#spook squad squared

[allydoesart]

“No, you’re just wondering when Shinichi got into town...” __________ Sketches from Sunday’s gaming session. One of the characters could see ‘auras’, and he saw my characters brother standing over his shoulder.

[allydoesart]

My new OC, Alena Rika Thomas. She’s a backup for Sunday.

Aspects (tentative) High Concept: Ordinary girl, supernatural world Trouble: What fools these mortals be.... Phase aspects: The key is being well liked Blame should never be unjust Coincidence or fate? Always better in the morning Back in action

[mechanised-matt-blog]

Some of the house rules I use for the magic users in my DFRPG group. If you like it, help yourselves.

On Evocations for defense: There are four major ways an evocationist can defend themselves with magic: 1) Set up a block before the attack even happens (on their own turn), and treat it as a straight block, as armour, or even as a boost to the ability to dodge. This spell will have a duration, and cannot be set up as a defensive action. This is a proactive defense ONLY -Example a) Carlos Ramirez's Entropy Shield Water / Entropy block (in this case used as a straight block) Power: 6 shifts into effect, 0 shifts into duration Duration: 1 Exchange (round) Control: Roll discipline with appropriate specialty and focus item bonuses. Effect: A weird looking hemisphere of entropy appears in front of the caster, in this case acting as a block against incoming attack (Caster's discipline result +6 in this example). If an attack overwhelms this shield, it will disappear. IE: Carlos casts this shield, rolls Discipline 7. This creates a 13 shift defense, which automatically blocks any attacks aimed at him. If someone attacks it and deals 14 shifts of stress (in one hit) to the shield, it will collapse (even if it has duration left) and the remaining 1 shift will be dealt to Carlos. -Example b) Water / Entropy block (in this case used as a straight block) Power: 6 shifts into effect, 0 shifts into duration Duration: 1 Exchange (round) Control: Roll discipline with appropriate specialty and focus item bonuses (to control spell effect only). Effect: A weird looking hemisphere of entropy appears in front of the caster, in this case acting as armour. Creating armour in this way is less efficient (yielding 1 point of armour per 2 shifts of power in the spell) but has the added benefit of not disappearing when overwhelmed like the block shield does. IE: Carlos casts this shield, rolls Discipline 7 (succeeding to control the 6 shifts of power in the spell). This calls into being a 3 shift armour around himself until the duration ends, no matter how many times he gets hit in that time period or how hard he gets hit in that time period. -Example c) Hyperawareness as passive defense Spirit defensive block / maneuver Total cost: 5 shifts (3 shifts power, 2 shifts duration) Duration: 3 Exchanges (rounds) Control: Roll discipline with appropriate specialty and focus item bonuses (to control spell effect only). Effect: This block works by amping up the wizard's level of situational awareness. This gives them a passive (automatic) result of 3 on all defensive athletics rolls during the duration. -Example d) Hyperawareness as athletic boost Spirit defensive block / maneuver Total cost: 6 shifts (4 shifts power, 2 shifts duration) Duration: 3 Exchanges (rounds) Control: Roll discipline with appropriate specialty and focus item bonuses (to control spell effect only). Effect: This block works by amping up the wizard's level of situational awareness. This gives them a bonus of +2 on all defensive athletics rolls for the period of the duration. 2) Use magic to provide a one-time boost to their dodge skill using magic (this would be as a defensive action) -Example a) Using magnetic dipoles to boost a dodge out of the way of an energy bolt Earth defensive maneuver Total cost: 4 shifts of effect Duration: Instant (It's a defensive spell) Control: Roll Discipline with appropriate specialty and focus item bonuses (to control spell effect only) Notes: This spell uses the principles of magnetism to forcibly hurl the target out of the path of an incoming attack. This 4-shift evocation adds +4 to the athletics roll of the target. IE: Jirou is targeted by an enemy casting a bolt of energy at him. In response, he uses this spell to help himself get out of the way. His player rolls Discipline of 5 total (sufficient to control the spell), and then rolls Athletics of 3. The Discipline roll was successful, so they add +4 to the Athletics roll, for a final result of Athletics 7, and avoiding the attack. 3) Use magic to create a VERY temporary barrier to 'tank the hit.' This is a defensive action, and has no ongoing duration beyond that of the attack it defends against. -Example a) Using a shield of hardened air to block an incoming attack. Air defensive block Total cost: 4 shifts of effect Duration: Instant (It's a defensive spell) Control: Roll Discipline with appropriate specialty and focus item bonuses (Adding result to final spell's power). Notes: This spell causes a shield of hardened air to form between the caster and the source of attack aimed at them. The shield then formed takes the full brunt of the attack arrayed against them. Any shifts of stress beyond what the shield can take are dealt to the caster. IE: Ariele is being attacked by an enemy with a gun. Rather than dodge, he decides to block using his shield of air. Ariele's player rolls Discipline 5 (sufficient to control the spell), and has put 4 shifts of power into the spell itself. This creates a 9 shift defense. Ariele's attacker rolls a Guns of 7, and is using a weapon 3 tommy gun. This totals out to a 10 shift attack. The shield blocks 9 shifts of the attack, depleting it with 1 shift left. That remaining 1 shift hits Ariele. 4) Abandon all pretense of defense, and counterattack. This option is very high risk, but potentially high reward. It allows the wizard or sorcerer to effectively double their attacks per exchange (round). The unfortunate part of this is that they will take the total brunt of whatever attack the enemy musters simultaneous to their own...affirmative defense. -Example a) Edward is being attacked by a sword-wielding wild-fae. He decides that it's worth the risks to give up his defense in exchange for an extra attack, since he's sure the creature is nearly dead. He counterattacks with an ice-spear (5 shifts), and rolls a Discipline 6 (Sufficient to control the spell, and providing a targeting roll of 6). The wild-fae is attacking with Weapons 5, using a sword of weapon value 2. The wild-fae gets a chance to dodge the incoming attack, but at a -2 to his roll due to the unexpected nature of the wildly unlikely attack. The wild-fae rolls Athletics 4 (-2 becomes Athletics 2) to dodge, and takes 9 shifts of physical stress, killing the creature outright. At the same time, Edward takes 7 stress from the final sword attack of the doomed fae. NB: This method is extremely dangerous.

