Aliens, Myths and Legends [3E recruiting]

[Bladewind]

Fiona Masterson is a gifted teleporter, even among the Daoine Sidhe. She possesses several teleportational abilities rarely seen or heard of among her people. This has not granted her special status and she does not fulfill any description of any prophetic second coming or the like. She is simply gifted in some areas whereas others are gifted in other areas…

Fiona is young by her people’s standards of juding time, only 71 years old and considered an adolescent. She has little in common with the likes of Sh’lainn Blaze in that she is not rebellious or out to prove anything to anyone. Fiona was simply chosen as an “experiment” to determine if there was a possibility that the humans’ technology could be adapted to and not be as harmful to the Daoine Sidhe, and failing that to locate some of her people’s objects of power.

In that last, Fiona does have an ability that sets her apart from many of her people. Whereas many Daoine Sidhe are accomplished sorcerers, having access to the Ritualist Advantage, Fiona is instead an Artificer. This gives her a special understanding of the objects she seeks and the ability in some cases to make temporary duplicates – a useful ability when attempting to “acquire” an object…

Fiona’s current guise as a high school student has given her the ability to tap into several areas of the local libraries, but she is discovering that without access to the internet that she is severely limited in the scope of her research… a fact that frustrates her and that she continually attempts to find a means to circumvent.



Fiona Masterson
PL10

Code: Select all

Player:         Bladewind           
Race:           Banshee           
Gender:         Female           
Age:            71 (16 physically)           
Height:         5'7"           
Weight:         127 lbs           
Eyes:           Blue (Reversed Irises)           
Hair:           Strawberry Blonde/ Reddish           


Abilities
Strength 8, Stamina 7, Agility 1, Dexterity 2, Fighting 3, Intellect 1, Awareness 5, Presence 3

Powers
Banshee Physiology:
Enhanced Defenses: Enhanced Dodge 5 [Linked to Protection & Enhance Defense; Sustained],
Enhanced Defense: Enhanced Parry 4 [Linked to Protection & Enhanced Defenses; Sustained],
Protection 6 [Sustained; Impervious 6],
Extended Vision: Senses 1 [Penetrates Concealment],
Mental Quickness: Quickness 6 (Limited to Mental Tasks),
Precognition: Senses 4 [Limited to determining when a person will die]
(31 points)

Summoning Vortices:
Projection Vortex: Blast 12 [Variable Descriptor (Any Environmental)]
Alt: Enhanced Ranged Strength: Enhanced Strength 8 [Ranged]
(27 points)

Travel Vortices:
Personal Vortex: Teleport 8 [Accurate; Change Direction, Increased Mass x2 (200 lbs)]
Alt: Dimensional Vortex: Movement 3 [Any Dimension; Increased Mass x2 (200 lbs)]
Alt: Long-Range Personal Vortex: Teleport 8 [Accurate, Extended (250 miles), ; Limited to Extended; Change Direction, Increased Mass x2 (200 lbs)]
Alt: Concealment 10 [All Senses; Blending, Sustained]
(29 points)

Equipment

Advantages
Attractive 1, Artificer, Fearless, Hide in Plain Sight

Skills
Athletics 0 (+8), Deception 1 (+4), Expertise: Magic 6 (+7), Insight 0 (+5), Intimidation 0 (+3), Investigation 1 (+2), Perception 0 (+5), Persuasion 0 (+3), Ranged Combat: Summoning Vortices 6 (+8), Stealth 4 (+5), Treatment 0 (+1), Vehicles 0 (+2)

Offense
Initiative +1
Summoning Vortices +8, Damage 12

Defense
Dodge 6, Parry 7
Toughness 13 (Def Roll 0), Fortitude 9, Will 9

Power Points
Abilities 44 + Powers 87 + Advantages 4 + Skills 9 + Defenses 6 = Total 150

Complications
Technological Bane - Powers tend to disrupt tech, warp metals that are held close together.
Matriarchal Society/ Man's World - Daoine Sidhe women have a ""hard time"" in ""man's world"
Inhuman Form - When using powers or under duress, character might change into ""true"" form.
Enemy -
Minor - 16 years old (school, parents and all other attendent restrictions)

Design Notes

[Shadowbourne]

This is a rough draft of a Dracon/Draki. It is currently undercost and needs some more tweaks. Complications are coming.

