Xiro Zean

Xiro's Children

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx B A S I C I N F O [Name] Insert Text Here [Callsign] Insert Text Here [Gender] Insert Text Here [Age] Insert Text Here [Rank and Designation] Insert Rank Here Pilot / Insert Rank Here Constellation [Place of Birth] Insert Planet Here C O M B A T A B I L I T Y [Remove Section if Pilot] [Anti-Barrier Sword] Insert Number and Name Here [Anti-Barrier Quotient] Insert Percentage Here; recommended number being above 10% to affect Aberrant barriers. Higher Quotient of AB material makes for more fragile weapons. [Physical Description] Insert Physical Description Here [Attributes] Insert Auxiliary Ability Aside From Hitting Things Here If Applicable [Remove Section if Constellation] [Mech Model] Insert Name and Number Here [Type] Insert General Purpose/s Here i.e. Crowd-Control, Tank-Buster, Hyper Mobility, Interstellar Combatant, etc. [Size] Insert Height and Weight of Mech Here; limited to 60 feet in height. [Core] Insert Core Rank Here; limited to Delta-Class below 40 foot size and to Epsilon above. [Armaments] Insert Weapons and Gadgets Here Limited to one per limb [Remove Section if Non-Applicable] [Anomaly] Insert Name Here [Origin] Insert Progenitor/Off-shoot Name Here [Phenomena] Insert Description of Ability here [Limitation] Insert Description of Limit/Cost here

Profile [Surface-level Impression] Insert Brief Description Of Character Here; Can Be List Of Personality Traits. [Personal History] Insert History Here Home World [Planet Description] Insert Text Here [Culture] Insert Text Pertaining To Homeworld Culture Here [Warrior Family] Insert Text Pertaining to Warrior Family if Applicable Here; Mandatory For Anomaly Users

The Things We Fight For, A Science Fantasy Space Opera

If we're dropping questions, the "pilot" term gives me Titanfall related ideas, so my questions would mainly be what's the scale of pilot's equipment? Are these mobile suits/armored exoskeletons or full-on building sized mecha (or is it anything goes?)?

I think I could probably cook up an idea for pilot or constellation since they both have fun angles to play.

@Crowvette

While there are definitely giant robots in the military's arsenal, the Pilots that support Constellations are usually in mechs around twenty to fifty feet tall. Fast enough to be used as transport in a tough situation (and occasionally to keep up with particularly speedy Constellations), while still capable of sustained fire against a wide variety of foes.

Pilots need to be able to deal with any sort of threat aimed at their Constellations, as making their charges waste energy against chaff that aren't the intended elites they're sent to fight might get them killed. Most Constellations are still very much human, and very quick to be felled by energy weapon fire, so swarms of mooks, mobile artillery platforms and enemy giant robots are some of what Pilots have to be able to clear.

The Things We Fight For, A Science Fantasy Space Opera

@Xiro Zean Cooking ideas, I got a couple questions:
1. Can a Constellation start off as an ordinary civilian and only discover their talents (inc Anomaly powers) later?
2. How crazy are we allowed to go for Anomalies? Is something like Gundam 00 Raiser-style quantization allowed?
3. Can Constellations and Pilots operate in deep space?
4. Will the RP have a Discord?

@Izurich

1) Yes! Usually, Anomaly powers are relegated to certain bloodlines, aka warrior families, but ordinary people suddenly developing them later in life is an uncommon but possible event. All Anomaly are off-shoots of the original five Progenitors, however, and those that discover their Anomaly always have someone within their family tree that had been born from the Progenitor families.
2) Anomalies are effectively space magic. I've already gotten DMs about generating flames, psychokinetic constructs, and yes, short ranged teleportation. There are definitely limits, but that's all up for debate.
3) Constellations require a device that generates a thin layer of defensive film to protect them from the vacuum of space while also supplying them with oxygen for a limited time (think the wacky little discs used in the Guardians of the Galaxy 2 film), but mech driven by Pilots have configurations useable for space-oriented combat. Maybe not able to traverse the stars on their own, but certainly fight off Aberrant threats that attempt a spaceship boarding raid.
4) More than likely. If it does, I will have the link in the first couple of posts of the OOC

The Things We Fight For, A Science Fantasy Space Opera

If you know, you know 😁

@Xiro Zean

The Things We Fight For, A Science Fantasy Space Opera

Well damn, didn’t expect this much interest so fast, but fuck it we ball.

