Marble City

Subject: Marble City Fri 20 Nov 2015 - 18:41

Just gonna start posting the various characters I have designed or come up with that got abandoned, never got played, or just ended up getting dropped for whatever reason, because I get attached to my characters

some of them will include game data, since most of them were designed for play. Don't worry about it

Nika Jury
Special Forces sniper for a slightly-futuristic United States. was played in a Fallout-style zombie game I played with Umbra, TS, and Grave

Nika's details; hidden to save space:

Subject: Re: Marble City Sun 29 Nov 2015 - 19:32

1 $*contrivance manifestation- things you draw/paint come to life, or pre-existing art comes to life
4 dark matter manipulation
5 electrical transport
3 -postcognition
2 revert state
6 x-ray vision

I made this post a while back, without really dropping what the notes were for. well, the time is long since passed, so i see no reason to withhold the information now

About a year --> year and a half a go, Umbra was trying to redo Book 4 of the Alpha Series irl using the Heroes Six System, and this set of powers were design choices for my character for that campaign. Ultimately, the game never happened, because as it turns out the Heroes Six System is really limited and time-consuming to use for the kind of shit umbra wanted to do

thing is, i really Liked the design and backstory of this character, so fuck it, here she goes:

The one thing I really can't remember is her name, which is kind of annoying, but whatever. For the time being (until I remember) we shall call her Gabriela

Gabriela grew up with her parents, and her father came into money, which eventually caused tension in the marital relationship and caused them to separate. Gabriela and her father moved to the small town the game starts in to get away from bad memories and start over.
Gabriela had a love of all kinds of art, but her father wanted her to follow him into business, because he mistakenly believed that money and material possessions would make her happy. That said, he didn't allow her art supplies, but bought her lots of clothes. She would wear these clothes to school, where someone would inevitably compliment her clothes, at which point she would offer to trade them away if they would get her a ton of paint, charcoal, or whatever. worked pretty well, until her senior year in high school
Her father's increasing pressure towards business in college was wearing on her, and Gabriela figured that it was probably her last year to do art. Therefore and thus-ly, she decided to make her biggest art project to date and go out with a bang

aaand that's when the game started
Gabriela's first and primary ability was contrivance manifestation, which functioned directly with her creativity and her art in order to manifest that art as real and semi-real things and creatures. most of this depended heavily on which medium she was using: pencil, charcoal, small brushes, big brushes, oil and water paints, chalk, etc, all did different things, some of which she could control, others she could not.
also, some things she could draw in midair, especially at higher levels, but a lot of her 'summons' required her to draw them and infuse them with power ahead of time, which was really time-consuming

after that, she got some utility and detective abilities with revert state and postcognition, before further modifying her artistic arsenal with dark matter manipulation, then rounding out with electrical transport for movement and x-ray vision for a bit more utility.

as i said, loved this character, just wish i got to actually play her

Edit: i think some of my old notes for her are buried somewhere in my flash drive collection. if i find them, i will post them

Edit: found some of them
dark matter manipulation- depends on drawing medium as to how the dark matter will work
charcoal- creates flat sheets and ribbons of dark matter that hang in the air, and can be twisted, wrapped around things, and the like
chalk- creates fine mists of dark matter that can be blown about. specifically designed to spread a chill through the air
pencil- create fine matter, but rigid. closer to glass than ribbon. rigid, temporary solids. statues that can be manipulated as puppets, or small structures.
pen- offensive dark matter
calligraphy pen- cognitive thought. robotic, but incredibly loyal constructs. tend to be more flowing and elegant
asian calligraphy- broad strokes. subconcious thoughts flow forth. more sentient dark matter. risky, possibly dangerous. tend to be more assymetrical and grotesque

paint-
splatters- leaves blobs and dots of dark matter on surfaces- can be used as traps
wide paintbrush- specifically create landscape

Subject: Re: Marble City Mon 7 Dec 2015 - 23:00

*be in the dark*
*carving gravestones*

Tiberius Chambers
Zachiel
Samina
Autumn

Subject: Re: Marble City Tue 8 Dec 2015 - 20:02

Tiberius Chambers

this was a guy i was going to use in a version of the Alpha Series book 3 that Umbra was going to run on skype (this was about... a year ago...i think) and the game never actually started, so he got abandoned pretty quick. thing is, i went into detail with him, and i liked his story (most of which, due to lack of notes, was actually forgotten by this point, but oh vell)

Tiberius Chambers was born into a very affluent family, and was bred and groomed to take over his parents' pharmaceutical company. thing is, he wasn't intended to make it successful; he was bred to serve for a few years until his parents and the rest of the Board of Directors could liquidate the company; they made tens to hundreds of millions, thousands of people lost their jobs, and Tiberius took the fall and went to prison.
Knowing that this was what awaited him, Tiberius came to resent his position immensely, even trying to fail his classes (despite his intelligence and impeccable business smarts), but his parents bribed the boards and forced him into his position. Tiberius also came to hate a lot of people who said that, because he 'had it easy' and 'made millions' by being CEO of his parents' company, he wasn't allowed to complain about his lot in life

That said, it also made him very (if subtly) supportive of people who were forced into their positions
his two secretaries were excellent examples:
Daria- don't completely remember her story, but she was the first of his secretaries that he really accepted (he had a tendency to fire them with impressive frequency). Daria was very highly educated, but some asshole higher-up had her blacklisted, and the only place where she could actually get a job without moving out of the city was as Tiberius' assistant. Due to this, he actually got along very well with her, and despite only holding the position of secretary, she was actually one of his most important and trusted employees.
(should probably mention that despite hating being forced into the job, Tiberius actually did really fucking well for himself and basically rid himself of the bulk of his parents' supporters so that he essentially had free reign)
Maria (i believe that was her name) was actually a younger girl who took position 'officially' as Tiberius' assistant, but was really to help Tiberius as an actual secretary so that Daria could handle most of the day to day affairs. Maria was actually a college student whose mother ended up being hospitalized. with her father dead and her mother now not bringing in money to the household, Maria put her own education on hold to support her mother and younger brother. Like Daria, Tiberius came to appreciate Maria for her hard lot in life, and working hard despite the bad situation she was forced into.
Maria in particular actually holds special distinction for Tiberius' subtle acts of kindness. Because so much of her money went towards supporting her family, she often didn't have enough left to feed herself very much, if at all. When Tiberius found out about this (probably via questioning Daria), he made his lunch orders slightly larger, and leaving them half-finished, if not untouched. Tiberius claimed that he didn't want her job efficiency to be negatively affected by her constant state of hunger, but both his secretaries knew he was saving just saying what he had to. This act caused Maria to have a vast amount of respect for the man.

