Paradox: Sign-Up

[Toastburner B]

Detective Paul Nearstaph stood in the ruins of what used to be the Hampington City Animal Shelter.

The keyword in the previous sentence was “used”. While the being was still standing, it would be awhile before it housed any animals again…and probably longer before anyone would to come back to the place for any reason at all.

Blood covered the walls in ways that had become all too common to Nearstaph as of late. A series of brutal murders, or maulings, or whatever you wanted to call them, has been the headline news in Hampington for a little over a month. Bodies of people and animals had been found in various states of dismemberment in various places around the city. But usually in isolated areas…usually just one person or animal.

Nothing like this.

The handful of dogs that hadn’t been killed barked and howled in their kennels, blissfully unaware of how lucky their were to be alive. The bodies of their unlucky compatriots were scattered around the room, the doors of their chain link cages were strewn about equally without care once they were torn from the hinges. But that wasn’t why Nearstaph was here. Two kennel workers had been in the building when the attack happened: one was being loaded into an ambulance; his skin covered in thin lacerations, but it was the young man’s state of shock that called for his hospitalization. Nearstaph held the door open for the EMTs as they wheeled the man, Isaac Knowlton, out. Knowlton had been sedated, but even with that he was troubled, muttering about hunger, devouring, and hunting.

The other kennel worker, Steven Holt…or rather, what was left of him…was covered by a sheet at the end of the kennel space. The Medical Examiner’s initial report was that Holt had been mauled and killed by what appeared to be a large canine. The examiner didn’t look very confident in his story, and only shrugged when Nearstaph asked how said large canine managed to escape from a building that was locked up tight when the first patrol car showed in response to an automated alarm.

The detective shook his head as he took in the scene once more. A month ago, he would have…and in fact did…lose his lunch over a scene like this. Now he was used to it. Something bad was happening in his city, and he was powerless to stop it.

And deep down, he knew things were going to get worst.


Welcome to the Paradox RP.

This RP first ran a little over 3 years ago. (Here is the original sign-up thread for the curious (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showthread.php?t=26365)). While the concept of the Paradoxes and the location are the same, other things will be different. For any of you who were apart of the previous Paradox RP (or for those of you who read the old sign-up before reading this one), please keep in mind that such factors like the Curse of Tiamat and summoners will not be in play this RP. I know they played a big part in the old one, with the new plot for this one, they don’t really fit in.


But enough on what isn’t in this new version, let’s cut to what is in this:

The Paradox: Humans who are Monsters

Up until the day of your Awakening, you lived a normal life, as a normal person. There was no warning that of what would happen to you.

And what happened to you?

For all intents and purposes, you became a monster.

The recollections of that first transformation are hazy at best. All you know is that you felt ill (even though ill doesn’t really begin to describe your misery), and that a deep, overwhelming hunger welled up from inside of you…and that one way or another, you satisfied that hunger.

You wake up covered in blood and wounds, with nothing but a hazy, nightmarish recollection of what happened when the monster took over. You hunted, killed, and fed. The lucky ones slaughtered an animal of some kind. The unlucky ones killed and ate another human being.

Just as the lives of those who become a Paradox are forever changed, they are thrust into a world that exists in the shadows…just beyond what the normal humans knows and believes.


Powers, Abilities, and Consequences

As you would figure, becoming a monster does offer some perks.

The vast majority of a Paradox’s new powers can only be used when they manifest their monstrous form. However, all Paradoxes share an important ability that can be used while fully human:

Sense Supernatural: This ability is the key to the shadowy world of monsters for the newly Awakened Paradoxes. Its like taking off sunglasses in a darkened room…you can see things more clearly. More to the point, as a being of the Supernatural, you can now sense the presence of things that are beyond the norm, such as monsters, and magic that is currently active. Please note that this is a talent shared by most beings gifted with supernatural powers. In your human form, you aren’t considered a supernatural being, however, once your transform, other creatures will be able to sense your presence. The effective range of this is a few hundred feet, depending on how careful the user of the supernatural is being. If it is within 30 feet, you will be able to pinpoint the location of the source of supernatural activity.

The vast majority of powers, however, can only be used when transformed. Almost all monstrous forms will grant the Paradox strength, speed, agility, and toughness beyond that of a human. All in all, monsters are pretty resilient. Weapons that leave a comparatively small wound will hurt monsters, but isn't all that effective at killing them. If you choose to have one of your picked abilities devoted to defense, most small rounds won’t even affect your monster. However, even without that, in your monster form you pretty much only have to worry about large caliber rounds or a lot of other guns.

Powers beyond that, I leave up to you to come up with. Nothing to over the top, mind...I would prefer things to remain somewhat elementally based (earth, water, lightning, etc), but I’m not going to go through the trouble of setting up a weakness-strength chart. If you have an idea, just go ahead and put it in your character sheet, and I’ll approve or veto as needed.

The price of being a Paradox is high, especially at first. When you first start to develop your powers, the transformation is a painful process, and the instincts of the monster are all but overwhelming. With time and use, these will become second nature, but are major barriers to overcome in the beginning. In fact, until you can find a way to make peace with it, your biggest enemy may be the creature that shares your body. For the first while, when you transform, you’ll barely be able to control yourself. You’ll be able to stop yourself from harming innocents or loved ones (if you so chose), but all other bets are off. I have no real way of enforcing this, so I’m expecting your guys to keep this in mind if you choose to transform.


Transforming and you: What carries over, and what doesn't

Keep some things in mind as you switch from monster to human.

Transformation hurts!: Especially in the early going. In fact, for many the first transformation is traumatizing enough to require brief hospitalization. The more you transform the less it hurts, but in early going transformation sucks.

Fatigue carries over from transformation-to-transformation: If you did hard fighting as the monster, you'll still be tried when you revert to a human.

Some injuries carry over!: Sorry, but transformation does not equal "fully healed". Minor things, like light cuts or scrapes, will be healed by the transformation. Other things such as deep cuts, heavy bruising, sprains and the like are partial healed, but not completely. Broken bones damaged internal organs? Sorry, sucker, its still messed up after you transform (not to mention, I would imagine it makes transforming just that much more fun!).


Other Information of Note

Magic: With the advent of technology, most of the secrets of magic have been lost. When a simple bullet can kill at a range greater than any magic sword, or at the same range as a spell, and be easier to learn to use, most people wonder why even bother.

There are a handful of magic artifacts that have survived until the modern day, but the vast majority of such artifacts are in the collection of private collectors who, perhaps thankfully, have no idea what they have.

Other than a few die-hard mages, magic is an all but dead art. But I know people are going to ask about it, so there it is.

No, your character can't be a mage.

Monsters and Human Society: Like in most modern horror settings, monsters exist on the fringe of human society. The fact that they remain a secret is mainly because of two things: 1) Monsters, despite their powers, are outnumbered by mankind, and they know that if their existence becomes general knowledge, they will be hunted down. 2) People have spent the last hundred years or so breaking themselves of the belief that there are things that exist in the darkness. If anyone does see something, they generally keep to themselves because no one would believe them, or they tell their story and people don’t believe them outside of a small, equally ostracized group of people who claim similar experiences (10% of people have actually seen something…the other 90% are just loons).


Any other questions you have feel free to ask them here. If you have a question, then it is likely someone has the same or a similar question, so don’t be afraid to ask.

Now the character sheet:

Name: Character’s name.
Age: Obvious
Gender: Again, obvious
Physical Description: How your character looks as a human.
Bio/Background/Etc: The personality and history of your character, along with whatever background notes you want.

Monster Name: The name of the creature you transform into.
Appearance: The appearance of your monstrous self.
Abilities/Powers: Can you fly? Breath fire? Other such things? Please limit yourself to one or two powers. I’ll allow for some progress later as the character achieves more control over the monster.


Name: Isaac Knowlton
Age: 25
Gender: Male
Physical Description: Isaac is a guy who is just shy of being good looking instead of average. He is tallish at 6’2”, and is of average weight for his size. He favors jeans and t-shirts, and tries to keep his brown hair short so he doesn’t have to worry about combing it too much.
Bio/Background/Etc: Isaac isn’t the most outgoing person in the world, but he isn’t a recluse, either. He’s lived in Hampington for most of his life, and knows the area like the back of his hand. He’s a veterinary technician in the employ of the city (mostly works for the Hampington City Animal Shelter, but moonlights with animal control from time to time).

Monster Name: Sorm

Appearance: Sorm is a hulking monster, seemingly as wide as he is tall. His hulking forearms are much larger than his smaller legs. Sorm is a bit like a bear in that he can stand on his hind legs for a time, but is not particularly mobile when walking biped. The large, stone-like “wings” don’t serve much purpose beyond giving him additional protection (though that is definitely subject to change).

http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z318/Bhaunted/Sorm.jpg

This is basically what Sorm looks like, minus the armor.

Abilities: Improved Toughness: Sorm’s skin is very tough. It resists cutting and piercing. Despite being a traditional weakness, the scales on the stomach and flanks are particularly tough.

Improved Strength: Sorm is a hulking brute, and is amazingly strong.


Questions/Comments/Concerns let me know here. Don't want to ask me here, PM me.

[Teal Mage]

Hey Toast, I've actually stumbled across an idea for a concept (I assume a Plant Paradox is fine?), but I'm having some trouble figuring out what to do with the initial Abilities and Powers. When that happens, I usually just default to what's thematically appropriate. So, got any advice as to what our first two tricks should be geared toward? Like, should they focus more on combat, hunting, surviving, or be based on skills our characters have as humans?

I know there's no strict requirement to create powers to fulfill a specific purpose, but I would like a little direction. What's your preference?

Incidentally, the Plant Paradox would be named Snap Dragon - which is pretty much exactly what the name implies, a Plant Dragon. Haven't decided on much else - character will probably be male, leaning toward making him pretty slow on putting the pieces together on the whole 'transforming into a monster at night and murdering people' thing for as long as possible, but the personality of the concept's not very set yet. It'll come together when I formally design the bio, I'm sure.

Oh, and this is also a Placeholder. I expect to be able to make a bio sometime this week - Saturday at the absolute latest, but tomorrow evening's possible too. Sorta hoping that what I've thought up is intriguing is enough to let the possibility of a slightly late sign-up slide.

If it isn't, well, I tried!

[Girasol of Chaos]

I'm extremely interested, but am concerned if I will have the time. I'll put this post in as a placeholder if that's alright, hit the monster-making machine tomorrow.

Even if I don't participate it'll be a fun task.

Edit: definitely participating, I'm going over which of my ideas would be best.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Man I loved this RP back in the day. Would I be ok to bring back Ifrit for this? Obviously it would be a different version of the guy, seeing as it's a different universe than before, but the insane firey berserker was fun to play.

[Steel Shadow]

What the hell, I'll take a stab at it! Limits are there for pushing past, right? Place holder up while I think of a character.

[Riin Whitewind]

I, too, would like to express interest.

I've an idea rattling around for a monster, I'll sleep on it and see if anything comes of it!

[lazy man]

It's a Toasty RP! Now I have to join in!

...er, once I have some free time to make a character. Still kinda figuring out my schedule now that I'm back in classes.

[Overcast]

Should have a character up by today's end. Planning something with tentacles.

[Wizardcat]

Placeholder. Got the idea, am not in a typing mood.

[Aerozord]

I asked this in the last thread but to double check, can our feeding be horrible but more esoteric, like can I be an edritch horror that feeds on sanity or something?

[Astral Harmony]

I'm interested in this and I have a character already planned. I just need the time to type up a character sheet.

[batgirl]

Are we being left open to any monster or just the horrendous ones? Are we allowed vampires or more humanoid looking monsters or are we really just left to demons and gross tentacle hentai monsters?

[Inbred Chocobo]

I'm going to make a character type that I normally don't play, because I am curious what is going to happen with it.

Name: Sarah Viticus
Age: 23
Gender: Female
Physical Description: Serra stands a tall 5'2', and weighs no more than 100 pounds. She is skinny as a rail, and built like a stick. Her hair is a natural light brown with it down to her shoulders. Her choice in clothing tends to be tighter T-shirts (with her favorite bands on them most of the time) and in summer shorts, in winter pants. She is a bit athletic, and eats a ton of food for her size, but otherwise is pretty normal. The only thing that may be odd is that she keeps a cellphone on her that takes an amazing quality picture.
Bio/Background/Etc: Sarah was always the artistic type. She loved doodling as a kid, drawing all kinds of pictures, but what always captured her was painting elaborate scenery, giant clock towers, vast valleys and rolling hills. Sadly, her art skills never kept up with her ability, but her desire to stay in the field has lead her to the art of photography. She is in Hampington right now in a local college working on a degree for photography, and works part-time taking wedding pictures in the city.

Monster Name: Judgement
Appearance:
http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/3097/akromaangeloffury.jpg (http://img163.imageshack.us/i/akromaangeloffury.jpg/)
Well... the armor probably isn't there but you get the gist of what she turns into. She grows over a foot in height, her hair becomes an angry red that flares like fire. Great Phoenix wings spread from her back. I would say her clothing she is wearing tears to a point she looks savage (but for purposes of this rp they still remain to cover the naughty bits). She gains the ability to fly and great strength and rage to smite whoever she is after.
Abilities/Powers: Flight, and superior strength.

