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Super-Earth
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2019
For the Masks game with nlln.
Look
Personality
Valeria can come across as haughty at first, because - well, because she is. As much as she at times gripes with her personal place in it, she is convinced that the imperial way of doing things is the right one, and she views such concepts as Democracy - "So you decide things by seeing who can convince the largest group of idiots?" - with bemusement, and at times annoyance.
Even more so she is confused, and often enough irritated, with the indivudualist approach humans apply to pretty much everything. While Iskandians are individuals with their own ambitions and desires, they are far less self-centered than humans. Service to the state and the greater good is taught from an early age, and no proper Iskandian would ever consider to embezzle funds, or sacrifice the fortunes of later generations for their own gain. Of course, her suggested solutions when learning about such behaviours are often rather harsh, and likely indication that the Empire is not quite as superior in all things as she makes it out to be.
However, if you manage to stick with her long enough to build a friendship, you will find a girl that is immensely curious about almost everything, and a playful, excitable personality that does not seem to fit at all to the 'tough soldier' attitude she displays when things go pear-shaped.
And you will find that she has her own personal gripes with her home, and the expectations laid upon her - although she adamantly refuses to go into the details.
Backstory
Where do you come from?
The Iskandian Empire. More specifically, Iskandia itself, a planet orbiting the star you know as Stephenson 2-18 and we call Iskan.
Why did you come to Earth?
Curiosity. I always wanted to join the Exploration Corps, but... well, I have another path to take. But I do get to pretend a bit, at least. How often do you get the chance to experience first-hand a pre-FTL civilization? Before the fleet rolls in and integrates them, that is.
Why do you want to stay here (for now at least)?
Is that a joke? I managed to bargain with Mother for some free time to be myself, and I intend to use it! What else would I do, stare at dead lumps of rock floating through space, or spend my time on a colony that is halfway through terraforming?
Why do your people want you to come home?
Why not? Your family would want you back. ...And my mother insists I go to Fleet Academy and become an officer.
Why do you care about the team?
Because they're my friends. Because I can be myself with them, without all the usual baggage. Because they all know what it's like to have high expectations placed upon you, and I feel like they'd understand me, if I told them.
When our team first came together…
We didn't trust each other at first, but that changed. How? Why?
Relationships
You've been learning about Earth by spending time with ______.
You have a crush on ______ but you keep it under wraps.
Influence
Choose your demeanor: haughty or cheerful.
[ ] If you're haughty, you think you're better than them. Give no one Influence.
[x] If you're cheerful, you're thrilled to be here. Give everyone Influence over you.
Labels
Conditions
[X] Afraid (-2 to directly engage a threat)
[ ] Angry (-2 to comfort or support or pierce the mask)
[ ] Guilty (-2 to provoke someone or assess the situation)
[ ] Hopeless (-2 to unleash your powers)
[ ] Insecure (-2 to defend someone or reject others' influence)
Potential: 2
Advancement
When you fill your potential track, you advance. Choose from the list below.
[ ] Take another move from your playbook
[ ] Take another move from your playbook
[ ] Take a move from another playbook
[ ] Someone permanently loses Influence over you; add +1 to a Label
[ ] Rearrange your Labels as you choose, and add +1 to a Label
[ ] Unlock your Moment of Truth
[ ] Choose two new abilities from any playbook as you come into your own
[ ] You adopt a human life; take Secret Identity and The Mask from the Janus playbook
When you've taken five advances from the top list, you can take advances from the list below.
[ ] Unlock your Moment of Truth after you've used it once
[ ] Change playbooks
[ ] Take an adult move
[ ] Take an adult move
[ ] Lock a Label, and add +1 to a Label of your choice
[ ] Retire from the life or become a paragon of the city
Abilities
You can fly, and you're pretty tough. Choose any two of the following:
[ ] density control
[x] heliokinesis
[ ] stunning beauty or pheromones
[ ] radical shapeshifting
[x] alien weaponry
[ ] telepathy and mind blasts
Outsider Moves
(choose three)
[ ] Belong in two worlds: You have the resources that come with your station. Whenever you contact your people, roll + Superior.
On a 10+, hold 3. On a 7-9, hold 2.
On a miss, hold 1, but your people make an uncomfortable demand of you.
Spend your hold 1 for 1 to:
receive a useful piece of alien technology that will allow you to use any ability from another playbook once (choose the ability when you spend the hold)
consult your people's knowledge to ask the GM a question about the current situation
clear a condition through the comfort of contact with your home
[ ] Alien tech: When you alter a human device with your alien technology, roll + Freak.