Abilities
Str 2, Sta 2, Agl 4, Dex 3, Fgt 6, Int 1, Awe 3, Pre 1

Dracon Physiology
*Dragon Claws[Str Based Damage 3, Multiattack 5]
*Draki Reflexes[Enhanced Dodge 6, Enhanced Parry 6, Defensive Roll 6, Leap 2, Speed 4]
*Morph 1[Hide Draki Nature]
*Immunity 10[Fire Effects]
*Extra Limb[Tail]
*Eyes of the Dragon[Infravision]

Bioplasma Control
**Dragon's Breath[ Ranged Damage 8]
**Dragon's Fyre [Sustained Shapeable Area Damage 5]
**Dragon's Touch [Progressive Weaken Toughness Oblects 5]

Advantages
Agile Feint, Close Combat 6, Evasion 2, Grabbing Finesse, Improved Initiative 2, Improved Smash, Improved Trip, Move-By Action, Power Attack, Ranged Damage 6, Uncanny Dodge

Skills
Acrobatics 4(+8), Athletics 4(+6), Notice 6(+9), Stealth 4(+8) 9

Offense
Initiative +12
Melee: Dragon Claws +12 20DC[22/25]
Dragon's Breath +12 23DC
Dragon's Fyre Dodge 18DC/ Damage 23DC
Dragon's Touch +12 18DC

Defense
Dodge 12, Parry 12
Toughness 8/2 without Defensive Roll
Fortitude 8
Will 8

[whiteprofit]

This idea is so great. I'm thinking about building some kind of mer-person or Atlantian. Full water immersion would bring out their fins and flippers. Breath underwater, enhanced strength and sight (low-light and distance) and perhaps a high presence or attractiveness quality.

Complications might include a tenancy to dry out quickly in exposed sun and scale immersion when wet with rain or other high moisture settings (exposing their secret). Perhaps advertises themselves as having an allergy to water.

I don't know how I feel about water manipulation, but it might come in handy as I've played water based supe's in the past and there isn't always a use for them if there isn't a pool or lake around... so water manipulation may be important to stay relevant. I guess I'm wondering what your feel on it is and if it fits with your setting before I build that into the character.

[Moderate_Hero]

Hi Belial, I was intrigued by this thread. Do you think this would might work? I'd be glad to fully flesh it out if you gave even the slightest of interest. Thanks.

++++++++++++++++++++

Cernunnos
PL10 150 PP

The race is called Cernunnos; the character is named Carnyx.

Racial Role: Trickster gods; lovers of forest and field; mutable and mischievous; healers and hinderers

Very slow-breeding, very long lived, Cernunnos have been diminishing due to attack or catastrophe almost since they arrived on the Earth. Too few to band together against more powerful adversaries, which in any case put them in danger of being slaughtered en masse (and exterminated), they instead dispersed, making themselves indispensable whenever possible.

They appear in altered and various forms in Sumerian, Hittite, Egyptian, Celtic, Slavic, Native American, and many other mythos… throughout time and throughout the world, there always seemed to be a “trickster god” living half-within, half-without the pantheon; usefully occasionally, often crucially important, sometimes irritating, and occasionally bringing destruction upon everything touched…

Having difficulty with the rapid pace of time in our world, and the constant dizzying flux of seasons which in annual plants generate a wild flurry of birth, death, breeding, and seeding, Curnunnos found they could latch onto and understand only long-lived plant species, with whom they could communicate in rudimentary form, and in whose presence their expansive souls could take that which was gladly granted: a portion of this oak’s sturdiness, that willow’s wild limber profusion, this yew’s hard, core-wrapped center…

In form capable of infinite variety, they sport in their natural state two horns which curl out and upward, remnants of an ancient past on a long-dead planet whose life-forms, after early brutal battles, either banded together to escape or died engulfed in their star’s relentless expansion.

