Liliya

MASKS- A New Generation

@Liliya So...our demon bugs. How are we doing this? Sulfur-smelling stinkbugs the size of trucks with fire breath? "It's not like we have to smell it up here, right?"

I'll just have to wait until I have a "short sheet" so I can make my 4th wall breaker. Dun know where I'm going with her (or if it'll even be a "her" at all) yet...

@Ermine

Well, as to the bugs, I'm leaving it completely up to you. ^^ Alex has no idea what demon bugs would look like, and would just hand the phone off to Andrea to pop 'em up for our friends in the holo room.

So, just so everyone's aware, I'm not actually providing any special sheets for players to use. Literally, just use the normal sheets, answer a sentence or two per bio question, and put nothing down for the, "how our team came together/relationship," questions.

MASKS- A New Generation

Well, triple posting I suppose. Questions, comments, concerns on the NPCs are welcome.

Ken/Australis

"Well here we go again, you've found yourself a friend that knows you well,
but no matter what you do you'll always feel as though you tripped and fell.
When you have completed what you thought you had to do,
and your blood's depleted to the point of stable glue.
Then you'll get along,"

Legacy Name: Epsilon Leonis.
Hero Name: Ras Elased Australis.
Real Name: Kenneth Simon Poole.
Look: Man, White, School Uniform, Traditional Costume, Letter Insignia.
Abilities: Super Strength, Invincibility, Super Senses.

Labels

Danger -1
Freak 0
Savior +2
Superior 0
Mundane +2

Conditions
❑ Afraid (-2 to directly engage a threat)
❑ Angry (-2 to comfort or support or pierce the mask)
❑ Guilty (-2 to provoke someone or assess the situation)
❑ Hopeless (-2 to unleash your powers)
❑ Insecure (-2 to defend someone or reject others’ influence)

Backstory

When did you officially become a part of your legacy?
I always thought my dad was an alien. He looks human enough, but he never did socialize well with other people. Does things kinda wrong, always seems like he’s watching people trying to figure out what they want him to do, how he’s supposed to act. Mom keeps him on a pretty tight leash, which I guess seemed normal until I was like nine. He was just a little off, of course he needed to be kept by her. He didn’t have buddies. He talked with the rest of their, “special, close friends,” the Guardians by a name more palatable to us kids, but he never seemed very close to anyone except my mom. They weren’t really the types to talk about their powers with me and Aster, didn’t even tell us who they were ‘till I was fourteen and I wasn’t supposed to say anything to her. I did anyway. I mean, I was excited and scared, how often do you learn that your parents are the most famous super heroes in Halcyon City, and so I told her. She kept it secret, pretended like she was shocked when they finally told her a year ago.

What’s the greatest accomplishment of your legacy?
Founding the Guardians, probably. I mean, they’ve put away a lot of bad guys, but the Guardians are a legacy within a legacy. They changed the game in Supers. We weren’t just running around individually trying to root out evil anymore. Now there was a central hub that could collect and distribute information, provide funds to those supers who needed them for projects, deliver communications between different groups, and keep everyone on one page.

How does the public perceive your legacy?
Every kid wants to dress up as Felitrix or Gravitron for Halloween, me and my sister included, before we figured out who our parents were anyway. They’re the grade a, gold standard of what being super heroes is. Other legacies, other heroes grade themselves by how close they come to matching them.

How does your legacy tie into your reasons for being a hero?
I always wanted to be a fireman. Like, even beyond that little kid wanting to be a fireman phase, I really got into it. I had this friend in elementary school whose dad was a fireman. Went to school one day, there was a lot of fuss, something was just wrong. We were six and seven and even we could tell. The big kids told us there was a plane crash. My friend went home that day, and all that was left of his dad was a hurried, garbled call on the answering machine. Everyone in Halcyon knew someone who died that day, you know? So me and Tommy decided we would grow up and be firemen, like his dad. I guess being a super hero is just as good, and I’m not the type to question how the cards fall, but maybe I’ll go to school and be a fireman as a day job anyway.

Why do you care about the team?
Me and Tal have been friends since we were kids. She’s always been there for me, and I’ve always been there for her. Mom kinda took her in after her aunt died, we learned later, together, that it was because she was going to be the next Cassiopeia. Her and me, Warbird, Alex Hathaway, Andrea Faust, Aster, are basically the kid Guardians, according to mom and Savannah anyway, but I don’t see any reason my team aren’t just as good as any of them.