On a hit, you create a device that can do something impossible once and then fizzle.
When you roll a 10+, choose one:
it works exceptionally well
you get an additional use out of it
On a miss, the device works, but it has a completely unintended side effect that the GM will reveal when you use it.
[x] Alien ways: Whenever you openly disregard or undermine an important Earth custom in favor of one of your own people's customs, shift Superior up and any other Label down.
[x] Kirby-craft: You have a vehicle, something from your home. Detail its look, and choose two strengths and two weaknesses . When you are flying your ship, you can use it to unleash your powers, directly engage a threat, or defend someone using Superior.
Strengths: (2)
[ ] Fast & manoeuvrable,
[ ] chameleon plating,
[x] powerful weaponry,
[ ] regenerating,
[ ] dimension-shifting,
[ ] size-shifting,
[x] telepathic
Weaknesses: (2)
[x] Bizarre fuel source,
[ ] susceptible to ˍˍˍˍˍˍˍ,
[x] easily detectable,
[ ] slow and clumsy,
[ ] unarmed,
[ ] difficult to repair
[ ] The best of them: When you comfort or support someone by telling them how they exemplify the best parts of Earth, roll + Freak instead of + Mundane.
[x] Not so different after all: When you talk about your home, roll + Freak.
On a 10+, choose two. On a 7-9, choose one. During the conversation, you:
confess a flaw of your home; add 1 Team to the pool
mislead them about your home; take Influence over them
describe the glories of your home; clear a condition
On a miss, you inadvertently reveal more about yourself than you planned; tell them a secret or vulnerability you haven't shared with Earthlings before now.
Moment of Truth
You embrace your home and call them for aid. They will answer your call —in force!— arriving exactly when you need them to turn the tide. They fight and serve you for the rest of the battle. Of course, when all is said and done… they'd probably like to take you home with them. You did, after all, just prove yourself worthy.
Team Moves
When you share a triumphant celebration with someone, take Influence over them if you show them meaningful affection, physical or emotional. They decide if it's meaningful.
When you share a vulnerability or weakness with someone, they tell you what you should do to fit in more. Take +1 forward to do it, and mark potential if you do.
Abilities in detail
Toughness:
While the average Iskandian is almost eight inches smaller than the average human, the former have numerous advantages over the latter. As a result of the higher gravity of their homeworld, Iskandians are deceptively strong. At the same time, evolution has graced them with dual hearts, other redundant organs and bones reinforced by natural carbon fibres, making them rather hard to kill. Their muscle tissue is far denser than that of a human, making them noticeably stronger, but as a result they need much more energy and, taking body weight into account, need almost twice the amount of food a human does.
Their mastery of genetics has allowed them to enhance their traits further, such as increased soft-tissue flexibility to better resist blunt-force trauma or faster wound healing, while reducing the negative impact of some of them, such as a lack of endurance due to their high energy upkeep.
It is important to note however that Iskandians posess neither the Super Strength nor the complete invulnerability of certain human superheroes, nor the near-instant healing factor of others. They can recover from injuries in hours that would take humans days or even weeks, but a sufficiently powerful attack can kill them, and you won't see them tossing cars around like they are pebbles.
Due to their home star being quite literally a thousand times larger than earths sun, Iskandians developed to deal with the stronger solar radiation. Their metallic colouration is simply protection against it, as a normal human without protection would get sunburn within minutes on their home, and as a side result they are more resistant to radiation in general. Also, their eyes deal much better with bright light (Val will never need shades on earth, infact she could look directly into the sun for some moments without hurting). On the downside, since Iskandian nights are mostly Earth twilight and only get close to night for some short hours around midnight, and only around the equator, their low-light vision is rather bad.
Heliokinesis and Flying:
Some Iskandians, referred to as Gifted, possess the ability to fly by manipulating their own gravity, and can wield the power of the suns, manipulating sunlight, bombarding their enemies with miniature suns and more. The Iskandians consider these powers a divine gift, as according to their religion all suns are gods.
Alien Weaponry:
The Iskandians launched their first FTL-capable ship hundreds of thousands of years ago, when modern humans didn't even exist yet, and their technology has advanced ever since. Some of the things they can do look like sci-fi, some like magic. And being as warlike as they are, it comes as no surprise that their weaponry makes everything found on earth look like a peashooter.
Just like they had no compulsions about giving a teenager a fully armed war machine as her personal ride, Valeria's people seem to be rather blasé about handing her weapons. The dropship comes standard with a well-filled armoury meant to resupply soldiers or give the crew a fighting chance when going down behind enemy lines. It contains a variety of weapons ranging from simple pistols and rifles to precision DMRs weapons or shoulder-launched Anti-Tank Ordnance - most of which will never see use in Halcyon as they lack non-lethal capabilities.
