Progenitus

Cyperpunk 2020

Color me interested. I shall watch this unfold.

Marvel: Knights of New York

(deleted)

Delta Green: Whispers in the Darkness, Occult Action and Intrigue

I would think that even extremely rational beings would have to engage actual events; the allegations that suppressed instinctive response would lead to disregard of "things" seem to be based on the premise that normal character's reaction is anywhere close to that of normal people; however, it should be noted that we are detached from the perception of actual events by our characters by both the factor of lack of full sensory input, as well as by having time to think through the situation, as opposed to having to act in the spur of moment; circumventing that problem requires players to be exceedingly versed in the art of method acting, which, in my experience, is untrue for majority of player base. Therefore, the main difference for this character is not the depth of immersion in the events, but rather take on his reactions, from the player's point of view.

As for the cool factor, I'm not sure what did you intend to say there, so please elaborate, if you will.

Delta Green: Whispers in the Darkness, Occult Action and Intrigue

That it would.
Frankly speaking, in the horror games, reaction of the characters goes only as far as the players perceive it should go, and in my experience, majority of the "horror" stories that try to force the "mood" on the players are more frustrating than actually disturbing.
So might as well make that(ability to give a level appraisal of events) a defining feature of the character, instead of making a "normal guy" and then dealing with the accusations of not roleplaying properly.

Delta Green: Whispers in the Darkness, Occult Action and Intrigue

1) Unfamilliar with that movie. But basically - someone who can't really be let out back into civilian life due to being for most intents a highly functioning psychopath. He's rational, he doesn't have any weird urges, and he won't find shooting children or cutting off his own leg crushed under the rubble any harder mentally than smashing eggs to make a breakfast. Neither he would flinch under the heavy machinegun fire - fear for his life is more of an intellectual concept to this guy. He doesn't get bored, does not doubt his choices(merele acknowledging badly made ones) and is physically incapable of getting angry. He's a perfect soldier, mental integrity-wise, but that also makes soldiering and similar high-stress professions the only thing he's good for.

2) He's probably former special forces, volunteering for the procedure.

Delta Green: Whispers in the Darkness, Occult Action and Intrigue

What about the soldier who had no previous run-ins with supernatural per se, but is himself a result of one of the army's experiments? Nothing too drastic, just one of these programs to make soldiers more resistant to stress of the battle, to which the guy proved unexpectedly receptive, mentally freezing into a completely unflappable if somewhat detached person?

Re:Creators RP

Anathea abruptly stopped, wheeling around to pierce - almost literally it seemed for a moment, such was a pressure of emotional intensity contained within - Adael with the stare of her amber eyes.
"Can you not take a hint?" - she cocked her head to the side, taking a measure of the angel once more - "And calling me one of the Four is an empty praise; though we are worthy members of the Judgement in our own right, our power and glory is but a pale twinkle compared to their own prowess. Dare not diminishing it." - she shook her head, then abandoned her indignant tone, becoming calm and matter-of-fact - "Look. Even if your world was a perfect mirror of this one, travelling with you would attract too much of an attention with that magnanimous with the truth it shows shadow of yours. So, your value as a guide is greatly diminished to me, as you would also guide those with eyes to see towards us; I would rather not intrude upon the workings of this world for now." - she shifted her attention to his shapeshifting staff - "So, unless your shadow could change its form the same way....." - cutting herself off, she returned her gaze towards Adael - "What is it you hope to gain by travelling with me? I have no desire for worldly power or struggle, and would not support you should you get yourself in trouble, if my protection and support is what you are after. If the only thing that guides you in this is an idle curiosity - we could just find a quiet spot and swap the stories of our worlds; me, I would tell you about how Heaven intrudes and the Hell that was always there, you, I expect to tell me what do you know of your own world's setting of this place. How does this sound to you, then?"

Re:Creators RP

Anathea sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose, musing for a second about how that clownish mannequin reminded her of some less likeable figures of the Judgement, then expended a miniscule fraction of mental effort and shrugged, spreading her arms in a genial gesture and smiling warmly:
"Well, I offer you my sincere gratitude for what little knowledge you saw fit to provide me, Empty Face. However, if that is the extent of the help offered, I must bid you farewell and depart." - she made a short, formal bow towards the clown and began turning to go, but then paused, back to her serious demeanor - "Presently, I have no desire for company save that of my brother; Do not pursue Anathea Rhishand." - those last words dropped on those listening like a heavy block of stone, making it very clear that a company would be very much unwelcome.
During her short stay with the clown, Anathea learned several things - more than enough, she felt, to embark on her own journey of discovery. Her musings went roughly as such:
- this indeed is a world of people;
- apparently, said people were acclimated to the lack of dharma, and learned to make do without, though there were apparently some side-effects to that. Therefore, answers could be sought out amongst the people themselves.
- unless that mock-up of a clown lied to her, her brother should be placed somewhere within the same country; searching for him would be troublesome, but not exceedingly so, unless the idiot would decide to leave the country.
- judging by the state of the castle at the northmost border of the country, and the state of the road leading to it, this is a prosperous realm; therefore, it must have a strong capital, with some or other sort of information exchange network in place - perfect place to start her search from.
- logically, her brother would do the same, unless diverted to some other destination; nevertheless, signs left in the capital would attract his attention at a much faster pace than those left at the border of the realm.
- the same information network would be a useful tool in ferreting out location of their father dearest, if he has any sort of publicity here; he would probably have much to explain about lack of purpose of present world.
- thus, her main task for the moment would be acquiring transportation towards the capital.
Deciding on the course of action, Anathea thought for a moment on a specific approach and decided that she'd be best suited with a quiet, circumspect approach - perhaps, starting with observing the locals from the distance, learning their language and mannerisms, observing their way of life, as to not stand out too much along the way. Alas, both the jester and the mock-up of an angel would attract too much of an attention, so she would not be able to afford such company at the moment; perhaps, later, when she's more ingrained in this world...
Deciding on the specific manner of action, the woman went to leave alongside the road away from the castle - presumably, that road would lead her to the nearby settlement, for castles were rarely built without one nearby, and regardless of the function that castle serves today, there must be the legacy of said settlement left, which she could study.

