[OOC] [Mage: the Awakening 2E] The Supernal Suburbia

[Kvitebjørn Kong Valemon]

Speaking of character stuff, I've changed my intro post into a full character sheet.

That looks wicked good. Mind if I use it as well?

[crapcarp]

That looks wicked good. Mind if I use it as well?

Go right ahead, I don't mind.

[Kvitebjørn Kong Valemon]

Go right ahead, I don't mind.

Thank you kindly.

[Beans]

Aaaaand stolen, whoops~!

Character Sheet

Player: Beans
Chronicle: The Supernal Suburbia
Shadow Name: Dr. Asphodel
Sympathic Name: Vivian "Vo" McCallister

Path: Moros
Order: (Silver Ladder)
Cabal:
Legacy: N/A

Virtue: Loyal
Vice: Suspicious
Concept: Underestimated Alchemist terror

Attributes
Intelligence: 3
Wits: 3
Resolve: 2

Strength: 2
Dexterity: 2
Stamina: 2

Presence: 2
Manipulation: 3
Composure: 3

[4/5/3 w/ extra dot in Composure]

Skills (+: Asset Skill from Profession. *: Rote Skill from [future] Order)
Academics+: 2 (Paperwork)
Computer:3
Crafts:1
Investigation: 2
Medicine:
Occult: 1 [free dot]
Politics:
Science+: 3 (Physics)

Athletics: 2
Brawl: 1
Drive:
Firearms: 1
Larceny:
Stealth:
Survival:
Weaponry:

Animal Ken:
Empathy: 1
Expression*:
Intimidation: 1
Persuasion*: 1
Socialize: 2
Streetwise:
Subterfuge*: 2 (I'm Harmless)

Advantages
Health: 7
Willpower: 5
Defense: 4
Initiative: 5
Speed: 9
Size: 5

Gnosis: 1
Wisdom: 7
Max Mana/Per Turn: 10/1

Merits (~: Order Stuff, not yet in play. +: Stuff from Profession.) 9/10 spent

• Profession (Physicist) 3
• High Speech 1~
• Silver Ladder Status 1~
• Safe Place 2
• Occultation 1
• Shadow Name 1
• Resources 2
• Contacts (Academia)* 2

Arcana: Death 3, Matter 2, Prime 1

Praxes

• Shaping (Matter 2)

Attainments

• Eyes of the Dead (Death 2)
• Permanence (Matter 2)
• Mage Armor (Matter/Death)

Rotes

• DEEPEN SHADOWS (Death 1, Compelling, Duration, Occult/Intimidation): Make it daaaaark. (+1 Reach: BLINDED TILT) [Death 3, Intimidation 1, Gnosis 1, Yantra (Cane) 1 = 6; -2 Paradox Pool; 3 Free Reach]
• SHADOW SCULPTING (Death 1, Compelling, Duration, Crafts/Sci+/Expr): Shadowpuppets! (+1 Reach: Also move them) [Death 3, Science+ 3, Gnosis 1, Yantra (Cane) 1 = 8; -2 Paradox Pool; 3 Free Reach]
• DECAY (Death 2, Ruling, Potency, Subterfuge*/Science+/Occult): For each Potency, remove 1 durability. (+1 Reach: remove Structure instead) [Death 3, Science+ 3, Gnosis 1, Yantra (Cane) 1 = 8; -2 Paradox Pool; 2 Free Reach]
• REMOTE CONTROL (Matter 1, Compelling, Potency, Crafts/Intimidate): Make a mechanical device do a thing. If roll, Potency sux. (+1 Reach: more complex) [Matter 2, Intimidate 1, Gnosis 1, Yantra (Cane) 1 = 5; -2 Paradox Pool; 1 Free Reach]
• PIERCE DECEPTION (Prime 1, Unveiling, Duration, Investigation/Occult): Lie detector. (+1 Reach: What's the actual truth then?) [Prime 1, Investigation 1, Gnosis 1, Yantra (Glasses) 1 = 4; 1 Free Reach]

Nimbus

Long-Term - Ghostly echoes of sounds never heard in the first place, dry and dusty whispers as of a hundred muttering scholars from the age of clay tablets to a day ago.

Immediate - An aura that sucks the color out of what is viewed through it, but makes them clearer and sharper.

Signature - The subject looks very focused and clear, but also cold, dry, sterile, and dreary.

Tilt - +1 Composure.

Dedicated Tool
Cane - This ivory-headed-and-cored cane functions as a Moros tool.

