You know what. I got way to invested into an extended MSPA reference. Lets simplify this, and lean into the Arachnid commentary, to just: you see what you think is there. Think she's a person? She's a person. Think she's a horrifying bug? She's a horrifying bug. She of course knows she is both and thus can do both human and bug things at the same time
I'm always down for a good superhero RP. This seems like a nice setup and plenty active already. Might throw up a CS at some point soon - would be happy to play a hero and/or a villain, depending on what's needed. I'm thinking Demi-God/Goddess, Alien, or Wildcard for hero; Wildcard or Evil Genius for villain.
Equipment: Eris doesn't have any equipment except maybe her bright red trenchcoat. Kersey doesn't go anywhere without her laptop and laptop bag.
Personality:
Kersey
Eris
Appearance: BRIEF Bio: Eris lost her parents and thrown into the foster system at a young age. When she was six years old, it was discovered that she had a gift for computers. Not long after, she was adopted by an engineer who claimed they worked for the government. Her new family showed excitement to teach her more on computers and to better expand her knowledge. Little did she know that she had just been adopted into a small super villian family. For years she was forced to code and build machines for them. Whenever she didn't comply, they would shove her in a closet with no food, water, or light for days on end. Even when she would build machines and weapons for the people, she would still be abused, usually being the target so they could practice the new items. Afters years of the abuse, her psyche split and Eris was born from the pain and chaos.
Eris didn't acquire powers until she got into a fight with their adoptive mother after a particular brutal night. Kersey had developed a new type of energy weapon that could harvest chaos itself but it was theoretical at best. She wasn't even sure it would do anything, but unwilling to take another beating from a lack of finished product, she presented them with the ray gun. Of course, they turned the gun on Kersey but it was Eris who took the blast. The attack changed her, causing her to go insane and giving her the chaotic abilities.
After sinking her adoptive parents into a suddenly liquified house, Eris fled into the streets and the two have been living day to day ever since.
Storylines:
Integration
Stress-free
I wanna be a hero!
Notes: When not causing trouble for everything and everyone, Kersey and Eris are currently working as a barista at a small coffee shop in the center of Liberty City and living under a bridge in the park. She washes up in the park bathrooms.
Superpower: Ability to detect, absorb, and emit physical wave phenomena (ie. sound and light) from her skin. This includes sonic attacks, shooting lasers, camouflage (but not invisibility), wide-spectrum scanning/detection, sound mimicry and ventriloquism, etc.
Genius: Eileen's innate understanding of the mathematics behind wave phenomena has allowed her to excel in math and physics, as well as the use of piezoelectric components, fiber optics, and photonics in the design of her electronic tools.
Relentless pursuit of progress: Eileen is continuously finding ways to augment her natural abilities and cover for her weaknesses with the technology she develops.
Weaknesses:
Glass cannon: Physically Eileen is not very strong, relying on surprise, range, stealth, and support from her teammates to avoid harm.
Counters: An opponent with an understanding of how light and sound work can come up with ways to counter or bypass her abilities.
Equipment:
Surveillance Swarm: A swarm of microrobot drones in the form of beetles/locusts used mainly for spying and eavesdropping, though Eileen can also use them offensively by laying them around in intricate patterns that amplify the harmonics of an area, augmenting her powers. These are controlled by the mask Eileen wears that detects patterns of light emitted by her face, translating these patterns into intricate commands.
Blast Bludgeon: A long, bat-like triangular rod that functions like a tuning fork. Eileen uses this to triangulate the harmonic frequencies of objects she strikes with it. After several strikes, she is able to determine the vibrational frequency that is most destructive to the particular material she is striking. She already knows what frequency works best for concrete and bone-through-flesh.
O.M.N.I.A.C.: Budding artificial sentience that operates as Eileen's 'Jarvis'.
