Paradigm_Shift

Tafari grumbled as he crossed the desert. Grumbled and swore. He didn't NEED to cross the desert. He could have instantly traveled at the speed of light anywhere on the planet...If he had the slightest idea of where he needed or wanted to go. As it were, he did not know either. He had considered just using his league-stepping ability to cross the desert itself in a flash, but then realized that if he did that, he might accidentally miss something important, like a missile silo connected to the center of the planet or some such rubish. So he was walking.

It was slow.

"Damnit, deserts are supposed to be awesome and action-packed!" He complained to the air. "The ONE terrain type absent from the Rogue Isles and Saint [censored] City, and when I DO finally get to experience it, it's CRAP. No Molgera-Twinmoldesque dune worms, no storms, no lightning sand, no sand golems, no sand vortexes, no subterrainian burrowing insect things, no energy beings composed of fire, no djinn and certainly no damn signs of life except [censored] all flies and gnats."

He looked up and glared angrily at the sky.

"I WANT ADVENTURE, DAMNIT!" He shouted furiously. "NO SELF RESPECTING PERSON-DISPLACING GEOFORM HAS EVEN ONE UNINTERESTING SPOT!"

Very suddenly, a shadow was cast over a very large area of space just ahead...

He was falling. He had been for quite some time, but now was the first moment he was conciously aware of the fact.

'...Falling...'

It was not a graceless fall. He was falling in a straight-up position, like a thrown needle about to bury iself in a wall.

'...Wait. Falling. It fell, and I...[censored].'

The previously stiff and statue-like figure suddenly started flailing about in its descent, and finally took the time to get a good view of its surroundings. The sky above was a patchwork of colors. Directly above, the sky was orange. Several degrees to the North, it was blue, and green to the south, and in fact the entire sky in every direction was a quilt of colors. Looking down, the figure could see the very first clouds on its drop. He was at the very outermost layer of the planet's atmosphere...

'Plenty of time to get out of this [censored] mess then, at least...' The falling figure thought, although in truth he already knew how to recover from such a fall. However, he knew that something was awaiting him at the end of the vast drop. Something that would utterly destroy him, where the ground and gravity would fail. And he was going to land right on top of it...Looking down to the land below, the figure saw that it, like the sky, was a vast patchwork. He saw cities, advanced mega-metropolises next to simple mud dwellings, a vast canyon, castles, lands of shadow, alien landscapes, an icy mountaintop...It was as if the landscape could not decide what it wanted to look like. This was all ignored in favor for viewing what was directly underneath the figure's feet:

Empty space. One patch amongst the huge collection with nothing of interest. A smooth, peaceful plain. The figure narrowed his eyes, the same focus that enhanced his accuracy enhancing his perception as well. There was nothing down there.

'Wait...' He focused his gaze.

Correction, there was something down there. Rather, someone. There were standing right below him, unmoving, as if waiting to be obliterated by his inevitable impact.

'[censored]' He thought.

The falling figure flailed some more in an attempt to correct the angle at which he was falling. Hurtling into the side of a mountain or down a crevice leading to the center of the planet was infinitely preferable to impacting that lone person standing below him. For he knew that while the person itself was not much of anything worth aknowledging, they carried an object of power. An object of power with a very narrow portfolio within it was actually useful, but the falling figure knew exactly what it would do once he smashed head-long into the nobody who possessed it. The falling figure rushed past the clouds he had seen earlier. He hit terminal velocity and then accelerated as he fell, as if fate itself was speeding his way to Death's door out of spite. The figure himself, not prone to panic in even the most dire of situations normally, was practically having a heart attack. Pure and unadulterated high-octane unleaded nightmare fuel flowed through his entire body, a primordial sense of terror welling within his mind, and screaming at the top of its lungs as it clentched greedily at every particle of his being.

He fell even further. The tips of the various mountains dotting the landscape greeted him, and then immediately said farewell. The lone speck below was looking a lot larger now...The falling figure continued to flail uncontrollably. He fell even further. The tips of a few sky-scrapers blankly followed his decent past them. He fell even further. And now he could clearly see the person he was about to crash into clearly. It looked familiar, and it also looked genuinely surprised as it looked up at him. Before, it had been looking upon the strange piece of scrap-metal in its hands...

