It is the nature of those native to the Void that they know better than anyone when things are not real --
Wait a second, that's Nobilis and this is a Chuubo's character. Let me try again.
Jake Talon is a Ward of Void. The Null loves him, and he loves it back; and knowing how easily it clings to him, how much it's erased, he is quite aware that he is a game construct. I mean, it destroyed his mangrit score in his first session, and his ability to make any noise whatsoever in his fourth.
But he says knowing that he is a game construct isn't all bad. He says that it's started him on the first steps towards using his powers when not a Void player or when not in a session. And he's already alarmingly good at taking advantage of the nulled stats he has.
But that doesn't mean that he's made his peace with it. Because once you've accepted that you yourself are a product of Sburb... what hope do you have for a life outside the Game?
Name: Jake Talon
Handle: discretionaryCommentary
Native Classpect: Ward of Void
Age: 25
Session Count: 11
Sylladex: Null-Terminated String
Specibus: cankind
Academics Skill: Good
Sports Skill: Good
Favorite Foods: carrot sticks, chips, spicy beef jerky
Lifeplant: bromeliads
Current Arc: Mystic (Visionary) 1+
Basic quest: “Oh, hey.” (Red/Melodramatic): You take full advantage of your soundlessness by showing up in amusing poses right behind coplayers, inside cabinets, astride Ogres, and so on and so forth. Then you give the coplayer in question a casual wave and chew on your carrot stick while they freak out. Emote a casual greeting from an implausible or ridiculous position up to once every fifteen minutes for a bonus XP.
Bonus XP emotion: Putting My Faith In You, probably. Either that or a sort of dazed speechlessness at his antics (the latter is more likely in a Techno game).
Inherent
Skill: Shenanigans 3 (“How did you do that?” “Shenanigans.”)
Skill: Sburban Survival 2
Skill: Sburban Void Magic 2
Skill: Communication Through Gestures 1
Bond (2): [I know someone who knows that.]
Affliction (1): [Nothing I do makes any sound.]
Perks
(Superior) Vitality 2 (from Indomitable)
Bond (2): [I’m definitely a bit of a showoff. Maybe more than a bit.]
Sburban Light Magic 2
Arcs:
Indomitable 2
a reproduction of a Character-Building series
Jake Talon has (as any character on Indomitable) a “curse” (air quotes). Nothing he does makes any noise whatsoever. He is mute - or, rather, he can speak but the words will never leave his mouth. He does not play instruments because they don’t do any good. But he’s also a fantastic sneak, and computers and IM mean that he never needs to talk to be a perfectly good player.
(While in presessions, he uses his default-gear laptop as an assistive communication device. People don’t notice, or don’t comment on, the sound thing.)
Paralyzing Fear (Miraculous Action, +0MP/once/chapter, +1MP/2+/chapter): Jake’s ability to assert himself does not need sound. In fact, the soundlessness of it probably even helps. He has his principles, and he will stick to them, and anyone who gets in the way is going to be terrified out of their wits.
Keen Ears (Miraculous Action, 0MP): Living without a sound has sharpened Jake’s hearing far, far beyond normal. He can hear anyone in his dwelling spire even if they’re fifty floors apart, he can casually eavesdrop on about half of Derse’s moon from inside his dream tower, and he knows when the Reckoning’s beginning by the ultra-low-frequency sounds it makes. (Even with this, though, he still can’t hear himself.)
Vitality Bonus (Special): A perk of (Superior) Vitality at the Arc level. Because the Null loves him, it seems to have accidentally erased his Mangrit score. He is now absurdly strong.
Inhuman Strength (Miraculous Action + [Arc] strike): One of the consequences of an erased Mangrit score. The way that the Game attempts to fix an erased score is by replacing it with… something. (In Mangrit’s case, it is usually [SO STRONG]… yes, a string, in a variable that’s supposed to hold a float. Apparently at least this part of Sburb isn’t in a strongly typed language.) The effect is that [SO STRONG], when compared to anyone else’s mangrit, seems to mean “strength so far off the charts that he could punt a broken-prototype Black King, which has strength [3.4028e+38]”. Yeah, that happened.
Tribulation (Miraculous Action, Bleak[, XP Action]; 0MP/1-2x/book, 1MP/“tug”, 4MP/3+/book): Jake’s grasp of the Null is of a different caliber than the “Accursed”-type Void player. He specializes in nulling out specific stats in other Players and game constructs. This won’t work on anything that isn’t a game construct - essentially, it’s useless outside Sburb - but it’s pretty good.
But in any case… when you reach into the right place and null out a stat in someone (it doesn’t have to be mangrit - it could be something else entirely… but I’ve got a writeup coming that’ll have a selection of effects that come from other nulled stats), sometimes the Game tries to get it back. The “shiny regrowth” mechanism often restores nulled stats - sometimes sensibly, sometimes less so. You’ll have to figure out when you need to null it out again. It can turn into a tug-of-war if you’re not careful. Have fun.
Inconspicuous Form (Miraculous Action, 1MP): You don’t make noise on a regular basis anyway, but this means you’re actually trying at sneaking around, taking full advantage of your soundlessness.
