Saw this get posted up earlier, and have been meaning to give it a read. Definitely interested in getting a character put together in the coming days, as long as you have room for another of course.

@Kensai

Fair enough, was just kind of awkward reading it on review this morning like "ohhhh shit, I hope they didn't think I was ripping them off"

Eh, no worries. I also just noticed "Sharlin" - "Svalin" but I don't think it matters enough to ask you to change it.

Alright, that one actually bugs me enough that I'm changing it by one letter. And done.

Saw this get posted up earlier, and have been meaning to give it a read. Definitely interested in getting a character put together in the coming days, as long as you have room for another of course.

There is indeed still space! Am aiming to throw up the IC sometime over the weekend, but even then I’m hoping to keep apps open for the latecomers.

i'm interested, too!

I will try to have an app sometime this week.

Alright, wanted to get this sorted out before I called it an evening, figured we could use someone in a support role.

im not gm, but bravo!

Alright, wanted to get this sorted out before I called it an evening, figured we could use someone in a support role.

Albert Hartwig [+]

Name: Albert Hartwig
Age: 32
Archetype: Mechanic/Scoundrel
Gender: Male
Occupation: Armored Core Upkeep, Design, and Research liaison. Logistical Support, as required.
Affiliations: New Alexandria Mechanical Academy (Graduate), Brose Arsenal (Design staff, field consultant, and engineer).
Skills and Abilities:

• Armored Core Expertise - Having been sent to the New Alexandria Mechanical Academy as early as he could be, Albert was basically raised to live and breath Armored Cores, though unlike their pilots, his role would be far more technical. He studied theory and practical designs, how to not only maintain and formally design, but unofficially patch and maintain experimental designs during field tests. Having spent his entire adult life working for the largest Armored Core design, development, and manufacturer in his home system has given him a unique outlook on the venerable machines, and that was before he was part of Brose Arsenal's first field consulting team.
• Mechanical Adaptation - Albert has been handling tools longer than he has been walking, and that is only mostly an exaggeration. Be it his normal focus in Armored Cores (which can vary from being waist deep in a malfunctioning cockpit troubleshooting faulty controls to moving, installing, and swapping spare parts and munitions with crane or powered exosuit if forced to support field bound units), supporting non Armored Core elements in their day to day operations and upkeep, or even the rare personal project, Albert knows just enough to figure out what he doesn't know in good order, especially if given freedom to act as he sees fit.
• Industrial Contacts - Albert spent his entire adult life making contacts and friends in his Academy years, and as a field consultant and engineer for Brose Arsenal and its field team expanded on these contacts. He is also willing and able to cut discreet deals, many of which can be....dubious in their legality, to make deadlines or get his hands on parts. Doubly so, when forced to work with equipment and Armored Core designs that are insistent on bleeding edge operations or hopelessly obsolete. He won't comment on where he gets his hands on his supplies and stock, but one can be assured it is functional and quality. Should parts just so happen to arrive unmarked? Albert will gladly relabel them to make them useful for official operations.

Faults and Limitations:

• Perpetual Exhaustion - Albert is already an undiagnosed (by his insistence) insomniac, getting the bare minimum of sleep and running on a constant intake of caffeine, coffee, and sheer bloody minded spite. Add in ruthless work schedules, back to back 12 hour shifts, and the constant rigors of support operations and Albert always looks one step away from collapsing from exhaustion. Technically speaking, he is at least three steps away, but it is an unavoidable condition of being in a near constant state of exhaustion that only gets worse during high stress situations.
• Mechanic's Mouth - Albert would not recognize decorum if he tripped over it, and has a nasty habit of not recognizing the need for a brain to mouth filter. The more exhausted he gets, the worse it can get, and while he might not be outright insubordinate, those expecting proper form over function will often be rudely informed by Albert that, no, their request for a complete overhaul and diagnostic sweep within the hour before deployment is not reasonable and they will hear about it. The entire time, even as he is moving heaven and earth to make it happen.

Biography: Albert Hartwig was born to a large, extended family of tinkerers, mechanics, scientists, and stark raving madmen. He was the second son of the family, though he knew more of his cousins than he ever did of his older sister, and while he had younger siblings as well, he was often too busy learning and burying himself in Armored Core designs to ever get to know them a great deal. Each member of the Hartwig extended family had some sort of obsession, being one of their most notorious qualities despite not being any sort of formal house or the like. For Albert, that was Armored Cores, for better or worse.