[Overcast]

Are we being left open to any monster or just the horrendous ones? Are we allowed vampires or more humanoid looking monsters or are we really just left to demons and gross tentacle hentai monsters?

Who told you my idea, that was supposed to be top secret!

In the meantime, characterville.

Name: Earnest Goodhouse
Age: 24
Gender: Male
Physical Description: Tall lanky and thin is the easy way of describing Earnest. He stands at about 6'4" and at 150lbs is skinny as a rail, the years after college have groomed him into the habit of wearing suits due to the constant interviews and internships he has subjected himself to trying to get a good job. Dark brown hair, usually combed back in a professional manner adorns his head, and his light green eyes seem to pierce people he looks upon. He is attractive, but you'd have to be into his type.
Bio/Background/Etc: Earnest early in his life had wanted to be a writer, and spent much of his youth trying to put together the story that might have gotten him famous if he chased his dreams. But as he grew older his parents began to badger, old loves began to prod, teachers began to bother and all poked holes in his old dreams until he was indoctrinated to the truth that money ruled everything around him and nothing else was important. He suffered through six years of college in marketing and psychology for a future cool hunting and selling on a large scale. But after college life has not been kind to him, the bad economy combined with the competitive market has made job searching one hell he can't seem to escape from, and he has poured nearly all he has trying to get something. But even when he's loved people usually have to tell him no since they can't afford to hire him. It was the situation he was in when it first happened, sitting in some office trying to complete an easy test marketing to children as a part of his internship, to be honest this might have been the one that would have gotten everything he needed in life, aside from happiness. Unfortunately all that came was tragedy.

Monster Name: Teeth
Appearance: The creature looks like a terrifying mutation of the poor man's normal body. His head and arms and legs have been replaced by five large tentacles with a multitude of smaller tentacles erupting from his sides. On his back though is the most notable change, a massive grinning maw filled with misshapen teeth, the inside a dark and twisted hole.

Also for the sake of not being terrible he loses his junk, it does not become another tentacle.
Abilities/Powers:
~The Maw: While many transformations hunger, Teeth lives on the idea of devouring and the inside of its mouth is an insatiable hole, though as a paradox it does drip saliva. As such it can eat anything that enters it, and as a bonus nothing that enters it can actually harm the rest of the body. Once you enter the maw, there is no turning back.
~Boneless: The change into Teeth removes every bone that once inhabited Earnest to be lost, as such Teeth cannot have any broken bones...though if he suffers one pre-transformation it will still be there afterwards. It is also gives it incredible flexibility and balance, and it can squeeze into places that it's size would usually restrict if it were boned.

[SinrXIII]

Placeholder while I mull over the possibilities at my fingertips.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Wow, this is a lot of interest already. Calling it now, Toasty has a migraine over the popularity when he next logs on!:D

[Steel Shadow]

We inflict pain because we love!

Name: Charlie Heat

Age: 23

Gender: Male

Physical Description: A skinny chap of average height, Charlie isn't exactly eye catching, but he's not bad to look at either. He takes decent care of his short brown hair, and his thin frame glasses frame his green eyes nicely. Generally he wears casual, comfortable clothing like jeans and T-shirts.

Bio/Background/Etc: A drifter, currently moving from job to job looking for a calling, Charlie has somehow managed to cut a living for himself in the city over the past few years despite never staying with any job for longer than a few months. His history is rather unremarkable, an only child of two parents living on the other side of the country. He ended up in Hampington while travelling with a friend, and while said friend has since departed, Chalie's stuck around.
Whilst he's a determined and sharp thinking man when he's in the mood, said mood rarely takes him, and he tends to live day to day in a vague state of annoyance and irritability, though he's friendly and much less sharp tongued to people he likes.

Monster Name: Amorphica

Appearance: From a distance, it merely seems to be a tall, heavily built human. It has a head, arms, legs, the works. Well, aside from being a light greenish blue. And naked.
Actually, aside from the base form, Amorphica is entirely featureless. Smooth, even! It has no eyes nor ears, no hair on it's head, nor elsewhere. It's feet and hands have no digits, though it's hands do have a large, sharp looking claw emerging from where you'd expect the tips of the fingers to be. It stands at 7'5 feet tall, and while it wouldn't exactly register as 'fat' if it were human, it is substantially wider than Charlie, proportionally.
Despite it's apparent handicap in every possible way, Amorphica is still capable of all normal senses like sight and smell.

Abilities/Powers:
Absorption: Amorphica's hunger has no bounds. It will consume anything that crosses it's path, living or inanimate, and it will do so with any part of it's body. The floor will be absorbed under foot even as it walks. Those that survive it's touch will compare it to being splashed with Acid, and surviving is no small feet, given it's trying to absorb you through it's hands. The stronger the material is, the harder it is to absorb it. A steel door would take hours to eat through, for instance. Once something is absorbed it is broken down and used to repair any damage the monster has sustained, or merely stored away for later.

Stretching: Amorphica's body is more flexible and less solid than most living things. It wouldn't be wrong to call it a congealed slime creature. As such, it's capable of minor shape shifting, stretching and extending any part of it's body up to 10 times it's original length. Obviously, this makes whatever limb is stretched thinner and more vulnerable to attack.

[Toastburner B]

Hey Toast, I've actually stumbled across an idea for a concept (I assume a Plant Paradox is fine?), but I'm having some trouble figuring out what to do with the initial Abilities and Powers. When that happens, I usually just default to what's thematically appropriate. So, got any advice as to what our first two tricks should be geared toward? Like, should they focus more on combat, hunting, surviving, or be based on skills our characters have as humans?

I know there's no strict requirement to create powers to fulfill a specific purpose, but I would like a little direction. What's your preference?

Well, much like the previous Paradox RP, you probably won’t be doing much hunting (unless you want to...but as always, beware the consequences), and most combat skills would be applicable to hunting, anyways. Also, everyone starts with sense supernatural, so it’s not like you have to worry about having a way to find monsters.

Oh, and this is also a Placeholder. I expect to be able to make a bio sometime this week - Saturday at the absolute latest, but tomorrow evening's possible too. Sorta hoping that what I've thought up is intriguing is enough to let the possibility of a slightly late sign-up slide.

Don’t worry about time. I’m not in a big hurry to get this started (it gives me more time to iron out the plot [yes I know it’s been three years since the last one so shut up], so take your time). Even if we start before you are ready, I’ll do my usual thing and keep places open for people with placeholders.

I'm extremely interested, but am concerned if I will have the time. I'll put this post in as a placeholder if that's alright, hit the monster-making machine tomorrow.

Even if I don't participate it'll be a fun task.

Edit: definitely participating, I'm going over which of my ideas would be best.

Welcome to party. :D

Man I loved this RP back in the day. Would I be ok to bring back Ifrit for this? Obviously it would be a different version of the guy, seeing as it's a different universe than before, but the insane firey berserker was fun to play.

Heck, man, it can be the same guy if you want. But sure, reviving Ifrit is fine. I was tempted to bring back Griz, but Wirehair got stuck in my head for some reason.

What the hell, I'll take a stab at it! Limits are there for pushing past, right? Place holder up while I think of a character.

DO THE IMPOSSIBLE, SEE THE INVIS-...you get the idea.
I, too, would like to express interest.

I've an idea rattling around for a monster, I'll sleep on it and see if anything comes of it!

Sleeping while think about monsters…great. I’m already going the source of nightmares and that’s even before you people have to read a lot of my writing!

It's a Toasty RP! Now I have to join in!

...er, once I have some free time to make a character. Still kinda figuring out my schedule now that I'm back in classes.

Oh come on! I did some of my best work while slacking off in school!

…Seriously though, glad to have you aboard, lazy.

Should have a character up by today's end. Planning something with tentacles.

I tried thinking up a witty comment for this, but maybe I should just let it go.

Placeholder. Got the idea, am not in a typing mood.

All we need now is a DJ and we have ourselves a PLACEHOLDER PARTY!

I asked this in the last thread but to double check, can our feeding be horrible but more esoteric, like can I be an edritch horror that feeds on sanity or something?

While I’m not necessarily against it, I’m not sure I’m necessarily for it, either. I mean straight up hunger is a simple matter (eat X amount, stop being hungry), not to mention it’s easier to say what is a lot of regular food and what isn’t. Sanity is a little more…intangible. How does something “eat” sanity? How much sanity do you have to eat to become satisfied? How much sanity does any given person have?

Honestly, I would rather you have a more “mundane” hunger, but if you can give me a compelling reason (and method) of living off of sanity, I’ll consider it.

I'm interested in this and I have a character already planned. I just need the time to type up a character sheet.

Always pleased to have you on board, AB.

Are we being left open to any monster or just the horrendous ones? Are we allowed vampires or more humanoid looking monsters or are we really just left to demons and gross tentacle hentai monsters?

That’s…an interesting question. :sweatdrop Can’t really give any reason why you couldn’t be a more human like monster, but really, for the sake of being fair to everyone else, the transformation should still be painful.

I'm going to make a character type that I normally don't play, because I am curious what is going to happen with it.

HOLY CRAP SOMEONE ACTUALLY MADE A CHARACTER!

Don’t really see anything wrong with it (since I just gave Batgirl permission to make human-like monster, I guess that applies to everyone else). Just remember she doesn’t start off all righteous fury…just rather hungry.

Overcast (again):

I don’t see anything wrong with it, other than the Maw ability has the possibility of being overpowered. I’ll let it go for now (my character nazi technique is a bit rusty), but please try to keep the bottomless pit act to a minimum, eh?

Placeholder while I mull over the possibilities at my fingertips.

That's funny…I keep my ideas in my head, not my fingertips.

Wow, this is a lot of interest already. Calling it now, Toasty has a migraine over the popularity when he next logs on!:D

I just don’t see why you people keep putting up with me.

Steel Shadow (again)

Honestly, this is the first thing I thought of (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCtcgI4BcIQ&feature=related). Except your walking instead of sliding and gliding I guess.

But hey, we had a slime monster last time, why not this time? If you can live with this character after being granted that theme song, sure.



I'm sure I missed something or someone somewhere, so if someone would be kind enough to point it out to me, I'd be much obliged.

[Overcast]

I don't figure it is overpowered, it is kinda like the opposite of a glowing weak point, it is a large unweak-point. But it is only on one side of him, all his tentacles are still very hurtable, and the opposite side of the Maw and everything surrounding it is also mortal. Just inside the mouth is invincible, and since he lacks super turning power it will just serve as an excuse why every situation when Teeth takes control only leaves behind blood and no bodies.

It is also the central idea of the character, every power increase will have to do with mouths rather than tentacles. Because mouths where they don't belong are weird.

[Aerozord]

here is what I was thinking, a monster whose combat is more based on mental attacks. Someone thats more useful as support, probing an enemies mind, establishing telepathic communication, making illusions, ect. In fact I was going to have the feeding be an attack since it would be something like we have to be looking at each other, alternately generating illusions or telepathy, doing violent and horrible things, and other tactics to create sanity eroding trauma. I could scale it back to physical contact of course. Amount depends on how often we have to feed. Personally I measure it as number of people. If another monster needs to slay one human, figured me stripping one persons mind would be equivalent

Act of feeding strips away ability to separate reality from imagination, as well as past and present. Those partially stripped cant even be sure I attacked, even best live in a world filled with far worse imagined horrors, the worst, those completely stripped of sanity are vegetables. Their minds no longer coherent enough to facilitate anything more complex then twitching while inside their head is an insanity filled nightmare as their mind tries in vain to comprehend the horror of pure chaos.

[Steel Shadow]

That theme is the best thing ever and I demand it play every time Morphy comes out to play!

[mauve]

Placeholder.

What's your opinion on very short range self-teleportation for a Paradox power, Toasty? Like, four-to-five feet maximum in any given direction?

[Toastburner B]

I think my trademark "Character Creation Nazi" senses just kicked back in...

I don't figure it is overpowered, it is kinda like the opposite of a glowing weak point, it is a large unweak-point. But it is only on one side of him, all his tentacles are still very hurtable, and the opposite side of the Maw and everything surrounding it is also mortal. Just inside the mouth is invincible, and since he lacks super turning power it will just serve as an excuse why every situation when Teeth takes control only leaves behind blood and no bodies.

It is also the central idea of the character, every power increase will have to do with mouths rather than tentacles. Because mouths where they don't belong are weird.

You have to remember that it’s my job to be paranoid about these sort of things. And really, the only comparable thing I have to Teeth is Gluttony from FMA…and Gluttony tends to absorb a lot (people, incoming attacks, fire, all kinds of fun stuff). So why I know you don’t mean for it to be overpowered, it’s my job to foresee the stuff like “Oh! Here comes a rocket! Don’t worry, I’ll catch it in my blackhole mouth!” or “Wow, this guy is tough. Quick! Someone grab him and I’ll eat him with my black hole mouth!” or “As the punches at me, I spin around so that he falls into by blackhole mouth!”