They also fitted her with a set of Standard Infantry Battle Armor, which not only comes with full-body hard-shell and integrated shields, but also sensors and neural-link assistance.
However, all of these things are rather conspicuous to carry around, and the armor takes several minutes to don, meaning that unless Valeria knows she's about to head into trouble, she'll have to fall back on the easily concealable pistol she carries with her.
Kirby Craft
Valkyrie-Class Assault Dropship
The Valkyrie is a fearsome-looking craft bristling with weapons. Meant to attack heavily defended position, deploy troops on site and then provide close air support, the Valkyrie features heavy armor, energy shields, an automated point-defense system and enough room to transport an entire platoon plus gear.
Two rapid-fire projectile cannons and two particle gatlings provide the ship's gun armament, and the Valkyrie can be equipped with a wide variety of missiles on the wing mounts.
The Invader-variant also features a short-range FTL drive and a matter fabricator to replenish ammunition.
The ship is fully neural-link enabled, and a fully augmented flight crew of five can control it entirely by thought while using its sensors like a natural sense akin to vision or hearing. But while Valeria has a Neural Link - not having one is almost unheard of - it is just a basic model and she is just one person, restricting how much she can control with just her thoughts and preventing her from truly pushing the dropship to its full capabilities. And, like the contents of its armory, the dropship gives Valeria access to a terrifying amount of firepower - if she is aware that trouble is brewing. Unlike the contents of its armoury, the ship does not really offer any non-lethal options - or indeed any options that aren't likely to cause varying levels of collateral damage.
This particular dropship has been modified to serve Valeria as a mobile home, with the troop compartment in the rear furnished into a small but functional and comfortable one-room flat. There might be some merit in giving her a tough, FTL-capable vehicle that is big enough to live in while still small enough to be managed by a single person. Handing it over to her not only with the guns fully functional and the armoury stocked, but also with a full combat load of missiles? That is certainly a more dubious decision - at least by human standards.
-
ambiguous, man, shifting, transgressing, woman -
strange body, animalistic body, neon body,human body - glowing eyes,
animalistic eyes,metallic eyes,bizarre eyes -
flashy clothing, mismatched clothing,average clothing, no human clothing - your people's uniform,
your station's costume, practical costume, humanizing costume, no costume
Personality
Valeria can come across as haughty at first, because - well, because she is. As much as she at times gripes with her personal place in it, she is convinced that the imperial way of doing things is the right one, and she views such concepts as Democracy - "So you decide things by seeing who can convince the largest group of idiots?" - with bemusement, and at times annoyance.
Even more so she is confused, and often enough irritated, with the indivudualist approach humans apply to pretty much everything. While Iskandians are individuals with their own ambitions and desires, they are far less self-centered than humans. Service to the state and the greater good is taught from an early age, and no proper Iskandian would ever consider to embezzle funds, or sacrifice the fortunes of later generations for their own gain. Of course, her suggested solutions when learning about such behaviours are often rather harsh, and likely indication that the Empire is not quite as superior in all things as she makes it out to be.
However, if you manage to stick with her long enough to build a friendship, you will find a girl that is immensely curious about almost everything, and a playful, excitable personality that does not seem to fit at all to the 'tough soldier' attitude she displays when things go pear-shaped.
And you will find that she has her own personal gripes with her home, and the expectations laid upon her - although she adamantly refuses to go into the details.
Backstory
Where do you come from?
The Iskandian Empire. More specifically, Iskandia itself, a planet orbiting the star you know as Stephenson 2-18 and we call Iskan.
Why did you come to Earth?
Curiosity. I always wanted to join the Exploration Corps, but... well, I have another path to take. But I do get to pretend a bit, at least. How often do you get the chance to experience first-hand a pre-FTL civilization? Before the fleet rolls in and integrates them, that is.
Why do you want to stay here (for now at least)?
Is that a joke? I managed to bargain with Mother for some free time to be myself, and I intend to use it! What else would I do, stare at dead lumps of rock floating through space, or spend my time on a colony that is halfway through terraforming?
Why do your people want you to come home?
Why not? Your family would want you back. ...And my mother insists I go to Fleet Academy and become an officer.
Why do you care about the team?
Because they're my friends. Because I can be myself with them, without all the usual baggage. Because they all know what it's like to have high expectations placed upon you, and I feel like they'd understand me, if I told them.
When our team first came together…
We didn't trust each other at first, but that changed. How? Why?
