Emo Samurai's dedicated character page. Options

[emo samurai]

My dude's identity seems to be changing very quickly even with a few weeks of on-forums gaming. I envisioned him as being very introspective and even self-obsessed, but he's turning out to be a savior of the damned. I kind of like it.

[emo samurai]

I'm thinking of making a new character if Shen gets too much influence too quickly. He'll be a mixture of John Constantine, Austin Powers's dad, and Doctor Who. His name is Jacob Crowley, which he claims has nothing to do with Aleister Crowley. He is a knight of the crown, and he lost his manor when it was possessed by a poltergeist-like free spirit. When he attempted to bind it, he ended up wrecking his manor, and it drained his prodigious hermetic library of all its power. He bound it to the oldest piece of wood he could salvage from his house, and only managed to get it for one service. He'll have a hangup where he can bind spirits for only one service each, and he travels the world as a sort of con-man magician. He got in trouble with both the Mafia and the Atlantean Foundation when he made a deal with the Mafia to have their connections put him on a dig so that he could steal ancient power foci and instead ran off with one himself. The power focus has a powerful imp on it that he has since befriended, and he has maxed out Influence skill group.

[Lilt]

Question: Why does this foci manufacturer not have any foci?

A force 3 power focus is relatively cheap at character generation for what it gives you. That's +3 dice on anyting involving magic (skills that you've already tried to max) and it only costs 18bp to purchase and bind (15bp for 75k :nuyen:, 3bp to bind).

If you drop Spellcasting, Ritual Sorcery, and Summoning down to 4 each (or some other combination of 18+bp worth of magical skills) to pay for it then you're still rolling more dice on each of those tests than your currrent character woudl be.

If you're removing all the caps then you could buy an even higher-force one. A force 4 one for 24BP? A force 6 one for 36bp?

[emo samurai]

He doesn't manufacture foci, and his hermetic library is inherited.

[Lilt]

[emo samurai]

I know. That first power focus from the 4th world is what he'll buy with those BP's.

[emo samurai]

I'm thinking of changing Shen's personality a bit. He'll be very nice and compassionate, but when somebody abuses his sense of compassion and acts without it, he'll get mega-super-pissed and kick his ass. For example, if he met a con man whose MO was to get to the woman by allowing her to feel comfortable around him and trust him implicitly with his good looks and ability to fake sincerity, Shen'd probably melt his face off and not heal him until he learns the value of trust and compassion.

[James McMurray]

Is there an in character cause for this or is it a GM decision. Neither is really a bad idea, I'm just curious.

[emo samurai]

It's just an extrapolation on a trend in his personality that I've noticed. You know, with his taking over a neighborhood and flame etching of the skin of murderers.

[Glyph]

What exactly would stop any of these people from just getting healed somewhere else? The trouble with taking over a neighborhood, even a hellhole in the Barrens, is that it isn't a closed system.

[emo samurai]

Medical bills are costly, and if they got healed, he'd just do it again.

Plus, if it was a con man, he'd probably pay a hacker to take out his account, or for a few runners to steal his credstick or comlink.

[emo samurai]

What do you think of my character? Do you think he's becoming too dark too quickly, or do you think it's appropriate that he's going through a sort of Siddhartha-esque realization of the world's sorrow? I'm hoping that whoever GM's him will create a good reason for him to break out of it.

[Glyph]

He is getting dark, and more than a little bit sanctimonious, but more worrisome is how much he seems to be getting away with because he's not being played in a game, but simply written as a story. I think the ubituous hackers/runners that he is supposedly hiring are getting way too contrived - it seems that he can wipe people out financially, or anything else he wants, just a bit too easily. I could see him leaning on a bunch of teen gangers who have no real resources, but people like the hypothetical con man should have access to the same kind of resources that Shen does, if not more.

[emo samurai]

I wish somebody would GM him... :( Then again, Shen does make and sell orichalcum, and anyone can tell you that that shit will get you a lot of money.

[emo samurai]

I'm thinking of renaming him Johnathan Crowley, and he'll be the adopted distaff cousin of Aleister Crowley; his mother was unable to give birth, so she adopted him into the family. She was a horribly strict Christian, made worse by the fact that he had full access to Aleister's hermetic library. The free spirit is in fact Aleister Crowley himself.

[emo samurai]

Johnathan Crowley's power focus will be a blood charm from the Theran Empire, and a powerful one at that. It'll have drawbacks, such as giving him a permanent wound point, being bound to his soul so he dies if he loses touch with it, and not being able to remove it.

[James McMurray]

Ahhh, the power of Knowledge (Artifacts) and Unarmed Combat (Diarm). :)

[James McMurray]

question: will he ever put it down or will the players be able to find out that he needs it to live? As an NPC that is totally up to you, and if he never puts it down then a balancing factor of "he dies if he puts it down" is meaningless.

[emo samurai]

If his hand is cut off, then he dies. Instantly. It's something that grafted itself to his hand, kind of like the Witchblade.

[James McMurray]

Ah, so it's something that can't possibly happen without both knowledge from his foe and intervention by the GM?

[emo samurai]

... shut up, you're making me cry... :(

Anyway, the focus will be obvious if it's not covered with a glove, and anyone seeing it will identify him instantly.

He'll be able to summon demons, but that will always require a blood sacrifice in wound points equal to the force of the demon summoned. It won't be able to be healed until the deal's made with the demon. This includes binding, which can be really dangerous.

[emo samurai]

During my running of Harlequin's Back, there'll be a metaplane in which the group enters the battle of the bands. They'll go up against DragonForce, and the whole game will be centered around memorizing their song and writing their own 20 line set of lyrics for me to memorize. They'll probably win, but it'll be fun.

[James McMurray]

I wouldn't be so sure of the "it'll be fun" part, at elast not as it applies to everyone else. You may want to ask ahead of time to avoid having a session where the majority of the players get bored and annoyed.

[emo samurai]

It'll be a 20 minute thing, the climax of the Battle of the Bands.

[James McMurray]

Ah, "the whole game" made me think it might take longer. :)