HeySeuss

Staring Back with Chrome Eyes (Cyberpunk/Vampires)

@Darcs @ZAVAZggg These characters are good to go.

Staring Back with Chrome Eyes (Cyberpunk/Vampires)

This is interesting. I might make a talented human with flash precognition. Not enough to significantly unbalance things, but definitely enough to make him extremely useful. As for what role he'll play, I was thinking either long range sniper, or strategic advisor so that his abilities fully complements what he does.

@ZAVAZggg

Sounds like a plan and will review accordingly. I think the conversation there needs to be about how the precognition works and how accurate it is.

Staring Back with Chrome Eyes (Cyberpunk/Vampires)

Into it.

I do wish I could be a devious vampiric bimbo villain, but this looks fun as hell.

@Darcs

I don't mind more than one character if people do want to play vampires. I just don't want vampires on the side of the Vigil, particularly Blade-imitations.

Also, the OOC is up. Please disregard that it's in casual, I sort of just put it there for exposure to player base.

Staring Back with Chrome Eyes (Cyberpunk/Vampires)

I was wondering what sort of technology is available to Vigil, and by extension the Hunters?
Would something like this be feasible?

@Sanity43217

Mechanics might be a conversation, but I don't see why not.

Also, the OOC is up.

Staring Back with Chrome Eyes (Cyberpunk/Vampires)

Post-op, cybernetic implant surgery...

Instructions:

• Using the provided template, please create a character sheet and post it here.
• All other posts to the OOC tab. Thanks.
• If submitting multiple characters, please keep it all on one post, and just edit that post. That's for ease of navigation. Thanks!

Possible Character Concepts

• Talent - At least one human with paranormal abilities; telekinesis, pyrokinesis, telepathy...something of that nature. We're talking about a one in a thousand. This person probably won't be as heavily augmented as some of the others, but the augs they do possess will be the kind that boost their abilities...and probably turn them somewhat twitchy and unstable.
• Warden - A former law enforcement officer (preferably a detective/federal law enforcement type) that was scapegoated for a scandal that involved some sort of coverup of what was actually responsible. This dishonored individual was, perhaps, maimed in the process. They might well be working as a consultant or private investigator. They understand how government works; perhaps part of a DOJ task force investigating corruption that went awry of the vampires.
• Fixer - An ex-criminal of some sort, working for a cartel or organization as a specialist, perhaps as a high tech burglar or smuggler. This person knows the streets, the corruption of people, how to grease palms and get things through security. They know how people are connected in the underworld and where to put the pressure on. These sorts of organizations are often used as fronts for the vampires and their more unsavory activities, such as feeding. Perhaps this character got in too deep, objected and was left for dead. The Vigil is not an organization concerned with legality -- it is at war, and a soldier that knows the enemy is valuable.
• Face - someone, probably a woman, that caught the attentions of a vampire that prized her looks and social grace, but was overcome by his urges and left her bleeding somewhere, clinging barely to life when the Vigil found her. She had a high flying social life and a respected career, perhaps as a lawyer or a corporate executive or even an actress or known personality before the event. Her skills, her ability to control herself and put on a persona allows her to smooth her way into places where a hundred men with guns would be foiled. Her ability to manipulate people with the pheromone and emotional manipulation implants she has received have taken her natural talents at persuasion and turned her irresistible.
• Come up with something and make it yours -- that's always a good sign. ;)

Also, here is a list of sample mods and equipment (feel free to invent stuff):

