with Stands in the same way it would react with their users, with similar results; for the sake of this game, this also applies to other spiritual, psychic, and other supernatural beings that are resistant to physical harm due to their incorporeality. Also, due to the nature of Stands, Heavy Fuel is completely undetectable to beings with no notable "sixth sense" capable of detecting psychic powers or other incorporeal supernatural effects of this sort, beyond a mildly foreboding feeling surrounding the user, and also grants this sixth sense to the user in question, allowing them to perceive non-physical entities that would otherwise be invisible to the naked eye and other physically-derived senses.
Anti-Ripple reacts with living beings similarly to how normal Ripple reacts against the undead, i.e. fatally: they will generally perish as a result of extreme necrosis, as their life force is sucked away and passed to the user, like a long-range version of their usual blood-sucking attack. Afterwards, at the user's whim, they may be converted into zombies under the user's control by the Stand, though particularly strong-willed beings, such as some (but not all) Stand users, may involuntarily transform into full-fledged vampires instead as a result of this process. Furthermore, Heavy Fuel is extremely resistant to harm - the nature of Stands in general means it is outright immune to attacks without some psychic, spiritual, magical, or other supernatural source (Stands specifically, but assume most supernaturally-empowered attacks for game purposes), and even then tends to drift around "physical" attacks from such sources, whilst in turn allowing the user to channel their anti-Ripple through it and anything touching it, making a straightforward assault against him a dangerous proposition. Incidentally, if the user can figure out a way of channeling the Ripple beyond Heavy Fuel's maximum Range, the energy that passes beyond this point will convert itself back into the standard Ripple, losing the properties gained as Anti-Ripple up to and including Stand interaction, but reacquiring the usual Ripple effects such as destroying undead beings.
Due to a lack of an actual physical body, Heavy Fuel lacks sensory organs, and thus senses; therefore, though it may appear otherwise at times, the user cannot for the most part use the Stand's senses as their own, and in fact cannot see through their own Stand if its smog gets too thick, though they can still detect anybody passing through the Stand's form, and in certain specific situations the lack of sensory input might be helpful. Furthermore, since the user must first generate Ripple energy for it to be converted into Anti-Ripple, they possess the same weaknesses as normal Ripple users, specifically the need to breath in certain trained patterns, though an inability to do so does not mean the user cannot use Heavy Fuel as a moderate-strength Stand in its own right. Finally, and for the sake of completeness, Heavy Fuel's composition is technically extremely flammable, should an opponent be able to generate flames that can affect Stands, and doing this will transfer burns to the user (not the fire itself, unless the user actively positions said fire as to set them alight); however, since the user, like most vampires, is capable of regenerating faster than they will be damaged by even very hot flames, the best outcome of this scenario is that the user briefly demanifests Heavy Fuel to extinguish the flames, whilst the worst outcome is that Heavy Fuel now burns anything it engulfs in addition to its usual effects.
Fighting Style: Motley is very much a martial artist, having trained to use the Ripple for a great many years; he is technically skilled, albeit not as much as some others might be, and this skill is backed up with brutal power thanks to his vampiric strength. This is further acknowledged by a tendency to head for crafty maneuvers when raw power doesn't cut it, embodied in his "Lightning Mode": having established that normal Ripple users need to breath properly to use their Ripple, he has managed to modify and multiply certain nerve cells of his to generate an electrical charge, something that can be applied in a great many ways.
Personality: In spite of the rather vile nature of his power, it is perhaps the very same power that allows Motley to maintain something resembling a degree of humanity - though he is at heart a vampire, with all that comes with it, he possesses an odd degree of empathy toward most of those he would normally consider prey, and so tends to target only the worse aspects of the human race when out for blood. Even so, he is cold in tone and dispassionate in deed, and markedly unrepentant not just for the killings he's performed both in self defense and cold blood, but for any and every aspect of his life, from his decision to become a vampire in the first place to his other choices both positive and not-so-positive; one of his major driving motivations is the ability to acquire more power, and his willingness to do nearly anything to acquire it makes him more than capable of developing tactics which are extremely difficult to predict, let alone counter once put into action.
Motley Crue was born to a poor family at the turn of the 20th century, and indeed, one might compare his upbringing to that of a certain young man-turned-undead monster from England, just a few decades before, but for three significant factors: Motley was raised in America rather than England; his father never encountered any rich gentlemen who might then owe him a debt; and said father was nothing like so abusive as that of Dio Brando. Indeed, though impoverished, Warner Crue and his wife Nikki made quite sure to instill the best traits possible in their son, Warner in particular making a point that to get to a higher station than his dear father, the boy had better put as much work as possible into it. Thus, whilst poor enough that his formal education was limited to a public school, Motley made sure to put his entire effort into education and socialization for as long as he could, before eventually passing into the workforce as an apprentice bookmaker and librarian under an enigmatic individual calling himself John Lee.
