Kasoh

The heat was ramping up in Paragon City. Early reports by meteorologists claimed that this could be the hottest summer on record. People who didn’t have the power to see the future didn’t immediately believe the weather reports, but did complain that the heat was starting to get a little ridiculous.

“Hot town, summer in the city, back of my neck feeling dirt and gritty. Been down isn’t it a pity, doesn’t seem to be a shadow in the city…”, Kasoh Onnoroc sang poorly and off key as he entered the lobby of the Two-Six Precinct in Kings Row, a paper back rattling with fine distilled spirits as he walked.

The wide open lobby was more humid than the one eyed doctor liked, but the large space was impossible to keep climate controlled. Kasoh nodded to a few of the officers milling about, two officers holding down a rowdy Vhazilok Mortifactor gave him a friendly return nod.

As he approached the sergeant’s desk, he saw what he was starting to consider the usual flavor for the end of a business day at the Two-Six: a few Skull hoodlums, some generic pickpockets and some street walkers. Kasoh didn’t mind, any day that went by without a murder or some Skyraider assault on a local business was a good day.

The Two-Six didn’t get a lot of good days. The past few months had been hard. Lots of personnel changes and reams of paper had been utilized as the members of the precinct fought forces from Hell and then a corruption conspiracy in the PPD’s own ranks. Nobody came out of those events smelling pretty.

“People walking around looking half dead…something something hotter than a matchhead…”

From behind the thick bulletproof glass cube that protected him from the rest of the world Julius Mustard looked up from his paperwork to sneer at the man’s arrival, “Hey Doc, save us some pain and shut your trap.”

Mustard produced a white binder that was aptly named, “Onnoroc Sign In/Out”. Flipping it open, he pushed the binder out to Kasoh, who signed back in. Part of his agreement with the City was that he signed in and out of the Two-Six whenever he took personal time. The idea offended on so many levels, but after the debacle at Ziggursky and his many altercations with the Precinct’s former Captain Fischer, he considered himself lucky to not be practicing medical quackery in the back of an alley in Port Oakes.

“Why Ketchup, you wound me. This close to shift change and you’re upset?”

Mustard scowled, “You missed the memo? Figures. Our section switches to nights tonight, and not all of us can prescribe themselves stimulants whenever they want.”

Kasoh grinned and shrugged, dismissing the portly curmudgeon’s criticisms, “Anything happen today?”

“Not down here. Quite a bit of chatter from Steel Canyon. APB out on a White Ford Econoline Van, Plates 457-VDX. Its an AMBER alert.”

Kasoh scowled, sharing a disgusted look with Mustard. AMBER alerts were issued when a young child had been forcibly taken and the city wanted everyone to know about it in case a civilian could spot the vehicle before things got ugly. Hero or Police, nobody liked hooking a case that involved kids, because somehow, any crime is just worse with kids.

“Right. Has Steel asked for any—“

The radio squawked, interrupting Kasoh’s question, “2-6 hero personnel, report to briefing room Alpha, show starts in fifteen minutes.”

Kasoh raised two fingers to his eyepatch and gave Mustard a halfhearted salute as he walked to the stairs on the left, going up to the second floor, where Briefing Room Alpha was.

The briefing room had a single executive style table with chairs ringing it. A large projector was set up already, though its display was just a laptop’s desktop. Standing against the wall was Quex, a sword wielding time displaced warrior princess from something something BC. They worked together often enough, and she spent a great deal of time in his medical office getting stitched up. She tilted her head at him and she looked pointedly at his bag of alcohol, but said nothing.

If she was going to nag, she could at least verbalize it. What was that look about? Pity? Scorn? Lust? No…probably not lust.

He took a seat and looked in the other corner, where the Precinct Captain, Simms, was talking to a woman in a suit so off the rack, she might has well had ‘Fed’ tattooed on her forehead. Immediately, he noticed the woman’s long gray hair, pointed cat ears, and other feline features including a twitching tail. Some kind of human/cat hybrid or mutation. Curious, he pulled out his new Data Tablet and tried to access the local news.

Welcome to The Two-Six: Season 3

New crimes! New personnel! Same building!

I hope that the 2-6 finds a place for humor, drama, grisly crime and the people who fight it while exploring what it means to be an imperfect hero in a city of heroes and sometimes a cop in a city of heroes.

The main thrust is this little precinct in Kings Row is manned by Superheroes who have had trouble with the City, Maybe they are too aggressive, or continually violate a suspect’s civil rights, or just made the wrong kind of political enemy, so by working at the two-six, A hero gets training, supplies, and support while supposedly getting lessons in playing well with others.