When our team first came together...
All things considered, we did well and impressed an established hero. Who was it?

Relationships
You once got caught doing something that shames your legacy with ______________.
You trust ______________ and told them an important secret of your legacy.

Influence
You’re a part of this team, for better or worse, and you care what they think. Give Influence to all of your teammates.

Legacy Moves

❑ Fight the good fight: When you pull your punches while directly engaging a threat, you can roll + Savior instead of + Danger. If you do, you cannot choose to impress, surprise, or frighten your foe.

❑ I know what I am: Once per scene, when you defend a teammate you can shift Savior up and another Label down in addition to any other benefits from the move, even on a miss. If you do, add 1 Team to the pool.

Legacy
Jan Poole (Gravitron) is still active and prominent in the city.
Simon Roth (Zosma) is retired and quite judgmental.
Aster Poole (Denebola) is the next possible member of your legacy.
Doctor Tyrell de Wolff van Rijn (Doctor Zondervan) is the greatest opponent your legacy ever faced...and is still at large.

Whenever time passes, roll + Savior to see how the members of your legacy feel or react to your most recent exploits. Before rolling, ask the other players to answer these questions about your performance. Take -1 to the roll for each “no” answer:
- have you been upholding the traditions of your legacy?
- have you maintained the image of your legacy?
- have you made the other members of your legacy proud?
On a hit, one of them offers you meaningful encouragement, an opportunity, or an advantage. On a 7-9, another is upset with your most recent actions, and will make their displeasure known. On a miss, something you did stirred up the hornet’s nest—expect several members of your legacy to meddle with your life.

Team Moves
When you share a triumphant celebration with someone, tell them whether you see them as an equal. If you do, give them Influence over you and mark potential. If you don’t, shift Superior up and any other Label down.

When you share a vulnerability or weakness with someone, tell them a secret about your legacy (including your own true feelings about it) to clear a condition and give them Influence over you.

POTENTIAL >>>>❑ >>>>❑ >>>>❑ >>>>❑ >>>>❑
Every time you roll a miss on a move, mark potential.

Advancement
When you fill your potential track, you advance. Choose from the list below.
❑ Take another move from your playbook
❑ Take another move from your playbook
❑ Take a move from another playbook
❑ Someone permanently loses Influence over you; add +1 to a Label
❑ Rearrange your Labels as you choose, and add +1 to a Label
❑ Unlock your Moment of Truth
❑ Take a Sanctuary from the Doomed playbook
❑ Unlock the remaining two powers of your suite

When you’ve taken five advances from the top list, you can take advances from the list below.
❑ Unlock your Moment of Truth after you’ve used it once
❑ Change playbooks
❑ Take an adult move
❑ Take an adult move
❑ Lock a Label, and add +1 to a Label of your choice
❑ Retire from the life or become a paragon of the city

MASKS- A New Generation

Ehhhh, maybe I'll get to play Deadpool later.

ON THAT TOPIC, @Liliya, okay to have a character who can break the 4th wall in yours?

@Ermine

Absolutely (but when they're NPCs in the main cast game, I would assume that's up to Joshie). :D

MASKS- A New Generation

Tal/Arsen

“I know beyond a doubt, ah, my heart will lead me there soon.
We'll meet, I know we'll meet beyond the shore; we'll kiss just as before.
Happy we'll be beyond the sea, and never again I'll go sailing.
No more sailing. So long sailing. Bye, bye sailing,”

Legacy Name: Alpha Cassiopeiae.
Real Name: Talia Natsinet Berhane.
Hero Name: Arsen.
Look: Woman, Black, Steely Eyes, Unassuming Clothing, Adaptive Costume.
Abilities: Body Transmutation, Superhuman Strength and Speed, Vitality Absorption.

LABELS:

Danger +1
Freak +1
Savior +2
Superior -1
Mundane 0

Conditions
❑ Afraid (-2 to directly engage a threat)
❑ Angry (-2 to comfort or support or pierce the mask)
❑ Guilty (-2 to provoke someone or assess the situation)
❑ Hopeless (-2 to unleash your powers)
❑ Insecure (-2 to defend someone or reject others’ influence)

Backstory

When did you first learn of your doom?
My family descends, supposedly, from the Cassiopeia of Greek Myth, the one that was a Queen in Ethiopia. The story is that there was a string of events leading up to her eventually being chained in the heavens, including a marriage and a child besides Andromeda, and that we have been doing this for generations. Best I can tell, we can only trace ourselves back three.