If it was possible to die of fright, the falling figure would have shot right through an Aeon's worth of reincarnations.

And then he woke up.

***

'...[censored].' He thought wearily as he opened his eyes. He was lying flat on his back, upon the soft ground. He leapt to his feet in a single rapid motion, and felt at his chest like a person would feel at their heart, checking for the abnormality that was within his body. To be absolutely sure.

'...It's still there...' He thought, instantly relaxing. His body, previously more tensed than a wound-up coil, relaxed. He closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. The terror that had previously filled him fled. '...All is as it should be. Ok. Alright. Ahehehe.' The figure grinned and opened his eyes.

He was in the middle of a desert.

"Well. [censored]." He said in disbelief. This was NOT where he had gone to sleep. His first instinct was to look up, and there he saw a very familiar patchwork sky. He looked down once more, spinning on his feet. In the vast distance beyond the vision of a normal person, but easily within his sight, lay the variety of multiple landscapes that seemed to war with each other in every possible way. It was the same patchwork world of his dreams.

"[censored]." He growled in a stern voice, clenching his fists. "I don't have time for this [censored]! Whichever [censored] dropped me here had better UN-drop me right NOW before I hunt you down and curb-stomp you and grind your head into a fine paste that becomes fused with the ground!" He shouted vainly at the air before turning silent and fuming with anger.

Tafari thought for a moment. Something like this had happened before. Several times, in fact. He would be minding his own business and then *Yoink!* You have been dropped into a different world, sucker! Such ordeals usually wound up taking YEARS to get out of, and this was probably not an exception.

"'An great, now I have to walk the [censored] planet until I find a stupid macguffin or kill everyone or kill the right emaciated overlord or find the stupid control center of start a revolution or free the slaves or kill the god - On second thought, that last one would be nice - or eat the stupid crunchy fruit or run into the right street-post or fall down the right hole or jump on a really big trampoline or..." Tafari muttered to himself furiously as he started walking in a random direction.

"Heads are gonna roll for this." He seethed as he began his likely very long journey across the vast desert.

Aurora is all but a dead and forgotten heroine. Her one thing was being Sister Psych's host. Nobody remembers her. Nobody cares about her. She appears in ONE mission villainside, and probably not at all blueside. She DEFINES canon fodder.

...

Yes, so is Weaver-1, SHUT UP I'm going to finish that someday! >.<

But anyways. If the problem is that you're thinking too much about the game lore and its individuals and their stories, and that you're thinking about it either too much or about too many people...I have no idea where I'm going with this, I have no idea how to help you. :/ I mean, saying "don't look into things too deeply and concentrate on one thing at a time' is like telling somebody to paint a portrait without a background.

*Ahem*

In any case, here's another thought. Being able to select any NPC from the gladiator list you have is going to end with everybody always picking one specific pet, E.G. the one they think is the most powerful. At the same time, we can't have a system that creates overdpendency on the power to much. What if somebody specifically makes a hero or villain with the least possible amount of gladiator badges, and then specifically farms all of the boss-and-beyond gladiator badges in order to throw off an equally random selection process? A Shivan Decimator having the same chance of appearing as, oh say...A Lucent of Light is somewhat disconcerting, to say the least. Implement a system that acts more like a lottery, where getting NPCs gets harder the stronger they are.

Minions should stand the highest chance of being selected. All minions should stand the same chance at being selected as another minion. They should have a higher chance of being selected than lieutenants and bosses. They should be selected within the realm of 75% to 80% of the time.

Lieutenants, while not appearing as often as minions, should still appear frequently enough to expect them. All Lieutenants should stand less of a chance than being selected than minions, but a higher chance of being selected than bosses. The chance of any one lieutenant being selected should be somewhere around the 15% to 20% range.

Bosses should appear rarely. That is to say, somewhere within the region of 5% to 10% of the time. This way, they do occasionally appear, and when they do, fun is had by all. But most of the time, not so.

While I like the basic premise of this idea, and would like to see it implemented, making it a veteran reward is going to make a lot of non-veterans angry. Veteran rewards are supposed to be useful, but should never be useful to the extent that other people will decry a veteran award as unfairly distributed.

Make this a feature, but find some other associated feature to connect it to apart from Veteran awards.