For a few years, that was as far as he managed to get. John did not seem to earn much money from his work, and though Motley was lucky enough to be paid in order to help sustain both himself and his parents, it certainly wasn't the sort of power that he'd decided his father had meant when explaining things to him - that is, he didn't have the ability to tell people what to do in any sense of the word. Indeed, he was close to accepting that maybe such a goal would require more generations than his own to achieve, only for his father to die of a heart attack, followed shortly by his mother's passing from the grief, alongside some sort of queer fever that no doctor of the day could identify the source of. He was but twenty two years old at the time, and as an only child, the only person left to him in the world was John Lee.
The man's reaction to learning Motley's parents had died was, inexplicably, to jab the young man in the solar plexus, seemingly winding him, yet oddly leaving him feeling empowered for a time too... and it was this that allowed John Lee to announce that, having lived a life of significant hardship, Motley Crue was one of those few who fulfilled the one-in-ten-thousand conditions to learn the Ripple to any significant degree. He would take up its practice under John's tutelage, and become a hunter of the undead creatures called vampires alongside and ultimately in the stead of the master, a truer calling than any bookmaking shop. Thus, for the next fifteen years, Motley trained under John Lee when not running the shop, becoming an ever-more-powerful user of the Ripple and in a sense achieving what his father had always wanted for him, as the two of them hunted down a variety of vampires and zombies throughout the years... right the way up to 1938.
In this year, having travelled to Switzerland on a tipoff from one of John's allies, their skill was put up against the strongest being they had ever faced, something akin to a massively-large vampire with impossible power and superhuman abilities surpassing even those of a normal vampire, and then backed up by two others if that one happened to fail. To cut a long story short, the beast's razor-sharp arm blades tore John Lee in half, and as he lay dying he gifted Motley with his final Ripple, empowering the man to levels he'd never considered possible before then... yet even that could not defeat the creature, impossibly fast and skilled as it was.
Thoroughly defeated, Motley was sure his death was nigh; yet the creature, apparently amused by the display of courage, instead offered him an alternative: become a vampire, and help it to achieve its goal of becoming the ultimate lifeform. Though at first disgusted with the choice, he wondered on how much of a waste it would be to allow John Lee's training to die with him, as opposed to whether turning into the very thing his mentor had despised would be an insult to his memory... and ultimately decided the former trumped the latter. He accepted the monstrosity's offer, and himself became a monster, perhaps weaker than his fellows for his prior Ripple power, but nonetheless with his humanity revoked seemingly permanently.
Less than a week later, some English Ripple user and his master came along and killed one of the beasts, having apparently already killed the third just a couple of days before, only to be set against the leading creature's army of vampires, Motley included, though he never got the opportunity to so much as lay a finger on the Englishman before some Nazis showed up and attempted to use focused UV lights to destroy the vampires. In the heat of the moment, he decided that even though the Ripple would almost certainly kill him if he used it, he might as well take the chance to see if it would shield him from the certain death that was the UV light. At first, the life energy burned him from within like fire...
Then, he was inexplicably rewarded for his desire to keep living. His Ripple energy suddenly turned black as night, and he was at once revitalized and knocked unconscious, thrown into the shadows beneath the mansion that represented the creature's base, and laying there unseen for nearly half a day before awakening to find it was over: the impossible creature, along with every other living and unliving being from the night before, was nowhere to be found, and Motley was alone, though oddly aware of his empathy returning to him. In a moment of confusion, he stumbled out into the light, only realising after the fact that a black energy now coursed through his body, shielding him from the deadly rays of the Sun, as well as forming into some humanoid entity of smog that he was sure would prove deadly to any living being who came near.
More importantly, he was well aware of how powerful he now felt, as though all of his Ripple power and John Lee's had returned to him at once... he could still achieve his father's dream after all, it seemed, and more effectively than ever before. He would, he decided, return to New York, and there continue work as a bookmaker, at the same time training up his new power, and using it to hunt down and slay those who would prey on others, be they criminals or simply utter bastards, whilst also sating his new desire for blood in the process. Surely, nothing could go wrong with this plan.
Long story short, it didn't. Many decades passed, and he continued to practice with the Ripple, maintaining its strength and figuring out both its limits and those of his newfound vampirism, most notably developing his Lightning Mode to handle an errant Ripple user who tried to slay him despite his lack of wrongdoing in however many years. And through all that time, the ultra-vampire-thing's words, its desire to become the ultimate lifeform, stuck with him, for what could have more power over others than a being of ultimate power? And he reckoned it was a shame that it had died, for perhaps with the newfound advances in gene research, and his own abilities, he might have somehow adapted its genetic code to incorporate his own, and so morph himself into one of their kind.
And then a golden opportunity presented itself, in the form of a tournament supposedly going on elsewhere in the world, the reward for which would be a wish for whatever the heart desired. Admitting that bookmaking had become tedious over time despite the nostalgia, and that the present state of affairs simply wouldn't cut it any longer, he set out to the location in question. Perhaps this would be his opportunity for the unlimited power that by now he craved so heavily...