Visionary 1
Sense Falsehood (Miraculous Action, 0MP, free strike=Arc): You know if something is a game construct. This is not terribly useful while playing Sburb because everything is a game construct inside the Game, but it does help with identifying important places, people, and objects in presessions.
Magic (Magical/Superior Skill): Jake has access to Sburban Void Magic even though he is not Awesometier. The Null just likes him that much, I guess.
Illusions of Emptiness (Miraculous Action, n/a): Jake can pull all sorts of Voidy shenanigans, occasionally even in presession, because he knows what game constructs are and knows that his paradoxbirth makes him, arguably, a game construct himself.
Blessings (Imperial Miracle, 0MP/1-2x/book): You run an MP shop. I’ll give some examples for things in the MP shop tomorrow...
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Brad says a lot of things about himself. He says he was raised by ninjas. He says that he finagled his way into becoming President of the United States in one presession, for fun. He says he once singlehandedly won a session by throwing the entire Black Queen, ring and all, into the Forge.
But there are contradictions in a lot of these stories. In one notable instance, he once claimed that his 8th session included two people from two different Sburb.org IRCs; they vaguely remembered being in that session, but they didn't remember or recognize each other at all. In another instance, he claimed first that he'd been best at math when he was young, and then that he'd been best at English when he was young. We only know this because both claims are still recorded on Sburb.org. When we showed him both posts, he was confused and freaked out.
You might ask, why does it matter that his past doesn't make sense? It matters to him. It matters to him because he doesn't know who he is anymore.
Name: Brad Bryson
Handle: flamelessKindling
Native Classpect: Bard of Sound
Age: 27
Session Count: 16
Sylladex: Boggle
Specibus: beltkind
Academics Skill: Very Good
Sports Skill: Excellent
Favorite Foods: caviar (in public), s'mores (in private)
Lifeplant: apples
Current Arc: Mystic (Knave of Hearts) 2
Basic quest: "So there's this time..." (Red/Melodramatic): Whenever possible, you talk about your life... or, more properly, what you embellish your life to look like. Introduce any such digression with "So there's this time..." for an XP, up to once every fifteen minutes.
Bonus XP emotion: Speechlessness. You probably did not grow up raised by ninjas. It's just that you tell stories so convincingly that nobody dares to call you on it.
Inherent
Skill: Spinning Yarns 3 (Aside from making you good at storytelling, this also means you know your way around a spinning wheel. Why? Because it's funny.)
Skill: Being A Ninja 2
Skill: Sburban Survival 2
Skill: Dabbler 1 (You have some familiarity with anything that anyone else claims to be good at.)
Bond (2): [I can take on a "mask"/"persona" that fits in perfectly with whatever social group I'm in.]
Affliction (1): [I can't tell my stories-about-myself apart from reality, and it's unsettling.]
Perks
Skill: Shine 2 (from Knave of Hearts)
Connection: Prospit 2
Bond (2): [It's a metaphor.]
Arcs:
Knave of Hearts 2
Mythos: "My past is larger-than-life. A lot larger than life."
Symbolic Logic (Miraculous Action w/ free strike=Arc, 0MP): You can see stories; you can especially see when people are trying to tell stories about themselves. When you're using this, there's an Obstacle 1 to seeing things that aren't related to this kind of thing.
Idealize (Miraculous Action, 0MP): You have the equipment and costume for anything that you claim that you've experienced. Also, if someone else is telling a story about themselves, you can chime in with exactly the words they've been struggling to find to express it.
Shine Bonus (Special): A free Shine perk at arc level.
Somebody Else's Story: You can share the spirit of a story. It works better if the story has the same magical-realism slant that your powers theme themselves after, but any story will do.
Communion (Miraculous Action): You receive a bilateral +1 Tool bonus to Connection skills with anyone or anything you may have interacted with using Somebody Else's Story.
The Dream That Dreams Do Dream Of (Special/Affliction, 1MP/new rule/chapter, 0MP/reinvoke rule 2+/chapter): You can invoke one of these rules as an Affliction on yourself:
"I must have some experience with whatever you're talking about."
"I must be capable of astounding martial arts-themed feats (so long as I can explain how I learned them)."
"You can't object to the truthfulness of my stories, at least while I'm around."
Inevitability Entanglement (Miraculous Action, 2MP): You can seal a target into one of your TDTDDDO rules (making it an Affliction on them while you sustain this, and still mundane thereafter), or else drag them into your story - say, you might've sessioned with them before, or they might have an (unrequited?) crush on you.
Destiny Exile (Miraculous Action, 4MP): You can free someone from one of your TDTDDDO rules (usually imposing Obstacles and suppressing Afflictions), or else fling someone or something clean out of your mythos - for example, if you don't want someone as a friend anymore, you can decide that they're no longer part of your story, elide them from tales of your life, and enjoy a corresponding decrease in their effects on your life. (They might, say, stop posting in the forum that you frequent. Or block you. You don't get to decide what actually happens.)
The Ace 2
There really aren't many customizations for The Ace, so at this point I'll just refer you to the corebook. If you don't have the corebook, it's the arc for doing anything a human can do, better than most humans can do.
