Liaison

Lest's Characters

Name: Merse Granstrum
Age: 34
Height: 6’1
Weight: 194 lbs
Occupation: The worlds greatest Information Broker
Affiliation: PRIME
Aliases: Liaison, The Black Cat
Theme: youtu.be/9JPn2P28D0o?t=21

Personality: This sly tongued businessman like most at the top of their craft was well versed in the art of deception. His job was to give facts and that you could trust, but if there was no transaction attached you really shouldn't’ trust the slightest gesture from this being. Not much is known about his past and his empire seemly rose from nowhere. Not many even knew what he looked like and when they did see not much could be said other than that he was literally a cat. Sleekly dressed in business attire, he never seemed to lose his cool or look disgruntled when faced with the dangers of his every day tasks. To resume with this type of work it wasn't a surprise he was far from a pushover.

Abilities

Omnilingualism: Merse can speak, write, understand and communicate in any language including computer codes, languages he’s never heard before, sign language (even lip-reading), illegible words, and even backwards speech and writing with little to no effort. He could even communicate with animals or read body language and the most convenient aspect of it was that he could become an expert of the chosen tongue in a blink of an eye. This ability not only helped him gather information but combined with his photographic memory it allows him to read physical movements and almost react instantaneously to anything.

Bullet Time: May be confused with superspeed, bullet time is the ability to slow down time perceptually, in order to fight at such extraordinary speeds that the he can't be hit or shot. When increased by Merse’s Nether output it can reach levels that defy logic.

Enhanced Senses: Merse has incredibly strong senses compared to the average being. Also what makes this so convient is that he is able to control each one individually to the point where he could completely shut one out. His hearing in particular is just off the level of echolocation at times.

Nether Manipulation: Merse at will can create, shape and manipulate Nether, the "Chthonian Element" that flows through the realms of the living, and the Dead. Nether is most known as the substance that makes up the Underworld, a subterranean dimension where all souls go when they pass on. Nether is very similar to Aether “the Celestial Element” in that is from a Plane that exists between the planes of both matter, and energy. However, although it can partake in the nature of either substance, Nether is neither of these things.

Despite often been seen as "Death-Force" Nether is more than the source of what drains life away from living things, it is the destructive aspect of reality, the source and very concept of entropy and destruction, disasters and all degeneration in matter, energy and concepts. It is the power that makes possible and ensures severing the soul's connection to their mortal body, so they can pass onto the after life. It is also the power that summons and controls the souls of the deceased. Users of this power acknowledge that Nether exists in Elemental, Cosmic, and Spiritual forces. Nether exists in the cosmos as sort of a gateway between the land of the Living and the Dead, stretching out to anywhere where death has the potential to occur.

Like Aether, Nether is a Spiritual Element, which means it cannot be perceived by any physical sense. The only way Nether can be seen is if it were mixed with an Element of the Physical Realm (Though he could manipulate other elements most often this ability would be used aside Darkness, Fire, or Earth, the elements Merse had a tight grip over.)He did know a decent amount of spells also but he did not rely on them as most were a hassle to cast. The easiest to cast for him had to be one with out an incantation that allowed him to enlarge or lengthen limbs which he’d normally use on his tail.

Psychometry: The power to perceive the residual information of an object by using senses. Merse obtains historical memories or sensations concerning beings objects they can observe by their senses. With objects he gains the knowledge including the makers, users, and even those who have on passing used the object, and what has been done with it. This ability is not also suited for battle but it is used almost daily by Merse.

Neuro-Residual Recollection: Where as he couldnt learn about a conscious being by touch he could for those recently deceased. He was adept at envisioning the cause of death of individuals by touching and/or sometimes retracing the path they took mentally. He couldn’t do this in an instant but nevertheless it made his job that much easer as it eliminated the need of taking live witnesses.

A cat always lands on his toes: Merse for some odd reason had the ability to swing and twist his frame unrealistically while in mid air. Where as the laws of the universe say this is impossible, Merse is able to alter his position and direction at will.

