Gideon

Brilliant.

Cross Country Pantomime.

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I admit, even some of my RP friends look at me funny if I say I'm currently playing a 19 year-old sword-swinging nymphet...

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Well, imagine some of the looks I'd get if I told my non-RP friends about Ellie, then...

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look at my character record. Now try explaining that one away...

The Deep Past.

Late was the hour, yet still, the acolytes filled the Temple courtyard. Here would their prayers be answered. Here would their Lord, the Shining One himself, come, and grant them the power to survive the darkness that was chasing the Land. The right sacred incense burned. The right number and colour of candles cast their fitful light over the Great Seal and the Altar. The very stones thrummed with all the massed power of the High Ancients, the oldest of their priests, channelling their strength into a great work, to summon the presence of their God into the temple, to grant their chosen one the ability to stand against the abyss.

The candidate already stood, bare to the chest, his weapons gleaming in his hands, already to assume the mantle of what his elders had assured him would be the greatest glory the world could bestow. He was a warrior, he was ready. He briefly checked his reflection in the blade of one mighty sword. Yes,truly time for the hero to stand forth, for now was most dire. For now was the last time in this age of the world that they would be able to bring their god across the barrier between the divine realms and the mortal. It had to be here,it had to be now.

The chanting rose to a crescendo, the flow of power became a torrent, a gale. Chanting in that nameless tongue, they priests bent the energies to their will, opening the way. A blinding flash stunned the crowd into silence, air sucked into a hole where once there was space. Out of it stepped the form they knew so well from statue, from graven image. tall, bronze, the pinnacle of perfection, the god stood before them, space flowing back to hold his passage. All present fell down to their knees in obeisance at their divine lord made flesh. he turned, and studied them with a look that spoke of profound thoughts, of someone who would consider well before speaking, whose every word was wisdom. He looked around them, and then he spoke thusly:

"Hmm? What? There's a formula for this isn't there? Ah yes. Oh ye mortals, I have returned to my chosen people. Let..." He stopped, as if waiting for an invisible prompter like an actor on the amphitheatre. "Let my chosen servants speak, that I may hear, and grant my people strength in their need." He looked around, beaming at his audience. A few of the younger priests openly gawped, the older end looked like they were hastily trying to rewrite their mental scripts. "Well, get on with it. Don't have all day you know. Places to see, wonders to do, things like that."

At this point, the high priest, recovering a measure of his usual aplomb, approached the shining figure of his god. "Oh, ye, high lord. We, your chosen people beseech you. Great is our need, dark is the time. Our foes beset our land, and would destroy it from within and without. We seek your aid to.. "

"Get on with it will you?" the god yawned.

"... err, yes divinity. We seek your aid to create the means to drive the foes from the land, to create a force for good in the world. We seek you to imbue the ancient powers spoke of in legend, to enable our champion to stand steadfast against any foe, to embody within him the cosmological principles, the elements in the flux, and all the stars in their..." he trailed off. His own lord, wisest of the wise, was quietly muttering to himself, rolling some of the words back around to fit them into some sort of structure. Every so often he would look up, half raise a hand as comprehension dawned, then would sink into that same thought. This was not part of the plan. A God was supposed to be wise, brave, intelligent, all powerful. finally, the god smiled, a happy smile of a man solving a riddle.

"Oh, you want me to grant you the Savage Angel, right? Well, why didn't you say so before. Could have done it without all that tedious waffle." He absently waved a hand, and the entire temple shook. From somewhere out in the courtyards, there was a cry as a falling pot hit some poor unfortunate on the head. Every priest felt that power surge. The god has spoken. "There, it's done."

The hero, who didn't really feel any different, looked round, at all the people looking between him and the god. He shrugged. Maybe this was some kind of slow effect. maybe his infusion would come slowly. He watched as his god sauntered off towards the rift. The High Priest caught up to the wandering god. "Oh, lord most high... err, do you think you can see your way clear to telling what we need to do..and how long our hero will take to come into his power?" the god turned to look at him, the gaze of the beautiful, the brave, the bold... and the unutterably thick. "Oh, I'm sure your champion will happen along very soon. These things take care of themselves after all."

With this said, he stepped back through his rift, which closed behind him. The rest of the congregation stared in shock at the sudden empty, silent room. To one side, the hero strode out to the main courtyard, where he went to proclaim his power, and was greeted by the sight of a bunch of people helping a poor young acolyte who had been hit over the head by a falling pot. Graciously, as befit his true stature, he extended a hand to help the young man. The young man, still disorientated, pulled perhaps a little too hard. The hero of civilisation, saviour of the people, was unceremoniously thrown across the courtyard by the half delirious young man.