[mechanised-matt-blog]

Watching Leverage with commentaries again.  It always just blows my mind how much directors talking about their shows sound just like DMs and GMs talking about their campaigns.  I suppose it shouldn't be surprising though.  They're both building imaginary worlds at the whim of their players.  If there are good players, it's a blast to do, and it looks awesome.  Otherwise, well, otherwise.

[mechanised-matt-blog]

We just finished season 1 of the spinoff series of our DFRPG campaign.  Here are our epilogues for the characters:

Epilogues:

Gaspar - Try as he might, he never quite manages to figure out what Marie LeVeau did to him with her benediction after the party freed her from Rabbi Yafe's ritual.  She wouldn't let such a huge boon pass without comment or reward, would she?  At least now she knows who he is.  Besides, preventing the birth of a new hell on earth is not too bad for a day's worth, even with the cost.

Emma - Manages to get her husband home safely, but he hasn't fully recovered from his ordeal.  Over the next three months, he becomes more and more suspicious that there's something more happening just beyond the edge of his perceptions.  He will start hiring private eyes to tail his wife and try to find out what she's hiding from him.  Is she involved with the mob?

Antares - Spends the next month in the hospital with his mother keeping a very close eye on his recovery.  When he gets out of the hospital, cursing the fact that doctors were unable to save his eye though they were able to re form his mangled ear and cheek, he moves her into his house with him and Lokir.  He then spends the next month and a half in the basement range, learning to work around his disability.   Summer will pay for this.  He will make sure of it.

Nika - Finally finds his well deserved rest.  He sacrificed himself in full knowledge of what he was doing, to keep his friends alive.  In the wake of his passing, Violetta moves in with Bijoux.  This lets her stay safe and out of the world, and lets her keep helping her liberator's friends and honour his memory.  Does his soul ascend to heaven?  Or is he walking the earth again, with a new body and a new name?

Kiya - With Rabbi Yafe defeated and gone, the stage was cleared for her to enter into a deeper relationship and satisfy her curiosity:  She merged her soul with her good friend Ephippas, merging her Manitou spirit with his demonic air spirit.  After she entreated the demon to inhabit her mind with her, she retreated to her tribe's land, locking herself into a sweat lodge for three weeks solid.  When she emerged she was herself again.  Her smile a little more vicious, the claws a little sharper, but herself.