Stars natives are some of the rarest in the Game; the absolute acceptance that characterizes the Aspect tends to result in Stars natives going rather too gently into the good night. There are few enough of them. Fewer that manage to distinguish themselves. But Madeleine is different. She is a rare Stars-native Gamebreaker.
Madeleine struggled with internalizing her Native for a long time; it is only recently that she figured out how to reconcile the lessons of Stars with the lessons of Replayerdom. The needle she threads, in saying that she accepts the world because fully acknowledging it is a tool with which to change the world, is thin - but she is good at threading needles.
You see, she was genetically engineered to be freakishly good at physical coordination.
Basic quest: "Well, That Happened" (Red/Melodramatic [or I guess in this case the exact opposite of melodramatic]): Your reaction to the most shocking of events? A mild "well, that happened." Use up to once per 15 minutes for bonus XP.
Bonus XP emotion: Putting My Faith In You
Skills:
Sburban Survival 3
Acrobatics 2
Gamebreaking 2
Acceptance 1
(Superior) Physical Control 1 (from Specialty)
Inherent:
Bond (2): [We can endure the world as it is, for we are already living in it.]
Affliction (0): [I don't drop things on accident. Ever.]
Perks:
Bond (2): [I want to learn about everything.]
+1 Tough Health Level
Arcs:
Specialist 3
Initiate of a Hidden World (Special/Obstacle 2, 4MP/awaken someone to the hidden truth for the first time, constant Obstacle 2): To understand that your life is a game, to really understand that you are living in a world that is entirely defined by code... well, it's not the kind of realization people tend to take, or to want to take. You see with a Gamebreaker's eyes now, and to people who don't understand the way that the Game works, what you do seems like... just the kind of thing you do. Not like gamebreaking. Just like you getting places faster, or knowing when a Roleplay bonus is well-placed.
Specialty (Superior/Magical Skill): Something odd happened to your ectobiological goop when you were "born" - so you have a touch of (Superior) Physical Control, the corebook skill that grants extraordinary dexterity, speed, and grace.
Understanding (Miraculous Action, 0MP): Your specialty is "physical" gamebreaking - the kind of exploits that need a steady hand or a frame-perfect movement. You know a lot about that kind of thing.
Mind over Body (Miraculous Action, n/a): You're extremely physically tough and can hide your identity if you need to - it turns out that a lot of the little muscles in the face can drastically change your appearance if you can control them consciously. (As well as gait and posture changes, of course.)
Basic Moves (Imperial Miracle or Miraculous Action, 4MP/teach a move, 1MP/perform a move):
Nearly every Gamebreaker has a surprisingly substantial knowledge of programming, code, and game design - even if these aren't their primary interests. Given knowledge of a bug/exploit, they'll be able to tell you what kind of sloppy coding or untested corner case produced these exploits, and have at least a good guess of how this exploit could be used productively.
Many Gamebreakers got into gamebreaking by way of their sylladices, since they're available long before Sburb ever starts. Every gamebreaker has at least figured out how to use the Sylladex to eject an object at high speed as an attack - and, more importantly, every gamebreaker knows how to aim that ejection. (People who aren't gamebreakers are liable to have ejected sylladex items go off in every direction but the one desired.)
Plot Devices (Miraculous Action, 2MP/new plot device): Your plot device categories are "Weird Secret Rooms" and "Evasive Gymnastics". You can have up to two plot devices per category. Here are some examples:
Sound Test Room (Weird Secret Rooms): Fraymotifs give you damage bonuses if you fight in time with music. The Sound Test Room lets you get familiar with the music's structure, timing, and so on - letting you (say) perfectly time a particularly devastating attack with a Fraymotif's shifting in key.
Clock Room (Weird Secret Rooms): You have access to the clocks that keep track of the alive/dead status of your coplayers. By itself this is of little use, but you could - in theory - break into the clocks and do weird shit inside them... most notably including high-level prophecy manipulation.
Acrobatic Dodge (Evasive Gymnastics): Instead of just dodging something, you can dodge it with a flashy cartwheel, round-off, jump onto a high ledge, or such. This gets you into the best tactical position it is possible for you to get into - even if that tactical position is technically "dazzled the enemies with my skill".
Prospitian Parkour (Evasive Gymnastics): You have the ability to climb, vault, or otherwise traverse almost any environmental obstacle or building. This lets you do things like lose a pursuer, or get from one point to another in record time. This is most useful on the Dream Moons, hence the name, but you could still use it on other structures, such as in a Consort City, around trees and rocks on Lands, or around Veil laboratories.
Usually you have to stick with your plot devices until the end of a book or until an Issue resolves:
for Weird Secret Rooms, It Never Stops! (or the closest PC's (in) Over Your Head)
for Evasive Gymnastics, Calling (or the closest PC's Something to Deal With)
Activate (Miraculous Action, 1MP): Use a plot device's special power.
Implausible Skill (Miraculous Action, 1MP): Use your Specialty dramatically, for a variety of standard uses - thus, even though there is no sensible reason for Superior Physical Control to (for example) reveal a clue to a current mystery, you can do so by getting into a place that shouldn't otherwise be possible to get into and eavesdropping/stealing/observing from there. ("I know what the Queen's planning, I was in the Palace's air vents when they talked about it!")