Sample Equipment

• Cybermod: Communications suite, HUD and neural-computer, all standard issue – Vigil agents are able to text by thinking it among each other on a heavily encrypted wireless network. In fact, the computer works off brain impulses and is easily one of the most sophisticated and useful implants they have; what's more, its capabilities have yet to be fully exploited. The downside of this implant is that it includes a cortex bomb with an anti-tampering device. A captured agent can set it off, destroying the hardware inside, or a signal from control can do the same. This is to prevent the enemy from learning the capabilities of implanted agents.
• Cybermod: Internal air supply and aerial toxin filter -- this also has the added advantage of making the agent immune to vampire pheromones, as some types of vampires are known to use this to seduce their prey.
• Cybermod: Blood/liquid toxin filter -- the obvious is at work here -- vampires use their blood as a means of controlling mortals, and this system (and everyone, even non field agents, in the Vigil organization have this implant) screens out one of most subtle weapons a vampire has, rendering them functionally immune to being controlled through ingested blood the way mortal thralls of a vampire might be.
• Cybermod: Eye augmentation; a HUD showing all sorts of system data, such as the status of implants, as well as allowing for low-light and ultra-sound modes of vision, the latter being thought to be more effective than thermographics when dealing with vampires, who tend to run cold if they haven't fed lately.
• Equipment: Mimetic Camouflage (Predator) coat, though this is designed to look more like a trenchcoat -- no doubt some project engineer with a penchant for the dramatic, or an interest in fashion design. The coat is actually stylish, which serves a dual purpose as vampires tend to dress stylishly and surround themselves with the stylishly dressed. This allows Vigil agents one more edge. Of course, they call it the Predator Coat. Because the engineers are geeks. (This is a standard issue Vigil item)
• Equipment: Modular, caseless assault rifle/carbine. Bullpup, caseless ammunition, synched with existing implants and capable of mounting a variety of accessories including a 25mm grenade launcher whose munitions range from conventional high explosive to nano-guided scattered mines. It also syncs with HUD implants for improved accuracy in a mechanism similar to a bluetooth link. The trigger is electric and the weapon includes a biometric security system; anyone but someone authorized to handle it and it will blow; that is a standard feature on most any weapon the Vigil has in service with its teams. (This is a standard issue Vigil item)
• Equipment: A number of electronic accessories, including a PDA tablet and other items to assist in making physical connection with computer equipment. (This is a standard issue Vigil item)
• Equipment: Grenades, mostly white phosphorus. The organization has designed a 'grenade' that involves a strobing UV light that damages vampires -- it is known as 'the disco ball'.

Character Stub

Name:
Character Profile:

You can be as lengthy or succinct as you want, but the character info we need is the character's history of vampire encounters, a brief description of their abilities and role and any additional biographic details you want to add. This can be done in a single paragraph. Should include an overview of cybernetic modifications that support their role on the kill-team.

Staring Back with Chrome Eyes (Cyberpunk/Vampires)

He who fights with monsters should look to it
that he himself does not become a monster.
And when you gaze long into an abyss
the abyss also gazes into you.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"Beyond Good and Evil" (1886)


Cybersurgery...

TL;DR Summary:

• DISCORD Link!
• Near future, year 2026, modified Earth setting (to account for a variation in technological development.)
• Vampires exist, as they have for a long, long time, ageless and hard to kill and thus fancy themselves apex predators who use their resources and influence to ensure that they cannot be assailed by common humanity.
• Society does not know this, or the way the Eternal, as the Vampires call themselves, have maintained a policy of culling humanity but not destroying it, to profit from it. Through the long centuries, the initial cull policies of removing the brightest, the most creative for turning have morphed into a policy of turning beautiful people into vampires. The eldest were the great minds of their time, but they've also become set in their ways.
• The Vigil has also existed from ancient times in a variety of forms, collecting information as best it could against Vampires, though it found few successes in hunting them. They have, instead in secret, cultivated the wealth and resources necessary to eventually confront vampires when the opportunity arose. Vampires have long since dismissed the Vigil as being a passive organization and a non-threat, as a second-rate Illuminati that focuses on economic interests and corporate affairs. They never bothered to crush the Vigil and the Vigil has been very good about masquerading as an organization that has long since abandoned its original goals in preference of simply pursuing profit, while faking scientist deaths and undertaking other operations to 'move the needle' toward their actual goals.
• Through the course of the 20th and early 21st century, the Vigil has been content to continue this policy of appearing harmless, even as it took to the bleeding edge of technological research; a combination of extensive corporate espionage and sponsored research and development have yielded considerable leaps forward in a variety of technological fields. The Vampires, in their arrogance, do not realize that the plan is to advance to a point where they can level the playing field against vampires and fight them toe to toe.
• The recruits are your characters -- they have a variety of skills, backgrounds and reasons for associating with the Vigil; they are all victims of vampires who have survived their encounters, and have been modified to be able to even the score.
• These characters are sent forth, armed with the best equipment their very rich patrons can provide as a kill-team; their orders are to assassinate vampires. Ideally, they are to preserve their secrecy as much as possible, but killing vampires is the priority.
• Oh, and the first operation will be killing an Edward Cullen type. How cool is that?
• Specifics of technology will be discussed, but I have a general idea of where I want to draw the line.
• Inspirations; Movies - Munich, Blade Runner, Blade, The Lost Boys, Escape from New York. Books - the works of William Gibson, Dracula and Twilight, at least for the idea of killing an Edward Cullen type first. :)
• No thank you on half-vampires and daywalkers. This is about the victims.