Growing up around a family neck deep in the military industrial complex gave him ample time to be babysat by engineers, scientists, and theoretical designers who owed favors to his parents, who would rather Albert not be around bothering them when he could be bothering people who owed them petty favors instead. Albert was not too concerned with that, engrossed with the talk and chatter of towering war machines and their mighty legions of supporting infantry and armor, while pouring over unclassified designs and historical anecdotes. His family secured him a place in the New Alexandria Mechanical Academy, which performed double duty as both a college and trade school, which he would excel at.

Albert would routinely get himself into trouble, however, given his natural inclination and talent often times outpaced those who relied on learned technique. His near constant arrival at correct answers, using the wrong methods, could have led to a more dire post academic career if it was not for family connections and a certain company that would rather have results over anything else already eying him. By the time he graduated from the Academy, he had several letters of recommendation from various family members, all pointing him towards a single company. Brose Arsenal, which was one of the up and coming big names in his home system's military industrial complex.

Rather than explore his options, Albert took the most direct path to a career he wanted, at least he thought he wanted. Immediately assigned to a team that would tour other companies and facilities, Albert would rapidly learn not just about what Brose Arsenal specialized in, and offered in terms of expertise, but also engaged in no small amount of forming connections, establishing research and cooperation deals, as well as acting as a sponsored trouble shooter and consultant for smaller firms that had something to offer Brose Arsenal that they could not otherwise get their hands on. More importantly, Albert was constantly in contact with not just Armored Core pilots, but even Lancers. Highly experimental, heavily customized, and sometimes wildly dangerous to the pilot as well as the enemy, Albert expanded his capabilities as not just a mechanic, but as supplier and source of parts and supplies for Lancers and their Core's needs.

It was this ten year stretch that both gave him the know how and skillset to attract the attention of those putting together Prince Cassian's Lance that would operate out in the Procyon Sector. For them, he would be a flexible subject matter expert on Armored Cores of varying designs and needs, as well as bringing a network of contacts that could be convinced, cajoled, or otherwise strong armed into providing supplies in a pinch. For Albert? It got him out of Brose Arsenal's direction, which he had been slowly chaffing under as his expertise and knowledge grew, having to argue and fight to continue his field work instead of taking a posting back in the home lab. Brose Arsenal, meanwhile, just saw it as a chance to establish a foothold in the Procyon Sector, approving his leave of absence for his duration of employment in Lance that Prince Cassian was sponsoring. The question of what happened if the Lance was ever dissolved was never brought up, given Albert would sooner vanish into the frontier than ever return to Brose, but no one would admit that.

Great app, accepted!

Ach! Got a third character idea I want to make now lol

Ach! Got a third character idea I want to make now lol

Hah! While I might recommend waiting until we get settled at a certain posting rate, I'm definitely curious to hear about what you're cooking.

I'm also starting on the opening post now - so hopefully it'll be up today or tomorrow.

Alright, here's one that's more out there, but I think we lacked wizards in this group.

Name: Hierophant Tyche Comstar
Age: 35(?)
Archetype: Voidtouched
Gender: Female
Appearance:
Image
The first obvious thing about Tyche is that she is tall, impressively so. Impressive is in fact the best word to describe her, literally by design. Her body has been significantly augmented with cybernetics and doesn't have any visible organic parts and all her skin except for her face is instead raw carbon fiber ultra dense synthetic muscles. To complete her superhuman aura, she also usually moves around using antigravs with arcane devices flying around her.

Occupation: Lancer, Voidtouched wizard.
Affiliations: Comstar Corporation
Skills and Abilities:
Master of the Drift - Through generations of selective breeding, genetic engineering and arcane technologies of ancient earth, Tyche has been molded into one of the most potent Voidtouched in the Empire with terrifying and overwhelming powers over reality.

Archeotech Expert - What used to be the Com-Star corporation once had its hands in all advanced engineering projects of Ancient Humanity, as such many ancient wonders hidden across the galaxy incorporate elements that Tyche understands perfectly and that are have backdoors that a millennium later she can use.

Faults and Limitations:
Pampered - Tyche has been prepared for 'greater things' her entire life, so much that the little things have always been taken care off for her. She has an army of servants around her to do everything from dressing her to applying tooth paste on her brush. In any situation where she cannot rely on others to take care of her these voidtouched powers do little to help her.

