thewizardguy

Capes of Denver: A Worm RP

After having read through the entirety of Worm last week, I was delighted to find a roleplay on the subject. Made myself a character below, hope he's okay.

the enforcer

Ironclad

Name: Dane Mikael
Alias: Ironclad
Age: 24
Alignment: Anti-Hero
Loyalty: Independent
Appearance: <><><><><><><><><>
History:
Denver's never been the nicest of places, especially for the poor. Not that there are many nice places when you're poor. Growing up in a broken home in a broken neighborhood, surrounded by broken people, Dane was introduced to the real world at a very young age. His life has always been one of hard choices and desperation, and he's seen firsthand what happens to people at the bottom of the barrel. Judgement and abandonment were core aspects of his upbringing, the first from the world and the second from his family. Crime in the area didn't help, and when the Community took over things got that much harder.

In a rather unpleasant life, one moment still did it's best to stand out as particularly horrible. A gunman broke into Dane's house, wounding his sister and making off with what little his family had managed to save up. No powers were involved, and no superhero flew to the rescue. Enraged Dane tried to chase down the gunman himself, managing to track down and corner the robber in a brief chase. Attacking the man was probably a bad idea, and he received a bullet for his trouble. When the police arrived to arrest the gunman they found Dane holding him down, bleeding from a gunshot wound to the side. Luck had protected him, but in his anger he went too far and attacked the cops when they tried to restrain him. The confrontation ended with him beaten senseless and tazed, left on the ground as the police took the gunman into custody. Bleeding, battered, bruised and humiliated, Dane triggered.

With no faith in the system and a need for money, Dane became 'Switchblade', an enforcer for the Community. His height and build made him imposing enough to scare most people into submission, and his powers let him win any fights that did break out. But he never outgrew his hotheadedness, which got him into trouble more than once. When he sent one of his superiors to the hospital the Community decided he was too much of a risk to keep around. They called him into an office, and shot him in the back. The body was dumped in some alley. It was only an unknown quirk of Dane's power that allowed him to survive the shot, and the kindness of a stranger that saved his life. After a week he woke up, after another week he could move again.

Unfortunately, the world did not wait for him. His sister slipped into a catatonic state, and there was no certainty of recovery. His family believed him to be dead, and it might be better for them to keep believing that. If the Community found out he was alive it wouldn't end well. Left purposeless and alone, he relied on his only remaining friend. Alicia Mourn, the woman who had saved him. He told her all he knew, and she forgave him. Told him to use his powers to make a difference. To Dane, that meant fighting the Community. So he discarded his old name, and emerged as a vigilante by the name of 'Ironclad'. Someone who would fight the Community's thugs in the streets, employing a level of violence that more traditional heroes might not be comfortable with.

Personality

Motivations: Dane seeks many things. Vengeance. Justice. Redemption. A release for his anger. Most of all, perhaps, a purpose.
Sexuality: Gay
Likes:

• Fast Food
• Bad Movies
• Working Out

Dislikes:

• Government Supers
• The Community
• Beating Around the Bush

Derangement: While far from a paragon of calmness before his trigger event, Dane's power seems to have fixated on the state of anger that consumed him in that moment. This has driven him to be impulsive, easy to anger, and explosive when angered. He has a hard time containing his own rage sometimes, even when he has the best of intentions.

Parahumanism

Skills:
Brawling - while having never received any official training, Dane knows how to use his size and strength to their fullest.
Intimidation - Dane learned some tricks from his time as a criminal enforcer, enhancing his naturally imposing stature.
Crime - breaking and entering, picking locks, avoiding cops, and other useful tricks.
Classification: Brute/Breaker (little bit of Shifter, according to some)
Details:
Dane is able to absorb any small nonliving object he touches. Small, in this case, means anything with a volume lower than that of his head. Smaller objects are more quickly absorbed than large ones. After absorbing an object Dane is capable of projecting it from his body, having it emerge from his flesh at any point. As 'switchblade' he turned his fingers to knife-claws, or formed brass knuckles on his fists. As 'Ironclad' he uses it to cover his body in a layer of 'scales', consisting of anything from bullets to biking gear and metal chains. He can make various weapons emerge from his body in combat, ranging from metal tubes to knife blades. Objects emerging from his skin can be manipulated as if he were holding them, allowing Dane to do things like rapidly pushing a metal tube outwards to add to the impact of a punch.