Wish: Motley wishes to become the ultimate being, with power unlimited by the bounds of mere human flesh.
Echo: For many years, Motley has run a small-ish shop in New York, a combination of library and bookmaker's with a substantial oak aesthetic. The bookshelves scattered throughout reach above the heads of those browsing through them, filled with books and forming corridors that are mazelike, but not overly difficult to maneuver through, as well as enough room between the shelf tops and ceilings that an average-height man could walk along their tops. At the shop's center, a large round desk seats Motley himself, ready to check out and sell any books brought to him, and behind that, the bookmaking facility proper, replete with paper and ink for hand-printing, and printers ready to dole out page after page of material, plus glueing and binding facilities to finish the books off. Despite this, the friendly nature of the bookshop is for some people overpowered by a minor sense of foreboding - it seems vibrant enough, yet in a darker sense than most would associate with the word, and certain strong-minded folks may even consider that the floor is persistently coated in what seems to be a black mist or fog.
Appearance:
Frenzy: Though it is rare for Motley's emotions to overwhelm him, he can occasionally find himself enraged or otherwise highly aroused for some reason or another. When this happens, his phylactery dissolves his physical form, merging his mind into his Stand directly and unbinding it from the usual limits of its Range stat: where its power was originally limited to within a few meters, it is now free to spread nigh-indefinitely, crackling with Dead Ripple and shrivelling nearly anything in contact with it like acid, and lashing out at anything in range like a deranged tentacle beast.
Inventory: Phylactery - Does all that soul nonsense.
@Lugubrious Oh, just so we're clear: I think it's safe to assume beings with a stronger lifeforce, such as many of the PCs, will be correspondingly more capable of tanking Heavy Fuel's life draining properties, since they evidently have more life energy to drain overall.
I also need to bring up the matter of Stands being invisible to non-Stand users in JJBA canon - I would nominally assume that for cross-universe purposes, only beings with a notable "sixth sense" such as from magical or psychic abilities would be able to see Stands, up to and including Stands themselves, consequently putting those without that sort of extrasensory power at a disadvantage against the invisible oil slick that's sucking out their life force. If you'd prefer, however, I can also have it that Heavy Fuel is visible to everybody in the tournament. If you could clarify which state of affairs you'd rather have, I'd appreciate it.
@Lugubrious Oh, just so we're clear: I think it's safe to assume beings with a stronger lifeforce, such as many of the PCs, will be correspondingly more capable of tanking Heavy Fuel's life draining properties, since they evidently have more life energy to drain overall.
I also need to bring up the matter of Stands being invisible to non-Stand users in JJBA canon - I would nominally assume that for cross-universe purposes, only beings with a notable "sixth sense" such as from magical or psychic abilities would be able to see Stands, up to and including Stands themselves, consequently putting those without that sort of extrasensory power at a disadvantage against the invisible oil slick that's sucking out their life force. If you'd prefer, however, I can also have it that Heavy Fuel is visible to everybody in the tournament. If you could clarify which state of affairs you'd rather have, I'd appreciate it.
@Lugubrious Fair enough. To wit, I understand if you think Heavy Fuel is a bit overblown, but to my knowledge, nothing I've written up violates any setting rules of JJBA, and against other Stand users has the capacity to fail in any given sense. It's worth mentioning, if it's not already obvious, that Motley will not have all of the abilities of either the Ripple or vampirism, most notably the Vaporisation Freezing Technique. He has his own thing for that. Also, since it's worth mentioning, I'm going to suggest that he's either unclear on how, or outright unable, to hypnotise others with either powerset; as fun as that'd be in a more freeform RP, it strikes me as blatantly overpowered for a game that is essentially an OCT.
@Lugubrious Fair enough. To wit, I understand if you think Heavy Fuel is a bit overblown, but to my knowledge, nothing I've written up violates any setting rules of JJBA, and against other Stand users has the capacity to fail in any given sense. It's worth mentioning, if it's not already obvious, that Motley will not have all of the abilities of either the Ripple or vampirism, most notably the Vaporisation Freezing Technique. He has his own thing for that. Also, since it's worth mentioning, I'm going to suggest that he's either unclear on how, or outright unable, to hypnotise others with either powerset; as fun as that'd be in a more freeform RP, it strikes me as blatantly overpowered for a game that is essentially an OCT.
Er, when I said 'I'll get back to you', it wasn't saying that you're not approved, but I'll decide later. I'm actually a big fan of what you have so far.
i have yet to figure out who garbage is
That reminds me
@ColouredCyan, go ahead and port your sheet to the tab, and post at will.
@Lugubrious I know that. I just want to make sure all my cards are on the table before any judgements are made; clarity is a friend of people trying to do things. I may have further clarifications to make later on that I've not thought of yet, anyway.
