Zyx

Zyx's CYOA Interest Check (18+ Free/Casual/Advanced)

>New CYOA, Divine Pretender, has been added to the list.

The Archives of Zyx

Isaac Holcomb

▰▰ Isaac Holcomb ▰▰

"Why do I always get stuck with the crazy ones? As if all those sketchy security details back on Earth weren't bad enough, now I've got a bunch of delusional twats to deal with. Command better be giving me one hell of a promotion when communication is finally re-established..."

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Titles & Roles

Pantheon - Not Applicable.
Ship Crew - Head of Security (Formerly).

Artifacts & Powers

Displaying current armament and capabilities list...

x1 CTD (Consciousness Transferal Device): A bio-cybernetic spike in the shape of a double-helix that is designed to upload a human consciousness--be they baseline, transhuman, post-human, and so on--to a compatible vessel and/or receptacle. Despite the incredible speeds at which data is processed and transferred, at least in comparison to older computer systems or systems of around the same class, the act of virtualizing and uploading one's mind to an artificial body or mainframe still takes about a minute at most to complete. Finally, while other methods of uploading and downloading one's consciousness do exist, doing so via the usage of a CTD is typically considered to be the safest choice. Additional functions include the creation of copies for consciousness backups and a lockout failsafe in the case of malicious intrusion. Some CTDs can also be keyed to one's biometric signature as well, though the one Holcomb stole did not come with such a feature unfortunately.

x1 War Drexler: Assemblers differ greatly according to function, composition, and design, but a typical hylonano assembler is a molecular-scale robot arm which is able to hold and position reactive atoms and molecules so that they react at precisely determined locations to build or dismantle a structure a few atoms at a time. It consists of about a million atoms, making up an arm that is roughly one hundred atoms long, together with devices to modify the tool mounted on the arm, a control system that can interpret instructions from a nanocomputer and a receiver for accepting molecules from a conveyor system. An average assembler arm is capable of positioning approximately a million atoms per second. In this specific instance, the War Drexler Isaac has in his possession is designed for exactly what its name implies. War. Or at least colony-wide coverage and defense. A combination of atomic assembler and disassembler, while the WD is capable of creating a variety of remote-controlled machine warforms using feedstock procured from the local environment, it was originally intended to manufacture said machines via large quantities of industrial waste. Something that would have been--and indeed was to a very large degree, at least before Konrad got involved in things anyway--littering the entire planet.

Turning yesterday's trash into tomorrow's soldiers. A highly efficient and reassuring form of waste recycling if ever there was one, had things gone according to plan that is. As far as the present timeline is concerned, however, the capabilities of this machine are limited, since the planet the Isaac and the rest had been sent to aid was not considered that much of a threat so far as flora and fauna were concerned. It is for this reason that the drexler carries only two primary designs. A humanoid machineform identical to Holcomb's that is comprised of programmable smart-matter anchored to a central core embedded in the drone's chest, and a smaller set of spherical drones designed for aerial scouting and data collection. Unlike the previously mentioned humanoid variant, the latter group of machines is composed entirely of Inconel alloy for maximum durability in a variety of extreme environments and during high-speed aerial maneuvers. The drones also carry smaller laser-cutter implements that are used primarily for the unit's own defense. Although these same implements can be used to gain access to sealed chambers and the interiors of buildings as well, provided no one interrupts the cutting process and that the material itself is not too thick.

It should be noted, however, that while the latter can be destroyed or disabled easily enough with the right equipment, the same cannot be said of the former. Built to be completely EMP-proof, the humanoid machineforms produced by the WD can only be destroyed through sustained fire on their cores with something on the same level as a high-powered laser or stream/blast of plasma. Ballistics will do practically nothing to hinder these killing machines and neither will melee with mundane implements, as the smart-matter these machines are composed of is not only extremely resilient, but also possessed of incredible regenerative capabilities - hence the requirement for sustained fire, as one is effectively forced to drill through the buffering material in order to reach the core beneath. Once destroyed said material will be rendered inert and useless, since each core also serves as a mix of wireless node by which orders can be received, as well as a factory by which more smart-matter can be produced at an astonishing rate. All of this is thanks to a built-in hammerspace designed to house the hardware required--as well as shunt excess heat--which will undergo dimensional collapse upon taking enough damage.

This isn't of much concern for beings on the macro-scale, since said collapse manifests as nothing more than a harmless flash of light followed by a small yet swift implosion, though the same cannot be said for the components housed within - which will be destroyed outright. Regarding weaponry, these drones are limited to more primitive implements of harm such as swords and axes, as the excess energy required to power something like a laser rifle has been allocated entirely to maintaining the unit(s) in question. In addition to this (and their standard audiovisual package), these drones also come with multiple modes of vision; such as NV, thermal, and even a pseudo form of x-ray using advanced RF capture technologies, along with a discrete listening mode designed for picking up quieter sounds. This last package is installed in the humanoid and reconnaissance drones alike, although in the case of the latter it is used most often for eavesdropping on private conversations, while in the former it is deployed as an extra redundancy against hidden or fleeing targets should the unit's visual center become compromised somehow.

Despite their fearsome combat capabilities, it takes Holcomb around a century to build up a force adequate enough to challenge the pretender gods of Elysium in any reasonable capacity. This doesn't include the small host of constructs he has in reserve for the sake of defending his absconded assets and hideout naturally.

x3 Backup Arrays: A significant evolution of the RAID family of technologies--and data storage in general--these three obsidian monoliths serve as storage devices for Holcomb's mental backups, and feature multiple internal disks across which data is copied/read/written contiguously for the sake of redundancy. Despite being around the height of your average support beam or column, these arrays are actually quite fragile. Well, fragile in relation to other advanced technology anyway. Not just any primitive with a stick or a dagger can break these things, and you won't see something as simple as a fall from a great height doing so much as scratching them. This is opposed to an angry demigod, for example, who could shatter each array with ease using nothing but the right tools, their own brute strength, or both. Each of these also comes equipped with a variety of ports for a variety of hookups to compatible devices such as CTD's, external drives, etc.

Persona

Isaac is best described as cold and pragmatic, with a strong tendency to do things by the book. While he doesn't necessarily want civilian casualties, and indeed will do his best to prevent them since these were the people he was sent here to protect, Holcomb will do whatever it takes to see the mission completed according to its original parameters. If that means a few villages need to be raided as part of a greater strategy, then so be it. As for his crewmates and coworkers, or at least those who still remain, he has lost what little respect and empathy he used to have for them. Coming to view them as little more than insane nutjobs at best, and a genuine terroristic threat at worst, he has no qualms about slaughtering them to the last man if that's what it takes to restore order. In the end though, his ultimate goal is to secure the colony and re-establish communication with mission command back on Earth. Or at least send them a message concerning recent events and maybe get things back on track in the process. Otherwise he's largely done with the antics of his former crewmates as a whole, being quote: "Really fucking sick of their shit."

Background & Relationships

The former head of security for the ship--soon to be for the colony as well, at least in a temporary capacity--Holcomb held a professional yet cordial relationship with the rest of the ship's crew. Though he never got too close to anyone beyond that, as this was just another bog-standard security detail for him, one he'd be kicking back from eventually as the assembler he was in charge of was meant to be handed over to the colony's reformed government in the end anyway. It was only after they'd reached the planet and the captain announced his plan to abandon the mission in favor of ruling over the world below as gods that he finally put his foot down. He argued quite vocally against his captain's decision, calling him a variety of colorful things in the process, before ultimately electing to head into exile - but not before he took the war drexler he'd been assigned, a consciousness transferal device, and three backup arrays with him. Taking one of their shuttles designed for atmospheric flight, he touched down somewhere near the planet's northern regions. It was here that he got to work, engaging the assembler and uploading his consciousness to the first warform that was produced, before setting up each array and creating backups of his mind on all three. From here he slowly built up his machine army, though his former coworkers were able to repel it each time through a combination of cooperation and superior force.

As the centuries have worn on, however, and the gods so-called have only grown more decadent and lax, Holcomb has only grown more cold, ruthless, and cunning. To make matters even worse, he has committed himself to learning from every mistake that he and his enemy have made. A very frightening prospect considering the new army that now stands at the ready--one far larger than any that's come before--waiting only for its master to awaken and command it to spill blood once more.

