[OOC] Noble Arms - The ASEAN War [Moved to New Thread]

[Letter Bee]

Noble Arms can create pocket dimensions?

@Aisede

Yes, size depends on the Rank.

[Aisede]

Next you'll tell me they can bend time as well as space

[Letter Bee]

Next you'll tell me they can bend time as well as space

@Aisede

No. That is off-limits.

[Aisede]

<Snipped quote by Aisede>

No. That is off-limits.

@Letter Bee

Ah, so we only got Palkia here. Good to know

[Double]

<Snipped quote by Aisede>

No. That is off-limits.

@Letter Bee

Doesn't Cao Bao do time fuckery though with his teleport reset thing?

[Letter Bee]

<Snipped quote by Letter Bee>

Doesn't Cao Bao do time fuckery though with his teleport reset thing?

@Double

That could be info or data-based fuckery, but point is that no NA can time travel or do mass resets.

[Chiro]

Okay, here's my character. Fifth edition made

Henri Janssens

Appearance:

Muscular, yet lean, Henri is 187 tall and weights 85 kg. On his right shoulder there's a badge depicting Canis Major, symbol of the Laelaps-unit.

Name:Henri Janssens

Age:27

Nationality:Belgian

Noble Arm Name & Appearance:Leonidas



Noble Arm Rank:

D-Rank

Power: B
Speed: B
Range: D
Persistence: C
Precision: D
Potential: D

Noble Arm Type, Element, and Range: Counter, Void, Melee/Short-Range

Noble Arm Abilities:

Leonidasis an Anti-NA weapon. It was born out of Henri's reserved nature and distrust of Arms Masters.

Phalanx
Leonidas' passive default power. Any NA attack upon it is blocked. However, it only works on its own surface area. Anything else goes right through, so Henri will have to grouch, if he wants to spare his lower body from an attack larger than Leonidas' surface.

Fighting in Shade
By placing Leonidas above his head, Henri forms a bubble of 20 meters in diameter around himself that nullifies NA attacks within. However, it offers no protection from mundane arsenal whatsoever. Indirect NA attack (such as telekinetically thrown rock) also passes through. The protective area of the bubble is also indiscriminate in its nullifying effect, suppressing enemy and ally NA powers alike(though it doesn't unsummon said noble arms, only allowing arms masters to theoretically use their NA as regular weapons, if said NA can be used as a regular weapon, or the Arms Master knows how to use their NA as a regular weapon). As such Henri needs to keep a distance from other Arms Masters, both for the efficiency of allies, and in a case of enemy Arms Master, Henri's own safety. The field activates immediately after Henri puts the shield up and says the Password "Fighting in Shade". The field shuts down when the shield is lowered or Henri no longer has the strength to do so. 30 seconds is the maximum, after which Henri needs a breather. Breathers increase in length the more times Henri uses the power. Henri can put Leonidas up without activating the effect.
Misc Abilities: Henri is a trained soldier, skilled in firearms, engineering and survival tactics. These come useful if and when he needs to keep Leonidas dormant.

Personality:
As a professional soldier, Henri attempts to not let emotions get in the way. He's not made of stone, however, and can connect with other people, though he's not sure if he should.

For Henri, powers should only be given to the responsible. As such he tends to be distrustful of Arms Masters, particularly the young ones, who for him are likely to misuse it. At the same time, he wishes that the young would be allowed to grow on their own and make their on decisions, something granted to him, but not many others.

Although highly trained and prepared, Henri still feels some nervousness. He is out here to prove the capabilities of the Laelaps-unit, so much is at stake.

Henri doesn't trust either Seven Virtues or Downward Descent, seeing the former as liars and the latter as nutcases.

Likes: Routine, good food

Dislikes: Deceivers, power-seekers

Fears: Loss of close people, Powerlessness

Bio: Henri grew up in the Flanders region of Belgium. Though his home country was relatively peaceful, the chaos of a world with Arms Masters reached there. At a young age, Henri decided to become a soldier, and excelled quite well in the Belgian Defence Force. Something unexpected happened after a year the Big Three appeared. Henri was summoned to Berlin along with other soldiers across the EU to form a special task force to deal with the increasing Arms Master threat: The Laelaps-unit.

Trained to fight Arms Masters and granted Noble Arms by the Paragons of Science (when the soldiers weren't Arms Masters already), the Laelaps-unit was designed to keep the Europe safe and stable. Henri himself received Leonidas, an anti-NA shield born from his distrust of Arms Masters.

The original first mission of the Laelaps-unit was to act covertly in studying the supposed Downward Descent infiltrators among the influential people of Europe, but the Chinese and Russian Crises forced the unit's reveal ahead of schedule. Henri was sent to the Philippines to assist ASEAN forces. This will be his baptism in fire.

