Name: Tibulus Sepitan (color is a7a7a7) Age/Race/Gender: Deceased / Funganoid (see Powers) / Male Appearance: Take a skeleton, add a blue mushroom helmet, give the mushroom gray spots, and the skeleton has blue lights for pupils. That's literally the base appearance for Tibulus. Otherwise, a tight navy jumpsuit is worn at all times by Tibulus, and is never taken off for an unknown reason. Occupation: Electrician, Botanist and Pilot. Weapons: The only real weapon that Tibulus will carry is his custom made stun blaster, powered by the coherent power of Funganoids being able to create a good amount of electricity with direct contact. The stun blaster is a pistol with no real lethality unless it connects to bare skin. Otherwise, it acts as an EMP and will short-circuit any technology it comes into contact with, but it must be charged with every use and can only short circuit for a small amount of time. Besides the stun blaster, he also carries a single glove, able to amplify the electricity generated from being a Funganoid into electrical punches. It causes a similar EMP effect to the stun blaster but does it over an area. The stronger the punch, the more area it will cover. If a punch is too strong, it will cause Tibulus to have a migraine. Armor: Power armor is the way to go, and Tibulus carries around a lightweight full-body shield unit. It coats the whole body in a relatively strong shield, and it shall hold up for a damn good time. When it's depleted, however, it will cause an EMP around him in about a 2 meter radius, and will not work for a good amount of time. Once it's recharged though, the EMP will also be recharged, so there's that bit of tidbitual informationing. Items: - A bunch of rechargeable batteries, which can have the energy absorbed out of in order to get Tibulus drunk. - A photo of Tibulus when he was alive, with his wife and 2 kids, William and Rodney. - Multiple cigars. It's rare to see him without one in his mouth. - A single snack-pack of Goldfish brand crackers. He wants to find more. Skills: - Tibulus claims he can pilot anything with a simple look over the controls. This has been unproven. - Tibulus has extensive knowledge of electronics, and can create incredible things provided you give him resources and time. - Tibulus is a botanist, and as such he has extensive knowledge of plant life. From crossbreeding to genetically engineering. - Tibulus is a master when it comes to the art of knitting. Nobody knows why. Powers:
The Funganoid is a relatively newly discovered race, taking on the appearance of a parasitic fungus that will attempt to latch onto any deceased life within a good radius and effectively reanimating them and using the deceased as a body. This is not a case of zombies, this is a case of the person being given a second chance at life, as the deceased is reanimated with all knowledge from the previous life that they have experienced, and is largely the same person as they once were. This is overshadowed, however, by the grotesque appearance of the deceased as they slowly lose all of their skin (provided they had any) and become the definition of feared. One of the most interesting traits of the funganoid is the unexplained ability they possess. When a funganoid possesses a host, the host gains the ability to conduct a certain kind of static electricity through their bones, and some are even able to channel it into fully fledged thunderbolts of destruction. This is reserved only for the most experienced of the race, and currently only one funganoid was found with this capability. Due to their skeletal bodies, funganoids are considered immortal, and cannot die from old age. In addition, the funganoid does not have a need to eat, drink, or breathe, unless they so desire to. They also cannot be afflicted with mortal ailments excluding any sort of brain disease, which is typically passed down genetically anyway. Further research is being conducted on the nature of these mysterious beings. ~ Professor B. Nan; Head of the Racial Research Branch in [REDACTED]
Other: Nothing here yet!
I should've pinged you about this when I posted it. Apologies.
@Crossfire Was originally thinking of having my old character with some minor changes and more fleshed out, but then decided to create someone entirely different.
Name: Nathan ‘Rim’ Briar
Age/Race/Gender: 46, Human, Male
Image Source: tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Charact.. Stands at about 5’ 10”, with a heavy-set build. Primarily wears his armour without the helmet and heavily armoured pieces.
Occupation: Smuggler, Hunter, Mercenary
Weapons:
Image Source: timur-kvasov.deviantart.com/art/Wolfwo.. Ballistic, Semi-Auto, Full Auto A design by Wolfwood Arms Division made to be cheap and bring in lots of income, this saved the company because of the modular design, as people would get the base rifle, then buy other modules for it to upgrade it. Using ballistic rounds, this particular rifle has a shock pad on the stock, and a longer barrel.