Eileen was always quiet and obedient and went through her life as a model citizen. Her powers developed early, but were fairly weak, allowing her to hone them safely and with no major incidents. Her powers blossomed alongside her pursuit of knowledge regarding the scientific and mathematical properties of light and sound. Despite her powers, Eileen focused on her education, which bore fruit and allowed her to achieve a high-profile academic career doing research into optronics. Eileen plans to make artificial intelligence based on optronic hardware, which would be significantly faster than conventional electronics. Yet it became clear to her, that having a well-paying job and living a life of relative comfort helped no one but herself. She saw the injustices that plagued the world and finally resolved to do something about it. But she could do little on her own. She needed to find a team and use her skills to furnish them with weapons, armor and technology.
Storylines:
Find your people: When it comes to superheroics, Eileen is a newbie. She needs to find a team and prove herself to them so that they will allow her to join.
Bling out the best in them: As Eileen comes to understand her allies' strengths and weaknesses, she will be better able to make tools to augment their abilities.
Bling out the best in yourself: Eileen will eventually develop an Iron Man-like power armor for herself, eliminating one of her major weaknesses and allowing her to stand alongside her allies.
Crime fighting does not true justice make: Surprise! Eileen is actually a potential villain character. She blames most of the suffering in this world on corporations' greed and nations' imperialistic ambitions, the few fattening themselves up from the plight of others. She hopes to find a like-minded group of superheroes who will do what must be done to overturn the current world order by deposing all the rulers and oligarchs to usher in a new golden age for humanity. Some of her teammates might find her ideals appealing, some may find them too extreme. Likely there will be a civil war.
Will give more detailed notes in a bit, at first glance y'all are killing it. We even have villains!! I'm super excited to see what else gets submitted.
Stalker V2, less brain bending edition. Things are still 2 things, but they are now what you think they are.
Archetype: Alien 2 (Aliens) Name: [A scent approximately to that of a strawberry] Alias: Stalker Age: 30 Powers/Skills:
Duality of the self: Stalker is a giant alien bug, and yet at the exact same time an indistinguishable from human woman. How she appears to others depends entirely on their own perception of her. If they expect to see a bug, they see the bug, if they expect to see the human, they see the human.
Most humans, by default, do not expect to see a giant space bug walking around, and so will see the human until she does something that makes it clear that that is not all that she is. At that point, it will all depend on if they see her as a monster or a person.
Stalker herself, of course, knows she is both things at once, and indeed that there is no separation between the two. Thus she can walk through a normal door one moment, and use her claws to smash it open the next. The top image is the best approximation of this, visually that is possible, but truly, she is both, at once, and at all times, and there is no need to ‘change’ or ‘transform’ between each form, because they are both already there.
Tirmin Physiology: Stalker’s species are large imposing bug creatures, strong and durable, but by no means invincible.
Leap tall buildings in a single bound: Stalker’s wings are not strong enough to allow her to fly, at least in earth gravity, but she can launch herself skywards with them, and then glide down from tall heights.
Bug skitter: her many limbs allow her to stride around at high speed, and climb or cling to unorthodox vertical positions.
Crapace: her bullet resistant chitten can endure limited amounts of small arms fire
Reinforced talons: the ends of her limbs are long, durable, and spear point tipped, making them great for stabbing, yes, but also for blocking and bashing.
Weaknesses:
Fish out of water: How do humans work? Why do they communicate via air noises? What is ‘money’ how/why can it be exchanged for goods and services
Hunger of the two: Being a big bug and a human at once takes a lot of energy, and thus a lot of food
Buy spray: icky
See what you want to see: If someone can figure out the trick of her dual nature, then they can change the state she is in a way that favors them, which could be very inconvenient for her. A strong enough will could, for example, punch past all her defences, and strike the entirely mundane human form.
Equipment:
Object duality: Tirmin technology takes advantage of their own dual nature, some examples of which are listed here
Cloaking Field: Taking these principles to their absolute limit, Stalker can both be somewhere and not be there at the same time. At its most effective, if a person does not expect her to be somewhere, she is entirely invisible and intangible to them. However, this does not apply to the world, so she still makes sound, displaces air, radiates heat etc. These traits can be used to work out where she is, and once someone has worked out where she is, then she is there, and fully visible.
Once seen, she can’t vanish from someone’s sight till she can get clear of it. This could involve obscuring herself in a smoke bomb, or ducking behind an obstacle, letting her ‘reactivated’ the cloak.
Pretty energy intensive.