Current Goal: Finish the mission in the Philippines

Military or Civilian Rank: Sergeant

[Chiro]

Sorry, wrong button

I was going to use Edit, but used Quote instead

[Chiro]

And twice in a row, at that

This forum really needs a Delete Button

[Letter Bee]

@Chiro, Approval One given. @Lewascan2 and @SkyHresvelg can give Second and Third Approvals if they don't see any issues.

[Nimbus]

Just putting a marker down here - Caroline Lidmann will soon be joining the fight!

[Lewascan2]

Noble Arms can create pocket dimensions?

@Aisede

Yeah. After all, technically, Qingshe's "shadow world" is a type of pocket dimension.

<Snipped quote by Letter Bee>

Doesn't Cao Bao do time fuckery though with his teleport reset thing?

@Double

The "reset" is not time based. "Save/Load" was simply a comparison made.
His power is more like teleportation combined with reconstruction. It's like the Star Trek "beaming" thing.
He archives the material state of the thing and then reconstructs it later in the same state, no matter how it's been altered since then.

[Letter Bee]

@Silverstein, saw your improved sheet; Approval One is given assuming you'll change 'KGB' to 'FSB'.

@Lewascan2, @SkyHresvelg, your opinions?

[SkyHresvelg]

@Silverstein and @Chiro looks good. Approved.

[Lewascan2]

@Silverstein
King is approved.

[Nimbus]

Callie Lidmann

Name: Caroline ‘Callie’ Lidmann

Appearance:

Age: 22
Gender: Female
Sexuality: Bisexual, as far as she is able to tell.
Height: 165 cm
Weight: 63 kg

Nationality: Half-English, half-unknown

Noble Arm Name & Appearance:



‘Charter’
(naval officer’s spyglass)

Noble Arm Rank:

Noble Arm Type, Element, and Range: Support-Ranged/Space/Long-range

Noble Arm Abilities:
Leaguespanner: Wielding Charter allows Callie to realign the fabric of the universe to join one space to another, effectively creating a two-way portal in any shape that she desires. She may only create one such connection at a time and may only do so between places that she is able to see. Seemingly as an inherent safeguard, this portal cannot form inside or otherwise ‘cut’ sentient beings or other Noble Arms, though it can do so for non-sentient life and non-living things. Whenever she does so, Callie must fix both ends of the portal in space in relation to another object; she frequently uses the ground, the Earth as a whole or some part or all of her body for this purpose, though she cannot use any part of another sentient being or Noble Arm.
Creating a connection takes a small amount of energy and time that both scale with the portal’s size and the distance that it bridges; the amount of energy continuously consumed from Callie until she releases it also increases with the portal’s area (see hider).

Charter Calculations

Where Callie’s stamina is represented as 500 of an arbitrary unit…

Portal Creation Time (seconds) = Portal Area^2 (square metres) x Distance Bridged (km)
Stamina Cost upon Portal Creation = Portal Area^2 (square metres) x Distance Bridged (km) + Distance Bridged (km) x 0.1 + 10
Stamina Cost while Portal remains (per second) = Portal Area^2 (square metres) + 1

While Callie can push herself beyond this limit, she risks unconsciousness or death by doing so.

Sight Unbounded: Charter is far more capable than a spyglass of its apparent age or, indeed, any spyglass at all has any right to be: it has the ability to project Callie’s vision, allowing her to bypass non-solid objects. Solid objects inhibit the projection of her vision in this way, while liquids slow the projection depending on its density rather than it being instantaneous.
Commander’s Aim: While looking through Charter and wielding a projectile weapon or in contact with a person who is, Callie can will the spyglass to direct her gaze to the point where the projectile, as the weapon is currently aimed, will land. When she does so, she gains an instinctive sense of this point.
Guidance: Whether a precognitive subpower of Charter itself, a quirk of her hyperactive mind or a combination of both, Callie often finds herself drawn to details that are or will be important for herself and/or her allies when looking through Charter, even if she doesn’t know how they are or will be important yet. This helps Callie both when she is scouting or infiltrating a location or when she’s picking out a target in the chaos of a fight.

Misc. Abilities:
Determined Adaptability: Callie’s open-mindedness and sheer drive allow her to take on problems and learn new skills more capably than most, throwing sufficient energy and ingenuity at difficulties and mental blocks that others would give up on solving.
Trained Operative: With some Arms-tailored military training under her belt, Callie has had the chance to experiment with her Arm in battlefield conditions. As such, she is thoroughly familiar with her Arm’s basic capabilities and has even come up with a few unconventional ‘tricks’ with them, as well as appreciating the basics of tactics and operational warfare. She has also been given a more rapid coaching in the art of covert operations, allowing her to hold her own in a number of tight spots even without her Arm.