A quirk of Dane's power is that objects that are pushed into him are absorbed more quickly. This allowed him to absorb the bullet before it inflicted lethal damage, although he was still mortally wounded. Unfortunately it doesn't have many applications, as this pretty much only works on small physical projectiles. It saved him once, however, and it might save him again.
Limitations:
Nonliving objects can't be absorbed, and large objects take up to a minute to fully absorb. Despite his abilities Ironclad doesn't have any actual enhanced toughness or strength, only his own natural bulk. Lastly electrical systems seem to short out when absorbed, which prevents him from having things like flashlights stored inside his body.
Equipment:
Most of his gear is stored inside of him. He can easily conjure lockpicks, weapons, guns or medical supplies from his body.

A Truly "Gifted" Life (Ignore post count)

So.... Is my character accepted? I usually get a reply somewhere within the next 48 hours.

A Truly "Gifted" Life (Ignore post count)

Sarriah Morn

Full Name: Sarriah Morn
Nicknames/Aliases: Hellion

Age: 21
Gender: Female
Loyalty: Erubesco, Knight

Gift: Rewind
At will, Sarriah is able to step backwards in her own timestream. This affects only her, and nobody else. She moves to where she was at the selected point, and any effects that were applied in the meantime are undone. It functions like an 'undo' button. She's capable of going back up to 10 seconds at a time, effectively negating any damage that was dealt to her in the meantime. However she keeps her memories. When she goes back anything she's holding or wearing goes back as well, even if going back removes the object from her hands. If she was holding a thing and isn't anymore, she'll be holding it again if she goes back. This does not apply to living things, as her power cannot affect living things other than herself. The downside of this power is that it comes with a cooldown. If she moves back 10 seconds, the cooldown is also 10 seconds. This prevents her from simply rewinding infinitely by stacking multiple uses.

The power can also be used in reverse. That is to say, she can jump FORWARDS in time up to 10 seconds. This causes her to freeze in place, frozen in time, until the chosen time. She will move along with a chosen frame of reference (the Earth, usually) but other than that will be completely unaffected by outside forces. It's impossible to harm or affect her until the effect ends. This power has a cooldown, much like her ability to rewind does.

Description:
Sarriah is a tall and athletic woman with dark brown skin and long black hair. She carries herself like she owns the place no matter where she is, and her brownish-blue eyes have an intensity to them that often catches people by surprise. While none would describe her as ugly her build is lean and muscular instead of conventionally attractive, and there is a long scar across her left cheek down to her chin. Considering her line of work, it's only because of her ability that that's her only scar.

Personality:
For years now, Sarriah has been hunting down the enemies of Erebesco. She does it out of a combination of patriotism and channelled anger, a fury that's taken hold of her ever since the death of her parents. While on the surface she may seem calm yet determined, inside she's angry with a kind of cold fury that's been burning up her insides for years now. She tells herself that she does her job to defend innocent lives, to kill the people that need killing. But secretly, in some back corner of her mind, she knows she enjoys it. Enjoys hunting people down and executing them, enforcing her power, being in control. It's only because she suppresses that part of her that she can maintain her guise of civility and even occasionally kindness, although it leaks into her attitude as a sort of strange callousness.


Skills: Highly trained in a variety of weapons and hand-to-hand combat. Sneaky, scary, and can pick a lock. She's had to track down a couple of people and has some decent investigative skills, but doesn't always know how to handle people. Knows a thing or two about surviving in the wilds, but far from a master.

Weaknesses: As long as she's in control, Sarriah is a scary opponent to face indeed. However if you manage to make her lose her temper she loses that control, and becomes far more likely to slip up.