OOC will be up within the week. This is also my formal warning that when it goes up, players will have two weeks to draft up their sheets and post them. After the two weeks, or after I hit 12ish CSs (or whenever I feel like it’d be disingenuous to wait longer), I’ll cherry pick the ones I think I can plot story beats around and draft up a finalized group of around 6-8, but more than likely eight.

If you need me for more info if you’re interested, just write something in the forum. It’s 2 AM and I’m BEAT

The Things We Fight For, A Science Fantasy Space Opera

If you know, you know 😁

The Things We Fight For, A Science Fantasy Space Opera

The year is 3098, 286 on the Interstellar Calendar. Humanity has spread across the stars, settling on hundreds of planets in dozens of galaxies, exploring the cosmos far beyond what they once believed was possible... and combatting an enemy that threatens their entire species.

Aberrants, an alien force technologically evolved to annihilate the human race, corrode the planets they settle upon, using both the soil and the beings upon it as fuel for their unceasing crusade.

And yet, in a universe where the encroaching darkness seems set to consume everything, a light continues to flicker desperately to survive. Those willing to fight against it.

---

The Things We Fight For is a Science Fantasy roleplay (with some emphasis on “Fantasy”) centered around humanity’s struggles, both against the dangerous alien race and their own internal strife.

Players will be dropped in the middle of an intergalactic war as either a Constellation, a member of an elite force that use unique but sparce weapons to combat the most dangerous units of the alien threat, or a Pilot, members of the military that use mechanized units to protect their allies and annihilate their foes.

They face the Aberrants, a race of bio-technical, usually humanoid lifeforms that are both inexhaustible and numerous. Everything, from their infantry to their artillery, bases to ships, are sapient with various levels of intelligence, their military force greater than humanity's in nearly all aspects. Their dominance is possible through the Cores naturally formed in every Abberant, requiring fairly little in return for a high energy yield, powering their weapons, forms of transportation, and near-impenetrable barriers for their upper class soldiers that most forms of human firepower are incapable of penetrating.

Only with the use of a scarce anti-barrier material, utilized in the form of melee weaponry, can the elite force of humanity stand against them. Constellations. Prodigies among prodigies, talented even among the talented, they are a highly trained special forces that can battle toe-to-toe with the Abberant's strongest units, supplemented by defensive clothing that resists radiation from laser weaponry and technological augments that allow their bodies to perform superhuman feats. Some even possess abnormal powers, Anomaly, passed down through their bloodlines capable of phenomena beyond human comprehension.

Even with such powerful fighters at their disposal, however, they are only so many Abberants they can fight at a time. Specialized in one-on-one fights to terminate elite units, Constellations struggle to deal with the hordes of lower-grade Abberants that constantly get in their way. Pilots fill in this weakness, their mechanized suits both mobile enough to keep up with Constellations and equipped to mow down crowds of alien soldiers while also able to whether through enemy fire. Yet, without a Constellation to deal with the barriers on high-ranked Abberants, they are little more than heaps of metal, creating a symboitic bond of sorts between Constellations and Pilots.

Together, they engage the Abberant threat, clearing the path for the military to liberate the lost planets, and protect those still untouched by the persistent swarm. A light in the darkness, leading the rest of humanity toward a brighter future.

---

• Looking for around six to eight players, with a 50/50 ratio between Constellations and Pilots or leaning Constellations.
• Posts will be expected at least once every two weeks, with GM posts coming as soon as posting cycles are completed or the time period hits the deadline.
• Expect setting to be fairly bleak, with the situation in the alien’s favor at first, becoming more hopeful as victories pile up, and for victories to come at a price.