The priests all looked at each other. Secretly, each was wondering whether he could make it to his emergency bolt-hole before the crowd got wind of it.

Clearly, the whole thing was a farce.

Assuming you aren't completely swamped I'd kill for:

Savage Angel

<insert infinite number of pleases hereabouts >

Good stuff.

Birdys one is probably more accurate.

But Cass's one is better.

So, how'd we get from electioneering to Thor Shots and other Orbital Kinetic Impactor Weapons?

Some of the americans have worked out that they think the trigger is converting salvage into a costume slot.

Threads been around nearly as long as we have.

The Prologue - Visiting Hours

“Um, hello? Angela, can you hear me?” The voice was concerned, male, with the slight gravel of age, but somehow off, as if the speaker was unused to speaking, well, much of anything. Angela struggled back to wakefulness, sitting upright in her bed, the hospital room bright and cheery. Sunlight, a spring day, and the smell of cut flowers...and an older man, dressed in hat and overcoat, perched in one of the visitors chairs, helping himself to her grapes.

“I didn't know I was due any visitors?” Angela said, hoping by her tone of voice to subtly imply that she'd been having a really nice rest, and perhaps this stranger could stop eating her complimentary fruit now, thanks. The visitor seemed thoroughly oblivious to any nuance or subtly, however.

“That's a matter of debate. In one sense, this meeting's been due since the day you were born, destined to happen, you might say. In another... no, I didn't organise this.” He studied his fingernails for a few moments, as if mulling over what he was going to say next. “Actually, this is all rather embarrassing, really. Normally, as these things go, I'd have appeared to you out of a flash of light, told you about your destiny, and told you to get on with it... but it's all gone pear-shaped, and you modern humans are so annoying about this kind of thing. I blame television.” Appeared to like the sound of his own voice too, even if he was doing a good job of being genuinely chastened about the embarrassment he'd referred to. Not that he'd explained much of anything, really.

Gradually, as she managed to wake up some more, she became more aware of the little incongruities, the not-quite-rightness of where she was. Last time she remembered anything, it had been October, and raining fit to float a boat. Also, and perhaps more worryingly, she was in a hospital bed, with no staff or active machines in sight... and that nagging memory of bricks was becoming more urgent in the back of her head. Still, in spite of everything, there was still a man, sitting in her chair, eating her grapes, muttering on about... “waitaminute, you said destiny? Humans? Now I think about it, who and what the hell are you anyway, and what are you doing here?”

The visitor finished off the grapes, and sat up, brushing his hands off in a gesture that looked, well, slightly too well-rehearsed. Like someone who knew what body language was supposed to look like but hadn't quite lived with it. “I don't really have a name, but if you want to attach a label to me, Mac will do as well as anything else, I suppose. As for my status and purpose, I guess you could say they're all part of the same thing. See, there's no easy way to say this, without sounding overly portentous, but whatever. You, Angela Thorpe, are chosen of the gods, chosen to wear the title of the Savage Angel, chosen to fight evil and injustice wherever it raises its head, latest in a long line of.. yadda yadda yadda, but you've heard the shtick before, right? Warrior against evil, unto every generation... see, too much television?”

Angela looked at him steadily. She knew she should be shocked, confused, asking stupid questions like who, how, and above all why me? Depressingly, though, what he was saying didn't even seem like much of a surprise, now she heard the words. Still, she had her pride, and one of the things she was sure of was “No. There's no way I can go off and be a hero, not because of some damn-fool Power. I don't have any magic, they said so that day they did the Power Testing at university. There's no way, I can be....” she stopped, as something else flagged itself up in her head, something else Mac had said. “You said pear-shaped. What's gone wrong? Why am...” She trailed off, as the nagging memory of bricks loomed in her head, transmuting into a distinct memory of bricks, of rubble, plummeting down from above. Wrong Place, Wrong Time, and a building falling on me. Well, that explains the hospital, anyway. She had the feeling she shouldn't be so blasé about the thing, but at the moment, she really did feel kind of abstracted.