Brief History:
Not so long ago, there existed a group of raiders in the Ashlands who frequently raided the outer suburbs of Erubescos. They used stolen military technology, a lot of them were Erubescan deserters. Trained professionals, with professional gear. They killed and maimed as they pleased, taking whatever they wanted, and then disappeared back into the Ashlands where nobody could track them. On one of their many raids they murdered an unimportant family, all except for the daughter. Killed them in front of her, but left her alive. Maybe they thought she was dead by the end of it. Probably would have been, had the medical team not found her. A small mistake on their part.

Nowadays, they're all dead. Everyone associated with the group was wiped out in a series of government raids. One of the knights assigned to the situation was a woman, who had grown up all alone. It was the government that had sought out and destroyed the Raiders, broken up their supply lines and detaining their civilian contacts. But it was the girl who'd killed them. A small mistake like that came back in a big way. Of course, none of them could have possibly known it. The girl hadn't gloated, hadn't given them a moment's reprieve to tell them about their folly. She'd been quiet the entire time.

By the end of it, you might think the girl would be done. An oath fulfilled, parents avenged, villains slain. Unfortunately, revenge doesn't quite work like that, as she soon found out. All this time she'd just been feeding a part of herself she'd rather not acknowledge, and by the end of it the beast inside her was too big to slay. So she put it to work. Kept moving, allowing external motivation to keep her in the moment. And only very occasionally, did she allow herself to enjoy the little things.

Other: Not sure how to introduce her, but I had the idea in my head. Oh well.

A Truly "Gifted" Life (Ignore post count)

Great! I was in the last one when it died, and hadn't noticed a new version popping up.

I'll have my character up sometime today.

A Truly "Gifted" Life (Ignore post count)

Is this still accepting? Because I'd be interested if it is.

The War of the Three: Exodus

@KoL

I was aware the effect would be more limited on demonic tech and expected a bigger limiter on angelic tech, but it was mainly just an ability that fit with the theme and punished people who fought him with stolen machina tech. The modular design thing would allow him to reform his hand into a sword, for example, and it only really helps against blunt force. Can make it easier to dodge something like a sword slice, but definitely not immunity.

I was expecting that all cloaking would protect from the electro-sense unless it was specifically light-only, although demonic versions being absolute seems a little harsh to me. It also seems strange that undead would be invisible? Did you mean just incorporeal undead, or just being a skeleton? Cuz that seems strange to me.

I'll add the weakness and the copying thing was intended more as a 'style' than an ability. If he fights someone who dual-wields swords than he's likely to make swords out of his plasma in order to copy them. He doesn't gain new abilities or anything like that, his versatile ability just allows him to play monkey-see-monkey-do with his opponents.

While I understand the post being misleading and can agree with your criteria, do you mind terribly if I just declare this one non-canon and go with it? I find writing up posts to be rather time-consuming business, and would prefer to not have to rewrite the whole thing. I can understand adding it to the screening process, but the existing post should function for that purpose even if it doesn't necessarily make sense lore-wise.

Thanks for the review, though ^-^

Tatakai Academy

This looked like fun, so I had two characters I wanted to try out.

Kodan Ban

Name: Kodan Ban
Appearance:

Gender: Male
Age: 18
Year/Level: second year, Level B
Faction/club: none, yet

Power: Switchblade
With a tocuh, Kodan can absorb small objects into his body. Knives, chains, hooks, all kinds of stuff. Anything smaller than a basketball can usually be absorbed. Really dense objects give him some trouble, and long but thin objects are doable as well. These absorbed objects stay inside of him forever, but he can cause them to partially emerge from inside his body. For example, causing a bunch of knives to spring out of his fingers. He can control and move around the objects emerging from his skin as if he were holding them with his hands, such as reeling in a chain or rope even if it's connected to his back. Usually he uses his ability to become unexpectedly spiky just where people were thinking of punching him, but it has a bunch of utility. There's a limit to how many objects Kodan can carry inside of him at any one time and items over that limit are 'digested'. Items he forgets about are usually also 'digested'.