(side note: Tiberius actually vented a lot of anger through martial arts and sparring, and was actually banned from some gyms due to the fact that he would beat his opponents so savagely that even professional fighters didn't want to get in the ring with him. This will come into play later)

Now, powers:
Tiberius' primary ability was Celestial- he got wings, strength, and i believe unnatural skill (focusing on combat).
His secondary ability was Power Consumption

So, Mr. Chambers wakes up one day and is incredible pain as a massive pair of feathery wings springs from his back.
He's watched the news; he knows what's coming, so he goes and runs
grabs as much cash as he can from the bank, and heads to the office
There, he finds Daria, who has also become an Alpha, a pseudo-slime in her case. Tiberius lets her grab whatever she wants and then ushers her to his private elevator, handing off the keys to his company car.
He then grabs a couple more essentials (documents, files, and more personal items), heads down to his personal Mercedes, and speeds away in the pre-dawn light

That was how the game started
my headcanon for after the game ended (going to book 4 and beyond) was that the company was sold, so he bought it back. Both Daria and Maria showed back up, and with their help he rebuilt his company (instituting a more equal-opportunity policy, especially where Alphas were concerned) and his pharmaceutical company, now under his personal command and no one else's, flourished

He was actually meant to be heavily involved in drug developments, specifically for Alphas, and so had correspondence with one of my other characters, Dr. Quinn Sullivan.
but, whether or not Mr. Chambers and his company ever become canonized is up to Umbra

Subject: Re: Marble City Sun 20 Dec 2015 - 13:28

Zachiel

Hound Archon Akashic
Zachiel was a character I designed for an artifact campaign Best was going to run. He helped me come up with the design, and I liked it, but the further I got into character design the harder it was to work on the character. Finally, TS helped me figure out why: Best had come up with this character, not me, and it wasn’t exactly what I was looking to do in the campaign, so I was subconsciously dragging it out.
With that conversation, I shelved this character and started work on Odds, the chaos mage that I am currently waiting to run.
Thing is, I do like this character- I do. I just didn’t want to play it for that particular campaign. So here she will go until I find a campaign I like her better for. And then, well… *pats book of necromancy*

Character details:

Background: Zachiel is a hound archon, born to serve the forces of order. She served as part of the Order of the Gossamer Tower, an archiving observatory on the edge of the planes. While she was interned there, she came across the details of the akashic memory, the vast wells of knowledge and imagination formed by the collective consciousness of all living things. She became enamored with this hidden wellspring of knowledge, and eventually decided, with apologies, to leave the Gossamer Tower and educate the mortal masses around the planes, in order to further the imagination and further deepen that well of knowledge.
Her superiors did not take this well, and she became hunted, but she did not strike down or further oppose them- she had simply found another calling

In her travels, Zachiel came across a young medusa, injured and abandoned by her kind. She took pity on the poor girl and took her in, and in time took her on her travels. The medusa, Samina by name, adored her savior and desired to help her in any way she could, but as a medusa could not easily do so, for even an accidental glance could kill the very unwary that Zachiel was attempting to aid. So, the girl decided to put out her own eyes, and walk by Zachiel’s side wherever she went.
Now, a hound archon and a medusa can’t exactly get around without Somebody taking notice, so they often had to wear disguises or use magic to hide their appearance. An annoyance to be sure, but well worth the effort.
In their travels, the pair rescued a young half-elven girl, first from the grasp of a hag, and then from the hands of her own xenophobic neighbors. With nowhere else to go, this young girl, named Autumn, joined them as well. And thus the trio traveled the world and the planes, always in seek of adventure in order to uncover the secrets that today’s world has long forgotten to time

Zachiel (yes, sounds kind of like zieghail, as best and ts have so ~kindly~ pointed out to me), is a benevolent creature, all things considered. Sure, her quest may have some selfish intent, but she honestly does care about teaching others and spreading knowledge for the sake of society’s betterment. She also strongly believes in individuals making their own paths, and that we shouldn’t judge merely by appearance, race, or reputation. She is constantly bemused by her surroundings, especially the sisterly bickering between her companions, Samina and Autumn
Zachiel is about 6’3, probably 200 lbs give or take, with faded gold fur lightening to white on her belly, and her head is that of a… actually, I never determines exactly the dog she looked like. My top picks were:
Beauceron, Belgian Tevvaren, Saluki, and Transylvanian Hound

It might be worth noting that while she is much older than either one, Zachiel does share some, shall we say, intimate moments with her companions, certainly for the sake of pleasure and stress-relief, but the more I think about it the more plausible it sounds. The only crux point is when I consider the fact that Zachiel is effectively their teacher, so it kind of gets weird there. Then aGain, a lot of vampire romances are much more bizarre, so what the fuck ever

Subject: Re: Marble City Tue 22 Dec 2015 - 10:10

Name: Shou Shichiro (callsign: Deus)

character details:

Shichiro was a character I created for a campaign Best ran on roll20 about a year ago called 3:16th Expeditionary Force. In this campaign, set years in the future, peace and paradise has been achieved; nobody works anymore if they don’t want to, there is no crime, or disease, or trouble. The people are also essentially immortal, only ending their lives when they wish to leave this mortal coil.
The purpose of the expeditionary force was to expand the holdings of human space, to explore the galaxy. It was advertised as being both bold and patriotic, and just a space-based cruise around the stars. What the applicants didn’t Quite expect was that they would end up trying to wipe out aliens by the hundreds, for reasons that… we never got to in-game, really

Shichiro in particular was one of the older members of the Force- I think I had him set at around 250 years old. Born into a family of old-school samurai, Shichiro was trained in the ways of honor and battle, but he never had any place to prove his worth. To be quite honest, Shichiro longed for death after so many years, but his pride and honor did not allow him to visit the suicide booths that were frequented by many people with this issue. When the Expeditionary Force started recruiting, he thought that he might finally be able to prove himself, and earn glorious death in battle.
Physically, Shichiro was a slightly imposing man, standing 6 feet, 9 inches tall, and weighing around 220lbs. He was lean as a sword, with wiry muscles up and down his body. He had long, black hair that he kept in a narrow ponytail that extended to his knees, and he had dark eyes in his sharp face.