Personality: Callie is characterised by drive above all else; she launches herself towards her own and others’ success and even when ‘relaxing’ is constantly looking to find growth in everything she does. Unlike many of this archetype, however, she doesn’t naturally chafe against authority to any great extent, only that with which she disagrees for other reasons; she instead demands that she be accomplishing something in every waking moment, set by others or, if they do not, by herself. This makes her an invaluable asset to any team – focused, unfailingly energetic and downright inspiring, a champion for her allies and a constant harrier against their enemies – but can also come across as brashness, insensitivity and arrogance. She is, needless to say, a little polarising.

Likes: Achieving goals (especially by creatively efficient means), feeling capable, learning, helping others, using her Noble Arm, dogs and cats, Ribena

Dislikes: Helplessness (especially not being able to help others), duplicity among friends and teammates, indecisiveness, overbearing nationalism

Fears: Being powerless, causing harm to those she cares about, becoming an emotionless killer

Bio

Callie Lidmann was born in the UK and lived there for four years or so. That she knows. In truth, her mother has always been cagey about the first few years of her life and, indeed, about Callie’s father, who Callie herself only knows by scattered half-memories. She didn’t especially care, to start with; her mum, Mary, has always been as good a parent as possible to her, as has her aunt Sandra, with whom the two live.

Good intentions or no, Mary’s actions rendered Callie somewhat poorly formed at first. The two only settled down with Sandra six or seven years after arriving in the USA; before then the two lived hand-to-mouth and constantly on the move. Mary took jobs and found schooling for Callie wherever she could but always became more and more alert, cautious, nervous over the months they stayed in a single place and then swept the two away again, as if running from something. By the time they came to live with Sandra, the damage had been done; Callie, despite a natural keenness of mind and a relative affability that let her just about coast through schoolwork and friendships, was behind on more or less every academic metric and had a lack of motivation to match. If, after all, her teachers and schoolmates changed so regularly, any effort she put into making a good impression or form connections would just go to waste. Why make the effort?

That changed a few months after Callie’s thirteenth birthday. Taking a stroll past a lake just outside the town that had – surprisingly to her – been her home for a good length of time now, her ear caught an odd series of sounds accompanied by what resembled an alarmed voice in the distance. Turning to look, she saw a woman thrashing at the water, small rowboat upturned and floating away over the rippling surface. In that instant, Callie reached out to help – and found that there was nothing she could do. For the first time, she fully regretted her indifference; she regretted not having had the presence of mind when walking here before to memorise where any of the lifebuoys were, dotted around the lakeside; she regretted having let learning to swim go by the wayside somewhere in her various relocations; she regretted being sufficiently apathetic as to not bring a phone with her or, indeed, to know what this lake in particular was called so she could guide an emergency responder to it; and she regretted not paying attention to the assembly given by a lifeguard on one day in one particular school whose name she couldn’t remember, that she might have properly known what to do in the first place.

For the first time in her life, Callie wished she might have done things differently.

She wished she could do something now.

And, from within her, something answered.

A brilliant flash of light in her palm, materialising into solid form. Moments later, a pulse in the air beside her; shimmering, marine light on the grass, followed by a deluge that knocked her off her feet and dropped one sopping wet ex-drownee onto the ground beside her. She had tried – and the world had made clear to her that that would make an impact.

How far could she go?

From that point on, Callie’s every action was infused with energy. Between the story being picked up by the local newspaper, the touch of renown that she gained in the community as a result and her generally more pleasant demeanour, she started to make some proper friends (and, of course, some enemies among those whose carefully constructed cliques were disrupted); astute enough to realise that a lot of these relationships were superficial but sufficiently determined and free-thinking enough to decide to forge them into actual bonds, Callie began building a network that not only further propelled her emotional rise but also brought those others with her towards fulfilment, her joyful and determined demeanour infectious. Simultaneously, realising that the key to her future and her growth laid in her new Noble Arm, she began practising with it on her own and doing research and joining several Arms fora online to start investigating its powers.

Eventually that research led her to the US’ Arms Master Cadets programme, in which Callie saw an opportunity to finally use her newfound power for good. Mary saw something else; Callie would often catch sight of her mother watching her out of the corner of her eyes, wringing her hands, muttering, every tic and negative signal of body language multiplied a thousand-fold. Sandra’s stabilising influence helped; Callie, on the other hand, could not decide whether her presence was causing her mother more pain than she would by leaving, even as her past, so long unquestioned, began to bubble in the back of her mind. With her new impetus driving her on, however, doing nothing simply wasn’t an option and, though she had picked up in school, it was clear that academics would be a path of far, far greater resistance given her track record. Her aunt in her corner and covering for her mother’s concerns, Callie eventually signed up for the programme, packed her bags and made her way onwards.