Pariah Online

Hustle

H U S T L E
H U S T L E

^{"Your mind was more fragile than your body. Where’s your determination to sink or swim?"}

C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T _________________________________________________________ C H A R A C T E R D A T A C H A R A C T E R D A T A _________________________________________________________ True Self Kei Takahashi Persona Hustle Pathos Thyrien Role DPS Weapons of Choice Katana and Magitech Sidearm Domains Wind Enhancement Manifestation Illusion Playstyle & Attitude Hyper Mobile Burst Damage; Hit & Run; Showoff

K E I T A K A H A S H I: S T A Y - H O M E N E R D K E I T A K A H A S H I: S T A Y - H O M E N E R D ________________________________________________________________________________________ Kei’s life could be summarized as easily as his living conditions, a solitary bubble where his only interaction with the world outside was through food deliveries to his apartment, strangers on the internet and the occasional work calls by his employers. The clacking of fingers on a keyboard and the hum of electrical appliances were the only sounds he was familiar with, his own voice foreign to him during the few and far between times he was required to use it. If pressed, he couldn’t even tell someone what he looked like, doing the bare minimum for personal upkeep and entirely focused on his hobbies. There was no decisive incident that caused him to shut himself inside, no traumatic or inciting event where he’d withdrawn from the world. It’s simply what happened after he’d graduated college, with no lasting friendships to keep him engaged nor family that cared enough to coax him out, Kei simply found no reason to leave the comfort of his home. Social interaction was a draining process, and while there were times he felt despondent over his lack of meaningful relationships, scrolling internet forums and conversing with fellow users was able to stave off the feeling. It wasn’t necessarily a fulfilling life, but with time it became his normal, and he wasn’t too hurried to change it. If there was one thing to remember of him, it was that Kei was a cinephile for western cowboy movies and antique media. Early into his self-imposed solitary confinement, he had been emailed a zipped folder of files accidentally by a client during their correspondence, which instead of holding required documents was filled with video files dated at least a century old. Though at first it was only curiosity that made him watch the first, interest pushed him to watch another, and soon he'd completed the whole collection and ask the client for more. Stories of a wandering hero, a lone gunman freeing a town and riding off into the sunset, the tense duels where a single quick draw decided the matter of life or death. For the bored shut-in, who had already forgotten what the sun's rays felt like, they were like an injection of morphine into his flatlining life, and he'd quickly become obsessed with the ideals and virtues of the western gunslinger. But in the recent years, another hobby had grabbed hold of his attention, and had taken over his life just as quickly. A VR Deep Dive game that promised a unique experience that no other platform could emulate, allowing the user to live a fantasy life as their ideal self. Spending his spare cash that did nothing but rot in his bank account, Kei quickly began to grind the game as soon as he realized it’s potential. Why watch a movie when he could live one? Going on larger-than-life adventures, not as a spectator, but as the protagonist. His already tenuous grip on the real world slipping away with each dive, it was a wonder that he still remembered to log off and feed himself when his body needed it. H U S T L E: L O N E W A N D E R E R H U S T L E: L O N E W A N D E R E R ________________________________________________________________________________________ Even in a world where you could live as the ideal self, Kei found many difficulties with overcoming his personal issues at first. Though his virtual body had none of the physical deficiencies he allowed to ruin his real one, the mental disconnect held him back, many of his first conversations in Pariah ending as the other party couldn't take his constant stuttering and inability to continue basic back-and-forth. His appearance couldn't make up for the deficiencies of the person behind it, and eventually he realized he had to change his approach. While he wasn't well-versed in the subject, his time surfing the web made him knowledgeable of the roleplaying hobby, and he thought of no better way to embody the ideal his mind had crafted. Using a caricature of a personality to distance himself by a degree from other people, it became easier to interact with them, and with practice it became second-nature to slip into the role of Hustle. Hustle was nothing like Kei. Kei was a nervous wreck who had difficulty looking delivery workers in the eye, someone who looked over everything meticulously at least five times before doing so five more, scared of even the slightest bit of conflict between people and unwilling to take risks. Hustle threw himself into problems without a second thought, bravely staring down both monsters and rival players with self-assured confidence, helping both NPCs and players no matter the risk before walking off toward the sunset. Emulating the western gunmen he idolized. Though of course, he couldn't completely shed who he was at first, breaking down into incoherent stammering each time he messed up a line or froze up at the sight of something even remotely resembling an altercation between people. It took him several days before he could meet someone's gaze without flinching, and even more to finish a conversation without making a mistake. But thankfully, the NPCs were almost more lifelike than regular people so he had ample opportunity to practice during side quests, and the more he divorced himself from the character the easier it became. Something quite easy when his appearance wasn't even the same race. By the time he'd fully developed the Hustle persona, it became simple to chalk up anything he did in the game as simply something he was observing. Like watching a first-person movie. But even after all his effort, Hustle settled with solo play more often than not. The personality he crafted was abrasive at times to other players, and no matter how good he got at faking his expressions, it was hard keeping up an act while being berated by someone who was annoyed by the archetypal quicks that came with his persona. Clearing dungeons took longer, and it took many weeks and nearly months before he figured out a playstyle that suited it, but eventually he began being known for completing content near entirely solo. With a flashy playstyle that looked good in replays, a unique themed attire adapted to the game's fantasy setting, and his strange internet persona he never let break while online, clips of his gameplay became viral on certain internet forums. Whether that be praising his highly technical gameplay, or as a warning to other players as to what an efficient but impractical build looked like. Yet, completely unaware of his own infamy, Hustle continued to play the game as he liked, living up to the fantasy of a person he couldn't dream of being in the real world.