Joining is easy, just have your character show up with ‘papers’ and they’re enrolled in the program. Or they could be an upstanding hero trying to set an example and help in Kings Row, or just a hero passing by who decides to help on a Two-Sixer’s investigation. Or…whatever. Big city, small world.

It has been about a month since the last plot ended, so do not feel compelled to make this your character’s first day at the 2-6. You can if that’s what pleases you or what you’re comfortable with, but if you want people to know your character already just mention their name, how long they’ve been with the 2-6 and other misc and we can act like co-workers.

Rules: Standard RP rules, no godmodding etc.

My real goal is to tell a story or two and to finish a case unlike the last two thrusts of the Two-six. My previous GM experience is some D&D and some Mutants and Masterminds, so feel free to PM me suggestions if you think there's something to improve and if something isn't clear, please ask here in the OOC thread.

Detailed History and description of building and current NPCs follow for the curious.

History
The Two Six is an old police precinct building in the roughest part of King's Row. It was abandoned by the police in the early 80's, and has been used as a gang hangout by the Skulls, the Hellions, the Lost, and, most recently, the Trolls.

The police system chose to reactivate the station, but rather than sending in their own people, they arranged for super heroes in trouble with the law to re-open the station.

After an ugly scene involving some heroes, demonic possession, and a few excessive deaths, there had been a loud and public effort to establish PPD control over the Two-Six and it’s Vigilante Rehabilitation Program, but the furor for the program got drowned out after a large terrorist attack at Ziggursky Prison. The funds originally promised to the VRP got shunted to Anti-terror and prison programs. Only a few experimental dollars were left in the budget which was put into the now defunct telepolice experiment.

Currently, the Two-Six is an undermanned Police station supplemented by Hero support from program ‘volunteers’. Getting volunteered requires political enemies, minor criminal charges, or an actual desire to do good alongside the stalwart officers of the PPD.

The Building
The Two Six is a three story building with a basement.

The outside of the building is brown brick. There numbers '2' and '6' are attached to the outside of the wall, although the 2 is quite crooked. The PPD officers who work there take a strange satisfaction in the crooked two and attempts to fix the erstwhile number are generally sabotaged with cheeky and fun shenanigans. A wide set of steps lead up to a pair of double doors.

Though the exterior is outdated and several of the bricks are crumbling, there are new camera emplacements giving good shots of the exterior, emergency shutters were installed over all the windows and doors in case of siege, though the mechanical parts of several of the mechanisms have already been scavenged by two-six personnel and some lucky Clockwork.

Directly inside the front entrance is the main lobby. The lobby is one of the largest rooms in the Two Six. It is all hardwood floors. The various doorways are also dark wood. It is two stories tall. The second floor has access to a balcony that rings the lobby.

Benches and decorative plants line the sides, and recently, a new coat of paint and some polish have spruced the room up nicely, and two new vending machines keep desperate and hungry officers filtering through all day. The soda machine likes to steal nickels and won’t work for any magic based hero.

Centrally located in the lobby is the large sergeant's desk. It stands 6 feet tall with bullet proof glass windows shielding the sergeant's chair. A large flat screen monitor shows the camera feeds. The shutter controls have a panel inside the desk. To get into the desk area, it is a three foot step up into the desk. The sergeant's chair is overstuffed and very comfortable.

There are four exits out of the lobby. To the right are stairs leading down to the basement. To the left are stairs leading up to the second level balcony. Behind the sergeant's desk is a narrow hallway to the first floor offices.

The offices on the first floor are used for various purposes. One is the room for the desk sergeant. One is the room of the police liason. One has been remodeled into a full size kitchen, and another is a storeroom, currently holding the restroom supplies and the refills for the candy and soda machines. The first floor restrooms are next to the kitchen. There are also two observation rooms with one way mirrors and two holding rooms. The locker rooms with showers and their own restrooms are also on this floor.

At the very back of the building is a large garage that can hold up four full sized cars. The garage doors are heavy duty and resistant to damage. The motor pool consists of one Crown Victoria Police Special, one Squad Car, and a brown unmarked 1996 Dodge Caravan outfitted for surveillance. The squad car needs a new water pump, and mostly sits unused. Talos Island’s 4-5 precincts had been trying to requisition the Two-Six’s van for three months now, and it is a fight that the Two-six will probably lose.

On the second floor there are a few secure holding rooms next to the detectives’ bullpen and conference rooms Alpha and Bravo. In addition, other rooms have been turned into residences by 'volunteers.' The second floor also contains the ‘Chief’s office’, a large intimidating room currently manned by the head of the Two-Six.