Carnyx’s parents feared to form too close an attachment to him, knowing he could not remain with them after his childhood ended. Carnyx was planted in human society after a long and lonely childhood deep in the Siberian woods where he learned the basics of Cernunnian survival techniques (how to hide oneself; how to shift shape; how to avoid confrontation; how to deceive). It was not a one-sided existence, though. His small cabin was kept stocked with books, maps, atlases; movies, tapes, musical instruments; thus he arrived in his new land (“from Albania” reads his visa) with a scattershot of knowledge. Deep in some ways (linguistics, mathematics), shallow in others (social interaction, cultural norms, contemporary references).

Yet, he muddles through, Carnyx’s typical form being of a slender and small human male, neither lovely nor ugly, with an unobjectionable face and brown hair and brown eyes and a quiet, content air about him. He might be in a room for a few minutes before anyone notices him; and when he leaves, it’s hard to tell exactly when he left.

Abilities:
Fast and tough, but not that tough. Guns pose no real threat; anything above that does.

ROUGH Powers (will expand given interest)

Dodge/Parry shifted +15 with +5 Toughness
Light in-combat healing; ritual out of combat healing
Favored Environment: forests
Limited Plant communication with trees
Limited boost with trees when around
Minor shape-changing (no gaining abilities of form shifted into)
Some interaction powers: can’t be lied to, can tell flawless lies, etc.
Some limited illusion/mischief making powers, perhaps including charm
Some limited tree-plant-based travel; dodging into trees, traveling through roots, out somewhere else.
Some plant-themed attacks; entwining roots; thorn spray; etc.
Limited camouflage / concealment

Rough Skills
Good at languages, deceit skills, hiding, sneaking. Not a big fan of tech/equipment.

Rough Abilities
Not particularly anything except smart and persuasive.

[CaptainChaos]

I am considering submitting a Siren build. I'll see what I can come up with later.

[Bladewind]

I had a second idea for a character, one that is far more “original” than Masterson and that I think might be interesting...

An argument could be made that it is likely that the Olympian gods were a clan of Daoine Sidhe, and thus responsible for the formation of the Greek culture and thus many of the world’s advances in philosophy and democracy.

It is a moot point however in this instance as the creature that refers to itself as a Gorgon and claims to be an Olympian bears very little in common with the Sidhe, if anything at all. Possessing of a mostly human looking appearance and nature, Kevin Tydings is anything but. When his facade slips, reptilian scales cover his otherwise smooth skin, his eyes become yelloy slits and in extreme circumstances his tongue even forks! Thankfully his hair has yet to become a mass of writhing serpents, even if he has demonstrated a strange affinity for the creatures, including the ability to “speak” with them and control them to a great extent.

Kevin is unaware of his true origins, and firmly believes that he is a member of a relative minor player in the Hidden World races. He is convinced that there are other Olympians out there, but to date the few that he has thought might have been “his” people have in fact been Daoine Sidhe.

The truth about Kevin is actually quite a bit more sinister... his father, James Tydings, was once a scientist for a major biological and genetic engineering company who had discovered and captured DNA samples of some beings that would rather remain hidden. After much research into unravelling the various DNA strands, they took the next (highly unethical) step and spliced the genes into a human baby. Tydings, disgusted with the poking and prodding of the infant, managed to destroy the research, bring a ton of attention to the company, fake his own death and steal the child, moving into a carefully crafted second life and complete obscurity from his former employers.

James Tydings desperately wanted to hide the child’s origin from it and so carefully crafted stories about the Olympians and the strange bestiary of Ancient Greece to give the child a sense of identity. In this, unknowingly, he carved a place as it were among the Hidden World for Kevin. Kevin’s belief in his origins as an Olympian was further cemented when he encountered a creature that he is convinced was a sphinx. How much of Kevin’s “knowledge” of “his” people is fabrication versus how much might be based on research of some kind is unknown.