---

Spells & Spell-like Abilities

Lonely Are The Brave
_{The centerpiece of Hustle's kit, a utility spell that allows the user to 'blink' across a targeted distance after a short delay, manifesting his own body at the new location by shimmering
out of and back into existence. With a half-second interval between disappearance and arrival within forty feet, increasing up to three seconds at three hundred feet, the ability acts as both an engage, evasion, and traversal tool for a variety of situations. While able to be used consecutively, and appear and activate even in mid air, he can only activate the spell five times in a row before requiring a few moments to recover from nausea or risk violent vomiting.}

The Long Riders
_{Hustle’s ability to create illusionary copies may seem meager at first glance, materializing shimmering facsimiles of his figure after a moment of concentration within a hundred feet of his line of sight. Their shapes clearly fabricated through magic, the clones’ true purpose is to act as an anchor or a marker, accelerating the process of Hustle’s teleportation to near instantaneous and orienting him in a similar manner to the clone. Effective they may be at the task, they are limited, fragile and transient, only three maintainable at the same time, dispelled by any reasonably strong force and only lasting for half a minute after casting before naturally fading.}

No Name on the Bullet
_{Using a fired magitech bullet as a focus, Hustle can channel magical energy to form copies from wind, turning one projectile into dozens to rain down upon a targeted area. Perfect for suppressing groups of small fry, pinning down a mobile opponent behind cover, or slowing down sizeable foes, but not recommended for use when friendlies are within the line of fire. Limited by the use of high speed projectiles fired from the user's position, as replicating the velocity and uniformity of other projectiles is difficult without a loss in effectiveness.}

They Died With Their Boots On
_{Utilizing a combination of magical and physical force, Hustle can lock down area by executing a sheathed sword swipe at maximum speed enhanced by the aid of wind magic. Powerful wind blades appear within the target red location, assaulting anything within it with several cutting blows with sharpness no different than his own blade. If centered upon himself, the blades of wind instead spread out in a small dome around his figure, repelling close-range opponents and defending from small arms ranged fire. To a lesser extent, the ability can instead affect his crossbow bolts, increasing their speed and subsequentially penetration power by parting the along the projectile's path. Difficult to use in quick succession.}

Lone Star
_{Hustle's dramatic finishing tool. Requiring a long channel time and complete focus, when given ample opportunity the activation of this ability wreathes his body and weapon in a magical coat of wind. In this enhanced state, his body is unfettered by air friction and his usual bodily limits, moving with magnified speed. The swings of his blade strikes multiple times, blades of wind following its course only a moment later, allowing the several seconds the ability is active to become a frightening whirlwind of offense. When the coat fades, however, so does the enhanced abilities, leaving him exhausted and staggered for an extended period of time.}

Character Feats

Keenly Perceptive
_{While never able to check if he was suitable for it in the real world, Hustle's situational awareness during gameplay has proven to be one of his strongest assets, never befuddled by what happens around him during the chaos of combat. Cognizant of everything that happens within his sphere of influence and within his line of sight, perhaps in part caused by his need to constantly keep up his persona, its difficult to catch him off-guard without ample preparation. Similarly, even when his abilities move his body in ways that would disorient most, Hustle is able to tell exactly where and how he's oriented at all times, keeping up his momentum without losing a beat.}

King of Frauds
_{Everything about Hustle's persona is a lie, one carefully crafted by the person behind it and refined to the point of being near unrecognizable as an act. Finding fault in what he says, no matter how ridiculous, is frustratingly troublesome, and figuring out his true feeling on matters even more so. Unless, somehow, the person doing so makes a crack in his guise, coaxing out the human behind the idealized cowboy.}

