Thursday, April 30, 2009

Stay. Enjoy Your Final Moments

Wooh, been a while. I blame that Easter thing, didn't have enough games on, so my week's only had structure at the weekends, when work keeps me busy/asleep.

Things that have happened since that last post:

-A variety of stuff in narutexalted. The 3-session fight ended, we got owned in the face by a couple of awesome super-ninja guys, and our debriefing when we got back home was carried out by an interrogator (one skilled in illusions -which Toshi wants). We then spent a session working on a bit of in-character downtime and relationships with NPCs and stuff. And most recently, we tracked down a Ninja of Sound (creepy ones) who'd abducted some merchants into a forest rather like a snowy version of the Lost Woods. Toshi had some fun torturing him and realised that he should learn to heal faster than he currently does.

-First session of Mage consisted of character intros and the Cabal being sent off to investigate some warehouses in centralish glasgow for signs of Technocrats. My character narrowed down which warehouse to investigate by tripping over an empty bottle of Buckfast, and proceeded to fail to smash through the door's lock with his bo.

-I started an Exalted campaign with some friends I know over the interwebs. We're playing over IRC (which meant I got to play around with owning a registered channel, yay) and the game is a naval-based Dynastic Dragonblood campaign. More details in a later post.

-WoW Patch 3.1 hit, affecting Jastanka only by way of a goldsink, and affecting Jielanka massively. Jori'd barely been logged onto >_<. Jiel's now a level 73 Blood(dps)/Blood(tank) DK who's still endlessly frustrated at how much her companion Nebri attracts the negative attentions of Shoveltusks. Jast is still Mono-spec, Arcane cookie cutterish (it's one of those cheap, slightly flexible ones you get from poundland).

-My 20th birthday happened. I got a bunch of cool stuff, including vouchers I haven't spent yet, a new watch, a new pencil and a G13. The last of those was just in time for patch 3.1 bringing Mac compatability for its LCD display of WoW stats.

-Finally, I discovered the joys of putting soundclips into WoW macros. Now, whenever Jast summons her A-Team, she also yells out (only to me) "There's plenty of me to go around!" in the voice of a Northrend boss.

Gods of the Internet willing, tomorrow I'll play Mage and then blog about it. I might also post something about either WoW 3.1 or my new exalted campaign, depending on how much free daytime I find myself with tomorrow.

Friday, April 10, 2009

And I Feel Fine

Tonight was a very fun finale to the Scion Story/Chronicle/Whatever. Realising that the Band were on his tail and about to catch up, Hitler took the initiative and started the confrontation. In under a second:

-Hitler took on his mighty War Form, a huge mass of bubbling black ooze with white lightning-hair (including the moustache) and golden clocks for eyes, then attacked Leon with no damage ensuing.

-2 Scions and 9 skeletons attacked Hitler fruitlessly, then another 2 Scions grazed him a bit.

-2 Scions got ready for their first attacks.

In the next few seconds, which took a couple hours of real-time (It's almost enough to make one understand why anime episodes spend so long covering so little time), there were some more blows exchanged and nerfs applied before Sazirk, electronic genius and demigod of Atlantis, declared he was ready. Olfus, big brutish son of Odin currently in his own War Form, was ready to act in concert, and the other 3 combat characters used a special power to become ready for this final attack.

-Sazirk shot Hitler in the chest with an explosive round from a railgun. He then used his powers of shielding and ice to freeze the blooming explosion before Hitler was ripped apart.

-Everyone else dived for this inflicted "weak spot" of Hitler, ignoring his massive armour value in order to deal (I think) 70 levels of damage, about 30 of which were to Hitler's soul itself. To put this in context, "poor" Adolf had only 21 total health levels.

-One of the attacks was an arrow made of solar energy from Daniel, adopted son of Bastet (formerly of Ra). One was a sword made of elemental Fire from Leon, son of Ares. One was Olfus (his War Form turned various of his body parts into melee weapons). One was just a strong kick from Val, russian daughter of Bastet. The introduction of Solar Energy and Elemental Fire into an explosion that had become an implosion created a Nuclear Fusion reaction. See picture above.

-Hitler was annihilated, and everyone else was blown out of the way by the masive concussive force (or teleported or flew their way out). Also blown away by the nuclear explosion was a section of the wall of Tartarus, prison of the Titans.