Counter (Miraculous Action, 2MP): You can use plot devices to turn other people's actions against them.
Epic Move (0MP/once/chapter, 1MP/2+/chapter, 2MP/2+/hours): You can earn a Tool bonus when overwhelmed, outmatched, and desperate (you need to be "trying" to do something, rather than having your Intention be "doing" it). This will persist for all logical continuations of your attempted epic move and then a few minutes afterwards.
Wondrous (Imperial Miracle, 0MP/once/book, 4MP/2+/book): You make something really important, narratively. Somehow. Point to the Warweary Villein and declare that he'll have a critical role to play in this Sburb session, and both colors of Kings will have a revolution on their hands...
Indabel Almus listens. He doesn't speak much; since if he does, he has a tendency to say precisely the kind of things that would make you feel worse about the situation, even if he doesn't mean it. He has a surprising amount of skill in intervening at just the right time to keep you from screwing up, or in telling you to do something without explaining it and it happening to be useful later.
In short, his native classpect equipped him surprisingly well for his current Mage of Time roll.
What we know about him, then, is actually rather scarce: he is a native Seer of Sand, he comes from a post-scratch world, he has an abnormally high session count for his age, and he is very good at using his knowledge of weakness to protect others.
Basic quest: "Lurker" (Purple/Work and Study): While you're not a particularly enthusiastic participant in active discussions, you do appreciate things. Subtle expressions of this appreciation - a fractional nod, perhaps, or hitting the Like button - get you at most 1 bonus XP/15 minutes.
Bonus XP emotion: Raised Eyebrow (An expression of disbelief - "are you really doing that?" or "are you really going to make me do that?")
Inherent
Sburban Survival 2
Programming 2
Skills from an Unexplained Mysterious Past 2
Wide Vocabulary 2
Bond (2): [I'm good at listening, so long as I don't say anything.]
Affliction (0): [I've got sand in my pockets. And in my shoes. And in my bags.]
Perks
Skill: Sburban Time Magic 2
Bond (1): [No, you shouldn't do that. No, I won't explain why.]
Arcs:
Gatekeeper 2
Other: Secret Weaknesses
Principle: Safety
Oblivious (Affliction, based on Trust or someone else's Hero issue): You have a tendency not to see the wickedness in other Sand players, native or current. You generally assume that they have other people's best interests at heart - because, after all, they're like you, right?
Reading Weaknesses (Other Lore) (Imperial Miracle, 0MP/once/book, 1MP/2+/book, 2MP/2+/chapter): Invoke to learn some useful information about an Other:
When applied to a bug you find in Sburb, you get an immediate sense for how the bug works, what you could exploit it to do, and the bug/exploit's limitations.
When applied to the rumors that PrototypeTowers' coding is exploitable, you figure out that there is indeed such an exploit (even if one did not previously exist - this is an Imperial Miracle, after all), and how one would go about exploiting it.
When applied to the rumors that someone you know has a traumatic past, you'll learn about the traumatic event that happened to them, how they reacted to it, and how you can lean on triggers and guilt to bring up the traumatic past in a destructive way.
Trap (1MP/prepared for most of the chapter, 2MP/several minutes or hours of preparation, 4MP/instantaneous or retroactive): After hunting an Other, you learn to bind or trap it. When applied to important NPCs or main characters, this is likely to require 3-5 iterations to work.
Using the same examples from the previous:
When applied to a bug/exploit in Sburb that's interfering with your ability to play, you will find a workaround for that bug, and you'll be able to resume playing Sburb normally.
When applied to an exploit in the software of a Replayer network, this is a good bug report and, after most of a chapter, a patch that you code up to go along with the bug report.
When applied to a sensitive traumatic memory, you can't actually seal the trauma, but you can unhook it from their present experience, so they aren't unconsciously triggered, and so they can explore and process the memory from a relatively objective state.
Trained Eyes (World-Walking) (1MP/prepared for most of the chapter, 4MP/several minutes or hours of preparation, 8MP+1 Deadly Wound/instant): After sufficient research on the nature of a Region of Sburb, you learn how it's "supposed" to look - and how to see what might be bugs hidden beneath the surface. For example, you can read up on the tunnels beneath Prospit and use that to find the Moonjacking console, or to find a way into the (sealed and unused) Prospitian barracks.
Consult (0MP/once/chapter, 1MP/2+/chapter): You can bend a weakness wide open and use it to gain insight into something else. For example, you know about a mirror in the House of Mirrors that serves as a remote viewing portal, so you go up to it and fiddle with your inventory (changing the random seed that it uses) until it shows an event you want to see. Or, you know about a privilege escalation bug on [Replayer network of your choice], so you use it to eavesdrop on someone's conversations.
Decree (0MP/midscene/once/chapter, 2MP/midscene/2+/chapter, 4MP/scene start): You can command an Other to do simple things for you, or (if the Other has been defeated) something involving your Principle. So:
When applied to Sburb, you can exploit a bug to leave you in a better position than you were in before. For example, if a carapace below the Agent level is chasing you, glitching yourself into a room with no doors or windows will confuse the pathing algorithm, making them forget that they were chasing you at all. (Unfortunately, Agent-level carapaces will just teleport into the room if you do this.)