Overall, Shichiro was a fairly quiet and calm individual, always kept his emotions in check, and aided his allies as best he could. He heavily preferred fighting up-close with his family’s odachi to shooting and enemy with his gun, though he could do both with equal efficiency. On the ship, Shichiro kept to himself for the most part, aside from trying to display loyalty to his commanding officer, often standing guard outside the captain’s quarters, and in one instance standing behind her while she was essentially being court-martialed.
While he didn’t get as many kills as some of his comrades, Shichiro had a tendency to stumble across the secret areas that nobody else really seemed to even think about.

I also had it set up so that, if Shichiro ever died, his younger sister Haruko (who also joined the Force) would transfer in. She was a lot like him, except she was a lot more brash, and instead of using her distaste for her own long life to temper her attitude, she let it boil into hatred

On another tangent, Shichiro carried his family’s odachi the entire time, but not only did he improve his ability to use it as time went on, he actively upgraded it (or was going to upgrade it) to use force/sonic projectors to extend the reach of his blade, allowing him to kill dozens of enemies with every passing stroke.

As a final note, each character in this campaign had a certain number of ‘Fate points’, which they could use at any time to make something reasonable for the character…happen. Grave used one on a mission and fixed a terraforming machine on a desolate planet in the middle of combat so that she could use it to wipe out the massive number of environmentally based enemies assaulting the location our squad was at.
What I had in mind for Shichiro in this case was something along the lines of, ‘I’ll hold them off’. In my envisioned scenario, our force is trying to get a diplomat/VIP across a bridge to a shuttle or something in order to escape the horde of enemies bearing down upon them. Halfway across the bridge, Shichiro would stop, turn around, and draw his sword. Using this ‘Fate Point’, Shichiro would draw on his internal wells of strength and determination and hold back the tide of bodies until everyone got away safely. It could be that he ended up wiping out the entirety of the enemy force, and simply exhausted himself so that it took several scenes for his comrades to come pick him up/him to make his way to where they are.
Or, he simply could have died the glorious death he wanted. He’d have been okay with either one, honestly.

So why did this character get dropped? combination of it being difficult to get everyone together, people stopped caring, but primarily the fact that Best never actually intended to make a full campaign out of it, which is why the design was so simple (and so easy to break)

Subject: Re: Marble City Tue 22 Dec 2015 - 17:39

'Emma Emerald'

Character Details:

Emma was a character I made for another of Best's online runs of the UnHonorable War that never got off the ground. She made it as far as the end of her intro aaand that's it. She was fun, but I remember having a lot of trouble deciding between playing her and playing a biokinetic who enjoyed torturing people and watching people suffer just for the sake of exercising her power over life and death

Subject: Re: Marble City Tue 22 Dec 2015 - 18:47

Samina the Magus

Character Details:

Standing at 6’5”, with a l curvaceous build and a beautiful coloration, Samina is a wonder to behold…that is until one realizes that her mass of hair is made of snakes and her skin is in fact scales. Still, regardless of racial bias, one cannot deny Samina’s physical attractiveness. Alas, most people will never get to see this side of her, because she often hides her physical features behind the illusory powers of a [hat of disguise]. Why? Well, we’ll have to backtrack a bit for that…

Samina was left alone as a child, as is common among the medusa, and it seemed likely, even to her young self, that she was destined to die in the desert. However, just as she gave up hope on life, hope came to take her in the form of a hound archon. Seeing such a warm smile on her canid face, Samina could not fathom what the angel had in store for her.
Samina stayed with this angel, Zachiel, for some time. In the course of their travels, however, she found that her inherent ability to transmute passing glance-ers to stone was a hindrance to the kindly archon. Not wanting to trouble the benevolent spirit, Samina put out both her eyes in order to keep this problematic scenario from playing out any further. As the years went by, Samina developed the ability to detect movement through the earth (tremorsense) in order to compensate.

There is something one must consider, however: while Samina loves Zachiel to pieces, she is also of the opinion that her mentor gives people too many chances, and that her charity will be the end of her one day. Therefore, Samina took up her sword in order to shield and protect the one who once protected her. She tends to be an incredibly vicious and brutal fighter, and she tolerates no slights on the part of Zachiel. It is likely the archon is aware of this (given her abilities), but she has made no effort to curb her student’s actions, likely because she does not wish to smother the medusa’s growth.
Samina also has a slightly competitive relationship with the party’s ‘new’ member, the half-elven warlock known as Autumn, though this is more of a sibling rivalry than one born of actual anger and dissent.

One point of contention I had for making Samina was deciding on her main weapon, due to being stuck between dealing straight damage or doing insta-deaths
Option 1: Blade of the Banshee- even with the massive reductions I would have gotten from working with TS on this, it would have cost Samina over half her starting money. What did she get? A cool-looking, +1 longsword. Kay, what else did it do? It casts Wail of the Banshee on hit.
Yeah, you read that right. ON. HIT. Not once, not once per day, but on hit, every hit. I don’t care how good your will save is- all she had to do was get lucky once and you died. Downsides: it didn’t work on constructs/undead, and she would have had to work far away from her support or risk killing them by accident
Option 2: lot of work with TS’ Dominus produced this blade- an adamantine longsword enchanted with [vorpal scythe]. 3 times a day, for 15 rounds each (w/ standard action activation), this thing was encased in force energy, allowing it to touch/damage pretty much everything, including the incorporeal. Gained +5 to hit, dealt 9d6+9 damage a hit, had a 19-20 crit range with a x4 critical modifier, and on a natural 20 it lopped off the enemy’s head. The one main downside to this was that if she fought something that was resistant to magic, and it made its save, it could not be affected by the blade again until the current activation period expired and she re-activated it. The enhancement cost +30,000 gold
Other than that, Samina had some cool gear, but I think I had her focus primarily on insta-death items.