You get the idea, right? I know you don’t mean it to be overpowered, I’m just saying when the temptation comes and you want to do something like the above...please think twice about it.

here is what I was thinking, a monster whose combat is more based on mental attacks. Someone thats more useful as support, probing an enemies mind, establishing telepathic communication, making illusions, ect. In fact I was going to have the feeding be an attack since it would be something like we have to be looking at each other, alternately generating illusions or telepathy, doing violent and horrible things, and other tactics to create sanity eroding trauma. I could scale it back to physical contact of course. Amount depends on how often we have to feed. Personally I measure it as number of people. If another monster needs to slay one human, figured me stripping one persons mind would be equivalent

Act of feeding strips away ability to separate reality from imagination, as well as past and present. Those partially stripped cant even be sure I attacked, even best live in a world filled with far worse imagined horrors, the worst, those completely stripped of sanity are vegetables. Their minds no longer coherent enough to facilitate anything more complex then twitching while inside their head is an insanity filled nightmare as their mind tries in vain to comprehend the horror of pure chaos.

I’m not really comfortable with that. There are a handful of things I’m always extremely paranoid about when it comes to RPs, and telepathy is one of them. Really, anything that lets you get inside your enemies head/read his thoughts is just a nightmare to GM. Also , I’ve never had much like with illusion powers. It is just one of those things that the player thinks should be really effective but the GM thinks it isn’t as effective, and it just ends up a big mess.

I’m sorry, I know your trying to go for something unique here, but I just don’t think it fits.

That theme is the best thing ever and I demand it play every time Morphy comes out to play!

Only if you use it as one of your abilities.

Placeholder.

What's your opinion on very short range self-teleportation for a Paradox power, Toasty? Like, four-to-five feet maximum in any given direction?

Somewhere, there is a place holder store that closed early because they no longer have any stock.

Teleportation…yeah. Sorry, but that’s one of those powers I’ve always been extremely paranoid about. It just always seems like it eventually becomes this. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrVdCkKxty4). So, again, sorry, but, I’m going to have to veto teleportation.


As a side note: I swear all you placeholders are going to post characters within five minutes of each other, and I am going to log in, see what happened, and have an aneurysm.

[Astral Harmony]

Damn it, I noticed that Overcast already took my idea. Oh well, maybe there can be two big eaters in the family? Eh, I'll change it if I gotta so just say the word, m'lord.

Name: Kaitlyn Wales
Age: 19
Gender: Femme Fatale
Physical Description: 5' 1" and 117 lbs. Has brown hair tinged with red and hazel eyes. Wears glasses, but doesn't really need them. Most notable for her big forehead. She's pretty cute, but due to wearing big sweaters and long skirts with pumps, she doesn't stand out nearly as much as she could.
Bio/Background/Etc: Kaitlyn lived an abnormally average life in an abnormally average neighborhood. The kind of neighborhood where everyone knew everyone else's names and people pretty much never connected with those outside their town. Kaitlyn's life was well grounded and one its way to being ordinary and very tiresome.
Kaitlyn didn't really want that life but was willing to accept it before. Now she would kill to get that life back.

On her nineteenth birthday, she went out on a date with her boyfriend-since-childhood Jeffery Woods, assuming that she would be giving him everything.

That night, his blood was dripping from her oversized and otherwise shiny teeth as she vacuumed his blood-filled organs into her oversized maw.

Ever since then, Kaitlyn's sort of been on a mission. She's distanced herself from her friends in a way of trying to protect them from her mysterious nature until she could figure out what the hell just happened that night. To compliment her search to understand that side of herself, Kaitlyn works as a freelance journalist, living most of her days right out of her minivan that was given to her on her eighteenth birthday by her parents.

Monster Name: Mawface
Appearance: The bulbous, black, repulsive Mawface stands slightly taller than Kaitlyn in human form, and is actually just as wide and just as long. Its legs are thick and end in squat, flat trunk-like feet. The arms are very short, also thick, and end in two large, broad claws apiece, capable of crushing bones if swung hard enough. The head is a misshapen lump of flesh with two big, slanted eyes that sort of hangs forward like an afterthought.

Mawface gets its name of its enormous maw, which stretches across more than half of the anterior. The maw is sort of hex-shaped and at each corner a long, broad, swordlike fang extends roughly four feet straight out from the maw itself like a bed of swords. There are two other sets of teeth deeper into the fleshy pit of Mawface's mouth, making a total of eighteen teeth in all, with the second six being roughly half the size of the primary teeth while the third six are smaller still. The teeth are extremely sharp and are clearly meant for shredding meals while the throat is capable of generating a powerful vacuum that sucks in the ludricrus gibs.

Because of the sheer size and length of these teeth, the maw is permanently open and constantly gives off the nauseating stench of Mawface's meals. Mawface doesn't appear to have any kind of tongue or even a jaw, relying on powerful muscles to hold and move the teeth instead.
Abilities/Powers
- Gastric Purge ~ Sometimes it's hard for Mawface to cut its food for easy dining. In this case, Mawface is able to eject putrid digestive fluids capable of dissolving clothes, melting flesh, and even eating through some armor up to a maximum of roughly six meters.
- Devouring Void ~ Mawface can draw things in up to a distance of roughly three meters away with one mighty inhalation. Heavy things, powerful things that can resist, or things that are bolted down can avoid being yanked in.

-----------------

Name: Cheryl Railspoon
Age: 31
Gender: Female
Physical Description: 5' 8" and 128 lbs. Has long black hair and blue eyes. Generally wears shades in her hair. Wears a white trenchcoat with a dark green short sleeve t-shirt, a torso harness for her revolver, long black jeans, and boots. She looks younger than she is and is beautiful enough to cause five car pileups.
Bio/Background/Etc: Cheryl Railspoon is a detective from a large precinct that investigates serious crimes in a few nearby towns, Kaitlyn's hometown being one of them. She's in charge of the investigation into Jeffery Wood's (Kaitlyn's first victim) murder, and due to Kaitlyn's connection to him and her leaving the town shortly after, Cheryl believes her to be the one who killed him, though evidence clearly shows the dirty deed to have been done by something else entirely (such as Mawface?). Cheryl is hellbent on discovering how the murder went down, and while not in hot pursuit of Kaitlyn yet, it won't be long before Cheryl starts catching up with the prime suspect.

As of right now, Cheryl is not a Paradox and has no unnatural sensations or urges about her. Fortunately for her, she's a natural crack shot, an exceptional investigator, and knows when she's overwhelmed.

Monster Name: Baroness
Appearance: Baroness is achingly beautiful, consisting of the upper body of a radiant maiden with roses in her wealth of shiny hair. Near the hips, huge crimson rose petals spread out from a large plant bulb that connects to four large, spiderlike legs the color of roots. Numerous tentacles extend from these roots and can consume large quantities of blood, Baroness's source of nourishment.
Abilities/Powers
- Thornwhip Lash ~ Turns an arm (or both) into thick, heavily thorned whips that can easily strip flesh from bone and carve stone. These whips have a reach of five meters.
- Power Roots ~ Baroness can perform considerable leaps and scale up some walls.

[Teal Mage]

here is what I was thinking, a monster whose combat is more based on mental attacks.

I’m not really comfortable with that. [...] It is just one of those things that the player thinks should be really effective but the GM thinks it isn’t as effective, and it just ends up a big mess.

Honestly Aero, if you want to do something with Mental Attacks, your best choice is really to create skills that are glorified Mind Punches - energy blasts or the like that don't do physical damage, but can cause flinching, if used correctly (Read: When the person isn't expecting to be punched in the brain). Like Toasty said, illusions (and mental warfare in general) tend to fall into the categories of useless or overpowered, depending on the system.

For clarity's sake, an example out of one of your sample abilities:

In fact I was going to have the feeding be an attack since it would be something like we have to be looking at each other. [...] Act of feeding strips away ability to separate reality from imagination, as well as past and present. Those partially stripped cant even be sure I attacked, even best live in a world filled with far worse imagined horrors, the worst, those completely stripped of sanity are vegetables.

The problem with this sort of ability is combat viability - in my experience at least. See, if looking at the other thing is what's required to have your sanity eaten, the simple solution is to shut your eyes - or to move fast enough to avoid eye contact, which isn't hard to do in a confused combat situation. Additionally, even if he can establish eye-contact, unless the ability allows him to instantly devour another's sanity (in which case, having a teammate with a Win Buttons makes the game pretty boring to play), he'd have to basically engage the target in a staring contest for quite some time. Not exactly likely in a fight. Also, because there's no finite number of sanity points in a free form RP, a cumulative effect would be difficult to measure.

And without the requirement of eye contact, it would turn any battle into a waiting game, as we wait for your character's unblockable I-Win-Button to kick in.

Oh, and if you'd meant for your character to be offensively crippled and to play a mainly support role, I should mention that purely support characters tend to be really boring to play in Free Form - and are usually treated as after-thoughts by the PCs as a whole. Certainly, your character can be focused on support, but being able to function independently is pretty important too! In my experience at least.

[Girasol of Chaos]

I'm currently debating between some designs I've made, and I think this will be a determining factor:

What's your opinion on a poison-gas spewing demon form? Or even mist, if the poison is too OP. I'm currently debating between a demon with this ability (speed based) or another, more traditional slashing type.

If the mist is a proper substitute, it would be handled like 'fog breath'.

[Overcast]

Shouldn't have to worry too much about the gluttony effect with Teeth. He has no suction or tongue so he can't just suck things or drag them directly in, though his external tentacles are meant to remedy that. His teeth cannot really bite through much, but are more meant to hold something in or bite onto someone so it can be beaten until it stops resisting. And you do have to be IN the Maw before it is impossible to escape. There is such a thing as halfway in, but it isn't so permenant.

So I guess more like a pit of doom than a black hole, missile catching will probably happen, eating someone is the goal, but if you resist it is hard to do. And if anyone stumble's into the Maw they are the lord of all clutzes.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Woo, Ifrit's back baby!;

Name: James Wade.
Age: 23.
Gender: Male.
Physical Description: 5'10, caucasion, jet black hair which is badly in need of a haircut. Almost always seen wearing black jeans and t-shirt, and usually found listening to rock music on an ipod.
Bio/Background/Etc: James works construction, for a fairly average wage and has lived in Hampington most of his life and rarely had the opportunity to travel, much as he'd like to. He figures he's probably in the wrong line of work and needs to sort out his place in life, but is currently stuck in a rut just trying to earn ends meat. He has only a few close friends and spends much of his social time out drinking with them. Deep down though, he wishes for something, anything more in his life.

Monster Name: Ifrit
Appearance:

http://i10.servimg.com/u/f10/10/07/21/67/ifrit_10.jpg
Around 8 ft tall while erect, but generally moves around on all fours. Has 3 fingers and toes on each limb, ending in massive bone like claws which nether the less are quite dextrous and opposable enough to lift and manipulate objects. He is entirely hairless except for his back, which is covered in a mane wreathed in fire (or rather, made of fire).
Abilities/Powers:
- Fire manipulation; Ifrit is a fire elemental, able to create and control raging infernos. His ever-burning mane is the primary source of this fire and he usually just draws fire straight from his back, but he can also create more when hurling larger amounts around or when he desires to exhale it directly. His flames get stronger the more angry he becomes and he gets angry a lot. Naturally he is immune to fire and heat.

- Superior strength; Paradoxes and monsters are already strong. Ifrit is stronger. That wall you're hiding behind? He'll totally punch through it. That car over there? Watch out, he'll probably throw it at you. Part of this strength comes from the fact that he is utterly enraged all the time and just doesn't care about what damage he causes or what injuries he might sustain. The rest is just cos he's just really frikken' strong!

Slightly altered from the original post, but not much. I take it you want power levels to start out the same as last time Toasty, in which case Ifrit won't be able to control most of his flame powers at first. He'll just be on fire and CRAZY!, nothing to worry about there.:D

[Toastburner B]

AB: Looks pretty good, except for a few things:

1) 10 meters seems like a bit much for the range on devouring void. Knock the range down a bit and we'll be in business

2) AND REALLY, THIS APPLIES TO EVERYONE, SO PLEASE READ: I guess I didn't make ti clear that the character's first transformation should have occurred in the only recently (the last week or two preferably, a month at the most). Just make sure you change that on your character sheet as well, and that should be that.

I'm currently debating between some designs I've made, and I think this will be a determining factor:

What's your opinion on a poison-gas spewing demon form? Or even mist, if the poison is too OP. I'm currently debating between a demon with this ability (speed based) or another, more traditional slashing type.

If the mist is a proper substitute, it would be handled like 'fog breath'.

No, poison would be fine, as long as you don't expect it to be instant death poison or anything like that. I mean, in the context of the RP, it would probably do humans in pretty quick, but other paradoxes and monsters it would have to be a pretty big dose to kill.



Overcast: I know. I just wanted to explain why I was afraid it might be overpowered.


Slightly altered from the original post, but not much. I take it you want power levels to start out the same as last time Toasty, in which case Ifrit won't be able to control most of his flame powers at first. He'll just be on fire and CRAZY!, nothing to worry about there.:D

Yeah, it looks alright. As long as you don't give yourself fireballs before I say people can have additional powers, that will do fine.



On a side note: WHAT THE HECK IS UP WITH ALL THE MOUTHY ASYMMETRICAL LOVECRAFTIAN STUFF?!

...Not that I mind, really, I just find it interesting.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

I know right? Last time we had a black demon, a fire demon, a smoke dude, a wolf, an angel demon, a humanoid warrior thing and... some other stuff. This time it's all tentacle monsters, slime creatures, POISON smoke dudes and giant mouth things.

I foresee much darkness ahead.

[Overcast]

Your signature has tainted the thread Toasty.