Tunnelers: a simple plate that can be pressed against a surface to induce duality in it, making it so that it is and isn’t there, allowing the creation of tunnels that only exist if you know they are there. Very useful for breaching the surface sneakily
Bags of Double Holding: storage units that contain 2 sets of items in the same amount of space.
Hairpin blades: A pair of weapons styled after her bug legs, usable for the same blocking, shoving and stabbing as them, ensuring that her human form isn’t entirely defenseless, though they are very much a weapon of last resort. As the name suggests, they are also, at the exact same time, a pair of hairpins.
Personality: Inquisitive, Ignorant, Playful, Determined, Skittish Appearance: bug form BRIEF Bio: Stalker is a scout for a species of bug aliens called the Tirmin, specifically for a hiveship of theirs that got itself stuck in a cavern beneath Liberty City. Most of the Tirmin onboard are still in suspended animation, save for Stalker, and a number of scavenger bugs that make up the emergency support crew, all of whom were woken up by the captain upon the ship's arrival. This last survivor of the ship’s actual crew then perished from her wounds, wounds she had suffered in the daring escape from an authoritarian regime from a far off distant section of space with which the Tirmin had been at war.
‘Had been’’ being the key words, for the war is now lost, and that is why they have fled to earth, having blindly fired themselves far further through hyperspace than it would normally be safe to do so, using a black hole as a slingshot to thrust themselves far beyond the reach of their destroyers (or so they hope).
Hence the being stuck underground thing, and the crew perishing from the strain of barley keeping the ship intact over the high unorthodox voyage. Still, while the ship is a wreck, and most of its facilities and supplies destroyed, the precious cargo of its people has survived, and must now be cared for.
It was into these circumstances that Stalker and her minimalist support crew were awoken. Her mission: to take command of the scavenger core, breach the surface of this life-bearing world, and secure resources to allow her crew to first survive, and then to reawaken the rest of her people.
Stalker in question had been intended to be a frontierswomen before the war, and spent much of its depressingly brief duration in stasis traveling to a new world the Tirmin had intended to settle. The only battle in it she saw was a fighting retreat from that world, a desperate struggle to repel boarders, after which she was put into stasis. The captain and her crew sacrificed themselves to toss them into the great beyond, a desperate ploy to preserve their lives and freedom of their people.
Now it all rests on her inexperienced shoulders, but Stalker does not let that get her down. After all, this, exploring a new world, is what she was made for, not war. That it turns out it is already occupied and its natives have this concept called ‘private property’ that is an alien concept to the collectivist Tirmin, is going to make things a bit more complicated than figuring out what local flora is edible and which local fauna dangerous however.
Storylines: Feed the Hive: Most of the food was lost in the flight and crash, meaning her first aim is to find a way to feed herself and her crew. The urgency of this task will make the arduous process of establishing diplomatic relations with the natives untenable, and so she’ll need to take first and ask for forgiveness later.
Repair the Hive: Stalker will seek to repair her ship, and will scavenge local technological resources to do so. The more she can repair it, and the more food she can acquire, the more of her sisters she can awaken to help her
A new home: Earth’s tech isn’t advanced enough to repair their hyper-drive. Will they find a place among its people, have to stay hidden or find a way to claim their own part of it?
Pursuers from beyond: That which the Tirmin have fled finds them and seeks to finish the job.
Notes: Yes, she and her kind are just Terminids, and therefor just Arachnids, but seen here from a third perspective rather than the one of their enemies (and, of course, with a human face attached to make them relatable)
As the storylines imply, I intend her to engage in gradually escalating street crime, and gradually gain an army of underlings to help out with it. Optimally, she and her kind will team up with either the heroes or the villains (depending on if either one can help her solve her problems) rather than stay entirely solo the whole time.
Here's my CS! Putting my hat in the ring for the Demi-God/Goddess archetype.
Archetype: Demi-God/Goddess Name (Khodali): Savarea Name (Earth): Kate Turner Alias: Queen of Gold Age: ~2,400 (middle-aged for a Khodalian) Powers/Skills:
Weapon Manipulation - Kate/Savarea can manifest and manipulate any kind of conventional and man-portable weapon (meaning no nukes, bio-weapons, or artillery-scale weapons), and use it with complete proficiency. While Kate usually prefers melee weapons, her familiarity with more guns and other projectile weapons will increase as she uses them and witnesses their use more and more on Earth.