Image Source: abduzeedo.com/cool-futuristic-weapon-d.. Laser, Beam A small industrial laser cutter originally designed for cutting through steel and other materials in any conditions, although also used as a weapon by people with even a semi-creative mind and access to construction site tools. It has a limited charge, about twenty minutes constant use, although overheats after about five at room temperature, and takes an hour and a half to fully recharge.
Armor:
Image Source: thedesigninspiration.com/illustrations.. Armoured, Light Designed for mobility while keeping a decent amount of defence while exploring hostile enviroments, this was passed by the military because it didn’t have the protection that other upscale armour gave, and any half professional explorers won’t take it because of the lack of an inbuilt oxygen tank. Despite that it works well and has more protection available in form of armoured plates that can clip on. Helmet has the possibility to wirelessly connect to computer systems (Provided access is given), and also has a retractable radio antenna.
Items: Small Spherical Air Drone (See Armour) Drone Control Kit Drone Repair Kit Ebook Reader
Skills: Nathan is a skilled pilot, both for vehicles and drones, and decent with most weapons. He can deal with animals very well, and has a good understanding about various forms of science, particularly physics.
Powers: None
Other: Known to work on mainly in less civilised areas of space, and on early colony planets.
@Rultaos Thanks for the input. That does sound sensible, as confirmed.
@Crossfire Alright. I actually got through with all that. Very well. Thank you. And, yupp. I have a backstory in mind, then. Should I keep it completely to myself or share with you?
Just did a quick head count, We're waiting on 4 or 5 more who've expressed interest, I'll check in with those folks in the morning, and with any luck we'll be getting started soon afterwards!
Name: Vavnr Sammn (VAV-ner SAM-mun) AKA Slippery Sam, Slimy Sam, Vagrant, and other unflattering things.
Age/Race/Gender: 45, Kzargett, Male.
Appearance: Roughly 5 foot 8 inches tall. blackish brown and glossy scales, with assorted sand-red ones down his face and back. A few of his back-teeth are missing on the right side, and he's got an iron prosthetic pounded into the end of his tail. It didn't necessarily replace any length, but he does put a gnarly-looking hook on the end of his tail when he's expecting a fight. This causes him to stagger sometimes when he walks casually as this graft-piercing thing has deadened nerves in the end of his tail, which Kzargetts typically use for balance. but he moves well enough vertically, or horizontally on even ground or in a full run.
He usually wears coats and finery made of bulky layers of fancy looking ballistic fabrics, as well as a wide-brimmed hat with exotic feathers.
He has a war cleaver, (The bottom one, naturally!*) by his side most of the time; A low tech and inexpensive answer to life's problems. It's easily capable of delivering heavy, potentially armor-piercing blows with two-handed leverage, and still fairly ergonomic to use and parry with with one hand if he needs to keep somebody busy for a flintlock shot, though you won't be cleaving any heads in half that way.
*Except, of course, with the sword-catching upturned guard in the back and the hand-protecting bit of guard in the front. Don't know why the silly buggers didn't include those in the picture. They're pivottal!
He has a few “Fast Deploy Mines”, which can be tossed a few feet after arming for quick deployment. They have light adhesives on their broad sides that can attach them safely to most surfaces, and they can be thrown like frisbees for much longer distances, though they usually end up exploding on impact instead of safely deploying as mines.
He has his aforementioned tailhook, of course. It doesn't curve far around or downward, but rather tapers off shortly after it becomes parallel to the original bit of hook. This makes it easier to use under duress, as one can merely use straight swings to slam the pointy bit into enemies and grab onto things, at the expense of a decreased length of grip, should he decide to hang from it. The finest in prosthetic equipment, it can turn itself around with the dexterity of a living appendage.
He also carries with him four (Or as many as he can carry given his other equipment, but that's usually 4) Pressure Blasters, colloquially called "Plasma Flintlocks". They’rebulky little handheld jobbies that go off with a big bang and fire slugs of superheated tungsten at supersonic speeds.