Overwhelming Psyche - Tyche oozes power and affects reality around her even if she doesn't mean to. Even if she has a perfect poker face, her emotions and intent can be felt around her, especially by anyone with a light connection with the void. She also needs to sleep in a special chamber else everyone in a certain radius might begin to share her dreams and nightmares.

Biography:
After the cataclysmic end of Ancient Earth, the Com-Star corporation became a legacy, its owners staying relevant by greedily hoarding technologies and selling them. Eventually it transcended that and became the stuff of legend, with no one knowing what Comstar used to mean, only understanding they were the people who could at will shut off all technology, open all the gates of a space station to send people in the void or turn off the god-machines keeping the air of terraformed planets breathable, then Comstar became the stuff of religion and even the heirs of Comstar started to believe their own lies.

It is uncertain if this doctrine originates in a megalomaniac founder or if it is merely a perversion of a corporation's obsession with hoarding wealth and power, but Comstar's creed is the discovery and hoarding of technology and power. Not 'temporal power' as they call the power of emperors and nobles which they call trivial and fake, but real power over reality itself, Comstar history teaching that Ancient humans were on the verge of mastering the drift to a degree where they could control all of reality and reshape it into a paradise of their choice and that the fall was caused by ludites who feared this inevitable destiny.

It is in this context that Tyche was born, one of countless genetically modified embryos based on the current President of Comstar implanted in mothers specifically chosen for their desirable traits and then trained from a young age for mastery over the drift and understanding of Void-tech. After a grueling selection, she was chosen to be a potential successor to the President. In a way, her situation is similar to the Prince's, only unlike him, she plays the game of power and aims to win at all cost as losing means having her psyche absorbed by whichever of her 'sibling' is deemed to be the superior one, which in theory is not dying but in practice is at least something pretty damn close to it.

Procyon is thus for her the potential for advancement. Comstar always had an eye on the sector since back in the Ancient era, it had been on the edge of the known universe and a place where many corporations had blacksites, places to try their most advanced technologies, the kind that if something went wrong could ruin their reputation or destroy entire planets. Her studies hint at treasures of potentially immense power and technological importance. Comstar was never free to openly investigate this location however, either out of fear of other corporate entities taking their interest as a hint of what's hidden and outmaneuvering them or simply because the emperor and his ephemeral temporal power would forbid it simply for the sake of preventing an already powerful entity gaining more power.

The Prince was the perfect cover, Comstar's involvement with him looking like a play on imperial politics rather than an interest in the backwater he had exiled himself in. Tyche however is not a diplomat and simply presented with Prince with a carrot and a stick, either Comstar would back him with its money and tech, or it would use them to hamper him. Keep your friends close but enemies closer as they say.

Mech:
Designation/Callsign: Prophet 1
General Description:
This mech is notable in how humanoid it is compared to many others, made for graceful and fluid movement. It's slender frame looks rather fragile and even acting one can even see its limbs bulge and strain as it relies in synthetic muscles rather than hydraulics and the likes. The mecha is otherwise red and white, the colors of Comstar and is usually accompanied with utility drones to emit shields and block attacks.

Role and Doctrine: The Prophet has no on board armament and its sensors could only be qualified as decent, it is instead pretty much a focus and amplifier of the pilot's void powers. In practice, this mech can probably be described as an artillery platform: it needs protection but has the potential to be devastating.

Notable Armaments or Systems:
Fluid Dexterity - The Prophet does not have a cabin like traditional mechs, it's pilot is instead submerged in an oxygenated fluid and plugged directly into the machine, giving it the impression of 'being' the machine, allowing for unparalleled fine control over the machine and allowing the user to for example translate its own knowledge of martial arts into movements for the mech.

Drift Modulators - The mech and the dozen or so drones that surround it are equipped with an array of devices meant to modulate, amplify and focus drift manipulation, making a pilot able to squish another mech with its mind with about the same energy it would take it to do a regular sized portion for example.

Known Limitations or Vulnerabilities:
Machine Spirit - Activating the Prophet involves a ceremony that seems more religious than technological, and it is something that must imperatively be done because it has a certain degree of auto-pilot with what can be described as a spirited personality. This is theorized to be the psychic imprint of previous pilots 'sticking' to its complex control matrix, but whatever the case it is fickle and demands chants and incense to function properly.