In Character Info:

Vampires have styled themselves the apex predators, the ones that take the predator that kills all the other life on Earth, and have fallen into this pattern of considering humanity prey. Some of them try to view humanity as a threat, but the oldest, the ones in charge, are set in their ways and sometimes have a hard time adapting to the idea of humans advancing beyond the means of the time that they were made into a vampire, a time when they were rampant over the earth. Hunters have come and hunters have gone, but with limited means to do damage to the Eternal, their name for themselves.

Organizations too, have come and gone, hunters trying to eradicate vampires under the auspices of the church and some kings, but they have failed, largely due to the inability to match the vampires unparalleled strength, speed and powers; the natural abilities that make them the predator and humans the prey.

One organization has watched and waited, understanding that until the day arrived that they were able to match these strengths and perhaps overcome them the fell rule of the Eternal from the shadows would continue unabated. Through the long centuries, members lived and died, compiling and securing information on their enemies, but not moving against them hastily. They invested assets wisely, cultivated research and learning, infiltrated institutions, worked with a slow purpose and a goal that spanned many lifetimes of effort, waiting for when science would allow them to match or even outmatch the vampires. The vampires, in addressing more overt threats, violent threats, derided the Vigil as timid scholars. The Vigil played the long game, looking for a time when there would be a means to fight the vampires effectively. The world slowly changed, but the Eternal did not change with the times as well as the Vigil did.

Now, in 2026, that reckoning has come.

Out of Character Info

The characters are essentially a team of hunters enhanced with cybernetics that are hunting vampires; the cybernetics are still a prototype phase, but they work and the enhancements are considerable in their performance and scary in their implications -- the characters are giving up their humanity to fight the inhuman, and that Niezstchean element of the RP should not be forgotten. They are more like what they fight than they wish to admit.

Characters are selected for many reasons, but they boil down to the basic imperatives of 'skills' and 'motivation.' Vampires are more visceral and are not, generally, creatures of training and self-discipline. While a few are brought into the fold for their skills, they are more often picked by their masters out of some sort of lust, and so there are quite a few artist and beautiful people types among the vampires. The Vigil, by contrast, looked at their recruits carefully for the skillset and mentality of those they are enhancing to fight the vampires -- they can build the body, after all.

Therefore, the characters are picked for what's in their heads; not just military types, but sharp investigators, cyberwarfare and hacking experts and people that can move easily through most places and speak the native languages. The implants enhance these abilities, but the characters quickly come to realize that the implants give them a fighting chance, but they do not assure victory. Only creative thinking and their skills can do that.

All the same, for a variety of reasons ranging from wanting revenge to desiring the ability to walk again without a wheelchair or even an idealistic desire to free humanity of this scourge, the characters signed on for the long haul, with their flesh and blood as down payment.

@darcs@flagg@owari@RedVII@Sanity43217@rtron

Staring Back with Chrome Eyes (Cyberpunk/Vampires)

Hello.

I would love to join in when this is open for business, if I may?
I've never seen anything like this concept before, and absolutely nothing to this scale comes to mind. It's so detailed and exciting!

@Owari

Sounds good. I will probably have something OOCwise up soon.

Staring Back with Chrome Eyes (Cyberpunk/Vampires)

Very interested.

On the Team's cybernetic enhancements: Are they universally the same for everyone or will each Hunter's enhancements be customized and potentially chosen by the player? In that same vein, are there certain specific enhancements that might be universal to all?

In this world of science and technology, is there any religious connotations to the Eternals or the Vigil? For instance, do vampire's have religious weaknesses like holy water and crucifixes and is the Vigil backed by a religious sect like Templars?