Design Notes
Although I have not finished statting out the character, here are my notes thus far...
Kevin’s powers are based on extreme pyrokinesis and serpent-control. These are normally abilities that don’t mix well in terms of a concept, but I think they work to a great extent here.
Serpent Control: Kevin can actually summon large quantities, control and speak with all manner of serpents. He is immune to any poison that is directly from or a derivative of snake venom. He also has mild tremor-sense abilities and his reflexes are quite above the norm...
Kevin’s greater, and far less subtle, power is that of extreme pyrokinesis. His power can literally turn a living being to stone. (Contrary to popular myth, his gaze will not turn him to stone if reflected back on him and he does not need to make eye contact.) This latter power is, in actuality, “flash fries” a target – turning the victim to a carbon compound with the ashy, powdery texture of pumice. Essentially, it is not stone, but the remains of once living tissue after it had been scorched by a sudden, massive burst of heat from the inside out, desiccated and hardened to a rocklike texture. I will be surprised and impressed if anyone knows where I lifted this idea (and that description, pretty much verbatim) from.

[CaptainChaos]

5) Sirens are humanoids with pale greenish skin, dark green, brown or black hair, and green or blue eyes. Apart from the color, their only external dirrerence from humans is subtly different analogies that always makes their bodies look uncannily exotic. They have a lot more efficient breathing organs (not lungs) and a lot more efficient use of oxygen; they can breathe in trace atmosphere or directly from water. Ability scores are as per vampires. Their main power is projection, amplification and control of vibrations; they could shatter objects or kill people by shouting, disrupt biological or mechanical functions to stun or paralyze, even produce specific sounds that stimulate emotional and psychosomatic responses. (the exact effects a Siren has learned to produce depend on the Siren)
For a Siren to walk among humans, she'd have to dye her skin periodically (tanning lotions anybody?). A Siren's major powers don't work if she's somehow gagged. They are also very vulnerable to electricity.

What power would emulate Vibration Control? Should I use energy control-sonic or something else?

Thanks

[Bladewind]

Captain, I might suggest an Array with Affliction (literally, ear piercing cries), Blast (concentrated "cone" of sound). The Black Canary build would be a great place to start. In the array, some sort of empathic emotion/ mind control as well.

[Moderate_Hero]

Belial,

Is this thread still alive, I hope it does not drop to the 2nd page and wither.

[Belial666]

Charlie Rose:
Solid build for a Vodun. Liked the backstory and your take on how a teenage geek would react to basically becoming a zombie. Minor nitpicks; Vodun can breathe normally. It's not an unconscious biological function for one but an active use of muscles. For another, no breathing = no speaking. Also, it should be Immortality 10 (doesn't work if head destroyed). I think I wrote it down wrong in the original post myself.

Fiona Masterson:
Interesting build, funny Banshee picture. Though it should be noted that Banshee are more "unearthly energy beings" than "creatures of the wilderness". Minor nitpick: it should be "ignores concealment", not "pierces concealment" in her sight. The first allows her to see through smoke, darkness, stealth, cloaking and the like. The second would allow her to see through walls ala x-ray vision.
If you are interested in playing her, I'd like to see more of her character and everyday life in her backstory.

@Whiteprofit
Sirens are the merpeople of legend, hence to their greenish skin, ability to breathe underwater and vibration control - which happens to include creation of waves, tides and water currents. So a siren spending her (or in rare cases, his) life underwater as opposed to the open air would have developed water-related abilities instead of air-related. They'd also have adapted to the ocean over their long lives (sirens mature just a bit faster than banshee and twice as slow as humans) and a transition to open-air environments would not cause problems due to dryness but due to pressure (much like people who live near the sea have problems when climbing tall mountains) so you can take that as a complication if you want. They don't have fins/flippers though so that might clash with how you envision them.