Relationships
You've been learning about Earth by spending time with ______.
You have a crush on ______ but you keep it under wraps.
Influence
Choose your demeanor: haughty or cheerful.
[ ] If you're haughty, you think you're better than them. Give no one Influence.
[x] If you're cheerful, you're thrilled to be here. Give everyone Influence over you.
Labels
Danger: 0
Freak: +1
Savior: 0
Superior: +2
Mundane: 0
Freak: +1
Savior: 0
Superior: +2
Mundane: 0
Conditions
[X] Afraid (-2 to directly engage a threat)
[ ] Angry (-2 to comfort or support or pierce the mask)
[ ] Guilty (-2 to provoke someone or assess the situation)
[ ] Hopeless (-2 to unleash your powers)
[ ] Insecure (-2 to defend someone or reject others' influence)
Potential: 2
Advancement
When you fill your potential track, you advance. Choose from the list below.
[ ] Take another move from your playbook
[ ] Take another move from your playbook
[ ] Take a move from another playbook
[ ] Someone permanently loses Influence over you; add +1 to a Label
[ ] Rearrange your Labels as you choose, and add +1 to a Label
[ ] Unlock your Moment of Truth
[ ] Choose two new abilities from any playbook as you come into your own
[ ] You adopt a human life; take Secret Identity and The Mask from the Janus playbook
When you've taken five advances from the top list, you can take advances from the list below.
[ ] Unlock your Moment of Truth after you've used it once
[ ] Change playbooks
[ ] Take an adult move
[ ] Take an adult move
[ ] Lock a Label, and add +1 to a Label of your choice
[ ] Retire from the life or become a paragon of the city
Abilities
You can fly, and you're pretty tough. Choose any two of the following:
[ ] density control
[x] heliokinesis
[ ] stunning beauty or pheromones
[ ] radical shapeshifting
[x] alien weaponry
[ ] telepathy and mind blasts
Outsider Moves
(choose three)
[ ] Belong in two worlds: You have the resources that come with your station. Whenever you contact your people, roll + Superior.
On a 10+, hold 3. On a 7-9, hold 2.
On a miss, hold 1, but your people make an uncomfortable demand of you.
Spend your hold 1 for 1 to:
receive a useful piece of alien technology that will allow you to use any ability from another playbook once (choose the ability when you spend the hold)
consult your people's knowledge to ask the GM a question about the current situation
clear a condition through the comfort of contact with your home
[ ] Alien tech: When you alter a human device with your alien technology, roll + Freak.
On a hit, you create a device that can do something impossible once and then fizzle.
When you roll a 10+, choose one:
it works exceptionally well
you get an additional use out of it
On a miss, the device works, but it has a completely unintended side effect that the GM will reveal when you use it.
[x] Alien ways: Whenever you openly disregard or undermine an important Earth custom in favor of one of your own people's customs, shift Superior up and any other Label down.
[x] Kirby-craft: You have a vehicle, something from your home. Detail its look, and choose two strengths and two weaknesses . When you are flying your ship, you can use it to unleash your powers, directly engage a threat, or defend someone using Superior.
Strengths: (2)
[ ] Fast & manoeuvrable,
[ ] chameleon plating,
[x] powerful weaponry,
[ ] regenerating,
[ ] dimension-shifting,
[ ] size-shifting,
[x] telepathic
Weaknesses: (2)
[x] Bizarre fuel source,
[ ] susceptible to ˍˍˍˍˍˍˍ,
[x] easily detectable,
[ ] slow and clumsy,
[ ] unarmed,
[ ] difficult to repair
[ ] The best of them: When you comfort or support someone by telling them how they exemplify the best parts of Earth, roll + Freak instead of + Mundane.
[x] Not so different after all: When you talk about your home, roll + Freak.
On a 10+, choose two. On a 7-9, choose one. During the conversation, you:
confess a flaw of your home; add 1 Team to the pool
mislead them about your home; take Influence over them
describe the glories of your home; clear a condition
On a miss, you inadvertently reveal more about yourself than you planned; tell them a secret or vulnerability you haven't shared with Earthlings before now.
Moment of Truth
You embrace your home and call them for aid. They will answer your call —in force!— arriving exactly when you need them to turn the tide. They fight and serve you for the rest of the battle. Of course, when all is said and done… they'd probably like to take you home with them. You did, after all, just prove yourself worthy.
Team Moves
When you share a triumphant celebration with someone, take Influence over them if you show them meaningful affection, physical or emotional. They decide if it's meaningful.
When you share a vulnerability or weakness with someone, they tell you what you should do to fit in more. Take +1 forward to do it, and mark potential if you do.