Lokir - In the aftermath of the killing of the despicable Rabbi and that damned centaur, Lokir had a lot of soul searching to do.  One of his friends was killed.  Steve is still missing, presumably killed by Thunderhoof.  He was an asshole, but no one deserved the kind of end that sadistic horse liked to hand out.   Lokir's mom is safe now, but for how long?  The only real way to make her safe, he realized, is to become the dragon that he can be.  Lokir invested some of his remaining gold in having a new wing added to Antares' house and moved his mother and brother in.  No one will threaten his hoard ever again.

Alphonse - His art has returned to him, and his muse is nothing but grateful for his intercession.  Once her shackles finally come off, she disappeared for a week or so, but Alphonse never forgot her, and his inspiration flowed like manna from the heavens.  Once life started going back to normal, a beautiful woman came into his studio followed closely by his oily gallery manager.   Aside from noticing her beauty, he thought nothing of it.  Until, that is, new pieces started to appear in the gallery; pieces that featured him in a number of situations:  Alphonse under an oddly misshapen tree, Alphonse holding a ring with indecipherable symbols on its round face, Alphonse with huge wings coming out of his back, Alphonse caging a massive diamond in wires drawn of gold.  All of these made by a single woman:  Aigneis MacNeville.  Who is she?  More importantly, what does she know?

Jirou - "I just killed a man with magic."  That is the sobering thought that greets him every day for the next month.  Never mind that the person he killed was some unholy fusion of a lawbreaking sorcerer’s mind and the body of a fae warrior, never mind that Kaki-sama holds him blameless for the events of that day, never mind that it was necessary and that upon hearing of the events was the first time Kaen-sensei smiled at him and offered to let him join his table for tea.  Is this what being a hero is?  Shinichi certainly seems to think so, anyway.  About six weeks after the incident at the Willows, Kaki took Jirou back to Japan for another visit, but this time there were seventeen full wizards at the grading table in the family dojo.  What followed was the single most grueling day of magic that Jirou had ever experienced:  Formulae from memory, examination of magical items and even building rituals and enchantments to order and on the fly.  The next day was both the worst and the best in a long time, worst in the morning when Kaki-sama stood him up in front of the grading board and banished him from her apprenticeship.  The only thing that kept his composure was Ed off to the side giving him the I-know-something-you-don't-know grin.  Over the course of the day, he was kept away from Kaki-sama and Kaen-sensei by his parents as they tried to console him on losing his place with the honored Yukimura shining star.  "But on the plus side, son, now you can come home and stay safe.  No more dangerous magic.  After all, your brother is much more suited to that than you are."  Imagine his surprise when he was summoned to the dojo late in the evening and granted his stole as a full wizard of the White Council, deputized under Warden Yukimura to liaise between her in her new role as Warden Commander of Western Canada, and the group the White Council Wardens' Corps recognized as the Saskatoon Irregulars.  Then came the partying, some of which he even remembered later.

Bijoux - Recovery was slow.  She was badly wounded, not in body but in mind, and needed a chance to heal.  Luckily the activity of unfriendly supernaturals in and around Saskatoon stopped coming to her door and her friends' doors for a while after the incident at the Willows.  It was always the same, or at least that's the way it seemed for her:  She moved to a place, her family found her.  She made friends, they died.  Sometimes because of her, sometimes because she couldn't stop it.  Maybe her family was right... Then Violetta showed up one evening in a rainstorm.  One minute Bijoux was drinking tea and gazing out the window, the next there was a knock on the door and the poor woman was outside.  She was destroyed over the death of Nika, and couldn't share the house with Alex any more.  Alex, for his part was sick over his loss, and kept talking about finding a way to make him come back.  When Bijoux heard this she went over to Nika's house, now Alex's, to make sure he knew about the Laws.  Bijoux nearly died that day.  After she escaped the enraged biomancer, Bijoux and Violetta set about helping each other heal.  Bijoux was strong for the sake of her new roommate, Violetta was strong for her, and as time went on the facade became the truth. Once she was back to herself, Bijoux started watching Alex for any signs of regaining equilibrium, unfortunately without any success.  Despite her best efforts, Alex regularly refused her help, refused to talk, refused tea, refused to be diverted.  As she watched him, she tracked the trajectory of his madness as it built and pressurized.  One day in the eighth week after the Willows incident, Alex disappeared.  Try though she might, Bijoux wasn't able to find him anywhere nearby.  She will remain watchful.  The best offense is a good defense after all.