-Gods panicked, and the Band were sent into the World to rally the forces of the Gods there.

-"End of Book One"

Seriously, I couldn't have thought of anything even remotely that epic. Things just sort of... fell into place to make something awesome. It was the sort of thing that could only come out of a group of almost-like minds coming together and working toward one goal... that goal being Awesome.

And now Scion's over, Vampire's over and Mage hasn't *really* started yet. Naruto's tomorrow, but we were in a quiet lull between two stories when we last left off. It's kinda wierd not having myself built up to anything. Oh wait, it's Easter weekend tomorrow and I work in a kitchen. There goes that chillout >_<.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Bricks

Yesterday, we created our characters and their home for the new campaign replacing Vampire, Mage (the Ascension). Everyone was a bit tired and the Chantry (mage-home) creation rules were a bit obtuse for a bunch of people that tired at that time of night, but we made our way through and are ready to start ^_^

I'll be playing Susumu, a mage of the Akashic Brotherhood, a group who are basically your classic oriental monks - martial arts, mystic chants, and "chi". He's not the sharpest katana in the box, but hits things very well, usually with a large blunt stick. He'll be joined by a virtual adept (they hack reality) called Kassandra, a rock chick from the cult of ecstasy (they take magic herbs, dude) called Jenna Side, a Celestial Chorister (they get their magic from God) called Julius, and two mages from the Order of Hermes (the nearest thing to the "classic" wizard, with magic languages and formulae and so forth): a gunslinger called John Preston and an almost stereotypical wizard(ess) called Persephone.

We all live in an underground castle hidden under a bunker near Glasgow, powered by a couple of magical "nodes" (sources) and protected by a magically-powered kitten. We all have servants, and are joined by a mysterious "master" mage and another group who are all from different magical traditions than us and will probably secretly turn out to be against us all along.

I played WoW earlier, did some quests in Howling Fjord with my brother on our DK-priest duo. We pilotted scrap-bots around evil robo-dorf mines, and shot falcons with hawks (might have been the other way round, actually). Was fun, if a little short-lived due to The Apprentice being on. My brother managed to get me interested last time round, and now I fear I'm forever going to be shouting at a bunch of ego-filled business-people to stop being idiots every Wednesday it's on.

Also, this week WoW's arena tournament's most recent (I think 3rd) phase ended, and with it the quest of my brother, my past flatmate and I to attain the in-game minipet prize - a baby murloc dressed in armour. We think we managed it, but won't find out for sure until the patch with that pet's model in it arrives in a week or two.

Arenae were cool, though the "grind" of having to do 200 matches in total got a bit tedious toward the end. Early on, however, it was fun playing the game in a way I hadn't before, getting to grips with the new playstyle alongside two of my friends (yes, I consider my brother a friend - not doing so would probably be a bad idea). Pitching my own skills against other players was exhilarating in a way I hadn't felt in a while from the game - the PvE content being universally agreed upon as the easiest endgame yet, the PvP challenge was a great one, especially when we found ourselves dropping low enough in the rankings that we could beat our opponents.

Now, off to level mining some more on my DK. She needs something she can make decent gold from, and for that to happen, she needs to max the skill.

Friday, April 3, 2009

No socks

Had fun at Scion last night, took the band full loop back to Hades where Hitler had managed to escape Helheim and head off to the walls of Tartarus. After run-ins with some of Hades' minions (Cerberus and some rather lacklustre guardian giants) they beat up two of Niddhogg's kids, Goin and Moin. There were some cool stunts, and they're ready for the showdown next week. If it sounds like not much actually happened, that's because we started late, finished early, and spent most of the time in complicated combat.

I missed most of the fun of April Fool's day on Wednesday, due to a mixture of my normal slightly-off sleeping pattern and rushing to finish coursework for today - the last day of the second semester, something that hadn't entirely set in until mid-week. Time sure does fly. On which note, I finished writing up my new Purview for Scion, Time. Therefore I'm going to spend the rest of the post typing it up, for future review by my players and myself.

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Time, Paradox & Linearity

Whenever someone is successfully targeted by any Time boon except for 1 and 10, they gain Paradox points equal to the rating of that boon. Paradox points represent a special type of Fatebinding - According to Fate, Time should be Linear, and those whose Timeline no longer fit this are a Paradox.