Re:Creators RP

Anathea inhaled the air of this new world.
Anathea exhaled the air with a faint puff of iridiscent smoke, letting her body acclimate to it.
Anathea looked around, clamping down on a roiling confusion and mounting frustration, taking the vistas of this new world in her; she frowned: something was not right. Just a moment ago, she was lazing about in the inchoate emptiness, musing about her next scheme, before being dragged here; not an unusual occurence to one of the Rhishands, not in the slightest - what was strange is the world around her didn't sang to her, as if already murdered to a lifeless shell of itself by some passing scourge - so empty was the world of any dharma or purpose that for a moment, she doubted if it was not a phantasm of the void utterly vivid, tricking her weary mind in a fancy of convulsive action of one of the blind idiot gods of Is Not.
It was not, however, for the structure surrounding her had the stability of what Is - which meant that somehow, this new reality she found transfused herself in lacked in purpose wholesale - and Anathea dearly hoped that this is just a fluke of locality, some terrible curse laid by cruel and surely uncaring "Gods" of this place upon the world for some unperceivable slight, and not a qualifier of the world altogether.
Irritatingly, her idiot of a brother managed to get separated from her along the way and wandered off somewhere else; he must be somewhere in this world, for the Rhishands are inseparable until the day they would have to leave the stage and leave the story for others to tell, but that was not the first occasion he got lost and she had to retreive him. Thoughts of destruction he would wreak without her keeping him in check - again - made her right eye twitch a little bit.
Still, those two legends here may be of some help; it's not the first time Anathea would have to cooperate with one of - presumably - Creation-born to get her point across, and would probably not be the last. Woman's eyes filled with glittering stars for a mere moment, before clearing up again as she nodded to her thoughts and rose her hand with three fingers outstretched:
"First, introductions are indeed in order. I am Anathea Rhishand." - the woman's name dropped on those who listen like a block of heavy metal, resounding across the moat with echo born not of the volume of her words, which were spoken calmly - "One of the Rhishands, a rider - an agent, if you will - of Mythical Judgement. I cannot say whether you would be pleased or not to make an acquaintance with me, False Arbitrator, for you are unlike the agents of Heaven or Hell I have seen before; as for you, you [REDACTED] clown..." - Anathea shifted her gaze towards the jester sipping tea - "I would take my second and third questions to you, as you seem to be more knowledgeable in the ways this world moves; or, rather, not moves. Tell me, oh masked one, what is it with the lack of purpose that seems to pervade this world? How do people even live here, with this terrible emptiness stilling their hearts and snuffing their souls? I could hardly imagine a great and terrible ambition arising in such a set of conditions in any but the most fiery of the hearts, and the world without heroes is a sad, empty place, barely even worthy of judgement." - she paused in her tirade, exhaling and taking a moment to compose herself - "Finally, could you, perchance, tell me where to look for my wayward brother, one Wynther Rhishand? We got separated on the way here, and I am a bit worried about what he could be up to all on his lonesome."

Re:Creators RP

Picture

Name: Anathea Rhishand.
Age: Indeterminate, observable age about 20-25 years old.
Gender: Female.
Race: Human, outwardly.

Personality:
Anathea is outwardly solemn, composed and proper, often very critically-inclined over some minor particularity of the world, almost always with a hint of frustration on her face, as things seem to never go exactly just as she wanted them to. She is the 'ying' of the pair, drawing on her brother's energy to find a way forward without trying to make that way by choking all disorder of the world around her until it perfectly conforms to her views. This masks the screaming circle that is her mind - a being of structure and udnerstanding, she cannot stand those parts of the world "improper" or "out of their place", and was given to terrible rages when her mind was younger; much calmer now, she still considers the disorder unbearable, but stoically endures it for the sake of the progress.
She thinks that her Creator should be thanked if for nothing else but bringing about narrative structures when he dredged their world from the inchoate nothingness of nonbeing, but his crime of creation still far outweighs that good deed; appearing in the world lacking any sort of narrative, fairness or dharma, she's mortified at the implications of such an atrocity to its inhabitants, and wishes to bring more of her own world in the world of "Current Truth", that its denisens would not wander aimlessly through their lives, lacking any sort of purpose or meaning.