Finishes burying Samina
Walks over to another plot
Headstone reads, ‘Marquis Rivers’

Subject: Re: Marble City Wed 23 Dec 2015 - 1:04

Autumn

Character details:

Autumn was the final element of the trio mentioned above, the companion to Zachiel the Akashic and Samina the Magus. Autumn was heavily based on a character from a pre-set, d&d horror adventure.
In that story, Autumn was born in a tiny, backwater village in a swamp. This village was remarkably xenophobic and heavily bigoted, which did not bode well for Autumn (who was half-elven in a human village). This boded even worse because Autumn was also a budding sorceress. This was made all the worse, a hag in the nearby swamp was framing her so that she would be blamed for a variety of crimes, get chased out of the village, and into her arms so she could turn the poor girl into another hag.
The goal of the adventure was to eventually track down the hag and rescue the girl from her
In my version, the archon and the medusa accomplish this task, but the girl gets lynched in the village anyway. Being used to such bigotry themselves, they take Autumn along with them, and thus the party was formed. Autumn also turned out to be a warlock instead of a sorcerer, but the backgrounds are similar enough that it really didn't make much difference
Autumn might have grown up bitter and jaded, but due to the specific individuals she has traveled with, she ended up being well-balanced, if not so good at keeping consumables in reserve. She is fairly happy, gregarious and playful in battle, and not all that serious in regular life. The only things that really get her serious are 1) her rivalry with Samina and 2) trying to prove herself to both her companions (but Zachiel in particular). She is well-aware that were it not for the archon’s kindness and charity, she would have died a long time ago, or worse, be serving as a hag’s subordinate. Thus, she is always trying to do everything she can for them, both to prove that she isn’t weak and pitiful anymore and to try and repay them for all the trouble she has given them over the years.
In addition to being the primary caster, Autumn was built to be the party naturist, covering the roles of the ranger/druid. Now that I think about it, Samina helped cover the gap in spellcasting that they needed while also being the front-line damage-dealer. Zachiel, being the most heavily-armored and having the most health served as the tank, while also doubling as the skill monkey. They were actually a pretty well-balanced party all on their own, to be honest. Makes it more sad that I didn’t get to play them in full
Let’s see, I think I had it set that when Zachiel left at the Gossamer Tower, she was around a hundred  a hundred-twenty. She met Samina shortly thereafter, and they traveled for about twenty years before encountering the 15-year old Autumn. The artifact campaign started about 9 years after that point.

Chausable of fell power- 2d6 at least, possibly 3d6
Elven chain? It’s 4150, it’s light armor w/ armor penalty of -2, max dex of +4, arcane fail of 20, full move speed, and an ac of +5
Or she could go with a darkleaf breastplate; almost the exact same stats, except it is 10lbs heavier and costs 2450
Adding a +2 enhancement on top of this is 4k, and a +3 is 9k. on the darkleaf this is almost the perfect amount set aside for armor, though the +2 is more reasonable for her level and gives her more money for other things
+1 weapons are +2k, +2 are +8k
A spear is a 1d8 weapon with a 20/x3 crit weapon with a 20’ range as a thrown weapon. Autumn doesn’t have a particularly good throwing arm (or any at all) but with a belt of giant strength or physical perfection, it could work as her overall weapon. Then, she would only need one weapon. The only thing we need to look into is the blinkback belt- if I can get tim to accept me making a modified ‘bandolier’ version, it will work as an effective returning ability. That said, the blinkback belt 5k, whereas a simply +1 ability is only 2k. argued, with the fact that I want to put other enchantments on the spear, and each further enchantment is far more expensive than the last. Getting a modified spear with the blinkback belt is a cheaper and more efficient way of doing things, with the added plus that I can use the belt for things besides the spear
Oh Hell No! Autumn is going to use a gods-be-damned Parasol as her melee weapon! It is a simple, one-handed weapon, does 1d6 damage w/ a x2 crit, bludgeoning or piercing, that can also act as a shield (+1ac, -1 checks, SF -5, 4lbs) and can also act as a counter-balance (+2 on Balance checks). All for 150 gold (base, of course)
Autumn’s primary weapon was a reinforced parasol that could be used as a stabbing weapon, a bludgeon, and a shield if she opened it up. Add to that the magical reinforcement and the warlock spell [hideous blow] and it becomes a devastating weapon.
Animal affinity- +2 competence on animal empathy, handle animal, and ride. Animal empathy is a class skill no matter what
Animal friendship- befriend animals at will, as the spell animal friendship, as caster of your level.
The Sight- requires Wis 13. With round of concentration, you may sense incorporeal spirits within 60 feet with a successful spot check of dc 20.
Spirit friend- +4 competence bonus on charisma checks for incorporeal spirits
Track
How would Absorb Spell work for her, if she doesn’t have any spells that Need replenishing.
Bloodburn- expend 2 points of Constitution as temporary ability damage in order to use a charge-based item without using a charge.
Spell Penetration- +2 vs spell resistance
Mountain warrior- +1 to attack and damage rolls made when you are on higher ground than your opponent. Opponents on higher ground than you do not receive their normal attack benefits. Gain a +2 on balance checks made on steep slopes

the build of warlock/hellfire warlock/binder was actually suggested to me by Best, not to give her more versatility (which, granted it could) but rather to give her one particular vestige and his abilities, one of which allowed her to regenerate ability drain/loss. This permitted her to fucking spam her hellfire warlock abilities as often as she wanted, which vastly upped her combat capabilities

Subject: Re: Marble City Tue 12 Jan 2016 - 19:43

Bellatrix

Bellatrix was a character I created for the Artifact Campaign, before Odds (who might be going up here soon), and before Zachiel & Co. She was binned mostly because actually building her the way I envisioned her would have been very difficult and would have put me behind the curve as far as levels and gear were concerned (let me put it this way: in a campaign where we were permitted to be level 15, she was equivalent to a level 22. I would have had to sacrifice not one but 2 artifacts to ensure that she wasn’t under-leveled). Still, I love the character and the idea, so she might end up in some stories later on.

There are some notes on some of the abilities I was looking at giving her over in Aether Pool, the 4th page.

I don’t know exactly what I had in mind for her, but it was a toss-up between fighter (which is what the feats list was for, because vanilla fighter feats are kind of bullshit) and a class from the Tome of Battle. Actually, now that I think about it, it wasn’t between fighter and one of the others, but between swordsage and warblade, mostly because warblade offered her better attacks and more bonus feats, a quick way to get her maneuvers back and heavier armor, while swordsage gave her the wider array of maneuvers I actually wanted her to be able to perform. I think the only reason fighter was still on the list at all is because it offered a higher base attack and still gave her the ability to wear heavy armor.