That sounds about right. You'd need the very sexy Jay to design their outfits, BABs to design possible animation FXs in regards to aura's/uniques, a big enough datamining team to crunch the numbers through strenuous repetition, a crack team of concept artists to come up with the idea in the first place, somebody to flip through the CoX Bible for references, game lore connections and relevencies, and then a Blackout team to eliminate said person who flipped through the CoX Bible.

So really, the work needed to create even a single NPC alone is a bit beyond any single designer.

Mental Institution Invaded!

January 01, 2004

The Green Fields Mental Institution, well known for its population of traumatized victims kidnapped by the Banished Pantheon, was raided in the early evening last night by a group of criminals wearing advanced power armor and boasting military hardware. During the raid, 8 patients were killed, 3 wounded, and 17 taken as captives. The staff reports that the power had been cut moments before the raid occurred, and that most of the patients had been having dinner when the invaders stormed the facility...

Tsoo Drug Ring Brought To Light!

July 04 2005

The PPD recently raided a Tsoo hideout last night, having received an anonymous tip regarding the whereabouts of one of their most prominent drug-manufacturing hideouts, along with information that it had been recently attacked by unknown assailants, leaving the criminals stationed there in disarray. Police successfully apprehended the entire ring, but found that a number of recently made samples of Superdine and Rage had gone missing...

Crey Rescues Heroes From Alternate Reality!

Earlier last week, several prominent heroes visited Praetorian Earth for unknown purposes. Portal Corporation received a distress call hours later, from one of the heroes, who claimed that they had been captured and were being held prisoner by the villain commonly referred to as Mother Mayhem. Crey, who purportedly had strong ties to the group of heroes, immediately sent a strike force to Praetorian Earth, which recovered the Heroes safely. They also managed to recover several of Mother Mayhem's maddened victims, whom the Crey Corporation has vowed to treat...

Items of Power Go Missing!

April 23 2007

The Shadow Shard, an alternate and alien reality regularly visited by heroes of the city, is home to a number of objects of immense power of unknown purpose. Earlier today, Portal Corporation was attacked by an unknown force of assailants who purportedly used heavy explosives to break into the facility through a series of underground caverns. They are reported to have stolen several 'items of power' as they are called that had been recovered from the Shadow Shard and brought back to Earth for examination and study. The PPD arrived on scene too late to recover the items, although they succeeded in apprehending a number of the assailants with the help of agents of the Crey Corporation, who had been present on-site during the attack...

Robbery at Crey Corporate Headquarters!

December 25 2008

Two days ago, an agent of the Crey Corporation reportedly went rogue and stole a top-secret experimental super-soldier serum from Crey Corporate Headquarters in Nerva Archipelago within the Etoile Isles before fleeing the premise. Crey has announced that the serum itself was the result of a scrapped project, and that there were no plans or backup samples of it present...

Massive Explosion Destroys Crey Corporate Headquarters!

January 03 2010

Crey Industries is an international supergiant, but surprisingly only had one main corporate headquarter and science facility within the Etoile Isles, located on Nerva Archipelago. Crey has released an official statement that the facility was attacked by a rogue agent late last night, who purportedly had stolen a super-soldier serum prototype in 2008. According to the official statement, the agent forced the facility's reactor to overload after having disabled its containment field. The agent's body was not found within the resulting wreckage...

Mysterious 'Wisps' appear across the City!

January 08, 2010

Since yesterday morning, there have been hundreds of reports flooding in from every zone of the sudden appearance of mysterious lights. The common description of these lights describes them as, 'small, round, and turquoise colored.' These mysterious wisps appear to vanish shortly after appearing, and thus far there have been no successful attempts at close examination of them...

Valkyrie.

That is all.

Unfortunately, dear sir, Thunder Cats is a Nemesis Plot designed with the intent to make slavery under Lord Nemesis seem more appealing as opposed to an eternity of Thunder Cats footage, which Nemesis will no doubt threaten us with when he rises to claim all that is.

But I know the TRUTH. If there is one thing-ANY ONE THING AT ALL-That is NOT a Nemesis Plot, it is the defeat Nemesis suffered at the hands of General Grant during the American Civil War!

Having your gaze locked with another had several advantages, one of which being that unless your opposite was the smoothest of possible operators at lying, you could probably tell whether or not they were. As far as Acid Zero could tell, the Urban Fellow of Merry Wit was being entirely honest. The ship, if it had the proper sensors, would even detect a transmission signal coming from underground not far away from Bell Memorial Hospital and ending at the kid standing on deck. So presumably the Knives were listening-and possibly spectating-in on whatever was happening.

