Lutalica

FRAMEs: Chapter II [Reboot] (Mech combat, politics & corporate intrigue)

As a side note the Flamethrower in Maxwell's arsenal could probably render a FRAME inoperable through simple overheating, or outright destroy them as ammunition, explosives or missiles cook off like popcorn.

ⒸRⒾMⒺ PⒶRⒶDⓄ✖

So I've been thinking on what to do with magic, as I feel it should be very powerful and ubiquitous without straying into 'cuz' wizards' territory. So DnD style magic is right out.

Instead I'll be thinking of it like this: The stars are essentially will o' wisps on a cosmic scale; saturating the planets that orbit them in heat, light and magical energy. This energy (henceforth referred to as 'Orenda') is present in all things, though the puny amount most creatures can accommodate is nothing next to the vast potential of the natural world. Because of this rituals are more or less leveraging the speck of power one might possess to guide or incite naturally present phenomenon. More on that later.

As for magic as a technology, semi-perpetual motion is the means by which most things are powered. Using a practice known as Tsukumography an imprint is crafted through the destruction of a living creature and 'grafted' to an otherwise inanimate object, giving it life. These 'Tsuks' are able move their new bodies to a certain extent, the applications of which prove numerous. Common uses of Tsukumography include self driven machinery, security systems and guided weaponry. Because of the use of well-trained animals as a key component almost every household has several pets, if only as an investment in future purchases

ⒸRⒾMⒺ PⒶRⒶDⓄ✖

For the time being consider this a placeholder as I flesh out the meat behind this idea. Until I throw up an OOC I welcome community feedback.

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▐ CONCEPT ▐ Set in a far future fantasy setting (Currently being fleshed out) the diverse cast of characters players will bring to the table share a distinct quirk: For all intents and purposes they are currently the same entity. A curse that begs to be clarified.

♦ Within a reality running parallel to that which the roleplay takes place you robbed, raided or otherwise thieved a particular ring from its rightful sanctum. Though the how, who and where of it change the consequences are uniform: You are now here.

♦ Having placed the ring on your finger you now are now trapped within the 'true' ring (alongside the other roleplayers), anchored to a reality in which the story will unfold.

♦ Each character physically manifests for the duration of their post (and no longer) displacing the previous character back into the ring. This presents itself as a tug of war between the wills of the cast. Post often and it's assumed you're simply better at manifesting than the others. With the one caveat that there is to be no double-posting players may be as active or inactive as they wish. Though the story will never 'wait' for slower players they're always welcome to contribute. This also allows for the RP to constantly be accepting as new victims fall prey to the curse.

♦ The world reacts to you as if you are (and always have been) the currently manifested individual. For instance, let's say a typical bruiser intimidates someone--then morphs into a petite seductress mid conversation. They'll -remember- being deathly afraid of you. They remember anything they witnessed 'you' do and how they felt about it; inserting the new you into those memories. This can lead to interesting developments.

♦ Injuries sustained while manifested are solely the burden of the effected party and persist between manifestations. So, for example, someone was shot; that wound would be there waiting for them the next time they took control. As such death through disease, advanced age and trauma are still inescapable.

♦ When not manifested characters can see and hear the world as if they were the observer. Though they can't experience it through any other senses.

♦ When not manifested characters can communicate vocally to whomever is, though not to each other. If the manifested individual wants to reply they have to do so out loud.

♦ Even if someone has never met your particular character they'll recognize them by association if they've had dealings with any previous manifestation. This even applies to photographs and composite sketches; they could look at a picture of a man and recognize it as the woman now manifested for example.

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Utilizing the ever expanding array of skillsets each new arrival brings to the table the titular Mr./Ms. 'Milieu' had amassed such wealth, influence and infamy over their indeterminately long career as to be considered either the efforts of a larger organization or outright myth. Presently the latter gathers clout, months after 'your' murder.