[Teal Mage]

On a side note: WHAT THE HECK IS UP WITH ALL THE MOUTHY ASYMMETRICAL LOVECRAFTIAN STUFF?!

...Not that I mind, really, I just find it interesting.

The last time you made this, I think you referenced Shadow Hearts as the basis. This time, you mentioned Digital Devil Saga - the difference is really quite staggering.

Plus you've got a slightly different crop of players this time around too.

Edit: Oh, and yeah, I'm following the thread, working on an Essay right now though, so the bio's still in the backseat. Its being written in my head as we speak though!

[Toastburner B]

I foresee much darkness ahead.

Because the last Paradox RP was known for being so bright and cheery.

That and insane, utterly impossible phone calls.


Your signature has tainted the thread Toasty.

Imagine what would have happened if was had fallen to the MLP craze.

Colorfully cannibalistic pony monsters!

The last time you made this, I think you referenced Shadow Hearts as the basis. This time, you mentioned Digital Devil Saga - the difference is really quite staggering.

Actually, I think the only reference I made to Shadow Hearts last time was the fact that my character's monster was basically a watered down version of Amon.

Plus you've got a slightly different crop of players this time around too.

Who let all these creepy people onto the forum? ;)

Edit: Oh, and yeah, I'm following the thread, working on an Essay right now though, so the bio's still in the backseat. Its being written in my head as we speak though!

Just remember: Creepy monster stuff goes into the bio, boring school stuff goes into the essay.

Do not get them mixed up.

[Girasol of Chaos]

Naw, the poison would be near-lethal/lethal to humans, and to other paradoxes simply a DOT.

Working on the character then with that approval.

Also I freaking love digital devil saga.

[Riin Whitewind]

A more normal monster-thing!

Name: Rawli Prochainezo

Age: 19

Gender: Female

Physical Description: Rawli is tall for a woman, on the thin side with long, almost gangly arms. To hide this, she prefers long coats with sleeves, and large pockets to shove her hands into. Her short, chestnut brown hair is soft-looking, and separates into feathery bangs over warm brown eyes. A scarf, white-and-green striped, is always seen dangling out of a pocket or wrapped snugly around her neck.

Bio: The only child of Meri Prochainezo, Rawli grew up around, was raised by, and was fed books since before she could walk. Meri, her mother, owns a bookstore in the Italian district of town, and either couldn't be bothered or wasn't able to care for a small child as well as a small business. She never talks about Rawli's father, not even so small a detail as his name. Despite her parent's distance, both physical and emotional, Rawli made fast friends among the neighborhood kids, whos mothers made absolutely sure that she was never less than stuffed with food and affection. Like every other kid on the block, she spent her free time playing soccer in the park, only returning 'home' when it started to get dark out.


Monster Name: Grin
Appearance: As though a guardian lion statue had come to life. Grin bears the stocky, deep-chested form of a twin-headed fu lion, as though it had been lovingly carved out of granite by artisans in distant China.

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f77/RinSavage/Grinlion.jpg

Abilities/Powers:
Stone Skin - Thick stone skin covers Grin's form, protecting it from most slash and piercing damage.

Mobile Mountain - A statue should not move at all, much less faster than some mortals. Grin prides itself on its mobility, prefering a chase when hunting.

[Teal Mage]

That and insane, utterly impossible phone calls.

!

OhmygodIforgotaboutthisitmusthappenagain!

...

For those of you who don't know, we somehow got the entire cast of the previous game mixed into a single giant phonecall. I'm sure I did something illegal to make it work, but man, it was funny while it was happening.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Colorfully cannibalistic pony monsters!


I would totally play that.

That and insane, utterly impossible phone calls.


Oh god, I think my mind blocked that out because of the confusion it caused. I swear I was speaking to people in the past somewhere along the line there, or maybe it was the future.

[lazy man]

Ok, so I liked the idea I was coming up with, but this is turning into something more like Ifrit with a different element... well, I guess Hawk and I will just have to duke it out over the Elemental Doom Monsters! Although I do plan on turning this guy into a Ranged Elemental Doom Monster, so there's that.

Name: Ryan Sorenson
Age: 23
Gender: Male
Physical Description: 5'11" with short, dirty blond hair and hazel eyes, Ryan is really just your average young man. Usually wears jeans and some form of shirt. Depends on the weather. (Seriously, characters'll be busting out of clothes often enough, why describe em in detail?)
Bio/Background/Etc: Ryan grew up always wanting to work in some for power plant, or even as an electrical technician. He has recently gotten a job working for the local power company and is learning the details of being an electrical technician. He lives a rather dull life other than that, but he's at least happy with his job.

Monster Name: Blitz
Appearance: http://helugame.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/jinouga.png?w=476&h=343 (Thank you, Monster Hunter, for your awesome creature designs)
Blitz is much scrawnier than the pictures, but being about 10 feet long (nose to tail) and 6 feet high, he has a very intimidating figure whatever the case may be. He also has a series of 8 long, flexible spines (4 groups of 2) running along his back that can be moved freely (kind of like a wire mixed with a less useful tail).

Abilities/Powers:
Electrical Conduction: Blitz is constantly generating huge amounts of electricity in its body and is capable of discharging it into the atmosphere. Something like this, only on a much larger scale:

http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu55/Fatacron/Jinouga-Raged.jpg

In addition, the spines on his back can conduct electricity, and are typically arcing without any control, mostly as a form of releasing stored electricity. In general, like in the picture, discharges are mainly let out of Blitz's body without any directional control, either incapacitating or killing anything around it.

Heightened Speed: Since Blitz's electricity mainly incapacitates opponents, speed is necessary in order to run away if any prey is tougher to take down or fights back. Or just to run down any fleeing prey. Blitz can easily keep pace with a car, so running away isn't exactly an option.


Sooooo different from my last Paradox. But then, there's also room to get creative. Lots of room.

[batgirl]

Name: Amanda Levin
Age: 26
Gender: Female
Physical Description: Short in stature and not very imposing, Amanda is only about 5'1" in height, maybe 5'3" with her boots on, and of medium build. She tends to wear her brown hair either down strait or in a ponytail and has dark brown eyes. When working, she wears her tech pants and uniform shirt with her shield on it, a pair of black steel toed boots, and carries a tech bag full of equipment. When not a work she usually wears dark wash jeans and some kind of button down blouse or shirt.

Bio/Background/Etc: Amanda has been an Paramedic in Hampington for 7 years and loves every moment of it. She knows her stuff and can save a life with the best of them. While her job pays a little better than average, Amanda lives well within her means, trying to save up enough money to buy a nicer apartment and maybe take a nice vacation.

Monster Name: Eldonna

Appearance: Ok work with me here. I found an awesome picture, but it's the wrong color. So picture this exactly, but blue.
http://www.the-genies-lamp.com/images/h5_artwork/Inferno/HOMM5_Inferno_Creature_Succubus_favorite.jpg

Amanda will gain a foot and a half in height, bringing her to a far more imposing 6'6". The top of her body is covered in blue scales, and the bottom is also blue with the black cloven hoofs.

Abilities/Powers:
Subsonic flight: Those wings aren't for show, and Eldonna can use them to fly pretty darned fast.
Ice Manipulation: Eldonna has the power to create, shape and use ice. While small to medium things (spear, small ice ball, beam of ice) can be made just from the moisture in the air, larger constructs would require some body of water to be present (heaven forbid it to rain hard, big uh oh for the city).

[Girasol of Chaos]

Name: Beatrice Thallium
Age: 20
Gender: Female
Physical Description: 5'5", Beatrice has semi-long black hair that looks rather untamed. Her dark brown eyes shine brightly in contrast to her drab clothing, often now a white lab coat over a blue top and jeans. The coats are not always clean, having various bloodstains that accumulate before she replaces it. When feeling more human she will don her denim jacket over a red shirt, decorated with a faded leaf motif.

Bio: Beatrice is a veterinarian in training, or at least was. Her life in college was going swimmingly, she was the top of her studies, enjoyed a good roommate at the dorms, and couldn't want anything more out of life.

Unfortunately, she woke up in some form of nightmare, covered in blood and bodies in one of her labs. The last thing she had remembered before waking was an unsatiable hunger welling inside her, one that not even the doritos she snuck in could sate. Frightened, she fled the scene, wanting nothing more than to nurse her sore body and wake up from her sleep. Waking only led to more hunger, and the bloody scene at the dorms convinced her that her college career was over.

Ever since, Beatrice has attempted to keep the beast inside her down, and examines herself with upmost curiosity and caution. When the need arises, she stalks the city in search of a shady individual, someone whom society would not miss. She rather enjoys these moments, swimming in her self-righteousness as an excuse to not feed on the animals that she cares for more. Once in a while the beast will run rampant, but she is more than capable of retreating to the shadows, or simply slaughtering any human witnesses.

Monster Form: Rift

Rift is a lanky, reptillian monster made for agility. It is longer than Beatrice is tall, approximately 7 feet not including the tail.

http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk29/Scarletgirasol/riftrefrp.jpg

Despite being eyeless, this does not prevent it from having vision, being able to use echolocation and other sensory organs that line its body between leathery flesh-segments on the skin. Pores line its body which can spew toxic gases, either as an attack or as a means of a minor distraction.

It's crest, jaw, and joint-covers are almost metallic, giving off a faded gleam and being the only 'true' armor this beast has. The segments act as toughened leather tightened over flesh, and the pores dot the real 'skin' of Rift, being white. The translucent segments are made of tough cartilage and are somewhat flexible, acting as a secondary defense mechanism when thrashing. These are rather sharp on the inner edge and points.

Abilities: Poison mist- Rift can eject toxic gases from any of the pores in its body, but only in patterns. For instance, the main section of the body cannot fire gases while the limbs are, the neck and tail act as one unit. Her mouth emits similar gas, but is concentrated and has a rotting odor. If Rift has eaten recently, the poison will be a little more potent

Swift feet: Rift has little strength or defensive capabilities, but she is fast. When encountered with something that *can* fight her, she is more likely to bounce off in a hurry and hide. If trapped she will attempt to outmaneuver her opponent, but would never win an arm wrestle.

Alright lemme know if anything needs changing.

[Arcanum]

Ninja stealth sign-up post is a go! Yep without word or warning here's a fully completed character sheet. I just know you're gonna have questions/concerns, but once the idea popped into my head I couldn't help myself.

-----------------------

Name: Eric Stenson
Age: 32
Gender: Male
Physical Description: Eric used to look great. Key words: used to. He was tall, handsome, and always wearing a nice looking suit. He had perfectly trimmed brown hair and a cleanly shaved face complementing his shining blue eyes. But now his suit is tattered and dirty, his hair desperately in need of a cut and his stubble crying out to be shaved. Even his once-bright eyes seem dull and lifeless now.

Bio/Background/Etc: Eric was well on his way to becoming a successful entrepreneur. He had his own business set up in New York that he spent ten years building up. He had all the right contacts in all the right places. Eric was smart, clever, funny, the whole package. He was living his dream. And yet that all changed when he came to Hampington to negotiate a merger. The merger itself was a success, and afterward Eric and his new business partners went out on the town to celebrate.

The next morning Eric awoke in a club, surrounded by skeletons and half-eaten bodies. There were no pools of blood, just dark stains on the floor as if something had drank it up as well. And on top of everything Eric's mind had snapped. He could remember who he was, and why he was here. But he also heard voices whispering in his mind. They told him who were the former owners of each and every skeleton there. Two were his new business partners, one belonged to one of the dancers, and the other was the bouncer. The half-eaten corpses were either dancers or patrons. The worst part was that he knew the voices were telling the truth.

He was also racked by the hunger, with a part of him wanting to feed on the remaining corpses. Another part of him tried to cling to sanity. The police would find out what happened soon; some people had escaped. Eric didn't have an alibi and he knew deep down that somehow he was responsible. So he ran. He was in a strange city, half insane, on the run from the police, and suddenly aware that he didn't have his wallet.

That was a week ago, and he's been living on the streets ever since, barely surviving, barely coping with the hunger. With every passing day the hunger grew worse and the voices grew louder. Only a week and he's already an empty shell of his former self.

Monster Name: Swarm
Appearance: Swarm is actually a hive mind of thousands of small, black, insect-like creatures. An individual Swarm looks like a teardrop-shaped scale with eight needle-like legs, a small mouth on the rounded end filled with razor sharp teeth, four minuscule black eyes above the mouth, and is no bigger than the nail on a man's little finger. There is also a central "brain bug" which is a larger version of a regular Swarm (about the size of two thumbs side-by side)

The thousands of Swarms can interlock with each other in a variety of ways, effectively allowing it to change shape. The only similarity between each shape is the black color, and that it is completely featureless save for a diamond shaped scale pattern, which is a result of how the Swarms interlock with each other.

Abilities/Powers:
Living Armor: The way the Swarms interlink on the surface creates a layer of living scale armor, making him more resistant to 'unwanted' separations.
A Thousand Pieces, A Thousand Shapes: Swarm can assume the shape of almost anything it can think of, from creatures to inanimate objects.

Extra Notes:
- The thousands of Swarms are connected by a hive mind, which is controlled by the central brain bug. Killing the brain means the death of the hive.

- Due to it being composed of thousands of small creatures, Swarm is extremely difficult to wound or kill. If an arm is blown off then the surviving Swarms will rejoin the main body and re-form the arm. This would technically result in transformations healing Eric of any severe body wounds (such as an amputated arm or leg).

