From a distance, you can barely pick up more than anything you've already seen. The interior of the courtyard has scattered bodies and detritus. What looks like corporate muscle with Nexxon or subsidiary uniforms are mulched and scattered across the yard, sometimes in multiple pieces.
You do notice an important detail--none of the carnage inside the courtyard ever went past the torii that marks the front entrance. You can't see anything out of the ordinary about it aside from it's jet-black paintjob, but it marks a clear boundary between what went on inside and what the outside looks like.
As Syzygy rolls up the exterior wall of the courtyard, she gives you a clearer view. The interior courtyard is full of bodies, and one dead genemod--the dried-out and decaying corpse of some sort of reptile. The interior of the courtyard is well-landscaped, though what looks like a manmade river has long since gone drier than the genemod's corpse. The grass as well has wilted, and most of the zen patterns laid into the gravel have also been blown apart by wind. Above it all, a looming holotag of an eye in a pyramid scans across the grounds, tracing a line around the perimeter, it never goes past the torii.
Roomy shakes his head to Neon. "No, no, he's talking to the pricks up at Arcosanti," he says. "Lotta good it'll do. F@#$ing bubbletown's sealed itself off ever since the Mess." Leaning in a little closer, he says quietly, "He didn't wanna talk to his ex. It might prompt, uh, Cosmo, what'd you call it?"
The gene-perfect girl glances over, drawing her pistols before she looks back to the courtyard and the bodies inside. "A f+$%-or-fight response?"
"Yeah," Roomy says. "It'd be gross for everyone involved either way." He makes a gagging noise, pointing his finger to his throat. "For everyone. And that includes us."
"My personal philosophy is to not get hit. Then, you don't need to be tough."
"That's a good strategy too," Jazz says, "But I'm not too fast either." She smiles and gives a half-shrug, as if to say "what'cha gonna do?", then steps onto the Atlas' leg, steps up and finally gets her fingers on the grenade launcher. She nods her head appreciatively, steps up and puts her chin on top of the launcher.
Atlas wrote:
"Pleased to make your acquaintance. I was incinerated at the Newton Incident, necessitating 97.83 percent tissue supplantation."
"I'm sorry to hear that," she says. Half-hanging off of the 'borg, putting her feet on the few modules she hasn't touched yet, she nods along sorrowfully to his explanation. "I was in a real bad accident a while ago too. That's why I have my cyber--obviously it wasn't as much as yours though." When the Atlas gets around to its perception of sexual tension between Auriel and Gavryn she giggles, then glances back and forth between the two of them and quietly says to the 'borg, "I ship it."
Jonis wrote:
"Hi Jazz. I am Jonis, Jonis Witta. What a lovely name you have. Mother took me to hear Jazz, a kind of music, once, and I loved it. I was just like you, playful and beautiful. I hope we become best friends."
At the pretty pilot's introduction, Jazz at last seems to run out of words. Blushing a deep scarlet, she nods, dumbstruck and a little embarrassed, kicking her legs and finally letting go of the grenade launcher to drop to the floor. Half-hiding behind the Atlas, she politely says "That sounds lovely. I hope so too."
Jonis wrote:
"And I would very much like your help with my Cyber-Girl."
"HOHMUHGUH--" She chokes and splutters, stepping back in, her bravado almost immediately returning as she incredulously continues, "You have a Glitter Boy? I've always wanted to see one!" Jazz swallows, then breathes in, continuing in her earlier polite tone, "I'd love to help."
She glances back and forth between Jonis and the Atlas, getting the feeling she's missing something, especially at the Atlas' last line. She looks up at the 'borg, putting her arms half-way around its waist. "You know machines all have their own song to people like me? Yours sounds like a heartbeat. Do you still have a heart under there, Attie?"
The emerald forest fans out beneath you, visible through the glass sidewalls of a Beacon Academy airship. Though familiar to some of you, the view of the forest is still breathtaking--especially the towering spires of Beacon, now only a few thousand feet out. Beneath it, you can hear the rumbling of the waterfalls that line the cliffs along the edges of Vale, pouring water into the ocean far below. As the ship starts to sink and turn and the towers slide by the windows, you can see a small gathering of adults waiting for you at the base of the academy, in the long shadows cast by the later afternoon sun.