The Archives of Zyx

Syn (Jumper)

◈◈ Syn ◈◈

Male || Ancient || Anshin'in

“Life's just one big story, and I live it not for the sake of a happy end, but an amusing one.”

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Personality

Syn is best described as having blue-and-orange morality, since he sees no wrong in doing whatever he pleases to the world and people around him. This is due entirely to the fact that, from his point of view, everything that exists is nothing more than a work of pure fiction. One he has surpassed by virtue of the powers he has been given over the course of his, admittedly short, chain. It is for this reason that he does as he pleases, regardless of whom it might affect or hurt. This has led many people to think him evil, when in reality he is not. For to call him such would be akin to calling a person who enjoys playing violent video games a murderer, when in truth they are no such thing, since the “people” they have slaughtered are nothing more than NPCs. Scripts guiding 3D models along predetermined paths and through pre-scripted routines–which are endless in their repetition–while the entire scenario itself is nothing more than harmless entertainment…

Entertainment that has zero bearing on empirical reality.

Still, the majority of what Syn does he does for his own amusement. Which is why he doesn’t often go on senseless killing sprees or indulge in baser desires and extremely depraved acts. He wants to enjoy a good story, take part in a compelling narrative, instead of simply solving everyone’s problems outright or reducing everyone he meets to a mindless pleasure toy. It’s also why he prefers to limit the amount of power he uses in a confrontation, as he wishes to engage in comparatively fair fights against equally-skilled opponents. For there is little entertainment to be found in completely annihilating every threat one comes across. He doesn’t have a preference for or against companionship, and views those who do wish to travel with him as toys that are just the tiniest bit more special than the rest, especially if they manage to endear themselves to him. After all, every story has its fan favorite character or authorial pet. In the end though, he is more than capable of leaving them to die should the story or moment call for it.

The only time he makes an exception to this rule is in regards to matters which concern his family, or at least the one he was inserted into at the start of his chain anyway. Then again, he makes a lot of exceptions when it comes to his little sister Ajimu, though the reason for this is unknown. Perhaps it’s because she’s similar to him in terms of existential nature, perhaps it’s because of a genuine familial bond, or perhaps it’s for some other reason entirely. Whatever the case may be, Syn cares for her deeply, and should anyone actually try to harm her then they’ll find themselves on the receiving end of his wrath. Which is a very unfortunate place for anyone to be, regardless of their current existential status, as even fates worse than death cannot keep Syn from enacting his vengeance.

Supplements

Cosmic Warehouse - Fully Upgraded.

Jumpchain Meta Supplement - Jumper Cheat Codes.

Primary Chain

Medaka Box Abnormal

Locations

Hakoniwa Academy: A vast campus with dozens of different buildings of huge size, all centered around a massive tower that rises from the center of the campus. Hakoniwa Academy is the most advanced school on the planet, even ignoring its’ dealings with the Abnormal, and it gives only the best to its students. Encouraging independence and ambition, countless student committees and clubs have sprung up around campus and carry out their wonderful daily high school lives. Beneath the tower lies the many levels of the underground base where the current incarnation of the Flask Plan is being researched but it shouldn’t matter to you too much for a few weeks yet.

Origins

Not Equal: You are one of the creations of Ajimu Najimi, the godlike true creator of the Flask Plan. Created to act as one of her agents in Hakoniwa Academy, you’ve never been called into duty and thus have simply enjoyed your happy school life so far. You’ve got none of the attitude problems of the other origins but you may find yourself pressed into work alongside some fellow Not Equals later on. You’ve got 200 CP to spend on the Power section for Not Equal powers only.

Perks

Medaka Sue [1200]: Could there be any being as perfect as you? Only the youngest Kurokami heiress can match your natural abilities, all of which are described below.

Your body, mind and spirit are all incredibly far beyond even the peak of human capability. You possess superhuman ability in adaptability, agility, analysis, awareness, attractiveness, balance, calculation, charisma, cognition, combat, competence, coordination, deduction, dexterity, durability, eloquence, endurance, flexibility, instinct, intelligence, intuition, invincibility, leadership, memory, meta-luck, mimicry, perception, persuasion, reasoning, reflexes, regeneration, senses, speed, strength, tactics, vitality, and willpower. To illustrate the sheer level of each of these traits, some examples follow. Your speed allows you to travel at Mach 20 with no training at all, strength enough to pull thousands of tons just by walking forward, charisma enough to get 98% of a student vote to become student president, regeneration to heal every single bone in your body from shattered to full health in ninety seconds and so on. These attributes will also scale up in the case of non-human species that have greater baselines for their average.

Your learning rate is perhaps your most shocking ability. You are able to perfectly learn, memorize, recall, understand, master, and utilize anything and any skill by experiencing or observing it once, within seconds. Even things that take years or even decades for prodigies to learn, you can master, truly master, in just a few seconds. You also have no limitations on how far you can grow or learn, able to improve all skills and attributes and abilities without limit and with no loss in speed. You have total control over all parts of your body, including muscles, bones, flesh, blood, organs, nerves, hair, and veins. All of these can be consciously or subconsciously controlled, moved or adjusted, including improving them through thought to inhuman levels. This control is precise to an atomic level. This also allows you to be immune to any forced control of your physical body.

Finally, you have a series of super modes that you can unlock over time. Each one greatly boosts the power of your physical abilities and all of your powers, though at first your initial mode will drive you to a mad fury whilst in it. As you grow and learn to use these, you will be able to retain control of your temper and even all other aspects of yourself, rendering you immune to any attempt to control your mind or body or spirit. Eventually you may even be able to keep yourself permanently within this form or to unlock new, unheard of forms based on the powers you have or that you encounter.

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The Legendary Hero [1200]: You were born as a being with the power and destiny to both save the world and to destroy it. Your physical form is far beyond any human’s. You have the power to destroy the moon in a single blow, to travel faster than light with just your own two feet and several more unique powers on top. The first, imbuing your power into other objects. With this you can use your full power through anything you pick up. A flicked rubber band would hit with the greatest amount of power you could put out with a punch. You could poke someone with a pencil and blow a hole clean through them. Even the air around you can be used, a puff of air turning into a wave of destruction when it originates from you.

The second, a great defense against all powers. No supernatural or superhuman ability, no matter how strong or strange, can affect you unless you allow it too. From simple super strength or attacking with the elements to the esoteric, such as warping reality or attempting to delete the concept of your existence, you are utterly unaffected. The sole exception are powers based in the power of language, spoken or written or signed abilities that work solely by being spoken or written or signed. The Styles of this world are one such example. In addition to this, once you have seen an attack against your person once, excepting one that is based in language as a Style is, it becomes useless and ineffective against you, as you cease to recognize it as an attack. Obviously, if it failed to kill you the first time, it is nothing more than a bug sting.

The final, the irreversible action. Any action you take or change you make or damage you deal can be made permanent and irreversible by your will. Wounds you make will never be repaired or healed or changed at all, no matter what is attempted to change them, though language based powers will bypass this too. If you were to break someone’s will, it would remain broken for all eternity. You may reverse this at any time as you will, though it will automatically do so upon your death. This also has a secondary use, in that any attack that hits you will be broken permanently. Swords will be shattered, arms left twisted, techniques rendered powerless and so on. The greater the attack, the worse it will be broken. An ordinary sword might only be left bent and rusted but an indestructible sword of arcane might would be reduced to a pile of dust.

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Anshin’in [1200]: A mysterious being has appeared once more in this world. A being that can’t be called human yet looks like one. The second member of the Najimi family has appeared and it’s none other than yourself Jumper. But what’s this? You don’t have any powers yet. How strange for such a high-priced option. Perhaps you should wait a bit and see what appears to you. You see, the power of Anshin’in is not one that is immediately expressed but one that is infinite in time. The power to develop more powers, independently of anything else and at a rate that makes all things outside of it really quite silly.

You automatically develop new Abnormalities at a rate of 3,779 new powers per year. That’s about 10 new powers every 24 hours. A stunning rate isn’t it? Not all powers are equal however. The vast majority of powers that you gain are ultra-specific to your immediate thoughts and wishes at the time and quite limited in ability. Looking at yourself in the mirror one morning and wishing you didn’t need to use a razor to shave would give you Rather Razor [The shave facial hair from faces with a thought power] while wishing you could punish the driver who cut you off in traffic later that morning may give you Back Wheel Burnout [The ruin the back wheels of any car you can see power].