“So you remember? Good, that makes this a little easier.” Mac got that same slightly embarrassed look. “See, all of this started a number of thousand years back, in one of those Lost Mystical Kingdoms ™” (she could almost hear the letters T M, the way he said it.) “They were beset by foes, so decided to appeal to their god for aid. Now, he was a nice enough chap, strong, brave, well-mannered, urbane, the light and hope of the people who followed him.” Mac lowered his voice, as if not wanting to be caught saying the next bit. “The one thing he wasn't was especially bright. Didn't consider the details, you see. He just waved his hand, and set up this whole destiny and responsibility thing. Created a line of heroes, down throughout the millennia. Kind of forgot to specify exactly how that was going to work, how his patsy was going to get their power, and under what circumstances their destiny would occur.” Mac rolled his eyes. “that's more or less where I come in. The world had what I can only describe as a mystic allergy to the fact that that power was floating around without any guidance, and I, or at least something that I am the current example of, was formed. Basically, your expectations combined with your need for guidance and the destiny pressure form this little pseudo-construct that explains it all, and then evaporates, job done. As I said, in the old days, it was easy. Golden trumpets, choirs,and most people took that as a sign from on high, and acted accordingly. Modern humans are a lot odder about the whole thing. Still, my essential function is to whisper, influence and suggest to minds and spirits to manoeuvre you into the place where your future manifests itself.” he poured himself some of her complimentary water, and went to the window.

“So, now, I just have to choose to accept my destiny and go off and be a hero? What, if I might ask, happens if I refuse? Or if I just do nothing either way? Do you disappear up your own backside, and go off and bother some other sap?”

Mac sighed, and turned around to face her. Something in his eyes was different, apologetic, and yet at the same time iron-hard. “You know you're in a hospital, yes? Well, do you really know what's happening now?”
As he spoke, the room shifted, becoming subtly different. The curtains were drawn the room slightly darker, less inviting. Machines beeped and whined, the hiss-click of an artificial respirator. She was now standing at the foot of the bed, looking down it at herself, wired up to tubes and cables nine ways from Sunday. Silent, sleeping, except for the hiss of the mask. Now she really did feel the panic, suddenly finding herself on her knees, the shock robbing her of practically every emotion but fear. “You never did wake up. Five months you've been there, waiting. Waiting for the future to happen. Destiny came up, and beat you over the head to get you to this point. The worst mistake in the world... unleashing power without ensuring control over its application, and you're the unlucky sap it happened to. You know this is true, deep down. You know.”

Angela finally found the power of speech again, her throat dry, suddenly. “What happens now? If I refuse...”

“if you refuse, then I leave. You never hear from me again. And in a few days, maybe a few weeks, when even your insanely strong will to live gets tired, then you'll just drift away. And they'll turn of the machines and that, as the man says, will be that. No more Angela, and some other poor kid,just being born, gets a destiny.” It was the matter of fact way he said it that chilled her just then. Like it was just another of those things. “If you choose it, however, then you get a chance. You'll get to go home, live, enjoy the world, and maybe save it. No guarantees, but it's a chance. Also, you forget I'm partly based on your subconscious. Deep down, I think you'll enjoy it. Once you get over how you got into it...”

Angela stood up, the room spinning back around her until she was where she was, back in her bed, though the memory of what she'd just seen was still there. “That's really no choice at all is it?” she said accusingly. “Die or be a hero?” She stopped, looking at her fingernails, unconsciously mirroring Mac's gesture earlier. “Alright. You've got me convinced. A chance at a life, and doing something to help the world? I still think you need someone better qualified, but that's just between you and me. So.. what happens now? You wave a hand, and I get magic powers?”

“Right this second? Nothing. I can only guide and suggest people. I don't have the power for such an imbument. You just go back to sleep, and in the unlikely event that you remember any of this at all, it's as a coma-dream, a vague might-have-been recollection, even with the powerful senses that come with this little gig. Your will will stay strong, and very soon, one will come and put you back together, will see to your empowerment and will be something of a mentor. He's a bit of a Fool, but I think he'll do. And his wife will make his life a living misery if he doesn't do his best by you.” With this cryptic remark, Mac doffed his hat, and Angela found herself suddenly tired. Sleep really did seem like a good idea, but she did have one parting comment. “You owe me more fruit, Mac.”

Elsewhere

Arthur Savage, Doctor, Medical Nanotech specialist, and sometime wearer of the name Jester Savage sneezed... and had a sudden urge to buy some grapes.

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The damage is done. It was a silly mistake. Nothing, as far as I know, is lost. Yes it's annoying. Yes ppl are upset. But it's done. It's being sorted and a ban is in effect. I don't think a witchhunt is helping.

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oh I don't know, it's sort of satisfying, and is making me fee better about the whole thing.

One Joanna Ferro, reporting as ordered. Fake ID's available for any and all ages.

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... No. We are not going to go into the interesting debates about Invun characters that got brought up a while ago. Please, hell no. ><

I'M SORRY GIDEON! I NEVER MEANT TO ASK THAT QUESTION OUT LOUD ABOUT SARA AEGIS!

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What qu.... oh.


oh.