((OOC: And I'm pretty much done as far as influencing the plot directly goes. What happens now, OP?))

OOC:

Well, since it looks like I'll be the only one using it, may as well go ahead and get it posted. :/

BIC:

Jase's fluury of knives passed through thin air-The Urban Fellow of Merry Wit had been teleported away! And as he left the area, the proximity alarms on all the toys he left behind activated. The three cotton candy stands erupted like web grenades, the balloons exploded into giant mists of poisonous neurotoxin, and the teddy-bears released a sleep-inducing gas.

***

Acid saw the Urban Fellow of Merry Wit, standing inside the ship, somehow unaffected both by the atmospheric pressure and the sulpherus fumes. An explanation provided itself in the form of a TV set reminiscent of a certain television found in Grandville, which was floating with the aid of miniature rocket thrusters. The scene portrayed within the screen was an animated version of the immediate locale and its contents. The ship sensors, given its sohpistication, would be able to detect a passive energy field roughly forty feet in diameter that was somehow negating the ship's immense internal pressure as well as containing an air supply.

"Hey!" The Urban Fellow of Merry Wit said, a big cheesy grin plastered on his face from ear to ear, exposing his pearly whites as he waved to Acid.

OOC:

Hey, these are super heroes and villains. They knew the risks when they took the chance of teleporting.

Not too far away...

"CATCH."

***

The Street

Unfortuntely, it didn't look like Acid Zero would be getting away with the plot cleanly. A mysterious force locked onto the incoming teleport, hijacked it, and expanded it. It had gone from a select teleport to a group teleport. Everybody in the street fight felt the unique and distinguishable tug of an incoming teleport, and all they had to do was accept it - that is, not actively resist it - in order to be beamed up. Of course, if they weren't interested, just shrugging the feeling off was sufficient to avoid it. The "Expanded" teleport, centered on Acid Zero, had grown so that everybody on the street, and within the hospital lobby could join in if they wanted. The PDD was out of range, and the civilians who experienced the tug automatically shrugged it off, most of them never having even SEEN a teleporter, much less been teleported themselves.

While Jase was doing an excellent job of setting up his target for the kill, he had failed to take into account every last threat present. Acid Zero wasn't lifting a finger? Check. The congressman was secure? Check. The Widow was dead? Check. Dire Lament was standing around doing nothing? Check. The ghost guy was also just standing around? Check. Really, it looked like the crazy kid was his only real opponent...

BZZZZZZZZZZZZT.

Make that one crazy kid and one cake-turret.

Jase's shadow technique in combination with the knife worked PERFECTLY. The Urban Fellow of Merry Wit was entirely immobilized...Until the auto-turret tracked the knife and blasted it to smithereens, freeing the boy's shadow and allowing him to move just as Jase appeared behind him. The marshmallow bazooka twirled, but rather than roundabouting to face Jase, the kid just blocked his monstrous Scythe with the cheap plastic toy, ignoring the standard convention that it shouldn't have been able to do that.

And then the silly-string came out.

Whipping it out of thin air, the Urban Fellow of Merry Wit produced a bright-sky blue can with a rainbow emblem on it, proclaiming in big pink and puffy letters that it was a can of silly string. A fraction of a moment later and the silly-string had completely coated both the bazooka and the Scythe...And then hardened. For the supposed can of silly-string was actually a can of Instant-Super-Cement Brand Silly-String.(TM) The Urban Fellow of Merry Wit had practically web cacooned the two weapons together, which left Jase in a delicate spot. Because he would require a moment to free his weapon, and the auto-turret had finished tracking him...

*DAKKADAKKADAKKA*

***

Not too far away...

"He's leaving with the congressman."

"Let him. It's not a problem. But he's not leaving by himself. PPD is a bit out of range, but the others should be able to keep an eye on him. Expansion catch in 8...7...6..."

The seeker drone redirected itself suddenly to block one knife. The auto-turret similarly redirected its fire to cut down two more. The boy nimbly dodge one more, but the last two met their mark, head on, full force...

And bounce.