Ergonihilism:[This ability is currently disabled due to the Sui-generis Link Merse having currently broken] Merse is able to tap into a distant sufficiency of unique power similar to the green lantern called the Sui Generis. Instead of regular energy however he is given through a watch on his left wrist a source of corrosive energy. When amplified with his nether output he can deteriorate energy within including sentient beings, inorganic matter, nature, planets, etc. Since most powers require a certain amount of energy to work Merse is put to a major advantage when molding this element to his desire. Most known energy forms are vulnerable to this ability, whether Spiritual, Physical, Magical, Divine, Demonic, etc. This was one of the main staples of his strength. He can also use this element to warp and alter vectors. Some of the strongest shields have crumbled through his ability and some of the strongest forces derailed.

Accessories

Dark Paper and Metal Talismans - These worked opposite of the usual as seeing how it wasn't attached to a shrine. These were simple extensions of his abilities he already had, giving him the ability to place traps or store enchanted items in inconvenient places for his foe.

Sui Generis Link – In the form of an highly durable watch this link to the power source wasn’t his only access to it but the only one his carried with him.

M6D (2x) - The M6D Pistol is a semi-automatic, recoil-operated, magazine-fed, large-bore handgun that is controllable even during rapid fire, although at the cost of accuracy. By holding the trigger down the weapon will fire repeatedly without additional pulls of the trigger and depending on pressure could even create an effect similar to a shot gun. It is striker-fired, due to there being no visible external hammer. What It fires depends as he kept a large bundle of different rounds. Its default load is M225 SAP-HE (Semi-Armor Piercing, High Explosive) rounds from a 12-round magazine, usually strengthened by nether or another force of his choosing. Due to Merse’s increased eye sight and aiming ability it seems its never out of range.
Type of rounds in arsenal – Energy propelled, Photon powered, Tracker rounds, Erosion pressure.

Lest's Characters

Characters, NPCs, Locations, Etc.

The Corpse-Grinder! (New Tournament)

@Nafear

This is a tough one for me. The character that first sprouts into my mind to use is an earlier version of my superhuman samurai, Claine. However, I used him multiple rounds in a tournament hosted on another site so I'm a bit uninspired to use him atm. With that in mind I may create a new character from scratch. If I can come up with one I’m satisfied with by the deadline I’d be down to join but if not I would be more than glad to lend a hand as a judge. I can discuss my judging philosophy to you in private to try to develop an official method for the tournament if you like.

Also in regards to power levels are we talking Jedi level abilities or are things like Elemental manipulation allowed? Despite often taking more of a SciFi approach to my characters had the idea for something that I think would be more appealing to an outside crowd and the path I chose is a mythological creature/human hybrid. I quickly conjured up the concept for a Dullahan who is adept in Agnikinesis. Essentially his ability to manipulate flames is only limited to his imagination when molding the element but I fear he may be too strong. It’s kind of a slippery slope when attempting to scale for this tournament in particular in terms of power.

Arena Chat Thread

@MelonHead

Lol be serious man. I’m not going to paste an entire post in this thread to prove a point. I gave a brief description for you and if you want to try to pick it apart with petty arguments without knowing all the details of the post that's fine. Also molecular dissipation is indeed possible. In addition I don’t need to explain why I think shooting regular bullets at a being capable of destroying an entire planet is dumb. Of course my character would feel the need to do more. He would be ineffective if he thought otherwise. In the face of that you would be going for overkill as well. The bullets are something I had the concept for before the fight so nah it wasnt metagaming. Also I don’t appreciate you calling it reality warping because I stated exactly what it was. They’re not an answer to everything just a solid counter to extremely powerful armors I strategized. Period. There are people I know who could counter it that are better than me but I digress. Also it's at the point where you are kind of scraping for low blows here but yeah I agree we should stop this discussion for now.

Arena Chat Thread

11,000 adults got up out of bed and voted for Harambe man...

Arena Chat Thread

@melonhead“It would be irrelevant if I didn't explain in a fashion you haven't actually refuted why I believe its pointless. You just told me 'actually you do need to know all that stuff to fight at such an advanced level.'