Aspirations

• Prove to her ex-wife that she's not Broken (Short)
• Find people to trust (Short)
• Prove herself not to be the little stammering doormat

Obsessions

• Discover the physics-magic of death

Equipment

• Smartphone (••)
• Laptop (••)

Details

General
Age/Birthday: 27 / May 23rd
Gender: Female
Height: 5'6"
Build: Thin
Occupation: Physics PhD, Professor
Ethnicity: Scots-Irish
Nationality: American
Hair Color: Red
Eye Color: Green
Sexuality: Lesbian

Background

BEFORE
Vivian, or "Vo", had been happy before. She was a bright child growing up, she didn't get picked on too much for being a nerd, and her parents even handled it fairly well when she came out in high school. She hit college a yar or two early and just didn't stop, devouring courses with ravenous abandon, tearing her way into theoretical physics. Besides truly finding her passion, she also found herself a pretty girlfriend named Sandra, a cute art major with sparkling eyes and a tongue piercing. Life was pretty good.

Then the car accident happened. Nerve damage, they said---oh, she was still fully functional, more or less. She could walk and talk and she could think just fine. But there was always a twitch, or a tremor, or something somewhere. Always the sta-st-stammer, the, uh, hesitations. But that was okay, because she had her studies, she had her girlfriend. Before long, she had her Master's degree, then her wife, then her doctorate. She smoothed over her fears with Sandra's litany of assurances that everything was fine.

AWAKENING
It's not a story you haven't heard---coming home early from work with flowers for the missus, discovering her in another's arms. Sandra was wrapped up in another girl on the couch as Viv's slightly jerky footsteps brought her in to see them. She paused, the silence stretching endlessly until she went into the kitchen, filled a vase with water, put the flowers in. The fornicators watched as she twitched and juddered out again, mumbling about some work she really needed to get back to doing.

Her coworkers asked what had her back so early, but she said nothing. She locked herself in her office, fired up the computer, started on the whiteboard. Deeper and deeper she threw herself into the comforting equations, wondering what she was going to do with herself. She'd seen glimpses of it before, but one look into Sandra's eyes as she lay half-frozen with apprehension in the other girl's arms had confirmed it---if there had been love before, it hadn't survived the accident; the less-and-less-guilty revulsion from Viv's herky-jerky movements, the less-and-less-patient exasperation with her stammer, the less-and-less enthusiastic reciprocation of awkwardly warm affection. She'd seen it, and not realized it---the slow decay of her wife's love and fidelity. Should she kill herself now? But she still had things to live for. But would it be worth living for them, the rest of her life colored by being the poor, naive nerd who couldn't hold on to a spouse?

But as she worked, she started to fall deeper into the physics, the monstrous moonshine and no-ghost theorems. She started to see more than there was. This was her awakening, and with it she paid Charon. He took his boat across the Styx, burdened not with her soul but with her old life.

She staggered back home and found the lovers still there. Calmly, quietly, she booted them out of her house. Her house. Divorce followed soon after, whirling a wind of scandal through La Grange.

Awakened - [insert history since Awakening]

Personality
Vo is, at her core, someone whose Awakening didn't sweep away the agony of betrayal---oh, it freed her to stand up against it, but she's still deeply, deeply hurt inside. She's sure that in some way, Sandra did it not just because she couldn't hang on through her wife's problems, but because Sandra thought she could get away with it---that she thought Vo to be ultimately powerless. And while she dreams of throwing off that shroud, she paradoxically plays into it. She plays up the image of harmless, tremorous eccentricity, even walking with a cane to put on a good show. Beneath, though, she quietly sizzles.

In general, she's not a bad person to be friends with---if she can trust you, of course. Trust is hard for the victim of betrayal, but once you have it, she's loyal as anything. Though she tries to hide it, attractive women make her nervous even as she finds them entrancing.

Daily Life
Vo mostly works as a researcher at U of C's physics department, but she's been roped into teaching a First Year Seminar as well as a Physics 101 class. She's not a bad prof to have once you get used to her stammer, and her students are sometimes favored with her dry wit. When not working, she doesn't go out very much unless it's for something she needs.

Status

Health: ( )( )( )( )( )( )( )
Willpower: 5/5
Mana: 10/10
Wisdom: 7

Experience Log

Beats: 0/5
Experience (Unspent/Total): 0/0

Dots Purchased - XP Cost

• [insert dots purchased]

Alternatively, Mythweavers.

[Haberdasher]

Added my character sheet to my original pitch post, and used crapcarp's format because it leaves everything nice a tidy. Need some help coming up with a Nimbus Tilt. I included the Rotes that I want Ragnar to have once he joins up with the théarchs. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to include Attainments, I noticed that crapcarp did in his.

crapcarp, I noticed that you didn't include your Dedicated Tool in your character sheet. Is that because Phoenix doesn't have one yet, or did you just forget?