When applied to replayer networks... hm. I suppose you could use your knowledge of Network bugs to blackmail or trade for help, but I don't see you actually doing that...?
When applied to emotional weaknesses... well, it will probably go something like "She wouldn't want you to mope forever. C'mon, help me."
Spell (1MP/once/chapter, 2MP/2+/chapter): You can use a Surface Wound to grant certain special effects. For example...
deliberately causing a minor bug that another character can also use in a positive fashion - for example, you can turn on noclip on yourself or someone else (it can't last too long; most weaponkinds will noclip through enemies when you use them in this state, which'll be a problem), or perhaps you can don the Secret Consort's cult item to make it difficult for Consorts to turn you down. (See, "secret" is even in the Secret Consort's name. It totally counts as a secret weakness.)
This doesn't make sense for Replayer Network code weaknesses.
I'm not entirely sure how to make this work for emotional weaknesses either.
Open the Gates (0MP/once/book, 2MP/2+/book, 4MP/2+/chapter): You can open an impossible pathway, with enough exploitation of glitches. I won't provide specific examples for this, since it should be obvious enough when you're in a situation that'll need it.
This won't appear in the book, but I wrote these notes to keep my story straight.
The Sorcerer's Son series, a fantasy epic written by dryadTornado of PrototypeTowers, was originally envisioned as a trilogy. As many fantasy trilogies tend to do, it ended up taking more books than expected.
The books, in order, are:
Sorcerer's Son (published 58.15)
The Woman who Stared into Forever (published 61.09)
The Infinite Castle (published 66.92)
The Sea of Blood (published 69.58)
Spyglass (published 71.15)
Kingdom of Dreams (published 73.88)
The Deathless Queen (announced, to be published sometime in ts76)
Merchant's Daughter (working title, briefly discussed by dryadTornado on her blog; possibly the end of the series)
All are written in first person, although with frequent IC third-person storytelling (generally framed as legends, rumors, or reconstructions). The first three books are written from the perspective of a young woman, a merchant's daughter from the Kingdom of Hope. Sea of Blood is written by that woman when she is significantly older, and Spyglass and Kingdom of Dreams are written from the perspective of this woman's daughter. Because dryadTornado is a native Witch of Dust, the protagonists are crafty and good at working with insufficient resources. Compare MacGyver.
The titular sorcerer's son is the person who's prophecied to topple the reign of the Queen in Black/Deathless Queen/[insert epithet here], the ruler of the Kingdom of Time. Unfortunately, it is five hundred years before he is supposed to be born, and the protagonist is not willing to wait that long. The series is therefore focused on the conflict of free will vs. fate.
(It is also a good underhanded education in Imperatives and Priorities, the Replayer theory on how Sburb actually enforces prophecies, originally introduced in the article of the same name by immediateThorium.)
dryadTornado has set up an ~ATH will to post most of her outlines and drafts in the event of her death, as is customary for Replayer fiction writers.
Elizabeth is still reading through the series; she has only just begun The Sea of Blood. She will probably only quote from the first three books.
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dryadTornado was born rich, but that didn't make her life good. She grew up trying to conceal her wealth, moving from school to school. She ate school lunches without complaint, since they were less obvious than her trying to bring lunch from home. When she made friends on the Internet, she never told them about her wealth, for fear they would ostracize her, or beg her for money her parents wouldn't let her have. She was going to change her name as soon as she grew up, and become a successful writer by her own lights.
Then her planet died, and everything went to hell.
Now she is just a Replayer, like the rest of us. She writes good books. She says that Sburb gave her the chance to understand what it was like to live in a place where things did not just appear when she wanted them. That's pretty much the opposite of the experience that most of us get with the Game, but Witches are always a little weird.
Name: Christi Bakema
Handle: dryadTornado
Native Classpect: Witch of Dust
Age: 26
Session Count: 9
Sylladex: Spiral
Specibus: bolaskind
Academics Skill: Good
Sports Skill: Good
Favorite Foods: sushi, peanut butter cookies, lasagna
Lifeplant: Desert poppy
Current Arc: Storyteller (Creature of Fable) 0
Basic quest: "Uncomplaining" (Work and Study/Purple): Christi works hard, and she doesn't mind working hard. Emoting an uncomplaining attitude towards work therefore nets a bonus XP up to once per every fifteen minutes of play.
Bonus XP emotion: Speechlessness (She talks like her fiction books. It's spectacular, but it verges on incomprehensible at times.)
Skills:
Fiction Writing 3
Sburban Survival 2
Well-Read 2
Upper-Class Manners 1
Inherent:
Bond (2): [My real messages are hidden in metaphor and symbolism.]
Affliction (0): [I can never completely get the dust out of my stuff.]
Perks:
Connection (3): merrowDale, first-session coplayer, and editor of most of Christi's fiction
Connection (3): populatedTerran, Christi's datefriend and handler for the 0AD timetrav network
Bond (2): [My writing blog is my pride and joy.]
Bond (1): [I'll tell you, at any opportunity, how my next book is coming along!]
Skill: Replayer History 1
Arcs:
Christi might also make a good Sickly Shepherd character, depending on the nature of Sickly Shepherd.