In any case, very cool concept so far!

@RedVII

Good questions.

- Cybernetic Enhancements -- there are certain baseline modules, but after that, it is very much the player's choice.

- Religion, Vampires -- The Eternal may well have cults and religions, or factions within, that manipulate the mortal world into accepting what they do or otherwise to create some of the lines of control they've cultivated for a long time.

- Religion, the Vigil -- The Vigil may well have had roots in religious organizations, or taken in refugees and leftovers from previous ones if there was little risk of being infiltrated by Thralls, but I think they have always been a scientifically driven group that did research and archiving of knowledge. After WWII, they started establishing scientific research and development, as well as heavily investing in various parts of the world in order to have access to some of that science. At that point, it was felt that science might well be sufficiently advanced for them to start contemplating technologies to use against the Eternal. There was a pretty heated discussion about the use of NBC weaponry but no disease could be created that worked, chemical compounds was a similar dead end and launching nukes was not viable.

- Vampire vulnerabilities -- My thought is that if there is a vampiric vulnerability to holy water, it might be a vulnerability to certain constituent parts of it. Since there are various salts, oils and other compounds that go into this, I think that it might well be either one of these items or in combination that act against vampires, more like a tear agent when they get spritzed in the face. Heart-staking, decapitation and sunlight, of course, are fatal, but in the past, prior to cybernetics, you had to get lucky to kill one, because the Eternal had the advantages in speed, strength, pheremones, senses.

Staring Back with Chrome Eyes (Cyberpunk/Vampires)

He who fights with monsters should look to it
that he himself does not become a monster.
And when you gaze long into an abyss
the abyss also gazes into you.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"Beyond Good and Evil" (1886)

Cybersurgery...

TL;DR Summary:

• DISCORD Link!
• Themes: Transhumanism and its dangers, existentialism and some other moral mumbo jumbo. On top of techno music and vampire killing.
• Near future, year 2026, modified Earth setting (to account for a variation in technological development.)
• Vampires exist, as they have for a long, long time, ageless and hard to kill and thus fancy themselves apex predators who use their resources and influence to ensure that they cannot be assailed by common humanity.
• Society does not know this, or the way the Eternal, as the Vampires call themselves, have maintained a policy of culling humanity but not destroying it, to profit from it. Through the long centuries, the initial cull policies of removing the brightest, the most creative for turning have morphed into a policy of turning beautiful people into vampires. The eldest were the great minds of their time, but they've also become set in their ways.
• The Vigil has also existed from ancient times in a variety of forms, collecting information as best it could against Vampires, though it found few successes in hunting them. They have, instead in secret, cultivated the wealth and resources necessary to eventually confront vampires when the opportunity arose. Vampires have long since dismissed the Vigil as being a passive organization and a non-threat, as a second-rate Illuminati that focuses on economic interests and corporate affairs. They never bothered to crush the Vigil and the Vigil has been very good about masquerading as an organization that has long since abandoned its original goals in preference of simply pursuing profit, while faking scientist deaths and undertaking other operations to 'move the needle' toward their actual goals.
• Through the course of the 20th and early 21st century, the Vigil has been content to continue this policy of appearing harmless, even as it took to the bleeding edge of technological research; a combination of extensive corporate espionage and sponsored research and development have yielded considerable leaps forward in a variety of technological fields. The Vampires, in their arrogance, do not realize that the plan is to advance to a point where they can level the playing field against vampires and fight them toe to toe.
• The recruits are your characters -- they have a variety of skills, backgrounds and reasons for associating with the Vigil; they are all victims of vampires who have survived their encounters, and have been modified to be able to even the score.
• These characters are sent forth, armed with the best equipment their very rich patrons can provide as a kill-team; their orders are to kill vampires. Ideally, they are to preserve their secrecy as much as possible, but killing vampires is the priority and there are plans in place for a widening scope of the war and a much larger strategy as things get under way.
• Specifics of technology will be discussed, but I have a general idea of where I want to draw the line.
• Inspirations; Movies - Munich, Blade Runner, Blade, The Lost Boys, Escape from New York. Books - the works of William Gibson, Dracula and Twilight, at least for the idea of killing an Edward Cullen type first. :)
• No thank you on half-vampires and daywalkers. This is about the victims.