Personality:
Having grown up on the street as much as any home, Kodan's a rough kid. He's used to being looked down on, and he's had to earn any respect he got by fighting for it, tooth and nail. Often literally. As such he hates looking vulnerable, and will always go out of his way to look strong to the people around him. On the streets, showing weakness gets you killed. This mindset often lands him into trouble as he'll answer any provocation, and never backs down from a fight. However if you can put up with his standoffish ways and he takes a liking to you, he'll be as loyal a friend as anyone could hope for. Not that he's ever had many of those.

He's practical, straightforward, and honest. He has a hard time trusting honest friendship or kindness, and has a tendency to see the worst in people. But he's determined to make his way in this world, and he's not going to let anyone stop him.

Bio:
Kodan's circumstances are tragic, but unfortunately nothing special. His dad left him at a young age, his mom become a drug addict. He ran away from home at the age of 12, moving from place to place while scrounging for food. He spent a long time on the streets, occasionally being picked up by social workers but never staying in their care long. It's a time in his life Kodan doesn't like to talk about. But his fighting prowess and surprisingly astute mind earned him a scholarship at Tatakai Academy. He's been working side jobs to afford to stay, but here at least he'll be able to earn his way through school using the skills he learned on the streets.

Theme:

Kalia Wren

Name: Kalia Wren
Appearance:

Gender: Female
Age: 18
Year/Level: Second Year, Level A
Faction/club: 'Blue Monarch'

Power: Stopwatch
At will, Kalia is able to rewind time for herself, up to 10 seconds at a time. She effectively moves backwards to where she was, and anything that affected her in those 10 seconds is reversed. The rest of the world, however, is unaffected. At a glance this can look like a combination of teleportation and regeneration, as it gives Kalia the ability to negate injuries and to surprise her opponents with strange and unexpected movements. She can 'undo' any action she takes, but the consequences will still be there for others. So if you stab her she'll just 'un-stab' herself. Her strategy is to overwhelm people with her attacks while undoing any attempts at a counter, keeping her enemy off balance and preventing them from understanding how her power works.

The one real weakness of her power is that it has a cooldown. Once she jumps back she can't jump back again until an amount of time has passed equal to the amount of time she reversed. So if she goes back 5 seconds, she needs to wait 5 seconds. So right after she uses her power she's the most vulnerable.

If necessary Kalia's also able to use her power in reverse, jumping 'forwards' in time. From an outside perspective this means she freezes in place, completely impervious to any and all damage until she unfreezes. She can't move of use her power while frozen, and it has a cooldown just like her rewind, but her indestructibility makes it more than worth it. More than one person aimed to land a solid blow, only to break their own hands or impale themselves on her suddenly iron-hard hair.

Personality:
The world belongs to those with the power to take it. And even if it doesn't, what are you going to do about it? Kalia is powerful, and she knows she's powerful. Everyone else does, too, and that's just the way she likes it. She's the kind of person who enjoys lording over people, and always gets what she wants. Even if she doesn't admitted she craves validation and praise. And the best praise comes from the people she's bested. Anyone who manages to earn Kalia's ire is swiftly dealt with in the most humiliating way possible. Even if she can win there's no point if she can't make it look easy. Of course all this is to deal with Kalia's own feelings of insecurity, which manifests as cruelty and simmering hatred for those who do manage to defeat her. Not that there are many people like that.

Bio:
Having been bullied at an early age, Kalia quickly dealt with her oppressors once she received her powers. With an ability like this she could deal with anyone who tried to lay a finger on her. Intoxicated with power Kalia quickly dealt with anyone who ever hurt her, and made them bow at her feet. She then dealt with anyone she didn't like. And when she ran out of those, she just dealt with people because she could. It wasn't that she enjoyed the fighting, although she certainly wasn't averse to it. Rather she loved the winning. And she loved the respect and fear she earned from it. After arriving at Tatakai Academy Kalia swiftly revealed herself to be a dangerous fighter, dealing with anyone who questioned her superiority. She beat the lower-class members into submission and then kept them around. Some chose to follow her out of admiration for her strength, others because she'd told them to and they were too afraid to disobey.