Sentimental 2
Miraculous Ease (Miraculous Action, 0MP): You have access to Miraculous Will to use with your Treasures.
Haunt (Miraculous Action, 0MP): You can project yourself into the Bubbles to dream of or with one of your Treasures. Mind you, there's a level 2 Obstacle and Auctoritas around session-bubbles, so you can't just send your dreamself into them easily, but there's no Obstacle/Auctoritas to finding a dreambubble that more or less mirrors current events.
Lend Spirit (Special): While using Haunt, you can also extend your abilities and knowledge to the Treasure you’re visiting - they can call upon your abilities, powers, MP, and knowledge in addition to your own, and it’s more difficult to affect their thoughts or actions unless you’re also being influenced by the same thing. On the other hand, your presence muddles their memories: the more of 'your’ abilities/powers/MP/knowledge they end up using the less they can remember.
A Waking Dream (Miraculous Action, 1MP/once/hours, 4MP/2+/hours): Your datefriend works wtih 0AD. If you really, really want it, you can ask them to help you open a hypertight timetrav that lets you get a video feed from someone you really care about. This is incompatible with Lend Spirit, but you can give them a +1 tool bonus and 1 point of Edge.
The Treasure's Call (Miraculous Action, 0MP): You can “hear” or “feel” when a Treasure needs you or is desperately trying to reach you. This is a matter of completely unexplainable instinct. You suddenly feel like you need to check on someone, and - surprise! - it turns out that you do. I am not even going to try to explain this. It just exists.
The Shepherd's Blessing (Miraculous Action, 1-2 MP): For 1 MP, you can grant a special power to your Treasures, awakening a unique talent from within them. If you spend 2MP (or both you and the Treasure each spend an MP), if you both agree on how to use the power, and if it's something that helps you, they can invoke the power at the miraculous level!
Creature of Fable 0
Between the Boundaries (Affliction based on a nearby PC's Illusion): You've been wandering the Bubbles in your dreams; so you might casually mention from time to time that you've recently met someone plot-important in them. You get no particular further benefit to this - you'll have to use further mundane actions or miracles find them again, if you want useful information - but you have a knack for finding these kinds of people offscreen, and occasionally, you might even be able to pass on a message.
Iconic (Imperial Miracle or Major Miraculous Action, 0MP/reasonable, 1MP/instant major miracle): You're always in your comfortable clothes (unlike most Replayers, you actually like the default clothes you show up with in presession), looking slightly disheveled and slightly dusty.
Name: Samantha Chandrasekhar
Handle: cogitativeMistake
Native Classpect: Dame of Mind
Age: 28
Session Count: 16
Sylladex: Database
Specibus: umbrellakind
Academics Skill: Exceptional
Sports Skill: Above average
Favorite Foods: Black-bean-patty burgers, dal makhani, strawberry-banana smoothies
Lifeplant: blackberry bramble
Current Arc: Otherworldly (Spiritual) 2
Basic quest: Work and Study/Purple ("Now shut up"): You are good at cutting through arguments and deflating people's egos. After you demonstrate this, you will indicate it with a "Now shut up". (This does not always make people shut up. After that the best you can say is that you tried, and walk away.)
Bonus XP emotion: Putting My Faith In You ("Don't wish me luck. Wish me sense.")
Skills:
Sburban Survival 3 (As an idiosyncratic use of this skill you possess a large amount of theoretical knowledge about how Sburb works.)
Programming 2
Writing (With Parentheses) 2
Psychology 1
Inherent:
Bond (2): [Give me a few minutes to think and I will come up with a Plan.]
Affliction (0): [I always see the underlying motivations of people who disagree with each other.]
Perks:
Bond (2): [I am pledged to always defend freedom of choice.]
"It's A Living": 1/chapter, you can ask the HG to narrate what's been going on with your role as Pits moderator.
"Well-Liked by Coders" (0MP/1-2/scene, 1MP/3+/scene): This is "Well-Liked in (Region)" from page 401 of the corebook: applied to an NPC that also has some skill or interest in programming, you can get a two-way hit of empathy and a bit of knowledge of what they've been doing for the past scene/hour.
Arcs:
Become Somebody 2
Truth: You're very practical.
Failing: You're a representative of the status quo, and as such obligated to be a stick in the mud and dismissive of fringe ideas.
Role: Moderator of PrototypeTowers
The Wages of Sin (Miraculous Action, 0MP): You can see when other people are too stuck in their dogma.
Shared Experience (Miraculous Action/temporary Affliction at Arc level, 0MP): You can see whether other people are using Pits - a few seconds glancing over them and you'll just know whether they're upholding order and justice and reason, or whether they would be happy to watch moderators like you burn.
Your Truth (Auctoritas, n/a): The truth of these statements is protected by an Auctoritas at arc level (currently 2):
I am a moderator of PrototypeTowers.
I am practical.
Adaptable (Special/temporary Affliction at Arc level, 1MP): You can sustain an action to acquire an Affliction of "I belong here." This works pretty much anywhere. You could go to the littlest and strangest of Internet communities and, after watching carefully for a bit, join right in.