*Washes brain out with mind-bleach. A lot.*

That said, Sara blatently is OTT in the invulnerability stakes. I mean, by game, a 50 invuln isn't all that much any more. By story, sara has basically survived discorporation, an attempt to make her move by what was effectively a demigod (admittedly, that was countergodmodding a godmodder,) at least one trip to hell, having numerous buildings dropped on her, and the periphery of a nuke blast.

Main reason she hasn't had to do worse is throwing worse around at GG would be very hard to do without breaking things like streets, cities, planets, kind of thing. Specifically though, her resistance is mainly plot-related. Like John Constantine said about the Spectre "whatever it is, sometimes it's practically the most powerful thing in the universe. Sometimes it's little more than a bloke in white tights and a green hood. It's been up and down the occult league tables faster than a [censored]'s drawers."

Metafictioning plot-armour can be amusing.

Minute 5
The SHADOW unit made it to the high speed lifts, blasting through the floor and then dropping to the base of the shaft without seeming to take much damage. A brief moment of motion from above warned it, as its channel gun flared, ctaching a descending shape square on. The figure, for a person it was, crumpled and hit the floor, hard. Shadow 7 started to turn, as sensors linked to databanks chimed in with what data they had about the former target.

Positive ID: Target Priority 7a. Threat Rating Omega. Designation: Arachidamia. Tactical Analysis: Regenerator. Do not Assume Death until Radical Dismemberment, target is...
7 swung its arm guns back into line, to be met with a glowing, thoroughly angry and, by this point, bare-torsoed swordswoman. The blade came up, shearing through the left arm-cannon, and the arm beneath it then fouling up the weapon power feeds on the right, coming around to shred the channel-weaponry as well, only to be met by an extended blade from the right-arm port. Metal glowing with mystic force met metal glowing with scientific force, the armoured stalker and the battered warrior locked in melee combat. even armless and gunless, 7 was a scary prospect in a fight.

Sparks flew.

12:04:42
Malta Zeus Titan 24-BRX-7, designate "Trafalgar" was busily applying suppressive fire to the scene, while maintaining its picket around the huge Kronos titan, keeping intruders at bay. Then, a small object sailed through the air, landing just in front of it, behind the Kronos. The metal shape, round and suitcase-sized, unfurled itself, revealing a squat barrel, not unlike a cross between a mortar, and one of the Maltas own autoturrets. The bleeping, shiny machine began to spin, unleashing burst after burst of canisters, canisters which shattered on impact, releasing rainsd and clouds of corrossives on all enemy targets, interfering with armour and display systems, never quite enough to do real damage, but enough to weaken armour and slow movement. As Trafalgar moved to squash this little irritation, it exploded, as a hail of laser and plasma-cannon fire impacted against its weakened hull, breaching the primary power systems. Past a billowing drift of smoke, strode the strangest portable army in creation. Gleaming robots, gleaming chrome and flashing lights, strode in battle formation, firing with perfect timing and synchronisation against targets of opportunity, bringing down troops and crippling and breaking titans alike. In the midst of the group, encircled by force-fields generated by a hovering drone, were two figures. One, the biggest of the combat robots, unleashing hails of missiles and plasma cannon fire in support of its lesser bretheren, the monniker "Friday" plainly stenciled on one burly metal arm. The other figure wore battle armour, looking like a fusion between robot and suit. Dead black, helmeted, visored, the smaller figure fired on targets of opportunity with a decidedly efficient pulse rifle. Friday sported a back-banner with the symbol of the Jolly Roger, slightly singed, but still grinning out at the Malta. The smaller also sported Jolly Roger Motifs, as well as a pair of speakers that were currently blasting out "blitzkrieg bop."

If asked, the robot mistress extreme, anarchist and technopirate that currently had her walking fortress stomping around the plaza would have stated that she was just there to foment chaos and discord, to bring mere anarchy upon both sides. In actuality, none of those beams got near any of the defenders.

Opening up breathing space, the metal death-cadre opened up on the kronos from behind, raucous punk songs occasionlly threatening to drown out the actual noise of battle.

Josie was having fun.

Minute Zero
12:00:37: An office on the north wall had a rather handy hole blown in it from a Kronos titan main gun. It might have occasioned the gun-spotters some irritation to note that said office, while indeed being very important, had been vacated some 2.7 seconds earlier by a leather-clad blur moving at a mind-buggering rate of knots. A gale of paper, and only slightly magical (and otherwise pointless) knicknacks rained down on the plaza.


Vigilance Tower: A pile of classroom marking drops to the floor, as its marker suddenly fades into a purple blur and then invisibility.