Okay, let’s get to the point here: who the hell is this character? Bellatrix was born from the union of a pleasure devil and an ancient shadow dragon, and was subsequently taken by her mother to live in the Nine Hells. She was raised there by her mother until her mother’s death in the Blood Wars, at which point her father made an appeal to the courts of the Nine Hells to raise his daughter. This was not out of any love for the child, not for emotion or sympathy, but because he desired power and influence, and she possessed strength he did not possess, so he wanted her as an enforcer.
Her father, being the manipulative bastard he was, somehow managed to sway and outwit the court of devils, and took his daughter across the planes, ensuring she was well-learned in the arts of war.
Does Bellatrix like the way her life has progressed? No, but she is a creature of law, and her father, by word of the law, is in the right. Therefore, she serves his interests, and will continue to do so until either he or she is dead. If he dies (which is not likely for the next 800 or so), she goes on to fight in the Blood Wars, like she was supposed to originally. If she dies first, well… she’ll be dead, so what will she care?

Bellatrix, physically, looks a lot like Albedo from Overlord, which makes sense, because she partially inspired the character. Bellatrix is tall, probably around 6’10, but muscular. I envision her as having a lot of pale skin, but considering her father is a shadow dragon she probably also has a lot of black scaling. She has long, wine-colored hair, slit-pupiled eyes, and a pair of forward-curving horns. She has a pair of leathery wings coming out of her lower back (in theory they are large enough to allow her to fly, but in physics terms they probably wouldn’t) that she often lets flow out behind her like a cape. She rarely, if ever smiles, and speaks in a calm, serious tone.

In battle, Bellatrix wears a heavy suit of black full plate mail, complete with a helmet that goes on over her horns (her hair is tucked into her armor). The armor normally looks very bulky, but is bonded (I’ll post a link down below), so it is tighter but also allows her to move more freely than normal. In particular, the helmet kind of goes on like Lelouch’s mask from code Geass: it looks a lot like a mask, but she puts it on over her horns, and metal plates begin sliding down and overlapping, until it is fully sealed with the suit.
She can wield pretty much any weapon proficiently, but I usually see her with a massive axe.
Outside of combat, Bellatrix wears long, flowing dresses, typically with side slits and/or no backs, to accommodate her wings. I have a pic on my tumblr, but that will come at a later date, because it is going to take a long time to sift through and find it.

I feel it should be noted that Bellatrix doesn’t actually own much of anything herself- mechanically, this was to make up for how she put away so many racial levels (all seven of them), but story-wise it is because she never did own anything: her father kept pretty much everything from her adventures. Hell, even her own armor and weapons were technically items out of his own personal hoard that he loaned her for the purpose of carrying out his wishes.

Finally, Bellatrix was going to start this campaign of artifact-hunting because of her father, who wanted ever-more power. Perhaps she could have killed him, maybe he would have died on her own, or it is possible that something could have happened that would eventually override her sense of law so that she ignored her father’s demands for some higher purpose. Or she could have given him exactly what he wanted- who knows? I never will.

Details:

Subject: Re: Marble City Mon 18 Jan 2016 - 15:58

Marquis Rivers

Character Details:

Marquis was a character I created for one of Best’s reboots of the ‘Life in the Pits’ roleplay over on the Terraria forum. The TL;DR version of the character explanation of what’s under character details is that he wanted a better life, but the world kept kicking him down over and over again, so eventually he stopped giving a shit.

The funny thing was that I actually intended for Marquis to be more-or-less a model test subject. Think about it: Here is a guy with focus and ambition, but who never got a chance to fully develop and use his talents for his own gain, but now he is in a world where ingenuity and hard work are rewarded. It was going to take a while, but Marquis would have eventually gone into work happily to test his various abilities, and experimented on and off the lab floor.

The reason I dropped Marquis was not of my own want; there were a lot of people in the rp, and when they stopped posting (either due to lost interest or incapability from other constraints) it made it difficult for the campaign to continue

A thing I should probably mention is Molly- Molly is a hallucinatory figure that exists within Marquis’ head. She came into existence because when Marquis’ mother died due to an overdose, he was only told that she died because of ‘molly’. It was some time before he actually figured out what that meant, and he created the mental image of Molly so he would have something to direct his anger and bitterness at.
Molly does only exist in his head, but she herself seems to possess some powers over him (which is more his own subconscious torturing him because his anger has nowhere else to go), including withholding memories from him and causing him to see things that aren’t really there. I like to think that Molly might have become more than a simple illusion as time went on, but we never really got there.

As most of you probably know, in LITP you didn’t get to choose your own powers; they were rolled for you. Marquis was originally gifted with 3 powers, which were roughly about rank 4: Human physical perfection, blood manipulation, and invisibility. He was also part of Project Foxtrot, with his animal mixer being ocelot. This meant that he started to take on the characteristics of a cat, and he would have eventually been very territorial and wary of people, but moving on.

Human physical perfection- pretty straightforward, with the only things of note being that due to his natural athleticism and his ocelot DNA, he possessed incredible reflexes, agility, and acrobatic acumen.
Blood manipulation- personal focus, and primarily internal. He could harden his body, strengthen himself, etc, but as one of the tests showed, he could also heal himself, with concentration and effort.
Invisibility- this one actually annoyed me, because it was a passive ability (so, constantly active), but it only (and always) functioned when he was moving, so if he stayed still, he was fully visible, and when he was walking he was transparent- it was so stupid.

Marquis had worked out a deal with the scientist in charge of him to switch out his invisibility for vector bolt, but he never got it because somebody decided to collapse the facility *looks at Best*

Subject: Re: Marble City Mon 18 Jan 2016 - 16:23

There was a character I was in the process of creating for Retribution Nation (the sequel to TS' Retribution City), but I never completed her

Actually, since TS is still working on RN, I might end up rez-ing this character at a later date. We'll see

Note: this character never had a name; I never got there. For now, we shall call her Baako

The story of Baako begins with her father. This man was sent to RC for unknown reasons, probably nothing of his own doing. He somehow survived and escaped the place, and settled down to enjoy a normal, peaceful life. He eventually got married, and he and his wife brought Baako into the world.
She lived a fairly normal life up until about the age of 12-13, when tragedy struck, and her mother and father both died.
here's the thing: it was her fault

For reasons that I cannot spoil, Baako possessed powers, and the activation of her powers one fateful night completely destroyed her home, with her parents still inside.
Fearful of what she could do, Baako sought out a man she had only heard of in stories her father had told her of. She sought out the boogeyman her father always warned her about, and she found him

Jackson

Jackson was my character from Retribution City, of whom some of you have heard. If you want the details, hound me about Victor Clava- Point being, Baako begged him to take her in and teach her how to use her powers, and for whatever reason, Jackson said yes
After that point, Baako was groomed to be an enforcer in the mafia run by three MC's from RC- Gravekit's Addy, Bestdragon's Mike, and of course my Jackson. Her old, peaceful life was gone, but she acclimated surprisingly quickly.