A turquoise-silver field of force roared to life, revealing just HOW a kid like the Urban Fellow of Merry Wit had stayed alive for as long as he had. Where some supers were tough, where some wore armor, where some could just take a certain amount of beatings before keeling over, the kid had a force field. It completely negated any attack directed at him without fail, but required a lot of juice to power. It could only take a certain number of consecutive hits before failing, leaving the Urban Fellow of Merry Wit just a strange kid, as easy to kill as the next. It could recharge given time, naturally, but the whole ordeal was slow and tedious. The force field even changed color to indicate how much power was left. Silver-turquoise when at full, green when above 75%, yellow at 50%, orange at 25% and red at the last 5%.

In response to Jase's inquiries, the little boy just gave him a big cheesy grin.

"You're the bad guy!" He shouted, pointing at Jase and pulling a dramatic pose.

Unfortunately for the stalker, said dramatic pose was not just for the sake of drama. The kid crouched down, planting one hand on the ground in some sort of pseudo-anime-ninja crouch. Next thing Jase knew, the entire area in a fifty foot radius exploded with confetti and randomly placed fireworks. Several *clicks* could be heard, and suddenly the battlefield was filled with several new decorations.

There were now three multi-colored balloons on string floating at six feet above the ground, each with a smiley face. There were three rather ordinary looking teddy bears lying around. A trio of giant cotton-candy stands had suddenly been erected. And Jase was heading right for one of them! Worse yet, he now had to worry about whatever sinister devices these things were in disguise, as well as the marshmallow bazooka launcher the kid had pulled out of thin air and was begining to mount on his shoulder...

"You talk WAY too much." The Urban Fellow of Merry Wit stated nonchalantly as he almost casually ninja-flipped like some miniature psychotic imp ninja demon away from the enveloping shadows. He landed, and he started twirling the yo-yo he held in hand. Lights lit up within its cheap red plastic, and then the unexpected happen.

It sprouted ten curved and nasty looking chakram spikes. The yo-yo was actually a seeker-drone in disguise! The Urban Fellow of Merry Wit made a show of flinging the thing at him and controling its trajectory with the attatched string, but it was clear the yo-yo drone moved under its own power.

And things were only going to get worse for Jase, by the looks of it. Not more than ten feet to his right, there was an explosion of confetti, a party-blower blew, and there was a small flash of light. Lying in the middle of the street was a two-layered chocolate cake, complete with pink frosting. The frosting actually spiraled about in neat and elegant cursive to spell out a message...

BANG! YOU'RE DEAD!

A very soft hiss echoed forth, and if Jase was smart, he would probably instantly figure out that he had only moments before an auto-turret decided to make his life loads of fun by pumping loads of lead into his person.

Jase was a highly skilled stalker-type super human. Yet WHY he thought he could get away with what he was doing while within a veritable CROWD of super humans was somewhat vague and perhaps entirely lost. That said, The Urban Fellow of Merry Wit would not stop him from ending Widow Frost's life. That did not mean Jase was in the clear.

A scant moment after Jase reappeared and did as he did, a paintcan brimming with red goo was hurled at him with a surprising amount of force, a wide spray of red paint exploding in every direction, but mainly in his. And as the paint made contact with everything, such as the ground, and possibly Jase if he wasn't fast or clever enough, it was made apparent that it was not so much paint as it was molecular degredation acid designed to weaken defenses and resistances - even though just a moment before it had been used to make entirely harmless hand-prints on Acid's whiteboard.

"Shikimaru is being a huge meanie." The Urban Fellow of Merry Wit whined, a picture of innocence and virtue, with a small pout planted on his face. "If you keep being mean, it'll mean a time out! And time outs stink, because you can't do anything and everybody laughs at you." As he spoke, he pulled out a red yo-yo and seemed to be holding it like somebody would hold a gun. A grip of tension...

***

Not so far away...

There was this THING about Paragon City.

Everything was a Nemesis Plot. Which isn't saying much. It would be more appropriate to say that everything is a plot. It would be more exact to say that everything happens for a reason, because something else caused it. Everything that happens throughout Paragon City and, indeed, the entire world happens because something else happened to cause it ad nauseum. The Counselman was an evil soul-stealing dark-magic wielding corrupt executive and criminal. This caused several people to be exposed to tragedy. This in turn prompted the gain of immense power, the hiring of assassains with immense power, the involvement of powers and being beyond the ken of mortal man, the attraction of the adventurous...In the end, everything was caused by something which caused something else.