Obsessively Precise
_{Playing as he does is not easy, nor is it practical, requiring inhuman reflexes far beyond what most people are naturally capable of. Something Hustle doesn't have. He instead relies on observation and numbers to do the job for him, using rapid calculations to determine the speed of approaching variables and acting accordingly. Memorizing frame data or timing, analyzing habits, taking mental notes of everything he perceives until his reactions become terrifyingly similar to precognition without actually being so.}

Library of Random Facts
_{Incredibly cagey about facts about himself, Hustle instead fills the lack of a reasonable answer with incredibly specific, mostly useless trivia he learned while surfing the web. With nothing better to do aside from watching movies during his free time before Pariah, he'd collected so many ridiculously fringe facts in his brain that you could probably ask him about anything and he'd have something to say about it. From insect biology to nautical nomenclature and cultural traditions to space discoveries, he'll say anything if it means staving off any sort of personal authenticity.}

Xiro's Children

H U S T L E
H U S T L E

^{"Your mind was more fragile than your body. Where’s your determination to sink or swim?"}

C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T _________________________________________________________ C H A R A C T E R D A T A C H A R A C T E R D A T A _________________________________________________________ True Self Kei Takahashi Persona Hustle Pathos Thyrien Role DPS Weapons of Choice Katana and Crossbow Repeater Domains Wind Enhancement Manifestation Illusion Playstyle & Attitude Hyper Mobile Burst Damage; Hit & Run; Showoff

K E I T A K A H A S H I: S T A Y - H O M E N E R D K E I T A K A H A S H I: S T A Y - H O M E N E R D ________________________________________________________________________________________ Kei’s life could be summarized as easily as his living conditions, a solitary bubble where his only interaction with the world outside was through food deliveries to his apartment, strangers on the internet and the occasional work calls by his employers. The clacking of fingers on a keyboard and the hum of electrical appliances were the only sounds he was familiar with, his own voice foreign to him during the few and far between times he was required to use it. If pressed, he couldn’t even tell someone what he looked like, doing the bare minimum for personal upkeep and entirely focused on his hobbies. There was no decisive incident that caused him to shut himself inside, no trauma or inciting event where he’d withdrawn from the world. It’s simply what happened after he’d graduated college, with no lasting friendships to keep him engaged nor family to coax him out, Kei simply found no reason to leave the comfort of his home. Social interaction was a draining process, and while there were times he felt despondent over his lack of meaningful relationships, scrolling internet forums and conversing with fellow users was able to stave off the feeling. It wasn’t necessarily a fulfilling life, but with time it became his normal, and he wasn’t too hurried to change it. If there was one thing to remember of him, it was that Kei was a cinephile for western cowboy movies and antique media. Early into his self-imposed solitary confinement, he had been emailed a zipped folder of files accidentally by a client during their correspondence, which instead of holding required documents was filled with video files dated at least a century old. Though at first it was only curiosity that made him watch the first, interest pushed him to watch another, and soon he'd completed the whole collection and ask the client for more. Stories of a wandering hero, a lone gunman freeing a town and riding off into the sunset, the tense duels where a single quick draw decided the matter of life or death. For the bored shut-in, who had already forgotten what the sun's rays felt like, they were like an injection of morphine into his flatlining life, and he'd quickly become obsessed with the ideals and virtues of the western gunslinger. But in the recent years, another hobby had grabbed hold of his attention, and had taken over his life just as quickly. A VR Deep Dive game that promised a unique experience that no other platform could emulate, allowing the user to live a fantasy life as their ideal self. Spending his spare cash that did nothing but rot in his bank account, Kei quickly began to grind the game as soon as he realized it’s potential. Why watch a movie when he could live one? Going on larger-than-life adventures, not as a spectator, but as the protagonist. His already tenuous grip on the real world slipping away with each dive, it was a wonder that he still remembered to log off and feed himself when his body needed it. H U S T L E: L O N E W A N D E R E R H U S T L E: L O N E W A N D E R E R ________________________________________________________________________________________ Even in a world where you could live as the ideal self, Kei found many difficulties with overcoming his personal issues at first. Though his virtual body had none of the physical deficiencies he allowed to ruin his real one, the mental disconnect held him back, many of his first conversations in Pariah ending as the other party couldn't take his constant stuttering and inability to continue basic back-and-forth. His appearance couldn't make up for the deficiencies of the person behind it, and eventually he realized he had to change his approach. While he wasn't well-versed in the subject, his time surfing the web made him knowledgeable of the roleplaying hobby, and he thought of no better way to embody the ideal his mind had crafted. Using a caricature of a personality to distance himself by a degree from other people, it became easier to interact with them, and with practice it became second-nature to slip into the role of Hustle. Hustle was nothing like Kei. Kei was a nervous wreck who had difficulty looking delivery workers in the eye, someone who looked over everything meticulously at least five times before doing so five more, scared of even the slightest bit of conflict between people and unwilling to take risks. Hustle threw himself into problems without a second thought, bravely staring down both monsters and rival players with self-assured confidence, helping both NPCs and players no matter the risk before walking off toward the sunset. Emulating the western gunmen he idolized. Though of course, he couldn't completely shed who he was at first, breaking down into incoherent stammering each time he messed up a line or froze up at the sight of something even remotely resembling an altercation between people. It took him several days before he could meet someone's gaze without flinching, and even more to finish a conversation without making a mistake. But thankfully, the NPCs were almost more lifelike than regular people so he had ample opportunity to practice during side quests, and the more he divorced himself from the character the easier it became. Something quite easy when his appearance wasn't even the same race. By the time he'd fully developed the Hustle persona, it became simple to chalk up anything he did in the game as simply something he was observing. Like watching a first-person movie. But even after all his effort, Hustle settled with solo play more often than not. The personality he crafted was abrasive at times to other players, and no matter how good he got at faking his expressions, it was hard keeping up an act while being berated by someone who was annoyed by the archetypal quicks that came with his persona. Clearing dungeons took longer, and it took many weeks and nearly months before he figured out a playstyle that suited it, but eventually he began being known for completing content near entirely solo. With a flashy playstyle that looked good in replays, a unique themed attire adapted to the game's fantasy setting, and his strange internet persona he never let break while online, clips of his gameplay became viral on certain internet forums. Whether that be praising his highly technical gameplay, or as a warning to other players as to what an efficient but impractical build looked like. Yet, completely unaware of his own infamy, Hustle continued to play the game as he liked, living up to the fantasy of a person he couldn't dream of being in the real world.