Abilities in detail
Toughness:
While the average Iskandian is almost eight inches smaller than the average human, the former have numerous advantages over the latter. As a result of the higher gravity of their homeworld, Iskandians are deceptively strong. At the same time, evolution has graced them with dual hearts, other redundant organs and bones reinforced by natural carbon fibres, making them rather hard to kill. Their muscle tissue is far denser than that of a human, making them noticeably stronger, but as a result they need much more energy and, taking body weight into account, need almost twice the amount of food a human does.
Their mastery of genetics has allowed them to enhance their traits further, such as increased soft-tissue flexibility to better resist blunt-force trauma or faster wound healing, while reducing the negative impact of some of them, such as a lack of endurance due to their high energy upkeep.
It is important to note however that Iskandians posess neither the Super Strength nor the complete invulnerability of certain human superheroes, nor the near-instant healing factor of others. They can recover from injuries in hours that would take humans days or even weeks, but a sufficiently powerful attack can kill them, and you won't see them tossing cars around like they are pebbles.
Due to their home star being quite literally a thousand times larger than earths sun, Iskandians developed to deal with the stronger solar radiation. Their metallic colouration is simply protection against it, as a normal human without protection would get sunburn within minutes on their home, and as a side result they are more resistant to radiation in general. Also, their eyes deal much better with bright light (Val will never need shades on earth, infact she could look directly into the sun for some moments without hurting). On the downside, since Iskandian nights are mostly Earth twilight and only get close to night for some short hours around midnight, and only around the equator, their low-light vision is rather bad.
Heliokinesis and Flying:
Some Iskandians, referred to as Gifted, possess the ability to fly by manipulating their own gravity, and can wield the power of the suns, manipulating sunlight, bombarding their enemies with miniature suns and more. The Iskandians consider these powers a divine gift, as according to their religion all suns are gods.
Alien Weaponry:
The Iskandians launched their first FTL-capable ship hundreds of thousands of years ago, when modern humans didn't even exist yet, and their technology has advanced ever since. Some of the things they can do look like sci-fi, some like magic. And being as warlike as they are, it comes as no surprise that their weaponry makes everything found on earth look like a peashooter.
Just like they had no compulsions about giving a teenager a fully armed war machine as her personal ride, Valeria's people seem to be rather blasé about handing her weapons. The dropship comes standard with a well-filled armoury meant to resupply soldiers or give the crew a fighting chance when going down behind enemy lines. It contains a variety of weapons ranging from simple pistols and rifles to precision DMRs weapons or shoulder-launched Anti-Tank Ordnance - most of which will never see use in Halcyon as they lack non-lethal capabilities.
They also fitted her with a set of Standard Infantry Battle Armor, which not only comes with full-body hard-shell and integrated shields, but also sensors and neural-link assistance.
However, all of these things are rather conspicuous to carry around, and the armor takes several minutes to don, meaning that unless Valeria knows she's about to head into trouble, she'll have to fall back on the easily concealable pistol she carries with her.
Kirby Craft
Valkyrie-Class Assault Dropship
The Valkyrie is a fearsome-looking craft bristling with weapons. Meant to attack heavily defended position, deploy troops on site and then provide close air support, the Valkyrie features heavy armor, energy shields, an automated point-defense system and enough room to transport an entire platoon plus gear.
Two rapid-fire projectile cannons and two particle gatlings provide the ship's gun armament, and the Valkyrie can be equipped with a wide variety of missiles on the wing mounts.
The Invader-variant also features a short-range FTL drive and a matter fabricator to replenish ammunition.
The ship is fully neural-link enabled, and a fully augmented flight crew of five can control it entirely by thought while using its sensors like a natural sense akin to vision or hearing. But while Valeria has a Neural Link - not having one is almost unheard of - it is just a basic model and she is just one person, restricting how much she can control with just her thoughts and preventing her from truly pushing the dropship to its full capabilities. And, like the contents of its armory, the dropship gives Valeria access to a terrifying amount of firepower - if she is aware that trouble is brewing. Unlike the contents of its armoury, the ship does not really offer any non-lethal options - or indeed any options that aren't likely to cause varying levels of collateral damage.
This particular dropship has been modified to serve Valeria as a mobile home, with the troop compartment in the rear furnished into a small but functional and comfortable one-room flat. There might be some merit in giving her a tough, FTL-capable vehicle that is big enough to live in while still small enough to be managed by a single person. Handing it over to her not only with the guns fully functional and the armoury stocked, but also with a full combat load of missiles? That is certainly a more dubious decision - at least by human standards.
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