Now and then, you can gain powers with greater scope and magnitude, especially if you are desperately needing them or have a great connection to the potential power. A lifelong pyromaniac stuck battling a foe in a dry forest has a good chance of developing Foolish Friendly Flames [The create and control fire power]. These good abilities are quite rare, especially if there’s no pressing need for them, and even more powerful abilities are even rarer. As you get older, in the scale of orders of magnitude older, better powers will begin to become more and more common for you to regularly develop.

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Trampling On Your Dignity [50]: If you’re going to send a message, you might as well do it in complete overkilling style. There’s really no other way to go about things. Whenever you want, you’re able to call up text in whatever font and size you want to float around you in the air, spelling out anything you want the words to spell out.

Clinging With Your Feet [50]: A very strange martial art is the discipline of clinging to walls and ceilings with your feet, allowing you to walk on them as if they were the ground. You’ve become a master of this art, to the point of being able to use it even when you’re wearing shoes or piloting a mecha. Gravity only holds you down when you want it to. Or when you jump and stop holding on with your feet.

I Wanna Be The Strongest Hero [800]: You’ve become the very star of the story. A regular Main Character. At least, you’ll be on the level of the current Main Character. This doesn’t confer any of the amazing power and talent that Medaka Kurokami has. Not at first anyway. Rather, you’ll find that taking on the role of a Main Character provides a wealth of benefits and challenges over time.

Wherever you are, no matter the world, you’ll find yourself being dragged into and becoming an important part of the story. Becoming one of the first and most trusted allies of the protagonist, gaining hold of the McGuffin before anyone else does, being seen as the arch-villain by the hero, one way or another you’ll find yourself in a major position. This position will also result in you gaining many of the benefits that protagonists, mainly those of a Shonen manga bent, are likely to run into. Powerful and trusted friends and allies gather around you and you’ve got an honestly absurd ability to convert your former opponents into new friends. You’ll find yourself encountering useful and special items or being chosen as the student of some famous and powerful figure in the world. When you encounter adversity, you’ll also encounter potential ways to overcome that adversity such as new power ups or weapons or techniques.

Not always but they will make a big difference. You’ll even find yourself to have quite a lot of luck during the start and middle of the story, what some might call plot armor, which greatly assists you in surviving and thriving, though this cannot stretch forever. Whichever world you find yourself in, you’ll see that you receive about the same number and value of advantages that the local protagonist would receive, though quite rarely will they actually be the same advantages the local guy got. A blessed hero makes for a blessed you, while one more down on his luck will see your benefits faltering to match. In this world, you’d be matched against Zenkichi Hitoyoshi, vice president of the student council. If you are willing to pay an additional 300 CP over this perks’ base price, you will receive the same sort of busted unfairness of a Main Character like Medaka Kurokami herself. No longer limited to the level of the local big man, you’ll find yourself showered in blessings equal to the Heroine of Heroines herself. Superb powers awakening in you, brilliant teachers taking you under their wing, riches and treasures and relics almost beyond imagining making their way into your hands. More fortunate than the local protagonist would be the least you could expect. Medaka doesn’t play by anyone’s rules and it looks like you don’t either. That said, this might push that poor fellow hero out of place as the protagonist entirely though, leaving only you to take the stage and them as your supporting character at best.

However, a Main Character doesn’t just float through life without any issue. As much as all this above stuff on the level the local protagonist got is nice, you also have to deal with the bad side of being the lead of a story. The challenges, the threats, the danger. From threat to life and limb to threats to your goals and mental state, you’ll have to deal with an equivalent level and sort of threat as the other main hero you’re sharing a story with. After all, you’re one of the protagonists here now too. As a Main Character, you’ll also find that your plot armor and luck from this perk will often leave you as the story draws nearer to the climax, as that is the time when it becomes much more possible to defeat the hero or villain of the story for good. It’s not going to guarantee your defeat but it will make it a much less certain thing than what it may normally be. Those who are aware of these sort of genre conventions or their own fictional natures will also be able to sense that you are a Main Character. They might find you a little obnoxious for it. This perk’s effects can be toggled on or off at the start of each jump, including both benefits and drawbacks to it, but the decision must be kept until the start of the next jump. The capstone booster part is unaffected by this toggle.

This perk also acts as a Capstone Booster to any of the 600 CP perks that are taken in this jump. These will be detailed in the Notes section at the end of this document.

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Choose Your Victory [100]: It might not be a perfect replacement for the feeling of being genuinely defeated but perhaps for your purposes, it might still suffice. You’re able to lose at anything you want and make that loss utterly convincing and genuine to all who see it. While you can lose at anything, this only applies to situations where you are genuinely losing. Trying to lose at losing and similar abuses will just see you fail overall instead of somehow pull out a win from nothing.

Call Me Anshin’in [100]: Names are important in any world, even those without supernatural word language powers. Just getting called what you feel is fitting can make all the difference to you on a bad day. You’re able to freely decide the name that everyone calls you, changing that knowledge that everyone you have met or knows your name has. If you want to suddenly be called something completely different to what you usually are, it won’t erase you from the minds of people that knew you before or make those who’d never heard your original name suddenly know you, but everyone who knew your name before will now believe your new name to be that original name.

Powerpedia [200]: The more you stack up, the more confusing it gets to keep them all sorted. You’re probably already in the habit of collecting a wide array of abilities and it’ll only get worse from here. So it’s good that you’re now able to not only have a complete awareness of every ability and power that you have at all times but also all of their potential uses and combinations with each other. Even creative, obscure combinations between two seemingly irrelevant powers are immediately revealed to you upon possessing both of them.

Flimsy Paper [200]: Never been much for a stable view on life or reality, you’ve got a sense for when the medium around you has changed. You’ve grown used to the constant feeling of creation as some author writes you into a story but when an unplanned change happens, you’re always aware of how and when that change has occurred. When someone warps or alters reality in the setting that you are in, you are instantly aware of that event’s time and place and what has been changed.

Concept Ball [400]: When two combatants reach a certain level of power, fighting becomes a bit pointless. When both of you are Immovable Objects and Unstoppable Forces, you’re just going to be pointlessly nudging against each other. Well, if you were equal you would be. But you’re Not Equal. Whenever your own abilities that are meant to be without peer come into conflict with another such ability, yours trumps theirs. A blow that can pierce anything will tear through a defense that can block anything when you are using it. Your absolutes are more so, simply for the fact that you are the one using them.

Equality Through Inequality [400]: By your very nature, you are already a being of contradictions. Both Pluses, Minuses, and everything in between are open to you. So why not excuse any other contradictions in yourself? You can live just fine even with mutually exclusive parts of your being co-existing. You can have two sets of powers that shouldn’t co-exist together and see no complications at all, use two different kinds of energy through the same route without issue, have two exclusive personality traits at the same time without driving yourself to insanity and even be two exclusive physical things at once and retain only the benefits of each. A Not Equal hardly has to obey logic when it comes to their own form.

Gotta Have Power To Get Power [600]: Once you’ve had a taste, you can’t help but want another and another and another. Power is an addiction, one that the world seems all too happy to feed into you. The more power you gain, the easier and faster it will be to gain more power. Personal power, supernatural power, political power, financial power, any sort of power or influence on the world around you will become easier and easier to gain as you gain more of that sort of power. At the early stages, this can be as simple as growing faster or finding more sudden bursts of inspiration but later on you may find yourself gaining powerful mentors, finding great riches every day or even, eventually, just spontaneously developing new powers now and then.

Window In The Wall [600]: What were you again? Were you a character from the manga written by one Nisio Isin? Were you from the anime adaptation by Gainax? Ooh, maybe you’re the self-insert of some normal person back on Earth doing a Jum-------

Hm. Maybe you are just a manga character after all.

Whatever you are, you’re well aware of your nature and your author. That mythical thing, the Fourth Wall, isn’t so much a myth as it is a flimsy paper barrier to you. Something you can poke your head through, at least in a limited way. You’re fully aware of your fictional nature and the fictional nature of those around you, having an innate sense for the many tropes and clichés that are currently in effect around you. You’re not limited to what the author might write you to do either. Those tropes you became aware of? You’re very good at subverting or twisting them. You know who the main character of a story is but you can easily swap the story to focus on one of the other main characters as the hero instead. You can even change the genre or mood of the overall story with just a little work. These changes to the tropes or genre of the story take a few days to take effect once you’ve desired them though. As a side effect, your awareness of your own nature renders you totally independent of your creator/author, making you immune to any attempts to control or effect you through such a bond or even to erase you by destroying the fictional thing in which you are found.