Every person has a maximum capacity for Paradox, which equals their Legend + Integrity. If anyone would ever be put above their Paradox Capacity, they are immediately Linearised until this is no longer the case (see below). If someone has 1 or less Legend, they instead are ignored by Paradox, as someone so insignificant cannot hope to unravel Time through lack of Linearity.

At any point, Fate (or a sufficiently powerful Scion) may Linearise a subject of Paradox, thus removing an amount of that person's Paradox but inflicting a suitable punishment. This punishment ranges mechanically from Bashing damage or loss of Legend Points, to having boons repeat or mirror themselves, to being removed from Time (and therefore existance) - this most extreme punishment only being possible if an amount of Paradox is being removed equal to the target's capacity.

It is possible, through the effect of Time 10 or the Avatar of Time, for someone to gain negative Paradox, referred to as Linearity, up to an amount equal to their normal Paradox capacity. Any Linearity over this capacity is ignored.

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Time (animal: white rabbit)

Associated With: Atum-Re, Apollo, Tezcatlipoca

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Time 1: Time Sense

Dice Pool: None, Cost: None

The first step on being able to manipulate Time is being able to perceive it. A Scion with this boon always knows exactly what time it is. They can also detect the use of any Time boon within Per+EPer+Time yards, rolling Per+Time to detect which one, and see the Paradox of anyone who doesn't have this boon. If two Scions with this boon meet each other, each will be able to see some indicator in the other's eyes that they are masters of Time.

Time 2: What If? (I)

Dice Pool: Man+Academics, Cost: 1L per dot moved

Nearly everyone alive sometimes wonders what life would be like if they'd made different decisions. This boon allows them to find out. The user chooses a target, then rolls Man+Academics. They may then move as many dots from the target's abilities to other abilities as they achieved successes on the roll, spending 1L for every dot moved in this way. Taking a dot out of a favoured ability, reducing an ability to 0 from 1 or putting a dot into an ability currently at 0 costs 2 successes and 2L. Reducing a favoured ability to 0 from 1 costs 3 successes and 3L. The effects of this boon last for 1 scene.

Time 3: Time Resistance

Dice Pool: Wit+Academics, Cost: 1WP+5L per extra tick

With increasing awareness of the flow of time, the Scion becomes able to gain or grant a limited ability to ignore - or be ignored by - its passage. This boon costs 1WP to activate. For the next (Wit+Academics) ticks, the target takes one tick for every 5L spent when the boon is activated. If only 5L are spent, the target instead takes only 1 tick for every 2 "normal" ticks that pass. 

A Scion who knows Time 3 may use any of their Time boons, including 3, at-1 speed.

Time 4: Time Loop

Dice Pool: Wit+Academics, Cost: 5L per loop (1WP to be retroactive)

As a demigod, it is a simple trick to take a small part of Time and have it repeat. This boon is applied to one arm, head, torso or set of legs. For every 5L spent, the target area repeats the next 4 ticks once more afterward. So if 5L were spent, those 4 ticks would happen twice, if 10L were spent, three times, and so on. This can be used to make a speed 5 punch every 4 ticks, or to shoot a speed 4 gun multiple times without reloading. The target's DV refreshes whenever they take an action, but they cannot use the affected area to parry. If an attack has already happened, DVs being applied against it are increased by +1 for each time it has happened. After the Legend has been spent, the Scion makes a contested roll of (Wit+Academics) against the target's (Wit+Integrity). If the target wins, the Legend is still spent but nothing happens. If the Scion wins, they may spend 1WP to have the boon affect the previous 3 ticks rather than the next 4. If the roll is a draw, the target may spend 1WP to force a re-roll that they take the second result of, or allow the boon to resolve normally.

Time 5: Peer Through Time

Dice Pool: Per+Time, Cost: 1WP (5L to prepare an item)

With this boon, the Scion learns that not only is Time not a straight line, it is possible to take a hold of normally distant parts and have a look further along the thread. At the cost of 1WP, once per session the Scion may look up to (Per+Time) years into the future or past. They may search anywhere within this time period for the answers to a number of simple questions equal to her Legend. At a cost of 5L, one of those questions may inform her of a specific item that she will need in the future, thus enabling her to attain it. This use of the boon gives the user 1 more Paradox above the normal 5 incurred by using the boon.