Where did you get your sanctuary?
It’s been passed down through the years, mother to daughter, and on at least one occasion older sister to younger sister. It’s a real bitch to get to, though. Couldn’t tell you why, but what happens is we climb up on a cliff, the literal kind that’s over water, and jump. Come to bruised and beat up somewhere under the ocean. Doesn’t matter where you jump, or into what body of water; we’ve tried Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, and Arctic, always wind up in the same screwy underwater palace. Can’t leave through anything but the portal.

Why do you oppose your nemesis?
It isn’t anything personal. We’re all destined to eventually be chained to a throne, in our little sanctuaries, trapped under the sea for all eternity. Obviously, that sounds shitty, and I’d rather not have to pay for some ancient bitch's mistake.

Who, outside of the team, is crucial to defeating your nemesis?
Well, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to get the Perses help. Their line still exists, or at least one claiming to be a Perses, the Beta Andromedae legacy. They even have a super in Halcyon. Problem is, that super happens to be a villain rather than a hero.

Why does the team matter to you?
Well, truth be told, I kinda think Ken’s a honey. Besides him, though, they’re nice people, fun to have around, and seem like they’re willing to help me find the Perses I’m looking for, try to solve at least one step of my family’s long and stupidly complicated process of getting out of this whole being doomed thing.

Sanctuary
You have a place where you can rest, recover, and reflect upon your powers. Choose and underline three features of your sanctuary:
An aide or assistant, a teleportal, art, music, and food.

Choose and underline two downsides of your sanctuary:
Difficult to access, tied intricately to your doom.

Influence
These people matter for what you need to do. Give Influence to two of your teammates.

Nemesis:
You have a nemesis, an epic and powerful enemy representing and embodying your doom. It’s going to take everything you have to take them down in the time you have left. Who is your nemesis?

The Nereids, and the Old Man of the Sea.

At the end of every session, answer the question: Did you make progress on defeating your nemesis? If the answer is yes, mark potential. If the answer is no, mark your doom track.

Doom
You’re doomed. Your powers may be killing you, or maybe you’re hunted ruthlessly, or maybe you embody an apocalypse. But one way or another, your future is grim. What brings your doom closer? Facing danger alone, frightening loved ones. Whenever you bring your doom closer, mark one box on your doom track.

Doom Track: >>>>❑ >>>>❑ >>>>❑ >>>>❑ >>>>❑
When your doom track fills, clear it and take one of your doomsigns.

Doomsigns
Burning Bright: Mark your doom track to ignore one of the GM’s stated requirements when you call upon the resources of your sanctuary.

Team Moves
When you share a triumphant celebration with someone, give them Influence over you and spend 1 Team from the pool to clear one box on your doom track.

When you share a vulnerability or weakness with someone, give them Influence over you and ask if they honestly think there’s hope for you. If they say yes, mark potential or clear one box of your doom track. If they say no, mark a condition or mark your doom track.

POTENTIAL >>>>❑ >>>>❑ >>>>❑ >>>>❑ >>>>❑

When you fill your potential track, you advance. Choose from the list below.
❑ Take a move from another playbook
❑ Take a move from another playbook
❑ Take a move from another playbook
❑ Someone permanently loses Influence over you; add +1 to a Label
❑ Rearrange your Labels as you choose, and add +1 to a Label
❑ Unlock your Moment of Truth
❑ Clear a doomsign; you lose access to that move for now
❑ Get burn and three flares (from the Nova’s playbook)

When you’ve taken five advances from the top list, you can take advances from the list below.
❑ Unlock your Moment of Truth after you’ve used it once
❑ Confront your doom on your terms; if you survive, change playbooks
❑ Take an adult move
❑ Take an adult move
❑ Lock a Label, and add +1 to a Label of your choice
❑ Become a paragon of the city for however long you have left

MASKS- A New Generation

Holy shit, peeps. Converting the different playbooks into text on a word document is just awful. :O My time table was totally off. Those sheets will be up tomorrow, it took too much time organizing them to even realistically post what little I managed to write down.

MASKS- A New Generation

@Liliya

I would love to. I already have a character in mind. Think sociable and laid-back Network.

@Tengri

Expect a PM coming your way.