Powers

Dead Lock [100]: Why let something as silly as age ruin all the fun? You’ll never need to fear the pains and aches of Father Time again as you no longer age. You’re immortal in the sense of the time that you are experiencing, never again needing to fear old age. You can still continue to grow if you wish but you’ll never reach a point where you begin to weaken and eventually die from time.

Crystal Edge [100]: People just hate what they know they'll never be able to match. It's not your fault you're so utterly amazing that they burn with jealousy. Or maybe it is, given what you can do with this power. You are able to mentally flick a switch that makes you despised by everyone around you. You'll instantly become the center of attention, all of it negative. It's enough to make people drop out of battles they are currently in to try and come after you, so long as such a thing won't immediately kill them to do.

Ladies and Gentlemen [100]: The people demand to be served and when it comes to serving fans, you know exactly what to do to keep them happy. With just a touch, you are able to alter any other being in a very specific pair of ways. First, you are able to switch their gender between being male or female at will and second, you are able to make them a much more attractive version of themselves or stay the same during this switch. Using this, you can turn an ugly brute into a beautiful young girl or just into a female version of what he already was. There is no drop or lessening of their abilities because of these changes.

Ad Hoc Attack [200]: What goes around, always comes back around. What goes up must come down. When you hit something, they'll always find themselves coming back for a second blow. Any attack that you make against someone is repeated against them a second later, whether it be a punch or a spell or a use of your powers. This secondary attack costs nothing from you but will only target the same place as the initial attack and be the same in every way as that attack.

Hyper Dash Wit [200]: Technically, there's not meant to be a benefit to acting cool in a fight. Being realistic, it's always more effective to just keep efficient and not show off. But we're in a manga, not real life. The more cool and over dramatic you act? The stronger you get. When you're in a fight and purposefully show off, act cool or get over dramatic, you'll find yourself steadily powering up more and more. The power up will leave you once the fight ends though, even if you manage a super cool climactic finisher move with an awesome one liner to send off your opponent.

Eccentric Talk [200]: It's so not cool to run out of bullets in the middle of a firefight. Dramatic? Sure, at the right time, but it is hella not fun to find yourself in that situation. Seems like you needn't worry from now on as any weapon you have just doesn't run out of ammunition. Whether it uses bullets or energy or something weird like rocks or rubbish, it looks like firing that stuff out doesn't actually get rid of it from within the weapon itself. Emptying the gun wouldn't let you take out as much ammo as you want, it only works when you're actually using it in the weapon.

Gun Visible Color [200]: They'll never expect such a childish gesture to be so dangerous. You've got finger guns now, letting you make a gun shape with your fingers and then have that hand fire off invisible bullets of force at the enemy. Each bullet is about as strong as one of your own punches but you're not limited to just firing invisible pistols. So long as you can roughly mime the use of the sort of gun, you're able to use that instead. You can cock and fire an unseen shotgun or ready up an entire chain gun, though you are limited to real world guns in this way.

Lip Service [200]: With naught but a kiss, you’re able to change someone’s life. You can give a person an ability you possess just by kissing them and, if they agree, even take an ability of theirs in exchange for what you gave them. You can take what you gave back with another kiss, though you can only take back what you gave and if what you gave was lost or modified, it will be lost to you. Through this method anyway. Besides, who doesn’t like an excuse to kiss anyway?

Mirror Juvenile [200]: It’s awfully embarrassing to just show your true self to other people that you don’t even know. Now you don’t need to worry as you are in complete control of how other people perceive you. You are able to appear as whatever you want to other people to their five senses or even to not appear at all. You just need for them to be in sensory range for it to affect them.

Skillful [300]: The Skill to be better at Skills, fitting that you of all people should have it. This ability does not provide you with anything on its own, only working when used in concert with other supernatural abilities. Having this allows you to effortlessly master any supernatural ability that you are capable of using, taking vast leaps in skill and experience with every individual use of your power. You'll discover every trick, hidden use, weakness and combination possible with your power as your growth and learning with it skyrockets to lightspeed.

Most Love [300]: They should be glad to take on your pain, really. If they love you so much, it's only fair that they're willing to shoulder some of your burdens. You're able to transfer damage or negative effects from yourself to someone who would be considered one of your loved ones, such as a family member or friend who genuinely cares for you. They'll take the wound and it'll disappear from your body, though you are only able to transfer bad stuff from yourself after it has happened to you. If you die in a single blow, this won't help you.

Metamor Stair [400]: Evolution is a wonderful process. It made these humans that are so fun to mess with, didn't it? But sometimes you can't be bothered waiting a few millions years for something to happen and just want it now. Now you can with just a touch, force anything, be it a person or an object, to evolve to a new and better stage up to twice. A monkey could be made to become a man and then into an evolved form of man. A blade could be turned into a chain sword and then into an energy sword.

More Than Group [400]: A one-on-one battle is by far the more suitable for a clear main antagonist like yourself. It's much less satisfying if the hero just beats you down with a hundred other guys as well, so now you can make it a heckuva lot harder for him to manage that. The more foes you face at once, the greater your power grows. While just a single opponent won't change anything, each additional foe beyond that will provide a significant increase to your base power, like you were half again as strong as before. There's no upper limit, so long as these multiple foes are all currently and directly engaging you personally in a battle. Just being in a war won't do anything but taking on an entire army at once will.

Auto Fumble [400]: The very essence of being a Not Equal is just that, being unequal to all those around you. You just don't make mistakes, never willingly or unwillingly messing up or making an error. No matter what you do, you do so at the best of your ability as if you were working in the best possible conditions with as much time as you like to make your decisions and with as little detractions as possible, save for those actively imposed by an enemy. This does not guarantee success and will not make the impossible possible, only that you do everything at your absolute best condition, time and place. For example, you would always cast a spell at your full power and with a full incantation, even if you were in an area that weakened your magic and did not have the time to do an incantation, though a place that entirely sealed your magic would not be bypassable. The resistance of an enemy, such as someone trying to dodge your attacks, can still cause you to fail.

Humor Contrast [400]: Never accept that someone can outmatch you forever, not when you are what you are. While being unequal to someone else might sound fitting to them because of what you are, you're just not the sort to accept that. When you find yourself facing someone that is stronger than you in a fight, you'll also find that your level of power begins to steadily rise to match theirs. This increase is permanent and the rate is quite fast, though it does not scale up as your opponents get stronger. The stronger your opponent is in comparison to you, the faster you will grow but this increase gets less and less the stronger your foe is.

My Inflation [400]: If the enemy wants to start off without fighting at full power, it's not your fault if you cheat a bit in return to keep up once they release huh? You're only keeping the fight even. Whenever you are in a fight with an enemy and that foe powers up from the power level they started the fight on, you'll gain an equal increase in power while in the fight. You won't increase to match their starting level of power, so this won't be much use on those that can't transform or improve themselves, but any other sort of boost, you'll get it as well as long as they do.

Alibi Lock [600]: With a wink and a smile, you’re off to another land. Which land? Any land you want. You’ve got the ability to appear anywhere you want in an instant, even locations that aren’t normally considered to be such. You can make yourself blink into existence within a magically sealed vault, in another dimension or even within someone’s mind or heart, where you can communicate directly to them or really mess them up. There’s nothing that can keep you out short of directly disabling or blocking this power.

Initialize History [600]: Retcons are a common staple of the comic book industry. Most fans don't have much fondness for them but you've found they have their uses, now that you're able to retcon living people. You are able to alter the history of anyone you touch, changing what happened in their past and drastically altering them as a person and, potentially, even altering other people. The greater the changes you make, the more people those changes might affect, the more powerful your target or those affected by your changes and the more important to the overall story your target and others affected are, the more tiring this process will be and too great changes for your current level of power will be beyond you entirely. You could certainly change the histories of entire families of normal people without much relation to this world's story, even to the point of them developing their own reasonably strong Abnormalities if they had the potential, but you could not touch a close companion of your own and make it so they have already defeated all of your enemies in this world for you. While as you grow in power, the changes you can make will grow, you cannot make entirely impossible changes to the past become real, no matter your power. Not through this ability in any case.