- While able to willingly separate into pieces, forceful separation would cause extreme pain, and kill several Swarms in the progress (since they are being torn from each other). They would still be able to re-form any lost limbs but it would be like a brand new arm and Swarm would be rather clumsy controlling it at first (on top of the pain and dead Swarms). Controlled separation would take some time for all of the Swarms to disconnect from each other, so he wouldn't be able to just split in half to dodge an attack (unless it is a slow attack or he has time to prepare the split before the attack hits).

[Astral Harmony]

I shrunk down the range of Devouring Void to pretty much just out of Mawface's melee range and made her first and only transformation much more recent.

I had two other ideas, one being a sand monster and the other being a hovering collection of basketball-sized organic spheres, but I had a feeling that you wanted the monsters to be more realistic and tanglible.

And Digital Devil Saga is fucking awesome. Especially the music. I like Shoji Meguro's work on Persona, but I prefer the DDS stuff so much more.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

batgirl how dare you have more impressive horns than me. This will not stand! Battle of fire and ice GO!

Nice to see some more elementals this time round, we had a crippling lack of them last time.

And Swarm reminds me of Legion from the last RP. Beware Arcanum; fire is not your friend.

[Astral Harmony]

Explosions are also pretty devasting to hordes of miniature monsters like a Swarm (Dead Space 2 sets a great example of that). I bet my own character's Gastric Purge could do some serious damage if the swarm flies into the stream of acid.

...Actually, there's an idea. If Swarm gets into trouble, he could fly inside my maw and be somewhat protected so long as he steers clear of the acid. Failing that, he could escape through any small hole given time.

[Toastburner B]

A more normal monster-thing!

Huzzah for normal!

Anyways, looks good.



lazy guy

Your character’s an electrical engineer that get’s turned into a lightning monster?

That’s…

:cool:

...shocking! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YMPAH67f4o)

…I had to do it. I had to do it. Seriously, someone came into my room, put a gun up to my head, and said I had to do it. I’m sorry, it’s not my fault.

Anyways, looks good. Just don’t go too overboard with the electrical stuff to start with, okay? You’ll grow into that much like Hawk’s character will grow into fire control.

(and before anyone asks, yes, I did notice this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M68i7ray2Qo&feature=related) in the related videos)



batgirl:
Looks good, approved.

…Just a few more elementals and we’ll be able to summon Captain Planet. Who wants to be heart?!



Girasol Everything looks alright approved.

…Your character’s a vet? Mines a vet tech! Can he have a job?! :3:

I’m just kidding.



Arcanum While I am not fully against the idea (other than the fact I was totally going to use Legion (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showpost.php?p=726333&postcount=19) again), but you are right, I do have concerns with it.

The biggest one for me is “lose my mind instead of getting hurt.” Like is said when I was talking to aerozord, it’s hard to do give a number to something like sanity. How do you measure it out? Do you start to hear voices if you lose X amount of bugs, start to see hallucinations if you lose Y amount, or go completely bonkers if you lose Z amount? With physical hurt I can pretty much spell out what that implies (in that last battle your broke your arm, so you can’t run as fast as a monster, etc). What am I supposed to do with “sanity” (you…er…see little pixies flying around in your vision. Yes I said pixies!). It would be easier all around if it came down to physical hurt like everyone else, really. It would save both of us a lot of headaches.

All that isn’t even taking into account the entire “the most bodies I have, the more minds I have” thing. I get the idea in general, but it seems…gah, I don’t know how to phrase it. For example, what if someone walks up to you with a high-pressure water hose and starts to squirt off bugs? Do all those count as separate minds? If someone cuts off your arm, does that count as a separate “body” until it can form back into the main form? If someone suck some of the swarm into a vacuum, what happens to the bugs trapped in there when you turn back into a human, or can you not turn back into a human unless all your bugs are accounted for?

Just a lot of questions. Many questions. If you can give me good answers, I’ll let you stick with it, but I’m uneasy about it. Sure, Legion was basically the same thing, but we also basically the boss for the first chapter, and even he had a central body, and wasn’t just bugs.

And just a note, you character doesn’t have to go vagabond just because he’s a paradox. Characters are able to function in society, they just have to be really careful about controlling themselves.

So…um…yeah.

And Swarm reminds me of Legion from the last RP. Beware Arcanum; fire is not your friend.
Explosions are also pretty devasting to hordes of miniature monsters like a Swarm (Dead Space 2 sets a great example of that). I bet my own character's Gastric Purge could do some serious damage if the swarm flies into the stream of acid.

Meh, could be worst. I believe the primary tactic for beating Legion in the last game was to have lazy’s character pick up Ifrit and swing him around in a circle.



Side notes: You people and sanity. WTF? Do I need to get the Lovecraft out of my sig or something? :confused:

The more monsters I see, the less happy I am with Wirehair. I guess that’s one of the benefits of being the GM is that I can change my monster and approve it all at the same time! :dance:

[Astral Harmony]

Damn it, Swarm is so cool.

I can just see it now. Swarm sends in a handful of bugs who start expertly stealth-killing enemies while the rest of the swarm flies in and yanks the corpses into dark corners and shit.

It looks like that would really...

*puts on sunglasses*

...bug the enemy. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YMPAH67f4o)

Be careful, the guy who threatened Toasty has a teleporter and is probably already at your house.

[lazy man]

Yay, approval! And sunglasses!

But yeah, don't worry about the electrical thing, it'll just be a field about, say, 10 feet around him? Maybe I'll tweak how far it goes, but it won't go too far, it'll just have an obscenely high current and voltage.

Meh, could be worst. I believe the primary tactic for beating Legion in the last game was to have lazy’s character pick up Ifrit and swing him around in a circle.

This is the main reason why I'll miss my other guy. So many possibilities for shenanigans. And angry fire-bombs.

[batgirl]

Ooh! Ooh! I have a question! *waves frantically*

"Yes you in the back?"

So are we all able to communicate at all? I mean we have people who are going to be fairly humanoid monsters, but what about the dog things, the giant mouth? Can they talk? Telepathy? Speakey de Anglais?

[Overcast]

Teeth can talk, it is just a voice that comes out out of the Maw, and later on I was planning on him, even when he is suppressed, being able to whisper out of any mouth in the vacinity even if it is in a picture or a deer trophy or anything. Mostly to fuck with Earnest, he'll be doing a lot of esoteric shit just for that purpose.

[Steel Shadow]

I actually figured Amorphia couldn't talk. Understand people speaking, sure, no problems. I imagine it'll go like this!

"What's that Morphy?"
*Impassive stare*
"Lil' Timmy fell down the old well?!"
*Impassive stare*
"And the ranch is on fire?! I'd better get the gang together and sort this out!"
*Impassive stare*
"Good job Morphy!"

And then the Blob theme would play!

[Overcast]

One of Teeth's later abilities was sticking a mouth on other people. I so want to stick one on morphy and use him like a ventriloquist dummy.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Well last time around most of the paradoxes started off unable to talk, because they were essentially newborns and were pretty feral. After a while the human side gained more control and allowed for more communication and rational thinking. I always kept Ifrit mute though, I figured he was so utterly enraged he simply couldn't manage a simple conversation.

[Arcanum]

EDIT 2 -- Changed my mind about some stuff. Refer to my latest post for the new proposal. It makes a lot of the stuff I said here irrelevant.

The biggest one for me is “lose my mind instead of getting hurt.” Like is said when I was talking to aerozord, it’s hard to do give a number to something like sanity. How do you measure it out? Do you start to hear voices if you lose X amount of bugs, start to see hallucinations if you lose Y amount, or go completely bonkers if you lose Z amount? With physical hurt I can pretty much spell out what that implies (in that last battle your broke your arm, so you can’t run as fast as a monster, etc). What am I supposed to do with “sanity” (you…er…see little pixies flying around in your vision. Yes I said pixies!). It would be easier all around if it came down to physical hurt like everyone else, really. It would save both of us a lot of headaches.

I could narrow down the insanity to severe split personalities. Basically the more damage done to him while he's Swarm splits his mind more and more, depending on the severity of the damage. Essentially he would start arguing with himself, distracting himself, even have personalities take control of groups of Swarms, which could cause even more mental trauma. The number of personalities and the amount he argues with and distracts himself would be directly proportionate to how debilitating the damage would be on a regular physical creature.

The personalities would eventually fade or be repressed with time, but it would take longer than a normal wound to heal, making the damage slightly more long term too.

All that isn’t even taking into account the entire “the most bodies I have, the more minds I have” thing. I get the idea in general, but it seems…gah, I don’t know how to phrase it. For example, what if someone walks up to you with a high-pressure water hose and starts to squirt off bugs? Do all those count as separate minds?If someone cuts off your arm, does that count as a separate “body” until it can form back into the main form?

Yes and yes. When Swarms are physically interlinked their minds are interlinked as well. As soon as that physical link is broken so is the mental one. That's why breaking apart Swarm can be devastating to both parties involved. For example if someone cuts Swarm in half, he could easily recover from the sudden mental split and counter attack as two creatures.

However on the other side, a single attack could briefly remove him from battle if it shatters him into enough pieces. I say briefly because every living creature has a primal subconscious mind (dubbed the Id by Sigmund Freud). When Swarm is broken apart into so many pieces that he can't sanely control all of them, his mind defends itself and tries to sever the links. This would result in a state of almost catatonic shock, letting the primal minds of the individual Swarms take over, which would then try to group back together so that when Swarm comes out of the shock he won't be a fragmented psychopath.

If someone suck some of the swarm into a vacuum, what happens to the bugs trapped in there when you turn back into a human, or can you not turn back into a human unless all your bugs are accounted for?

I knew I was forgetting to add something in the extra notes. When Eric changes back into a human, he does so with all of the Swarm, whether they are present or not. Preferably he is in the shape of a human when he changes back, returning him to his original form. If some Swarms were killed, or isolated from the rest, they would turn into small pieces of flesh, and Eric in return would have pieces missing from him (which would then heal at a regular human/Paradox rate).

Like I said, Swarm is difficult to wound or kill, but it's not impossible. Kill enough Swarms and Eric might be missing an arm when he reverts.

EDIT! MORE STUFF!

And just a note, you character doesn’t have to go vagabond just because he’s a paradox. Characters are able to function in society, they just have to be really careful about controlling themselves.

Nah I wanted a character who was flipped on his ass because of facing an impossible situation. Eric was smart and successful, now he's half-crazed (and it will only get worse) and too afraid to contact anyone he knows out of fear that the police are trying to find him. He's homeless because he turned into a paradox, not because he is a paradox, if you get what I mean.

Side notes: You people and sanity. WTF?

Personally I really enjoy writing mentally unstable individuals. They are fun.

Also, AB, Swarm can't fly. They either take the shape of something mobile or skitter across the ground as an amorphous insect blob.

[Overcast]

Hmm, that does toss a wrench in my characterization of Teeth. He was supposed to be the pent up representation of his sacrificed desires gone sour. I had him this intelligent corrupting influence that was systematically trying to ruin the life he sold his dreams for.

[Inbred Chocobo]

Ah crap, now Lazy has made me want to redo my monster and make it like Rajang, or maybe Nargacuga. Man that would be fun to play. You suck lazy.

[Aerozord]

Ok think I've got one
Name: Eibon Harden
Age: 15
Gender: male
Physical Description: Eibon is a lanky young man and fairly short at only 5'5. Short jet black hair and deep set blue eyes.
Bio/Background/Etc: Awkward would be the simplest word to describe Eibon. Always the runt of the litter and little sign of growing much taller. An only child, and painfully average he slipped into the background of the world around him, perhaps this was foreshadowing to his true nature.

When transformation first took over he was walking home at dusk, one of his classmates was reported missing. Slowly the memories of what he had done surfaced, but what scared him most wasn't what he'd had done, but remembering that he enjoyed it.

Monster Name: Incognito
Appearance: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v135/aerozord/Shadowhunter_Springborg_Beast02.jpg
Incognito is a living shadow and thus his form is often shifting but currently is still restricted to a humanoid form of between 7-8ft tall
Abilities/Powers:
Two-Dimensional Movement: Incognito can become truly flat and move along surfaces such as walls and floors. Only works where shadows are already present
Shadow Puppet: While two-dimensional Incognito may interact with an objects shadow and result affects the actual physical object. His preferred method of attacking

[Girasol of Chaos]

Rift can talk, her voice is a little different but everything is fine. I imagine she has a hard time with "o' and 'u' sounds though. She's been playing in her monster form for at least a week, so I figured she is okay there.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Is it wrong that I'm plotting how to beat everyones monsters so that if need be I can fight you all off? I mean Ice-demoness is easily countered with fire, Swarmy is easily countered with lots of fire, shadow monster is countered by removing shadows... by making lots of fire.

Ok so "plotting" is maybe too far when my only answer to stuff is "make more FIIIIIRRE!", but still, good to keep these things in mind. I guess I'm paranoid I'll get thrown around like a weapon again by someone.

[Aerozord]

fire solves everything, if fire ever fails to solve something, you clearly did not use enough of it

[Girasol of Chaos]

fire solves everything, if fire ever fails to solve something, you clearly did not use enough of it

With your avatar, I am not shocked by that statement at all.