They are heavy, powerful mechanisms that use small, controlled reactions (And, of course, freakin' laser beams on quick, high focus) to bring these relatively large tungsten chunks to nigh-melting temperatures as it rather loudly launches them out of the barrel. The incredible force behind them and the tremendous temperature causes them to create enormous smoking holes in most conventional materials, organic or otherwise, and leave hot, burning trails of air behind it. By weight alone, they can deliver a righteous pistol-whip, and the handle and barrel are left mostly perpendicular to assist in its use as a baton as well as a firearm.
After two shots of any kind, the mechanics are considered highly strained and very probably heat-damaged. Firing any charges out of a heat-damaged pistol with a higher melting point than raw iron (Which would be pretty much vaporised by the combustion process) cause it to clog up and explode spectacularly, like a pineapple grenade that gets molten metal and toxic metal gas everywhere. (Though the gas usually dissipates into metal dust and particles fractions of a second after firing, simply because of how freaking cold the air around it usually is compared to the environment it was vaporized in.) The user usually gets a good click and three seconds of warning before the gun explodes, though.
They can fire one slug before a reload is required, and while not as destructive as tungsten, they are usually used with slugs of lower-heated metals because the sheer temperature, pressure, and velocity of the gas and particles expelled does create a temporary lethal area in front of the shooter, much like a regular bullet, for a distance of up to 25 feet. Firing vaporized slugs, it exchanges stopping power and range for pure killing power with comparatively little recoil. Metals that melt more easily, like lead, are actually comparatively quiet, and thus Plasma Flintlocks are favored by Assassins, even when weapons with atmosphere-based-combustion are feasible. It's entirely possible that Kzargett wields these because he likes to scare people into thinking he's about to put a hole in any ship he's currently on.
The Cidacorp M9862 Anti-Personnel rifle is a particularly nasty area-denial weapon that can shoot its own ammunition twice. Sort of. It is nearly functionally identical to the Cidacorp M9861 Anti-Personnel rifle, but with a few key differences.
The '61 rifle primarily fires focussed photon beams that cause very little surface damage but superheat things that they pass through. A tree may look relatively unharmed before the affected area crumbles and blackens as if it had just been set on fire. A person may look relatively fine, save for a seriously burnt patch of skin, but the insides are usually utterly garbled by burns as the beam passes through and spreads out, and they would have serious organ damage and internal bleeding until the beam either exits or "stabilizes" and act as undisturbed photons instead of a beam.
It can fire uninterrupted (With only minimal scatter) for up to one minute before reassembly and part replacement is required if belt-fed. This makes it a popular choice in regions where the ammo is common as the strategic equivalent of a light machine gun. With its typical drum magazine full of large pressurised batteries, it can fire up to 60 times (each battery has charge for 6 beams) before running out of charge.
Now, the batteries, being roughly cueball-sized and full of noxious substances, presented the engineers with a unique opportunity. Recharging these laser batteries took more time than was practical on the field. The carryweight consumed by bringing a charger to battle took more time and offered less efficiency than just bringing more rounds with you, and high-mobility combattants who used drums of ammunition were leaving expensive, heavy barrels of nothing behind them that could easily be recharged and used by enemy scavengers if the line was pushed back... So a creative solution was introduced in the M9862.
The '62 was more mechanical and bulky, so it was usually reserved for specialised soldiers in demolition squads. The additional mechanisms actually attached detonators to the batteries and fired them like grenades... And they sure exploded like grenades. They also left a short-time lingering gas that stung eyes, caught at throats, blurred vision and stank like hell. Cidacorp, willing to flaunt its advances in clean energy at every turn, is always proud to say that aside from fucking exploding, the insides of the batteries have no long-term ill effects on the health of most creatures. This means it's also a perfectly safe, if perhaps unexpected weapon, for spacefarers to use in enclosed structures that recycle their air...
The '62 has been the number-one choice of terrestrial soldiers and space pirates alike for generations in places where Cidacorp is prevalent.
Armor:
He usually always wears the hat and coat made from fabric armor, as that is his signature gear. This not only makes him difficult for his enemies to take seriously, but the overall bulkiness and flow of his long coat distract people from his movements and makes him look bigger than he really is, thus, he is harder to shoot or hit at a distance. It is very light and allows him to move with ease, and allows him additional protection from piercing and cutting by most archaic and improvised weaponry.