Life Zero [600]: Skills came about from your glorious leader, why would you ever let them be turned against their creator? You've got the power to shut down other powers, nullifying any supernatural ability that you can see and preventing those that possess such abilities from using them while under your gaze. You can selectively allow certain people or even certain abilities to still work but to those you do not allow, none may continue to operate when seen by you. Of course, you need to be watching them to do this and even blinking will momentarily lift the block, so make sure to keep your eyes on the prize here.

Lost Password [800]: When the fools try to crawl their way up to your level, you'll be waiting at the top with a hammer to slam down on their hands and send them plummeting back to the distant ground. On contact, you are able to deeply and permanently weaken any being that you touch. You are effectively able to 'return them to level one'. This removes anything that they do not naturally have or that is not the basic knowledge and common sense that an average adult of their race would have. They'd lose all their training in combat, all the skill in using supernatural powers, lose any powers or abilities that they did not innately possess, have the raw power that they have reduced to what they had at the very beginning. They retain their memories and can still function but will in effect, be a level one character compared to whatever they were before.

Skill Creation [1000]: For someone who already has so many powers, one might come to think they’d not need any more. But never underestimate the allure of new toys to play with or how happy others are when you share them. Skill Creation is an Abnormality that gives you the power to create powers, within certain limits. The powers you are able to create are outlined by the powers you already have available to you. You are able to use any ability or trait that you have, whether it be a superpower or a magic spell or a personality trait or some physical trait, and use any of the component parts to create your new powers. This way, you can grant copies of your own powers to others, create hybrids of your existing powers for yourself to use or make weaker versions of your powers before granting them to others. You can make as many copies of any power you can create as you desire, it costs nothing and takes nothing more than a thought from you, though having multiples of the same power will not allow you to use more than the effects of one at a time. When it comes to handing powers out to others, you may do so instantly provided you can see all your desired targets presently. This Abnormality also allows you to retake what you have given out even if you cannot see the recipient at the time.

Free Climbing [1200]: You're already used to the numbers game, given the sorts of power you regularly use and interact with. This just made you take it to a literal level. You are capable of manipulating parameters and variables to become greater and stronger or lesser and weaker. You can increase someone's physical strength or decrease their intelligence, increase their age or decrease their hair follicle count. So long as you can put a hard number to it, you are able to raise or lower that number. You are limited in how much of either can be done, only able to raise up to one thousand the original number or decrease to one thousandth of the original number. You must come in physical contact with your target to use this ability on it.

Items

Sweet Sweets [100]: Careful you don’t overload that sweet tooth of yours. You’ve got an unlimited amount of candy now, just about any sort you can possibly find on a normal Earth in as great a quantity as you can fit down your mouth with each gulp. You can even share it with others if you’re actually feeling nice for once in your life.

Jumpanui Village [400]: It might seem like it’s a little out of time and place but you should just chalk it up to the innate weirdness of this place. This village contains several hundred of your own descendants, all still retaining many of your own visual features. It seems like you cultivated this town in order to have a ready supply of loyal agents for any plans you or an ally might have. They’re your genuine biological descendants, having kept their lineages pure and undiluted in some freaky way you don’t wanna ask about, and are all excellent spies, agents and warriors. They’re well aware of how to use any abilities you might have passed down to them but have no special powers beyond that. They do see you as an unquestionable lord and master of the town however, taking any order you care to give with relish.

Flask Plan Data [600]: The jewel of Hakoniwa Academy or at least what they hope will one day be that jewel. This USB contains all the data so far accumulated by the Flask Plan and a fair bit more on top. A project created in order to one day turn Normals into Abnormals, these are the starting steps towards successfully completing that plan. Given the creators of the plan’s true origins, there’d be no hope of succeeding at all without having this in hand and yet even with it, you’re still in for an arduous road of study, experimentation and a lot of expended resources. But when you’ve managed to bottle the essence of Gods, it’ll all be worth it.

Companions

Canon - Ajimu Najimi [100 CP per]: You’ve got some of the oddest people around here, just waiting for the chance to go on an adventure. If only you could convince them. Purchasing this option will give you one chance for each purchase to convince a character in this world to come along with you as a companion to other worlds. You’ll be lucky enough to hit it off with your chosen person on a good foot and continue to meet them in favorable situations at least a few times.

Drawbacks

Are You Even Alive? [+100]: The knowledge of being fictional can have some pretty nasty side effects. You’ve started to see everyone else around you for what they really are, just fictional characters written for someone’s enjoyment. You’ve stopped really thinking that they have any feelings or personal agency, seeing little issue in toying with them for your own purposes or goals. People aren’t people to you anymore, just tools and toys and resources.

3,402,193,822,311 Years [+300]: All the way back to step one for you. You won’t be beginning your jump in the modern world at Hakoniwa Academy. Instead, you’ll be starting several universal deaths and births ago, around the time that Najimi Ajimu was first brought into existence. You’ll need to survive through over 3 trillion years of life, through the universe being born and dying and reborn over and over. Throughout this entire time, you’ll find yourself running into some of the strangest and wildest things in existence. Alien warlords, invaders from outside the universe, different versions of Abnormals, Ajimu herself, magical girls and other fictional entities will be very real parts of your life. Not everything will be threatening to you and you may even find some temporary allies but you will be involved with the story of this world for a very long time.

Notes

Any powers you have bought in this jump or that your companions are bought are not subject to loss from Growing Up into an adult. Powers obtained via any other means, without an appropriate perk to fix it, will be subject to such a thing

Boosted Capstone
Gotta Have Power To Get Power: Just having power at all extends your influence into all aspects of life. Just having power in one area will now make it easier for you to gain power in all areas that can apply. It won’t be quite as good as the base perk in that area, having a great deal of financial power will still make it far easier to gain supernatural power but not as much as if you were solely focusing on supernatural power, but increasing your power in all fields will ultimately add up to far more than normal.

Window In The Wall: Before now, you just took peeks through the wall. Now you can hop out of it entirely. Your level of influence is greatly increased, to the point that you can briefly cease to be ‘fictional’ in the sense that these various worlds care for. In a story using words or pictures, like a manga or novel, you can peel yourself off the pages and jump ahead or back a few chapters to travel in time. You could lean out of the anime episode you are featured in to press pause on the remote to stop time. You can even alter the words written to change reality, though how this actually manifests can be very chaotic and unpredictable, as well as rarely long lasting. You’re even able to communicate with the author of the current work you are in, attempting to get them to change things to your liking, though this’ll likely freak them the fuck out. It is sadly impossible to get an author to change you yourself, since you are your own author already, and attempts to sneak around this limitation before your chain ends might have you end up meeting the rather stern and powerful editor of your story. You can’t stay out of the fiction you are in for too long or destroy it either, not without destroying yourself. It’s impossible to destroy the fiction you are in, through your own actions or through getting someone else to do it for you, at least until your chain has ended.

Basically you can’t just make yourself have every power or make the author write in a potion that does that until after your chain is over, since you’ve got a being, whether it’s the benefactor or something else, that monitors your use of this boosted capstone. Think of it as, if it’d make things boring or too easy, it won’t be seen as entertaining enough to go in the book. Despite the jokes, you can’t use this on the jumpchain itself, just the various worlds you go to.

Suggsverse Joke Jump

Origins

Drop In [0cp]: You, just like a certain Chris Raion Spades, just appear into the world. You don’t know why you’re here, or if you have a goal.

Perks

Quantum Jumping [100cp]: You have the power to jump from this world to another, jumping across countless worlds in a time span so short it could be said that you exist in both at once. Any world that exists is yours to travel to.

Enhanced Motion and Speed [200cp]: You’re fast. Really fast. Sonic fast? Think faster. The Flash? Well, I’ll stop you there, because the answer is yes. You can move at such speeds that you could kill a group of men in 0.005 attoseconds. For scaling purposes, a single attosecond is the time it takes for light itself to move the distance of about a single molecule. What’s more, you have some insane reflexes, as in, you move in potential space. As in, you move before movement becomes a thing. Don’t understand? Don’t worry, you don’t have to.

Absolute Immortality & Regeneration [400cp]: Some enemies don’t play fair. Some of them decide to just wipe you from existence itself, removing you from ever having been. Well, that’s not an issue anymore. Should it ever happen, you will regenerate perfectly, as if you had never been undone. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been shot, stabbed, undone, or never made to begin with. You always come back. As a bonus, should you ever die in a jump, not only will you come back but it will no longer count as a loss for the purposes of jumpchain either.