Having been expertly assassinated the new arrivals inherit both Milieu's legacy and adversary, simultaneously deprived of any whom could identify the would-be (or in this case has-been) culprit. Forced into a world of criminal intrigue where each supposed ally could be their undoing players must ferret out their foe if they are to have any hope of survival.

FRAMEs: Chapter II [Reboot] (Mech combat, politics & corporate intrigue)

How effective could a physical shield be? Surely any weapons capable of destroying the FRAME would quickly damage the shield, let alone purpose built anti-tank weaponry.

FRAMEs: Chapter II [Reboot] (Mech combat, politics & corporate intrigue)

If autocannons are mandatory does that mean we should consider weight totals to be one less than they actually are when deciding loadouts?

Enduwin: Act 1 - The Dark Awaits

I'm just hoping we don't have to retcon some people into having swam...

Enduwin: Act 1 - The Dark Awaits

@Darkmatter I was wondering if you could give us a quick run down of what's visible in the sky during night/day?

Enduwin: Act 1 - The Dark Awaits

Brevana the Cloud

Name: Brevana the Cloud
Age: 68 (allegedly)
Gender: Female
Appearance: Brevana is an austere looking woman of formidable, ram-rod straight posture and a terse (at times rude) demeanor that permeates all other aspects of her being; in short a woman not in the business of being beautiful. Brown of skin and hair and eye not a drop of Vrentian blood resides within her, evidenced in the subdued, exotic garb draped across her athletic form. White streaks its way through the puff of curls a simple tie keeps in check and lends to her a certain mystique; having either aged gracefully or before her time.

Clothing/Armor: A cross-collared suede garment (called a ninirri) that makes sparing use of concealed buttons and terminates just above the knee. Though reinforced with minimalistic metal plaques this sleeveless offering appears more a vestige of office than battle, a distinction at odds with the scar stricken expanses of leg and arm it leaves bare. Stiff linen slippers accompany Brevana in her travels, secured by a length of leather sandal while a similar solitary wrap graces her right forearm.

Weapons: Brevana is a scholar of a deadly martial ballet known as the Glorious Path of Crescent Sun's Shadow, taught exclusively to the militant arm of the Order of Stone Sages; a philosopher cult that vehemently decries Yvazgrul as the demiurge. Being an expression of the destruction of self and denial of the 'material lie' Crescent Sun Style has no stance, its principle tenant to be formless. At times mistaken for feats of mysticism a more thorough understanding of the body and its structural faults permits Brevana to strike a foe's hidden 'spirit seams' to various effect.

The Eight Arts

*Phantom Flaying Touch - The direct application of force to a spirit seam, causes localized muscular paralysis.
*Sinner's Stride - A very technical throw wherein one's attacker's weight and momentum are leveraged against them.
*Biting River Blow - A three strike combination that causes veins to contract, stemming blood flow
*Mind Killer Dance - Induces agony by targeting the spinal column
*Empty Cup Ritual - Forcibly induces vomiting over extended (often fatal) periods of time
*Aphelion/Perihelion's Seal - Brevana enters into either a death-like trance or taps into her body's full potential respectively
*Crescent Sun Rises/Sets - The second most devastating move in Brevana's arsenal, a sweeping kick that cuts like a knife
*Firmament Crush/Weight of Paradise Hold - A collection of grapples that crush bone and burst organs.

Inventory: Having taken a vow of poverty and adhering to an ascetic lifestyle Brevana carries little in the way of possessions save for the clothes on her back and a small book of self authored poetry.

Backstory: Far to the south the verdant slopes and pastures of Vrent give way to the ruins of Ankhor Mote, the carrion corpse of a once great empire stripped bare by the press of foreign powers. Now merely an oft contested border it's empty streets play venue to the half-hearted saber rattling of expanding nations, mediated only by the unconquerable fortress-fane that keeps them from coming to blows.

Enter High Atoll, seat of the Stone Sages and last vestige of a bygone realm; rising from the White Rills to resist superpowers at each side. Were either country to move in force upon this stronghold it would be seen as the prelude to an invasion by their neighbor, yet lesser efforts invariably fail-- for neither northern seers or the southern Savannah kings hold power within this den of doubters.