In this case, it was caused by proximity and exposure, not to mention that the group as a whole was not exactly being what one could term as 'subtle.'

Images flashed and illuminated a darkened room with the splendor and majesty of their being within the nothingness. Manipulative fingers tugged at reason, and all was set in motion. The present was painstaking recorded, the past meticulously used as precedent, and the future haphazardly predicted. A single thread was found, a single thread that, when pulled gently...Would have things fall apart.

"Lock."

And with that single word, a new chain of events was set into motion.

1. Tafari is a genre-savy *******. He purposely changed his own personality into something his past self would idolize. He enjoys calling people out, beating them up, mocking and humiliating them, etcetera. He has a very blunt and stand-offish personality designed to maximize social conflict. The entire premise of his mind is: "What happens when you give a ******** with a huge ego god-like power?" It's cliche, but when utilized correctly it becomes simultaneously hilarious and classic.

2. Pffft, no. While I do put a small bit of myself into every character I make, (As we all do, I think) I make a concious effort to make them distinguishable from myself. Nobody should be able to look at one of my characters and say, "Oh, that's -------." Giving a character components and pieces of your personality and self just turns them into an author avatar.

3. Sadly, no. His character doesn't meld well with a lot of settings. I used to roll dice when picking characters for RPs. Now I just toss in the one with the best suited mentality.

4. Isn't that the point? The author is only a narrator. The characters are their own self. That's the point. As members of the RP forum, we exist to form a relay between separate characters. We are a form of forum posting for our characters, ironically enough.

5. A little of column A, a little of column B. I usually start with a backstory, and once it's fleshed out, the rest of the character just suddenly materializes.

6. Depends on the character. Tafari personally refrains from killing. He feels it is beneath him, and he'd prefer to keep you alive so he can mock you and your weaknesses, kick you around like a dog and generally just bask in his own ego. However, when somebody manages to actually penetrate the armor around said ego, he'll snap and just kill them. The whole "killing or defeating" principle is entirely situational. Every character, in a standard career as a villain or hero, is expected to have killed at some point or another for whatever reason. Somebody was just to big a threat to leave alive, by accident, whatever. Stuff happens. It's situational.

The Urban Fellow of Merry Wit, not being one to deny any given situation from going utterly insane from all the nonsensical and inane activities ongoing within it (with or without his input) added to the fun. The dagger vanished in an explosion of confetti, and from the same explosion the boy produced two cans of finger-paint. He then ran over to the whiteboard Acid had conjured, completely ignoring both the writing and Dire Lament, and began to create red and blue hand-paint-prints on it. Either he wasn't aware whiteboards were not made for that kind of thing, or he didn't care...Not to mention the same thing could have been said as far as his awareness of the entire situation went.

((Still contemplating HOW I would react. Methinks he would just completely ignore Jase, what with his new dagger toy. And just replying to say "He ignores you" isn't quite worth it. :/))

The Urban Fellow of Merry Wit dashed forward the moment the dagger clattered to the ground, scooping it up and ninja-leaping away in a single moment.

"ITEM GET!" He shouted, holding the dagger aloft in one hand like a certain popular video game character. "DUH DUH DUH DUH!"

The Urban Fellow of Merry Wit went into a second-long diabetic seizure while Rosie talked before recovering without incident and bringing out a yo-yo. It was made of red plastic, with flashing rainbow lights that turned on and off when it was spun. He then proceeded to spin said yo-yo with considerable skill, apparently waiting for something to happen.

The Urban Fellow of Merry Wit tugged on Rosie's sleeve.

"Um. I'm eight." He said politely. "And can't we all just stop fighting? It's not ok to fight unless we're fighting meanies. And by fighting we become meanies because we fight. And then other people have to fight us because we're meanies, and they become meanies, and then people have to fight them. It's such a vicious cycle." He paused, and gave the sky a contemplative look. "Except for monsters." He added. "They're just jerks. And fat men with piggie faces. And Cruella DeVille." He looked at the frosty lady.

"...But she looks enough like Cruella DeVille. Does this mean I can shoot her?" He grinned and tugged on Rosie's sleeve again, giving her googly chibi eyes. "PLEEEEASE?"