Time 6: Time Immunity

Dice Pool: Wit+Academics, Cost: 2WP+10L per target.

After much practice, the Scion learns to ignore Time completely, and to remove people from it. Activating this boon for 2WP + 10L per target allows the Scion to prevent those targets from taking any action for (Wit+Academics) ticks, or to allow those targets to take (Wit+Academics) ticks without anyone else taking any. It is possible to reduce the cost of this boon by half, this grants those targets prevented from taking action complete immunity to anything, and renders those targets given additional ticks unable to have any physical effect on those still inside Time.

A Scion who knows Time 6 may use any of their single-target Time boons on any number of targets at once with no multiple-action penalty, provided they spend the requisite cost as many times as they have targets.

Time 7: Time Overlap

Dice Pool: Wit+Academics, Cost: 15L per loop (1 WP to be retroactive)

By the time they are nearly gods, Scions of Time have learnt sufficient control that they can not only cause loops in Time, but can in fact have those loops occur simultaneously rather than in sequence. Every 15L spent causes any damage taken or dealt by the target in the next 4 ticks to be applied an additional time. So if 15L were spent, the damage would be doubled, if 30 were spent, tripled, and so on. After the Legend has been spent, the Scion makes a contested roll of (Wit+Academics) against the target's (Wit+Integrity). If the target wins, the Legend is still spent but nothing happens. If the Scion wins, they may spend 1WP to have the boon affect the previous 3 ticks rather than the next 4. If the roll is a draw, the target may spend 1WP to force a re-roll that they take the second result of, or allow the boon to resolve normally.

Time 8: What If? (II)

Dice Pool: Man+Academics, Cost: 5L per dot moved

Some people sometimes wonder what life would be like if they'd been born differently. This boon allows them to find out. The user chooses a target, then makes a contested roll of Man+Academics against that target's Legend+Integrity. If they win the roll, they may then move as many dots from the target's attributes to other attributes as they achieved successes over the target's, spending 5L for every dot moved in this way. Taking a dot out of a favoured attribute costs 2 successes and 5L. The effects of this boon last for 1 scene.

Time 9: Time Travel

Dice Pool: Per+Time, Cost: 1WP+10L+5L per passenger

A master of Time needs no prophet or historian to know of different times, he simply strides off to experience them himselves. At the cost of 1WP+10L, the Scion may travel up to (Per+Time) decades into the past or future. They may take up to his Legend in additional passengers, spending 5L for each one. They may only travel through time once per session, though when doing so they may spend for this boon multiple times in order to "bounce" through times, making as many rolls as he spent for and taking the total. If anyone meets themself through the use of this boon, their current Paradox is added to both their own current total and to that of themself that they met. This boon usually takes 5 ticks of concentration to use, however this may be skipped if the user doesn't care when they are going to and leave it to Fate.

Time 10: Channel Paradox

Dice Pool: Man+Willpower, Cost: 1WP

A complete master of the purview of Time must also be a master of Paradox. Possessing this boon allows the Scion to see the Paradox of all people in sight, even those with Time 1. By spending a 5-tick Guard action examining one target, they can also gauge that target's Paradox Capacity. Finally, he can spend 1WP and make a roll of (Man+Willpower) with a difficulty of a target's current Paradox to affect that target's Paradox in one of the following ways. None of these uses of the boon can be used upon the Scion themselves:

-Linearise the target for a number of Paradox equal to that target's permanent Legend.

-Move a number of Paradox equal to the target's permanent WP to another target, for whom that much Paradox cannot be enough to meet their Paradox Capacity.

-Immediately remove 1 Paradox without Linearising.

-Immediately add 1 Paradox.

-Linearise all of the target's current Paradox, with the punishment being the physical manfiestation of as many imps as the target had Paradox. These imps have Legend equal to the target, and will immediately attack either the target or the Scion.