When he's not in a breathable atmosphere, or he expects he won't be in a breathable atmosphere soon, he wears something a bit like this.
Except more platy and less skintight, because his skin by nature is platy and not very skintight. It allows for some minimal protection from energy weapons, if only by taking the burn before the rest of him does. It’s good at deflecting and redistributing tangible force, as it was meant for exploring potentially hazardous environments, but things still hurt and he has to remain careful in combat. Sometimes, he wears the hat, the coat, and the space armor at the same time, but this is mainly for aesthetics.
Items:
Usually one large mason jar containing benign slime creature. Highly sticky prokaryotic animal augmented by Cidacorp. Responds to basic stimuli, light, and follows salt and sugar, and other trails of chemical nutrients. It is an opportunistic vegetable detritivore. It is a high-powered explosive that can be detonated with an electric charge.
An amalgamous card deck with upwards of 150 different individual cards. Various traditional alien card images are depicted from a wide array of different sets, and they are divided up into 8 suits which roughly correspond to the 4 suits of the stardard 52-card system and the 4 suits of the Minor Arcana. Because of their ability to look vaguely familiar to a myriad of different cultures and be adapted to billions of different games, Vavnr often brings this deck to social settings to entertain himself, get people to speak a little easier, or straight-up suggest a game nobody at the table has ever played before and bullshit everyone out of their money. He also does card tricks, of course.
Various small, adhesive explosive charges for door and vehicle sabotage. (Door sabotage, not door opening. They’re big enough to utterly screw a metal space door’s mechanics and function if placed over the lock/opening module, but not blow it open. Good for people like him who hate being followed.)
Various trade-restricted goods and substances for trafficking purposes. Incinerated after trial, never returned.
Skills:
He is an adept liar, and whether he’s bluffing or telling the truth is nearly impossible to determine until you’ve found external proof. He could read The Lord of The Rings to a lie detector while presenting it a physics textbook, if he put his mind to it, without any out-of-the-ordinary reading.
He is an expert in sleight-of-claw movements, and he can pickpocket and hide handheld objects with the best of them. He is also a veritable card-cheating wizard, and his fluent knowledge of several obscure card games and versatile deck allows him to cheat extensively, even rewriting rules when people don’t pay attention.
He’s a fairly accurate shot under durress, and he doesn’t easily crack in tense situations. He can speedily aim and fire nearly anything with a trigger and still hit more often than not.
He is very agile, even for a Kzargett, and can quickly dash, dodge, and maneuver around most obstacles like nobody’s business. He’s fast to react to things and fast while in the process of doing things.
He knows how to handle himself in close quarters. Since it is the Kzargett philosophy to maximise reward and minimise effort, he usually avoids brawling encounters and shoots people, but there isn’t a pirate still alive that hasn’t gotten into a good ol’ swashbuckling melee. And besides, sometimes the other guy has something shiny! Burnt loot is less valuable. Someone with legitimate training will probably very easily pick out the madness in his methods and screw him up, but he's not one for making blatant, stupid mistakes either.
Powers: Most of a Kzargett's powers come from their physiology.
They aren't particularly large humanoids, (They come to a full stop (discounting infirmities) at 5'10", with an average of 5"0'-5'5") but they are covered in tough hide and built with strong bones and powerful, if wiry sinew. As social predators, they were built for fighting with each other, as well as things bigger than they. They have claws that are curved and pointed, and long, powerful digits with arms to match, which easily turn their paws into quick, maneuverable clubs that rest just below their first knees. Their jaws are long and powerful, can open almost up to perpendicularity with the upper teeth, and have applied bite force known to wreck steel piping. Their skin is stiff and loose, enabling them to wriggle, fight, and more easily escape the tight grasp of larger things, be it building debris or the carnivorous pets of sluggish space gangsters.
They are kept upright by digitigrade legs, which offer them a faster means of jumping and pivotting out of the way of dangerous things, and they sure offer one helluva dropkick with the hooked claws on those too. Their feet themselves have articulated digits and are also capable of gripping, but they have less phalange joints, only four digits, no "thumb" and this makes them typically less manueverable or precise, this dexterity and strength of the toes is primarily used for climbing and running up steep surfaces, and holding things in place while the hands do the important things.