In this new life, she also became close to two other people. One was an slightly older man who served as a chauffeur for the mafia (his name currently escapes me, but he was going to be Best's character in the new RP). The other was Oswald, the test-tube offspring of Addy, Jackson, and Mike (Gravekit's character for RN), for whom she was actually the personal enforcer and bodyguard

Powers: Due to circumstances, Baako possessed the innate ability to generate plasma. Although she initially destroyed a house with this power, that was more the power making itself manifest. At the start of the campaign, she used it to cover her hands, making her physical attacks much more dangerous. It also had some mundane uses (like using a single finger to just melt a door lock instead of taking the time and effort to pick it), as well as some... unsavory uses (like burning her handprint into a man's chest to slowly torture him to death)

ummm... given that the character was never fully fleshed out and written down, i think that's actually it for this character

Subject: Re: Marble City Thu 21 Jan 2016 - 22:24

Bodhi

Character Details:

Bodhi was another character I came up with for TS's Retribution Nation campagin. Actual, let me backtrack: she was the first character I came up with for the campaign, and the one that I actually scrapped in favor of Baako.

Bodhi was originally designed because I had gone for more of the physical aspects with Jackson in the first campaign, so I wanted to focus more on powers this time around. She was specifically built to be the perfect kind of person to focus on powers, both because she had a metric shit-ton of willpower and intelligence, and because her negatives allowed for her to utilize powers (particularly strong ones) early.

Backstory: Bodhi was born to a family with a history of physical and mental problems, and was unlucky enough to inherit a number of them. This annoyed her to no end because she was vastly intelligent and wanted to do things, but was constantly limited by her frail body. This caused her to become a very angry and bitter person, but also one who was determined to utilize science to iron out the imperfections of the human race, including those within herself.
Towards that end, she became very interested in DNA and bioengineering, as well as some advanced computer and nano-tech sciences. When she heard about Retribution Nation (and more importantly, about the fact that they had machines that could essentially give you superpowers) she wasted no time in getting a plane ticket and writing it off as a research-related expense

Once actually in RN, I planned on having her set up her own workshop/clinic so that she could reverse-engineer some of the tech the nation had, get powers, and generally figure out how everything worked. Hell, one of the first things i planned on having her do was get hold of a mass-destruction power just for the hell of it.
Oh, and not only did she intend to construct that tech, but she also planned to install it into a suit of power armor

So, why did I abandon her? first and foremost because in trying to give her all the points i could, i actually ended up making it very difficult for her to be played. Could I have managed, yeah, but that ties in to my next points
Even with all the points I gave Bodhi, I had expectations that were way too high for her, like expecting her to be a genius in a dozen different skills, have her own warehouse (she could squat in one, but that wasn't something she could actually start the game with), and have a stupid-strong mass destruction ability to boot. It just wouldn't have worked
Finally, for reasons I myself don't understand, I just...lost interest in the character. Like, it got to the point where I wouldn't touch her character sheet for a solid week at a time. It became a chore to work on her, at which point I realized that if it wasn't fun now there was no way i was going to have fun with her later on down the road. TS helped me come to this conclusion, and shortly thereafter I shelved the character

Hoping I can rez her one day, because I actually did like the initial idea, I just can't bring up the desire to fix the character and my expectations of her right now

Subject: Re: Marble City Wed 3 Feb 2016 - 22:21

Tomb'la

Character Details:

Here lies Tomb'la, a character I actually forgot for a while because I only ever played one session with her and didn't actually spend all that much time designing her. Why? She was made for a one-off game our group played when one of Grave's friends visited from out of state. She was cool, but it's pretty obvious I was far less meticulous than.
Also fairly obvious expy: she was originally based off Tigress from Kung Fu Panda, though she had a mildly more agreeable personality than the original. Then again, that might not have lasted long, considering she was kidnapped and dropped into a gladitorial pit to spend the rest of her life fighting for the amusement of the crowd

let's see, couple of things: she actually made a mild impression by jumping around the domed cage of the pit, to the point where she actually had some of the spectators linking arms so that she could use them as footholds and get more height for her acrobatics
also, when she was on her down time in the gladiator town, she was probably going to spend most of her time hanging out with the were-animals, training to become stronger, and staying in the city after curfew so that she could hunt the guards as a challenge

other than that, usual complaint: I wish that she had lasted longer, but it's over and done now, unless the DM decides to rez the campaing (and considering it was designed for Grave's guest, I don't see that being very likely)

Subject: Re: Marble City Fri 5 Feb 2016 - 13:42

Althelid

Character Details:

Character Background:

TS reminded me of this character last night when he mentioned wanting to run the Apotheosis campaign, which was a part of his Natacyn series
...can't actually go into explaining the setting without spoiling too much, but suffice it to say that TS built the world itself from the ground up and he was pretty proud of it. The Fall of Natacyn was actually one of the few campaigns we as a group actually finished, and I really hope we actually get to play the other games in the series at some point in the future.

Anyway, here lies Althelid, a mind flayer psion who, prior to the campaign, was building up resources for his own private war by running or helping run a number of underground and rather illegal organizations and businesses. When he was out and about in town, he was often disguised as a rather well-off nobleman, and kept his actual appearance and powers under heavy wraps. If you bothered to read his background section, you'll also be aware of the fact that he was also a terrible individual, taking people as slaves, or worse 'protecting' them as part of his business dealings (protecting them from his own business partners, in most cases) while slowly breaking their minds to be little more than puppets that he could control even without his mind powers

If memory serves, I only ever actually played one session with Althelid, because that was around the time everyone's schedules starting getting busy and conflicting with one another, so we soon ran out of time to hold sessions, and the campaign was soon forgotten.