A tall, slightly older man who's hair looks to have gone prematurely grey surveys the ship as the ramp starts to roll down. Adjusting his glasses with one hand, he gives a curt nod to a tall, curvaceous blonde next to him and steps to the back of your greeting party, sipping on a mug of coffee and limping heavily on a bum leg. Those of you who are Vale natives may recognize him as Headmaster Ozpin. He coughs politely as you all shuffle off, his eyes never blinking and inspecting each of you in turn.
The blonde pats a riding crop into her right hand, her eyes sharp enough to cut. "Sixteen new recruits," she says, letting it hang in the air for a second before continuing, her demeanor making a concentrated effort to soften. "My name is professor Glynda Goodwitch. I'm sure many of you are tired from your travels--though some of you have come much farther than others. In order to select you properly, we want you in your best shape. You will gather and sleep in the ballroom tonight--your initiation will not begin until tomorrow." She nods to the remaining adults. "The first year teachers will give you a brief tour and show you to the ballroom." The grey-haired man with the bad leg finishes looking you over, seeming unimpressed, and turns to limp off.
"Yes, young ladies-and-gentlemen, if-you-would-please right-this-way!" Says the youngest of them rapidly, a man in his middle twenties with an unkempt shock of green hair. He takes off at almost a sprint, making it all of five feet before a man with an impressive mustache grabs him by the back of the collar and yanks him to a halt. Glynda shakes her head disapprovingly, then turns to dash after the swiftly departing headmaster.
"Bartholomew!" Scolds the man with the salt-and-pepper mustache, "There's no need to be in such a rush." He nods to the crowd of assembled teenagers. "My name is Peter Port, professor of Grimm studies. This charming young fellow is our new history teacher, Professor Oobleck."
"Doctorrr," hisses the green haired man, standing up straight, so fast he seems to wobble on the spot--a dollop of coffee comes sloshing up over the rim of the thermos he's carrying, and he neatly moves his arm to catch it and takes a noisy slurp. "Very-well-then-I-suppose," he says, his mouth almost blurring as he speaks. "We-can-move-at-a-more--" the next word seems to stick in his throat. "--Restrained pace. If-you-would-pick-up-your-bags-and-follow-me." To his credit he looks as though he's walking instead of running, but his legs seem to cover more ground per stride than possible and it's still the pace of a light jog for most of you.
"Excitable fellow," says Professor Port amicably, setting off at a normal stride. "Please follow me students, don't worry about catching up to our dear Bartholomew." He takes you on a loop through the garden just outside, gleefully going through what seems to be a canned speech. His recitation is so dutifully prepared he barely takes notice of anyone talking along the way.
"This hero hates losing. If he ties on an opposed roll of any
sort, he wins. In addition, if his skill die on an opposed skill
roll is a 1, he can reroll it (but must keep the second result,
even if it’s another 1)."
I'm thinking about redoing her Semblance slightly because I did cram three powers into one, even though I gave it the slow to activate modifier. It's pretty powerful and I don't know if they all work thematically.
@Madcaster: Kind of. It's a little slippery depending on what you define as an animal trait. Blake and Tukson both have catlike eyes but an additional animal trait (ears, claws). We definitely haven't seen a faunus with both ears and a tail yet.
@NenkotaMoon: Maybe pick one trait to stick with? Oh, and I'll PM you with info on how to make your flash step work. :)
So I've had a hankering lately to play an anime tabletop. In particular, I've been looking at RWBY, since the world is really interesting even though the quality of the show wasn't great for the first two seasons. I was going to run it for some RL friends, but that plan fell through. Figured I'd ask if anybody would be interested in either running or playing in that as a campaign.
To be honest, I would prefer to be a player instead of a GM. However, I've already written out more or less a full campaign (it's shortish, about 5-6 or so main story beats, with room to slot in additional sidequests/new games related to character backstories). If there's significant interest, I can go ahead and run it in Savage Worlds.
Here is a (kind of cheap-ass) map for the current setup. Count every square as 1 pace. Might need to modify it a bit. If this radically alters anybody's actions, let me know and we can change the map.
I'm botting Emily for the time being and I'm assuming Ghiv was following Kitsune as well. Feel free to move your characters around right now, if combat starts we'll lock them down a little more.
Kitsune it's early morning and the sun has risen, so no darkness penalty on the street, only in the alleys. Scales seems to be the only one following from inside the club.
The door cracks open into blinding early morning sunlight, and the Owl continues to cower behind the counter, though you can see him point towards the door as the lizard following you finally breaks free of the crowd and starts to catch up.