Minute 1:

12:01:10
Gunslinger Rho Kappa Blue ported ahead, into the deserted corridor beyond the ruined "Mystical Affairs" office. Wary, he stalked down that corridor, alert for any of the vigilants, or the metahumans he was hunting. A the slamming open of a door behind him launched him into practised action, spinning and activating his jump generator, porting about 8 feet back to clear the range, then opening fire. Bullets sailed down the corridor, into empty air, even while his generator was still recharging, his momentum carried him back, the back of his neck touching something cold and sharp and why was the room spinning and just how did one look at ones own belt buckle from upside down anyw....

Arachidamia flicked the blood off her sword, stalking off down the corridor even before the disparate parts of one overconfident (and now perpetually a foot shorter) malta gunslinger hit the floor. The gloves were off, she had taken up the mantle of the warrior completely, with no regrets and no second thoughts. Again.

Heads will roll


Minute 2
Vigil Tower:
12:02:23
The sapper team that had just accosted Leo was making its way up to the door he'd gone through, moving with practised skill. As they were stepping up to the door itself, a most curious event occurred. Sapper Annunzio suddenly vanished, a purple flare of light marking his teleportation, the answering flare and noise came from a floor down. Locked into bindings of dark matter, he was helpless to resist as Penumbral Song, eyes the dead purple glow of full power, hurled bolt after bolt of energy into the sapper. Some of his team managed to get back down to him, in time to see him crumple, and this woman.. this thing suck part of their own life out of them, only fuelling her own glow, changing into what intelligence reports labelled "Ruktur," the hulking war-form most people only knew as "dark dwarf." Backing off, and opening fire in the face of this monolithic menace, one of theoperatives got off a comms signal as blows started to rain down, and the noise of combat, of bullets and blows exhanged, began in earnest. "Bring up quantum weaponry. Alien infestation confirmed."

12:02:31
Moving steadily downwards, a trail of dead and injured knives and malta ops behind her, Damia was moving as quickly as she could in the tight quarters of the corridors. her armour and clothing were torn, from hits that had gone in, but the skin beneath untouched, her own regeneration working overtime, as she systematically annihilated every enemy she came upon. The Knives... were a challenge, but her mystically overdrive senses could pinpoint them, and after that it was just straight sword-play. She was handing around object lessons in the art with generous abandon today.

halfway to ground...

And the irritating thing? We already have the perfect sword length. The classic old-school broadsword was just the right length for what the set did. Now the design sucked, but the length was right.

That's what we want. Not so much giant swords (although those are cool too, I agree with BAB's logic there) but swords the length of the old BS weapon, but in the new designs.

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a dev team sensitive to their community's needs and desires. I think that NCNC fits that bill nicely .


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Good - we need and desire a lot of things

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<Insert Obligatory Animated Hair Joke Here>

<Insert Obligatory Futile Request for Longer Hair Options for Male Toons Here>

We want a lot of things. Doesn't mean we'll get 'em.

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I don't go much for linked characters, it seems somehow incestuous. The only two who reference each other are Jason Caine and Lilith Pendragon, who have been alternatively lovers and mortal enemies down through the millenia.

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A yes and no moment here. I have at least one Old Family of Wierdness (The Fortune family, who have produced a couple of my dubious creations) but they are mostly a spoof on all those Old Wizarding Families in Hairy Potter, albeit converting into the setting with major changes. The others are not linked, at least not directly (occasionally via other characters, but not directly.)

Count me in too. I do have non-gods y'know

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Did I miss the announcement somewhere?

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http://uk.boards.cityofheroes.com/sh...;Number=624010

Yes. Yes you did.

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As for the Pillars of Ice and Flame… There’s a quote somewhere (don’t ask me where, I can’t recall right now) that says that if you show technology to a primitive culture, they’ll regard it as being magic.

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Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Clarks third Law.

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Clarke's, surely?

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The reverse is also true. "Any sufficiently advanced form of magic is indistinguishable from technology."

Part of the problem is inherent in the very concept of a hi-tech armour suit. Since it generally costs so much money, anyone who has one would tend to be either stinking rich, or is in hock to an army or corp. In the latter case they're not a hero, just another goon (cf. Paragon protectors.) 90% of the heroes with military backing at some stage in their careers have all gone either rogue, officially retired, or otherwise taken themselves out of the chain of command.

Nobody wants to be just a cog in the machine. Unfortunately, you kind of have to be, unless your suit is yours and nobody elses. Masses of money is one of the very few ways to truly achieve that (there are others, but it's a good standby)

You don't actually need to have something be copyrighted to be plagerising it. Just copying.