On the third floor, there are medical facilities which are equipped with several high tech devices including a reclaimator. Though inconvenient, the Armory and evidence lock up is also up here. The third floor also has storage rooms for displaced office equipment, an invention table, and a few quarters for the volunteers. There is a heavy duty roof access door.

The Roof is sparse aside from a hammock rigged up near the southwest corner. A small rooftop garden is tended to where a few alien medicinal plants are grown.

In the basement is the boiler-room, the former Telepolice control center--which has yet to be repurposed--and jail cells. Ten jail cells are available in the basement. In addition, there is warwall technology installed in the basement that has strengthened the walls of the whole building and made them nearly invulnerable to destruction. This machinery is in one of the ten jail cells. There is an entrance to the sewer in the basement as well.

Current Staff (NPCs):

Julius ‘Colonel’ Mustard, still reigns over the desk and lobby for the night shift. He is the gatekeeper of the Two-six and does his job with an efficiency you wouldn’t expect from a man so vitriolic.

“He has no real sense of humor, and does hold a grudge. He is blond, fat, has a mustache, and will mutter not-so-nice things under his breath. He feels this job is beneath him, and lets the heroes know it.”

Sergeant Steven Samuel Sommers is in charge of the Armory, supplies, and general maintenance of the building. He works quietly and efficiently, but is always willing to let someone know that he needs more money. Male, Hispanic, black hair.

Mrs. Tandy Blonski is the woman in charge of the personnel office. She handles new arrivals, leave, sick days, retirement, and pay issues. She is dry as the Sahara Desert, deadpan, and quite possibly had her sense of humor surgically removed. The pool to get her to smile is up to 450 dollars. (attempts to win the pool will be decided by a roll on percentile dice.—supply your own joke) Female, Caucasian, brown hair.

Captain Wallace Simms is the new man in charge of the 2-6. He operates the police side of the house and takes credit for the work the heroes in the VRP do. Otherwise he is quite willing to leave people well enough alone. Male, African American, bald.

Maintaining a strict ‘hands off’ approach, he lets his officers do what they will as long as it doesn’t bring him trouble. If it brings him trouble he throws people under the bus until it goes away. With all the Heroes who flit in and out of the Two-Six, he is never wanting for scapegoats.

Simms is not lazy, nor is he stupid…just distant. He generally stays out of people’s way unless productivity goes down, then he starts to micromanage. So far, he hasn’t had to bring down the hammer. Since he’s the Captain, he’s not allowed to really be friends with his subordinates, but he does appreciate things done to keep the City safe.

There are nine PPD officers in a duty section on twelve hour shifts, Six AM to Six PM. Four Duty sections. Three Detectives and any inclined heroes work the investigative caseload. Though their calendars are full, it is usually enough. They will be named as necessary.

Stuff
Two-Six Personnel all have earpiece radios or access to the two-six frequency. The earpiece is standard future-tech radio. Sends/receives, transmits location data, has whisper mode and private channels for personal communication in a lightweight semi-indestructible hardened plastoid shell. Battery life is somewhere between 72 hours and infinite.

Also available are Police Scanners, which in addition to scanning standard emergency frequencies project a holographic map of the current area.

I really enjoyed the Two-Six RP, for all its shortcomings, including the curse that seems to eat its GMs.

However, neither arc in the thread really got resolved and I have had a plot idea I've wanted to run in the Heroes and Police unit style since I joined the thread, so I grumbled up the witherwall to ask:

If I started a new Two-Six thread, with new plot, would anyone be interested in joining?

For those who don't know, this is the history of the Two-six:

In the back of one of the old City of Heroes Comic Books, there was an blurb about how Heroes could lose their tax exempt status if they overzealously engaged in politics.

Accepting that means there are some financial benefits as well.

I never let concept get in the way of effectiveness in comabt. The closest I came was thinking about skipping the fire sword powers on a fire tank...but I chose to be effective instead.

Rather than focus on doing every single arc, I instead take a character and think about what kind of adventures that character would involve himself in. For example, one of my tanks is a doctor, so he did all the Vhazilok arcs, and is now working on the Devouring Earth stuff because it is what would interest him. Anything else he picks up is just gravy.

I had a EM/Elec brute who didn't get ET until after the change. Perhaps its not knowing what I am missing, but I have no desire to see the power changed. It works fine for me, which granted isn't a team heavy playstyle, but there it is.

Doesn't Oppressive gloom fit the AoE mitigation tool mold?