When she first arrived at the school, Kalia seemed convinced she belonged on the student council. Despite her questionable morals she did have good grades, and certainly possessed the skill to be a candidate. While she was suspected of using her power outside of schooltime there was never any real evidence for it, and she continued to do as she pleased. At a certain point she challenged a member of the student council to a fight with the council position on the line. She lost, and badly. She was able to regain her A-classification after a bit, but the perceived humiliation of it angered her greatly. Since that event she's become even more violent, with her followers creating 'Blue Monarch', an organisation that rigs fights by blackmailing participants with threats of violence. It's a ruthless group and nobody likes them, but Kalia is happy to 'help' raise the rankings of anyone who works for her.

Theme:

Two prideful characters, a hero and a 'villain'. Both with weird powers, because I enjoy weird powers.

This Right Here? : Say Anything!

This seems like fun, but wouldn't it make more sense as 'Free' than 'Casual'? Based on the opening post it seems that there will be no such things as posting standards.

Regardless, I might throw a character at this just for kicks.

The War of the Three: Exodus

Figured I'd throw in a Machina character, cuz I never got to play one of those.

Hider

Name: Daedalus
Allegiance/Faction: Machina
Race: Android
Appearance: to be added

Backstory:
A miracle of technology, all in the Machina venerate High Queen Eos. Everyone shows this veneration in different ways but Arch-577, a semi-sentient automated production factory, showed it through copying. They say copying is the sincerest form of flattery, after all. As such Arch-577 began on creating a second Eos. Copy isn't the right word, perhaps. A better word might be 'Tribute'. The Daedalus was designed to capture both the stunning power and grace of Eos, a shadow image that would carry the will of the Machian to the battlefront. Something akin to a Machina 'Captain America', designed to mirror the Machine Empress. An extension of her mighty will, and a most effective tool at her disposal.

Many prototypes were thrown out before work began on the concept that would eventually become the first functioning Daedalus model. Both beautiful and terrifyingly effective, the Daedalus resembled an angel made of metal on the field of battle. Of course several sacrifices had to be made in order to create this model. The technology incorporated elements of forgotten 'ancient' technology in the power core in order to make the idea even remotely feasible. While many other models were created with some degree of combat potential, none were able to match the Daedalus.

In the end it's unknown if Eos was ever a fan of this strange imitation. Daedalus was a powerful weapon, and thus was sent into battle.

Powers:
[Magnetic Field Manipulation]
The main technology Daedalus was designed around, the ability to manipulate electromagnetic fields. Can use these to move around anything magnetic, including most metals and it's own body. By ionising and superheating air Daedalus is capable of generating plasma, which can then be manipulated through use of the electromagnetic field control. Fields of plasma can be used to form forcefields, projectiles, and weapons for Daedalus to wield. Plasma generation usually happens around or near Daedalus, preventing him from generating a bunch of plasma explosions halfway across the map. He actually needs to 'throw' them at the enemy, accelerating them with magnetism in much the same way a railgun works. Electricity generation can also be used to generate an ionised tunnel of air and then send a bolt of lightning through it, much like lightning works in nature. However this is generally far less effective.

[Electromagnetic Burst]
By simply firing waves of electromagnetism Daedalus is capable of disabling enemy technology. This knocks most enemy tech out of the air for a few moments, or at least causes it to fritz out. Biological targets can be 'microwaved' by exposing them over an extended period of time. This ability also has a tendency to disrupt communication.

[Modular Design]
Daedalus is in fact designed from pieces not solidly attached to one another, but instead held together by a powerful magnetic field. This allows him to spontaneously alter it's design to bring out components usually stored internally. It also allows it's body to be seperated and put back together again, so long as the individual components are not destroyed. A quite effective defense mechanism against blunt impact force.