Psychic Link - The pilot-machine merging is incredible archeotechnology from the peak of mankind, but it comes with some drawback that prevented it from ever becoming the norm. Mainly, the mind cannot differentiate from trauma to the machine and itself, as such a shock will make the pilot (and thus the machine) reel back in pain.

these posts are amazing!

these posts are amazing!

Agreed! I've loved reading them so far.

Alright, here's one that's more out there, but I think we lacked wizards in this group.

Name: Hierophant Tyche Comstar
-snip-

Mech:
Designation/Callsign: Prophet 1
General Description:
-snip-

I really love the concept here. It’s ambitious, a little strange in the best way, and very much in line with how the setting treats powerful voidtouched figures.

First, a quick meta question: how comfortable do you feel juggling three characters at once? I don’t doubt that you could handle it, but especially early on, posting burden can sneak up on people. It might be worth starting with two until the RP finds its rhythm.

I also want to flag that another player is working on a somewhat adjacent concept (a voidtouched noble with a mech that amplifies their abilities). That’s not a problem, but it does mean we’d want to work together to carve out clearer niches (more explicit differences in void disciplines, combat roles, or team function) so both PCs get space to shine.

High-level thoughts:
I really dig the not-quite-human vibe and aesthetic of the character. It very much fits how the Imperium tends to view powerful voidtouched practitioners. My main concern right now is that the app presents her as exceptional in several different domains at once: one of the most potent voidtouched, deeply versed in archeotech, physically enhanced via cybernetics, and seemingly a very capable pilot on top of that. None of these are bad individually, but taken together it makes it a bit hard to see where her weaknesses truly are. I would recommend trying to focus her skillset just a tad more, or to add more faults/limitations to clarify where her abilities fall short.

By way of examples, you could focus her more on the role of a voidtouched/archeotech expert role: add a limitation indicating that she is not too strong in a fight without her powers, and even as a pilot she’s rather slow and vulnerable. Her cybernetics, rather than conveying significant advantages on their own, are there to help her human body to withstand the burden of using and restraining her powers, which are primarily used in a support role rather than for direct combat. Heck, you could even have her not be a Lancer herself if you’d really want to focus on her voidtouched powers being her main contribution to the Lance.

Alternatively, you could swing things the other way. Sure she knows a fair deal about archeotech due to her heritage, but she’s no scientific savant. Instead, Tyche was born and raised as a potent, psychic weapon. She is trained to be an effective pilot and uses her void-touched powers as a tool of battle.

I also like the world-building with both the Com-Star corporation, and the pseudo-dynasty that they’ve become! I’d probably clarify that they don’t have total control over technology in this day-and-age, but perhaps they are still quite prominent in the Imperium’s efforts to decipher and understand the technology of Ancient Terra. I especially like the idea that much of their understanding has been lost, leaving them reliant on doctrine, ritual, and precedent. Internal tension between a more “scientific” versus more “religious” approach to archeotech would fit the setting very well.

More specific comments/musings:
Archeotech Expert: The idea here is great. I’d recommend toning it down just a little, though. Cut out that she understands things “perfectly”, since even Com-Star would have lost most of their comprehension of the true science behind a lot of Archeotech - relying instead on a lot of half-ritualistic and empirical methods.

Master of the Drift: I’d want a little bit more specificity with regards to her “core” powers. Folks can certainly gain skills/abilities over the course of the RP, but right now things are just a little bit too vague on this front for Tyche. I’d recommend focusing on a key “discipline” for her powers (feel free to come up with your own, although I’ve found 40k’s psykers to be a decent-ish source of inspiration: Psyker | Warhammer 40k Wiki | Fandom).

Com-Star? We got another BattleTech player here?

Com-Star? We got another BattleTech player here?

I keep meaning to check out some of the Battletech books, myself. So far my lore knowledge just comes from a couple innocent dives into YouTube.

<Snipped quote by Kensai>

I keep meaning to check out some of the Battletech books, myself. So far my lore knowledge just comes from a couple innocent dives into YouTube.

I got back into playing last year, but my history with BTech goes back three decades. I've got my kids playing it now.

Also a Battletech enjoyer, noticed when one mech was just the Black Knight lol.

something something tyche comstar pay your bills joke

(post from me soon)

I'll have a post up tomorrow evening.

I'll get a post up tomorrow evening as well, at the latest.