Tactical and Strategic Mastery - Not an innate superpower, but a learned and finely-honed skill through her role as the commander of the Khodalian armies for many years. Kate is a master strategist and tactician, and as a result is a useful asset in combat even if she is unable to fight directly.
Winged Flight - Kate can grow enormous white feathered wings out of her back at will, allowing her to fly with great speed.
Pyrokinesis - Like many of Khodali's deities, Kate possesses one form of elemental manipulation. In her case it is fire, the element of war. She can create and manipulate fire through her extremities or through a weapon, and can walk in fire unharmed.
Summoning - Kate can summon hordes of animals and other beings to fight for her. However, this power seems to be restricted to Khobalian beings and has not yet manifested for Kate on Earth.
Weaknesses:
Blood for the Blood God - Kate's power weakens when she is out of battle for a long time. After years of peace, Kate's power is significantly weakened and takes a long time to return to its peak battle state. Thus, while Kate is a deity in every sense, she currently possesses power more befitting of Liberty City street-level operations.
Silver Bullet - While Kate has built up a healthy resistance to melee and elemental attacks, Kate (along with all Khobalians) had zero experience with firearms before settling on Earth. Thus, one well-placed bullet could easily take her out of the fight. To survive, she must rely on her armor, attacks, and allies to prevent any bullets from ripping through her. Female Khobalian Battle Armor does not have the best coverage, either, but Kate is too proud to use anything else.
Equipment: Khodalian Battle Armor and Crown, plus any weapons she creates. Personality: Warm, Confident, Patient, Even-Keeled, Courageous Appearance:
BRIEF Bio:
Kate/Savarea is the Khodalian Goddess of War. While only a small part of a large pantheon of Khodalian deities, the war goddess was one of the most important in Khodali for millenia as a long, bloody war ignited and did not stop burning. As a queen and the general of Khodali's armies, Kate guided them to an eventual victory that earned her a place among legends. This victory ushered in a great era of peace in Khodali, which meant there was no longer a need for a goddess of war. Eventually, after 1,000 years of peace with no sign of forthcoming conflict, the Emperor of the Gods sent Kate away to find wars to be won elsewhere in the universe. It didn't take long for her to end up on Earth, a planet in constant conflict. Kate settled on Liberty City, a place with plenty of turmoil, and snagged a nice place in Middle Park East (=NYC's Upper East Side). It didn't take long for her to find hero work.
Storylines:
New Digs, New Grind: Millenia ago, in the midst of Khodalian war, Kate's power was at its peak, and few dared oppose it. However, a thousand years of peace followed and rendered her relatively weak. Kate needs to do a lot of fighting to get back to her true potential as the goddess of war, and to reclaim all of her abilities. (This is so that she can scale with the team, and only become enormously powerful when it makes roleplaying sense for her to be, a la Thor.)
Uptown Girl: Kate is very much used to the deity lifestyle of being perpetually exalted. This isn't to say she craves a return to that life; while she certainly did not mind the adoration and sacrifices in her name, being such an icon in the Khodalian society was also a lot of work and a lot of face time that she wasn't always happy to be involved in. While Kate must acclimate to life on Earth and Liberty City where she is a nobody, she is also excited at the chance to be an ordinary citizen who can let down her hair and enjoy herself.
No Place Like Home: As a Khobalian deity, Kate will always have a responsiblity to her people. Should Khobali be threatened by invasion or civil war, Kate will need to return there to resume her duties as the goddess of war.
Notes: I designed Kate to be somewhat of a cross between Thor and Wonder Woman, with a similar power level to either. I tried to make the starting abilities reasonable, but it can scale to whatever makes sense for the RP.
Kersey is gifted when it comes to computers and machines. When given the proper tools and supplies, she can build anything you might need technology wise, though she usually only develops code and blueprints on her laptop since she does not have the resources or tools to make her designs.