[Astral Harmony]

Your best bet at defeating Mawface would be to attack her from directly above or below. Attacking her from behind is also effective, but Mawface can actually turn around pretty quick despite her short, stubby legs and engage you with her maw. Can't do that to something above or underneath her, though.

Mawface can't speak (no tongue), but may at some point evolve a means of communicating...like farting in Norse Code.

[Wizardcat]

Still not done... closer, now, though.

Name: Joshua Wood
Age: 24
Gender: Male
Physical Description: Joshua is about an inch or so shy of being six feet tall and is on the verge of being categorized as slim. He has very dark black mid-length hair that falls forward into his face at times, starkly contrasted by his pale skin. His eyes are a bright blue, startling so.
Bio/Background/Etc:

Monster Name: Cataclysm
Appearance: It takes the appearance of a massive feline with fur the color of deepest night. Illumination does little to brighten the hue of its fur, appearing pitch black even in direct daylight.

Abilities/Powers:
Enhanced Agility - As quiet as a shadow, Cataclysm moves like one as it moves effortlessly with all of the grace and speed of a cat - or to be more precise: a predator.

Piercing Claws - Cataclysm's claws are incredibly hard and sharp which allows them to pierce even hard and resilient materials, such as thick hides, stone, and armor.

[Overcast]

Your best bet for Teeth is to catch him by surprise. You can hit him from most angles and get a reasonable effect, but if he encounters a force that will likely kick his ass he isn't one to let it stay a straight fight. He will run away and try to catch you slipping.

[Girasol of Chaos]

The key to killing Rift is to make her stop moving. If you can last through the poison and avoid the claws it wouldn't be a bad idea to just sit on her.

[Steel Shadow]

The key to killing Amorphia is to stand very still and let him absorb you. Then you can attack the secret weak point at the core!

Really! That's toooottaly how you do it. Give it a try.

[Overcast]

It worked for Mawface and Teeth!

[Arcanum]

Ok so I was thinking it over and decided to go in a slightly different direction. I propose the following changes to Swarm for you to harshly criticize in a fierce and nazi-like way, thus causing all the children within fifty feet of you and your victim to cry.

- Have a central brain bug (no, not that brain bug (http://www.starshiptroopers.net/img453.gif)) that controls all the other Swarms, be they physically linked or not. The brain bug would be larger, about the size of two thumbs side-by-side, and I'm sure you could imagine what would happen if it were killed.

- While still able to willingly separate into pieces, forceful separation would cause extreme pain, and kill several Swarms in the progress (since they are being torn from each other). They would still be able to re-form any lost limbs but it would be like a brand new arm and Swarm would be rather clumsy controlling it at first (on top of the pain and dead Swarms). Controlled separation would take some time for all of the Swarms to disconnect from each other, so he wouldn't be able to just split in half to dodge an attack (unless it is a slow attack or he has time to prepare the split before the attack hits).

- Instead of the One Mind, One Purpose ability (since that's covered by the newly introduced brain bug) I propose the following:
Living Armor: The way the Swarms interlink on the surface creates a layer of living scale armor, making him more resistant to 'unwanted' separations.

- The split personalities/insanity would instead by a character development thing, where he would start to hear the voices of Swarm in his mind. Should give me more freedom on how it develops and less combat-related GM headaches.

[Teal Mage]

Not to steal Toastburner's thunder as Character Nazi, but I'm kinda wondering about something.

I'm not seeing how this:

This would technically result in transformations completely healing Eric.

Stacks up with this:

When Eric changes back into a human, he does so with all of the Swarm, whether they are present or not. Preferably he is in the shape of a human when he changes back, returning him to his original form. If some Swarms were killed, or isolated from the rest, they would turn into small pieces of flesh, and Eric in return would have pieces missing from him (which would then heal at a regular human/Paradox rate).

How exactly is Swarm supposed to be a full-heal? Apparently damage to the swarm more-or-less carries over to Eric's body when he changes back. So, if a piece of the swarm is, say, crushed by a falling pillar or something, that piece of flesh would be missing when he turns back into a human. It strikes me that any battle he gets into would leave him covered in a lot of small paper cuts, 'cuz at least some damage is likely to be inflicted by the opponent.

Unless of course the creature is so fast with its splitting/reforming that it can't be hit by anything.

But even if that's the case, I still don't quite see how the transformation's a full heal?

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

It should be pretty obvious what Ifrits weaknesses are, seeing as his strengths lie in, well, strength and projectile attacks, his speed, reflexes and tactical abilty is suficiantly reduced. One analogy I always had in mind was that Ifrit is an endurance runner, as apposed to a sprinter, he can keep going for a long time, but he can't react well to quick strikes and can be out-maneouvered by speedier opponents. And he does kind've blunder into things without thinking, so unconventional attacks take him off guard.

Of course water is also not his friend; his firey mane, despite being inherently ignited by magic only keeps burning if there's still oxygen around, so dump him under water or in a vacuum and it goes out, and he can't create more in such an environment. Fighting in the rain would also be problematic for him as it would quench his main source of fire and force him to create more consciously for every attack.

[Arcanum]

@Teal

I was tired when I wrote the former, and more awake when I wrote the latter. More specifically, what I meant by the former was that if an arm was cut off while he's Swarm, so long as Swarm can mend the damage (by re-forming an arm) then Eric won't be missing an arm when he turns back into a human. However, yes, if an entire arm's worth of Swarm are killed then he will be missing an arm when he changes back. Or a leg, or a chunk of his body, depending on where he allocates the damage as Swarm before changing back.

I tend to skimp on the important details when I write while I'm tired because they are there in my head and I think to myself that I've already written them down, or that some things should be obvious. Basically tired me is dumb.

[lazy man]

Ah crap, now Lazy has made me want to redo my monster and make it like Rajang, or maybe Nargacuga. Man that would be fun to play. You suck lazy.

Glad to be of service! I was wondering if using Jinouga as an image would have an effect on you. Heh, hope that wasn't TOO much of a dick move. :sweatdrop



Also you guys realize telling all of your monsters' weaknesses is just giving Toasty ideas, right? Orrrrr maybe I'm just being paranoid.

Well either way I'm not telling! ...mostly because it should be obvious if you think about electrical currents for a bit!

[Overcast]

Grounded conductor? Electromagnetic field? Big ass slab of wood?

[lazy man]

...GAH! Now I have to try and do something more creative!

...like a rail gun!

[Toastburner B]

Ooh! Ooh! I have a question! *waves frantically*

"Yes you in the back?"

So are we all able to communicate at all? I mean we have people who are going to be fairly humanoid monsters, but what about the dog things, the giant mouth? Can they talk? Telepathy? Speakey de Anglais?

I’ll leave it up to player choice. I think the last game the monsters were relatively mute, but that’s not necessary.




Teeth can talk, it is just a voice that comes out out of the Maw, and later on I was planning on him, even when he is suppressed, being able to whisper out of any mouth in the vacinity even if it is in a picture or a deer trophy or anything. Mostly to fuck with Earnest, he'll be doing a lot of esoteric shit just for that purpose.

This brings up a point I guess I didn’t address very clearly.

THIS APPLIES TO EVERYONE! SO PLEASE READ!

The monster isn’t a separate entity. You aren’t possessed of another sentient creature or anything like that…the monster is still basically you. The reason why you lose control and go crazy and such is because you suddenly develop the instincts of a predator that hasn’t is, as far as it knows, is starving to death.



Aerozord: Just to make sure, Incognito has a corporeal body, right? I just want to check, ‘cause “living shadow” takes my mind to a thinking that it is going to turn into “I have a body, but I can’t be hurt, because it’s all SHADOW! Wooooooo! (? Ghost moan)” Other than clearing that up, it looks alright…as long as you are still vulnerable when you are 2D, and you can’t lift anymore with your shadow lift than you can the old fashion way. Sound fair?



Rift can talk, her voice is a little different but everything is fine. I imagine she has a hard time with "o' and 'u' sounds though. She's been playing in her monster form for at least a week, so I figured she is okay there.

Keep in mind that in the early going you won’t have too much control over the monster to start with. You’re still trying to reign it in, so to speak. You can check the old thread for examples (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showthread.php?t=26445), people did a good job with it on that thread.

Also, in the beginning, the transformation is, to put it lightly, painful. After the first transformation, you probably aren’t going to be in a real hurry to repeat the process.



AB:

Huh…guess I should get around to approving you.

…Approved.



I'll finish this later. Got the ideas, just not the inclination to type them out. Ill.

So, yeah, I’m not going to approve or disprove until you are done…

…and really, having a feline character with the name of Cataclysm deserves a sunglasses moment, but I can’t really think of one.



Arcanum

Those look like good compromises. And while I was asking about it before, don’t feel like you have to transform back with arms or legs missing or anything like that. It won’t be fun for you if you come back from the first real fight without limbs or something like that.


Also you guys realize telling all of your monsters' weaknesses is just giving Toasty ideas, right? Orrrrr maybe I'm just being paranoid.

Well either way I'm not telling! ...mostly because it should be obvious if you think about electrical currents for a bit!

Me? Use this information against you guys? Never!

…I’ve been plotting for ways to take you people down way before people started to admit weakness. That’s my job as GM :D



Okay…so here is what we have so far:

Approved:

Inbred Chocobo: Sarah Viticus (Judgment)
Overcast: Earnest Goodhouse (Teeth)
Steel Shadow: Charlie Heat (Amorphica ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCtcgI4BcIQ&feature=related))
Armored Bishoujo: Kaitlyn Wales (Mawface)
Hawk: James Wade (Ifrit)
Riin Whitewind: Rawli Prochainezo (Grin)
lazy man: Ryan Sorenson (Blitz)
batgirl: Amanda Levin (Eldonna)
Girasol of Chaos: Beatrice Thallium (Rift)
Arcanum: Eric Stenson (Swarm)



Pending:

Aerozord: Eibon Harden (Incognito) [I just need some clarification about the “living shadow” comment]
Wizardcat: Joshua Wood (Cataclysm) [Need to finish charactersheet]

Placeholder

SinrXIII
Mauve Mage
Teal Mage

[Overcast]

Way to make it BORING. Nah I kid, still all my dreams of Earnest hearing voices, looking into mirrors and seeing a mouth appear on his face and his eyeball falling out, and various other amusing items getting crushed under the reality of everything is troublesome. I may end up dumping the Teeth concept, but I need some time to see if I can edit it into a more primal thingie.

[Girasol of Chaos]

Keep in mind that in the early going you won’t have too much control over the monster to start with. You’re still trying to reign it in, so to speak. You can check the old thread for examples (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showthread.php?t=26445), people did a good job with it on that thread.

Also, in the beginning, the transformation is, to put it lightly, painful. After the first transformation, you probably aren’t going to be in a real hurry to repeat the process.



Alright, I'll keep that in mind: She'll be talking eventually, and may attempt to do so soonish.

As for the weaknesses, if there's no challenge there's no fun! Or so I tend to think.

This is probably why I love rather evil games.

[Teal Mage]

Placeholder

SinrXIII
Mauve Mage

!

Oh my, I feel so unwanted. :ohdear:

[Toastburner B]

!
Oh my, I feel so unwanted. :ohdear:

Huh. I guess I saw you on the thread so often I assume you submitted a character. My bad.



Way to make it BORING.
What do you think the “B” stands for?

I may end up dumping the Teeth concept, but I need some time to see if I can edit it into a more primal thingie.
This probably won’t kick off until next week, anyways. Besides, we still have a few more placeholders waiting to be filled.

[Aerozord]

Aerozord: Just to make sure, Incognito has a corporeal body, right? I just want to check, ‘cause “living shadow” takes my mind to a thinking that it is going to turn into “I have a body, but I can’t be hurt, because it’s all SHADOW! Wooooooo! (? Ghost moan)” Other than clearing that up, it looks alright…as long as you are still vulnerable when you are 2D, and you can’t lift anymore with your shadow lift than you can the old fashion way. Sound fair?


yes more or less what I was thinking. He'd transform into a solid three dimensional shadow, and still be vulnerable when 2D. There was an alternative idea if you think its more interesting. He could be like Pride from FMA, his transformation transforms his shadow and body is just a manipulated shell, of course harming the shell still harms him.

On the communication side, I'd like this form
Shadow Language: A shadow cannot speak, but it can convey much. Incognito uses a gestural language that is mystically understood with accuracy comparable to speech.

Game play wise I'd just do dialog as normal, just requires sight instead of ability to speak and hear. If I go with option two and have the human shell, said shell could still speak normally as well.

[Toastburner B]

There was an alternative idea if you think its more interesting. He could be like Pride from FMA, his transformation transforms his shadow and body is just a manipulated shell, of course harming the shell still harms him.

I apparently never made it that far in FMA, so I'm very familiar with Pride's powers. I just wanted to double check how solid you were, it looks okay if you wanted to go with your first plan.

On the communication side, I'd like this form
Shadow Language: A shadow cannot speak, but it can convey much. Incognito uses a gestural language that is mystically understood with accuracy comparable to speech.

Couldn't you just talk? I mean, we aren't really going for realism here, so it seems having a "mystically understood" sign language just seems rather...excessive. I mean, if you insist, I don't see the harm in it, but just rather pointless.

[Arcanum]

Edited the approved changes into my character sheet. Also tweaked the bio to reflect his newly acquired insanity.