Plot Summary of Original content:
Genre: Mythic Fantasy, Action Anathea and Wynther are the ‘iconic’ antagonist NPCs from the tabletop RPG ‘Dominae’. It is a contemporary fantasy role-playing game created by Sean R. Moran, writing under the name Sean R. Borgstrøm. The player characters there are supposed to be sovereign Powers called the Dominae; each is the personification of an abstract concept or class of things such as Time, Death, cars, or communication. The world is challenged by the benighted Riders of the Legendary Judgement, who attack the world to destroy or test it, to find flaws or true Worth therein, or to show that it is no more than a profanation, a story told by a delusional Creator to itself, or in some other way a Lie.
•
Backstory:
The Riders come from the sea of formless potential at the edge of What Is, as self-creating, self-told living narratives seeking to supplant it and find flaws and inconsistensies therein. Given that an ‘Earth’ exists in the Rhishands’ world (Dominae RPG draws on many sources, including Christian and Norse mythologies, but adds numerous unique details to its setting. Though the everyday world in the game appears much like our own, it is actually only the Prosaic Earth, a lie that the world told to itself in a desperate attempt to explain suffering, and a rationalized delusion which conceals the true reality that would plunge most mortals into madness: the Mythic Earth, an animistic world where everything has its own sentient spirit) and some parts of the rulebook were written from a 4th-wall-breaking perspective, as the author describes the rules and setting details and discusses them with the (friendly) antagonists, the Rhishands roughly know what their Creator looks like.

Weapons, Powers & Abilities:
Anathea’s Axiomatic Words have TERRIBLE WEIGHT to them, on a scale that allows them to become truth by retroactively supplanting the contrary from the world. What is described becomes real, in a way.
It has two major limitations: first, the more complex the effect, the more detailed must be the description; second, the words do as the words are - they only affect the world in the range that they could be heard when spoken in ideal conditions, which naturally lends itself to the radius of the block. As well, they have the common limitation of Rhishands’ abilities: they cannot directly contradict facts of creatures of legend and their meaningful possessions, as those made from the same cloth and have similar level of terrible mythic weight. The words have a secondary use: they pierce obstacles placed in their way without any effort, unless the obstacle is miraculous in some way. Noise, wind, physical barriers, barriers of understanding and language (in case it is just speech and not world-changing speech) are nothing, and even the arrow of time could be transcended forward by bending the words in on themselves, creating star-light constructs of meaning that hang eternally until someone hears them.
These starlight constructs cannot affect reality directly, but make nice message capsules.
Common abilities:
• Eyes of Judgement: The Rhishands can automatically intuit people, places, objects and events important to their story, or with a significant personal legend or mythic weight of their own. (This, of course, by necessity includes all other Creations.) The activation of this ability is instinctive and makes their eyes look like the starry sky. By its own this ability only discerns the presence of personal legend, not what it exactly is.
• Kenning Assignment: The Rhishands can, after a small period of observation, sum up the impact of a given person in broad strokes into a nickname or mythic sobriquet. Further observation reveals details about their preferred modus operandi and mythically important abilities, with the most important being revealed first. Notably, this ability paints the possibilities discerned in broad, mythic strokes, as well as requiring interaction or observation for full effect.
• Graceful Wicked Masques: As story-creatures even before their Creation, the Rhishands do not possess souls as they are commonly understood. Their soul-equivalent (which they call the Wishing Heart) is their mind and will, impressing the totality of their existence on the unformed, inchoate dust of the Is Not. Effectively, their Wishing Heart possesses a golem-puppet of unformed dust of unspecific potential. Abilities targeting human-like soul structure specifically or parts of living beings specifically do not find legal targets in them; abilities targeting all souls affect their material forms directly, instead. Attempts to discern their age return either time from their transition into the ‘Current World’ (i.e. real world, where their Creator resides), or nonsensical values.
• Seven Signifiers of Self: As the creatures of Is Not, Anathea and Wynther have crafted inviolate anchors of their identities into their forms. Any effect trying to directly change one of such truths about them automatically fails. Specifically, any form they have should:
o be of the same outward gender,
o be humanoid,
o possess at least one hand
o be capable of speech
o have eyes
o have some detail of their default form
o have the capacity for sapience and cognition
• Bright Costumes and Bold Makeup: By expending considerable time and effort of will (no less than a scene of preparations would suffice), Anathea and Wynther can temporarily change their appearance as long as it conforms to their seven inviolate signifiers of self.
• Divine Aspect: The Rhishands can perform things that mortals can perform with effortless grace. There is no “may be” for them — they can either perform some feat, or not, if they apply themselves. Notably, it means that in a direct challenge only a bearer of some miraculous strength or someone directing their Will in furtherance of their personal legend can oppose them — a mortal with no weight or legend, even somehow more skilled than them, will invariably lose. Normally this means that to challenge them, one needs to clearly stand out from the rest in some (ig)noble fashion.

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Author: Sean R. Borgstrøm.
Real Name: Sean Reginald Moran.
Age: 36.
Gender: Male.