[OOC] Cradle of Divinity (signups always open)

[ravenDivinity]

@JohnSolaris: Thank you! I figured since this was in the advanced section, I had to put more effort in.

[whist]

Just to let you know, I'm interested and reading through your doc/beginning a CS now :)

[Laue]

Done with the edit. If there are any further problems, let me know.

[JohnSolaris]

@Laue: Your character is accepted.

[Laue]

Reading through the accepted characters, it seems John and Rick share quite a bit of similarities, except the bad stuff John does is always solely for science, discovery and/or curiosity. Which brings me to a few questions.

1)Analysis magic. I would assume it would a psionic type, basically something that would allow John to analyse various tissues (and flora) to determine various things about them, allowing his Pharmaceutics skill to be of some use. Also allow him to expand his anatomy knowledge to more creatures, after he dissects them, of course.

2)Souls, more specifically, is something like dissecting a soul theoretically possible, and what would be the results, because John would do that if he could.

[whist]

Grant Raskstål

Name: Grant Raskstål
Sex: Male
Age: 27 (Born 6/24/1988)

Appearance/Personality/Biography:

5 May 2014 // 05:29 UTC-04:00

Grant sat up, twisting towards the night stand to press the button on his phone's alarm clock before it struck the half-hour and woke the person lying next to him asleep. He couldn't remember her name. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. He slipped out of bed and walked to the bathroom, clicking the light switch on after the door closed behind him. There was an expensive-looking purse on the counter, a wallet poking out from the top. Grant flipped it open, thumbing through the cards. Victoria Fong, 25. He shrugged and slid the ID back into her wallet. Doesn't ring a bell. Grant started a shower and looked into the bathroom's long mirror while the water heated. It must be the money, because guys that look like you don't get women like Victoria. His father, always an honest man, once said, "We're average men Grant, nothing wrong with that." And average was an accurate appraisal. Like his father, he had dirty blonde hair cut conservatively short and angular but symmetric features. His eyes though, were a gift from his mother. Ice blue and expressive, they were a painful reminder of things lost in the past. He was in good shape from a martial arts regimen that had been his passion for the past 13 years, but he'd never gotten the muscles to go along with the strength. He showered quickly and quietly and looked back into the bedroom. His suit was in a pile next to the bed.

"Grant?" Apparently he hadn't been quiet enough.

"Victoria, I'm sorry, I really need to go." He walked over and picked up his pants, feeling for his wallet. "Here, take this. Should be enough for a cab back to, uh, where'd you say you live?"

She stretched and rubbed her eyes. "Oh, I've got a place at The Marlowe, but honestly, I'm fine."

He pulled on the suit with practised motions. "If you're sure." He buckled his belt. "Room's paid for - your purse is in the bathroom. I saw a room service menu over there if you're hungry." She saw it too. Grant babbled when he felt guilty.

"I saw it too." Victoria picked up her phone off the night stand. "So, why the rush? Have a meeting or something?"

"Yeah, actually. I always get in around six, looks like I'll be late today though. Oh well, meeting's going to be boring anyway."

Victoria was polite enough to force a chuckle. "Where do you work?"

"Sullivan & Cromwell."

"Oh, so you're a lawyer then?"

"Guilty as charged," said Grant, then winced when he saw the clock. "Well, uh, have a good day."

The night stand buzzed. "Hang on," said Victoria, "You forgot your phone." She handed it to him and he saw the caller ID.

He headed for the door and tapped the screen. "Hey honey."

17 January 2015 // 15:21 UTC-08:00

"So, Mr... sorry, how do you pronounce that?"

Grant sighed. "Raskstål. It's Swedish." The office was one of the most inoffensive he'd ever been in. He didn't know if the splotches of color framed on the walls could rightly be called paintings. The furniture was simple and wooden. His chair was subtly uncomfortable. Likely it was all by design.

"Alright, I think I've got that Mr. Raskstål. As you probably know, I'm Dr. Hanson, but please just call me Jim." The psychologist smiled and adjusted his glasses as he looked up at Grant.

"Ok, Jim. Call me Grant. We going to start now?"

Jim pulled out a notebook and pen. "Sure Grant, let's get started. Can you tell me why you're here?" Jim had a soft, carefully modulated voice.

"Ever since the divorce I've been less productive at work. I'd like to fix that." Grant couldn't believe he was doing this. He was used to solving other people's problems, and he'd thought solving his own would be easy. He was wrong.

"I see. Can you tell me about yourself?"

"What do you want to know?"