[crapcarp]

I'm glad my sheet format is so useful.

crapcarp, I noticed that you didn't include your Dedicated Tool in your character sheet. Is that because Phoenix doesn't have one yet, or did you just forget?

Sheet's simply incomplete. I'll add it in the equipment section when I get around to it.

Edit: Oooooh, I have a neato idea for it, though I should probably check to see if it's okay first. Don't wanna get my hopes up.

rwknoll An idea popped into my head just now. Considering that it's common for mages to receive their Dedicated Tool while Awakening, I was thinking perhaps instead of writing his name on the Watchtower he places his hands on it. Then, the Watchtower "burns" tattoos on his palms, which are his Dedicated Tool.

For rules, I was thinking that while he can use either or both palm tattoos as a Yantra, using both does not double up on the benefit, they can only count for 1 Yantra. In order to use them as a Yantra, he has to clearly display them with a hand gesture that keeps the palm open or mostly open. Would this be alright?

[Haberdasher]

I'm glad my sheet format is so useful.



Sheet's simply incomplete. I'll add it in the equipment section when I get around to it.

Edit: Oooooh, I have a neato idea for it, though I should probably check to see if it's okay first. Don't wanna get my hopes up.

rwknoll An idea popped into my head just now. Considering that it's common for mages to receive their Dedicated Tool while Awakening, I was thinking perhaps instead of writing his name on the Watchtower he places his hands on it. Then, the Watchtower "burns" tattoos on his palms, which are his Dedicated Tool.

For rules, I was thinking that while he can use either or both palm tattoos as a Yantra, using both does not double up on the benefit, they can only count for 1 Yantra. In order to use them as a Yantra, he has to clearly display them with a hand gesture that keeps the palm open or mostly open. Would this be alright?

Oh, very clever. Perhaps the tattoos/brands could be the Supernal symbol for "Force"?

That also inspired me to add the Supernal symbol for Ragnar's Shadow Name to the blade of the knife that he uses as a Dedicated Tool

[Caladriu]

Still working on the details, but Moonstone's sheet is up.

[rwknoll]

You guys have asked some great questions and did a great job with the formatting on character sheets! Thanks.

I'll try to get back to your questions as soon as I can.

[crapcarp]

Oh, very clever. Perhaps the tattoos/brands could be the Supernal symbol for "Force"?

Nah, I was thinking more along the lines of High Speech for "Potential". It suits Phoenix's Awakening as he learns the true potential of magic, and the entire concept of magic is a metaphor for humanity's potential, making it perfect as a Dedicated Tool that takes Paradox risk down a peg. In fact, utilizing it allows him to cast 2 Reach over and still make the Paradox roll a chance die (with his current Gnosis at least, and assuming there's no Sleepers around).

So, "Potential" is absolutely perfect.

[Kvitebjørn Kong Valemon]

Having a Dedicated tool that can't be taken away from you is very handy indeed. Unless somebody chops off your hands. :<

[Haberdasher]

Having a Dedicated tool that can't be taken away from you is very handy indeed. Unless somebody chops off your hands. :<

Or, you know, mar the tattoos/brands so that the Supernal symbol is destroyed or changed to something that is counter-productive/useless.

[MagicSwordsman]

Updated character sheet! Still needs some stuff, though.

[Kvitebjørn Kong Valemon]

Or, you know, mar the tattoos/brands so that the Supernal symbol is destroyed or changed to something that is counter-productive/useless.

This is true. D: That'll still (likely) involve some mutilation of his hands :<. Unless regular paint does it.

[crapcarp]

Having a Dedicated tool that can't be taken away from you is very handy indeed. Unless somebody chops off your hands. :<

Or, you know, mar the tattoos/brands so that the Supernal symbol is destroyed or changed to something that is counter-productive/useless.

This is true. D: That'll still (likely) involve some mutilation of his hands :<. Unless regular paint does it.

It might be pushing it, but I'd say that because they were made by the Watchtower, they're not ordinary tattoos (they wouldn't really be brands because they're white markings, not burn scars), so they're interwoven into his pattern. Basically, they're like fingerprints, you can take the skin off, but they'll eventually grow back. If his hands are cut off, they can be restored through Life magic, which would bring them back like the fingerprints. Under these circumstances, you'd probably need Prime or Life magic to permanently get rid of them or warp them into uselessness.

The easiest solution though, would be to cover up the hands (like with paint) or bind them closed so he can't show his palms. Remember, he does need to clearly display them along with an appropriate gesture(s) in order to use them (binding can limit the gestures to a degree, depends on the spell).