I suppose with a reduced radius and lousy Blaster debuff numbers, the Blaster Tar Patch wouldn't be anything to write home about, but the -res gives me pause is all.

Tar patch is almost too good, even with a reduced radius, Touch of fear I think would fit better.

Well, most of my villains go to a patron because the powers in it complement their already existing abilities, like my Ice/Ice Dominator needs Hibernate. Since that is role played as an extension of her own powers, She went with mako and learned the sharkskin technique because he wasn't dead, crazy paranoid, or playing noble.

My Tech EM/Elec brute goes with Scirocco because of the electricity powers that don't neccessarily come from magic, but her own suit, but her personality complements Scirocco's enough that it makes sense.

My Science SS/INV brute on the other hand, went with Ghost Widow because she just wants to make Ghost Widow laugh, and learning how to throw negative energy fireballs using the souls of the men she's killed is just a fun bonus.

I usually do it like this: Find the patron pool that most complements your character, be it similar powers themes or the utility they actually offer. If the powers look like they could belong to your character then you don't need to justify it because the power list says "Mu Mastery".

If you can't find a way to seperate the powers from the pool, like the SS/INV brute above, then figure out why the character would join with that patron. Was it expressly to get the powers or some other 'non accumulation of power' based reason?

Balgair smiled ruefully, "No where near as nice as you it would sound." She pointed to Samwise, who was now watching the fight outside with great interest.

"That's Samwise. His brother's girlfriend's uncle was going to be having financial difficulty if one of the congressman's bills passed. As a favor, we were going to kidnap him and do a sundry list of nefarious and vile things to him to get him to drop it."

She shrugged, "Turns out, everyone and their brother wants a piece of him. Our being here is almost superflous. No idea there would be magic artifacts, crazy little kids, or Acid Zero."

"I don't think we're going to get what we want anymore though. All the excitement outside will probably blow up all the goodies."

Sev stepped up and handed Balgair her shotgun and a bandoiler of shells. She strapped them on.

"Normally I'd be all spiteful and just start shooting that crowd outside. Head hurts to much for that."

Getting a briefing from Samwise as they approached the woman, Balgair realized just how little they actually knew. Congressman was outside in the middle of a Sticky-wicket, woman here was standing over unconscious men in the dark, and there had been a fight in the basement, probably the morgue.

Now, how to best phrase the questions so it sounded like she already knew the answers...

And her head started throbbing. Okay, not up to clever thoughts at the moment. Start easy, move directly to threats of violence.

Balgair turned from the mess outside, shaking her head. It had been such a good opportunity too. Oh well. If the congressman survived this outlandish assault on his person, he'd probably end up somewhere easier to kidnap than surrounded by a half dozen meta humans.

Samwise looked out the door, holding his large assault weapon tightly. She didn't even wait for him to speak, "No. I'm sure you'd love it if I got all covered in red paint, but its not going to happen. C'mon."

The mastermind found Moose and Knuckles guarding the woman in black. "Wake her up. I want to know what's going on."

Samwise deposited the woman and the unconscious workers in empty hospital beds, leaving Knuckles and Moose to guard the spell casting woman. The burly mercenary went back to where he had left the boss, and was surprised when the bed was empty.

"Boss!"

Shocked and scared, for he wasn't ready to lead these mercs much longer, Samwise ran around looking for the one person who gave order to his life.

Soon enough, he spotted her looking out the glass doors and he ran up to the purple haired mercenary commander--quite possibly to hug her in a most unprofessional fashion. He stopped short at Sev's glare.

"Boss?"

"Just watching the show Sam." Her voice was back to its hard and flat tone, seriousness oozing from her posture.

"We gonna get the man like we said?"

"I think not. More going on here than I could have guessed. No more favors for your brother's girlfriend's Uncle. Okay?"

"Right boss."

1) Ah, Doomtastic. She's all sugar and sweetness with corny jokes and a happy go lucky attitude that cannot be penetrated. Even moments of rage have a silly aspect to them. Only problem is that she loves fighting. Its never about the score, or ruling the world, or killing the heretics for Doom. "Was the fight totally awesome, and did I look good doing it?" are her only qualifications for a successful job. She's an over the top proverbial mustache twirling villain and I love her dearly.

2) I cannot ever maintain a good mood as long as Doom has. The closest character I've ever come to relating to is Sam Varden, my first scrapper. Her paperwork was misfiled by the city and now everyone thinks she's a superhero. She secretly loves doing it, but on the surface is very frustrated with how hard it is to make people understand that she's just a mechanic.