Kind of disappointed, but it happens, and looking back on this character I today I'm not sure I actually want to rez this particular character if we run Apotheosis again. Not sure why, but the character, while interesting to me at the time, just doesn't really appeal to me anymore.
...weird

Subject: Re: Marble City Fri 5 Feb 2016 - 14:03

Sycklia Sar'ai

Character Details:

Decision-Making Problems:

This was another character I came up with for the purposes of one of TS' Natacyn campaigns, the actual sequel to FoN (though the name actually escapes me)
I don't know why I didn't write any of the actual history down for this character (or maybe I did; who honestly knows) because the background was something I liked a lot. Sycklia was a happy-go-lucky orphan who lived a good portion of her life among other kids, and was really popular in her hometown. She looked like an angel (due to her angelic blood) but was incredibly mischievous, and loved to play pranks on people

It was only after her powers began to manifest that she began to be slightly confused- hers were not the powers of a sorcerer or one blessed by a god, but those of a warlock. She went traveling in search of answers, and came to a frightening realization: she may be part angel, but the blood of a fiend also flowed through her heart. It was about that time that the voices she had heard from the shadows all her life manifested, revealing a demon of remarkable power, who offered her the secrets to understanding her power. At first she resisted, but you know what they say about curiosity and cats...

I think the reason I liked this character was primarily because of the morality slippage. She was going to start out as a very pleasant and fun person to be around, but the lure of power was going to slowly warp her over the course of the campaign, making her more malevolent than mischievous.
I think there was also going to be an element of sanity slippage as well, because although the demon was powerful, only Sycklia could see it, which would have made her start to question what was real and what was not.
Alas, we never got that far. I think TS got a new flood of ideas for Retribution Nation a couple of sessions in, and the hype for Natacyn died down not too long after.

EDIT: was going through some of my old skype chats with TS and found the original concept of Sycklia's background:

Basically, she starts play as an aasmir. she grows up thinking that she is a sorceress, so she is like 'cool, i have angel AND dragon blood in my family. that's awesome'. Until the day comes that she meets a real dragon who instantly knows what she is, and it tries to eat her
she finds out that her powers are actually warlock abilities, and they spawn from a darker source, which of course would be the fiendish blood
the more she uses and unlocks her abilities, the more prominent her fiendish blood becomes

Subject: Re: Marble City Fri 5 Feb 2016 - 14:30

I originally planned on just editing this into your post at the bottom until I thought of some more things to say -

If that's the character that I think it is (Sycklia), then it was for the Fall of Natacyn reboot.

And yeah, I really wanted to do that campaign but it was around that time that I suddenly and randomly lost my DMing abilities. Pretty sure it was because of work. Though now I'm getting back into the swing of things and really want to do those campaigns at some point. But damn, there's like 4 campaigns in the Natacyn universe alone, what with Price of Conquest, Fall of Natacyn, The Apotheosis, and damned Advent Gestalt. Advent Gestalt is the biggest bitch of them all and would also probably be the most fun to actually do. Only issue is that it's like 5X larger than all of the others combined.

Then there's RC and its 3 campaigns. Still don't know when Retribution Nation is going to get its ass off the ground.

Subject: Re: Marble City Fri 5 Feb 2016 - 14:40

Was she for Fall of Natacyn? huh, could have sworn she was meant for Advent Gestalt. weird

I will be up for any and all of these games, and i don't think the issue is ever starting a given game, but rather in keeping it going

Subject: Re: Marble City Fri 5 Feb 2016 - 15:21

Except when part of the issue is finishing making it in the first place. Lol.

And yeah. I don't think I would have had any of you guys work on characters for AG when AG is clearly quite a ways off

Subject: Re: Marble City Wed 17 Feb 2016 - 23:50

I was just looking through a pile of my old gaming stuff
looot of good memories

...and a lot of unplayed characters

probably going to start putting them down here
starting wiiith

Abgarz
the only time to my recollection in which I made a completely overpowered character completely by accident

Subject: Re: Marble City Sun 21 Feb 2016 - 21:46

Abgarz

Character Details #1:

Character Details #2:

Abgarz was a character I made back in high school for a high-level campaign that tim(??) was running at the time. I really wanted to play a salamander character- he said okay. However, we had different ideas of what I said- he thought I meant flamebrother; I meant noble.
Sooo, I accidentally ended up making a character that was like, 5-10 effective levels ahead of everyone else.
And that is actually kind of why I dropped him- when I was told I would have to make a weaker character, I’d already gotten used to the idea of having him at that level, and I didn’t want to have to compromise by dragging him back down; I wanted to play him at the level I had created him.
The premise behind Abgarz was actually pretty simple: he wanted to be a god. He wanted to grow strong enough to climb his way into heaven and kick the current god of war and conquest off his pedestal. The DM and I had actually worked out that this was completely possible at the level we were going to be headed into, it was just going to be hard what with the series of obstacles and challenges he would have to overcome.

A weird but fun thing I headcanon’d was that Abgarz loved to go to war and conquer places, but he didn’t disregard his duty once he took over a place. He rebuilt infrastructures and established governing bodies and state religions. He also had this really…shall we say interesting habit of taking bits and pieces of places he liked and portaling them around wherever he wanted them in his empire. Since he was so gods-damned big, most of what he liked was really grand and spectacular architecture- vast cathedrals, ancient libraries, opulent universities, and the like.
In one of my visions, a young woman is has snuck out to do some extra studying. As she passes through the main cathedral nave she hears a deep chuckle echoing off the walls. She pauses and turns around. At the head of the nave, reading a massive book by the light of the chandelier, is Abgarz. The girl kind of panics a little bit, because not only has she been caught after curfew by the guy who established that curfew in the first place, but she is currently the sole soul in direct line of sight with her physical god. Abgarz continues laughing, closes his book, and gives the girl a small commendation for her dedication to her studies. As he slithers out, he calls over his shoulder to warn her not to stay up too late, as it will negatively impact her daytime activities.