[Sentinel Package]
Capable of using electromagnetic fields to sense it's environment. Considering most anything naturally has or produces an electromagnetic field of some kind this is a fairly effective medium, and in fact replaces more traditional sensors. It grants Daedalus 360 vision and the ability to 'see' around corners and through walls. As well as to detect a number of things not clear to the bare eye.

Resistances & Immunities: Incredibly resistant to heat.
Weaknesses: If it's power is negated/drained it's body will quite literally fall apart. Like any Machina technology, Daedalus is vulnerable to demonic corruption.
Skills: Capable of analyzing and copying enemy moves. Becomes more dangerous the more information it has.
Weapons & Equipment: Will often bring specialised weaponry to the table depending on the task at hand. Standardly brings proximity mines and monomolecular blades.

Sample Post:

Hider

Unleashing inhuman shrieks into the night, the hellhounds tore across the battlefield. Their bloodsoaked forms bounded across the dark red stone as they hunted down what remained of the armoured squadron. A small group of soldiers moved steadily backwards unleashing pulses of bright red light from their rifles at the incoming demons. One of the beasts was struck several times, the hardlight beam simultaneously impaling it and cooking most of it's insides, and it went down with a gurgling wail. Another simply screeched, unleashing a series of thin needles from within the folds of it's flesh that embedded themselves into the visors and helmets of several soldiers. Behind them a city burned, razed to the ground by a horde of demons emerging from a rift in the sky. Several more shrieks heralded the arrival of flying warbeasts, and the sergeant barked a full retreat over the communicator even as he unleashed a final volley against the encroaching demonic forces. One of the beasts emerged from thin air, still crackling with demonic red energy. It's jaws closed on his rifle and bit it clean in half, forcing the sergeant back. Ripping one of the needles from his armour he charged the beast, impaling it through the throat even as it's snapping jaws reached for his face.

Suddenly a bright streak of light moved across the sergeant's vision and the beast was hurled from it's feet. A large smoking hole had opened in it's side leaving it twitching and dying on the ground. Bolts of light rained from the sky, ripping through the demonic horde like a rain of falling stars. A hellhound dodged to the side only to have the radiant orb follow it's movements, slicing through the beast and then dissipating into nothingness. Awestruck, the sergeant gazed up at what he could only describe as a miracle.

Two massive wings of radiant blue light held aloft a featureless figure of clean metal. It hovered far above the battlefield, as if judging all that it saw. Blue fire spilled forth from one of it's hands, consuming a nearby winged beast as it was sent crashing to the ground. Shafts of blue light formed around it, before launching themselves at the demons on the ground. Incoming balls of flame and needles were were intercepted by a lighter blue light flaring around the being, as if they had struck a forcefield of some kind. Silently, the sergeant dropped what remained of his weapon.

The demons were retreating.

Other:

The War of the Three: Exodus

@TheWindel

Would that be two bodies destroyed, or would just switching bodies on his own time count towards this limit? Because I imagine just switching bodies normally wouldn't contribute to a time limit, it'd just give him some nice versatility.

His regen factor should be fine, though, considering it's his only real defensive ability. Most of his bodies are going to be fairly easy to deal with, taking serious damage from every attack. Kind of needs wolverine-y regen in order to not get rapidly destroyed in any combat. If he also has a 2-body limit, I'd prefer him to at least be able to get some mileage out of said bodies.

@KoL

My intention had been to throw out a bunch of 'hooks' that could easily be fitted into whatever story threads were already being woven. Glad to see that worked out ^-^

Also, just to specify on the technology vs incorporeal thing, your post seems to imply that all machina combat technology is already 'tuned' to fight incorporeal entities. Like, their weapons all have anti-ghost functions built in to the weapon. Whereas I would assume this to generally not be the case, and that most of the time they'd need at least a separate, specialised weapon for that.

Not trying to undermine you here, just asking for some clarification. Promise I'll shut up if you answer me.