Emotion Manipulation:
Eris has the ability to amplify a particular emotion or pulling on a specific emotion within a person or crowd of people. The emotion must be originally present for her to amplify it to extreme extents and those of strong will or mind can resist her pull of emotions. Her best suited targets are crowds of people, usually those gathered at games or protests. Those are the easiest for her to manipulate but if she loses her concentration while manipulating a group of people or a particularly strong willed person, she loses control of the emotion and has to start again.
Chaos Manifestation:
Eris can physically manifest chaos within her hands and warp the realty of inanimate objects she touches. The object she touches remains warped to her reality as long as she is in contact with the object and it takes a moment or two of contact for her powers to take hold and transmute the item. She cannot use the ability to protect herself from things like swinging swords or flying bullets. Her powers take far too long to change the state of the item to affect them in time. Her powers also expand out only about ten feet from her center of gravity. So if she were to change a road to liquid, it would only go ten feet out from her current location though that may vary depending on how distressed she currently is.
Chaotic Projectiles:
Eris is able to conjure her chaos magic and send it out in a small projectile from her hands. However, since her magic typically takes her contact to cause anything of real significance to take affect, these projectiles are typically harmless. The most they would do was give a small static shock and Eris has been known to use them as a distraction or a bother to unsuspecting civilians or heroes.
Chaos Condensing:
Eris has the ability to condense her chaos into things she can personally use like stepping stones or chairs. However, it isn't physical to others around her. Only she has the ability to step through the air on her chaos energy stepping stones and if someone were to try and follow her, they would fall right through them, same with her chair/throne she may manifest randomly to sit in when she gets bored of standing. These items do not affect the real world however, and since they are mostly transparent, she can't even use them to block the view of someone.
Weaknesses:
Split Personality:
Eris is only one part of a whole. The other side is Kersey who hates hurting people or causing trouble. If someone can call Kersey forth, Eris would go to sleep.
No fighting training:
Eris lacks the skill for hand to hand combat. Once someone gets in close and punches are thrown, Eris finds herself out of her league and so will do anything to keep out of fighting range
Insanity:
There is no end goal for Eris's rampage or trouble she causes. Her only purpose in life is to cause as many problems for other people as she can. She is someone who just wants to see the world burn. She has been hurt and wants others to hurt as much as she has. She doesn't understand why they were ever hurt in the first place and intends to take her anger and pain out on everyone around her, in any way she can.
Revolving door of stress:
Kersey hates that Eris exists and likes to try and act like she doesn't. When she is forced to face the fact that she's the one going out doing those bad things, it can cause her to get stressed and the more stressed she is, the more likely Eris is to arise
Equipment: Eris doesn't have any equipment except maybe her bright red trenchcoat. Kersey doesn't go anywhere without her laptop and laptop bag.
Appearance: BRIEF Bio: Kersey lost her parents and was thrown into the foster system at a young age. When she was six years old, it was discovered that she had a gift for computers. Not long after, she was adopted by an engineer who claimed they worked for the government. Her new family showed excitement to teach her more on computers and to better expand her knowledge. Little did she know that she had just been adopted into a small super villain family. For years she was forced to code and build machines for them. Whenever she didn't comply, they would shove her in a closet with no food, water, or light for days on end. Even when she would build machines and weapons for the people, she would still be abused, usually being the target so they could practice the new items. Afters years of the abuse, her psyche split and Eris was born from the pain and chaos.
Eris didn't acquire powers until she got into a fight with their adoptive mother after a particular brutal night. Kersey had developed a new type of energy weapon that could harvest chaos itself but it was theoretical at best. She wasn't even sure it would do anything, but unwilling to take another beating from a lack of finished product, she presented them with the ray gun. Of course, they turned the gun on Kersey but it was Eris who took the blast. The attack changed her, causing her to go insane and giving her the chaotic abilities.
After sinking her adoptive parents into a suddenly liquefied house, Eris fled into the streets and the two have been living day to day ever since.
Storylines:
Integration:
Kersey has looked into solutions for her split personality and has learned that integration is a possibility but she's afraid that if they do find a way to merge, who would be the one to emerge after? Would it even be either of them? Or would it be a completely different person? Would they lose themselves doing it?