In the alleyway, Scales takes a few steps closer, spreading his hands in a placating gesture. "I really just wanna talk," he says. "I'm not here to give you a hard time. I think Royce did you guys a bad turn." His numerous teeth grind for a second. "Hey who's that up there? Is the gang all here?" He squints out of the darkened alley into the well-lit street as the inside team approaches the alley.
Upstairs in the common room, Finn smiles happily over his bowl of choco-bombs. "You're here on a job, aren't you?" He asks after a minute. "I like you a lot and I'm not gonna tell on you. But building inspectors check, like... Archi--, architec... Archecture, don't they?"
I have to finish up a course test for an online class, once that's done I'll give my character sheet another onceover. I have my leftover gold included in the character sheet, and I used prices out of PC Gen.
Alanna take a benny for amusing the hell out of me and so you maybe don't die if you're serious about fighting six gangbangers single-handed.
1dr0meda:
The briefcase is designed to connect to Royce's system and turn over a data payload to the link. It looks like it bounces through his private server suite to a proxy somewhere else in the GDN, which then shoots directly into Phoenix--but you can't see a specific location. If the whole net's down inside the city though, it's likely a private server somewhere that's not connected to the GDN and has independent resources to replace whatever brought the net down. You have vague ideas as to what those could be, but without being inside Phoenix to see it first hand, it's hard to say.
The data on the first drive is heavily encrypted with high-security PKI. It's very possible that you could decrypt it, but it would take hours at a minimum without the key from the receiving end in Phoenix. If you're going to send Royce's message, you'll be doing so blind. Ten-Speed's drive would deliver the same sort of data payload, but since he moves freely in the network, you're assuming he would be able to "jump out" at Royce's proxy server and escape into the GDN. Word is that's how other Sentient AIs have done it.
Alanna:
The one with the launcher hefts it again, his digital eye widening to take in extra light. "'Bout to get a lock. You sure nobody took off early, right Crips?" The two gangers in the blue shirts nod, one of them typing on a holoscreen floating in the air next to him, the other fiddling with a small high-gain antennae module.
"All flights on schedule according to their tower. It's gonna be the only plane in the air, omae. You've got a ten second window. Get your lock on, bro..." The one with the holo-screens looks up into the same area of the sky. "Five, four, three..."
If you want to interrupt him before he gets his shot off, you'll have to go now.
Inside 413, the server rack finishes its startup as 1dr0meda investigates the drives. Soon, three dozen ethernet ports are lighting up as the rack fires messages internal messages to itself, testing its connections before settling into a soft, dull hum. The screen of the data terminal opens into a standard operating system boot screen, with "Mitchell.Royce.Adm" as the only available login. It looks like he set up the data in the briefcase to make it difficult for anyone else to use the link.
3:10 to Eberron.
A Fistful of Coppers.
Abracadabra and a Half-Elf Cadaver.
Between Pelor, Vecna and a Winchester.
Dead Orcs Don't Shoot Back.
Dragons Westward.
Whiskey Lullaby.
It's full-auto, so if you're firing a three-round burst take a -2 penalty and roll your shooting die three times (still only one wild though). You're taking another -1 for firing into the highbeams, assuming you're firing at the bikes behind you and not at the one for Ghiv.
Please don't try to make it some kind of "You're just a slave of the establishment, man!" thing. You're combining and homebrewing loads of things at the same time and doing it on the fly, which is not usually a recipe for a good game. Pretty much every time somebody has responded to something in the thread you've responded with "Well, actually, that's different in my canon" or "Well, actually, I don't like those rules". But people can't read your mind and know what you want out of the world, you have to tell them, and you're doing that in a slow, piecemeal way that makes it really difficult to maintain any interest.
You're throwing a bunch of stuff at the wall to see what sticks, and that's fine, but with the amount of changes you're trying to make it comes off feeling schizophrenic and like you're trying to do too much. That does not bode well for a campaign and gives me an unsteady feeling about you as a GM. Plus, at the rate you're going, it could be a long time before you actually have it together for people to even make characters. I'm not interested in waiting that long when there are multiple playable systems that already, y'know, exist.
Trying Ponyfinder is trying something new (for the record: I have never played Pathfinder, so we're already at least two steps removed from my comfort zone by way of Pathfinder>Ponyfinder). Your homebrew/EE/FOE/Ponyfinder/more homebrew chimera isn't something new though, it's a twinkle in your eye for something not yet created. If you actually write up your homebrew, I'd love to try it. But don't say "Hey, I'd like to run this!" if the rules for it don't even exist and your canon (which cannot be contradicted) is still in your head.
