ArtTheMBoardMoth

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Actualy Id be more interested in seeing 8 blasters all hitting it with "snipe" at once.

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From the four cardinal directions and the four ordinal directions, all at the exact same moment! It would be the funnest ball-not-moving-at-all moment ever!

Sigged/Avatared.

Wrote up a background story for one of my characters, and it got a little long-winded. About three paragraphs in, I realized No Way In Croatoa is this gonna fit in the ID, so I decided to post it here, after my long absence. Not sure if I'm posting it for review or for myself, but enjoy it if you can

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It was on Old Man Millard's stagecoach that Harvey Dittman rode shotgun. The pay was good enough to keep fed and plaster up the occasional scuffle that came with the job. Indians, bandits, vigilantes; that all came with the job, too. Life was hard, and staying alive was harder, but such was Harvey's lot, and he relished it as his own.

He was born of a ****** and a corrupt mayor whose rigged election surprised the township nigh as much as the township surprised him with the gallows. Raised by that selfsame town, Harvey received little mercy for the blood he carried, and thusly did he stow away on Vince Millard's coach the night he took the rod from his caretaker, the town doctor, and beat him bloody.

That was seventeen years ago, in Harvey's own time, and he was considering this course of events as it flashed before his eyes. They had been hit, either by tomahawk or jackblade, but Millard looked mighty dead, and the coach was aflame, hopefully empty. This scene faded rapidly, as did Harvey's grasp on reality and the charred rifle butt he still yet held.

Weeks danced between the fields and behind the mountains. Harvey came to, a fact aided by the blood rushing to his head and hindered by the fact he hung from his feet. A canyon of a man, red as the dusky sands, approached him and started to chant, as Harvey wondered what death might bring in this lush yet vacant valley. The witch doctor before him collapsed, suddenly, and began to convulse, to throb and blacken like Millard had under that flaming coach. The Indian was no more; a great crow stood before him, and it chanted as well. The tree Harvey hung from gently laid him on the ground as it gnarled, shrank, and curled into an ornate war bow, the rope unravelling from Harvey's feet and forming a bowstring. The crow grew silent and nudged the weapon toward Harvey, staring, and then it spoke: "Those that created me have fallen; my people waver between extinction and apathy. Carry me to this place of rebirth and protect me, as I have protected you. The tribes that have fought for me have died, and their spirits are no longer your kin -- they are your own. You are the Keeper of Crow."

Again, Harvey began to relive his past. He watched as his mother changed out of her Sunday clothes in front of the town banker, he watched as his father was strung up in front of a cheering crowd. He saw the town doctor making a switch from a tree limb as his mother slept drunkenly. He witnessed his quivering foster father beg for mercy, was discovered amidst the luggage by a middle-aged Vince Millard, he killed for the first time again, the soap factory owner that butchered local girls. He watched as Vince slowly aged, as Vince lost his right hand while changing the coach wheels, as he gave up drinking for the twelfth time. Then, as the man Harvey called "Gramps" burnt alive, he awoke.

A flaming wagon lay before him, and an old man railed for help from within. Harvey's feet came to life, though he soon realized the wagon was not quite a stagecoach and the gentleman inside wasn't quite Millard. While Harvey dragged the aged victim from the strange metallic wagon, a laugh came from behind him. An arrogant youth stood with flaming hands, then snarled as he flung a bit of the fire at the old man. The wind whipped at Harvey's fingertips. Instantly, the fireball sputtered uselessly on the end of an arrow as Harvey peered at the youth down the length of a second arrow, already drawn. "This is Old Man Millard's stagecoach, son, and I ride shotgun."

Odd. Go talk to Cho Ge, he can typically be found under those ramps near the Skyway tram. Maybe he can offer that old information. Also, Thao Ku and the old guy across the parking lot from him, they both seemed to know a lot about Tsoo.

((Also, NPC chat will all pretty much say the same thing for a set amount of time, then they will start to talk about new things for another 15 minutes or so. [My theory]))

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I've heard 'em say most Tsoo are law-abiding citizens, and it's just a few that give them a bad name, but, I've never seen them say anything about the hmong. Hm. Will have to keep clicking. (I only learned you get different info out of people based on the first letter of their name today. Ms are the ones that tell you how many elapsed hours the character has, for example.)

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Tsoo are gang members, not an ethnicity, simply because that's the name of the gang.

I know for sure that some NPCs say "Most Hmong are innocent, but the Tsoo give them a bad name!" Then again, you may have misread or seen an old/new NPC statement.

Also, the descriptions for a few missions taught me that formerly, all Tsoo members were of Hmong descent. After that, so many people set up charities and programs for the Hmong youth that the Tsoo were forced to recruit a few outside of their regular ethnicity, just to keep their numbers up.