Stress-free:
Kersey tries to live a normal life without stress so that Eris doesn't make any kind of appearance. Unfortunately, a stress free life isn't likely when you're living on the streets, going from one job to the next just to survive.
I wanna be a hero!:
Kersey secretly wants to be a super hero. She even has a few designs on her laptop for a suite she could wear to help her fight crime and a few cages she designed that could possibly even contain Eris is it came down to it but it's hard to contain someone who can change the physical state of inanimate objects
Notes: When not causing trouble for everything and everyone, Kersey and Eris are currently working as a barista at a small coffee shop in the center of Liberty City and living under a bridge in the park. She washes up in the park bathrooms. Kersey isn't mentally well. She puts on a brave face when working to try and keep her job so they can buy food but when out in general public or back in her little camp under the bridge, it becomes glaringly obvious that she isn't completely there most the time. Muttering to herself and staring off into space for periods of times, sometimes mid conversation. Her emotions fluctuate from one extreme to the other most of the time and she finds it hard to remember little things that have happened. If one were to look into the journal on her laptop, they would find it a rambling life story of an intelligent person struggling to hold on to sanity.
Kersey/Eris version 2. I modified her powers so there are ways out of it and to keep them from being too ridiculous; ie her chaos manipulation isn't an instantaneous thing so weapons can't just be changed to mush upon contact, she can't control the emotions of those with strong wills, ect. ect. I took away her luck manipulation and gave her two other abilities that don't really do much except give her character flavor. I also gave her a few more details on her current state of mind and how I'll be playing as her too. Take a peek over her and let me know what you think. I feel like I did a decent job of balancing her out. @Omega Man
Hmm, I guess I can still stick him in the wildcard archetype if I really have to. If that's not an option either, then I'm gonna grab the size changer role.
-Empath: Abby can sense the emotions of others, which would let her gauge what to do next in a situation.
-Telepathic: With this ability, Abby can access and read the minds of others. And communicating with them without speaking. Being able to project images and sound to create illusions. She is also able to gain visions of the future, although these images are hazy.
-Telekinesis: Abby can move, manipulate, or control objects using only her mind without any physical interaction. With her telekinesis, she can create a force field around her body to protect herself. However, she would need to concentrate on creating the shield. Abby is also able to fly using her telekinesis. But she needs to focus so she can fly properly.
Weaknesses:
-Drug Addiction: Abby has an addiction to a particular kind of drug that helps with her headaches. Without the medication, Abby will get terrible headaches and nose bleeds.
-Fatigue: Using her powers extensively can cause Abby to be extremely fatigued.
-Mental Illness: Because of Abby’s past, her mental stability is relatively low. And any kind of traumatic event could send Abby into a total mental breakdown. She also suffers from visual and auditory hallucinations.
- Physically Weak: She is not very strong and could be easily beaten in a fight.
Equipment:
-Pill Bottle: A small bottle of pills to help with her headaches.
-Pocket Knife: A utility knife that she uses to defend herself.
BRIEF Bio: Abby was born in a laboratory as part of a secret government project to try to create superhuman soldiers. Living with other children in the program, her childhood was quite lonesome. She mostly filled her time with playing guitar, writing songs, and singing. As an adolescent and young teenager, her powers and personality became more erratic. More security measures were put in place to try to stop her from getting out of control. However, she hit her breaking point in her late teens. Abby one day escaped from the facility thanks to some of the other subjects.
With her friends, they stuck together as a group, calling themselves “The Lads.” As a group, they protect each other. The group eventually found there way to Liberty City.
Storylines:
- Meeting her creator and her mental state becoming worse. Her powers are becoming more intense and out of control.
- Creating a cult or taking over a gang, and causes some havok.
- The other members of The Lads step in to try and stop her. Leading to her "fake death."
- "The Lads" break up and do their own thing.
- Abby returns as either an anti-hero or continues to be a villain. Or returns with no memories of her past, and is built up from there.
- Abby, at this point, can become either an anti-hero, villain, or hero.
Notes: This character is a mix of Jean Grey, Eleven from Stranger Things, and Tetsuo from Akira.