"Start wherever you think is appropriate. We're just having a conversation here."

Grant thought about that for a moment. Things had been a blur for the past 7 years. Law school, marriage, work, divorce. He decided to be concise. "My mom was an American lawyer and my dad a Swedish fisherman. He's retired now. By the fact that I can afford your rate, you can probably guess whose footsteps I followed in. I had no life throughout high school other than class and studying; that won me an acceptance to Harvard where I spent four years doing Philosophy. After getting a 2.5 in my undergrad Harvard had second thoughts about me spending another two years at their law school. My mom pulled some strings and got me in at Princeton Law - I didn't deserve it. Sullivan & Cromwell hired me straight out of school and I moved to Manhattan and got married. I made a lot money there. I screwed around. One day, I just couldn't deal with it any more, so I told her. She filed for divorce. I asked for a transfer out to the boonies. So here I am." Grant looked out the picture window. The afternoon sun glinted off the L.A. skyline. January and 73 degrees. He hated California.

Jim was writing carefully in his notebook. After a few moments he looked back up. "I see. That's a lot to take in at once. Let's start with your parents. You said you 'followed in your mother's footsteps.' How does that make you feel?"

Grant sighed.

Skills:

• Martial Arts: Grant has studied martial arts for 13 years. He is practiced in traditional Chinese Wing Chun, a 3-dan in Japanese Kendo, and has studied HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts), specifically the longsword.
• Law: Grant has studied United States law.

Elemental Cores:

• Aether
• Cold

Abilities:

• Materialization of the Blade [Metal: Earth + Cold]: Condenses mana from the user's reservoir into the body's hand in order to materialize a sword or other bladed implement. For quick creation, the form of the blade must be memorized. New designs may take some practice before perfection of form is reached. Currently, Grant remembers the form of a European longsword and a Japanese katana from his time on Earth.
• Mark of the Sojourner [Aether]: The user identifies a point on their line of sight and marks it with mana. This consumes a small amount of mana. The user may then consume more mana to travel through hyperspace to that location. A user may have multiple marks simultaneously, but the target mark must be on the user's line of sight to perform a hyperspace jump. The marks persist for several hours before they dissipate into the environment if they are not manually removed.
• Serenity of the Dispassionate Mind [Cold + Aether] [Passive]: The user's mind is stable and not easily inflamed into rash or emotional behavior. This ability lends its user a certain cold, removed objectivity, as well as a resistance to less subtle mind-altering magics.

Possessions:

• Tom Ford Charcoal Grey Suit: A $4000 suit with white shirt. The tie has been lost. The owner is likely compensating for something

[JohnSolaris]

Reading through the accepted characters, it seems John and Rick share quite a bit of similarities, except the bad stuff John does is always solely for science, discovery and/or curiosity. Which brings me to a few questions.

1)Analysis magic. I would assume it would a psionic type, basically something that would allow John to analyse various tissues (and flora) to determine various things about them, allowing his Pharmaceutics skill to be of some use. Also allow him to expand his anatomy knowledge to more creatures, after he dissects them, of course.

2)Souls, more specifically, is something like dissecting a soul theoretically possible, and what would be the results, because John would do that if he could.

@Laue

Well, what you see on the character sheet is less than half of what we have planned for Rick, so the similarities are going to end soon.

Now, to answer your questions.

1. A general-purpose magic scan should probably be an Aether ability, yes. You could potentially have a Life-elemental scan that's more specialized on organic matter, but it would be less effective on the inorganic creatures (e.g. golems, elementals) that you're going to face.

2. Unfortunately, soul dissection is far too difficult for any player character to accomplish in any feasible amount of time. At the very least, decades of research would be needed, and I doubt the game would last that long in-universe.

@whist: Your character is accepted.

[Laue]

Well, if biological analysis can be accomplished with Life element, that just works perfectly. A few more questions though:

1)I've made my character under the assumption that Life + Dark = Mutation, more or less. Am I correct on this?

2)Expanding on that, how would trying to offensively mutate others work? Like an infection which could transform/mutate the victim into a feral abomination. That is sort of a mind control, even though that would never specifically target the mind - it's the body and the brain that were forcibly changed.

3)What's an ambitious bioengineer with no morals without a zombie virus. How realistic would it be? All these assumes John studies/analyzes the species he wants to infect beforehand. Maybe even tailors his mutagens/viruses for specific races?

[gammaflux]

My character is complete, hopefully it's good enough.