Why do you need an advanced knowledge of physics at higher power levels? Characters at this level by their very nature bend and break the laws of physics, they are naturally outside of it. Give me an example of how your advanced knowledge of physics has allowed you to gain a credible advantage in a fight at higher levels?”

Well, here’s an example that will give you a clue on what I’m talking about since you cant seem to fathom it for some reason. Here is how I took on someone with almost impenetrable armor with loads of built in defenses that essentially deflected most forms of energy and force. (His armor far more intricate than I described btw)

Most people would say “wow that’s broken” but I figured if I could find away around his proudest defense it would insure me a critical hit. The way my opponent portrayed his character was that of a proud, powerful and arrogant being who wanted to show off how strong his armor was. My character was relatively human and for the most part was at disadvantage. My strategy for tackling his defense was one that required some knowledge of how atoms work. I came up with the idea of powered rounds of a gun that applied the effect of molecular dissipation.

Here is a brief description of Molecular Dissipation. It is the ability to cause solid objects to lose their molecular cohesion by absorbing the energy within their atomic bonds. Thus making objects disappear.

My character didn’t have the ability to do that with his body so I added it to an external force, a projectile.

I knew my opponent did not believe a gun was a threat to him and so I abused it. What this means is when the bullets met his armor instead of being deflected they absorbed the energy within the atomic bonds of whatever they touched which, in this case was his armor. Using logic, no matter how powerful his armor was it did not defend against the absorbing of the energy in atoms. As a result once seemingly invincible armor was now at threat to be penetrated and his character was at risk of taking bullets straight to the body.

The goal was to simply put bullet holes in the target but I needed a little pseudo-science to do so. I used my knowledge to add finesse to what would be the otherwise straight forward tactic.

“How do you determine the skill of two competitors at a level of combat where there is no reasonable way to ground the fight in real world logic? In the real world, people have a set number of limbs, gravity acts upon them, there are only certain moves that work, there is a limited time-frame in which they can act, react, there are restrictions on their sensory capacity. You could reward someone for effectively using cover, for blinding an opponent, for misdirection. There is no way to do these things at a level of power where human physical restrictions are completely non-existent, this is the level of power I refer to as 'shit' for determining skill in combat. Every character at this level can sense actions around them, they use magic rather than physical actions, they are not reliant on restrictive biological sensory capacity, and more importantly, they have a range of magical powers they can pull from that offers them a solution to almost every problem they can encounter with a flick of their wrist.”

I assure you all the rules you apply in lower tier fights are the same as high. Here’s what I mean. The simple rules of no Godmoding, Metagaming and Powergaming still apply. Its not like they disappear. You cant control another person character, the amount of damage they take is on them unless you have a logical claim and you cant just overpower and demean others peoples powers because you think you’re “stronger” everything is logic based still. In the case of the armor he couldn’t say his armor would just deflect it because I provided a logical counter which forced him lose faith in his armor and have to evade out of fear of taking lethal blows.

Also in addition knowing everything that’s going to happen is metagaming and will certainly lose you tons of points in a fight via judgment or may get you hit yourself via logic because you have no way to respond. People who ass-pull to a degree aren’t very good and thus lose a lot in these type of fights. It can happen on all levels like I said before.

“It's not just I that do this, if you were to actually look, you'd find a vast number of people are critical of characters at higher power levels when they are made the 'main character' or the 'hero'. The main example, Superman, most people consider his power-set the worst thing about him as a character. There's a good reason why Batman is widely preferred to Superman, and it's not just because he appeals to everyone's inner edge-lord. They like the fact that he is human, and out-thinks his opponents (with a little bit of plot convenience, of course.)

And I agree with them, Batman is the more interesting character because he does have to think his way through problems that Superman can lazer through, punch through, fly through, tank out, freeze, whatever.

Anyway, as I said, my opinion, but not an uncommon one either.”

Superman has no personality so of course he’s boring. I prefer Batman was well but that has nothing to do with Clark Kent. With your logic the comic the Infinity Gauntlet would be as uninteresting as it could be, no? It is entirely possible powerful beings can have extensive back stories and lore’s that would be a pleasure to read.(Ex:Darkseid & Dormammu) Also even characters like Galactus, The Living Tribunal and Thanos have losses at the end of the day as well. Strength is not a indicator of less interesting themes.