As to the other details, I'll be posting our two NPC's character sheets by 4:30 Eastern, I'll start writing at 3:30 and spend a half hour on each, just to show an approximate idea of what I'm looking for in a CS (casual enough to do in a half hour should be plenty for this project, methinks). The whole thing is supposed to be a super casual, though mildly faster paced, month long one-shot designed to kill time and develop NPCs for future use in the main game. Any questions, feel free to ask.

MASKS- A New Generation

No predetermined identities. The only predetermined factors are that this is set in the past, and Ken and Arsen, for obvious reasons seeing as they're established as existing in the modern day, can't die, and thus I'm playing them as NPCs. Also established, I guess, is that they are in Halcyon City, and because they're attached to Ken and Arsen, are automatically connected to the Guardians (though, as with our main cast, the exact degree to which they're attached is totally up to the individual player).

MASKS- A New Generation

@Liliya

I wouldn't mind it.

So you mean as a secondary game running aside this one, but in the past (or running same time)?

It would be interesting and if anyone else runs it, I wouldn't mind playing in it. :)

@Joshie

Well, my thought is that it would be set in the past, and in mini chapters. Essentially we'd be using very minimal character sheets, nothing like the effort we've put into our actual main cast, and would be developing these NPCs who would eventually be introduced into our game proper (Arsen as a villain at some point, and the rest as NPCs, maybe even attached to our cast on a mission to apprehend Arsen). The first chapter is set literally four years ago (like, to the day) and would take place during their version of the Dragoon incident, filling in the questions of how they came together in the role play proper. The next chapter would skip forward a year or so dealing with some incident, and the next another year or so, likely dealing with how Arsen (by the end of that chapter) came to be captured or whatever by Zondervan, and the fourth and last would deal with what they were doing during the Dragoon incident.

I would run it, and would love to have you play in it @Joshie. I think I'd make Ken and Arsen NPCs, or at least that's how I feel about things at the moment, and would aim to get it up by Monday. All I would look for in a character sheet is the real basic stuff, name, super hero name, look, powers, and a condensed version of the bio, maybe even just a sentence or two per question, and the rest would be filled in IC. At the end they'd be available for your use as NPCs, should you so choose. Super casual, I'd forgo the potential scale entirely and award experience points in the form of checking off whatever advancements you choose (one or two after each chapter, given the length of time they'd spent in between) and if the experiment proved enjoyable it could turn into a running thing, me spending a few weeks doing campaigns focusing on very casual characters who would eventually become NPCs in the roleplay proper, either as allies or enemies.

MASKS- A New Generation

So, I was thinking about this. There's already a team of young supers working with the Guardians (headed by Felitrix and Gravitron's son, Ken, about four years older than us, so they'd be twenty to twenty two year olds). Any thoughts as to how that would affect our own team? I mean, would we be competing with them, or would they just be in a class of their own? They would probably be composed of five or six people, like the Dragoonslayers, but would be down a member (Arsen was a founding member of their team and got brainwashed by Zondervan maybe a year ago). Seems like some of us are itching for something to occupy our free time anyway (@Raijinslayer, @Tengri, and myself, especially, but everyone's welcome, including @Joshie if you'd like to explore this little universe from a different perspective), would there be any interest in putting together some characters for this team, that no doubt could show up to interact with our own main characters, and do a mini-series exploring the last few years and it's conflicts? Fill in some of the background for why things have become the way they are, you know? If it’s cool with @Joshie of course. I’d want to play it in maybe four little chapters, and start with how the team formed (that way we’d skip having to fill out the questions of how we came together, and just let it get filled in organically during the first roleplay), then skip ahead a year maybe to some important event, then another year and another event, culminating in what they were doing while the main cast were fighting Dragoon. I'd aim for getting it up and running by Monday, having a post a day and maybe a week per chapter, finishing in about a month, when if Joshie wanted they could show up in some crossover thing between them and our little group, obviously as NPCs, while we did some job requiring more firepower than our team could handle or that specifically needed us to cross over with them, for whatever reason. Ken and Arsen would either be NPCs or someone could volunteer to play one or the other, though considering I'd be aiming for five or six teammates and don't think we'd get our full roster of players onboard (though everyone's welcome, of course) it might be better off with them being NPCs. I dunno, just a thought, but I think it might be interesting, kill some time, you know?

MASKS- A New Generation

Juuust realized an adult is likely to come in at some point and catch Alex f#$%ing with the system. That'll be fun to try and play off.