Of course they have strong, hide-armored tails about as long as their legs fully extended, which are nimble and capable of making a full semicircle around either side of the body. This gives them impeccable, catlike balance and a last-ditch weapon for running away with.
Without technology assistance, they are endurance hunters, and can sprint at speeds up to 25 miles per hour for one hour, or 55 mph for 10-20 minutes, before (figuratively) dropping dead. They usually charge, bite, and claw at their prey, but mouth injuries, which can lessen the effectiveness of bites, are exceedingly common when one fights with large, writhing animals. This is why the survivors have evolved particularly aggressive enzymes in their saliva (Not Riptor Acid or anything, it just hurts and gets infected easily, like a row of really big beestings.) and ridged scale "helmets" resting on thick skulls that can really take blunt force like a champ. Being of stubborn mind and conniving manner himself, one could say Vavnr perfectly embodies those last aspects of his anatomy.
As far as humanoids go, Kzargetts tend to be lithe and lanky in build, even very musclebound ones, which tend to look more normal in comparison to humans.
For an easy go-to for head/face structure, think of Bossk from Star Wars with an Argonian snout. The forehead comes down at a broad angle, rather than down flat like a humans', and it extends forward from the neck, giving the jaws ample space to swing open. Their eyes can change from oval pupils to horizontal slits depending on how much light is around, which gives them an excellent vision range, (Not only allowing them to see in the dark, but be less disoriented by flashing lights, given time to focus. They blink with transparent membranes, which, rather than making things go dark, blurs things until they're no longer over the eye. They have thin, closeable nostrils for breathing, like snakes, as larger ones tend to be a structural weakness for frequent headbutters, and also like snakes, they smell by flicking their tongues, because perpetually slitted nostrils aren't exactly a satellite for your olfactories.
Vavnr lost his original voicebox, probably violently, (And probably had several people hired to do that very thing to him in the first place) so he had a mechanical one implanted. He can almost perfectly imitate voices, sounds, and accents by memory, and, with a quick change of clothes and some blotched or painted scales, can easily pretend to be a completely different Kzargett. He can also speak without using his mouth, but then you just hear muffled noises coming from the inside of his neck.
Other:
Ever since the invention of hunting traps and agriculture led to Kzargett Civilization, the Kzargetts put great value on maximising rewards for less effort. Inventiveness, Craftsmanship, Perception and Wisdom are the most valued of virtues to the Kzargett, who are known for their guile and reverse-engineering skills. Their stereotype acts much like the Darths and Droids version of Ewocs except quite deliberately crooked. This isn’t especially far off. They’re actually a bit like the Dwarves from Dwarf Fortress… At least when they’re played by the kind of person who makes mermaid farms to hoard treasure with...
Kzargett society works on a capital-based feudal system. Whoever is crafty and beguiling enough to own a Kzargett Supercorporation is effectively the king of the corporation’s property and jurisdiction, who provides money and services to chairmen in exchange for upholding and enforcing his authority, who provide money and services to managers for managing and advising them (And, yes, serving as military commanders and elites, of course.) They provide money and services to the laborers for their labor.
While killing is generally frowned upon, and the highly durable nature of the Kzargett makes even very destructive and murderous-looking physical disputes between the equivalent of a slap-fight, much like rams butting heads hard enough to create an echoing thump is basically harmless to the rams in question. Strength and martial prowess still have just as much of a place in Kzargett society as intelligence and charisma. Whoever establishes themselves as Alpha, through whatever means, can effectively command their social circle and arrange the hierarchy beneath them however they want. Usually, boards of chairmen are small enough that the C.E.O. will be their Alpha, and a challenger can freely take the throne if the C.E.O. doesn’t protect himself with contracts and bureaucracy.
After generations of bureaucratic befuddlement as C.E.O.s, Chairmen, and Managers squabbling amongst themselves for power and financial gain, Kzargett laws vary from company to company and are foggy at best. In general, unless strings are pulled, public duels are legal, even to the death, corporate espionage is an act of war, recreational drugs and narcotics are a plague to productivity and only illegal to use and sell for use between employees, but they can be sold to other countries or companies, and are legally bartered between employees for that purpose. Interplanetary insider trading and fraud is practically a sport, and everything can be sold, from sex to one’s own person.