[JohnSolaris]

1)I've made my character under the assumption that Life + Dark = Mutation, more or less. Am I correct on this?

@Laue

There are many ways to combine multiple elements, so yes, Life + Dark can be mutations. Another common combination of the two is undeath.

2)Expanding on that, how would trying to offensively mutate others work? Like an infection which could transform/mutate the victim into a feral abomination. That is sort of a mind control, even though that would never specifically target the mind - it's the body and the brain that were forcibly changed.

@Laue

This... wouldn't work very well, to be honest. Mutations tend to be extremely unpredictable, so you're almost never going to know what kind of effect you're going to inflict on your target. Sure, the mutation could damage the victim's body, or drive the victim insane, but it could also make the victim stronger; it's generally too unpredictable to be very useful in a fight against someone on a similar power level as you. It might be useful against large swarms of relatively weak enemies, where you turn one of the mooks into an insane rampaging monster that attacks the rest of the mooks, but that's a bit too situational. Against normal enemies, you're better off sticking to poison or something else that's guaranteed to inflict damage to the target.

Also, brain damage can indeed damage the target's mind. But since the mind is not being directly tampered with, you can't really control how the mind is going to get damaged. The victim will most likely be driven insane, yes, but the insanity could potentially manifest as an insanely powerful obsession to exact vengeance against you at all costs, or some other kind of thing that actually makes the victim more dangerous. As I said, it's far less reliable.

3)What's an ambitious bioengineer with no morals without a zombie virus. How realistic would it be? All these assumes John studies/analyzes the species he wants to infect beforehand. Maybe even tailors his mutagens/viruses for specific races?

@Laue

At least one magical zombie virus already exists in the Cradle, which kills its victim and reanimates the corpse, so it's possible for your character to learn that as an ability and develop his own variants. Magical pathogens like this can potentially infect any being that has mana vessels, so you won't need to tailor it for specific races. But some beings (e.g. inorganic beings in general) are inherently more resistant to Life-based magical pathogens, and you can't really do anything about that aside from making your pathogens more efficient and/or powerful.

@gammaflux: Your character is accepted.

[Laue]

@JohnSolarisThat's all I needed to know, thanks. Looking forward to the OOC.

[Grimoire]

Was think to go dark + fire or aether route, can you expand on the possibilities with the pairing?

[Laue]

AFAIK, Aether is sort of subtle alterations to existing elements. Fire + Dark, I dunno, some kind of twisted, corrupted version of fire I guess. Felfire/Hellfire, though I'm not sure what kind of properties it would have. Maybe increased ability to spread and very hard to put out? Sort of relentless, all consuming flame.

[Raptorman]

Potentially interested, asked some questions in a pm

[JohnSolaris]

Was think to go dark + fire or aether route, can you expand on the possibilities with the pairing?

@Grimoire

Fire + Dark usually makes hellfire, which easily burns normally nonflammable materials and deals a mixture of Dark and Heat damage. Those two are both destructive elements, so combining them usually gives you high-damage attacks.

As for Dark + Aether, that's probably good at assaulting opponents' minds with negative emotions and feelings, e.g. pain and fear. You may also add the metamagical effects of Aether to Dark, and result in energy drain or disruption that passes through solid matter and targets structures made of energy.

[Raptorman]

What should one take if they are looking for body horror powers and shapeshifting stuff?

Also if one has a familiar with powers at the start, can one still gain personal powers later?

[gammaflux]

Also if one has a familiar with powers at the start, can one still gain personal powers later?

@Raptorman

I can answer the second one. Players who start with a familiar can later on develop personal powers later. (and players who start without familiars can later acquire them as well.)

[Raptorman]

<Snipped quote by Raptorman>

I can answer the second one. Players who start with a familiar can later on develop personal powers later. (and players who start without familiars can later acquire them as well.)

@gammaflux

Thanks

[JohnSolaris]

What should one take if they are looking for body horror powers and shapeshifting stuff?

@Raptorman

Body horror? Probably Life and Dark. But I'd rather that you don't take that combination, since we already have another character with that.

Shapeshifting? If you intend to keep being made of organic matter, you could have Life. But you could gradually change your body into being made of some other substance as well, in which case you could take Earth, Water, or Air.

[Raptorman]

When I had said body horror I had been envisioning something along the lines of becoming an abomination, like a shoggoth for an example over time, however I did notice there was a great deal of that running around already so no worries.

If my character takes a core in Cold and a core in earth, are the resulting, 2/6 in dark and light enough to have minor bits of that in powers, or should one keep to things with more than that?