Unstoppable (Special/Auctoritas and Obstacle, 2MP): If you are expressing your Role in the presence of others, you can acquire an Auctoritas and Obstacle of Arc level (currently 2) in the way of other people trying to impede that.
Commanding Aura (Special): While using Unstoppable, you can make other people fit your Role; you're essentially inflicting a nonphysical wound on them. You consciously cast yourself as First Among Equals. The targets of this power become good citizens of their Internet communities, following your definition of that (which might not be the same as their definition of that!)
...But you are a good Mind player, one who defends freedom of choice, so unless you can rationalize it to yourself as serving the greater good, you won't.
Reject (Special/Auctoritas and Obstacle, 4MP): You can exile things from your Role, like the opposite of Commanding Aura: make it harder for things to fit into your role in society. For example, you can decide that you don't like someone's notion of what being a good citizen is like - maybe they keep fawning over you and following your every word as law, and you can't have a nice spirited argument with them - so you Reject them.
Touchstone (Special/Auctoritas, Obstacle, and Connection, 4MP): You can bind yourself to something and fake a deep connection - you have a level 4 connection to that thing, and anyone who wants to disrupt that will be facing an Auctoritas and Obstacle at Arc level (currently 2).
Spiritual 1
Estate: Freedom of Choice
Elemental Warning (Miraculous Action + (Arc) Strike, 0MP/reflexive): You get warned if something bad is happening to your Element. You can automatically figure out if, say, someone has released a virus that eats away people's free will!
Illusions (Miraculous Action, 0MP/once/hours, 1MP/2+/hours), invoking a sense of the element being present: makes people feel and act more agenty. (They may not make better choices, but they certainly make more choices and different choices than they would otherwise.)
Spirit-Sense (Miraculous Action, 1MP): just by looking, you can glance at your element and get a feel for how it works: Seeing choice. Uh... basically this means that you can see precisely what decision someone is trying to make, or how someone else's decision-making is affected by circumstances. (If someone is overly cautious because of bad experiences, or reckless because they've been drinking, or whatever.) For tangential uses (figuring out which choice someone would actually use, for example), this is still worth +1 or +2 Tool.
Spirit-Speaker (Special): Asking the 'spirit of Choice', such as it exists, for favors, once you've got Spirit-Sense on. Reinforce a decision someone already made, or make them have doubts about it, or change the mind of someone who happens to be 'on the fence'. To a limited extent, you can also find out information - i.e. the guy who's being blackmailed just happens to be mulling over the problem so you can sorta overhear his thought process psychically. (This does not require speaking. Walking up to someone and flat-out asking them what choices they happen to be making is mundane.)
Spirit Boost (Miraculous Action, 2MP/once/chapter, 4MP/2+/chapter): miraculously strengthening your element: You can make people really, seriously reconsider their path in life and the choices they've made. Basically, you can cause an instant midlife crisis - possibly on many people at once. This includes working on non-humans who still make "choices", such as hounds suddenly deciding that peeing on trees is a better idea than chasing you. (This won't work so much for people who have Truths or Afflictions; the Auctoritas of those would need to be broken before people reconsider them. Oh, and PCs and important NPCs can take Wounds if necessary.)
Divine Mantle (Miraculous Action/Special, 1 MP (you can spend more if you earn more Arc Trait)): you can give all miracles miraculous edge = MP spent (does not add to strike or penetrate auctoritas) for the rest of the scene.
Character: eternityBraid, Elizabeth Bunker (miraculous level)
Name: Elizabeth Bunker
Handle: eternityBraid
Native Classpect: Guide of Blood
Age: 27
Session Count: 11
Sylladex: Puzzle
Specibus: sword-and-shieldkind
Academics Skill: Decent
Sports Skill: Very good
Favorite Foods: challah bread, gazpacho soup, salted caramels, proper macchiatos
Lifeplant: alfalfa
Current Arc: Mystic (Primordial) 2
Basic quest: Melodramatic/Red (“They’re not that bad”): Elizabeth has a tendency to be fascinated with people that her social group has cast as “evil”. This can result in such things as her declaring that “they’re not that bad”, whenever this gets brought up.
Bonus XP emotion: Putting My Faith In You or Speechlessness
Skills:
Shine 3
Sburban Survival 2
Somewhat Overwrought Writing 2
Singing 1
Cooking 0
Inherent:
Bond (2): If I am your friend, I will stay by your side forever.
Affliction (1): If there exists a way to see someone in a sympathetic light, I will find it.
Affliction (1): Well, except for Seers. Fuck Seers.
Perks:
Affliction (2): I am totally unaffected by the general public's opinion on my view of the universe.
Bond (1): I keep trying to bait the trolls. I think they're funny!
Arcs:
Allegory 2
Role: Pitsblogger
Failing: Empathy
Truth: I introduced Chuubo's - yes, this very game - to the Replayer networks.
Somebody Else's Problem (Special): There is a level 2 obstacle to spot, recognize, and describe you if you're actively avoiding those things.
A Legendary Weapon (Major Miraculous Action, 0MP/once/book, 4MP/2+/book): You have a legendary weapon. Specifically, you have a sword that, with sufficient application of will, will cut through anything.