@Moderate_Hero
There are a few shapeshifters in the campaign setting that don't belong to the major races - though they are not specifically named. Since millennia have passed since they arrived on Earth and shapeshifters tend to be adaptable, you can pretty much build your shapeshifter from the ground-up. Their backstory might be true, his parents might be hiding a lot of things or it might not even be close to the truth; just think of how both history and memory get distorted over only a few generations in a solid society, let alone millennia of nomadic life. A few things though;
1) Find a scientific or pseudo-scientific explanation for how their powers work. Vampires and Lycans are biotech and nanotech enhanced, changing shape through biological metamorphosis and having psychotronics and advanced alien tech respectively. Daemons are heavy gravity worlders whose bodies are made of carbon nanocomposites (typical strength for such materials exceeds 50 times that of steel) and who work through high-energy reactions. Banshee bodies can produce shaped fields and project energy much like far less advanced eels produce bioelecricity. And so on.
2) Find an overall theme for his powers. So far, I don't see a linking theme for many og them.

@Bladewind
Hmm. Maybe he is a splice of two separate alien races inserted into human. That would explain his control powers and pyrokinesis not having a common basis. Either Siren or Vampire can do nervous system control (depends on whether you want the descriptor to be subsonic or psionic) and his limitation to snakes might be a matter of confidence/training; that's all he's been taught to control so far. The Pyrokinesis can be Banshee or Daemon. Given such a source for his abilities, he would have an affinity with the Olympians - if an artificial one.
Nitpick: it should be noted that most aliens aren't based on the same mechanisms as life on Earth. Vampyr and their ilk carry cellular info in nanoviruses and bionanites as opposed to DNA. Banshee bodies are organic but also energy constructs. Daemons and Vodun aren't organic at all. So that research would have been more like blind experimentation (because those lifeforms are way more advanced than terran ones we think we know) rather than genetic cloning.
Idea: Kevin may not be the only result of this experimentation. In the animated series, their scientists had the "great" idea to fuse alien traits into ants. Naturally, the ants grew to the size of elephants, their exoskeleton enhanced with nanocomposites was sort of missile proof and they were kinda agressively expansive. I might want to introduce stuff like that in the game.


@CaptainChaos
Vibration control is "whatever you can get away with and fits the flavor that could be explained by it". For example, specific frequencies of sound can affect, even manipulate sensory receptors and emotion centers. Other frequencies and intensities can shatter or even liquefy solid objects of even extreme toughness. A blastwave is still a vibration and so are sea waves and currents. Stick to a general type of powers - a surface siren would be better at mind-controlling people than controlling the oceans for example - and build them up.

[Belial666]

@Moderate_Hero:
It takes time to write a long post (an hour for this one) while reviewing character builds, replying to PMs and watching the Roswell Conspiracies animated series again. Don't worry, this game has merely begun; it's very far from over (unless there is no player interest, naturally)

[mrdent12]

Charlie Rose:
Solid build for a Vodun. Liked the backstory and your take on how a teenage geek would react to basically becoming a zombie. Minor nitpicks; Vodun can breathe normally. It's not an unconscious biological function for one but an active use of muscles. For another, no breathing = no speaking. Also, it should be Immortality 10 (doesn't work if head destroyed). I think I wrote it down wrong in the original post myself.

I updated the sheet. I removed the no breathing from the complication and fixed the typo. I meant to put Immortality 10 instead of regeneration 10, but had a brain fart and didn't catch the typo.

[Moderate_Hero]

@Moderate_Hero:
It takes time to write a long post (an hour for this one) while reviewing character builds, replying to PMs and watching the Roswell Conspiracies animated series again. Don't worry, this game has merely begun; it's very far from over (unless there is no player interest, naturally)

No problem, thanks. Yeah, it was a bit of a "work in progress" while I was writing it up, and didn't quite cohere. I'll make the concept solid and science-based.

The basic impulse was to emulate the many "trickster" gods which abound: many of them are pseudo-nature gods as well, and strangely large number have horns (from Cernunnos all the way to Loki) and various deceit-type powers. Clearly something proto-indo-European going on here.

More details later, you are right, it's a bit of a mess right now:

[Belial666]

Do note that Loki was an Aesiri Daemon in the animated series. They have illusion (all senses) and Morph 2 so tricks come easily to them.

[RobinShirewood]

Urgh. Srry to say it looks like I'm gonna have to bow out of consideration for this one. Have fun everybody.