As anyone rich enough to own slaves already has serfs a rung or two underneath them that will do anything they say, so slaves are primarily used as status symbols and entertainment, as non-Kzargett labor is rarely needed. Slaves often live luxuriant lives as exotic pets do, and are given basic jobs that don’t require them to leave their owner’s domicile, where the image is less important. Slaves are often employed as bodyguards, secretaries, scribes, cooks, general house servants, and other things, and are addressed by their personal numbers or by pet names and never by their real names. They are ordered in the order that they are received by their current owner. An owner’s first slave is called “1”, and the second one would be called “2”, and so on.
Sports are commonly played by slaves and pets for the amusement of their owners and whoever pays the owners to watch. Historians suggest slave sports may have been started by rival chairmen pitting slaves of the same number against each other in a variety of contests to determine whose slaves were worth more and determine whose household was more valuable. However, sports are often played by up-and-coming Alphas of an athletic disposition to obtain supremacy.
The mating process as recognized by Kzargett culture differs depending on one’s social status. Reproduction is done casually and recreationally across the board, (And unwanted eggs are bought by the governing corporation to be raised at corporate facilities to become serfs) but peasants by and large avoid marriage because families rarely have much to give each other and any ceremony would be a frivolity that impedes their progress toward overthrowing their Manager and becoming the new one. However, managers and those above them frequently practice nepotism and attempt to establish dominant dynasties and birth unconditional supporters. Entire companies merge into supercorporations by the mating of two (or more) CEOs.
Kzargetts are known to be polyamourous, though more romantically notioned individuals may debate the “Amour” part. They are by and large considered draconian in manner and cold-blooded in feeling. (Puns intended.) Most accounts would describe them as industrial barbarians.
The fact of the matter is, they’re actually fairly okay. Fairly. Personal gain, power, and GDP is considered its own reward, yes, and their heroes of legend are not self-sacrificing or noble creatures, but rather people who just managed to get their way through some spectacular scheme or feat of skill. However, they do display certain degrees of altruism:
Leaders have been known, bafflingly enough, to make choices statistically likely to reduce fatalities and unhappiness even when there’s nothing to gain from it, even if it actually decreases the overall efficiency and profit of their Corporation. Granted, they tend to do some barely legal things to make up for that lack of efficiency if they realise they’ve made it, and they don’t exactly go out of their way to do these things, but it’s there, and it happens.
Guardians of hatchlings, whether they are biologically theirs or not, will usually dote on their young and teach them as much as they can if public education isn’t available, despite the financial disadvantage of raising young ones. Total strangers to young hatchlings easily become protective of them and each other if something dangerous is around.
And, yeah, a lot of them do build meaningful friendships and relationships that go beyond the cold profiteering logic of the usual Kzargett society. Their Dwarflike greed is not all-pervading. It’s just 76.5%-pervading.
“Farmers” grow large amounts of self-sustaining clorophyll and vat flesh to sustain the atmosphere and each company’s large carnivorous population, though there are recreational biodomes full of reserve animals for company owners to hunt in. Population and morale issues are solved with war and nationalism that is tightly controlled by the corporation. Companies are never just one thing, but rather an entire trade-intensive society built to supply the needs of its employees whilst pumping more of everyone else’s currency into itself.
One more thing:
When three or more C.E.O.’s (Chief Executive Officers) merge companies, they actually maintain C.E.O. status. The one in that group who becomes Alpha is called the C.E.Ō. (Chief Executive Overlord) which is the closest thing Kzargetts have to a God-tier emperor. The backbiting nature of Kzargett Corporations makes joining together rare enough, when they stop squabbling and agree to submit to one leader, that makes the Kzargett in charge the most powerful creature there is in the eyes of society. They are added to a veritable pantheon worshipped by those who wish for success, a place of honor in history records, and bury themselves in as opulent and magnificent a tomb as they can afford… Which can get pretty absurd. It is considered a cardinal disgrace to disturb an ineffable tomb such as theirs, and such a crime is usually punishable only by death or a lifetime in the arena doing embarrassing and/or dangerous things for peasants.
There have been 6 of them in all since industrialisation. There has not been a Chief Executive Overlord for over 4 centuries.