I've also heard it said by NPCs that the Tsoo are less like a gang and more like a cult. I believe that is why the Skyway contact Cho Ge left the Tsoo after he betrayed the Triads.

Little background info for you, hope that helps with your backstory.

Even though I hate the Tsoo, they're probably the most interesting, just because they have so many different boss types.

I'm partial to calling it "The Cowbell Skill Thingetys".

Anyone gonna second my idea?

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Actually, I liked the post. I'm not sure what was "shameless" about Tony Stark ... er ... Kord poring over his data. All in all, a good role-play post. Maybe you'd have got more response posting it in the "just for fun" forum. I found your post by accident on a mass search for something unrelated.

So, what is "survival bump"?

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Shameless because the device is, in all ways but legal, no longer his but rather Portal Corp's. Frowned upon, I suppose. Thanks for the comment, and you're probably right about thread placement.

Survival bump is a special kind of bump to prevent this thread from being deleted, now that the boards get cleaned of inactive threads every 14 days.

Survival bump.

No comments, guys? At least proofread me!

This is totally unencouraging for me working on character background stories.

Thanks.

I've considered doing the same thing I did with The Matrix (bad movie or not, still a good concept to game with), which is to say that I plugged it in with the system I am most familiar with: West End D6. I did this, of course, with the help of a website that had already done a good bit of other information, and I run a game about once every other week now.

West End D6 is fairly open-ended, and makes for a pretty easy transition if you're familiar with the system and the universe you're translating it into. There are also quite a few open-ended systems that are much simpler, if less cinematic. *checks some old links* Can't find anything in my old bookmarks. :-(

Nonetheless, you can (You, not me. Me = lazy. You :-D . ) easily google some open gaming systems designed to work for anything, provided your GM is off-handedly creative and mildly decent at math.

*gets all inspired to draw up some City of Heroes character sheets*

If anyone is familiar with West End D6 (other than they hate it), let me know if you have any ideas in the way of this; I'm interested.

I would also recommend that if you convert this to any kind of system, you not cling too rigidly to the in-game system. In fact, totally make crap up and just put it in Paragon. Won't be the first drow to hit these city streets. :-(

((Dunno if this is happening on other servers, but currently, for at least the past twenty minutes, heroes have been unable to go into door missions or even go into the Paragon Dance Party. Game just crashes. This is my take on it, while I try and pass the time .))

Mysterious Energy Field Strands Heroes!
by Michael Targen
Professor and Freelance Writer

At approximately 1:30 AM, Eastern Standard Time on September 28th, an anomaly was discovered by Paragon City scientists, and only moments later, by the city's heroes.

From Independence Port to Talos Island, and even in the vehemently popular Paragon Dance Party, heroes found themselves stranded. Though capable of running about throughout any district they chose, any attempts to go to other areas of the city were futile, through the trams or even the simple freeways. Heroes were simply turned away by a mysterious energy field, that many found difficult to explain.

Worse yet, little contact has been had with an entire city district, which most citizens would only remember as "Kings Row." Despite the city's most powerful teleportational devices and heroes, not one hero, civilian, or even object has been transported from Kings Row. No legitimate communication has gotten through. Rebecca Prinnings, powerful psychic and known citywide as The Greaser, has been able to reach a close friend, which she claims is only possible because of their close bond. Though no words were exchanged, Greaser has felt that the hero known only as The Ninja Hunter is in some intense state of apathy, rather like a detention field so far-reaching into even emotions as to render an otherwise steel-willed hero into a careless guy holding a katana. The Greaser requests she not be contacted by any wishing to reach a loved one, as she works for the city and her father, looking for answers.

I myself am a scientist specializing in gravitational physics and extradimensional dynamics, so it is difficult for me to put this in laymen's terms. The source of this disturbance is unknown, but some entity (or entities) are displacing some sort of temporal reverse displacement. In otherwords, they are mirroring reality in several locations, with the side effect that flying from Independence Port to Brickstown, one would be surprised to find that after exiting the tunnel, they remained mysteriously in Independence Port still. This mirroring is so remarkably powerful that civilians and heroes have been forced outside of buildings and homes by the sheer essence of the disturbance. If you come across someone lying asleep on the pavement, please wake them. They may have been removed from their dwelling in their sleep and do not realize where they are. Contact the nearest hospital or empath if the victim goes into shock.