In addition lets take into account that when Superman fights opponents such as Doomsday, Darkseid and Mongul those tend to be extremely interesting bouts and those beings have vast wells of power. Its because the villians are examples of interesting high powered beings. Lets go back to Darkseid. I find his backstory to be really interesting because he like many rp characters I’ve seen grew to that strength. It was a progress. A lot of these extremely powerful RP characters I’m referring to have become stronger from assets they acquired from thread to thread in one continuing story.

Anyways, I’m about done going back and forth (at least for now). I just wanted to give an alternate view point to the high powered bashing that was going on because I think it would be good if both forms of fighting thrived here. I really mean that. A healthy debate hurts no one at the end of the day.

Arena Chat Thread

@MelonHeadYour entire demeanor is that of someone who has had bad experiences(or at least seen a few?) and you allude to that even in your previous statement but I’ll take your word for it that you haven’t had many. I will say this however. Whether you personally see a style of fighting as completely pointless due to your own experiences is entirely irrelevant. You essentially say that you do not personally take high tier bouts seriously and that’s fine. Just don’t try to justify the reason to why as it can’t be done any other way. It’s somewhat lazy and disrespectful to people who put in the effort to play and participate in stories that involve those level of feats.

If you box in characters as shit because you personally do not see it possible to play them at a high skill that is entirely on you. They take skill, knowledge of physics, logic (especially) and forethought, just a type you are not currently aware of or maybe had the pleasure of being introduced to. They are not how you stated often “Shit.” Then again, if that’s what you normally see it’s not my place to tell you that’s not what you have been exposed to because that’s possible as well.

I’m not trying to say one form is better than the other though I have my preference. I want to remind you of that. I am simply defending a form of fighting that you try to pit as inferior. My entire point and the moral of the story I’m trying to convey is do not generalize high tier level fights negatively.

And yes Doctor, superhero level combat is sometimes comparable to high tier fights. Some characters do not go down after a solid blow and that’s a part of the challenge but after a back and forth of several posts it would be clear who was doing constant damage and winning a fight. That could be used in a judgment and that’s only if it’s needed at that point.

Arena Chat Thread

@Doc Doctor I've seen quite a few one shots in my day but that's stories for sometime else. I can assure you its the same level of spirit in terms of competing but yes, whipping up wild manuevers is pretty fun I must say. You got me on that one I admit. Its preference at the end of the day though of course. I'm interested in both styles so I don't want to rile up too many people here lol.

Arena Chat Thread

@MelonHead You are biased. That you have made clear but its not something I take offense to. Usually negative views on high tier combat derive from bad past experiences. I assume you had many and its very common since its so easy to abuse them. I've played against characters who can manipulate matter. It's pretty fun under the right rules but I digress. I also enjoy hand to hand and "semi realistic" styles of fighting and I can see the pleasure in both.

While lower tiers of combat require more understanding of the physical limits of the human body it doesn't compare to the overall amount of knowledge needed to fight competently when large scales of powers are involved. Someone could be throwing Psuedo science at you in one fight and then testing your ability to counter fantasy magic in another. It is simply the more unpredictable and entertaining experience in my opinion.

I'm not trying to debate over specific examples due to myself being on a phone currently but I'd be more than happy to introduce you to some of the themes I've worked with and how they can be used to tell stories which lower powers cannot necessarily replicate. Maybe we can even have a spar later on.

Arena Chat Thread

@MelonHead

Spawning fire on even some of my most basic characters wouldn’t be that much of a threat and it’s not because of strength. Some are better at combating it than others. Like some people say guns are overpowered but an easy counter to them is an advanced view of perception. If you have outterworldy eye sight you can judge the trajectory of any bullet before the shot is even fired out the nozzle.

Personally, I think using what you identified as “Non interactive” attacks are broken rather they just take skillful and considerate roleplayers to execute properly. When it's done right threads are really fun to read as they tend not to become a dodge-fest where no one gets hit or hurt.