---

Spells & Spell-like Abilities

Lonely Are The Brave
_{The centerpiece of Hustle's kit, a utility spell that allows the user to 'blink' across a targeted distance after a short delay, manifesting his own body at the new location by shimmering
out of and back into existence. With a half-second interval between disappearance and arrival within twenty feet, increasing up to three seconds at two hundred feet, the ability acts as both an engage, evasion, and traversal tool for a variety of situations. While able to be used consecutively, and appear and activate even in mid air, he can only activate the spell five times in a row before requiring a few moments to recover from nausea or risk violent vomiting.}

The Long Riders
_{Hustle’s ability to create illusionary copies may seem meager at first glance, materializing shimmering facsimiles of his figure after a moment of concentration within a hundred feet of his line of sight. Their shapes clearly fabricated through magic, the clones’ true purpose is to act as an anchor or a marker, accelerating the process of Hustle’s teleportation to near instantaneous. Effective they may be at the task, they are limited, fragile and transient, only three maintainable at the same time, dispelled by any reasonably strong force and only lasting for half a minute after casting before naturally fading.}

They Died With Their Boots On
_{Utilizing a combination of magical and physical force, Hustle can lock down area by executing a sheathed sword swipe at maximum speed enhanced by the aid of wind magic. Powerful wind blades appear within the target red location, assaulting anything within it with several cutting blows with sharpness no different than his own blade. If centered upon himself, the blades of wind instead spread out in a small dome around his figure, repelling close-range opponents and defending from small arms ranged fire.}

No Name on the Bullet
_{Firing a crossbow bolt into the air, the user manifests several magic copies of the projectile on the way down, raining down onto a targeted area.}

Lone Star
_{After channeling for several seconds, wreath the user's body and weapon in a coat of wind, increasing their speed and enhancing attacks with follow-up slices of wind. Lasts for several seconds before fading, leaving the user exhausted and staggered.}