Wonder-Worker (Major Miraculous Action, 0MP/once/book, 1MP/2+/book, 2MP/2+/chapter): You can escalate your blogging to the miraculous level. In a contest with miracles the Intention rating is converted to a miracle level, up to a maximum of Wonder-Worker's miracle level. Also, it is possible to directly manipulate miracles with these kinds of actions... like writing an article that will miraculously convince those who believe it that they are worth something.
A Tangled History (Imperial Miracle, 0MP/once/book, 1MP/2+/book, 2MP/2+/chapter): Mechanically this is a wish that you have been around for, or for something that is almost exactly like, essentially anything. In flavor... you have been a Pitsblogger for a long, long time. You have read the annals of Seergate, and you've seen the same thing happen in microcosm - after you've stuck around enough, all the upheavals on Pits start to seem the same, and you can speak knowledgeably about things that happened even on previous Replayer networks.
Theoretically, at this Arc level, you can declare that you participated in a thing this way - but you usually don't. You prefer to stay a little bit detached from things. You like your position on the fringes of Pitsblogger society, and you are not about to change that.
Mechanisms of Transport (Superior Skill Perk, 0MP/claim a new one/once/book, 4MP/2+/book): You can design a mode of transportation that could go to, from, and through some strange/occult realm, one that functions like a Superior Skill Perk. This might include, but is not limited to -
wheedling an entire goddamn Prospitian shuttle off the White Queen;
the ability to use portals unusually easily when a Space player;
a Roomba-like device that maps out the Magicant whenever it changes and beams the updated maps to everyone's Internet-connected devices;
finding Pits documentation on how to make a Ringship;
if you have the right Classpect, running navigation for that Ringship yourself;
using theoretical knowledge of Skaia travel to shove yourself and/or coplayers through Skaia, in extremis.
Note that there is a level 3 Obstacle against using Classpect-themed abilities when you are not that Classpect currently. If it is at all possible to retheme this Skill to your current Classpect, you can do so without further cost.
Awaken (Imperial Miracle, 0MP/once/book, 1MP/2+/book, 2MP/2+/chapter, 4MP/instant): If you invest the Pulse - the capacity to care, on some level - into an inanimate object (or I suppose an animal), it will be awakened: and become sapient and capable of speech. (You have a mutual level 1 connection for the rest of the book but no other special power over the object, and can withdraw the gift by using this power on the object again.)
Bring to Fruition (Imperial Miracle, 0MP/once/book, 1MP/2+/book, 2MP/2+/chapter, 4MP/2+/minutes): This power allows you to transform/curse someone to intensify their sense of empathy; and it lasts on the target until they resolve an appropriate Issue, complete an appropriate Quest, or take a Wound to mitigate and heal that Wound. Because this is Sburb, this is a subtle power - as fun as turning someone into a giant empathybeast would be, it's just not (thematic, y'know? This power is invoked and controlled with a mundane action much like Wonder-Worker - you are generally using writing at someone to transform or curse them.
Primordial 1
Principle: Empathy ("Empathizing with other people is important.")
Transformation: You are becoming a mouthpiece of the truth of your Principle - someone who does not merely just write for the sake of writing, but writes of the nobility of empathy.
Element: Blood
Unnatural Action (Special): You can emote with your element... which is more useful than it sounds. You can make someone's heart race when they meet you, if you're excited about them. You can blush at just the right moments and, more importantly, not blush whenever you don't want to blush. If you work enough at it this can eventually even extend to control over autonomic functions in general, which has some serious applicability!
Scry (Imperial Miracle, 0MP/on the HG's timeline, 1-4 MP/speed it up): You can scry quite a lot of things! The limitation is that since you're sensing through how people interact with them - how blood and emotions intersect what you're looking for - untrafficked areas are much harder for you to find. (The presence of animals helps a lot but it isn't perfect - animals can't understand concepts like "laboratory", so you might have to specify that you're looking for lab equipment like flasks and computers and such, and that'll take a while.)
Note: Underlings contain no blood. They are entirely outside the scope of your power.
Digest (Imperial Miracle): You can eat anything! You... usually don't! But you can.
Bindings (Imperial Miracle, 0MP/after a conversation, 4MP/instant): You can pick up powers by talking about people's experience of empathy - what they consider important in a friend, who they think is worth moral value, and so on. Details are on the corebook's page 550, but this can result in cool powers through attitude changes: effectively, you take on someone else's mannerisms and can thus use powers based on their experiences. (Elizabeth isn't really into the whole 'extra limbs' thing. It's more likely to be things like her dressing in a certain way, or carrying herself differently, or using a particular catchphrase a lot.)
Shared Witness (Imperial Miracle, 0MP/they can emote to you, 1MP/you can know where they are and whether they're feeling empathy with a few minutes' work, 4MP/you can know that stuff instantly): If you're holding someone's Experience through Bindings:
for free, they can emote to you, although it's really hard to get detailed information;
for 1 MP and a few minutes of concentration (or 4MP if you don't have that much time), you can roughly locate someone whose Experience you're holding, and figure out how much empathy or... I guess emotional detachment is the inverse?... they happen to be feeling at the time. (This action can be sustained to keep checking in.)