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Phew, there we go. No details for the Avatar of Time, Avatars being basically systemless. Apologies for the walloftext-ness, just needed to get this typed up and online before I lost the ability to read my own handwritten copy ^^;

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

...Honest

The Vampire game finished tonight. It was a pretty cool last session, makes me wish I hadn't missed the end of the Werewolf campaign last year (stupid work...). We went to go and "save" the Prince of Dundee, only to find he was now fully possessed by some sort of evil flamey shadow thing and had beaten up most of our rivals, a pack of the Sabbat. By this point, I had met in private with the Sabbat member who had infiltrated our Coterie, a Tzimisce (flesh-warping vampires with a penchant for being really creepy) called Laszlo, and arranged a deal - I'd support a Sabbat takeover of Dundee if they promised to let me do whatever I wanted. Turns out that was their plan anyway, but deal made.

On my way to the showdown with the Prince (now with Laszlo in tow) I picked up the Coterie's "punching bag", a Ravnos gypsy called Mickey (Ravnos are tricksters and all victims of their own vices - Mickey's being gambling) and persuaded him - through exploitation of his obsession with gambling and my own blood powers - to join the Sabbat and I in our takeover. After killing the Prince (we had to, honest!) and the thing possessing him, the Sabbat turned round and asked if we were going to fight them for the city. I was invisible at this point, having pretended to be killed by a fireball.

I slipped out of invisibility (not entirely on purpose) by saying that I would welcome them - and that I had the support of the city's Ravnos (all one of him), Malkavians (that clan's leader had earlier promised her support to the coterie in general on this matter, I was the first person to remember and claim it for the new guys), and my own clan, the Followers of Set. The Nosferatu (ugly sewer spies) leader then appeared at my shoulder to lend his own support. The Coterie was as followed:

-Me: Follower of Set, used to pretend to be a Ventrue, welcomes the new leadership but doesn't want to, strictly speaking, join the Sabbat - they have different religious views.

-Laszlo: Was with the Sabbat all along, also pretending to be a Ventrue.

-Mickey: Ravnos, was under magical compulsion from me to join the Sabbat, but thought it sounded like a good idea anyway.

-Richard: Lasombra Antitribu, had hated the Sabbat but now realised that he'd only dealt with the bad sides of it. Didn't join, but instead started working to weed out the weak among their ranks for them.

-Kristian: Malkavian, had his body taken over by a powerful Sabbat he ate and joined the Massive Malkavian Network - Is now making the already insane Malkavian clan super-violent too, by whispering orders to cut into every one of their heads. His body became Dundee's new Sheriff (only there's a special Sabbat name for it).

-Tony: "True" Brujah, thinks the Sabbat are stupid and so went to take over Perth. Is raising an army to come invade Dundee for the Camarilla later.

-Nina/Ezekiel: Less active players than the "core" 6, these two decided to stick with the majority of the Coterie and join the Sabbat.

Over the next year, Sheriti turned her ghoul Mandy into a vampire, and trained her to go infiltrate the Camarilla in Dundee, posing as a Malkavian. The cyclical thing is cool, also I like the idea that, now my character's an Elder in terms of power, she's willing to stay put, extend her influence over the Kine (vampirese for mortal) of Dundee, and send her Childe out to do some hard work bringing down the false society of the Aeons.

At some point over the Easter holidays, I intend to write up a "final" character sheet for Sheriti, and a starting one for Mandy (complete with a new name now she's a Setite vampire). These will likely serve no purpose, other than for me to gush about how awesome Sheriti is/was to future acquaintances, and possibly for Mandy to be a new character in a new game later on. The latter's not likely though, as the Vampire GM is going to be running a Wraith game over the 3rd semester and a Mage game next year (he'll be beaten if this changes).

A couple of off-topic notes: Firstly, one specifically to Dob: April Fools

Secondly, the shoe repair shop up the road needs better opening hours. Grr

Thirdly, time flies. The last two hours passed before I'd noticed, I meant to be in bed by now XD. To say nothing about how fast this semester passed.

Finally, a note to Scion players: Thursday 2nd April, the next session of Scion, will be the penultimate Episode of the Series. As such, I'll be trying to finish it a wee bit early so that everyone has time to work out how they'll spend their last bits of experience in such a way that they end up with little or no spare experience left - I'll not be rewarding any for the final Episode (on April 9th) of the Series. Characters taken to any later Series will not keep any leftover experience - and I'll mention this again at the beginning and end of both these remaining sessions.