Tony Kord, Defense Systems Entepreneur was one of the first to discover the origins behind this mysterious phenomenon, due to the fact that he was one of the first to encounter it, as well. "At first, me and all the boys in the lab thought another invasion was imminent. The Rikti invasion is of course unforgettable, but last week's invasion by the 'Rularuu' beings took out several of our labs. One portal, unfortunate for the Rularuu, opened inside one of our test environments, directly over a hydrokinetic electro-spool that we had been testing," he said with a smile, "They may have come prepared for this fine city's heroes, but those creatures didn't come prepared for being dropped into several million volts." Mr. Kord claims that the portal collapsing into the electro-spool caused a gravitational "twitch", he calls it. Since this event, this "twitch", now lovingly referred to by the lab technicians as "Tex", has been a sort of barometer for dimensional activity, including high energy readings in our own dimension, the results of which Kord has shamelessly pored over in these past crucial hours, ever since the first "energy bend" that forewarned this disaster by less than a minute. Portal Corp is scheduled to purchase Tex in less than two days, but since it remains, for now, in Kord's hands, it also remains a handy research device.

Several agencies of all origins are hard at work trying to solve this dilemma, which local fisherman Robert Perigee classifies as
"God sneezed and forgot to cover his nose."

National officials have recognized this as a public emergency, and have already begun sending emergency funds and establishing emergency organizations.

The intentions of this veritable cordoning, or "corraling" of the city's population remains a mystery.

If someone you love has disappeared, or was last known to reside in or have been to Kings Row, please contact the Relief-Before-Grief Hotline at 1-800-555-UH-OH.

((It's getting a good bit late. Inform me of any errors, or tell me what you thought, please Goodnight, all! And let me apologize for the length of some of my sentences. I rather believe they could fight to the death several of Douglas Adams' smaller sentences. ))

....

Was that a question? Or just words with a question mark at the end? *totally lost*

What is "***"?

(( Incredible story! Tempts me to finally finish my own character backgrounds. Thanks a lot :-D))

Welcome to Paragon, Retro!

((Unoriginal or not, it's still really well written. My favorite line: "I, like the building, blacked out." Anyways, I didn't find your bully story very cliche' at all. Would've liked to see a little more about the football players, if they were hurt or not, and maybe a bit on how they were cleared other than the obvious "They play football" (all too true). What about the friends you left behind? Just trying to be a little constructive and see if I can spark some ideas for you. Good luck!))

Nice meeting you, Terapulse!

Everytime I see that, it bugs me, that tram driving through a tree. There's another blatant disregard for clipping elsewhere, but I forget where exactly.

((Great, if short! I'd like to see more of his personal history; who he lost in the accident, who he left behind for Paragon City, what he is fighting for. :-D Then again, my bios are always tremendously long.))

Great to meet you, Smash!

Considering the whole Paragon Times newspaper/comic book thing, and the fact that this is a report, I thought I might throw a couple errors your way, for your sake. Constructive criticism, I swear it. I'm not actually a nitpick for grammar unless I'm trying to help.

The Extradimensionl Alien Invaders

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I, like all other heroes in Paragon, were taken aback by...

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"I, like all other heroes in Paragon, was* taken aback by..."

The Portals

discernible*
hierarchy*

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This means either....1) They are geared for the aliens use only. 2) They are one way. Or 3) They require some trigger that we lack.

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"This means that 1) they* are geared for the alien's* use only, 2) they* are one-way* portals, or 3) they* require some trigger that we lack."
Can't use either if there's three possibilities.

The Eyeballs

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Literally giant floating eyeballs, approximately 6 feet in diameter, sometimes larger, these aliens are, from what we have seen so are, the field leaders.

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"Literally giant floating eyeballs, approximately six* feet in diameter, sometimes larger, these aliens are, from what we have seen so far*, the field leaders."

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Most of their forms are covered in a hard, spiky, chitin, providing...

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"Most of their forms are covered in a hard, spiky chitin, providing..."

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My own battlesuit's armor can attest to these spikes from it's numerous dents and scratches.

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"My own battlesuit's armor can attest to these spikes from its* numerous dents and scratches."

The Brutes

hierarchy*

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Named because of their brutish, ape-like builds...

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Either:
- "So named because of their brutish, ape-like builds..."
Or:
- "Named for their brutish, ape-like builds..."

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their right arms end in a large bulb, covered in bone spikes.

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Just capitalize.

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Strong and enduring, they are clearly built for combat...

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enduring-
1. Lasting; continuing; durable: a novel of enduring interest.
2. Long-suffering; patient
Unless you meant durable, that word just seems odd there.

In Closing

occurrence*


Also, you might care to note that the eyeballs can see through stealth effects and possibly invisibility (I haven't checked inviso yet, just stealth).


This is likely incomplete, just a few things I wanted to note. Probably some errors in my own text, excluding corrections.
Good luck.