Events and the Story [600cp]: The ebb and flow of the Story of everything is yours to control. Before information can be processed you are capable of reconfiguring both Nothing and Possibility, allowing you to reverse everything to before Creation or even fold events on themselves, wiping them from existence. You can even tear through events themselves, allowing you to arrive at any event without particular knowledge, and should you need to you can even halt the EVENT itself.

One [1000cp]: Except for this. Above ♠The Ace of Spades♠ are the Voyagers, beings that are as far above ♠The Ace of Spades♠ as ♠The Ace of Spades♠ is above literal nothingness. And you are above even them. The Benefactor has come to reward you by fusing the two of you together, becoming a new, singular being with power transcending anything and everything, all while the Benefactor retcons its very own existence so that it had never been and never could be, barring your own excellency which transcends even that. If I haven’t made myself clear enough, you are Omnipotent in the actual sense of the word and not the ways Lionel Suggs, the idiot author of this series, uses it. You are actually and truly Omnipotent. You also have your Spark.

Companions

Companion Import [200cp]: You may import infinite companions. All imported companions receive a free background and 1000cp to spend. In addition, all imported companions become absolutely loyal towards you.

Drawbacks

It’s All Too Stupid For Me [+0cp]: You may take your perks and leave this world immediately. In fact, just enter you next jump with the stuff you got here. Go, get out of here.

The Court of the Gods

@Zyx

That works. I noticed the look you'd left but was just offering to have something more happen so that the impetus for interaction with the others isn't solely on you.

I'd imagine that he's not at all in the loop about the death of Zeus, so you might have an interesting plot thread with him coming to somehow discover that through reconnaissance or maybe somehow monitoring and spying on the gods' communication channels. He could presumably be monitoring all major communications from his hideout under the hopes that he gets some sort of signal from beyond their current system.

That's actually another interesting goal to consider working towards -- maybe he wants to either build signal infrastructure and a power source to run it, or otherwise capture or hack that infrastructure in Olympus so that he could get a message out to report what's been going on. It seems like he's thought of the possibility too; I took note of the line at the top where he says, "Command better be giving me one hell of a promotion when communication is finally re-established..."

Anyhow, those are just ideas! I'm fond of Isaac and you can consider the sheet accepted.

@Cyclone

>Cool! And yeah, I already had an idea in mind for one of his eventual goals to be capturing the I.R.I.S. and possibly even the Remote so he could start building up additional infrastructure to send a message through. Not to mention uplift the "mortal" societies. An arguably harder task than dethroning the gods themselves. And presumably he would be monitoring communications, although I hadn't actually created any kind of device for that so I can't really say as to how he'd be doing that exactly. But it is something for me to consider.

The Court of the Gods

I just want to praise all of you and say that I've been immensely pleased with all the character sheets so far. Good work everyone!

For my own part, I think that I've mostly finished a CS for the late Zeus. It's notably missing his relationships with the others as individuals, particularly after they became gods, but by posting this to show some of his personality and backstory I think it'll help inform various ideas for how they might have felt about him. I'll happily discuss that part and add in more details about his relationships later.

Zeus Prime, what I've taken to calling the clone that rules as of the start of this RP, will have some key differences but a lot of things like his artifacts will be the same or similar. Still, I'm going to be working on a sheet for him next, then I intend to make the official OOC thread so we can move out of this interest check. The new OOC thread will definitely contain more details about the planet Hellas (where this takes place) and perhaps some other things that I think are important. If there's any lore of background information that you think I should put in the OP for when I do that, then let me know.

The Late Zeus

Name(s):

In another lifetime, there was a man named Logan Fletcher – Captain Fletcher. That name died long ago, however; its mention has been scrubbed from every databank, and lives on only within the memories of a few of the eldest gods who have survived the centuries and their closest confidants.

For the past four hundred years, there has been only Zeus.

Titles and Roles:

Zeus is known by many titles: the Highest, the King of the Gods, Lord of the Sky, Rainmaker, the Thunder-Bearer, Father of Gods and Men.

His temples are too many to count. The mountains and high places of Hellas have many shrines to honor him, but every city or town of importance has a temple to him too. The greatest of his temples and holy places have long had microphones and cameras installed within, so the prayers of mortals are indeed heard and monitored by Zeus and his staff within Olympus – occasionally they’ve even been answered. His voice has been known to the priests to occasionally echo out from within the great statues sculpted in his likeness, carrying with it the word of the King of Gods and the pantheon itself. When they hear his thunderous voice, they quickly carry his commands to the local tyrant or council. The will of Zeus is then respected lest they peril storms coming to wash away their whole city.

Artifacts and Powers:

At nearly all times, Zeus carried a great white-gold scepter styled so as to look like a lightning bolt. Its length is telescoping and can be compressed into a baton small enough to fit into a pocket, but more often than not he kept it fully extended and bore it prominently – that was the symbol of his power, not some crown. This scepter is linked to the great satellite arrays in orbit of Hellas, and can control the weather manipulation devices in real time. It also has the ability to project a holographic, scaling model of the planet with all its weather, structures, and even people as viewed in realtime from the heavens.

Zeus wore a great deal of devices cleverly disguised as ornate jewelry. Several rings of his conceal highly advanced batteries and capacitors. The stored energy is used to power his scepter as well as various anti-gravity devices contained within armbands and a few other devices normally hidden beneath his toga; these anti-gravitation engines allow him to hover or fly. But the capacitance rings that he wears can also discharge electricity into tesla coils disguised as the gemstones, which enabled Zeus to shoot arcs of electricity from his hands. Various shields and failsafes prevented him from ever shocking himself or uncontrollably discharging this power, and supposedly this jewelry also would protect against a variety of weapons and make him quite difficult to assassinate. Obviously, his killers found some sort of workaround.

Zeus also possessed the Administrative Function Remote for IRIS, which allowed him to keep tabs on most of the pantheon. He was sure to keep that device very carefully hidden and rarely even spoke of its existence, lest it ever be stolen or lost. Still, the mere knowledge that he had seized it was enough to keep Hermes in line and prevent him from doing too much damage were he to go rogue.

The final artifact that Zeus carried about his person was the Key to Olympus. Rather than anything so mundane and crude as a physical key, this was his ID and access card from the ship and original mission… though the insufferable bit of plastic with the picture of his past self and that name ‘Logan Carver’ were of course stripped off the card, with its magnetic and electrical components put into a golden brooch. His Key granted him administrative control and unfettered access to all the technology, doors, and systems aboard the old vessel, and it does much the same in the city of Mount Olympus, for much of its technology was taken straight out of the now-dismantled vessel. In any case, Olympus’ life support and climate control panels, great treasury vaults of ancient technology and unused equipment, databanks from Old Arith, and even a menagerie of bioengineered horrors (created mostly through the efforts of Athena and Artemis) are all accessible to the Key’s holder. Some specially and more recently designed systems might not be programmed to allow him to override their protections and gain access with his Key, though Zeus discovering such a system designed to shut him out would not please him. Such systems would likely have had to have been kept secret from Zeus.

Persona:

Zeus had always been prideful and haughty. Captain Fletcher had been a narcissist that thought himself better than others, maintaining a stern and ever-professional distance and rarely socializing with his crew. This isolation was not a conscious decision on his part – just the natural consequence of his intimidating status and persona. He expected friendships to simply come to him, but never extended the first kind gesture or word himself. He was also petty, with a long memory for any slights (real or imagined) and an adamant refusal to ever be the first to extend an olive branch and apologize or make amends. He would be sure to let you know if ever he was disappointed in your work, however; he sometimes did as much in public, and people usually withered under his gaze when he dissected all of their supposed failings and told them what to do next time.

Beyond an abrasive personality, Logan Fletcher was a diligent but otherwise very unremarkable man. In the space stations of the Fleet Academy orbiting Old Arith, he applied himself fully and utterly to his studies in the hopes that he could have his own command over one of the many military vessels that patrolled the system and kept order. He graduated with high marks and was commissioned as a minor officer. In time he likely would have quickly risen through the ranks and had his own ship, but he ultimately had a short career in the military. He would tell you that he left in disgust after realizing the rigidity of their structure and thinking, and after growing tired of licking the boots of incompetent and foolish superior officers. There’s surely some truth to that, but rumors always followed him; in his youth, he was salacious and abused his status as an officer on a few occasions.