[Toastburner B]

Wooo! I finally found a good picture of the monster I wanted to use in the first place!

So long Wirehair, hello Sorm!

EDIT:

While I'm thinking about it, now is a good time to say that I figure I'll kick this off sometime on Sunday. So if you are one of those who needs to be approved or still has a placeholder, please have your character done by then.

[Aerozord]

I apparently never made it that far in FMA, so I'm very familiar with Pride's powers. I just wanted to double check how solid you were, it looks okay if you wanted to go with your first plan.



Couldn't you just talk? I mean, we aren't really going for realism here, so it seems having a "mystically understood" sign language just seems rather...excessive. I mean, if you insist, I don't see the harm in it, but just rather pointless.

ok I'll just keep everything as is, that seems simplist

[Arhra]

Hello my good Toastburner,

I would like to reserve a place in yon fine arpee.

Character sheet tomorrow, hopefully!

[mauve]

Writer's blooooooooock. :(

Doubt I'll have something done by the weekend, so I'm afraid I'll have to sit this one out. Sorry Toasty!

[Toastburner B]

Hello my good Toastburner,

I would like to reserve a place in yon fine arpee.

Character sheet tomorrow, hopefully!

Sure, the more the merrier.

Writer's blooooooooock. :(

Doubt I'll have something done by the weekend, so I'm afraid I'll have to sit this one out. Sorry Toasty!

We'll leave the light on for you, just in case. Inspiration strikes at amazingly odd moments, after all.

[Overcast]

Will make something up today, have an idea just need some flesh time. Also my new room is a black hole of radio transmission so internet time will be more difficult to get a handle on. That is all.

EDIT:Or is it?

Name: Riley Morris
Age: 26
Gender: Male
Physical Description: Riley is 6'3" and 130lbs, he is unhealthily thin. His hair is a disheveled mass of brown that he has a frequency to run his hands through, his eyes a similar touch that are often bloodshot, and accentuated by the deep bags that creep under each. He is pale, as if he hasn't seen the sun for far too long, his clothes will often consist of a hoody, with the hood pulled up to hide away inside, and a pair of jeans tattered and hastily repaired with the belt pulled tight around his waist. His feet are adorned with a barely surviving pair of chuck taylors, white and blue.

If he pulled up the sleeves of his hoody you could see the track marks that adorn his veins, and the dark bruised entry on the inside of each elbow that helped make the scars.
Bio/Background/Etc: At one time Riley was on the right track. He was your every time honor roll kid who didn't let much hold him back. His ambitions were high, and his dreams even higher. But it was stressful, every day the pressures of being the best he could be would weigh on him, and one day he took the advice of the wrong person. That for the properly genius only substances can make you ignorant enough to calm down.

Enter drugs. Alcohol came to calm his nerves, and honestly that was fine, he knew how to pace that. Marajuana helped with that too, and he was still on the perfect track to valedictorian. Neither quite opened the gate for him, but as he slowed he started to slack, and he needed other substances to help himself speed back up. Enter the uppers to keep his brain active when he wasn't on weed and alcohol. Enter the downers when he accidentally hit too many uppers.

Juggling this was unhealthy, and people were starting to notice. He still somehow was the cast iron brick well on his way to being the top of his class, but with his health in steep decline someone finally took to find out why.

When they did he was disgraced. He lost his chance to be the best, he was forced into rehabilitation, he was forced to hold up court dates that, thanks to advancing past his 18th birthday, became a part of his permanent record. He couldn't get a job. He couldn't finish school. He couldn't live like a normal person.

So he kept sliding down.

Years have passed since that first breakdown and he has been on damn near everything. His world turned to any means to get what still kept him on a level plain these days. Riley was a despondent apathetic bastard who figured the world had shit all it could on his head, and he had truly reached the bottom of the barrel.

Of course, that only invited it to get worse.

Monster Name: Fiend
Appearance: The lower half of Riley's body forces itself together and elongates, growing scales and taking a snakelike appearance. His upper body is adorned in a dark coat, with a hood that obscures his face. His hands, reaching from the coat, have had their fingers replaced with syringes with huge large bore needles. His face is darkened aside from his teeth which have become a mangled set of syringes filled with a strange glowing liquid that varies in color depending on what is supposed to be in there.
Abilities/Powers:
~Substance Abuse: His teeth can deliver a payload of drugs into his enemies if they are bitten, as of now he only has one drug available. It is a powerful tranquilizer that can cause severe sluggishness to outright comatose symptoms in humans to mild sluggishness or nothing to various paradoxes. If multiple doses can be delivered to a human it can cause an overdose which can be fatal, the same can also be given to a paradox, but due to their resilience it must be done very rapidly or else their bodies will work through the drugs before such a thing is possible.
~Delivery: While the hand syringes don't have any drugs they can be thrown at an enemy and will always grow back in a few seconds. As such he can't quite get rapid fire, but he'll still do some damage as the large bore needles are not self sealing and can cause serious blood loss if they hit the right place.

DRUGS.

[Teal Mage]

The timing of Overcast's character amuses me. Mostly because our's have similar backstories, but very different results. Anyway, since the majority of you have decided to play average and unremarkable people, especially appearance-wise, I've decided to go all Mary-Sue on you and play a striking and totally remarkable person. Screw average! You can all learn from this.

Not sure if Toast will be alright with the abilities - will scale it back if he likes. I did try to keep some internal balance within the powers, however, I might be trying to get too much bang for my buck still. Say the word and consider the power scaled back. *nods sagely*

Name: Asher Brightman
Age: 21
Gender: Male
Physical Description: Leanly muscled and broad shouldered, stands at 5'9, pale skinned, with green eyes. Fine, straight raven (blue-black) hair extends just past his shoulders. Effeminate enough to pass for a girl in any light, Asher can be described as striking, beautiful or handsome - he's very attractive. Dresses well, with a preference for more causal clothes, dark jeans and silver chains. Usually seen in a jacket of some as well.

Bio/Background/Etc: Child of a pair of high paid Federal Bureau of Investigation Agents, Asher spent the early years of his life raised alternatingly by his mother and father - one of them stayed home while the other left Hamington on work. His older sister, who works as an Police Investigator in Hamington now, took over babysitting him when she turned eighteen and the pair still live together. Its rare for Asher's parents to be home now.

Some kids would feel a degree of parental abandonment from this treatment, but Asher's a surprisingly well adapted man. He took the position of Valedictorian in his High School Class, and has since gone on to consistently wind up on the Honours List of Hamington's College, where he's studying to be a Lawyer. On the side, Asher also takes martial arts lessons and, though he isn't a black belt yet, is getting to be quite good at it. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he doesn't spend much time with people his own age, and is closest to his sister.

Recently, he's been blacking out a lot. He's not sure if its because he's just over-worked, tired or because he had too much to drink at the time (he's a light-weight), but since he wakes up in his own bed each morning, sore all over, but otherwise fine, he doesn't think anything of it. Other than not eating much lately, there's been no signs that he's a Paradox! It helps that he doesn't remember the transformations - or that he's killed someone every time its happened. Life's pretty good otherwise!

Monster Name: ????????????
Element: ????
Appearance: ?????????????????????

Abilities/Powers: ?????????

Notes:

Paradox Form ditched until further notice, on permission from Sah DM. Will be added once I transform the first time in-game, and finalize the new form.

[Steel Shadow]

*Stares at Overcast*

You want to play the Slender man. You want to play the fucking Slender man.

You know if that gets accepted and he notices, we are all going to die horribly, right? And I ain't talking about no damn character deaths.

(If this doesn't lead into the RP devolving into us using the discussion thread as a Slendy blog, I will be disappointed. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheSlenderManMythos))

((Also, fuck you Oc, I've been trying to erase my memories of that guy ever since I got to episode 14 of marble hornets))

(((Edit: On reflection, I've decided your character isn't very Slendy like Oc. Don't really know how you could really do something Slendy like in an RP anyways.)))

((((Edit edit: Oh, and it turns out Teal hadn't heard of The Slender man! That was a fun conversation. He is now threatening to do mean things to my characters.))))

[Teal Mage]

(((Edit: On reflection, I've decided your character isn't very Slendy like Oc. Don't really know how you could really do something Slendy like in an RP anyways.)))

((((Edit edit: Oh, and it turns out Teal hadn't heard of The Slender man! That was a fun conversation. He is now threatening to do mean things to my characters.))))

Its too late!

I'm still going to murder you.

God damn it I scare too easily. I'm not going to sleep well for a week.

Jerk. Jerk, jerk, evil, horrible not nice jerk! D=

[Toastburner B]

I acknowledge the fact there are more characters, but I also acknowledge that it's 3 am, so I'll spare everyone the pain and go through them in the morning.

[Riin Whitewind]

Yes, I am playing The Slender Man.

Really?

... Really?

Dude.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Yep, definately going to be a dark, dark game.

[krogothwolf]

Going to start Sunday eh? :/ Saddness, I don't think I have enough time to get a character ready by then at all.

[Overcast]

I honestly can't do much Slendy-like in the infant form. All I got is the, looks kinda like a tree thing. But I will develop him over time, it is just a matter of getting creative.

[lazy man]

You know, considering the Fucked-Up-Shit Quotient of the last Paradox, I wouldn't be surprised if this one just gets darker from us knowing how it'll go down (sort of). Put Slendy on top of that and we get... well, I don't know, but this'll be hilarious if you don't take it too seriously.

...and no, I'm not taking this seriously at all.

[Overcast]

You know what Steel, you are right. I took out the arms and even didn't worry about tentacles and gifted him with something a bit more keen to the mythos.

[Wizardcat]

So, yeah, I’m not going to approve or disprove until you are done…

…and really, having a feline character with the name of Cataclysm deserves a sunglasses moment, but I can’t really think of one.
It was either that or Catastrophe and the cat in catastrophe is not as pronounced. Still working on word stuffs. The things just don't want to get typed.

And I think I preferred it when monsters were a lot less cthulhu, or however it's spelled.

Also, removing the infinite arms was a good idea. I couldn't think of any way that wasn't incredibly powerful. Sit there using thousands of the things as a protective cocoon while thousands more fuck everyone up. Who needs to see what you're attacking when you have unlimited Combat Tentacles?

[Arcanum]

I hate you guys. This is the first I've heard of the Slender Man, and now I'm watching Marble Hornets, and I put the blame on every one of you.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

I hadn't heard of him either, but seeing that picture and the caption below in on the tvtropes pages was enough to make me not WANT to know any more. That's the kind of curiosity that got me reading SCP Foundation, and then I learnt about Man-Absorbing Phones and "Living" Rooms and shit.

[Arcanum]

Did you then read this, Hawk?

Or, if you prefer: The Slender Man is an internet meme, specifically a Creepy Pasta, first started by Victor Surge on Something Awful (here). It soon became more popular and mutated into what you see before you today.

Still is very, very creepy though.

Edit -- Also I've just learned that I've seen the Splendor Man parody as well as Entry 9 of Marble Hornets, both out of context. They are now way more horrifying.

[Steel Shadow]

Muuuch more Slendy, Oc! I'm now finding myself looking over my shoulder every 5 minutes to make sure nothing's there.

And guys, while Overcast did a terrible, terrible thing, and it is plainly all his fault, at least be grateful he's not playing The Rake. That was the thing that eventually made me stop reading this stuff so I could sleep again.

[Toastburner B]

Wizardcat: Overall approved, but throw up at least a basic background, would you?



Overcast: A few concerns:

Slenderwalk smells a bit like teleportation, which I already declared a no-no. At least, the “automatically appears behind people” part does. I get that you are trying to balance it out (or stick with the mythos) by saying that “under direct observation” he moves slower, but it can get easily overpowered when the baddies “just so happen” to look over their shoulders a lot.

Also, the Gone ability is rather vague. Is it related to the Inverse Ninja Law (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ConservationOfNinjutsu) wherein you get weaker the more people you fight, or is it a one-hit kill when fighting solo enemies? It looks like it is more like the latter, which if it is, I can’t really approve that.

Look, I get you are trying to stick to a mythos here (which appears to be rather popular), but unless you can address these concerns, this doesn’t really work.




Teal Mage

…that Yugioh monster you have listed as a inspiration is maybe the least threatening monster I have seen in my entire life.

As you guessed, I have a few ideas about the overlord claw: when they come back, are the like zombies (can’t communicate, shuffling and slow moving), or basically non-responsive humans? How long do they “live”? Does the body have to “fresh”? What if it’s messed up in some way, like all the blood sucked out of it or something? How hard or easy is it to “kill” the corpses? Why do you want an army of the undead?



A few notes:

I have family coming over tonight, so I may or may not get this off tonight as I intended. If not tonight, then definitely sometime tomorrow. However, even if I do get this off tonight, all the Pendings and Placeholders can join in after it starts. With this many people, it will take awhile for the plot to get moving, anyways.

I should totally find some way to turn this into some sort of 4Kids, family friendly version of the last Paradox RP just to annoy all the people who went the eldritch abomination path.