From there, everything accelerated. Entirely separate from the regular JROTC programme, auxiliary to a normal education, the AMC’s work is simply to take young Arms Masters and turn them into soldiers – to explore and actualise the martial potential of each cadet and especially their Arm’s powers and then integrate them as seamlessly as possible into their armed forces, all while securing their loyalty. For Callie, it achieved one of those three very effectively! With experienced Arms Masters and experts in their study helping her and dedicated testing facilities and events to experiment within at her full potential and full of sharpness and conviction, she became a skilled, diligent and distinguished warrior. Once again, her energy was infectious and she quickly made close friends amongst the other young Arms Masters on the programme (not so hard – being the person to near-instantly evacuate you to your team’s medic in a training exercise tends to endear you to them).

As for the other two… As she went on through the programme, Callie began to realise that she was being pushed in a certain direction: that of special and covert operations, reconnaissance, assassination. On a purely strategic and tactical level, she could understand that – information gathering, rapid movement and precision striking power were her Arm’s specialities – but she also wasn’t naïve. Even the brief period of research she’d done she entered the AMC had told her what the country she and her mother had come to was capable of; while she’d put that to the back of her mind at the time it increasingly weighed on her thoughts as she approached the end of her training, something only reinforced by the patriotic tendencies of her fellows and their superiors.

The war in South-East Asia offered a way out. While the US has so far refused to commit to a full military response to Chinese aggression, for fear of escalation to unrestricted conflict between their Arms Masters with a level of accompanying global devastation unseen since WW2, they were willing to send materiel, military advisors and training and, off the table, covert military support. As capable fighter who had not yet seen action and so was not identifiable by the enemy, Callie was in an ideal position to take advantage – and she knew it, seizing what she felt was an opportunity to use her training and skills to do something fairly unambiguously good. And so, after intensive training in Filipino and in the Philippines’ culture and geography and picking up some new skills over a period of six months (including the memorisation of aerial photographs of key strategic locations for rapid travel), Caroline Lidmann, officially an unaffiliated Arms Master volunteering with the Philippine Army from abroad, headed for her new posting.

The journey took but a moment.

Current Goal: Support the Philippine resistance to Chinese invasion without revealing her true role.

Military or Civilian Rank: As a participant in covert operations, Callie has technically been transferred out of the US Armed Forces to become likely the youngest member of the CIA’s Special Operations Group, though the rapid development of the ASEAN War and the lack of need for much of the usual process (parachute training, for instance, was considered basically irrelevant for her) has left some holes in her preparation for the latter.

[Senhara]

I've rejoined. For those going "wait what you just dropped out tho"

It was a bunch of drama between me and the GMs which has been rectified.

[Letter Bee]

Originally Posted on the Discord Server:

Quick heads up. As we transition into including a more in-depth system for describing and classifying NA powers, if you haven't already done so, please copy/paste the below RPGguild-coded segment to right below where you have your NA's rank listed. If you like, you may go ahead and start filling it out, but we'll be visiting each character individually on the matter. With luck, this will help place less obscene value on the ranks themselves and more on what the NA actually does. The introduction of an actual measure of stamina and such beyond a vague OOC mention will also help with balance.

With the introduction of ranks being graded on an average, it also effectively allows for more flexibility in what power an NA is allowed. For example, with the right spread, a D-Rank NA could, in theory, pull off A-Rank firepower in a brief burst.

insert NA rank here

Power: The pure energy the NA can exert (offensively/defensively/healing/etc).
Speed: How fast the power responds to the user and takes effect.
Range: How far-reaching the abilities are (potential fallout included).
Persistence: Stamina toll on user. Higher rank = more ease of use.
Precision: How surgically (or clumsily/indiscriminate) the NA performs.
Potential: Power's flexibility for creative use and evolution.

If you want, you may also use a graph image based on the JJBA Stand ranking system instead, since that is what we are basing this off largely. The above is the most convenient to read, but you have the option for flavor. Just try to have it in a hider in either case.

[Senhara]

Lucy's charsheet has been updated

All edits were approved on Discord

CL:
Icarus's Wing was replaced with Prometheus's Chains, as Wing was too OP in hindsight.
Extended ranking system introduced.
Rogue artifact from Google docs removed

[Letter Bee]

Discussion is still going on in the Discord; sorry for the slowdown in the pace of the IC thread.