In Character Info:

Vampires have styled themselves the apex predators, the ones that take the predator that kills all the other life on Earth, and have fallen into this pattern of considering humanity prey. Some of them try to view humanity as a threat, but the oldest, the ones in charge, are set in their ways and sometimes have a hard time adapting to the idea of humans advancing beyond the means of the time that they were made into a vampire, a time when they were rampant over the earth. Hunters have come and hunters have gone, but with limited means to do damage to the Eternal, their name for themselves.

Organizations too, have come and gone, hunters trying to eradicate vampires under the auspices of the church and some kings, but they have failed, largely due to the inability to match the vampires unparalleled strength, speed and powers; the natural abilities that make them the predator and humans the prey.

One organization has watched and waited, understanding that until the day arrived that they were able to match these strengths and perhaps overcome them the fell rule of the Eternal from the shadows would continue unabated. Through the long centuries, members lived and died, compiling and securing information on their enemies, but not moving against them hastily. They invested assets wisely, cultivated research and learning, infiltrated institutions, worked with a slow purpose and a goal that spanned many lifetimes of effort, waiting for when science would allow them to match or even outmatch the vampires. The vampires, in addressing more overt threats, violent threats, derided the Vigil as timid scholars. The Vigil played the long game, looking for a time when there would be a means to fight the vampires effectively. The world slowly changed, but the Eternal did not change with the times as well as the Vigil did.

Now, in 2026, that reckoning has come.

Out of Character Info

The characters are essentially a team of hunters enhanced with cybernetics that are hunting vampires; the cybernetics are still a prototype phase, but they work and the enhancements are considerable in their performance and scary in their implications -- the characters are giving up their humanity to fight the inhuman, and that Niezstchean element of the RP should not be forgotten. They are more like what they fight than they wish to admit.

Characters are selected for many reasons, but they boil down to the basic imperatives of 'skills' and 'motivation.' Vampires are more visceral and are not, generally, creatures of training and self-discipline. While a few are brought into the fold for their skills, they are more often picked by their masters out of some sort of lust, and so there are quite a few artist and beautiful people types among the vampires. The Vigil, by contrast, looked at their recruits carefully for the skillset and mentality of those they are enhancing to fight the vampires -- they can build the body, after all.

Therefore, the characters are picked for what's in their heads; not just military types, but sharp investigators, cyberwarfare and hacking experts and people that can move easily through most places and speak the native languages. The implants enhance these abilities, but the characters quickly come to realize that the implants give them a fighting chance, but they do not assure victory. Only creative thinking and their skills can do that.

All the same, for a variety of reasons ranging from wanting revenge to desiring the ability to walk again without a wheelchair or even an idealistic desire to free humanity of this scourge, the characters signed on for the long haul, with their flesh and blood as down payment.

Staring Back with Chrome Eyes (Cyberpunk/Vampires)

He who fights with monsters should look to it
that he himself does not become a monster.
And when you gaze long into an abyss
the abyss also gazes into you.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"Beyond Good and Evil" (1886)

Cybersurgery...

TL;DR Summary:

• DISCORD Link!
• Themes: Transhumanism and its dangers, existentialism and some other moral mumbo jumbo. On top of techno music and vampire killing.
• Near future, year 2026, modified Earth setting (to account for a variation in technological development.)
• Vampires exist, as they have for a long, long time, ageless and hard to kill and thus fancy themselves apex predators who use their resources and influence to ensure that they cannot be assailed by common humanity.
• Society does not know this, or the way the Eternal, as the Vampires call themselves, have maintained a policy of culling humanity but not destroying it, to profit from it. Through the long centuries, the initial cull policies of removing the brightest, the most creative for turning have morphed into a policy of turning beautiful people into vampires. The eldest were the great minds of their time, but they've also become set in their ways.
• The Vigil has also existed from ancient times in a variety of forms, collecting information as best it could against Vampires, though it found few successes in hunting them. They have, instead in secret, cultivated the wealth and resources necessary to eventually confront vampires when the opportunity arose. Vampires have long since dismissed the Vigil as being a passive organization and a non-threat, as a second-rate Illuminati that focuses on economic interests and corporate affairs. They never bothered to crush the Vigil and the Vigil has been very good about masquerading as an organization that has long since abandoned its original goals in preference of simply pursuing profit, while faking scientist deaths and undertaking other operations to 'move the needle' toward their actual goals.
• Through the course of the 20th and early 21st century, the Vigil has been content to continue this policy of appearing harmless, even as it took to the bleeding edge of technological research; a combination of extensive corporate espionage and sponsored research and development have yielded considerable leaps forward in a variety of technological fields. The Vampires, in their arrogance, do not realize that the plan is to advance to a point where they can level the playing field against vampires and fight them toe to toe.
• The recruits are your characters -- they have a variety of skills, backgrounds and reasons for associating with the Vigil; they are all victims of vampires who have survived their encounters, and have been modified to be able to even the score.
• These characters are sent forth, armed with the best equipment their very rich patrons can provide as a kill-team; their orders are to kill vampires. Ideally, they are to preserve their secrecy as much as possible, but killing vampires is the priority and there are plans in place for a widening scope of the war and a much larger strategy as things get under way.
• Specifics of technology will be discussed, but I have a general idea of where I want to draw the line.
• Inspirations; Movies - Munich, Blade Runner, Blade, The Lost Boys, Escape from New York. Books - the works of William Gibson, Dracula and Twilight, at least for the idea of killing an Edward Cullen type first. :)
• No thank you on half-vampires and daywalkers. This is about the victims.

In Character Info:

Vampires have styled themselves the apex predators, the ones that take the predator that kills all the other life on Earth, and have fallen into this pattern of considering humanity prey. Some of them try to view humanity as a threat, but the oldest, the ones in charge, are set in their ways and sometimes have a hard time adapting to the idea of humans advancing beyond the means of the time that they were made into a vampire, a time when they were rampant over the earth. Hunters have come and hunters have gone, but with limited means to do damage to the Eternal, their name for themselves.

Organizations too, have come and gone, hunters trying to eradicate vampires under the auspices of the church and some kings, but they have failed, largely due to the inability to match the vampires unparalleled strength, speed and powers; the natural abilities that make them the predator and humans the prey.

One organization has watched and waited, understanding that until the day arrived that they were able to match these strengths and perhaps overcome them the fell rule of the Eternal from the shadows would continue unabated. Through the long centuries, members lived and died, compiling and securing information on their enemies, but not moving against them hastily. They invested assets wisely, cultivated research and learning, infiltrated institutions, worked with a slow purpose and a goal that spanned many lifetimes of effort, waiting for when science would allow them to match or even outmatch the vampires. The vampires, in addressing more overt threats, violent threats, derided the Vigil as timid scholars. The Vigil played the long game, looking for a time when there would be a means to fight the vampires effectively. The world slowly changed, but the Eternal did not change with the times as well as the Vigil did.

Now, in 2026, that reckoning has come.

Out of Character Info

The characters are essentially a team of hunters enhanced with cybernetics that are hunting vampires; the cybernetics are still a prototype phase, but they work and the enhancements are considerable in their performance and scary in their implications -- the characters are giving up their humanity to fight the inhuman, and that Niezstchean element of the RP should not be forgotten. They are more like what they fight than they wish to admit.

Characters are selected for many reasons, but they boil down to the basic imperatives of 'skills' and 'motivation.' Vampires are more visceral and are not, generally, creatures of training and self-discipline. While a few are brought into the fold for their skills, they are more often picked by their masters out of some sort of lust, and so there are quite a few artist and beautiful people types among the vampires. The Vigil, by contrast, looked at their recruits carefully for the skillset and mentality of those they are enhancing to fight the vampires -- they can build the body, after all.

Therefore, the characters are picked for what's in their heads; not just military types, but sharp investigators, cyberwarfare and hacking experts and people that can move easily through most places and speak the native languages. The implants enhance these abilities, but the characters quickly come to realize that the implants give them a fighting chance, but they do not assure victory. Only creative thinking and their skills can do that.

All the same, for a variety of reasons ranging from wanting revenge to desiring the ability to walk again without a wheelchair or even an idealistic desire to free humanity of this scourge, the characters signed on for the long haul, with their flesh and blood as down payment.