Soo, yeah, Abgarz. Awesome and badass warrior who wanted to be god and could have theoretically accomplished said task.
The only thing I will say about his character build is that, knowing now how shit some of the fighter feats are, I would definitely look into some 3rd party fighter stuff if I ever end up rezzing him again

EDIT: I should probably mention that, unlike a lot of other characters, i actually have a picture of Abgarz; I just don't have a scanner so i can't show you guys. I'll just say that it was done for me by TS way back when and it looks pretty fucking sweet

Subject: Re: Marble City Sun 21 Feb 2016 - 23:17

Auralia

Character Details:

Auralia is one of my characters from waaay back. I think she was like, the…3rd character I ever created. She only lasted a few sessions, but I really wanted to keep going with her, and she is part of the reason I want to play a paladin to this day- I have never played one and lasted
I believe she was meant to be an elven noble who became a knight to serve her country; pretty typical
The thing that was very much not typical is the fact that she was a masochist- she loved the feeling of pain, and in fact got stronger the more damage she took, to the point where when she was actually healthy she took penalties because she was depressed.
There was a point where she was kidnapped from her room at the inn and tortured before the party found her (I had to be absent from session one week and that is how the dm explained it), and she was just waiting for the torturer to get back.
I think this was also the character who got entangled by a balor’s whip (at level 8- it makes sense in context) and actually enjoyed it. Lovely head-visions ensued.
EDIT: I was mistaken. That was Lita. Carry on

Auralia was fun, and I will forever regret our group not finishing that campaign and figuring out what everything was about

Subject: Re: Marble City Thu 3 Mar 2016 - 13:41

Selruil Maique

Character Details:

Selruil is a character I legit forgot about for a long time. He was the original character I built for best’s artifact campaign, back when we were still in high school (or at least, when I was in high school- I think he might have graduated by then).
I think I might have forgotten about him primarily because I was trying to play a very serious, no-nonsense and absolutely emotionless character… and it just ended up not being enjoyable. Well, that and the fact that we only got like, 2-3 sessions in and then all the data for the artifact campaign got lost

Selruil was meant to be a particularly emotionally-removed elf who was estranged from elven society because he praticied necromancy. Also because he was a closeted necrophiliac, but whatever
In this campaign, magic had disappeared for a while, as in years, so selruil bided his time and took up a job as an undertaker, overseeing a graveyard and making alchemical substances on the side. When magic came back, he packed up shop and went out a-looking for artifacts.
Past that, I don’t honestly remember too much. I know that his familiar was meant to be a very pretty, flirty air elemental who honestly deserved better than him, but yeah, drawing a lot of blanks.
This was also one of my first attempts at an arcane spellcaster, and I don’t think it turned out too well

Subject: Re: Marble City Sun 13 Mar 2016 - 23:56

Johnarcrist

Character Details:

Johnny was a character I designed to be a basic, edgy, emo character, because I thought it would be fucking cool
Johnny is part of a race with a massive chip on their shoulders, and also a curse that continually puts them at risk of being pulled into the elemental plane of shadow. Needless to say, most of them have left the material plane for more comfortable locales. Johnny stayed because he is hardcore, angry, and wanted to get stronger. Strong enough to beat the curse (though he still probably would have failed)
I don’t know what the full premise of this campaign was supposed to be, because we didn’t make it that far, but it was one of (I think) blood’s design, and focused primarily on finding artifacts of incredibly powerful (and long-dead) dragons. Other than that, got me
Johnny was going to be a really graceful kind of fighter, but well-balanced. He was also supposed to have a tendency to collect trophies from his enemies, and was going to have a massive tattoo collection to commemorate powerful enemies.
Uuugggghhh
Honestly, I think I much preferred his girlfriend that I created, a smuggler named Ursula
…well shit, now I need to put her up here too…

Subject: Re: Marble City Mon 14 Mar 2016 - 21:30

Lita

Character Details:

Lita's Coin:

Lita was the 2nd paladin I tried to play (after Auralia) and I ran her in one of the campaign’s Tim’s stepdad ran. Much like Auralia, this campaign didn’t last but a few sessions (I don’t think we actually even got to level up even once), and I highly regret not being able to work with her longer
Lita’s basic backstory is that she was a bored and neglected noble brat who attended a lot of parties and got herself wasted on a lot of drugs. After one particular party, she ended up in a dazed stupor in a local church, the clergy of which proceeded to clean her up and put her to bed for the night. When she woke up in the morning with a clearer head, she was so moved by how kind and casual everyone was with her- even after seeing her at her worst- that she left home permanently to serve the church. Years later, she found her calling as a frontline defender of the church, and that is how she ended up as an adventurer.

I remember wanting to have a major character facet for Lita that revolved around games. She gave up drinking (mostly) and swore off drugs after that last dose of saanesh permanently died her lips blue, so games were the one vice she really had left. I don’t think we actually got far enough along for her to play cards with everyone and steal their lunch money, but that was a thing
Another facet was that she had always grown up with servants who took care of the cooking, but when she transferred to the church she found that the rhythmic and predictable movements of food preparation relaxed her, so she did that a lot, and cooked several meals for the party to my memory

The actual campaign primarily involved us going through a series of caves to investigate a missing set of eggs, that were actually powerful artifacts that needed to be kept out of certain hands, or the world would end. Pretty typical overarching story when I look back on it, but what can you do?

You might notice that There is a short entry up above about a creature called a ki-rin. You may also notice that Lita doesn’t have a listed mount as part of her paladin special ability. Weeell, while we the party traveled the caves, we came across this particular statue. After some searching and puzzle-solving, we undid the magical seal on the statue and released a powerful ki-rin by the name of Da Weng. Said ki-rin looked around the party, locked eyes with Lita, and handed her an amulet, promising to be at her call. Now, keep in mind, this is a creature who, prior to his imprisonment, kicked the shit out of balors on the regular, and he more or less pledged his life to the service of my little-bitty level freaking 10. It was a cool moment, to say the least.

One particular moment that stands out in my memory was when we were traversing the caves and were suddenly attacked by a balor (as I recall, the balor wasn’t actually trying to kill us, he was just pissed off that a purple wurm had just fallen on his house and needed to blow off some steam). In the ensuing combat, Lita does her usual deal of putting herself between the enemy and the squishier members. Balor proceeded to lash at her with his whip, and she got entangled with it. The entire group stopped for a second, and we were just like, ‘that’s kinky’. For as bad as that fight could have gone, that really lightened the moment, and it was good for a laugh once we survived the encounter

As a final note on this chapter, it was a vision of mine for several years that Lita and Auralia would someone traverse universes, meet up, and eventually become friends, and the coolest image was one where Lita flies in astride her house-sized dragon-unicorn, and Auralia swoops down and lands next to her on the back of a gold dragon. It was a very surreal but also a very cool picture, and it is unfortunate that it never got to be a reality.

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