In any case, as a former captain-lieutenant for a military force and one with an impressive academic history, it was easy enough for him to find work on civilian vessels. He quietly commanded freight shuttles for several years without incident before eventually growing restless and hungry for more. When the opportunity came to command the rescue mission to investigate and possibly save a distant colony, he jumped at the chance. His pride and ego made the prospect of being their savior and immortalizing his name very appealing, but as the lonely years whiled by in transit to that distant system, his thoughts began to stray, and he started to wonder if he couldn’t do more than merely save those fools… to wonder if he didn’t deserve more.

Once he took the mantle of Zeus, his former nature became only more exaggerated. He made a conscious effort to maintain an aura of command lest the others think themselves too familiar or contemplate defiance. That said, he recognized the advantage of kindness too. So while his grasp on Hellas and Olympus was tight, he was also sure to be ever respectful and generous to those that demonstrate their loyalty, and especially cruel and terrible to those that rebelled against him. The carrot and the stick, working in concert, kept him in power for a very long time.

His old perversions and lustful nature also returned. With his status as King of the Gods and access to the whole of Hellas, trysts became tenfold more effortless, frequent, and flagrant than when he was sneaking around a mere captain-lieutenant aboard a military vessel. For all his dalliances with the mortals and demigods and even former crewmembers, he never did fall in love with anyone, not even his ‘wife’ Hera. He doubtless thought himself too far above them all.

Background and Relationships:

It was Zeus alone who concocted and orchestrated the plan to recreate the legends of old with himself as ruler of a pantheon. The idea genuinely appealed to some of the crew, and for others, his force of personality and intimidating status as captain made it easy enough to coerce them into going along. Only a very brave few stood up to him, with the Isaac – the Head of Security – as the most notable and unfortunate of these dissenters, but it wasn’t enough; Zeus ultimately engineered the Coming of the Gods and the subjugation of the primitive ‘mortals’ trapped on their failed colony, with all the brutality that the plan involved. Those that opposed him, be they his own crewmen or defiant mortals, were slain or imprisoned, their names either forgotten altogether or forever vilified and associated with chaos and evil. For his violent and destructive departure and relentless attempts to create warform armies and overthrow the gods, Isaac inp particular has been demonized to the mortal denizens: they now know him as Typhon.

Yet just as history and reality were rewritten in accordance to his will, the very land itself was renamed. The planet he called Hellas, for his fascination with an archaic nation called Greece that existed on Old Arith long ago. The seas, the mountains, and the plains were similarly designated by classical names that he’d pulled from ancient maps and atlases. At his direction the primitive men and women who dwelled on the planet below were arbitrarily split into many tribes and nations and scattered across the planet.

He ordered the construction of Mount Olympus and his great palace within, and he has ruled from it ever since. Through guile and lightning and fear, he maintained an iron grip over both gods and mortals alike for more than four hundred years, suppressing too many heresies and rebellions to count, and performing a careful dance of trying to juggle staving off the decline of the gods with impeding the rise of the mortals, all while managing his own people so as to not fall prey to intrigue.

While overseeing the rest of the pantheon in their workings (to varying degrees – he left most with a good deal of autonomy, realizing the value of properly delegating the administration and upkeep needed) he’s also maintained direct control over some reactivated and repurposed terraforming equipment. Notably, during the coming of the Gods he saw to the deployment of vast constellations of satellites that employ advanced technology to control, stabilize, and manipulate the planet’s previously tempestuous and unpredictable weather. He has diligently managed the weather controls and their maintenance operations as part of the purview of his divine name and role. He had no prior experience in terraforming, meteorology, or climatology of any kind, but his fascination with the Zeus of the original mythos and his desire to perfectly and believably slip into that role gave him the desire to micromanage this one particular thing, as well as the motivation to learn how to do it well. In the centuries that followed, he came to master his understanding of Hellas’ weather and his unique system like no other could, or likely ever will. Not even his cloned successor understands the intricacies nearly as well as him – an unfortunate reality that will doubtless come to the detriment of the mortals.

His hand was in all things, and he loomed larger than life and larger than the gods, until his sudden demise changed everything.

@Zyx I quite like Isaac! I understand why you're excluding the divine names etc. Still, I mentioned in my sheet that Zeus has declared that Isaac is to be known as Typhon to the mortals -- it seems fitting since Typhon was one of Zeus' challengers and enemies, and also 'the father of monsters'.

Some concern has been raised about whether you'll be a bit isolated and shunted out of the action near the beginning of the IC. I think I have a solution, though: the late Zeus, though he surely would have hated Isaac for his defiance and refusal to join the conspiracy, may have been nonetheless pragmatic enough to not try too hard to find and destroy his hideout. With Isaac around as a bogeyman there's a common enemy so that the others in the pantheon have something to fear and a reason for unity, and because Isaac only is able to attack every so often and he rebuilds his forces at fairly predictable intervals it's not too unreasonable to let him do his thing for a few centuries. Zeus Prime, on the other hand, might not see the value in such a unifying enemy and so could immediately order a renewed effort to locate Isaac with the goal of killing him or throwing him into Tartarus. Thoughts on that?

@Cyclone

>The monikers are sensible, and as for the initial action, I could see that working. I will say though that I did leave myself a hook into things near the end of Holcomb's backstory if need be. His army is, as of the present, just waiting for him to wake up. Once he does I had planned for him to do some scouting with those recon drones just to make sure he knows where all the vital targets are, and then have him start moving units down south.

The Court of the Gods

<Snipped quote by Zyx>

Isaac sounds fundamentally really cool as an antagonist! I appreciate you throwing a little nod towards Hades' mortal name in there too. Love that you used the Warhammer animation for a representation of Isaac's personality lmao. I can't wait to see how you'll roleplay him in the near future!

@MarshalSolgriev

>Thanks. I mean if I know the real names of every original crewmate, that's what he's going to refer to them as anyway. It'd be funny if some god is actually named Bob, and he just calls them that during a battle, lol.

TNT - The Nameless Tavern. (Always Open)

”Th, thank you.” The young boy stammers. His eyes not leaving the cup precariously balancing on a small plate in his hand, as if trying to use sheer will alone to keep the glowing boiling liquid in its container.
After a few more careful feet of movement he slowly slides the plate down onto an empty table only to look up and around, noticing the intended recipient is now gone.

Defeated he frowns and stands idly lost.
His eyes soon drift back to the fox-masked lady and Clay

Lyren does not speak, they barely even move. And yet there is a feeling, an instinctual sensation, of the reply that would commonly be voiced in this case. That of, "you're welcome."

The Draw of Nation Roleplay.

There needs to be a level of cooperation in order for competition to be interesting, at least to me.

Poor two second analogy, but I have to be willing to admit you hit me in the head. I didn't block it. I didnt tense me neck muscles at just the right time to absorb the force. I didn't open my mouth and bite your fist at the last second. I'm not actually a master of the Iron Jaw technique and therefore you didn't actually just break your own fist in my face.

You got me. It hurt. I'm probably bleeding. My bell is a little rung. I'm gonna have to adapt. I wasn't ready for that. Fucking ouch man. Damn.

@BangoSkank

>True, although I do think having a plan for scenes on top of that would help as well. That way you actually know which way the plot is going to go rather than just making up in the moment.

The Court of the Gods

>Now that I've worked out the details of the new idea I mentioned, here's my current sheet. It's not very mythological I know, but that's kind of the point since Holcomb is against the idea as a whole. It's still a WIP since I'm not sure if someone's playing a similar role or the exact geographical layout of the planet in question. Also because I'd like feedback before declaring it complete.

Isaac Holcomb WIP

▰▰ Isaac Holcomb ▰▰

"Why do I always get stuck with the crazy ones? As if all those sketchy security details back on Earth weren't bad enough, now I've got a bunch of delusional twats to deal with. Command better be giving me one hell of a promotion when communication is finally re-established..."

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Titles & Roles

Pantheon - Not Applicable.
Ship Crew - Head of Security (Formerly).