Character Feats

Keenly Perceptive
_{While never able to check if he was suitable for it in the real world, Hustle's situational awareness during gameplay has proven to be one of his strongest assets, never befuddled by what happens around him during the chaos of combat. Cognizant of everything that happens within his sphere of influence and within his line of sight, perhaps in part caused by his need to constantly keep up his persona, its difficult to catch him off-guard without ample preparation. Similarly, even when his abilities move his body in ways that would disorient most, Hustle is able to tell exactly where and how he's oriented at all times, keeping up his momentum without losing a beat.}

King of Frauds
_{Everything about Hustle's persona is a lie, one carefully crafted by the person behind it and refined to the point of being near unrecognizable as an act. Finding fault in what he says, no matter how ridiculous, is frustratingly troublesome, and figuring out his true feeling on matters even more so. Unless, somehow, the person doing so makes a crack in his guise, coaxing out the human behind the idealized cowboy.}

Obsessively Precise
_{Playing as he does is not easy, nor is it practical, requiring inhuman reflexes far beyond what most people are naturally capable of. Something Hustle doesn't have. He instead relies on observation and numbers to do the job for him, using rapid calculations to determine the speed of approaching variables and acting accordingly. Memorizing frame data or timing, analyzing habits, taking mental notes of everything he perceives until his reactions become terrifyingly similar to precognition without actually being so.}

Library of Random Facts
_{Incredibly cagey about facts about himself, Hustle instead fills the lack of a reasonable answer with incredibly specific, mostly useless trivia he learned while surfing the web. With nothing better to do aside from watching movies during his free time before Pariah, he'd collected so many ridiculously fringe facts in his brain that you could probably ask him about anything and he'd have something to say about it. From insect biology to nautical nomenclature and cultural traditions to space discoveries, he'll say anything if it means staving off any sort of personal authenticity.}

Scion: The Prophecy of Anani

_{Interacting with @Hero as Asher | @Raijinslayer as Justinian | @McMolly as Ionna}

---

The ride through Riva del Garda was a fairly quiet one for the Scion of Fire, his attention turned inward even while his new Templar took in the sights as he began to mull over various strategies and potential problems in his mind.

Though hunting monsters was a paltry affair compared to what he’d grown used to over the years, a mission was a mission. For his first in a long while, he wanted to be certain that he was in peak condition, sound in both body and mind. While he had a mind to speak with the redhead hogging the window to get a better feel for his newest subordinate, by the time he was sure of his own acumen and prepared to address her they had reached their destination.

Theobald breathed in the open air, a bit of the constant tension that his body held seeping away as he exited the vehicle and entered the forward outpost. The sounds of preparation, the bustle of moving supplies, and the budding anticipation that bloomed in the hearts of those seeking to complete a mission might’ve brought a tear to the former soldier’s eye were he a weaker man. It felt like decades since he was able to stand at the forefront of a crisis, and though the company was with the knights of the church rather than his familiar battalion, he could hardly complain that he’d finally been set loose after so long.

There was no time to idle, however, as the group was led to the commander’s tent and brought up to speed, the problems slated by the leading Templar, Everett, shedding some light on the current situation.

“Theobald Gaumand. It is a pleasure.” Snapping a quick salute as the bare minimum courtesy required, the giant didn’t even hesitate as he began to request key information. “Sir Asher, I would like a sit-rep on the situation regarding these monsters. Their numbers, frequent spotting locations, and the nature of this aberrant behavior you have observed.”

There would be time to socialize later, though it seemed all involved but himself had previous ties before this meeting. He would need to speak with his Templar at some point for her to share her knowledge of the leading Templar at length. “We will need to know our current resources as well. Equipment, level of authorized force, presence of heavy weapons or anti-air artillery on site, whatever you have clearance to divulge. If we are to provide aid, it would be best to understand what we have at our disposal before coming to any pre-emptive conclusions.”

In the span of what seemed like a single breath, the Scion of Fire had spoken more in that tent than what most would’ve heard during the entirety of his stay and the church. But to him, it was simply what was expected. With no nobles to fetter his speech, the former soldier felt it imperative to get everything out of the way immediately.

The faster the strategizing could be done, the faster he could be sent to the battlefield. "Gardner. Any prior information about the behavioral habits of harpies you possess could be key to dealing with their new method of harassment. Speak."