So it was that a young Brevana was raised to there ranks, as countless prisoners before her-- broken and humbled by the might of these insurmountable heretics. Born to the braid (Warrior wives within the hundred harems of Prath) She and her slave-sisters marched at the merciless behest of a Savannah king, and he willed that they succeed where all others failed. Barely blooded the young warrior was attached to a ring of heart-drinkers and dispatched to covertly overtake High Atoll; what ensued could scarcely be described as battle. The Crescent Sun pushed through the would-be raiders like a prow through water--above effort--and offered the survivors a choice: remain and adhere to their teachings or return and submit themselves to the 'compassion' of their master. Few opted for the latter.

This proved to be a quickly contempted decision as the Stone Sages were a stringent lot, demanding as much of the reluctant initiates as they did their own number; the thralldom she'd been released from a distant luxury compare to the harsh ascetic lifestyle Brevana now endured. Bodies and wills alike broke beneath the burden of a forty day fast, during which a paltry ration of water was to be the sole source of sustenance, yet Brevana's was not among them. Days turned into weeks and the weeks into months as all that she'd believed herself to be eroded away, in the years that followed the true self that was revealed grew close enough to grasp.

On Belief

Those of High Atoll value that which they extol to be the righteous truths, expressed totemicly as The Man, The Mirror and The Maker. The man is the material world and represents the lowest order of truths, those that are expressed externally. The mirror is the self and represents the next order of truths, personal truth. Lastly the Maker represents divine truth, as expressed via a crescent sun, for enlightenment is an ever distant horizon. By this measure ignorance is not only unjustified but sinful, as it distances oneself from the divine.

Through such reasoning Yvazgrul and like entities are adversarial to the will of the True Architect, fashioning a kingdom of their own in flawed semblance of the divine model; formed with the malevolent intention of entrapping aspects of the divine in materiality. Evidenced in how Yvazgrul, the font from which the Red Way springs covets the physical realm and coerces faith through fear and favor.

Exerts

*One must not mistake weakness in themselves for the strength of another

*Though entwined mind and body are no more separate halves of the same whole than a stone to its shadow.

*The material world is as an ocean, ignorance a weight upon the heel. To look beyond the surface we must shake this tether.

Enduwin: Act 1 - The Dark Awaits

Hector isn't a midget. He's an average sized man, which just means he's a lot smaller than the average Ventus.

@Darkmatter Brevana was just hammering home the point that he's the shortest character on roster, herself included. :P

Enduwin: Act 1 - The Dark Awaits

Brevana had observed the surplus arrivals and the group's departure from the docks in composed silence, boarded, rowed and ruminated in silence. It was with silence she declined the proffered pouch and steeled herself for the impossible task Eolas had presented. However, it was not with such reticence that she addressed the squabble that had erupted. "A tactless beast, a sea-sick midget of a man and a hesitant knight." announced the woman warrior with a harsh drawl. "If that is all those coins are worth you may all swim, such allies only distance us from our goal." With that her stare swept over those that had not as yet (albeit through inaction) revealed themselves to be anything but professionals. "As do these theatrics" she'd note with a finely honed sharpness.

"Ignorance is never advantageous Eolas." Brevana would assert, reigning in her tone to the sort of low, forceful hush that befits mantra as much as machination. "Would you not do well to remind those among us that have forgotten: none have taken more risk than our employer in assembling here, and that surely even a 'scholar' of the Red Way is not so misguided as to suggest such an endeavor on a whim." Though authored as a suggestion her words were all but the scolding of a misbehaved child, the remainder embogged by a cursory glance to the problematic trio for which it was surely intended. "So--as you must be eager to assure--what opportunity threatens to slip through our grasp? Or has the weight of a coming calamity merely forced your hand?" In truth she needed no convincing, even that much was obvious; an eye of the Transgressor seemed a worthy measure of her skills.

With that she found repose, posture settling as an arched brow bid reply of her cohorts; curious as to how this day would unfold.