Approved:
Inbred Chocobo: Sarah Viticus (Judgment)
Steel Shadow: Charlie Heat (Amorphica ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCtcgI4BcIQ&feature=related))
Armored Bishoujo: Kaitlyn Wales (Mawface)
Hawk: James Wade (Ifrit)
Riin Whitewind: Rawli Prochainezo (Grin)
lazy man: Ryan Sorenson (Blitz)
batgirl: Amanda Levin (Eldonna)
Girasol of Chaos: Beatrice Thallium (Rift)
Arcanum: Eric Stenson (Swarm)
Aerozord: Eibon Harden (Incognito)
Wizardcat: Joshua Wood (Cataclysm)


Pending:
Overcast: Riley Morris (The Slender Man) [Concerns about abilities]
Teal Mage: Asher Brightman (Bane Wolf) [Questions about the zombie army the overlord claw ability]


Placeholder
SinrXIII
Mauve Mage

[Overcast]

The look behind you part is definitely teleportation, if you want it out it is out. Though the speed of movement at best is going to be about as fast as batgirl's character but stuck on the ground and probably quieter.

And yes it is an inverse ninja law, all by yourself he has a strength level of Ifrit probably, but when facing more than that he gets reduced to normal paradox levels.

[krogothwolf]

Does this mean I can't try to make a character Toast?

[SinrXIII]

I'm working on my character right now. Should be up in the next few hoursish.

EDIT: Why did I look up the Slenderman. Why?

[Teal Mage]

As you guessed, I have a few ideas about the overlord claw: when they come back, are the like zombies (can’t communicate, shuffling and slow moving), or basically non-responsive humans? How long do they “live”? Does the body have to “fresh”? What if it’s messed up in some way, like all the blood sucked out of it or something? How hard or easy is it to “kill” the corpses? Why do you want an army of the undead?

1) When resurrected, they're basically non-responsive humans. May not move as well as they used to either. There was some trauma involved in dying after all. Regardless they should still be, more or less, able to do what they used to, even talk if commanded, but they'd have no initiative.

2) The enchantment should last as long as the Paradox morph is maintained, but can be dispelled (as easy as saying, "Go back to being dead") sooner if desired. Say, if the body's damaged enough to be useless.

3) The body needs to, preferably, be fresh. If it isn't, it would be fragile (rotted flesh doesn't take hits well) and less coordinated - basically, non-fresh corpses turn into shuffling, slow moving and useless meatshields.

4) I don't believe getting all the blood sucked out would be a problem - this is magic after all - especially since the creature would probably have been brutally murdered a few minutes before, so they'd still be leaking blood from their wounds. Although, you are the GM, if you say that the corpses need blood to function (or just to function well), that's fine, the ability's meant to be situational.

5) In theory, since the corpses are already dead, rekilling them would only be possible with magic-destroying (or Anti-Zombie/Anti-Resurrection) powers or weapons. Otherwise, you need to chop them up. Separating an arm from the creature's main body would cause the arm to 'die' again though. Beheading them would effectively make the body useless - couldn't see then. Could still be directed but, the directions would need to be more involved. If you like, a requirement to resurrection could be having a head.

6) Right now, the ability only allows me to resurrect a single corpse at a time, even if that numerical limitation increases as the game progresses, I don't think I'd ever be able to get a zombie army out of this power. Besides, I don't want one. Won't be very useful in this setting.

The look behind you part is definitely teleportation, if you want it out it is out. Though the speed of movement at best is going to be about as fast as batgirl's character but stuck on the ground and probably quieter.

And yes it is an inverse ninja law, all by yourself he has a strength level of Ifrit probably, but when facing more than that he gets reduced to normal paradox levels.

Uh, Overcast, you do realize that sounds exactly like what the GM said he wouldn't allow, right? I can sorta see you're trying to explain that the abilities aren't overpowered, but its not very clear.

Edit: Oh okay, I totally screwed up this time. You were actually saying you were cool losing the Teleport effect, not saying it was Teleport 'Out and out' like I read it the first three times. Whoops! But I'm still leery of both skills.

Two other things:

1) I really don't think powers like that belong in this game. Aside from scaring me half-to-death, they come off as overpowered as written. Its Toastburner's call, but I am very hesistant to play in a game with that type of character. Alternatively, they may be useless because of how situational/subjective they are. I know you're trying to stick by the Slender Man Mythos, but he's part of the Horror Genre - one of the basic rules of the Horror Genre is the Monster almost always wins. They're usually invicible too. Flatly, that doesn't really carry over to an RP - even a vaguely horror RP - well.

2) Gone should work on Paradoxes. They're not two entities in one body, they're one person still.

[Overcast]

Let me try again.

The Slender Man hunts by separating one individual from the rest and then taking them down. Divide and conquer.

Slenderwalk is at brass tacks a distance closer and psychological tripper. It allows him to sneak up on someone so that he can fight them at the only age he is comfortable at and it can also be used to manipulate the environment to put people on edge. His speed offers him no other power advantage, mostly because he can't just attack people until he is seen.

Gone is used in coordination with Slenderwalk, while the latter being used to create distractions and traps that the former capitalizes on. He could have the strength all the time, but while Ifrit likely fries a whole room then tears apart whatever is left that is not the way that the Slender Man hunts. The lack of evidence left behind is also meant to continue the paranoia by the remaining individuals trying to figure out what happened to the deadman.

I may shift Gone to work on other paradoxes, but the shock of meeting another paradox would be the sudden realization that there are creatures as strong as he is who use their own hunting styles and how his might clash with more blunt ones.

[Toastburner B]

Does this mean I can't try to make a character Toast?

Hey, it hasn’t started yet, so this technically counts as a placeholder. Go ahead and make a character.


Overcast:

Yeah, if you want to stick with Slenderman, the “appear behind people” part is out. I already make it loud and clear what my stance is on teleportation as a power. So that basically leaves you with enhanced strength and enhanced speed, which is fine.

This is more of an nitpick/suggestion than an actually concern: A lot of your stuff is “while seen”, “under direct observation”, stuff like that. While I understand you are trying to stick by the Slenderman mythos, it seems like something that is going cause headaches.

Considering the number of players we have going (what are we at? 15+?), and the relative number of enemies I’m going to have to throw at you guys, there are going to be a lot of eyes at any given moment (don’t even get me started on if Swarm is in the same area!). So it seems like it would just be a colossal hassle for all parties involve to decide if you were being looked at for if Baddie #9 was alone, etc etc etc.

Like I said, I know your trying to stick to the Slenderman mythos here, but it would be easier on both of us if we took the “while seen” modifiers on your powers. That would essentially leave you with enhanced strength and enhanced speed.

Does that make sense, or am I asking too much?

[Teal Mage]

Was talking to Overcast earlier, seems he's changed his mind about playing an Expy of the Slender Man - I'll leave him to draw up his own Profile, but apparently he's planning to make a Snake/Naga-esque Paradox with a Drug Element/Theme. Human part of his Profile would remain unchanged though. Apparently, my choice not to use the Snap Dragon played into this more than the Slender Man not working in this setting.

Because the profile involves Status Effects, GM imput and review will probably be needed!

Anyway, so, is my character approved Toast? Need to ask other questions?

I can probably come up with an alternate power in place of Overlord Claw/a different Paradox, if you like.

[Toastburner B]

Anyway, so, is my character approved Toast? Need to ask other questions?

I can probably come up with an alternate power in place of Overlord Claw/a different Paradox, if you like.

I knew I forgot something. Or rather I could have sworn I typed something about it...man, my memory sucks.


Well...I don't know if I can call overlord claw overpowered since the average human isn't much compared to your average paradox/monster. Something about it is making my GM sense tingle, but I can't really put a finger on why. If you really want to keep it, I can't really think up a reason why it's overpowered or anything...but I can't really think of a lot of situations where it would be useful, either . :raise: I'll leave it up to you.


Alright, definitely tomorrow. Sometime. Hopefully. I need to go to bed now, 'cause if I don't I'm going to start watching another episode of MLP or something. I'm out.

[Teal Mage]

Something about it is making my GM sense tingle, but I can't really put a finger on why.

Maybe because last time we played this, the only major battle we fought involved a whole bunch of Demon Angels? I know you like to throw Mook monsters at us, and that was half of the reason I was looking at a Reanimation skill, I admit.

I really can't think of another reason it would worry you though. Wouldn't mind picking a new skill, or coming up with a different secondary effect for this one if that makes you leery of it.

[SinrXIII]

Ok, so I was going to post this last night, but after reading up on Slendy, the Rake, and a few other things, I got overly distracted and slept in my closet with one eye open and the lights on.

So now that I'm not totally freaked out, bio!

Name: Darrius Bane

Age: 19

Gender: Male

Physical Description: Darrius is around 5’ 10”, has shoulder length black hair, and bright amber eyes. Usually wears dark jeans, band t-shirts, and black and white lowtops. He’s occasionally seen in a black zip-up hoodie, and always has a bass guitar slung across his back. He has an unfinished tattoo that circles his bicep of druidic runes that almost spell his name. D-A-R-R is all that has been finished. In recent weeks, since the accident, he’s taken to wearing a black eyepatch over his right eye.

Bio/Background/Etc: Darrius is a normal kid. Works the early shift at a bar, plays live with his band most nights. Or did.
You see, much like stories of other people around the city, Darrius found himself in the middle of some seriously fucked up shit. After a night of playing with his band mates, and getting his tattoo worked on, he woke up on the tattoo parlor floor covered in singed flesh, blood, and with every bone in his body screaming in pain. He lay in a hospital bed for a week and a half before being let go with only minor cuts and bruises, though the pain in his bones had only lessened slightly. Now, he spends his days trying to figure out just what in the hell happened, and why it is that the taste of blood haunts his dreams and sets his bones on fire.

Monster Name: Balor

Appearance: Darrius’s skin turns black, his hair turns white, and grows longer. He grows to stand a foot taller, and his face morphs; his left eye moves to the center of his forehead while the right vanishes completely. His mouth fills with ravor sharp teeth, and his ears grow long and pointed. His fingers look as though they’ve got claws on them, and his body grows more muscular overall.

Abilities/Powers: Eye Beam: Balor is known as the Evil Eye, as he’s known for killing people by staring at them. While Darrius isn’t able to melt bodies, his eye beams -do- feel like a solid punch, and leave organic material a little singed. The beams are impossible to use for more than short burst-like blasts at this time.

Bone Claw: Sometimes, eye beams just aren’t enough, especially when you’re hungry. Darrius’s Paradox is capable of manipulating the bones in his fingers, causing them to burst out of his fingertips as sharp claw-like appendages.

[Toastburner B]

Teal Mage:

I honestly have no idea why I’m leery about it. Like I said, I can’t really call it overpowered, because the strength difference between monsters and humans…I don’t know. Keep it if you want it.


Ok, so I was going to post this last night, but after reading up on Slendy, the Rake, and a few other things, I got overly distracted and slept in my closet with one eye open and the lights on.

This will make you feel better (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tiynTPuUUM)

…Yeah, I almost managed to type that with a straight face.

Anyways, it looks good. But if at least one person doesn’t make pirate jokes at you because of the eye patch I will be disappointed in all of you.


Alright, this mess will start tonight. Even if you haven’t had an approved character yet, you can still post up a character after we start.

[Overcast]

Hey, go approve my character first. Or don't approve my character and give me another stern talking to. Both are a step in the right direction.

[Toastburner B]

Oops, sorry. Didn't notice you had updated your character.
That looks good. Sorry for being a bit of a jerk about your characters, but that's part of my MO, you know.

I think we've hit all the modern horror inspirations now. We have your standard monster monster, you tentacly tooth monster, your shadow monster, demons, angels, a few eldtrich horrors, and a Silent Hill/Condemned style monster.

[SinrXIII]

Ahahahah. That song made me chuckle.

Actually, this one worked for me, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foGYO9nEFSQ) but to each his/her own.

[Arcanum]

I am helpful!

Character / Paradox (Player)

Isaac Knowlton / Sorm (Toastburner B) (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showpost.php?p=1117585&postcount=1)

Sarah Viticus / Judgement (Inbred Chocobo) (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showpost.php?p=1117674&postcount=13)

Charlie Heat / Amorphica (Steel Shadow) (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showpost.php?p=1117756&postcount=17)

Kaitlyn Wales / Mawface (Armored Bishujo) (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showpost.php?p=1117875&postcount=24)

James Wade / Ifrit (Hawk) (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showpost.php?p=1117972&postcount=28)

Rawli Prochainezo / Grin (Riin Whitewind) (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showpost.php?p=1118065&postcount=35)

Ryan Sorenson / Blitz (lazy man) (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showpost.php?p=1118123&postcount=38)

Amanda Levin / Eldonna (batgirl) (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showpost.php?p=1118126&postcount=39)

Beatrice Thallium / Rift (Girasol of Chaos) (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showpost.php?p=1118137&postcount=40)

Eric Stenson / Swarm (Arcanum) (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showpost.php?p=1118154&postcount=41)

Eibon Harden / Incognito (Aerozord) (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showpost.php?p=1118217&postcount=56)

Joshua Wood / Cataclysm (Wizardcat) (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showpost.php?p=1118263&postcount=62)

Riley Morris / Fiend (Overcast) (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showpost.php?p=1118770&postcount=87)

Asher Brightman / Bane Wolf (Teal Mage) (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showpost.php?p=1118916&postcount=88)

Darrius Bane / Balor (SinrXIII) (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showpost.php?p=1119184&postcount=113)

[Toastburner B]

The RP is up. (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showthread.php?t=39885)

Discussion thread is also up. (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showthread.php?p=1119356#post1119356)