Artifacts & Powers

Displaying current armament and capabilities list...

x1 CTD (Consciousness Transferal Device): A bio-cybernetic spike in the shape of a double-helix that is designed to upload a human consciousness--be they baseline, transhuman, post-human, and so on--to a compatible vessel and/or receptacle. Despite the incredible speeds at which data is processed and transferred, at least in comparison to older computer systems or systems of around the same class, the act of virtualizing and uploading one's mind to an artificial body or mainframe still takes about a minute at most to complete. Finally, while other methods of uploading and downloading one's consciousness do exist, doing so via the usage of a CTD is typically considered to be the safest choice. Additional functions include the creation of copies for consciousness backups and a lockout failsafe in the case of malicious intrusion. Some CTDs can also be keyed to one's biometric signature as well, though the one Holcomb stole did not come with such a feature unfortunately.

x1 War Drexler: Assemblers differ greatly according to function, composition, and design, but a typical hylonano assembler is a molecular-scale robot arm which is able to hold and position reactive atoms and molecules so that they react at precisely determined locations to build or dismantle a structure a few atoms at a time. It consists of about a million atoms, making up an arm that is roughly one hundred atoms long, together with devices to modify the tool mounted on the arm, a control system that can interpret instructions from a nanocomputer and a receiver for accepting molecules from a conveyor system. An average assembler arm is capable of positioning approximately a million atoms per second. In this specific instance, the War Drexler Isaac has in his possession is designed for exactly what its name implies. War. Or at least colony-wide coverage and defense. A combination of atomic assembler and disassembler, while the WD is capable of creating a variety of remote-controlled machine warforms using feedstock procured from the local environment, it was originally intended to manufacture said machines via large quantities of industrial waste. Something that would have been--and indeed was to a very large degree, at least before Konrad got involved in things anyway--littering the entire planet.

Turning yesterday's trash into tomorrow's soldiers. A highly efficient and reassuring form of waste recycling if ever there was one, had things gone according to plan that is. As far as the present timeline is concerned, however, the capabilities of this machine are limited, since the planet the Isaac and the rest had been sent to aid was not considered that much of a threat so far as flora and fauna were concerned. It is for this reason that the drexler carries only two primary designs. A humanoid machineform identical to Holcomb's that is comprised of programmable smart-matter anchored to a central core embedded in the drone's chest, and a smaller set of spherical drones designed for aerial scouting and data collection. Unlike the previously mentioned humanoid variant, the latter group of machines is composed entirely of Inconel alloy for maximum durability in a variety of extreme environments and during high-speed aerial maneuvers. The drones also carry smaller laser-cutter implements that are used primarily for the unit's own defense. Although these same implements can be used to gain access to sealed chambers and the interiors of buildings as well, provided no one interrupts the cutting process and that the material itself is not too thick.

It should be noted, however, that while the latter can be destroyed or disabled easily enough with the right equipment, the same cannot be said of the former. Built to be completely EMP-proof, the humanoid machineforms produced by the WD can only be destroyed through sustained fire on their cores with something on the same level as a high-powered laser or stream/blast of plasma. Ballistics will do practically nothing to hinder these killing machines and neither will melee with mundane implements, as the smart-matter these machines are composed of is not only extremely resilient, but also possessed of incredible regenerative capabilities - hence the requirement for sustained fire, as one is effectively forced to drill through the buffering material in order to reach the core beneath. Once destroyed said material will be rendered inert and useless, since each core also serves as a mix of wireless node by which orders can be received, as well as a factory by which more smart-matter can be produced at an astonishing rate. All of this is thanks to a built-in hammerspace designed to house the hardware required--as well as shunt excess heat--which will undergo dimensional collapse upon taking enough damage.

This isn't of much concern for beings on the macro-scale, since said collapse manifests as nothing more than a harmless flash of light followed by a small yet swift implosion, though the same cannot be said for the components housed within - which will be outright destroyed. Regarding weaponry, these drones are limited to more primitive implements of harm such as swords and axes, as the excess energy required to power something like a laser rifle has been allocated entirely to maintaining the unit(s) in question. In addition to this (and their standard audiovisual package), these drones also come with multiple modes of vision; such as NV, thermal, and even a pseudo form of x-ray using advanced RF capture technologies, along with a discrete listening mode designed for picking up quieter sounds. This last package is installed in the humanoid and reconnaissance drones alike, although in the case of the latter it is used most often for eavesdropping on private conversations, while in the former it is deployed as an extra redundancy against hidden or fleeing targets should the unit's visual center become compromised somehow.

Despite their fearsome combat capabilities, it takes Holcomb around a century to build up a force adequate enough to challenge the pretender gods of Elysium in any reasonable capacity. This doesn't include the small host of constructs he has in reserve for the sake of defending his absconded assets and hideout naturally.

x3 Backup Arrays: A significant evolution of the RAID family of technologies--and data storage in general--these three obsidian monoliths serve as storage devices for Holcomb's mental backups, and feature multiple internal disks across which data is copied/read/written contiguously for the sake of redundancy. Despite being around the height of your average support beam or column, these arrays are actually quite fragile. Well, fragile in relation to other advanced technology anyway. Not just any primitive with a stick or a dagger can break these things, and you won't see something as simple as a fall from a great height doing so much as scratching them. This is opposed to an angry demigod, for example, who could shatter each array with ease using nothing but the right tools, their own brute strength, or both. Each of these also comes equipped with a variety of ports for a variety of hookups such as CTD's, external drives, etc.

Persona

Isaac is best described as cold and pragmatic, with a strong tendency to do things by the book. While he doesn't necessarily want civilian casualties, and indeed will do his best to prevent them since these were the people he was sent here to protect, Holcomb will do whatever it takes to see the mission completed according to its original parameters. If that means a few villages need to be raided as part of a greater strategy, then so be it. As for his crewmates and coworkers, or at least those who still remain, he has lost what little respect and empathy he used to have for them. Coming to view them as little more than insane nutjobs at best, and a genuine terroristic threat at worst, he has no qualms about slaughtering them to the last man if that's what it takes to restore order. In the end though, his ultimate goal is to secure the colony and re-establish communication with mission command back on Earth. Or at least send them a message concerning recent events and maybe get things back on track in the process. Otherwise he's largely done with the antics of his former crewmates as a whole, being quote: "Really fucking sick of their shit."

Background & Relationships

The former head of security for the ship, soon to be for the colony as well in a temporary capacity, Holcomb held a professional yet cordial relationship with the rest of the ship's crew. Though he never got too close to anyone beyond that, as this was just another bog-standard security detail for him, one he'd be kicking back from eventually in any case as the assembler he was in charge of was meant to be handed over to the colony's reformed government in the end anyway. It was only after they'd reached the planet and the captain announced his plan to abandon the mission in favor of ruling over the world below as gods that he finally put his foot down. He argued quite vocally against his captain's decision, calling him a variety of colorful things in the process, before ultimately electing to head into exile - but not before he took the war drexler he'd been assigned, a consciousness transferal device, and three backup arrays with him. Taking one of their shuttles designed for atmospheric flight, he touched down somewhere near the planet's northern regions. It was here that he got to work, engaging the assembler and uploading his consciousness to the first warform that was produced, before setting up each array and creating backups of his mind on all three. From here he slowly built up his machine army, though his former coworkers were able to repel it each time through a combination of cooperation and superior force.

As the centuries have worn on, however, and the gods so-called have only grown more decadent and lax, Holcomb has only grown more cold, ruthless, and cunning. To make matters even worse, he has committed himself to learning from every mistake that he and his enemy have made. A very frightening prospect considering the new army that now stands at the ready--one far larger than any that's come before--waiting only for its master to awaken and command it to spill blood once more.

>Addendum: I've just found the perfect representation of Isaac's personality.

The Draw of Nation Roleplay.

<Snipped quote by Zyx>

...this is more just a statement on the fundamentals of what makes roleplaying as a hobby enjoyable than any specific statement on Nation RP. Like, it's all about cooperation - give and take, like I said earlier. If that just doesn't mesh or if you feel like it's a hassle to how your creative process works, nobody's gonna judge you on that. But cooperating with other players isn't anything unique to NRP...that's just Roleplaying Basics 101. And if that's just something you don't want to deal with for one reason or another, then that's fine.

NRPs go and die just like casual or advanced or 1x1 RPs do, and there's no magical sticking point that will just make players stay around just because there's "nation" or "advanced" attached to it.

@Yam I Am

>I see.

>I would say more, but I'm not sure what more needs to be said on my behalf at this juncture. Other than that I suppose I assumed more cooperation given the nature of the roleplay. It seems to be one thing to make a character and plan out events in advance, but another to essentially take several disconnected and individual nation concepts and then write them all in a single setting, while also ensuring they mesh well. It reminded me of collaborative worldbuilding more than RP I guess.