3) I've only used Doom twice in RP. In game, its easy as she's the one who says 'Lets just jump him' and laughs when Manticore's Teleport Arrow one shots her. Her entire attitude keeps her from getting involved in the large dastardly plots of most villains. She wants to have fun by fighting with Superheroes, but superheroes are so stodgy and villains are so...mean.

4) If its a story I'm telling, The characters serve the story I'm telling. I wouldn't put a character who would derail it in, because that detracts from the story I'm trying to tell. Characters are victims of the plot. If the opposite happens, then the plot wasn't really strong enough to carry the story anyway and I shouldn't bother finishing it. In RP and more free form stuff, since its usually not my scenario I can let the characters react as I can best guess they would.

5) Powers, Origin, Costume. Origin is important to costume for me, as certain origins usually have certain looks. Then, once all that is done I struggle with a name for forty minutes or so, then write a bio. I used to use proper names for characters, but I fell out of that habit when I realized it wasn't very super hero-y. A few times I had the name first, as it was with Doomtastic, or with Kasoh, who was a literal transfer of a character from a different MMO.

6) The heroes don't do it usually excepting the odd AR blaster or two. The villains are more widespread. Doomtastic used to kill willy-nilly, but decided that wasn't as much fun because people dying makes most people sad. Other villains will or will not depending on their mood and estimated threat of the person they are defeating.

Nodding in satisfaction at a job presumably well done, Samwise waved Rick off further attempts to revive the unconscious men. They were in a hospital after all, no need to waste their resources on it.

"Any...uh...clues an' stuff?" he asked

Behind his night vision goggles, Ocnar rolled his eyes. He pointed to the shattered device the matron dropped. "She was holding that."

All the mercenaries took a few steps away from the shattered glass.

"Well...lets take it with us." Samwise said. This leading thing was *hard*! How did the boss do it?

Ocnar muttered something unpleasant under his breath, but patted down his pockets for a container of sorts. Finally, he gave up and pulled out a thick brown package universally recognized as a Meal Ready to Eat, or MRE. The thick vacuum sealed bag would work. Plucking a knife from his belt, he cut the bag open and stuffed the contents into his hip pocket.

Knuckles huffed, "Why do you always get the spaghetti ones Ocnar? You're Irish!"

Everyone ignored him.

Using a piece of paper he grabbed from the desk, the special ops merc swept up as much of the glass and contents as he could find, then folded the bag shut and sealed it with some black tape.

Giving the thumbs up to Samwise, Ocnar stepped out of the room, checking both directions with his assault rifle before giving the all clear sign.

Each soldier grabbed a man and Samwise picked up the matron. They slowly began working their way back to the stairs, able to move more quickly now that the lights were on.

Moose and Ocnar swooped down upon the slumped woman, restraining her to the best of their abilities.

"Room Clear!" Knuckles shouted back as Ocnar gave the thumbs up.

Samwise and Rick stepped inside, and Rick began to check the unconscious men for injury. When Ocnar mentioned the brief light show, Rick took out a roll of gauze to stuff in the presumed magician's mouth. It didn't stop all magic users, but it it covered quite a few.

The hulking Commando meanwhile looked at the electrical panels and opened them up, trying his best to fix whatever was wrong with it.

It wasn't the Urban Fellow of Merry Wit's fault. Tonbogiri had an active dislike of cheerful people. Gliding through life assuming that things have little bow on top happy @#$!%^ endings. It could have been any individual, but alas, for the boy, he had spoken first.

Hoping that she knocked some of the cheerfulness out of him, she said, "When nobody wants you, they're the people who shove you into closets so the city doesn't look bad."

Watching Jon reanimating the chicken brought some mirth to Tonbogiri's face. It was likely using one's powers to harass other students was against the rules in that book she'd likely never bother to read, but Tonbogiri didn't much concern herself with it. After all, his actions were his responsibility.

Prompted by Jon's statement, she looked around the room, her eyes flaring with purple energy as she scanned for other nictus. She didn't spot any here at the party, but the new girl had some kind of Kheldian energy within her. Tonbogiri looked at her and nodded in a 'hello' kind of fashion.

"I..."

She opened her mouth to introduce herself, then stopped. An odd expression played across her face, something akin to forgetting where one has put their cell phone.

"I'm Tonbogiri."

She coughed a harsh bitter chuckle, "How about that? You don't care and I can barely decide."

Wishing her skirt had pockets, Tonbogiri laced her fingers together and held her hands in her lap, and felt like a complete doofus doing it. Well, that was one down. She should get face time in with a couple of people, just to cement her presence.

But she didn't get up just yet.